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Charles Raith II 13 PortraitsofPaul Aquinas and Calvin on Romans 7:14–25 In 1541 Gasparo Contarini, appointed papal legate of the Roman Catholic Church, gathered together at the Diet of Regensburg theologians representing both Catholic and Protestant positions in order to discuss, among other things, the doctrine of justification. Anthony N. S. Lane, while analyzing article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy, makes the point on numerous occasions that the crux of the issue concerned the basis of one’s acceptance before God: is it due to imputed righteousness alone or also due to inherent righteousness?1 Answering this question hinges in large part on how one understands the transformation that occurs through God’s sanctifying work on the believer. As Lane notes, “The reason why the Reformers insisted on imputed righteousness was that both our own inherent righteousness and the righteousness of our works remain imperfect and it is not on that basis that we can stand before God.”2 A key location for exploring how John Calvin and Thomas Aquinas envision the Spirit’s transforming work in the believer (i.e., inherent righteousness ) and the good works that follow is Romans 7:14–25.3 Since both 1. Anthony N. S. Lane, “Twofold Righteousness: A Key to the Doctrine of Justification? Reflections on Article 5 of the Regensburg Colloquy (1541),” in Justification: What’s at Stake in the Current Debates? ed. Mark Husbands and Daniel J. Trier (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2005), 215; idem., Justification by Faith in Protestant-Catholic Dialogue: An Evangelical Assessment (London: T&T Clark, 2002), 158–67. 2. Lane, “Twofold Righteousness,” 217. 3. Romans 7:14–25 was in fact a central location for Reformers’ confrontation with the Roman Church; see J. I. Packer, “The ‘Wretched Man’ Revisited: Another Look at Romans 7:14–25,” in Romans and the People of God, ed. Sven K. Soderlund and N. T. Wright (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 2002), 71–72. According to Packer, many of the Reformers used Rom 7:14–25 to show that “there is sin in the best Christians’ best works.” James Dunn has observed that Rom 7:14–25 “will in large measure determine our understanding of Paul’s theology as a whole, particularly his anthropology and soteriology” (“Romans 7:14–25 in the Theology of Paul,” Thelogische Zeitschrift 31, no. 5 [1975]: 257). 238 Portraits of Paul   239 Aquinas and Calvin provide an interpretation of the ego of 7:14 as the graced Apostle Paul,4 their commentaries on the struggle presented in 7:14–25 provides a resource for understanding how they envision the Christian moral life, in terms of both the effects of sin and the restoring work of grace on human nature.5 I will first analyze Aquinas’s and Calvin’s description of the Apostle Paul’s “flesh” and “spirit” in 7:14–25, paying particular attention to the negative effects of sin and healing effects of grace. I will then unfold the portraits of Paul’s moral life that emerge from their commentaries on 7:14–25 in light of their judgments regarding “flesh” and “spirit.” Last, I will draw out some implications of their interpretations that highlight similarities and differences particularly surrounding their anthropological and soteriological judgments. 4. I will leave aside for now contemporary arguments—and the validity of those arguments— against interpreting the ego of 7:14 as portraying human experience, whether Christian or otherwise . See, for example, N. T. Wright, who believes his own interpretive framework renders the notion of the “Christian struggle” in Rom 7:14–25 “beside the point” (The New Interpreter’s Bible, vol. 10, The Letter to the Romans [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2002], 552). Mark Reasoner is even more insistent on the rejection, claiming, “The various appeals to human experience that have haunted the exegesis of this locus since Augustine must be resisted as far as is possible” (Romans in Full Circle: A History of Interpretation [Louisville, Ky.: Westminster/John Knox Press, 2005], 82). 5. Both Aquinas and Calvin explicitly appropriate Augustine’s take on the ego of Rom 7:14– 25, although they do so in different ways. Calvin appropriates Augustine’s interpretive change from pre-converted Paul to converted Paul as a signal to wholly reject a reading of Rom 7:14–25 in terms of the non-Christian (Commentarius in Epistilorum Pauli ad Romanos, ed. T. H. L. Parker, [Leiden: Brill, 1981], 149.33–38; citations include page and line numbers). Aquinas, however, merely references Augustine’s...

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