An Attempt to be Understood: A Response to the Concerns of Matlock and Macaskill withThe Deliverance of God

Abstract

This is a rejoinder to the criticisms of Grant Macaskill and Barry Matlock of The Deliverance of God. Because they largely misunderstand the complex argument of Deliverance it is redescribed and exemplified here in relation to Gal. 2.15-16, in the light of which the concerns of Macaskill and Matlock can be seen to be either misdirected or inadequate. Counter to their negative contentions it is argued that the essentially Arian problems within Paul’s description described by Deliverance remain real, widespread, and critical, but that no serious difficulties are visible as yet in the fundamentally Athanasian reading of Paul’s justification texts Deliverance offers. In alternative terms: if Paul is read consistently and rigorously ‘backward’, and never ‘forward’, a quagmire of interpretative difficulties can be negotiated, but not otherwise.