1. gifts are generally given in order to create or reproduce social bonds; they foster mutuality, and for this reason are typically neither unilateral nor anonymous;
2. the rules of reciprocity raise the expectation of return, even in unequal social relations and even if the return is generally different from the gift in quantity and kind;
3. the recipient of the gift is under a strong though non-legal obligation to reciprocate;
4. the gift is often associated with the person of the giver, and is therefore, to some degree, "inalienable";
5. reflecting this personal investment, gifts are usually construed as voluntary and expressive of goodwill, even if they arise from pre-existing bonds of obligation;
6. thus, gifts and counter-gifts may be both voluntary and obligatory as the same time, and uimilarly both interested and disinterested. The scrambling of these categories does not cohere with modern concepts of altruism the pure gift, and the gift without strings.
Gift/grace is a concept that can legitimately be 'perfected'--drawn out into some pure or ultimate form--in a number of ways. No perfection of grace should be regarded as its sine qua non, nor is it the case that the more perfections we have the better off we are. He enumerates six perfections of the gift, which provide the basis for a taxonomy of theologies of grace:
1. superabundance: the supreme scale, lavishness, or permanence of the gift;
2. singularity: the attitude of the giver as marked solely and purely by benevolence;
3. priority: the timing of the gift before the recipient's initiative;
4. incongruity: the distribution of the gift without regard to the worth of the recipient;
5. efficacy: the impact of the gift on the nature or agency of the recipient;
6. non-circularity: the escape of the gift from an ongoing cycle of reciprocity (pp.185-186)
Barclay describes the various ways in which different theologians over church history perfected the concept of grace. With such a sensitive and discriminating framework for understanding grace, the inner logic of various theologies of grace, as well as the causes of friction between theologies, are rendered more explicable. For instance, a primary impetus for Marcion's theology was his perfection of the concept of grace in the direction of singularity, seeking to distance God from any form of judgment. Augustine--a towering figure in the history of Western theology's developing understanding of grace--dwelt on the perfections of priority, incongruity, and efficacy. Luther does not stress efficacy, but introduces an emphasis on non-circularity. Calvin does not perfect non-circularity in the manner of Luther, but profoundly accents the priority, incongruity, and efficacy of grace in a manner that would prove scandalous to many of those who perfect the singularity of grace.
On the one hand, many Protestant readings, mistakenly conflating the concept of grace with a particular perfection of it, have historically represented Judaism--the foil for Paul's theology--as a 'legalistic' religion of 'works-righteousness'. On the other, New Perspective theologians, following E.P. Sanders, have been accustomed to view Judaism as a religion of grace in a manner that downplays any sharp opposition between Paul and his Jewish contemporaries on this issue.
Sanders and various New Perspective theologians after him have erred in presuming that the clear presence of a particular perfection of grace, i.e. priority, is evidence of the presence of others. This is by no means the case: the concept of grace was perfected in many contrasting ways in Second Temple Jewish texts. Barclay devotes a few chapters to discussing Wisdom of Solomon, Philo, the Qumran Hodayot, Pseudo-Philo, and 4 Ezra, revealing the diversity of theologies of grace within Second Temple Judaism. Paul neither unilaterally opposes a unified Judaism on this issue, nor shares a clear consensus with them; he is better understood as representing one understanding within a rich diversity of viewpoints. While he is able to agree with the New Perspective that Judaism was a 'religion of grace', this claim is a relatively trivial one for Barclay: the real question is 'at once more complex and less loaded' (p.187), concerning the manner in which different Jewish texts perfect the concept.
Of the various perfections of grace, it is incongruity that is foregrounded in Paul's theology: it is on this point his gospel 'stands or falls' (p.370). At sharp odds with many prominent understandings of divine grace in Judaism and of appropriate gift-giving in antiquity, Paul insists that 'the Christ-gift, as the definitive act of divine beneficence, [is] given without regard to worth' (p.350). Paul opposed Peter in Antioch, neither because observing the law was treated as a means of earning salvation (Old Perspective) nor because the Torah constituted an ethnic or covenantal exclusivity (New Perspective), but because the gospel is founded upon a gift that has subverted all such criteria of value--both circumcision and uncircumcision. It is not those defined by Torah who are fit recipients of God's gift of salvation (i.e. 'righteous'), but those who are 'marked by faith in Christ' (p.377)--Barclay challenges the subjective genitive rendering of πίστις Χριστοῦ--whose lives are founded upon a gift given entirely without regard to worth. 'Faith is not an alternative human achievement nor a refined human spirituality, but a declaration of bankruptcy, a radical and shattering recognition that the only capital in God's economy is the gift of Christ crucified and risen' (pp. 383-84).
In Galatians Paul contends that the Christ-event, although the fulfilment of God's purposes and in accordance with the Abrahamic promises, was radically unconditioned upon the Torah. In contrast to the 'covenantal' reading of such as N.T. Wright, Barclay states: 'What arrives at "the fullness of time" ... is not a "shock" at the end of a "many-staged" plan, but God's counter-statement to the previous conditions of the possible, a new creation in the midst of the present evil age' (p.412). While there is narrative continuity (congruity) at the level of the divine promise, on the human level the Christ-gift represents radical irruption and disjunction (incongruity), a break with the existing course of affairs. This direct challenge to Heilsgeschichte and covenantal readings of progress is bound up with the importance that Paul gives to the startling incongruity of grace.
Incongruity isn't the final word: the unconditioned gift is not unconditional, but 'forms the foundation and frame for human works that fit God's judgment' (p.486). A positive verdict in that judgment--the congruous gift of eternal life--is not 'earned' by autonomous exertion nor 'merited' in any sense that would suggest commensurability between humanity and God or that our moral effort 'causes' God's gift. Rather, it is fulfilment of the incongruous gift by which we were first saved. Barclay's Paul is not, technically speaking, a monergist: 'Paul's theology of grace is coherent with emphasis on the necessity of human obedience not so much via the efficacy of grace (with God as the acting agent in believers' action) as via its incongruity (with human righteousness as the product of a divinely created life that is wholly at odds with the normal human condition)' (p.503). In contrast to much Reformed theology, Barclay's Paul does not perfect priority and efficacy in the direction of a predestinarian or monergistic theology.
The reality of incongruous grace is necessarily expressed in communities that reject the competitive struggles for honor characteristic of their culture, where people treat each other in accordance with Christ's gift given without regard to worth. This communal dimension is prominent in Barclay's account, but doesn't play off social practice against individual conscience in the manner characteristic of many New Perspective readings.
Barclay recognizes the ambivalence of his thesis in the context of current debates: 'the reading of Paul offered in this book may be interpreted either as a re-contextualization of the Augustinian-Lutheran tradition, returning the dynamic of the incongruity of grace to its original mission environment where it accompanied the formation of new communities, or as a reconfiguration of the "new perspective," placing its best historical and exegetical insights within the frame of Paul's theology of grace' (p.573). While New Perspective theologians have frequently articulated their position against the foil of a supposedly misguided Lutheran theology, Barclay recognizes the genius of the Augustinian tradition in addressing Paul's teaching of the Christ-gift given without regard to worth to societies where criteria of worth had themselves been Christianized. 'The achievement of Luther ... was to translate Paul's missionary theology of grace into an urgent and perpetual inward mission, directed to the church, but especially to the heart of each believer' (p. 571). Yet such appreciation is tempered by Barclay's opposition to the traditional Protestant understandings of Judaism and to the belief that Paul's polemics were chiefly directed against people seeking to earn salvation through moral effort (although he observes some shift towards a focus upon works as moral achievements--not necessarily understood as 'earning salvation'--in the 'deutero-Pauline' epistles).
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