Neuroscience and the Transcendence of God

I was just musing about neuroscience and the transcendence of God, as you do.

I don't know if this argument is helpful, I think it occurred to me because I had an arminian Philosophy of Religion tutor who always insisted that human freedom always entailed a limitation on God. This seemed an odd position because, from a scientific point of view freedom looked rather illusory anyway ...

Anyway, IF one accepts that the human spirit or soul is not merely reducible to the physical elements upon which it appears to reside, IF one accepts that a materialistic account is not sufficient to give a full account of what it is to be human ...

THEN if one also accepts that God is creator ex nihilo and has thus created humans, body and soul, then it seems one has accepted that one knows of one being who is able to do what we cannot with physicality, create human freedom and life and soul. It seems that God must therefore be transcendent and not simply limited to acting in the predictable manner science expects.

One could act extra qualifications - is past creation of freedom different from present governance of creation - but I still think that there is a point here.

Why is the Canon the Canon?

Three possible responses:

1) Because its teaching is consonant with X where X might be Jesus' teaching, or the Church's teaching.

2) An historical answer: this is the Canon because of these historical events.

3) Because it is that by which we measure our proclamation.

The first rather undermines our idea of a canon in that it measures the Canon by something else, thereby revealing that the Canon is not the Canon.

The second, historical, approach offers insight into how the Canon operates as canon within the Church.

The third approach is not really an answer, but it does serve to focus us on the use of Canon in authorizing and controlling the Church's belief and witness. It helps preserve us from the first approach, which may ultimately drive us to seeking foundations for the Canon in more general methods of inquiry which have nothing to do with the Canon and the use of which may result in a controlling of the content of the Canon.

And yet, the first approach does remind us that the Word is the Word in a derivative sense. It is the Word of God as Witness to God's self-revelation in Christ. Such a recognition reminds us that the Canon's function is to be used in that self-revelation. Attempts to use the Canon for some other use, for instance as historical source, are different tasks and not to be confused with the self-revelation of God.

... "This overall narrative character of the canon, together with its designation as Word of God suggests that the canon might plausibly be construed as a story which has God as its "author". It is a story in which real events and persons are depicted in a way that discloses their relationship to God and to God's purposes; a story that finally involves and relates all persons and events, and which, as it is told and heard in the power of God's Spirit, becomes the vehicle of God's own definite self-disclosure. God is not only the author of this story but its chief character as well; so that as the story unfolds we come to understand who God is. And because God is not only the character but also the author, the story's disclosure is God's self-disclosure. We become aquainted with God as the one who is behind the story and within it."

- Charles M. Wood, The Formation of Christian Understanding, 2nd edn
(Trinity Intl. Press: 1993; repr. Eugene, Wipf and Stock, 2000)

Divine Accommodation

Two questions:

1) Why is Accommodation not a form of untruth?

2) If Accommodation occurs, why can we talk about it? Or perhaps, what are we doing in our talking about it, suggesting that God is not really as he says he is? Is this not a refusal to believe what God has given us to believe about Him?


Recent reading: Paul Helm, 'Faith, Atonement and Time' in Paul Helm, John Calvin's Ideas (Oxford, OUP:2004).

Bugs and The Resurrection

I've just been watching a natural history programme about parasites. Comments in the room were of the nature, "it's so cruel" and "horrible", although the child who knew the DVD like the back of his hand almost pointed out that, "some of it's cruel and some of it's beautiful", and true enough, after waiting a little while we were treated to the site of a blue butterfly whose pupa had avoided a wasp parasite.

It's not big, it's not clever, it's not original, but it remains - and I suppose will do so - the problem of natural evil.

A traditional solution is to look to an historical Fall. The Fall is part of the Biblical landscape and I've no intention of landscaping it, but a Fall which radically changed the structure of the natural world is difficult to accept. It implies that as a result of human sin - in our example - insects who formerly were not parasitic suddenly became so. Further, if one accepts that some form of evolution is likely, that the death and predation which directly led to the selection of the fittest and the production of humanity was only introduced post-Fall.

We could push the Fall back in time to before the creation of the World - an angelic Fall say, as Plantinga suggests, if I remember correctly. We could do this ... but it's all getting rather abstract!

A further option, one I quite like the sound of, is that humanity's Fall was a loss of potential: that mankind was created to redeem the world in some sense - or to participate in the redemption which Christ would work. The Fall was therefore a banishment from the Tree of Life - the loss of the potential for an eternal life which was not innately theirs but only ever a gift. Again, this is a bit extract, but it at least keeps the shape of the Biblical narrative and is not directly contradictory with evolution.

The above still leaves us with a created world which is predatory at its heart. We could say this was not God's will, that he wills better for it, but it is still - according to evolution - the tool by which we came to be and also our experience of the World uninterpreted by revelation. Is this a problem?

One is reminded again of Barth's insistence that Natural Theology should not exist as a non-Christian (or Christian, admittedly!) work: that all interpretation of the Creation and Experience must be done through and on the basis of the Gospel. The bugs just make the world appear utterly ambiguous. If one started there to describe God by His works, what would one conclude?

***

I recently read Lewis' Perelandra which is a description of a pre-Fall world and its destiny when it avoided the Fall. Lewis makes a comment about bugs and spiders and other creepy things. He comments that our perception of them makes them appear horrible: that if we looked on them 'properly' we wouldn't view them with such disgust. This got me thinking...

Why do we view all this predation and parasitic life-cycles as horrible? I'm not saying there is not something inherently troubling in these things - as perhaps Lewis was - but, rather, why do we particularly feel uncomfortable. The idea I had was that we feel this way because of our empathy. We look at the destruction of bodies, the preying of one life on another, we see the apparently pained reaction of the victims and we think this is terrible ... probably because we wouldn't want anything like that to happen to us. In other words, we're frightened of death and that is why we hate bugs. We're frightened of things which might do us harm and we're repulsed by things which remind us of the taking away of our life.

Given the above, faith in the Resurrection might offer a completely different perspective on the problem of natural evil. If we were no longer scared of death, if it was possible to be content in death, to trust God, to not feel inconsolable emptiness, to not view our or others death as the end, then there is a glimmer of hope that we might begin to view the created order in a different light. Of course, I'm not proposing anything triumphalistic. Our faith is weak, our righteousness remains alien, but we might begin to receive glimpses of a fearless view of Creation.

Creator, Created and Providence

A long term irritant for me has been my inability to make sense of providence. At the heart of this struggle has been, and I dare say still is, a struggle with the problem of evil and an anxiety about the confidence we can have in interpreting events as divinely caused.

An example might be the man who thinks he hears God speak to him of his vocation, but later discovers that he misheard and that he was deluded.

Another example might be the family who go hill walking and find themselves in a sudden storm which is driving them to a precipice. They pray and the wind subsides. They thank God for an answer to prayer. But, what if the wind hadn't subsided and half the family had plummeted to their death? Would the survivors have thanked God in that situation? Oh, we could say that they're all sinners and should be grateful for every ray of sun light they undeservedly get. But surely, this is too difficult to live with and I don't think it is wishful thinking to argue that the Incarnation and Redemption demand that we think of God as taking a more compassionate stance.

Perhaps I'm just ungrateful and miserable but I struggle to always interpret life positively and fear that Romans 8:28 - at least in one interpretation - demands that we do so.

Enter Barth and his Romans commentary.

I'm going to try and sketch the following idea as briefly as I can. Whether it can be sustained or built upon I'll leave to comments and other posts.

We should accept the qualitatively absolute divide between Creator and Creation. The relationship between the two is one way in the sense that the finite, temporal human has no access to the infinite and eternal ... except insofar as the Creator establishes the basis of such a relationship.

With such a divide, the Creation has no hope of establishing any relationship with the Creator, except the one of utter dependence which already exists insofar as the Creation is created. Humans, therefore, have no means of pointing to anything in the world around them or inside them and correctly saying 'there is God', except insofar as they point at everything and exclaim 'God is cause, and I can say no more'. The Creation echos its finitude. The Creation is a shadow which we know demands a source of light, but the light itself is forever behind us.

Asserting God as cause, primal noise, light source, does not allow us to say anything of more of God from observation of Creation. [Here, I wonder if Barth needs to do more work. I'm circling around the ideas of Natural Theology and the use of Biblical ideas of Wisdom - admitted qualified radically within the canon itself - Job vs Proverbs.] All attempts to do so are revealed to be futile and result in talking as much about ourselves and our own wishes and fears as anything else. Is this because of a Fall, that our ability to interpret creation is so corrupted or that the Wise order of Creation itself is corrupted to distort the divine blueprint? Possibly. This too needs to be investigated. However, whatever the cause of this situation this would appear still to be the situation - ambiguity, finitude, helplessness.

The Incarnation and the Resurrection are miraculous. Here I take the miraculous to be utterly sui generis. There is no analogy to the miraculous. It is unrepeatable. It cannot be demonstrated using the tools of history or science. It establishes reality rather than requiring to be established by analysis using our finite tools of analysis. We should be glad of this. We require help from outside. An answer from within this world is no answer.

It is here in the Incarnation and Resurrection that we encounter the invisible, impossible God. This is what establishes God's character for us. Here we are reminded of the transcendent nature of God as Creator and of finitude and helplessness and the divine answer to this unbridgeable gap.

The Incarnation and the Resurrection are impossible using the tools of science and history. They cannot be accounted for and nor can they be recounted ...

... which is precisely the situation we are asked to face with regard to providence and prayer - an impossibility with regard to all that we know or can think.

The Incarnation and Resurrection remind us of a God we have forgotten, who is beyond description, beyond imagination in power and knowledge and wisdom. They remind us that our temporal sphere of cause and effect is a mere blink of an eye. They remind us that our very freedom and subjecthood, which we fear are imperilled by divine sovereignty, are actually established by it.

Where does this lead me? I'm not sure about the practicalities (which are essential to be addressed) but it leads me to assert both a greater sovereignty and a greater freedom. It leads me to assert that Romans 8:28 is true, but impossibly so. We cannot see it. But it is true. We may catch glimpses but only that. Hope that is seen is not hope.

More Barth - Romans 8:18

The gap between the knowable transcendent God is bridged in Christ ... but then for the Christian, in suffering.

Barth, Epistle to the Romans, paperback edn 1968 (London: OUP, 1933), pp. 304-5:

"What place does suffering, that vast and immeasurable factor of human life, occupy in the context of our Sonship? Evidentally, suffering cannot be compared with the glory of God so as to disturb or prevent our entering in to that 'Now' to which we have free access, because the conscious recognition of suffering is the gateway to knowledge and redemption which is in the 'Now', in the Spirit, in Jesus Christ. God reckons with us precisely at the door of suffering. There it is that he justifies himself in our presence and teaches us through His Spirit to cry abba, Father. It is thus evident that time is the negation of infinity. In that negation men encounter the barrier which confironts them, and discover also the place of exit. Where then should the power of the Spirit be displayed, if not in the action of God by which He makes us participate in the sufferings of Christ (vi. 5) and thereby brings us within the sphere of the freedom and glory of the new man? The sufferings of the present time cannot, therefore be compared with this glory. In Christ Jesus they have indeed been compared and have been shown not merely to be characteristic of our life in this world, but actually to mark the frontier where this life is dissolved by life eternal. The time in which we live and suffer is the present time, the time when glory is manifest in suffering. So clearly does God manifest His glory in the secret of suffering, that, so far from shrinking for His sake from the contemplation of suffering, it is for His sake that we are bound to gaze upon it, to see in it the step, the movement, the turning point from death to life, and to apprehend it as the place which Christ is to be seen. To overlook suffering is to overlook Christ. To ask the question why there should be suffering, is to fail to hear that the same question is addressed to us. To answer that suffering is unintelligible to us, that we cannot bear it or master it or turn it to any good account, means that we are deaf to the divine answer which is given precisely in our inability.
[My bold]

[The rhetoric is deafening. The confidence and bluster catches the reader - this man must know what he is talking about. Where else could such passion and articulation come from?]
[Is this the most profound thing ever written ... or a hoax, which simply restates Kant's position on our finitude with some wishful thinking that God is actually smiling upon us behind the curtain of transcendence?]

"I speak after the manner of men because of the infirmity of your flesh

From Romans 6:19:
Ἀνθρώπινον λέγω διὰ τὴν ἀσθένειαν τῆς σαρκὸς ὑμῶν.

Barth, Epistle to the Romans, paperback edn 1968 (London: OUP, 1933), p. 220-221.

I say, 'ye are' and 'ye stand'. I contrast freedom and slavery. In using such language, however, I speak after the manner of man. We know that all such direct and non-paradoxical descriptions of the invisible and existential human status are definitions of the indefinable. We know that, in daring to use such language, we are entering the twilight of religious romanticism, in which sin and grace, faith and unbelief, take concrete form and become things which some men 'have' and others 'have not'; which some men 'are' and others 'are not'. But we know that the passage from death to life by the power of the resurrection, the freedom from sin and the service to righteousness, may be assigned to no known person. We know that the names of those who may validly be thus described are written only in the book of life. We know that the domain of grace has no existence or non-existence that may be observed; that it is not the property of this or that man; that it does not belong to Children or to Socialists or to the Russian Nation or to the German People, or to Dostoevsky! or to Kutter! And yet we boldly employ this language, the language of romanticism, because it is impossible to describe the immediacy of divine forgiveness except by means of parables drawn from human immediacy. Owing to the infirmity of the flesh, since men's ears are inadequately tuned to the truth, any avoidance of such words as 'existence' or 'possession' necessarily obscures and weakens understanding of the reality of forgiveness. Men must not be permitted to remain spectators, otherwise they will be unable to apprehend the con-version which God effects. It is vital that the possibility of an objective knowledge of God should be wholly eradicated from our minds, because it is only when the perception breaks upon us that we ourselves--each one of us--has been forgiven by Him, that it is proved that we can neither know sin nor commit it. We think we know what we are about when we dare to use this direct language. It is a necessity for the preacher, but it lays him open to very severe criticism. Broken men, we dare to use unbroken language. We must not forget that we are speaking in parables and after the manner of men. We must remember that what is spoken in faith must also be heard in faith, and that grace must be both proclaimed and received as grace, that is, as the observed but invisible establishing of men in God. This warning must be carefully borne in mind when we come to the words which follow.

Bultmann and Barth

So I learned this morning, the whole of Volume 4 of Church Dogmatics can be viewed as a 6000 page, 10 years in the making, response to Bultmann.

That should keep me busy.

Kerygma and Myth: The Final Word :)

Rudolf Bultmann, 'New Testament and Mythology', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, "Volumes I and II combined with enlarged Bibliography." (London: S.P.C.K.,1972). pp. 1-44.

Mythology

The first part of Bultmann’s essay identifies mythology in the New Testament as a problem. It is ‘incredible to modern man’. Amongst the unacceptable content is the three storied view of the world; the intervention of spirits in the affairs of this world; the miraculous; and a grand climax to history at which the dead will rise. Bultmann’s language regarding this mythology is unabashedly dismissive. However, it is still his intention that this content can and should be interpreted.
This content can be interpreted anthropologically as ‘the powers which man supposes he experiences the ground and limits of his world’, using the understanding of myth popularised by the history of religions school. The Jewish apocalyptic and Gnostic imagery can thus be dispensed with so long as we retain the claim of faith hidden in mythology that man ‘is not lord of his own being’ and that in his ‘state of dependence’ he can be delivered from the forces at work in the visible world. This interpretative scheme of Bultmann is given by him the probably unhelpfully negative sounding name, ‘demythologization’.

֑Existentialism and the Kerygma

The second part of the essay addresses what Bultmann takes to be the saving act of God proclaimed in the Kerygma. He asks the question, ‘to what extent is the description of this act in the New Testament conditioned by mythology?’. Indeed can one speak at all of an ‘act of God’ at all, given ‘the modern understanding’ of a ‘self-subsistent finite universe’?
Bultmann believes that ‘self-understanding’ is the purpose of the Kerygma. The negative assessment of ‘fallen’ humanity’s state in Paul is paralleled by existentialism. The New Testament goes further, however, when it speaks of the event of redemption in which the believer discovers he is loved and is freed from the bonds of his past life in order to obey. This event is a mixture of the historical and the mythical. It consists of the cross of Christ and the Resurrection. The cross is an historical (historisch) event happening which has historic (Geschichtlich) significance for the believer in the present. This latter significance cannot be arrived at via the historical study of the Gospels but can only be found in the Kerygma. The Resurrection is not simply a proof of the cross but is part of the eschatological redemptive act. Bultmann refuses to talk of the historical event of the Resurrection because the Resurrection may not be understood as a miraculous proof: ‘you cannot establish one article of faith by invoking another’. All one can talk historically about is ‘the rise of faith in the risen Lord’. And so, the Resurrection is an eschatological event which is ever, but only, present in the preaching of the Kerygma.
Bultmann’s conclusion is that it was in the fully human figure of Christ that the transcendent God was present. Bultmann is thus asserting the agency of God in the world through a human mediator.

Conclusion

We will briefly consider here mythology, existentialism and Christology.
It is first worth stressing again the positive intent of Bultmann’s agenda. Bultmann is driven by the preacher’s desire to explain the meaning of the text to enable people to believe today.
Having said this, does Bultmann’s agenda effectively eliminate from use much of the text which the Church takes as authoritative? This is done on the basis of Bultmann’s conviction that he knows what it is really saying. But the text must remain authoritative, not Bultmann’s understanding. The Church must continue to live with mythology, however it interprets it, because this is the earthen vessel in which God has chosen to give us his treasure.
Bultmann’s treatment of myth stems firstly from his understanding of the ‘modern’ idea of the world as an enclosed space where cause and effect reign supreme. Secondly, Bultmann wishes to preserve the sanctity of faith. All attempts to make God immanent are condemned as inherently mythological, an attempt to expose God to ‘proof’, and a threat to justification by faith. Bultmann thus commits himself to a world in which God cannot intervene or at least one in which humans cannot know that he has done so. Bultmann still believes, however, in a Kerygma which tells of the saving act of God in history. This insistence by Bultmann on the historical act of God in Christ would appear to undermine his certainty regarding the ironic sanctity of the creation from the influence of its creator. We have simply moved from the concept of intervention to that of supervenience. Was it really necessary to be so dismissive of so much of the language of the New Testament?
Bultmann claims that his commitment to existentialism is consistent with the New Testament’s self-critical understanding of the Kerygma. However, it is surely to go too far to insist that this is the only valid philosophical framework within which to interpret the New Testament. Much of Bultmann’s work has thus been shown to be precariously allied to a passing philosophical trend.
Given the above criticisms, we have hopefully gained ourselves some space in which to criticise Bultmann’s Christology without automatically being accused of the abuse of mythological language. Bultmann’s existentialist understanding of Christ's historic (Geschichtlich) significance restricts what he can say about Christ's resurrected life. This is the only way Bultmann believes he can speak intelligibly of transcendent reality. However, it has been traditionally no small part of Theology to assume that the risen Christ exists in his own right and is the object of our faith. To assert anything else is to endanger the kerygma by removing its content which is the living Christ. I conclude with two of Karl Barth’s comments which are self-explanatory.

'He is not allowed any life of his own after he rose from the dead.'

'How can we expound the New Testament if we relegate God's saving act which is the foundation of Christian existence to a secondary position? How can we do it if we understand God's saving act only as a reflection in the mirror of Christian existence?'

Kerygma and Myth 10: Karl Barth, 'Rudolf Bultmann - An Attempt to Understand Him'

Karl Barth, 'Rudolf Bultmann - An Attempt to Understand Him', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). vol. II, pp. 83-132.

Barth's analysis is perhaps what you might expect. He does not share Bultmann's existential philosophy and thinks that this has caused Bultmann to arbitrarily cut up the New Testament. He feels that the New Testament should be approached with more openness, in order that one might be confronted by the Word. Barth seems to be sceptical of Bultmann's dread of the supernatural, although it is not this that he concentrates on in his critique. Primarily he wishes to assert Christology. He sees that Bultmann only has room for this in so far as it is derived from soteriology. Christ is alive - not in a kerygma, but in the flesh! This is the living object of faith.

***

Barth uses the phrase 'once for every Now' to describe the eschatological (timeless?) event of God's word, as understood by Bultmann. It carries the significance of the two parties involved in action of God's word. (p. 85)

Barth takes exception that Kerygma produces primarily 'self-understanding'. 'How can I understand and explain my faith, of all things, unless I turn away from myself and look to where the message I believe in calls me to look?' (p. 86) The essential complaint here is that Bultmann's language, at least, looks dangerously like navel-gazing. Of course, Bultmann is driven by his conviction that there is no object for us to gaze upon other than as he is at work in us and meets us in the Kerygma.

In contrast to Bultmann's desire to demythologise and interpret radically, to perform sachkritik, Barth wants us to meet with Christ in the text. 'Does not what the New Testament says in its particular historical form, or rather, does not he who meets me as I read it, stand out in almost every verse, in gigantic proportions? Does not it - or he - continually cry out for a new enquiry about himself?' (p. 87)

Bultmann is only able to perform such radical surgery because of his confidence of what is in the New Testament. In other words, he already knows what it is he wants us to translate. (p. 88)
[What if he is wrong?]

Next Barth turns to Bultmann's subjectivism. 'First, as hearers of the message, we experience ourselves as we were and are, and as we ought to be and shall be. Next, through faith in the message, we experience ourselves in transition from the one state to the other. Finally, we experience ourselves in the process of this transition as objects of God's saving act, or concretely in our being in Christ.' (p. 91) 'But does the New Testament begin with man's subjective experiences, with man as the recipient of its message? ... Is this not this reversing the New Testament? ... The contours of New Testament thought are often different from and even the reverse of what modern man is used to.' (p. 92)
[So, demythologise it. :)]

'For in describing sin abstractly, apart from what God has done to remove it, he is, by and large, following the line of orthodoxy.' (p. 93)
[I'm not sure Barth is being complementary here.]

To describe the Christian life as 'detachment from the world' is 'formal, legalistic and cold'. (p. 94)

'How can we expound the New Testament if we relegate God's saving act which is the foundation of Christian existence to a secondary position? How can we do it if we understand God's saving act only as a reflection in the mirror of Christian existence?' (p. 94)

'That Christ is the kerygma is what the New Testament appears to say, not that Christ is the kerygma.' (p. 96)

'Is the kerygma, thus conceived, a gospel - a kerygma in which nothing is said of that in which or of him in whom its recipients are to believe? What is it but a new law? ... How far does this kerygma really speak, as the kerygma is intended to speak, of an act of God? How far does it speak rather of an act of man (strictly speaking), of the transition which man achieved by his own obedience - though he is supposed not to be capable of it?' (p. 97)
[Slightly ungenerous. It is fair to say that Bultmann thinks no salvation is possible outside of this act of God, although of course there is no work of the Holy Spirit in regeneration.]

Bultmann presents the cross as of cosmic significance: 'But I do not see why it only acquires this significance by being taken up into the kerygma and evoking the obedience of faith. On the contrary, it seems to me that the New Testament describes the cross of Christ as an event with an inherent significance on its own. It is just because it has this inherent significance that it can become significant in the kerygma and for the faith of its recipients.' (p. 98)
[Bultmann's philosophy simply will not allow him to make such 'mythological statements'. They are meaningless to him.]

'For the New Testament asserts that in faith the believer attaches himself to something which is wholly and entirely outside himself, something without him and in spite of him, something which took place for him on God's initiative in the death of Jesus Christ.' (p. 99)

Bultmann (p. 41): '"The saving efficacy of the cross is not derived from the fact that it is the cross of Christ: it is the cross of Christ because it has this saving efficacy." ... I should find it difficult to expound it in any sense consistent with the New Testament message.' (p. 100)

Of Christ's 'raising into the Easter faith': 'Nothing can be said about it as the foundation and content both of faith and of the kerygma. And, therefore, nothing can be said about the risen Christ as such. He is not allowed any life of his own after he rose from the dead.' (p. 101)

Barth is quite frank about physical resurrection. He speaks of 'space and time' and of the risen Christ's teaching of the apostles. Christ's resurrection must come before our raising to new life in him, because ours is entirely dependent on his prior act.

Bultmann does emphasise that the act of God is the history of Christ, but is he then being inconsistent? Can an act of God be anything other than mythological in his understanding? (p. 102)

Ironically: 'For it is historical analysis which provides him with the clue to the common features in these various elements.' (p. 105)

'Let me repeat that he does not deny, eliminate, or expunge them from the kerygma, except those elements which are untranslatable, such as the three-storied universe, Satan and the demons, the angels, the virgin birth, the empty tomb and the ascension [Is he being sarcastic?]. He interprets them.' (p. 105)

'The New Testament message ... is a mythological expression of a distinctive human self-understanding.' (p. 106)

'I wonder what voice from heaven it was that led him to choose this crude definition of myth.' (p. 109)

'Is the demythologized kerygma allowed to say anything about God's having condescended to become this-worldly, objective and - horror of horrors! - datable?' (p. 109)

'I cannot deny that this demythologized New Testament looks suspiciously like docetism.' (p. 111)

p. 112 contains a wonderfully sarcastic description of the convenience of finding that both myth and message of the New Testament permit, indeed demand, anthropological interpretation.

Barth is suspicious of the enthusiasm for Heidegger which underlies much here. He does not hate the philosophy, but simply cannot see it as universally encompassing. Yes, Augustine was a Neo-platonist and Aquinas an Aristotelian, but is really this philosophy the philosophy par excellence of our day and age?
[Not of this day and age, that's for sure.]

Does existentialism make us too 'narrow-minded' when we read the text? (p. 126)

Kerygma and Myth 9: Austin Farrer, 'An English Appreciation'

Austin Farrer, 'An English Appreciation', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 212-223.

An online version here.

[Highly pragmatic. Farrer seems to find himself in disagreement about most things. There is a subtle belittling of Bultmann's elitist agenda - 1 in 5000 might be able to understand him; an insightful categorisation of the different reasons offence might arise from mythology; a plain disagreement on the subject of miracles with an assertion of a particular example from the century; and a cautious consideration of the implications of transcendence for analogical language.]

[Farrer seems far less concerned about the implications of relativity which come from historical criticism. He is confident that faith can arise from historical evidence without 'proof'.]

'I will first say how the different German papers strike me, and I will begin with Dr. Bultmann’s initial article. I do not find that it makes much attempt at consistent statement or accurate definition, nor do I suppose that it was designed to do so.' (p. 218)

[It's good to hear this. The beginner fears he is being bamboozled by intense intellectualism. Infact that is only partly so!]

'Without going outside the requirements of the question we may usefully make certain distinctions between the refusals of the modern mind. We will classify them as necessary, accidental, lamentable, and factitious. (1) The established, or virtually established, positions of science and history give rise to necessary refusals, as when we refuse to believe that the world was created eight thousand years ago or that the sun stood physically still for Joshua. (2) The things which modern men happen not to pay attention to give rise to accidental refusals, in the case (for example) of industrial workers who have a blind eye for imagery based on the procedures of pre-scientific agriculture. (3) Accidental refusals become lamentable refusals when they involve the atrophy of a spiritual function, for example, the sense for poetry. (4) Factitious refusals are those that arise from a philosophy or attitude which men either embrace or swallow Communism, physical materialism, or economic utilitarianism.' (p. 214)

'Now, obviously the sort of respect we pay to these four sorts of refusals is not the same. Our respect for factitious refusals is the respect of the physician for the disease; if he respects the fact it is that he may abolish it. Lamentable refusals are likewise to be cured so far as they admit of cure by the cultivation of the atrophied function. Accidental refusals can be overcome by the imparting of information, but it is often not practicable nor worth our while to attempt it. About necessary refusals nothing can be done or ought to be done. They must be accepted.' (p. 215)

'If, therefore, men cannot understand a "mythical" language because they are dogmatic materialists, it is a case of factitious error, and the direct target of our attack. If because they have lost their sense for poetical expression and living metaphor, it is lamentable and we ought to sustain and augment whatever rudiments of poetical sense remain. If because the Biblical images draw on unfamiliar fields of experience, it is accidental and must be met largely by the substitution of familiar images, not (if you like to say so) by demythicization but by remythicization. But if it is because of a real conflict with the way in which any decent modern man is bound to think, then indeed it is time to talk about removing the offensive elements from the Biblical story by radical translation into harmless terms.' (p. 215)

'When Bultmann suggests that the modern problem can be illustrated from the "three-decker universe" he is surely indulging himself in the pleasures of rhetorical effect. Our actual problems are more subtle. It will suffice to name two of them, the problem of miracle and the problem of transcendence.' (p. 216)

'The problem of miracle is this. Are alleged historical events like the virginal conception of our Savior in Mary’s womb examples of myth in the sense we have just defined, or are they not? Bultmann appears to beg the question. He writes as though he knew that God never bends physical fact into special conformity with divine intention; the Word never becomes flesh by making physical fact as immediately pliable to his expression as spoken symbols are. Bultmann seems to be convinced that he knows this, but I am not convinced that I know it, and I cannot be made to agree by the authority of the truism that symbolism ought not to be mistaken for physical fact. For it still ought to be taken for physical fact, if and where God has made it into physical fact.' (p. 216)

'The problem of transcendence is more general. It arises wherever we find ourselves asking to what reality symbolical descriptions refer.' (p. 216)

'An angel may be talked of as though he were a luminous and filmy man, but when we have decided that such images are mere parables, then to what are we to refer the parables? Are they parables about a non-luminous and non-filmy not-man? About a conscious and voluntary finite being of indeterminate species? About an impression made in the senses of a visionary by God himself?' (p. 217)

'Lohmeyer says boldly that God and the things of God are simply outside our scope, except in so far as they make themselves known through symbols or parables which they arouse in our minds and which express them figuratively. There is no saying what that is for which the figures stand except in further figures, and so without end. Lohmeyer’s position is certainly not an explanation, but the statement of ultimate philosophical paradox. But at least it shows a grasp of the difficulty.'Lohmeyer says boldly that God and the things of God are simply outside our scope, except in so far as they make themselves known through symbols or parables which they arouse in our minds and which express them figuratively. There is no saying what that is for which the figures stand except in further figures, and so without end. Lohmeyer’s position is certainly not an explanation, but the statement of ultimate philosophical paradox. But at least it shows a grasp of the difficulty.' (p. 217)

'However transcendent divine things may be, we are neither going to be silent about them nor to spin fantasies about them at our own sweet will. We shall make serious affirmations about the invisible, but only in so far as it makes itself visible to us. Well, the invisible as such does not become visible, being by definition the side we do not see, like the back of the moon: but it must show us a visible side. We affirm the invisible side of the medal only when the visible is open to our apprehension, and otherwise not.' (p. 218)

'Bultmann insists that the divine in Christ can be acknowledged in our present existence only, and never revealed by historical research; and there is a sense in which that is true. The techniques of historical scholarship cannot establish that God lived in man, but only that certain things were done and certain words were said. But of course the work of historical scholarship may bring me face to face with what will awaken faith in me. Suppose I am historically persuaded that Christ preached himself as Son of God in the words of the Gospel, I may believe Christ then and there, and without waiting to hear Dr. Bultmann preach him to me from the pulpit. Or again, if I did hear Dr. Bultmann proclaiming the faith of the Church, I might not believe him until I had had leisure to search the Scriptures. What turned the scales might be the historical persuasion that the seeds of the Church’s faith were not only in the Gospels but in the historical fact behind the Gospels.' (p. 219)

'And so, when Dr. Bultmann undermines the testimony to the saving miracles by alleging conflict between the witnesses, I allow the relevance of his argument. What I disagree with is simply his interpretations of the texts he refers to.' (p. 221)

'It may be that the real first step of Dr. Bultmann’s whole plea is the exhortation to embrace existentialism or drown, and that everything else is a mere corollary to that. But in fact many of us are not, and are not going to be, existentialists of the Heidegger school, and so we try to see what Bultmann’s position amounts to if we leave the dogmatic existentialism out.' (p. 221)

'The miracles of the saints never cease: a hundred years ago the sainted Curé d’Ars multiplied bread and healed the sick and lived himself by a continuous physical miracle, nor has he lacked successors since.' (p. 222)

'Dr Bultmann seems to have no difficulty with the belief that personal existence can kick off the body and survive: his unbelieving existentialist teachers would hardly follow him there. To others of us it is vital that we have in physical miracle a token from God of the power which can adjust spirit and nature to a new and happier union: as when he bodily raised our Savior from the dead.'

'When we pray, we must begin by conceiving God in full and vigorous images, but we must go on to acknowledge the inadequacy of them and to adhere nakedly to the imageless truth of God. The crucifixion of the images in which God is first shown to us is a necessity of prayer because it is a necessity of life. The promise of God’s dealing with us through grace can be set before us in nothing but images, for we have not yet experienced the reality. When we proceed to live the promises out, the images are crucified by the reality, slowly and progressively, never completely, and not always without pain: yet the reality is better than the images. Jesus Christ clothed himself in all the images of messianic promise, and in living them out, crucified them: but the crucified reality is better than the figures of prophecy. This is very God and life eternal, whereby the children of God are delivered from idols.' (p. 222-3)

Kerygma and Myth 8: Rudolf Bultmann, 'Bultmann Replies to His Critics'

Rudolf Bultmann, 'Bultmann Replies to His Critics', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 191-211.

An online version here.

[Great. Just when I thought I was getting somewhere. There is no disputing, that when Bultmann is on a role he is an incomparable writer. Yes, the first essay was so clear (guffaw) it took years to figure out what it was saying and yes, parts of it were crassly expressed, but then you read him responding to his critics, explaining his reasoning, justifying his statements and it is very impressive.]

1. Demythologizing and the Philosophy of Existence

[Questions still exist regarding Bultmann's use of philosophy. Bultmann seems to think that his 'appropriate terminology for the understanding of existence' (p. 193) is not really a philosophical standpoint. I suppose this is all the more incredible that the average layman hasn't a clue what he is talking about. While he dismisses idealism he seems to be blind to the fact that his world-view is just as controlling. I suppose that he dealt with the opening sections of the first essay where he argued that this standpoint is simply the intellectually respectable position to take. Not everyone shared his world-view then and I suspect far fewer do now.]

[Of course the above is fairly abstract criticism. It would be better to engage particularly with Bultmann's ideas: the self-subsistent finite world which demands that only in relationship understood existentially can divine action occur. At one stage I was considering the criticism (which probably wouldn't have helped me much) that even Bultmann's existential encounters can be given a mechanistic explanation in terms of the physical world's cause and effect. I'm not so sure that this works, because Bultmann's would I think assert that the existential relationship involves persons and meaning which supervene on top of the physical matter processes which constitute us. Is this a form of mythology? No, probably not. An existentialist is confident talking about my existence and others in relationship to me. Here is an arena in which I have access to knowledge, through faith, of the divine. But it does not make the divine vulnerable to physical proof or testing - this is Bultmann's fear. Anything which objectifies the divine. This rather makes me think - reminds me - of how much it is the case that Bultmann is letting this world - him - and its concerns dictate the agenda. (p. 191-6]

2. The "Act of God"

[A remarkable section where at last someone get's down to the knitty gritty of what this means in practiced faith.]

'if the action of God is not to be conceived as a worldly phenomenon capable of being apprehended apart from its existential reference, it can only be spoken of by speaking simultaneously of myself as the person who is existentially concerned. To speak of the act of God means to speak at the same time of my existence. Since human life is lived out in time and space, man’s encounter with God can only be a specific event here and now. This event, our being addressed by God here and now, our being questioned, judged, and blessed by him, is what we mean when we speak of an act of God.' (p. 196-7)

'Mythological thought regards the divine activity, whether in nature or in history, as an interference with the course of nature, history, or the life of the soul, a tearing of it asunder -- a miracle, in fact. Thus it objectifies the divine activity and projects it on to the plane of worldly happenings. A miracle -- i.e. an act of God -- is not visible or ascertainable like worldly events. The only way to preserve the unworldly, transcendental character of the divine activity is to regard it not as an interference in worldly happenings, but something accomplished in them in such a way that the closed weft of history as it presents itself to objective observation is left undisturbed. To every other eye than the eye of faith the action of God is hidden Only the "natural" happening is generally visible and ascertainable. In it is accomplished the hidden act of God.' (p. 197)

'Similarly, faith in God as Creator is not a piece of knowledge given in advance, in virtue of which every happening may be designated an act of God. Such faith is genuine only when I understand myself here and now existentially to be the creature of God, though it need not necessarily take the form of knowledge consciously acquired as the result of reflection. Faith in the divine omnipotence is not an anterior conviction that there is a Being who can do everything: it can only be attained existentially by submitting to the power of God exercising pressure upon me here and now, and this too need not necessarily be raised to the level of consciousness. The propositions of faith are not abstract truths. Those who have endured the hardships of a Russian prison camp know better than anyone else that you cannot say "Terra ubique Domini" as an explicit dogma: it is something which can be uttered only on specific occasions in existential decision.' (p. 198)

'But this is just the paradox of faith: it understands an ascertainable event in its context in nature and history as the act of God. Faith cannot dispense with its "nevertheless".' (p. 199)

'This is the only genuine faith in miracle. (Cp. Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 214-28, esp. p. 224f.; W. Herrmann, Offenbarung und Wunder, 1908, esp. pp. 33ff. Herrmann rightly observes that faith in prayer, like belief in miracles, transcends the idea of nature.) The conception of miracles as ascertainable processes is incompatible with the hidden character of God’s activity. It surrenders the acts of God to objective observation, and thus makes belief in miracles (or rather superstition) susceptible to the justifiable criticisms of science.' (p. 199)

[Has he just denied the point of prayer? Presumably only as an attempt to change the mind of God ... ?]

'Is God no more than an experience in the soul, despite the fact that faith only makes sense when it is directed towards a God with a real existence outside the believer?' (p. 199)

This objection rests upon a psychological misconception of what is meant by the existential life of man. (I might also say "by human subjectivity", provided this is understood in Kierkegaard’s sense as "being subject" -- i.e., the personal being of man.) When we say that faith alone, the faith which is aware of the divine encounter, can speak of God, and that therefore when the believer speaks of an act of God he is ipso facto speaking of himself as well, it by no means follows that God has no real existence apart from the believer or the act of believing. It follows only if faith and experience are interpreted in a psychologizing sense.' (p. 199)

'True faith is not demonstrable in relation to its object. But, as Herrmann taught us long ago, it is just here that its strength lies. For if it were susceptible to proof it would mean that we could know and establish God apart from faith, and that would be placing him on a level with the world of tangible, objective reality. In that realm we are certainly justified in demanding proof.' (p. 201)

[If only N. T. Wright had read this before embarking on 'The Resurrection of the Son of God'. :) ]

[I take it back, sort of. See Wright p. 319. I guess if we follow Wright, then Paul isn't much of an existentialist after all. But then I suppose that was the point of Bultmann doing his sachkritik on him anyway.]

[I should add, that if Wright is denying this, I would want to ask if he is he thus taking on the burden of the necessity to prove the Resurrection? If so, he fails by his own admission (Wright, p. 717), which seems a rather sticky situation.]

***

Bultmann next addresses the concern that this existential encounter is depressingly 'noetic' - intangible, shall we say, compared to a physical risen Christ. A further criticism is that this enlightenment is to some timeless truth - it is even impersonal.

'If, for instance, my encounter with another’s love should vouchsafe to me a new understanding of self, what happens is by no means restricted to consciousness, at least if consciousness is to be taken as a psychic rather than as an existential phenomenon, which is what Thielicke and others wrongly suppose. By understanding myself in this encounter I understand the other in such a way that the whole world appears in a new light, which means that it has in fact become an entirely different world. I acquire a new insight into and a new judgment of my own past and future, which means that they have become my past and future in a new sense.' (p. 203-4)

'From what has already been said it should be clear that I am not talking about an idea of God, but am trying to speak of the living God in whose hands our time rests, and who encounters us at specific moments in our time. But since further explanation is required, the answer may be given in a single sentence: God encounters us in His Word -- i.e. in a particular word, in the proclamation inaugurated with Jesus Christ. True, God encounters us at all times and in all places, but he cannot be seen everywhere unless his Word comes as well and makes the moment of revelation intelligible to us in its own light, as Luther not infrequently observed. Just as the divine omnipotence and omniscience cannot be realized existentially apart from his word uttered with reference to a particular moment and heard in that moment, so this Word is what it is only in the moment in reference to which it is uttered. It is not a timeless truth, but a definite word addressed at a particular occasion, whose eternal quality lies not in endless endurance but in its actual presence at specific moments. It is the Word of God only in so far as it is a word which happens on specific occasions, and not in virtue of the ideas it contains -- e.g. the mercy and grace of God (however true these things may be). It is the Word of God because it confronts me with his mercy and grace. It is only in this way that it is really the verbum externum: it is not a possession secured in knowledge, but an address which encounters us ever and again.' (p. 206-7)

'The paradox is just this, that a human figure, Jesus of Nazareth see esp. John 6: 42), and the destiny of that figure -- i.e. a human being and his fate, with a recognizable place in world history, and therefore exposed to the objective observation of the historian and intelligible within their context in world history -- are not thus apprehended and understood as what they really are, namely, as the act of God, as the eschatological event.' (p. 208)

'The Word of God is what it is only in event, and the paradox lies in the fact that this Word is identical with the Word which originated in the apostolic preaching, which has been fixed in Scripture and which is handed on by men in the Church’s proclamation; (In other words, a man just like myself speaks to me the Word of God: in him the Word of God becomes incarnate. For the incarnation is likewise an eschatological event and not a datable event of the past; it is an event which is continually being re-enacted in the event of the proclamation. I may refer at this point to my essay on "The Christological Confession of the World Council of Churches". Ev. Theologie, 1951, p. Iff. It seems high time that Christology was emancipated from its subordination to an ontology of objective thought and re-stated in a new ontological terminology.)' (p. 209)

[Oh my giddy aunt ...]

'If the challenge of demythologizing was first raised by the conflict between the mythological world-view of the Bible and the modern scientific world view, it at once became evident that the restatement of mythology is a requirement of faith itself. For faith needs to be emancipated from its association with every world view expressed in objective terms, whether it be a mythical or a scientific one. That conflict is a proof that faith has not yet discovered the proper terms in which to express itself, it has not realized that it cannot be logically proven, it has not clearly understood that its basis and its object are identical, it has not clearly apprehended the transcendental and hidden character of the divine activity, and by its failure to perceive its own "Nevertheless" it has tried to project God and his acts into the sphere of objective reality. Starting as it does from the modern world view, and challenging the Biblical mythology and the traditional proclamation of the Church, this new kind of criticism is performing for faith the supreme service of recalling it to a radical consideration of its own nature. It is just this call that our demythologizing seeks to follow.' (p. 210)

[So, two complementary agendas arrive at the same destination. Suspicious. Might it be that Bultmann's understanding of faith is conditioned by the world-view which was confronted by mythology in the first place?]

'The invisibility of God excludes every myth which tries to make him and his acts visible. Because of this, however, it also excludes every conception of invisibility and mystery which is formulated in terms of objective thought. God withdraws himself from the objective view: he can only be believed upon in defiance of all outward appearance, just as the justification of the sinner can only be believed upon in defiance of the accusations of the conscience.' (p. 210)

[Stunning]

'Our radical attempt to demythologize the New Testament is in fact a perfect parallel to St. Paul’s and Luther’s doctrine of justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law. Or rather, it carries this doctrine to its logical conclusion in the field of epistemology. Like the doctrine of justification it destroys every false security and every false demand for it on the part of man, whether he seeks it in his good works or in his ascertainable knowledge. The man who wishes to believe in God as his God must realize that he has nothing in his hand on which to base his faith. He is suspended in mid-air, and cannot demand a proof of the Word which addresses him. For the ground and object of faith are identical. Security can be found only by abandoning all security, by being ready, as Luther put it, to plunge into the inner darkness.' (p. 210-1)

'it is only in the light of the word of proclamation that nature and history become for the believer, contrary to all appearance, the field of the divine activity.' (p. 211)

[Do I buy this? The doctrine of providence remains for me a thorny subject. The treatment here is similar to Austin Farrer's 'A Science of God?' - we shall see if Farrer's essay, which is next in the volume is illuminating. But granted this, the question can still be asked, is mythology the objectivizing culprit which Bultmann makes it out to be? I suspect not...]

Kerygma and Myth 7: Friedrich K Schumann, 'Can the Event of Jesus Christ be Demythologized?'

Friedrich K Schumann, 'Can the Event of Jesus Christ be Demythologized?', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 175-190.

An online version here.

[An essay in sympathy with Bultmann's concerns.]

[On Bultmann's treatment of the mythology of death, sin and vicarious atonement ...]

'Obviously, this involves a serious reduction of the substance of the gospel, and it is not surprising that Bultmann’s essay has been widely regarded as a recrudescence of rationalistic liberalism and a further stage in the complete dissolution of the gospel. But this is certainly not Bultmann’s intention. He has no desire to erect some modern view of the world as the norm to which the gospel must conform. On the contrary, he seeks to liberate the whole meaning of the gospel and to make it intelligible to modern man in all its fullness. That is why he deems it imperative to release the permanent truth of the gospel from its framework in an obsolete world view -- in short, to "demythologize" it.' (p. 176)

[His conclusion however is that we are not at liberty to 'throw out' the biblical language of mythology because it is not merely a formal consideration - it contains content inherently in its form. He gives the example of our understanding of God as Father (p. 190). He notices that Bultmann himself switches between an interpretive and a dismissive understanding of myth.]

[The beginning of the essay addresses whether the event of Christ must also be understood as myth.]

'What Bultmann means is that the difference between the mythological language of the New Testament and ecclesiastical dogma on the one hand and his own interpretation on the other is that the former presents us with a "miraculous, supernatural event", whereas the right interpretation is one which suggests "an historical event wrought out in time and space". Whatever we make of this distinction, one thing is certain: the idea of a single historical event in time and space as the judgment pronounced by God over the historical process in time and space and the radical transformation of its whole constitution is inconceivable for those who accept the modern world view, and it would be impossible to make such a notion intelligible in the terms of such a view. So even Bultmann admits that this idea must be accepted as the paradox of the New Testament proclamation -- i.e. the paradox "that the eschatological emissary of God is a concrete figure of a particular historical past, and that his eschatological activity was wrought out in a human fate, and that therefore it is an event whose eschatological character does not admit of a secular proof". (p. 182)

[The above displays one understanding of myth:]

'"Mythology" in his sense of the word is precisely an attempt to furnish a "secular proof" of the eschatological significance of an event of past history by the use of objective imagery. So in the last analysis "demythologizing" is for him identical with the demonstration of the authentically paradoxical character of the gospel.' (p. 182)

[Here follows a comment by Schumann on the second (actually the initial one in Bultmann's essay) understanding of myth:]

'If however we accept Bultmann’s initial definition of mythology as that which is incompatible with the modern world view and its closed system of cause and effect, the very idea of such a paradox would seem to be incurably mythological, and the whole endeavor of "demythologizing" would seem, at any rate on this assumption, a questionable procedure.' (p. 182-3)

[The first above is probably Bultmann's considered position, and so:]

'"The transcendence of God is not as in myth reduced to immanence. Instead, we have the paradox of a transcendent God present and active in history: ‘The Word became flesh’."' (p. 183 / 44)

The (a!) problem with Bultmann is that he seems to have no Pneumatology

I suppose Pneumatology falls fairly clearly into the mythological for Bultmann, disavowed by his controlling 'finite, self-subsistent' world-view. But the result of this is that Christ cannot be present today, and the past event of the Cross and Resurrection can have no relation to us except noetically as we are confronted with it in the preaching of the Kerygma.

Depressing. We can insist on the retention and use of the biblical narrative - but I could do with some help in relating this language, this meta-narrative, to Bultmann's. While I think Bultmann's world-view is reductionist it would still be good to formulate a 'grammar of divine action'. Very good ...

Kerygma and Myth 6: Helmut Thielicke, 'The Restatement of New Testament Theology'

Helmut Thielicke, 'The Restatement of New Testament Theology', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 138-174.

An online version here.

[It gets better. Thielicke is obviously a heavy-weight. He recognises the place of mythology in the authoritative text and refuses to countenance its rejection. He distinguishes between different forms of the mythological in the New Testament, and this is helpful.]

[His primary concern, similarly to Schniewind although understood and expressed in a more acute manner, is that Bultmann has lost the event of the resurrection: the object of faith. Rather than this being the foundation stone upon which faith rests, resurrection appears to be derived from faith. This reversal sounds similar to Schniewind as well. Thielicke believes this reversal is at the heart of Bultmann's appropriation of a secular philosophy. This has become primary and in determining the questions has determined the agenda.]

[Thielicke also addresses the validity of the idea of a 'self-subsistent finite universe'. What in science is a working hypothesis, the result of the abstraction of empirical evidence, has now become a piece of mythology in its own right. In fact, the mythology of the present age - particularly this mythology - is ill equipped to express some of the key doctrines of Christianity. In this respect, what now seem an outmoded mythology such as a three-tier universe - is actually better suited to expressing the concept of divine transcendence.]

Preliminary Observations

The Importance of Bultmann's Challenge for the Church

'As a matter of fact, we all draw the distinction between mythology and truth, but the point at which we draw it varies with our school of thought or our individual preferences. The vagueness -- nay more, the downright insincerity -- of much modern preaching may be gauged from the way we tend to draw the line between truth and mythology at different points, at one point in the study and at another in the pulpit. We tend to be influenced by practical considerations. How much will the congregation stand ? This leads to insincerity and is not a healthy sign. Perhaps this pragmatism affects the personal faith of the preacher: he stands helpless in face of mythology, and lacks the courage to draw the distinction as sharply as he should. However this may be, it is a fact that up to now the problem of mythology has never been a regular part of the curriculum of theological study. It will certainly have to be in the future.' (p. 140) [I wish.]

'Bultmann thinks he can get rid of the mythological language which conceals the truth by carefully extracting the Biblical message from its setting in a contemporary world view. To HBK such a procedure is impossible, since the mythological setting is due not to historical circumstances or to the contemporary world view but to the way man looks at things. We can no more abandon mythology than we can cease to think in terms of time and space. Thus Bultmann rejects, while HBK [the Memorandum of the Confessing Church of Hesse] accepts and affirms, the mythological elements in the Bible.'

A. The Consequence of Demythologizing: The Conversion of the Gospel into a Philosophy

I Bultmann's Task

[Bultmann is influenced by the History of Religions school and its historical relativism (p. 9, "At this point absolute clarity ... what their hearers are expected to accept and what they are not."] 'Yet the difference between them is equally obvious. That school tended at the outset to remove the kerygma as a kind of erratic boulder, and to plant it down in the general history of religion. Thus they deprived the kerygma of its distinctiveness. Bultmann, on the other hand, tries to avoid this threat to the kerygma, not by denying the influence of its environment, nor by a naïve dogmatism which the study of the History of Religions has rendered obsolete, but by penetrating through the temporary framework of mythology to the permanent truth behind it.' (p. 143)

II Earlier Restatements of the Kerygma now Outmoded

We cannot 'penetrate to the permanent truths' by simply removing myth.

Nor can we 'dissolve' the evangelical events into the symbol of an eternal idea, as in 'the older liberal theology'.

Bultmann wants to 'rescue the historicity of the gospel and so retain its character as kerygma'.

III Mythology to be Interpreted, not Eliminated

For Bultmann: 'The real purpose of myth (e.g. the creation stories) is not to give an account of what actually happened in the past, or what may happen in the future (e.g. another ice age), but to convey a particular understanding of human life.' (p. 145)

The doctrine of creation ex nihilo 'does not tell us how the world actually came into being, but seeks rather to convey the implications of the fact that we stand as responsible beings before God. It teaches us that God is the source of all our being. He calls us out of nothing, and stamps us with the insignia of his Fatherhood. We are not made out of some material alien to God which we can blame for our sins and failures. Further, there is no ground for refusing to recognize his absolute sovereignty. Beside him there are no other gods, and apart from him there can be no material world. To deny the doctrine of creation ex nihil is to limit God’s sovereignty, as happens in the various theories which make God himself part of the evolutionary process. Hence it will be seen that Bultmann is groping after a really important truth. The cosmological assumptions of myth are not literal truths: what we have to do is to discover the existential meaning behind them This meaning is valid for all time, for though world views change, human nature remains the same.' (p. 145)

'The truth then embodied in myth is not scientific, but anthropological, or better, existential. The question is, what particular understanding of man’s Being does the New Testament convey?'

IV Myth as an Understanding of Human Life

'If the content of the New Testament message is, as Bultmann claims, an "understanding", the emphasis lies on the subjective element, the change in our self-consciousness which produces that understanding. This experience may in some way be connected with an event of revelation, and it may be necessary first to extract the distinctive Christian self-consciousness, but that does not make it any the less subjective.' (p. 146)

***'Such an outlook really leaves no room for an historical revelation in time, at least not in the sense of an intervention on the plane of reality, including reality external to man, and an intervention which changes that reality, as in miracle. Such an idea would be too mythological for Bultmann. The only event of revelation he can allow is one which brings to birth an understanding of human life such as man could never have produced for himself.' (p. 146)

'Consequently the event in the process of revelation is not an objective reality, it is simply a change in the subjective consciousness of man. When the prologue of the Fourth Gospels says "The Word became flesh" it means by "flesh" not the historical fact in the manger at Bethlehem but the acquisition of a new understanding of human life which has its origin in that point of history.' (p. 147)

V Historicity in Danger

'We get the impression -- and this will be confirmed in the ensuing argument -- that the event is a kind of inference deduced from the Christian or the existential understanding of human life.' (p. 147)

VI Revelation Disintegrated into Philosophy

'Wherever a non-Biblical principle derived from contemporary secular thought is applied to the interpretation of the Bible, the Bible’s facultas se ipsum interpretandi is violated, with fatal results. This is what happened in Kant’s philosophy, and again in theological idealism. It is happening with Bultmann too. By adopting Heidegger’s conception of understanding he is surrendering to the sovereignty of an intellectual world view, which deprives him of any feeling for the distinctiveness of the Bible. What, for instance, can he make of the phenomenon of prophecy on such an assumption, to say nothing of the resurrection ? This explains why the section dealing with the resurrection is so confused and bewildering.' (p. 149-50)

VII Bultmann's Defence against the Philosophizing of his Thought

This section addresses Bultmann's treatment of sin which he sees parallel in the Bible and existentialism.

'For Bultmann, then, the difference between the message of the New Testament and the theories of the philosophers lies not so much in their interpretation of Being as in the way of redemption they offer from a fallen state about whose nature they are more or less agreed. In philosophy that redemption is achieved by Socratic midwifery, in the New Testament by the act of Christ. This act of Christ conveys a new understanding of man’s being which it is beyond his own capacity to achieve. (Whether that understanding, once it has been granted, can stand on its own feet is, as we have seen, a different question.)' (p. 151)

The Futility of Philosophy as a Way of Redemption

'How would Bultmann answer the objection that the Christ event, regarded as an actual intervention on the plane of reality, is just as mythological as the rest of the kerygma? For this reality is, Bultmann maintains, a closed system determined by the laws of cause and effect, and any idea of an intervention ab extra necessarily implies a mythical world view which is no longer tenable.'

'Self-consciousness is the only sphere unaffected by the closed system of cause and effect, and therefore the only sphere which religion can claim as its own, and which is uncontaminated by mythology.'

[If this is what Bultmann is thinking, then this doesn't work. The final sphere is now getting thoroughly contaminated.]

'The resurrection, he says, is not just a subjective experience. "A vision is never purely subjective. It always has an objective basis [ ... ] What the disciples saw was the product of imagination in the sense that they projected what they saw into the world of space and sense. But that does not make what they saw imaginary. The faith evoked by the preaching of the gospel is no more subjective than a man’s love for his friend. It is directed towards an object, though an object which is not purely external to him, but which operates as a reality within him".' (p. 152)

'Faith has ceased to be dependent on the resurrection. Instead, the resurrection has become dependent on faith, the faith which springs from an encounter with Christ, or rather, with Jesus of Nazareth as he walked upon earth. The resurrection is no more than the pictorial symbol of an encounter, not an event in its own right.' (p. 153)

'We must not, however, overlook the element of justice in Bultmann’s case against a certain kind of dogmatic orthodoxy. Lessing had the same degree of justification in his controversy with Goeze, the Chief Pastor of Hamburg. Faith in the resurrection does not spring from the historical narratives of the resurrection, the empty tomb, etc. These narratives are by their very nature open to historical criticism, and even when their reliability has been established beyond all doubt, they can never provide an adequate basis for faith, for they are still relative. The resurrection is not just an event of the past; it must still be authenticated in the encounter with which Bultmann is so much concerned. The resurrection must always be the logical outcome of the earthly life of Jesus, of his power over sin, disease, and death, and of his uniqueness. The resurrection must always appear as a flash of light which illuminates a whole host of traits in the life and teaching of Jesus and gives them new meaning, so that apart from the resurrection they remain an unfathomable mystery and an ultimately meaningless fragment of history.' (p. 153-4)

[Great paragraph, especially the insight into the (non?-)relation of faith to historical criticism.]

'the encounter with which Bultmann is concerned does not cause faith in the resurrection: the resurrection is the cause of an encounter with Christ. It is only through the resurrection that we can say to him: "My Lord and my God." Just as the Old Testament can only be understood and can only become an encounter in the light of the fact of Christ, so too the life of Jesus makes sense only in the light of the resurrection, and only so can it become an encounter.' (p. 154)

'We see then that Bultmann has left himself defenseless. Having once surrendered the fact of the resurrection, he cannot recover it again. Faith is cabined and confined in the narrow limits of subjectivity and consciousness, and receives no external impact from history. Having begun in the Spirit, i.e. with a genuine concern with the kerygma, Bultmann threatens to end in the flesh (Gal. 3:3), i.e. in a "sarkic" philosophy.'

'We are left wondering why the event of Christ is not myth like everything else. Surely "logos sarx egeneto" implies an intervention in the closed system of reality?'

Tasks for Exegesis: Christmas, Good Friday, Easter Day, and Pentecost, as Events.

'The fundamental problem posed by demythologizing is, What elements in the New Testament revelation are temporary and what are eternal, what are "human" and what are "divine" ? Obviously it is imperative to know where exactly the line of demarcation lies at many points.' (p. 156)

[Not sure about this terminology. Better to say that it is all divine. The question is, which bits are myth and then, what do those bits mean!]

'Does not every attempt at demythologizing, seeking as it does to probe the dividing-line between the eternal and the temporary, the divine and the human, come up against a barrier which has been put there by God, and beyond which it dare not ask any more questions? This barrier is the mystery of the God-man. It is no accident that Bultmann regards this God-man as the product of a myth. For him therefore the barrier is non-existent. That means that in the last resort he does not really take seriously the assertion that the Logos sarx egeneto. The innermost point of Bultmann’s work appears to me to be a latent but irremediable "crisis" of the fact of Christ.' (p. 157)

B. The Permanent Problem of the Mythological Form of Speech and the Attempt to Solve it

I Mythology as a Form of Thought

'The question is then not whether the New Testament can be emancipated from mythology, but whether human thought can.' (p. 158)

'Whenever mythology is translated into scientific and rational terms there is an inevitable loss of meaning and consequent superficiality, which shows the inadequacy of the scientific approach to this kind of truth. And if such is the case, then Bultmann’s demand that we should replace the mythical view of the world by a scientific one falls to the ground.' (p. 159)

'To put it epigrammatically, myth is not the objectivizing of a spook-like experience, but the subjectivizing -- the intellectual appropriation -- of an objective event of salvation. Here we have the exact equivalent of Jeremias’s heavenly process. Myth therefore employs subjective means derived from the human imagination to describe a reality which utterly transcends consciousness, and which possesses an objective validity in its own right, quite apart from its effects on the disciples and witnesses.' (p. 160)

[Nice. :)]

'These narratives, for all their mythological coloring, do postulate a real event between God and Christ in a sphere beyond all subjectivity and by no means limited to a more or less spiritual process between God and the disciples.' (p. 160)

Important New Tasks in Connection with the Problem of Myth

(a) The Varieties of Myth

Thielicke distinguishes between 'pictorial explanations of certain facts in history' and 'straightforward historical narratives, which, though they appear to be mythical, are to be taken as literal history' - many of the miracles stories.

[This kind of nuance is necessary, I'm sure.]

(b) Translation into a Myth Compatible with the Modern World View?

[This is a strange paragraph, as he has already asserted that a Modern World View cannot contain the same information as the biblical one. Of course, there could be other Modern World Views ...]

(c) No Conclusive Answer Possible

[Hence, the above concerns are now addressed ...]

1. It is impossible to translate the Biblical mythology and its associated world view into the language of contemporary myth. In other words, it is impossible to substitute one mythological framework for another.

2. It is impossible to remove the mythology, as Bultmann tries to. In other words, it is impossible to substitute the world view of modern science for the Biblical mythology by what he calls "interpretation". This is because it involves the substitution of an abstract philosophy of existence for a kerygma rooted in history. We seem to be landed in what looks at first sight like an insoluble dilemma; some would call it a state of bankruptcy. There appears to be no way of modernizing Christianity or of making it relevant to the modern world: it is definitely out of date. This impasse is not to be evaded or made light of, so let us describe it as brutally as we can.

(d) The Theological Meaning of this Difficulty and the Task it presents

(a) 'The incarnation meant that Jesus entered into time and space, that he became our brother and comrade, (Phil. 2:7; Rom. 8:3) and in so doing exposed himself to the notitia of our capacity to apprehend him. This meant that he entered into the particular form in which our powers of apprehension express themselves -- i.e. by mythology.' (p. 165)

(ß) 'Mythological thought must be honored as the crib in which the Lord chose to lie. In this respect it is like the mind of man, which, no less than the body, is the temple of the Holy Ghost (l Cor. 6: 19), and which is called to think the thoughts of God’s revelation after him. Human reason is only a crib, fashioned from the same wood as the cross. Just as human reason may become a whore, so the mythological expression of the truth may become idolatry, and both may lead to the rejection of Christ. But this does not prove that either are not cribs for Christ, and indeed this paradox represents a fundamental theological insight.' (p. 167)

'May it not be that this temporal limitation is something more than an encumbrance upon the gospel to be swallowed as it stands? May it not be that it possesses a positive meaning within the kerygma? May we not go so far as to say that the contemporary myth of New Testament times, with its three-storied universe of heaven, earth, and hell, left open the door for the idea of transcendence? This is what made it peculiarly fitted to express the otherness of God and his intervention in salvation history. For this myth does not assume that the universe is a self-subsistent, finite entity, as does the secular myth. It is for this reason that the secular myth cannot become the vehicle of Biblical truth without disintegrating it.' (p. 169)

'It is simply untrue that, as even Bultmann appears to suppose, the idea of a self-subsistent, finite universe is accepted as axiomatic in the modern world. And therefore the modern world view is not necessarily in conflict with the old myth. That idea is no more than working hypothesis in the field of natural science. It is, for instance, necessary in physics to assume the law of the conservation of energy, and that assumption rests upon another -- viz., that nature is a closed reservoir of power. When we speak of the self-subsistent finitude of the secular myth we mean something very different from that working hypothesis which, since it is no more than a hypothesis, does at least theoretically leave open the door for the idea of transcendence. We are referring to the step from a working hypothesis as a handmaid of research to an affirmation of faith. This introduces an entirely new element, which completely transcends natural science, as can be seen, for instance, from the fact that the affirmations of natural science are intrinsically transsubjective in character -- that is to say, they are entirely independent of man’s subjective understanding of himself. It was to bring out this difference that the distinction was drawn between Weltbild and Weltanschauung, the former representing a trans-subjective, scientific fact, and the latter man’s subjective interpretation of himself, an interpretation which is quite independent of the Weltbild.' (169-70)

[And about time!]

'Every conceivable aspect of the reality of sin, which could be made explicit only in an infinite series of theses and experiences, is implicit in the symbolism of the myth of the Fall. It contains both universal history and individual biography; such a combination would be impossible in any form of non-mythological thought. The preacher’s task is to split up this combination into non-mythological language, and to place before his hearers whichever aspect is most relevant to their concrete situation.' (p. 173)

Kerygma and Myth 5: Ernst Lohmeyer, 'The Right Interpretation of the Mythological'

Ernst Lohmeyer, 'The Right Interpretation of the Mythological', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 124-137.

An online version here.

[At last! Sanity.]
[Lohmeyer seems to have more theological and philosophical breadth than either of the previous two contributors. He is able to summarise Bultmann's concerns at the same time as asserting the primacy of the text for interpreters. One cannot and one does not need to throw away the mythological. One needs to understand what it refers to.]

Lohmeyer outlines the philosophical concerns which had driven biblical interpretation for the history of religion school and the idealists. Bultmann himself undermined the relation of idealism to New Testament exegesis: 'Once the partnership between the myth of the gospel and the truth of philosophy had been dissolved and their mutual relation left uncertain, the need for a fresh elucidation was bound to occur. The effects of this heritage are clearly discernible in the answer Bultmann gives to the question of demythologizing. For just as the philosophy of idealism had a twofold concern, the purity of philosophic thought and the truth of the Christian proclamation, so these two tendencies are clearly at work in Bultmann’s exposition. He is fighting for the freedom of the New Testament message from falsification, and at the same time for the clarity of scientific, and particularly theological, thought. Only the watchword has been changed. The phenomenology of the spirit, as Hegel called it, has been replaced by a phenomenology of existence after the model of Kierkegaard. But there is one difference: the mythological thought of the New Testament is abandoned like an empty and useless husk as it was in the early days of the Enlightenment. For existentialist philosophy is concerned with man, whereas myth is concerned with God and gods. The only truth behind myth is therefore, as Bultmann says, the understanding of human existence which its imagery enshrines.' (p. 125)

I

Lohmeyer is doubtful about the value of Bultmann's understanding of mythology with its rigid distinction 'the unworldly and the worldly': it 'sees the essential characteristic of myth in its fusion of these two distinct elements into one'. But, 'How else can we believe in God or speak of the gods, unless we conceive of him or of them as working and having their being in this world among us men in the same mode as men speak and work? To conceive the divine in terms of the human -- that is the problem and the solution, the consolation and the mainstay of all religion.' (p. 126)

'On Bultmann’s definition, however, it follows that myth is the language of all religion, the form in which it is expressed, and that to demythologize a religious proclamation of whatever kind is to condemn every religion to silence and therefore to destroy it. Bultmann himself is alive to this consequence, for he says at one point: "Anyone who asserts that to speak of an act of God at all is to use mythological language is bound to regard the idea of an act of God in Christ as a myth. But let us ignore this question for the moment." But can this question be ignored once the problem of demythologizing has been raised?'

'There is abundant material of this sort in the New Testament, and so far from being the lumber of a past age, it is embedded in the heart of the gospel. For instance, what becomes of the miracles of Jesus, in which evil spirits are cast out and all manner of sickness is healed? This is just a further example of the way in which myth combines religious utterance and objective definition.'

'It is always tempting to peel off the historical shell and extract the pure and fruitful kernel, but, as with any tradition, that is to do violence to the inner and unbreakable unity in which permanent truth and historical form are combined in myth as in other things. This may be shown from an illustration which Bultmann uses himself. Bultmann holds that the mythical eschatology "is untenable for the simple reason that the parousia of Christ never took place as the New Testament expected. History did not come to an end, and as every schoolboy knows -- will continue to run its course." That is certainly right. But is all eschatology on that account "untenable" ? Why is it that during the classical ages of Christianity the Last Day has always been a close and familiar friend whose arrival was hourly expected? And that not only in the sectarian fringe, but in the heroes of the Christian faith like Augustine, Luther, and Calvin, to mention only a few. That the Lord is nigh, that the believer is standing at the end of time and history -- is only a way of expressing the ultimacy and the certainty of the truth and reality which the Christian confesses in faith. We shall have more to say about this in a moment.' (p. 127)

[Question: is this what Augustine, Luther and Calvin believed? Or did they think that the world would end? Of course Lohmeyer thinks believing that 'the world might end' is to believe in 'the ultimacy and the certainty of the truth and reality which the Christian confesses in faith'. Hm.]

'It is certainly true that myth speaks of the existence of man -- or rather, of man-in-faith; it speaks of the limits and the foundations of his world, of the powers which control it, which confront him with succor or demand. Certainly there is knowledge of human existence to be derived from every myth. But is that the whole story? Is that the only purpose of myth? Even if all religion (and religion always uses the language of myth) were exclusively concerned with the relation between God and man, the existentialist approach would be too narrow to comprehend its whole range. For religion knows that divine power only as the foundation or limit of this existence, not what that divine power is in itself in its absolute independence and self-sufficiency. God is more than just the foundation or condition of human existence. It is just here that the enigma of myth lies: it dares to speak of an absolute Deity in human words and with analogies from human relationships, and moreover is successful in doing so.' (p. 127-8)

'Myth revolves round the inexhaustible wealth of these relations between God and the world and man: it lives and springs like a ceaseless fountain from these three sources of theology, cosmology, and anthropology.' (p. 128)

II

Demythologizing for Bultmann is twofold. One: 'the removal of the inappropriate mythical garb with the false objectivity of its cosmic imagery -- and this means the abolition of the myth'. Two: 'the interpretation of the myth in the existentialist sense -- and this means the preservation of the myth. For every interpretation preserves the text: the text is not only its material, but the master which it endeavours to serve'. (p. 128-9)

Bultmann regards 'the true sense of myth as the disclosure of the "self-understanding of man", and the objectivizing imagery with its implied mythical world view the inadequate means for the expression of that sense. Now, that is to make the interpretation the master and judge of the myth it is interpreting, instead of keeping it in its rightful place as a servant. What right have we to do that?' (p. 129)

Lohmeyer fears Bultmann is not clear himself about the right boundaries between philosophy and theology.

'the relation between preaching and the New Testament is a curious combination of subservience and freedom. On the one hand the New Testament is an historical document relating to a long-vanished past, with its own peculiar concepts and images, its problems and solutions, its doubts, needs, and troubles, its hopes, consolations and promises, all of which are quite different from our own. In respect of these the Christian proclamation is free. For its standard and its center lie in the faith vouchsafed to it in the here and now, in the revelation which is its abiding heritage; Jesus Christ the same yesterday and today and for ever. On the other hand, Christian preaching is grounded upon that revelation, which it must obey as the "steward of the mysteries of God". In this sense it is bound to the letter of the documents of this revelation. This blending of freedom and subservience springs from the distinctive character of the revelation. It is an historical religion, and at the same time the final, eschatological, only true religion -- Jesus Christ, not only yesterday, but today and for ever. In other words, this freedom and subservience are once more a reflection of the Word made flesh.' (p. 129-30)

'But demythologizing is not confined to the destruction of myths in order to extract the existential kernel and enjoy the fruit, whether it be sweet or bitter to the taste. It also means to appreciate that myth is the mode in which God reveals himself, and that the apparently empty and worn-out husk is the symbol of the historicity of that eschatological revelation of God in which "the Word became flesh". And that applies not only to the central event of salvation, to Christ himself, but also what we call the mythical world view which provides the framework of the picture. Even to say "Our Father which art in Heaven" is to make a confession of faith which depends on a three-storied universe of heaven, earth, and hell.' (p. 130-1)

'At this point therefore demythologizing means the translation of the New Testament material from the language of myth into that of science. This is a possible procedure, as there is only one truth, which is intended by both kinds of language, and it is a necessary procedure, as the New Testament material assuredly contains perceptible truth. For myth never recognized any limit to its applicability, any more than modern science does. Both are potentially capable of drawing all truth into their own sphere, and even where something happens which does not fit into its conceptions, it is brought into relation with those conceptions, and even the most ordinary occurrence may become the vessel of a mythical revelation. Take for instance that famous text from the Fourth Gospel: "And it was night."' (p. 132)

'Two questions may be asked at this point. The first concerns the scientific concept. Is it really capable, as we have assumed, of comprehending and defining religious truth in all its fullness?'

'In so far as all these branches may be classified under the concept of the one truth, and in so far as this truth is precisely the aim and task of scientific apprehension, to that extent that concept is capable of apprehending the truth in all the data of religious experience. It apprehends it in the way appropriate to it -- that is, it investigates the possibility and necessity of it in the strict sense, and leaves it for faith to affirm in action this possibility as the ultimate truth. The faith is left free to perform its own essential function, while scientific apprehension assesses its rationality.' (p. 132-3)

[I think he is simply saying that faith can think rationally about itself and its relationship to the world.]

'The second question is whether the translation of myth into the language of concept leads to the existentialist interpretation rather than any other. Rightly understood, and with the reservations of which I have already spoken, the concept of existence in this sense is not open to any objection: it simply means man standing before God in judgment and grace. Of course the New Testament has much more to say than this idea of human existence in faith. It speaks of the kingdom of God, it speaks of the world, of its passing away and its coming into being, though all these things are obviously related to existence in faith But it is quite another matter to interpret this idea of existence in faith in terms of this existentialist philosophy.' (p. 133)

Existentialism: 'on the actual subject matter of theology it has no more right to pontificate than it has about physics, and it makes no difference whether the philosophy be existentialism or naturalism or idealism or materialism. It may be true that existentialist philosophy arrives in the end at statements almost identical with those of Christian theology, but that is not because it is a philosophy, but because it borrows its thesis from other spheres which belong to another kingdom and another order, or else it posits them dogmatically.'

'My impression -- it is only a personal impression, and I cannot stop to argue the point now -- is that existentialist philosophy is no more than a secularized form of Christian theology. It has borrowed a number of propositions from Christianity and wrested them from the context of faith on which all theological affirmations depend for their existential reality.' (p. 134)

[Ouch]

III

'In this connection therefore the interpretation of myth does not differ essentially from that of any other expression of faith -- e.g. a dialogue, a doctrine, or a prayer. Interpretation must always establish the permanent content of truth behind the mode of expression, and ascertain why historically it was uttered in that particular mode. As on the day which created it, myth must be refashioned from the possibilities furnished by its content and history, and its form and content redefined: its obsolete elements must be removed and its permanent truth restated.' (p. 135)

'Protestant theology knows that myth is the mode in which God has chosen to reveal himself. That revelation is a treasure which we have to bear in earthen vessels, not only because we are men of earth, but because it has pleased God to place it in this vessel. It is not for us to smash the vessel, but to make proper use of it and to learn that after all it is an earthen vessel. The more sincerely we devote ourselves to the cause of demythologizing, the more surely shall we preserve the treasure God has given us.' (p. 137)

[So ... existentialism put in its place. The Scriptures are not to be cast off but, with their mythology, are to remain the permanent authoritative text of the Church. The realms of faith and science and philosophy seek after the one truth, but their boundaries must be recognised. With regard to the position of the Bible, Bultmann would probably agree here, but some of his statements treatment mythology in such a dismissive manner it would be easy to think otherwise. Interpretation of mythology must go on. The interpretation of the Bible, mythology and all, must go on. No change there then.]