Passage

Romans 11.36

Book: Romans · ASV / WEB / KJV / YLT

Immediate context (±2 verses)

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Setting

• Speaker: Paul the Apostle
• Audience: the Roman house churches (mixed Jewish-Gentile), whom Paul had not yet met
• Location: Corinth, near the close of the third missionary journey
• Time period: c. AD 56-57

Theological reading

The single sentence in which Paul states the relation of everything to God, and the summit of the letter's first eleven chapters. Hoti ex autou kai di' autou kai eis auton ta panta, because from him and through him and to him are all things.

Three prepositions do the work, and each names a different relation. Ex autou, out of him, is origin: all things have their source in God, which rules out any independent stuff he merely shaped. Di' autou, through him, is agency and sustenance: all things exist by his continuing operation rather than by their own momentum. Eis auton, to him or unto him, is goal: all things move toward him as their end.

The formula was recognisable in the philosophical culture Paul's readers inhabited, where similar prepositional strings were used to describe the relation of the cosmos to the divine. Paul takes the shape and gives it the God of Israel as its content, which is characteristic of how he addresses a mixed audience in the imperial capital.

Its position matters as much as its content. The verse ends the argument about Israel's unbelief and God's mercy, so the sweep of "all things" is claimed precisely where the argument has been hardest. Paul is not asserting divine sovereignty in the abstract but at the point where it is most difficult to hold. The closing autō hē doxa eis tous aiōnas, amēn, to him be the glory forever, makes doxology the conclusion of the doctrine rather than an appendix to it.

Key words

Theologically-loaded Greek or Hebrew words in this verse may have entries in the lexicon. Curated to roughly 100 contested terms across the corpus, not every word; see Lexicon Roadmap.

• G0165 - aion, aion, Strong's G0165
• G1391 - doxa, doxa, Strong's G1391
• G3956 - pas, pas, Strong's G3956

Quoted in

Arguments and defeaters:

• Argument from Apophatic Convergence, via Romans 11, Romans 11.33-36
• Argument from Intelligibility, via Romans 11.33-36
• Argument from Mathematical Truth, via Romans 11
• Argument from the Addressee of Gratitude
• Argument from the Apophatic Limit of Formal Systems, via Romans 11
• Argument from the Reality of Mathematical Infinity, via Romans 11
• Contingency Argument
• Evidential Problem of Evil Defeater, via Romans 11.33-36
• First Way - Motion
• Meta-Ontological Argument for Theism
• Necessary Being is an Intelligent Mind, via Romans 11.33-36
• Perfection Argument, via Romans 11.33-36
• Second Way - Efficient Causality

Concepts:

• A Quick-Glance Guide to Aquinas Five Ways
• Aseity, via Romans 11.35-36
• Classical Theism vs Theistic Personalism
• Doctrine, via Romans 11.33-36
• Infinity, via Romans 11

Lexicon:

• G1391 - doxa
• G3956 - pas

Why these four translations

ris3n chose ASV, WEB, KJV, and YLT for two reasons together. They are the most literal English translations available (formal-equivalence: word-for-word renderings that preserve the Hebrew and Greek grammar rather than smoothing it into modern dynamic-equivalence idiom). And they are in the public domain in the United States, which means fair-use quotation at any length requires no publisher license. Modern licensed translations (NASB95, ESV, NIV) restrict volume of quotation under their copyright terms, so they are not used at stub-level coverage here. NASB95 appears only on hand-curated rich passage hubs under Lockman Foundation's fair-use allowance.

The four:

• ASV (American Standard Version, 1901). The basis of the modern critical-text English tradition.
• WEB (World English Bible, contemporary). Public-domain revision in the ASV line, in current English.
• KJV (King James Version, 1611). Reformation-era, Textus Receptus base.
• YLT (Young's Literal Translation, Robert Young, 1862). Hyper-literal preservation of Hebrew and Greek grammar; useful for word-study work even where English reads stiff.

See Bibles for the full per-translation history, translators, textual basis, strengths, and weaknesses.