The Apostle Paul was no systematic theologian. But a theologian nonetheless? Yes. So we may still consider with Frank Thielman the question, What is the center of Paul’s theology?
Is it the grace of Christ (Thomas Aquinas)? Justification by faith alone apart from human effort (Martin Luther, and many Protestants since)? Christ and what he has done for us (many Roman Catholic interpreters)? Redemptive history (Herman Ridderbos)? Reconciliation (R.P. Martin)? Christ’s resurrection (Paul J. Achtemeir)? The apocalyptic triumph of God in the death and resurrection of Christ (J. Christiaan Beker)? God’s glory in Christ (Thomas R. Schreiner)? The contribution of Father, Son, and Spirit to salvation (Joseph Plevnik)? Something else? (New Testament Theology, p. 231)
After acknowledging the varied themes within Paul’s writings, before proposing his own “center” of Pauline thought, Frank Thielman notes, “Since Paul is a coherent theologian and we have a large corpus of theologically oriented letters from him, it seems reasonable to expect him to provide us with a ‘center’ for his theology that will be useful in filling the gaps between his divergent theological expressions” (bold added).For Thielman, the “center” of Paul’s theology is God’s grace: “If one theological theme is more basic than others in Paul’s letters, therefore, it is this notion that God is a gracious God and the he has shown his grace preeminently in his arrangement of history to answer the problem of human sinfulness in the death and resurrection of his Son, Jesus Christ” (p. 479, italics added).
My own take would be Christ and the Cross on the basis of 1 Corinthians 2:1-4. But even this might be deemed too narrow and therefore not able to account for varied theological expressions in the Pauline corpus.
