Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II What Requires Discernment? The Objects of Evaluation
- Part III How Can and Should True Discernment Take Place?
- 5 The Context and Background of Paul
- 6 How Does Paul Believe True Discernment Can and Should Take Place?
- Part IV Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Author Index
- Passage Index
- Subject Index
6 - How Does Paul Believe True Discernment Can and Should Take Place?
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Abbreviations
- Part I Introduction
- Part II What Requires Discernment? The Objects of Evaluation
- Part III How Can and Should True Discernment Take Place?
- 5 The Context and Background of Paul
- 6 How Does Paul Believe True Discernment Can and Should Take Place?
- Part IV Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Author Index
- Passage Index
- Subject Index
Summary
Introduction
We enter the last but not least part of this inquiry into the Pauline view of discernment. The main task I have set myself here is to understand how Paul believed true discernment could and should take place. My previous work on the objects of discernment led us to see that the focus of research must be on the interrelationship of the Spirit and the mind. How are we to describe this relationship? Can it be expressed in epistemological and psychological categories? Or must we use metaphysical terminology? It will be my argument to show that a coherent answer can only be attained when we look at the juncture of Spirit and mind. While in chapter 2 we saw that Paul calls this juncture the renewed mind (Rom. 12.2) or the ‘mind of Christ’ (1 Cor. 2.16; and I shall add here the ‘mindset of the Spirit’ [Rom.8.6]), we need to find out what the nature of this juncture is and how it compares with the conceptions of Paul's intellectually diverse yet fertile context.
In order to address these questions and set out my own argument we must first follow a lead Pauline scholarship has given us. Thus, we turn first to the question of criteria for discernment and, through this, return briefly to the more general issue of normativity (law, external norms) and its relationship to decision making.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Discerning the SpiritsTheological and Ethical Hermeneutics in Paul, pp. 141 - 188Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007