Metanoia

Over on Kirby's blog, in response to a question by Emmy Bea, I noted Luther's dissatisfaction with Jerome's translation of the Greek word μετάνοια as penance, and to my surprise (but great pleasure), these remarks met with jh's approbation. Moreover, his note contained some additional remarks on the meaning of μετάνοια, and as I'd had some similar thoughts, I'd like to develop this a bit further, to three distinct ends:

1. I believe the question of how to properly understand the concept of μετάνοια, as Paul intended, is important.
2. The issue of how best to translate μετάνοια is illustrative of the difficulties translators face, and why the hope for a “perfect” translation is misguided.
3. I see in this a good opportunity to develop the faith/works discussion, in a way that I hope is less bound by a priori stereotypes, and which I hope will make the Lutheran position more comprehensible to people with a Catholic mindset. Please note that I'm merely hoping to explain, not to win any arguments.

Μετάνοια

So let's recall the starting point. In Romans 2:1ff, Paul is talking about divine judgment, the consequences of sin, and he touches on the transformative effect of God's love. Let me mash up a bit of English NRSV and Greek:

Romans 2:4b Do you not realize that God’s kindness is meant to lead you to μετάνοια?

Jerome's choice of translating μετάνοια as penance was unfortunate, and Luther's choice of repentance was better, but it does not feel perfect. I believe that the imperfection is in that both Jerome and Luther translated μετάνοια in terms of the consequences of the transformation, rather than in terms of the nature of the transformation, and I believe Paul was talking more about the nature of the transformation.

According to BDAG, the base meaning is “primarily a change of mind,” and suggested translational phrases are “repentance, turning about, conversion.” It is worth noting that the roots are μετά + νοῦς. “Meta” is a proposition, the translation of which is always tricky and beset with language specific idioms, whereas “nous” refers to “mind, intellect, understanding, way of thinking, attitude” etc.

jh raised up phrases like, “turning toward,” “seeking understanding and love,” and even the analogy of lovers making up after a spat. I think these truly are at the heart of the matter.

The classic Lutheran understanding of sin is separation from God. What does God want? He wants relationship. He wants his love for us to be mirrored in our love for him and one another. To place this in terms of jh's suggestions, in sin, we have turned away from God. His kindness is meant to turn us back. This is indeed the making up of lovers after a spat, where the lovers are God and us.

Is this really all there is? Does God really require nothing more of us when we fail than that we return to him? In a word, yes. But to stop with that one word is immature.

It is in understanding the steps that a mature Christian makes after turning back towards God that Luther's word choice and Jerome's come into play.

A mature Christian will acknowledge the reality of their actions, that they were in fact the actor, and that God did not intend for them to act this way. They will acknowledge the consequences of their actions. They will feel regret. This is where Luther's choice of repentance hits the nail on the head. Maybe not quite the nail that Paul intended, but on the head, nevertheless.

The second thing a mature Christian will do is to take responsibility for their actions, and this means that they will do what they can to repair the brokenness that they have brought into God's creation. Often, our actions have injured others, and an appropriate step is to make restitution to that person—to make them whole. This is where Jerome not only swung at the wrong nail, he missed it. The focus on penance is a focus on punishment, not restoration of either the sinner or the injured. And as this came to be interpreted, it had the effect of transferred the restitution from the injured party to the church, so that the consequences of sinful acts remained uncorrected, the brokenness unrepaired.

Translation

It simply isn't possible to fit a discussion like that above into a single word choice, yet translators do not have the luxury of interposing explanatory paragraphs into the midst of their translations. Even the standard mechanism of footnotes is inadequate for even a brief discussion along the lines that I've given above. Such discussions are necessarily relegated to commentaries, or perhaps to translator's notes. Translators have to pick a word, or at most a short phrase, recognizing that their choices will tend to miss some of the nuances of the original, perhaps emphasizing this part a bit more, and that part a bit less. They have to trust that their work will not stand alone, but will be supported by others.

It is worth reflecting here on the specific kind of choice involved. Will a translator try for a translation in which there is a tight correspondence between the words in their original, and the words in their translation? If so, simply using the word “change” would have been an excellent choice.

Or does the translator allow themselves word choices that draw the reader further down the theological path that they believed that the author intended? This is the kind of choice that both Luther and Jerome made in wrestling with Romans 2:4. It is a reasonable thing to do.

Or does the translator allow themselves greater freedom, and forsake a word-for-word translation in favor of a freer translation, which they hope will nevertheless come closer to the author's original intent? Here, “change of heart,” rather than a more literal “change” or “change of mind” might have been suitable. The Message is a good exemplar of a translation that is made in this style.

I practice, no translation is going to follow a pure strategy. All translations will make choices that favor literal readings in some places, and sense readings in other. I believe it is important to understand the translation philosophy of whatever English-language bible you have, and very useful to look at multiple translations which follow different strategies in doing deeper Bible studies.

But I think that it is both wrong and unhelpful to say that one strategy is right and another is wrong. All of these strategies are trying to convey the original, they just do so with different priorities regarding the tradeoffs that must be met. If you want a book that fully conveys all the nuances of the original, you have to read the original.

Faith vs. Works

The debate over faith vs. works has resulted in much oversimplification of the Lutheran side, and perhaps of the Catholic side as well. The Lutheran side is often reduced to "salvation by grace through faith," or "sola fides, sola gratia, solus Christus." [Lutherans, by the way, do not affirm "sola scriptura," although some Protestants do, and this leads to confusion.] Often, the Lutherans themselves have done the reduction. But the notion that Lutherans don't value or understand works is incorrect, they've simply transferred the point in their theology to which works are attached, and thereby transposed the Catholic understanding of the causative relationship between works and salvation.

In the Lutheran view, our works don't save us, and can't save us. Only God working on and through us can save us.

But once are saved, how then do we live? What is the nature of Christian life? What are its obligations? How do we respond to this great gift that God has given us?

The gift that we are given is the gift we must return: love. And the remarkable thing about this is that giving love does not diminish our store of love, it increases it. It is only by hoarding this treasure that we risk losing it. It is in living a Christian life that we should find good works, not as a means of salvation, but as a joyful response to salvation. And mature Lutherans can read James with appreciation, nod our heads, and agree: if you claim you have faith, but you're not moved to share God's love for all of us with your fellow man, and you're not moved to ease the pain and suffering of the world, then what sort of faith do you have? We are not saved by knowledge of doctrine, as even the devil has a knowledge of history and of the nature of God. We are saved by grace through faith, and in particular by a faith that transforms us.

And I think in this, there is actually very little difference between the Lutheran and Catholic positions as regards the sort of life that Christians should lead. The disagreement is really just this: are we saved because of our good works, or do we do good works because we're saved? Either way, we have both salvation and good works. I believe that much would be gained by consciously embracing our agreements, instead of just obsessing over our disagreements.

Peace