There's a broad scholarly consensus that Paul was an apocalyptic thinker, even among those who aren't a part of the apocalyptic school. Specifically, Paul's experience of receiving his gospel as "an apocalypse of Jesus Christ" (Gal. 1.12) caused Paul to rethink a host of issues, from Torah observance to God's plan for the Gentiles. The blazing vision of the Lord Jesus on the road to Damascus illuminated but also cast some dark shadows of contrast. Law versus Faith. Flesh versus Spirit. The Present Evil Age versus New Creation.
Louis Martyn calls these Pauline dualisms "cosmic antinomies," opposed pairs that constitute the "elementary principles of the world" (Gal. 4.3). The apocalypse of Christ erased these pairs and replaced them with new pairs. For example, old antinomies like those in Galatians 3.28--male/female, slave/free, Jew/Gentile--are overcome, since we are all "one in Christ." But these pairs are replaced with the dualisms of the Messianic Age, like Flesh versus Spirit:
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh, for these are opposed to each other. (Gal. 5.16-17)
All this simply to say, it's hard to understand Paul's gospel without understanding the antinomies inherent in his apocalyptic cosmology. As Paul declares to the saints in Galatia, "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, who gave himself for our sins to deliver us from the present evil age." Apocalyptic Paul is a dualistic Paul.
Yes, just as with Jesus, we have to handle these dualisms with care. But also like with Jesus, I don't think we can force the apocalyptic Paul into a nondualistic frame without doing great damage to our understanding of how Paul saw both the cosmos and the gospel. I'd rather stay true to Paul as an apocalyptic thinker, antinomies and all, then to turn him into something he wouldn't recognize.
