this week, a conundrum

So I missed last week's sermon, and I have not yet listened to it online (on my list for tomorrow), but I am excited to see what happens this Sunday. I am going to assume that our next pericope(passage) will be Romans 1:18-32. It says,

For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth.For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools; and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.


Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever! Amen.

For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.

And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious towards parents, foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. They know God’s decree, that those who practise such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practise them. (courtesy of bible.oremus.org)

i translated this passage with much difficulty last week. I am taking a course on justification, for which this is one of the main passages. Today Dr. Campbell suggested that perhaps Paul is not the person speaking here. Maybe there is an interlocutor here. I am not yet certain on any position. But I do have a question. here Paul presents a situation in which, "they are without excuse; for though they knew God, they did not honour him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened." It seems as though our ability to know God apart from divine revelation is what makes us culpable, and therefore worthy of punishment. The argument is based on Natural Theology.

If we assume that Paul wrote Romans and that Paul also wrote 1 Corinthians (which almost every Biblical scholar will admit) then Paul seems to be contradicting himself. in 1 Corinthians 2 he says,

6 Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. 7But we speak God’s wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9But, as it is written,
‘What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived,
what God has prepared for those who love him’—
10these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God’s except the Spirit of God.

In this passage it seems as though natural theology is useless. What humans can know about God is only very little, and out of ignorance humans will kill God. The question then becomes, how is this true? How are we culpable for that which we cannot know apart from God? Is Romans 1:18 paradigmatic for all humans? Where does Paul tell us this? Just questions that I am working through. Hopefully I will have some answers later in the semester. I guess I need to keep reading and keep studying. I will fill you in as I get some answers.