a questionable thing. “Knowledge puffeth up,” he continues. How, it may be asked: the opinion that there are no gods, the opinion that there is no God but one? Yes, undoubtedly, precisely this opinion! This opinion, too, this standpoint like every other (4:6, 19), Paul shows here—that what he had to say generally in the first chapter about the religious sections in Corinth was inspired by a spirit of impartial severity. An unnatural and arrogant puffing up of men is everywhere apparent where an attempt is made to set up an opinion as true in itself, to enforce it, to assert it continuously, unmindful of its object. Not that in the least, even were it a thousand times truer! Precisely not a knowledge in itself! Not a firm and consistent knowledge that has become unshakable, not a gnosis that by virtue of its own gravity now stands square with the dignity of its own inner righteousness, and thus, in the last resort, for its own sake; not a mere belief that we possess knowledge (8:2), not an idea that on this point we have settled and finished and thought out the matter to the end. Else knowledge, this high and serious matter, were no longer knowledge, and whoever regards it as such has not yet understood, as he ought to, that word “Love edifieth” (8:1). The great theme of chapter 13 appears here for the first time. A glance at 8:3 shows that here at any rate we are concerned with the love of God. In this connexion love must at any rate mean devotion of the subject of knowledge to its object, objective reality instead of subjective, severity not towards one’s own conviction (which would be the knowledge that puffeth up itself and can be no real knowledge), but severity of interest for that which, in one’s own conviction, might perhaps appear to be really against it; severity of the gravity and dignity of truth, which resides not in man but in God, the severity of frankness and humility, in which God, the true God, known as distinct from all other gods, rejoices less to be understood as Object, than in allowing Himself to be understood as Subject, that He is right and not man. This love (in knowledge) edifies, says Paul. It is the positive element, the truth in all knowledge. Where it is (8:3), man is known of God, and God Himself enters as the positive element, the truth in knowledge, and makes it, if not fertile and creative, as we should doubtless like to see, yet solid and significant, judicial and teeming with imagery. Cogitor, ergo sum, “I am thought of, therefore I am,” it may mean then, and this cogitari, this “being thought of,” its logic, consistency, and certitude will prevail over the knowing man, although, indeed, just because the cogitare, the self-thinking, with its logic about it and from it, in new and other newer forms can only come to naught, even if our subjective knowing manifestly continues to consist of a series of broken beginnings apparently talking into the void. God is then true in this cogitor, this “being thought-of” (by God), and all men with their cogitare, with their self-thinking, are liars. It is not difficult for us to recognize here in a new shape the fundamental idea of the first section, chapters 1–4 especially the pneumatological doctrine of that vital sub-section 2:6–16, except that now it is even more distinct than there; that Paul is not perhaps thinking of building his own theology with his “from God” and defending it against the other people, that he rather sees this flaming sword turned against himself and those who march with him as much as against anybody. The execution of the “diastasis” between God and man, the discovery of the unheard-of change of subject and object into what is called Revelation, signifies for him not, as in a well-known theological work of our time, the criticism of this or that, but the crisis of all theology, including the best, and including his own. From this standpoint, therefore, from that of Love, or what is the same thing, from the standpoint of the Knowledge of God, in which God is subject, he will now set limits to his own bold, and to him so vitally important, doctrine of freedom.
§ 5
We shall perhaps best follow him first in the interim discussion of the ninth chapter, as the conclusion of the eighth chapter, verses 3–9, although placed at the beginning, is actually nothing less than the preparation for that confession (10, 25 et seq.) which, apart from the concluding words, crowns the whole. The discussion, in the ninth chapter, of apostolic freedom, is first (9:12) abruptly interrupted by the sentence, “Nevertheless we have not used this power!” He repeats himself at the commencement of verse 15, and, after that somewhat obscure intermediate sentence, in 9:16, lays down the foundation: the preaching of the gospel yields me nothing, not even glory, let alone the reward that might at least be reserved to a voluntary worker. Constraint, necessity, is imposed on me: woe to me if I do not preach the gospel! If I did it on my own deliberation, I should expect a reward, I should have the right to make use of that freedom: but if I do it in despite of my own resolve, then I am only entrusted with a dispensation (9:17). My reward consists in having no reward (9:18). That is the limitation which Paul sees drawn around him as an apostle. He hears himself called to do what he (6:19) calls upon others: “Ye are not your own.” Thou livest not in thine own business: thou dost not bear the tidings, but the tidings bear thee; it does not need thee, but thou needest it; here thou hast no right to enforce, but here right is enforced against thee. Or, to put it in the words of 8:1–3: “Not thou has known God, but God knows thee.” That, as we saw in 1:1, he is an apostle by the will of God, and not by virtue of his religious talent; that he did not find God, but God found him and set him on his path, took him captive, entrusted him with his stewardship, without making any covenant with him, without making him promises for his person, simply as the Lord who can command, as a compelling necessity (9:16)—this fact now finds expression in the fact that while in possession of his freedom he is bound, while in possession of the fullest power he is obliged to abstain. It is, in fact, the freedom and power of the apostle—that is, the freedom and power bestowed upon him by God, and not his personal freedom and power. 9:19–23 describes what this means for him: it means that as the holder of his office he must everywhere and always be just what he is not as a man. Why? Because he has to discharge his office towards other men. And, because they are other men, whether he likes it or not, they are always just what he himself is not. If he wanted to assert himself, he could not discharge his office. Constraint is upon him. God is in the scheme with His right. Upon this is shattered his human right to self-assertion, as thus: to become a servant, to become a Jew, to become a man under the law, perhaps even to become a man without the law, to become a weak man, to become all things—wherefore? In order to win, in order to save, in order to carry out the office committed to me, which is more important than my person and its justifiable claim upon life, in order not to lose my own share in the gospel (9:23), in order that, while I may be preaching to others, I may not wear myself out and become a castaway (9:27). The metaphor of the runner in the race (9:24–26) illustrates what he means. A victorious contest is impossible without self-discipline! Consequently, because Paul is such a runner in the stadium, not by his own, but by God’s will, not for a corruptible, but for an incorruptible crown, limits are set to his freedom, and hence he will not do everything he is undoubtedly permitted to do.
The tenth chapter is obviously connected with 9:27, where Paul threatened himself: “What if I, although an apostle, and as an apostle, should come to grief?” This would happen, he opines, if, perchance, I should exercise any other freedom than the freedom of God which imposes limits to my freedom. If that be done, if you Christians of Corinth, with your human knowledge and the laxer practice that goes with it, perhaps do this, then you will become like the people of Israel in the wilderness (10:1 et seq.) who, in spite of the most wondrous proofs of divine grace, found only the slightest portion of God’s favour. What, then, was their case? They lusted after evil things; they ate and drank; they whored and tempted the Lord and prayed to idols, and, instead of favour upon favour, punishment upon punishment began to assail them. But that is not the meaning! Might not the meaning of freedom have been something like this: That in face of this purer, deeper insight that God alone is God, the idols in the world are again invested in their rights, quite harmlessly and in the joyful consciousness that they are not dangerous, that to the pure all things are pure, that all things are lawful? Might not this have been the meaning of, and the way in which we are to interpret, the wonderful Pauline doctrine of the sovereignty of God—of the unconstraint in which His children may and will serve Him in the midst of the world, of the free and self-confident flexibility of the Christian conscience? Might it not be possible to discover an excellent Pauline foundation for the despised service of the world and idolatry, and then, at any rate, to be “free” and call oneself a Christian, but as a
