Did Paul invent Christian Theology?

In some down-time from PhD coursework I am reading N. T. Wright's long awaited Paul and the Faithfulness of God (PFG). I came across this striking claim,

One of the extraordinary achievements of Paul was to turn 'theology' into a different kind of thing from what it had been before in the world either of the Jews or of the pagans. One of the central arguments of the present book is that this was the direct result of a corollary of what had happened to Paul's worldview. Paul effectively invented 'Christian Theology' to meet a previously unknown need, to do a job which had not, until then, been necessary. (p 26, italics original)

This statement is in the larger context of Wright's argument that the study of Paul, or any ancient person, must be holistic. That is, one cannot simply explain Paul’s “theology” as a systematic collection of ideas as though Paul were simply a brain walking around on two legs (p. 28). This is a throwback to his argument in The New Testament and the People of God Part II (especially chapters 2–4) and makes an important point. When Wright speaks of “worldview” he clarifies that he wants to include social scientific studies while avoiding reducing Paul to a mere product of his culture, social imaginary, etc. In this way he posits a threefold hermeneutical spiral for Paul that includes worldview, theology and history (p. 23–24). Each is element is necessary for a “thick description” of Paul and no element can be avoided without reductionism.

In PFG, however, Wright goes further to make a specific claim about Paul’s role in creating Christian theology. It’s not entirely clear to me what exactly Wright means by “Christian theology” here, and his explanation of this claim is terse. However, I think that as Wright sees it, when Paul was confronted with fundamental “why” questions,“he had to speak of one particular God, and of the world, in a way nobody had before” (p. 27). Wright sees Paul doing something radically new with theology both in its content and its function within his larger worldview.

As Wright sees it, Paul’s theology is part of a new worldview, a revision of Jewish theology so radical in content that it came to a serve a new function in his worldview. Using the example of Philemon, Wright describes Paul’s unique worldview as it relates to “reconciliation”,

There is no sign that he is appealing to, or making use of, the symbols and praxis of his Jewish native world. Nor is he appealing to an implied world of social convention [. . .]. Nor is he drawing on any previously elaborated philosophical [. . . ] schemes of thought. He has stepped out of the Jewish boat, but not onto any hidden stepping-stones offered from within the non-Jewish world. He appears to be walking on the water of a whole new worldview. (p. 30)

Based on what Wright does here, it appears to me that Wright is saying Paul's invention of Christian Theology is a result of new theological content about God based on his experience of the risen Christ which raises theology to a new more central activity for those who claim to follow the risen Christ.

What do you think? Did Paul "invent" Christian theology? And if so, in what sense?

Preview of Wright's Tome on Paul

N. T. Wright's much anticipated book on Paul, the fourth volume of his Christian Origins and the Question of God Series is scheduled to be released November 1st. Over at Fortress Press, a preview of Paul and the Faithfulness of God has been made available for free.

The free excerpts include:
Table of Contents
Preface
Chapter 1 - Return of the Runaway?

I for one cannot wait to get my hands on Wright's book. Has there been a more anticipated book in biblical studies?

Beker on Paul's Theology

J. C. Beker’s Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought is a seminal description of Paul’s theology as fundamentally apocalyptic. Beker is emphatic that Paul’s gospel is not an individual message of salvation, but much more:

The gospel is not primarily an intrapsychic phenomenon that limits itself to the conversion of individual souls climbing out of a lost world into the safety of the church, like drowning people climb aboard a safe vessel. Rather the gospel proclaims the new state of affairs that God has initiated in Christ, one that concerns the nations and the creation. (8)

Unlike Acts, which highlights Paul’s conversion (Acts 9.1-19; 22, 26), “conversion” is not a major theme of Paul’s theology. Rather, Paul only speaks of his “calling” as a prophet taking the early Christian mission to the Gentiles (esp. Gal 1.15-16). Thus, Beker concludes that Paul’s thought is not shaped chiefly by his “conversion experience,” but rather his “hermeneutic.”

By “hermeneutic,” Beker does not mean the way Paul interprets scripture. Instead, it refers to “the constant interaction between the coherent center of the gospel and its contingent interpretation” (11). Here we get to what Beker is most often famous for; his description of Paul’s thought as both coherent and contingent. As he puts it, “Paul is neither a rationalistic dogmatist nor a Mishnaic traditionalist; nor is he an opportunistic compromiser or a thoughtless charismatic. Rather, he is able to make the gospel a word on target for the particular needs of his churches without either compromising its basic content or reducing it to a petrified conceptuality” (12). So what is the coherent center of Paul’s gospel, and how does it interact with the contingent needs of his churches?

As Beker sees it, the coherent center of Paul’s thought is the “symbolic structure” or “language in which Paul expresses the Christ-event” (15), and this language is thoroughly apocalyptic. Thus, Paul uses a range of symbols within this apocalyptic structure, including righteousness, justification by faith, being in Christ, freedom, adoption etc. All of these symbols are contingent expressions of Paul’s apocalyptic gospel suited for a particular situation. Thus, Beker argues, “the character of Paul’s contingent hermeneutic is shaped by his apocalyptic core in that in nearly all cases the contingent interpretation of the gospel points—whether implicitly or explicitly—to the imminent cosmic triumph of God” (19).

Beker’s initial chapters beg many questions. For example, what exactly does he mean by the slippery word “apocalyptic”? How does this contingency and coherence play out in Paul’s letters themselves? How might describing Paul’s thought as “apocalyptic” solve perennial problems in Pauline theology? I will post more on both contingency and coherence as I work through Beker, but I will say that his basic argument that Paul’s theology has a coherent framework in contingent expressions seems quite accurate