Relationale Ontologie bei Paulus

The center of both Paul's own piety and theological reflection is a person. According to Paul, »the Jewish apostle to the Gentiles« (K.-W. Niebuhr), everything depends on the relation to Jesus Christ. A consequence of this rather exceptional way of thinking is reflected in Paul's language, specifically in the phrase »in Christ« which is the »keyword of his Christianity«(Adolf Deissmann). Emmanuel L. Rehfeld explores the content and the meaning of this phrase as well as its implications for the apostle's anthropological, hamartiological, soteriological and eschatological views. He argues that a consistent understanding of these is possible solely within the framework of relational-ontological thinking. Ignoring this insight and approaching the Pauline letters with inadequate categories in language and thinking will most likely result in inconsistent or contradictory interpretations.