Following Paul
November 19, 2009
Paul then becomes evidence for the resurrection of Jesus and the validity of the message of the resurrection (namely that Jesus was right when he said that love of neighbor is what is pleasing to God and he was right in declaring people to have another chance). We see him a truly transformed man of an entirely new spirit and have reason through that to believe the story of the rejection, death and resurrection of Jesus. So we begin with Paul and he leads us to Jesus.
God gave a choice to the humans: be either slaves or sovereigns. We can obey him because we are frightened to death of him, or we can obey him because we know he is right.
According to Paul then the Jews had the law in order to hold them in check until the time of the Messiah. The messiah would remove the laws and replace them with the moral law of neighborly love. The intention of God was a species which would follow God willingly, and the humans could only do that, being rational creatures, if they thought God were right, i.e., calling for compliance with the moral laws (and if they believed they had another chance before God).
What Paul has on his side (rationally speaking) is the correspondence of his message with Kant’s Moral Religion which is what one would expect of God (though this alone doesn’t prove that it is of God).
What does Mohammed offer? Peace through submission (which is no different from Moses). Paul offers peace through liberty. With Paul then arises the modern religion.