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...]
Tuesday, February 28, 2006
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)
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 ...
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 ...
Monday, February 27, 2006
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)
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)
Saturday, February 25, 2006
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.]
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.]
Faith and Reason in Kant
Notes and ideas grabbed from Evans, C. Stephen, Faith Beyond Reason (Edinburgh: Edinburgh Uinversity Press, 1998) pp. 65-77.
For Kant, 'faith is linked to reason in its practical employment': morality. (p. 65)
'I have found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith'. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St Martin Press, 1965) p. 29.
'by removing spurious claims to religious knowledge, the true character of religious faith can emerge more clearly'. (Evans, p. 66)
"from the viewpoint of theoretical reason, truths about God are 'transcendent'. They are, in a strict sense, above theoretical reason and reason can neither affirm them nor deny them."
'Faith is rational because it is linked to the moral life'. It is a presupposition needed in order to participate in the moral life. See here and here.
For Kant, not all human concepts are derived from our sense experience. Some must be a priori. That is, there are 'categories of the understanding' which are needed by us in order to understand our sense experience. So, for instance, 'cause and effect' and 'substance'. (p. 67)
The knowledge we gain from our sense experience interpreted with the aid of our 'categories of understanding' is not knowledge of reality - not metaphysical knowledge - only knowledge of phenomena and appearances.
The 'Ideas of pure reason' are ideas of that which transcends any possible sense experience. The concept of God is not the concept of any possible sense experience. These ideas develop by the need to explain our understanding. So, for instance when one applies the category of 'cause' to our ability to understand using sense experience and the categories. There is a potential infinite regress here which Kant puts a stop to with the 'Idea of an Unconditioned Condition'. (p. 69)
Kant thinks that reason and religion would be harmed by actual knowledge of God. God's transcendence would be compromised, and reason would be harmed because humans would appeal directly to God.
The Idea of God is not knowledge of God. There is a difference between need and reality.
We recognise that reason has reached its limits when the 'antinomies of pure reason' are encountered. Kant claims that proof can be offered for contradictory propositions. In fact one of these is antinomies is that arguments can be created for God's necessary existence and non-existence.
The Idea of God can be rationally embraced through moral faith however.
The Categorical Imperative: 'Act only according to that maxim [the subjective principle on which a moral act is based] whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law'. This is rational because it embodies the demand for coherence and consistency. In effect, immorality involved inconsistency.
For Kant, 'faith is linked to reason in its practical employment': morality. (p. 65)
'I have found it necessary to deny knowledge, in order to make room for faith'. Critique of Pure Reason, trans. Norman Kemp Smith (New York: St Martin Press, 1965) p. 29.
'by removing spurious claims to religious knowledge, the true character of religious faith can emerge more clearly'. (Evans, p. 66)
"from the viewpoint of theoretical reason, truths about God are 'transcendent'. They are, in a strict sense, above theoretical reason and reason can neither affirm them nor deny them."
'Faith is rational because it is linked to the moral life'. It is a presupposition needed in order to participate in the moral life. See here and here.
For Kant, not all human concepts are derived from our sense experience. Some must be a priori. That is, there are 'categories of the understanding' which are needed by us in order to understand our sense experience. So, for instance, 'cause and effect' and 'substance'. (p. 67)
The knowledge we gain from our sense experience interpreted with the aid of our 'categories of understanding' is not knowledge of reality - not metaphysical knowledge - only knowledge of phenomena and appearances.
The 'Ideas of pure reason' are ideas of that which transcends any possible sense experience. The concept of God is not the concept of any possible sense experience. These ideas develop by the need to explain our understanding. So, for instance when one applies the category of 'cause' to our ability to understand using sense experience and the categories. There is a potential infinite regress here which Kant puts a stop to with the 'Idea of an Unconditioned Condition'. (p. 69)
Kant thinks that reason and religion would be harmed by actual knowledge of God. God's transcendence would be compromised, and reason would be harmed because humans would appeal directly to God.
The Idea of God is not knowledge of God. There is a difference between need and reality.
We recognise that reason has reached its limits when the 'antinomies of pure reason' are encountered. Kant claims that proof can be offered for contradictory propositions. In fact one of these is antinomies is that arguments can be created for God's necessary existence and non-existence.
The Idea of God can be rationally embraced through moral faith however.
The Categorical Imperative: 'Act only according to that maxim [the subjective principle on which a moral act is based] whereby you can at the same time will that it should become a universal law'. This is rational because it embodies the demand for coherence and consistency. In effect, immorality involved inconsistency.
Friday, February 24, 2006
Kerygma and Myth 4: Rudolf Bultmann, 'A Reply to the Theses of J. Schniewind'
Rudolf Bultmann, 'A Reply to the Theses of J. Schniewind', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K., 1972). pp. 102-123.
An online version here.
On Thesis I
Bultmann is chuffed that Schniewind recognises that mythology in the New Testament represents a problem.
On Thesis II A
[Bultmann appears not to be in a cheery mood. Understandable after having had to make his way through Schniewind's essay.]
Straightaway, the definition of myth is the question again. Bultmann doesn't prefer Schniewind's 'By "mythological" we mean the expression of unobservable realities in terms of observable phenomena' (p. 47). Bultmann thinks that 'observable' is just as misleading as his own 'worldly'.
Can we dispense with mythology? We cannot dispense with the idea of transcendence but we must dispense with it in the New Testament.
Schniewind is wrong to argue that the natural sciences use mythological terms when the conceptualise observable phenomena. These concepts represent very 'this worldly' things (see. p. 49).
Faith and philosophy are to be distinguished. The questioning for ultimate meaning which the sciences drive us toward only leads towards the Greek Arché.
Bultmann insist that the criticism that he has not done justice to the ephapax of the New Testament is unjustified. He claims that Jesus is unique and historical (historisch (p. xiii)).
On Thesis II B
That Christianity is rejected even when demythologized because it speaks of God and sin is no reason to not demythologize.
It is not necessarily mythological to speak of an act of God. 'All these are phenomena subject to historical, sociological and psychological observation, yet for faith they are all of them eschatological phenomena. It is precisely its immunity from proof which secures the Christian proclamation against the charge of being mythological. 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. 44)
[My italics. This needs further clarification.]
'The Christian preacher can demand faith only when he has demonstrated sin and grace to be real possibilities of human life, and their denial and repudiation to be unbelief and guilt. It is the great merit of the existentialist interpretation that it makes this clear.' (p. 105) Without this interpretation we mythology which is incomprehensible to the modern person.
On Thesis III
'The only true interpretation of eschatology is one which makes it a real experience of human life. You say: "Our acquittal is Christ himself. He is the embodiment of the righteousness of God. " But surely that requires interpretation. And such a metaphorical statement as "He incorporates his own in himself as a king includes his people" serves only to darken counsel.' (p. 106)
'The whole gift of God is comprised in the forgiveness of sins. But I am quite sure that we will not understand this aright unless we insist that forgiveness is freedom from sin, not only from past guilt, but also from sinful behavior in the future. It is "access to God", certainly, but what do we mean by that? What does it mean in actual experience? Human life continues to be "historic" even when it is eschatological -- for that I take it is what you mean by "the eschatological judgment still lies in the future" -- and it issues forth in a new life. It is therefore controlled by the imperative. Through the gift of God "Thou shalt" becomes "I will". We are "led by the Spirit". The peculiar quality of the indicative is manifested in its inseparable unity with the imperative, and vice versa. It was Karl Barth, I believe, who first charged me with substituting anthropology for theology. This is an easy misunderstanding of the existentialist position. Anthropology is here being used rather as Feuerbach used it, and existence is identified with subjectivity. Using "anthropology" differently, I would heartily agree: I am trying to substitute anthropology for theology, for I am interpreting theological affirmations as assertions about human life. What I mean is that the God of the Christian revelation is the answer to the vital questions, the existential questions.' (p. 107)
Thesis IV A
'I still maintain that the underlying assumptions of sacrifice as practiced in the primitive cults and in the religions of classical antiquity (including the Old Testament) are incurably mythological. There may of course be nothing mythological in the belief that man must be ready to sacrifice to the deity what is dearest to him. But such a belief becomes mythological the moment it ceases to be controlled by a true conception of God. Take for instance the case of a child being sacrificed in order to insure the success of an enterprise or to avert misfortune. Such a practice implies a crude mythological conception of God. It cannot be denied that a similar belief underlies the practice of sacrifice in the Old Testament -- the belief that God will accept the life of a substitute when the offerer’s own life is forfeit. The modern use of sacrifice in connection with the mother or the soldier is entirely different. In these cases the offerer is himself the victim. He is not seeking to insure his own safety by offering a substitute, or to gain anything for himself.' (p. 108)
[The 'mythological' is based on an objectified understanding of metaphorical language.]
[Exlusive substitution: bad. mythological.]
[Self-substitution: good.]
[I still don't get it. Why is Christ - the incarnation - not mythological in Bultmann's terms? This is pure myth, in his terms, isn't it? Unless he is sitting light to ontological claims about Christ's deity? May have to return to first essay again ...]
'I must now confess -- and here perhaps the gulf between us is most obvious -- that the language of personal relationship with Christ is just as mythological as the other imagery you favor; that is, unless it is strictly conceived on the lines of John 14: 9 or of Herrmann’s "God is in Christ". You ask: "What do we mean when we say that Jesus has entered into our deprivation from God? What do we mean by a personal relation with the exalted Christ?" Your questions only go to show how mythological in form is the New Testament theology of the cross.' (p. 109)
'It seems that you are afraid to abandon mythology lest you should surrender the real skandalon with the preliminary stumbling-block.' (p. 109)
'The explanation [of the mythological language of the judgement of sin] I proposed was this: when we appropriate the judgment of God we have to take up the cross for ourselves and affirm the divine judgment in self-judgment. I think that here I have St. Paul and Luther on my side, and hope you agree too.' (p. 110)
[The question as to what is mythological may be decided too easily by our own lack of philosophical equipment. Bultmann can't seem to see out of his existentialist box which seems far too dismissive of a lot of biblical langauge. Of course, I could just be being too conservative by half.]
On Thesis IV B
'Nor, again, do I object to your speaking of a unique and final revelation of God in history, so long as the context puts the meaning beyond all doubt. It would, for instance, be quite legitimate to use such language in refuting a pantheistic conception of revelation. At the same time such language is dangerous, for it is liable to obscure the eschatological character of the Christian faith in revelation, and to make that revelation a revelatum, something which took place in the past and now an object of detached observation, and the kerygma a bare report about something now dead and done with. And that is to forget that "now is the day of salvation".' (p. 111)
'Behind your whole argument there lies the difficult problem of our relation to Jesus, though I would rather not embark upon that at this point.' [!!!]
On Thesis V
'I cannot accept 1 Cor. 15:3-8 as kerygma. I call that line of argument fatal because it tries to adduce a proof for the kerygma. Nor am I convinced that the legend of the Empty Tomb was part of the kerygma, or that St. Paul himself knew anything about it.' (p. 112)
'It is certainly wrong to interpret Christ "merely in terms of our existence as persons in history", if that existence is understood in a purely idealistic sense. That would be to reduce the great Christological events to bare symbols or stimuli to religious devotion. But, granted a true conception of historicity, granted that our "historic" self transcends our subjectivity, so that we are always extra nos as well as in ourselves, in good as well as in evil, then the above quotation is perfectly correct, and the word "merely" serves only to protect the Christological event from a mythological interpretation. For the fact is that we can apprehend invisible reality only in the light of a fact encountered in a concrete encounter in life. We cannot prove theoretically that this fact is Christ; we can only know it in faith.' (p. 113)
[How are we extra nos - how is this not mythological in Bultmann's own terms?]
[Plus, what is this knowledge which comes by faith ... ?]
On Thesis VI A
'On the other hand, I maintain that the "last day" is a mythological concept, which must be replaced by the language of death. To ignore with the Gnostics the certainty of death is to forget that our existence is and remains essentially "historic" and that the future, though apprehended, is never an assured possession so long as our earthly "historic" existence endures and so long as faith is still in via (Phil. 3:12-14). I am surprised how readily people conclude that my interpretation of the New Testament eschatology implies a timeless "now". To say that two ages or cosmic periods overlap is to my mind totally inadequate. If the point of the contrast between the two ages is that the present age is evil and that in the age to come there will be no more temptation or death, the age to come cannot be conceived as a further period in history or as overlapping the old age like two epochs in history. It would be better to say that in the new age the indispensable conditions of the time process come to an end. The overlapping is possible and the age to come a present reality only in virtue of certain events and responses to those events within the old age. Faith interprets these as the irruption of the new age. I refer of course to the event of Christ, the kerygma, the response of faith, and the church or community of believers. What happens in these phenomena now -- that is, at particular points along the time process -- has ceased to be an event in time. Therefore in the last analysis each particular Now is to the eyes of faith that one Now which is the fullness of time.' (p. 114)
[Confusing. He demythologizes 'the last' day to death. But, he envisages an age beyond the end of time which we experience a taste of through the kerygma.]
On Thesis VI B
'Eschatology tells us the meaning and goal of the time process, but that answer does not consist in a philosophy of history, like pantheism, where the meaning and goal of history are to be seen in each successive moment, or like the belief in progress, where the goal is realized in a future Utopia, or myth, which offers an elaborate picture of the end of the world. Indeed, eschatology is not at all concerned with the meaning and goal of secular history, for secular history belongs to the old aeon, and therefore can have neither meaning nor goal. It is concerned rather with the meaning and goal of the history of the individual and of the eschatological community. Moreover, the meaning is fulfilled and the goal attained in the fullness of time -- that is, wherever the word of the proclamation establishes an encounter (Rev. 12:10-13; John 12:31; 4:73; 5:25; 2 Cor. 6:2, etc.).' (p. 116)
'the study of those documents [the synoptic gospels] can bring us to an encounter with the historical phenomenon "Jesus" only on the basis of one phenomenon of past history. Yet we can hope, by means of this study, to recognize the historical phenomenon "Jesus" only on the basis of one’s own historic (geschichtlich) encounter.' (p. 117)
'The Jesus of history is not kerygma ... For in the kerygma Jesus encounters us as the Christ -- that is, as the eschatological phenomenon par excellence. Neither St. Paul nor St. John mediate an historic encounter with the historic Jesus. Even if the synoptic gospels appear to do so, that is only when they are read in the light of the historical problems which have arisen since their day, not when they are read in their original sense. '
'I still deny that historical research can ever encounter any traces of the epiphany of God in Christ; all it can do is to confront us with the Jesus of history. Only the Church’s proclamation can bring us face to face with Kyrios Christos.'
Daemonology gets short shrift. To claim that there is an organized rebellion against God implies an Organizer (yes...!) 'Satan is a mythological figure'.
'Everything turns upon how precisely we abandon natural causation in favor of supernatural explanations -- i.e. whether by the "nevertheless" of faith (cf. Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 214ff.), or by recourse to mythology. The real skandalon of faith in God vis-à-vis modern technology can become clear only when we have abandoned the false view of God which that technology has exploded.' (p. 120)
'This much, however, is clear: while modern man may be wrong in identifying his ego with his subjectivity, he is undoubtedly right in regarding it in its subjective aspect as a unity, and in refusing to allow any room for alien powers to interfere in his subjective life. The mythical thought of the New Testament on the other hand, does reckon with such interferences, and if such thought enshrines a profound and genuine insight into the nature of the human ego, it requires restatement to make it plain, and that means the complete abandonment of mythology.'
'The Spirit is not the prime cause behind the human will, but operates in that will. To be led by the Spirit means not only that we are called sons of God but that we can appropriate the sonship and discern the imperative in the indicative. The decision God pronounces over man takes effect in the resolve of the human will.'
'Modern man par excellence is technological man, and for that reason he is doubly enslaved to the modern scientific world view, even if in theory he disclaims all interest in and knowledge of it. If he is prepared to take seriously the question of God, he ought not to be burdened with the mythological element in Christianity. We must help him to come to grips with the real skandalon and make his decision accordingly.' (p. 122)
[Bultmann is speaking to the intellectual. He is aiming for modern man par excellence. It is fine to reiterate liturgy which contains mythology in Church.]
[No great advancement then. The question still in focus is what the referent of New Testament language is. One could take a more positive approach which recognised the limitations of all language of God, including the New Testament, and which still hoped that connection and limited comprehension with the referents was possible.]
[I suspect some of Barth's understanding of the divine appropriation of human language will be helpful.]
An online version here.
On Thesis I
Bultmann is chuffed that Schniewind recognises that mythology in the New Testament represents a problem.
On Thesis II A
[Bultmann appears not to be in a cheery mood. Understandable after having had to make his way through Schniewind's essay.]
Straightaway, the definition of myth is the question again. Bultmann doesn't prefer Schniewind's 'By "mythological" we mean the expression of unobservable realities in terms of observable phenomena' (p. 47). Bultmann thinks that 'observable' is just as misleading as his own 'worldly'.
Can we dispense with mythology? We cannot dispense with the idea of transcendence but we must dispense with it in the New Testament.
Schniewind is wrong to argue that the natural sciences use mythological terms when the conceptualise observable phenomena. These concepts represent very 'this worldly' things (see. p. 49).
Faith and philosophy are to be distinguished. The questioning for ultimate meaning which the sciences drive us toward only leads towards the Greek Arché.
Bultmann insist that the criticism that he has not done justice to the ephapax of the New Testament is unjustified. He claims that Jesus is unique and historical (historisch (p. xiii)).
On Thesis II B
That Christianity is rejected even when demythologized because it speaks of God and sin is no reason to not demythologize.
It is not necessarily mythological to speak of an act of God. 'All these are phenomena subject to historical, sociological and psychological observation, yet for faith they are all of them eschatological phenomena. It is precisely its immunity from proof which secures the Christian proclamation against the charge of being mythological. 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. 44)
[My italics. This needs further clarification.]
'The Christian preacher can demand faith only when he has demonstrated sin and grace to be real possibilities of human life, and their denial and repudiation to be unbelief and guilt. It is the great merit of the existentialist interpretation that it makes this clear.' (p. 105) Without this interpretation we mythology which is incomprehensible to the modern person.
On Thesis III
'The only true interpretation of eschatology is one which makes it a real experience of human life. You say: "Our acquittal is Christ himself. He is the embodiment of the righteousness of God. " But surely that requires interpretation. And such a metaphorical statement as "He incorporates his own in himself as a king includes his people" serves only to darken counsel.' (p. 106)
'The whole gift of God is comprised in the forgiveness of sins. But I am quite sure that we will not understand this aright unless we insist that forgiveness is freedom from sin, not only from past guilt, but also from sinful behavior in the future. It is "access to God", certainly, but what do we mean by that? What does it mean in actual experience? Human life continues to be "historic" even when it is eschatological -- for that I take it is what you mean by "the eschatological judgment still lies in the future" -- and it issues forth in a new life. It is therefore controlled by the imperative. Through the gift of God "Thou shalt" becomes "I will". We are "led by the Spirit". The peculiar quality of the indicative is manifested in its inseparable unity with the imperative, and vice versa. It was Karl Barth, I believe, who first charged me with substituting anthropology for theology. This is an easy misunderstanding of the existentialist position. Anthropology is here being used rather as Feuerbach used it, and existence is identified with subjectivity. Using "anthropology" differently, I would heartily agree: I am trying to substitute anthropology for theology, for I am interpreting theological affirmations as assertions about human life. What I mean is that the God of the Christian revelation is the answer to the vital questions, the existential questions.' (p. 107)
Thesis IV A
'I still maintain that the underlying assumptions of sacrifice as practiced in the primitive cults and in the religions of classical antiquity (including the Old Testament) are incurably mythological. There may of course be nothing mythological in the belief that man must be ready to sacrifice to the deity what is dearest to him. But such a belief becomes mythological the moment it ceases to be controlled by a true conception of God. Take for instance the case of a child being sacrificed in order to insure the success of an enterprise or to avert misfortune. Such a practice implies a crude mythological conception of God. It cannot be denied that a similar belief underlies the practice of sacrifice in the Old Testament -- the belief that God will accept the life of a substitute when the offerer’s own life is forfeit. The modern use of sacrifice in connection with the mother or the soldier is entirely different. In these cases the offerer is himself the victim. He is not seeking to insure his own safety by offering a substitute, or to gain anything for himself.' (p. 108)
[The 'mythological' is based on an objectified understanding of metaphorical language.]
[Exlusive substitution: bad. mythological.]
[Self-substitution: good.]
[I still don't get it. Why is Christ - the incarnation - not mythological in Bultmann's terms? This is pure myth, in his terms, isn't it? Unless he is sitting light to ontological claims about Christ's deity? May have to return to first essay again ...]
'I must now confess -- and here perhaps the gulf between us is most obvious -- that the language of personal relationship with Christ is just as mythological as the other imagery you favor; that is, unless it is strictly conceived on the lines of John 14: 9 or of Herrmann’s "God is in Christ". You ask: "What do we mean when we say that Jesus has entered into our deprivation from God? What do we mean by a personal relation with the exalted Christ?" Your questions only go to show how mythological in form is the New Testament theology of the cross.' (p. 109)
'It seems that you are afraid to abandon mythology lest you should surrender the real skandalon with the preliminary stumbling-block.' (p. 109)
'The explanation [of the mythological language of the judgement of sin] I proposed was this: when we appropriate the judgment of God we have to take up the cross for ourselves and affirm the divine judgment in self-judgment. I think that here I have St. Paul and Luther on my side, and hope you agree too.' (p. 110)
[The question as to what is mythological may be decided too easily by our own lack of philosophical equipment. Bultmann can't seem to see out of his existentialist box which seems far too dismissive of a lot of biblical langauge. Of course, I could just be being too conservative by half.]
On Thesis IV B
'Nor, again, do I object to your speaking of a unique and final revelation of God in history, so long as the context puts the meaning beyond all doubt. It would, for instance, be quite legitimate to use such language in refuting a pantheistic conception of revelation. At the same time such language is dangerous, for it is liable to obscure the eschatological character of the Christian faith in revelation, and to make that revelation a revelatum, something which took place in the past and now an object of detached observation, and the kerygma a bare report about something now dead and done with. And that is to forget that "now is the day of salvation".' (p. 111)
'Behind your whole argument there lies the difficult problem of our relation to Jesus, though I would rather not embark upon that at this point.' [!!!]
On Thesis V
'I cannot accept 1 Cor. 15:3-8 as kerygma. I call that line of argument fatal because it tries to adduce a proof for the kerygma. Nor am I convinced that the legend of the Empty Tomb was part of the kerygma, or that St. Paul himself knew anything about it.' (p. 112)
'It is certainly wrong to interpret Christ "merely in terms of our existence as persons in history", if that existence is understood in a purely idealistic sense. That would be to reduce the great Christological events to bare symbols or stimuli to religious devotion. But, granted a true conception of historicity, granted that our "historic" self transcends our subjectivity, so that we are always extra nos as well as in ourselves, in good as well as in evil, then the above quotation is perfectly correct, and the word "merely" serves only to protect the Christological event from a mythological interpretation. For the fact is that we can apprehend invisible reality only in the light of a fact encountered in a concrete encounter in life. We cannot prove theoretically that this fact is Christ; we can only know it in faith.' (p. 113)
[How are we extra nos - how is this not mythological in Bultmann's own terms?]
[Plus, what is this knowledge which comes by faith ... ?]
On Thesis VI A
'On the other hand, I maintain that the "last day" is a mythological concept, which must be replaced by the language of death. To ignore with the Gnostics the certainty of death is to forget that our existence is and remains essentially "historic" and that the future, though apprehended, is never an assured possession so long as our earthly "historic" existence endures and so long as faith is still in via (Phil. 3:12-14). I am surprised how readily people conclude that my interpretation of the New Testament eschatology implies a timeless "now". To say that two ages or cosmic periods overlap is to my mind totally inadequate. If the point of the contrast between the two ages is that the present age is evil and that in the age to come there will be no more temptation or death, the age to come cannot be conceived as a further period in history or as overlapping the old age like two epochs in history. It would be better to say that in the new age the indispensable conditions of the time process come to an end. The overlapping is possible and the age to come a present reality only in virtue of certain events and responses to those events within the old age. Faith interprets these as the irruption of the new age. I refer of course to the event of Christ, the kerygma, the response of faith, and the church or community of believers. What happens in these phenomena now -- that is, at particular points along the time process -- has ceased to be an event in time. Therefore in the last analysis each particular Now is to the eyes of faith that one Now which is the fullness of time.' (p. 114)
[Confusing. He demythologizes 'the last' day to death. But, he envisages an age beyond the end of time which we experience a taste of through the kerygma.]
On Thesis VI B
'Eschatology tells us the meaning and goal of the time process, but that answer does not consist in a philosophy of history, like pantheism, where the meaning and goal of history are to be seen in each successive moment, or like the belief in progress, where the goal is realized in a future Utopia, or myth, which offers an elaborate picture of the end of the world. Indeed, eschatology is not at all concerned with the meaning and goal of secular history, for secular history belongs to the old aeon, and therefore can have neither meaning nor goal. It is concerned rather with the meaning and goal of the history of the individual and of the eschatological community. Moreover, the meaning is fulfilled and the goal attained in the fullness of time -- that is, wherever the word of the proclamation establishes an encounter (Rev. 12:10-13; John 12:31; 4:73; 5:25; 2 Cor. 6:2, etc.).' (p. 116)
'the study of those documents [the synoptic gospels] can bring us to an encounter with the historical phenomenon "Jesus" only on the basis of one phenomenon of past history. Yet we can hope, by means of this study, to recognize the historical phenomenon "Jesus" only on the basis of one’s own historic (geschichtlich) encounter.' (p. 117)
'The Jesus of history is not kerygma ... For in the kerygma Jesus encounters us as the Christ -- that is, as the eschatological phenomenon par excellence. Neither St. Paul nor St. John mediate an historic encounter with the historic Jesus. Even if the synoptic gospels appear to do so, that is only when they are read in the light of the historical problems which have arisen since their day, not when they are read in their original sense. '
'I still deny that historical research can ever encounter any traces of the epiphany of God in Christ; all it can do is to confront us with the Jesus of history. Only the Church’s proclamation can bring us face to face with Kyrios Christos.'
Daemonology gets short shrift. To claim that there is an organized rebellion against God implies an Organizer (yes...!) 'Satan is a mythological figure'.
'Everything turns upon how precisely we abandon natural causation in favor of supernatural explanations -- i.e. whether by the "nevertheless" of faith (cf. Glauben und Verstehen, pp. 214ff.), or by recourse to mythology. The real skandalon of faith in God vis-à-vis modern technology can become clear only when we have abandoned the false view of God which that technology has exploded.' (p. 120)
'This much, however, is clear: while modern man may be wrong in identifying his ego with his subjectivity, he is undoubtedly right in regarding it in its subjective aspect as a unity, and in refusing to allow any room for alien powers to interfere in his subjective life. The mythical thought of the New Testament on the other hand, does reckon with such interferences, and if such thought enshrines a profound and genuine insight into the nature of the human ego, it requires restatement to make it plain, and that means the complete abandonment of mythology.'
'The Spirit is not the prime cause behind the human will, but operates in that will. To be led by the Spirit means not only that we are called sons of God but that we can appropriate the sonship and discern the imperative in the indicative. The decision God pronounces over man takes effect in the resolve of the human will.'
'Modern man par excellence is technological man, and for that reason he is doubly enslaved to the modern scientific world view, even if in theory he disclaims all interest in and knowledge of it. If he is prepared to take seriously the question of God, he ought not to be burdened with the mythological element in Christianity. We must help him to come to grips with the real skandalon and make his decision accordingly.' (p. 122)
[Bultmann is speaking to the intellectual. He is aiming for modern man par excellence. It is fine to reiterate liturgy which contains mythology in Church.]
[No great advancement then. The question still in focus is what the referent of New Testament language is. One could take a more positive approach which recognised the limitations of all language of God, including the New Testament, and which still hoped that connection and limited comprehension with the referents was possible.]
[I suspect some of Barth's understanding of the divine appropriation of human language will be helpful.]
Thursday, February 23, 2006
Kerygma and Myth 3: Julius Schniewind, 'A Reply to Bultmann'
Julius Schniewind, 'A Reply to Bultmann: Thesis on the Emancipation of the Kerygma from Mythology', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K.,1972). pp. 45-101.
An online version here.
I
Introduction
Bultmann is not liberal. He is interested in 'the once-for-allness of the deed, the revelation of God in Christ'. [Note: 'revelation' is God's act of salvation and not an act in which humans are ontologically changed by something outside of themselves. Christ is not an exemplum ... or is he, in effect, only that?]
The Fall of Adam serves to explain the 'why' of every actual sin (p. 46).
Luther himself bemoaned naive literalism in preaching: 'Even Luther poured scorn on such literalism: "Oh, that heaven of the charlatans, with its golden stool and Christ sitting at the Father’s side vested in a choir cope and a golden crown, as the painters love to portray him." (W.A., XXIII, p. 131.)'
Schniewind states that any preacher worth his salt is prepared to 'paraphrase, translate and change terminology' in order to 'speak the Word of God to the concrete situation of the hearers' (p. 47). But what if the New Testament speaks in myth. How are we to deal with that? Demythologising is not simply a translation - and might this then affect the substance of what is said?
II
A.
Schniewind's definition of mythology differs from Bultmann's: 'By "mythological" we mean the expression of unobservable realities in terms of observable phenomena. It is doubtful whether the human mind can ever dispense with myth. Every attempt to escape from mythology leads either to nihilism or to the question whether the invisible has in fact become visible, and if so, where? The Christian answer is, in W. Herrmann’s phrase, "God is Jesus" (Col. 1:15; John 14:9). Bultmann would agree in principle.'
[The above would appear to say that all talk of God is mythological by definition. Is this true? Depends on your definition of myth!]
Schniewind question's whether Bultmann's existentialist language is mythological. What do "authentic", "symbol", "totality" and "source" refer to?
He then turns to the Incarnation as the supreme example of the transcendent becoming earthly. Col. 1:15: "He is the image of the invisible God". He quotes W. Herrmann: "It is wrong to say that Jesus is God, for that implies that we already know what God is. It implies that Jesus is merely a theios, a divine being. We really ought to say that God is Jesus. Jesus is the very presence of God, the divine being himself."
Schniewind complains that Bultmann has not been definite enough about this when he used such phrases as "God's eschatological emissary" and "the agent of God's presence and activity".
That the psychikos anthropos finds it impossible to accept the faith of Christians is no new phenomenon.
"After all, is not the Christian claim that the eternal God has come to us in an individual man with all the limitations of time and space essentially mythological in character - i.e., does it not speak of the eternal as if it were involved in time and space, and of the invisible as if it were visible?" (p. 52)
[Schniewind has 'upped the ante'. He has claimed that the central event of Christianity which Bultmann himself holds dear is mythological in character. This last quote is interesting: "as if it were" - this is an odd way of putting it. Is he not involved, actually, in time and space?]
[One further point. Has Schniewind changed Bultmann's definition of mythology? And, to concentrate on the incarnation is fine. What about divine providence and Bultmann's worry concerning the interaction between 'the spirit world' and this outside of the Incarnation?]
B.
Any 'act of God' or the concept of sin will appear mythological to modern man. Humans are 'fallen away' from God and are in rebellion and under God's wrath, but none of these concepts make sense philosophically apart from Christ and the Bible. Likewise, we only know the depth of humanity's hubris in the light of the Cross.
Even if sin is a universally understandable concept "Man's radical self-assertion blinds him" to its fact. "Hence it is no good telling that him he is a sinner. He will only dismiss it as mythology." (p. 31, 54) Schniewind points out this equally applies to faith in Christ.
Has Bultmann missed the radical answer to this questions which exists itself in the New Testament - God in Christ?
[What Bultmann has done is demythologised and remythologised. This is a good criticism and all well and good. However, we are still left with the question as to what apocalyptic language, for instance, refers to. We may be uneasy with taking the language literally - but what else is it saying? What are we to do with this language? I assume here that the demythologised political readings of G. B. Caird and N. T. Wright doesn't take us very far.]
III
Schniewind points out twice that Bultmann has made 'the God of Christian revelation the answer to questions which have been raised within the framework of atheism'.
The first criticism is over the forgiveness of sins. Bultmann defines man's problems using the existential framework. So, faith is the "the freedom of man from himself ... openness for the future ... Such faith is still a subtle form of self-assertion so long as the love of God is still a piece of wishful thinking (p. 32)". Christ is then presented as the solution to our problem of self-assertion.
In response, Schniewind states, "But surely, in justice to the New Testament, the whole argument ought to be reversed. It is because and in so far as we have become the objects of God’s love that we are freed from our past and open for God’s future. Because we are loved by God, our old man, our "adamite existence" as Schlatter called it, our old life in rebellion against God and cut off from fellowship with him, has been delivered over to death. "The old things are passed away" (2 Cor. 5:17). The "old things" in question are our past qualified as enmity to God, not the past in a merely chronological sense, the structure of our Being in time. It means our bondage to this present evil age, to a period of time which is moving towards the day of judgment."
[And yes, Schniewind believes in a coming, literal, Day of Judgement, without taking the mythological language of the New Testament in a literal way. "In other words, the mythological pictures of the day of judgment are simply signposts to the truth. God either rejects us (wrath) or accepts us (righteousness). This takes place at the last day -- that is, when our present time series and the world in which we are enchained have come to an end." (p. 56)]
Secondly, for Bultmann the forgiveness of sins is not a juridical concept but 'freedom to obey'. Schniewind argues that he has once again reversed the New Testament conception: 'Once more the argument should surely be reversed. The primary consideration is God and his coming judgment. It is our encounter with that judgment which betokens our sentence of death. But our acquittal is Christ himself. In the passage quoted by Bultmann (2 Cor. 5:17) the emphasis lies on the words "in Christ". The real meaning of eschatological existence and of the renewal of man is discernible only in the light of the revelation of God in Christ. We have no other means of discovering the meaning of those things. If we had, all God would be doing in revealing himself would be helping us to achieve eschatological existence and the renewal of our being. But the truth is, it is only our encounter with God in Christ which shows us what these things really are. Without that encounter, eschatological existence is misconstrued as the absolute timelessness of the mystics and the renewal of man as moral uplift. And there is a further difficulty. It looks as though for Bultmann the forgiveness of sins does not show its true character until it has produced freedom, from sin and consequent obedience to the imperative. If that were so, the forgiveness of sin would only be a means to an end, and the end would be the ethical renewal of man. This is to place a higher premium on the imperative "thou shalt" than on the indicative "thou art".' (pp. 57-8)
IV A
Schniewind believes the central message of the cross is unmythological and involves personal relationship with Christ. [He does not mention the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.] He appears to deny substitution: 'There is not a word here about the balancing of an account, or of wrath and punishment as burdens which Jesus took upon himself. The real meaning is that he entered into our deprivation from God, although he was himself the Son of God, the One "in whom God acts in a unique and final present", "true God and eternal life".' The New Testament contains 'pictoral' depiction of the effect of the cross and Christ's intercession for us, but it discretely knows that these are limited analogy.
In contrast, Bultmann has reduced "the crucifixion of our passions" to "no more than a striking euphemism for self-mastery" (p. 65) - "no more than the ordinary acceptance of suffering" (p. 66).
IV B
Bultmann does not believe that the meaning of the cross lies primarily in a past historical event (e.g. ~33AD). Rather the cross occurs beyond the bounds of time as an eschatological event and so an ever present reality. 'It is at this point that the significance of the cross is to be apprehended -- in the concreteness of our human life as historical. Everything Bultmann says about the cross is located not at Calvary but in our human experience. Of a unique event wrought out in the personal relationship between God and men on the stage of history, of a story of the dealings of God with man, of a unique and final revelation of God in Christ crucified (cp. Rom. 3:25; 2 Cor. 5:18), there is never so much as a word.'
[We might say, the cross comes to perform the 'function' of the intercession of the ascended, risen Christ.]
Four points.
1. The above ignores the witness of the New Testament - although Bultmann would probably say 'demythologizes it'.
2. The gospel documents themselves are barely mentioned by Bultmann (with the exception of John) - why? In Mark and Acts, Christ's death and resurrection functions as an historical event and only so as an event of theological significance. Are these Gospels not part of 'the word of the Church'?
3. Nor must we split the Gospels from the Epistles. Bultmann himself pioneered work in identifying the law and eschatology as key unifying elements.
4.Jesus is Lord as the Messiah. This caused the Jewish objection which the apologists engaged with. Bultmann wishes to preserve the scandalon of the cross, but to remove Christ from his basis in the lived history of the first century Palestine is to lose a key element in our continuity with the earliest tradition. The claim of the credibility of the witness is part of the kerygma. (p. 69)
V
Schniewind circles in on Bultmann's suggestion that the Easter event the beginning of the disciples' faith in the resurrection. [If they had faith in the resurrection, what do we have faith in?]
He agrees with Bultmann that "Christ meets us in the preaching as One crucified and risen. He meets us in the preaching and nowhere else. The faith of Easter is just this -- faith in the word of preaching." (p. 70) And he understands this to mean that we have no access to the resurrection except through the witness of the apostles.
Schniewind is concerned, however, for the uniqueness and finality of the Easter event. The fact that we are dependent on the witness of the apostles' does not change the fact that are Christ's resurrection was the unique event which the disciples witnessed.
Bultmann's 'eschatological event' seems to mean little more than belief in an invisible world. 'If so, what is the difference between it and any other belief in transcendental reality or immortal life? In that case the question remains why the events of the cross and resurrection were necessary for such an eschatological attitude. Do not Bultmann’s disregard of the uniqueness and finality of Jesus and his interpretation of the event of Christ in terms of "historic-personal existence" betray him into reducing the Christological events to the level of symbols or stimuli?' (p. 74)
'Can we hold fast to this kerygma of a unique and final revelation while at the same time avoiding the Scylla of historicism and the Charybdis of a symbolic Christology?' (p.75)
VI A
For Bultmann, what does 'eschatology' and 'history' mean? Eschatological existence is in effect the life of the believer, detached from this world reliant on God for security (p. 76).
'"Historic" existence is contrasted with "nature". Nature is the sphere of the demonstrable and calculable, the realm of causality. "Historic" being, on the other hand, is realized in decision and resolve. Nature, we may add, is always consistent, and is therefore patient of experimental research. History, on the other hand, is characterized by the Either/Or, and therefore bears the stamp of uniqueness, contingency, and spontaneity.' (p. 76)
'We may perhaps interpret this somewhat as follows. Life in faith means life based on realities beyond our control. Such a life is realized in decision and resolve, which has to be continually renewed in response to the word or kerygma of the Church. This word is not susceptible to logical proof, but when proclaimed it becomes an event. Is this a fair interpretation of Bultmann’s position? If it is, there is no need for the kerygma to contain anything specifically Christian, no need for it to be riveted firmly to the Man Jesus of Nazareth. Cross and resurrection, in so far as they have a place in the kerygma at all, figure only as symbols of detachment from the world. The suspicions we raised under the two preceding theses would seem to be abundantly justified.' (p. 76)
Bultmann is anxious to assert that this concrete and historical event is only the event of salvation when it is an eschatological event and thus when it 'becomes visible in the word of preaching which is based on that event and brings it to fruition'. (p. 77)
The events of AD1-30 have not present 'existential reality' viewed as 'mere past history'. 'The paradox of the Christian Gospel is just this -- those events are present realities although they belong to past history.' (Bultmann p. 77)
Schniewind is once again concerned for the 'once-for-allness' of the New Testament. He feels Bultmann has lost the character of eschatology as a time of judgement. Christ's resurrection reveals the sentence pronounced ahead of time. We live in a period of the overlapping of ages.
[I'm pretty sure a better appreciation of existential categories would be helpful here. My suspicion is that Bultmann is stuck in these categories, the exclusion of traditional metaphysics. One wonders if he has any way of saying that God 'exists'? Presumably God exists as he makes an eternal decision 'for us'? My point is that the only reality he feels comfortable talking of seems to be human reality described in existential categories. All the rest, at least that which purports to be descriptive of transcendent reality ... is just mythology. Somebody turn the light on, please.]
VI B
'History'
'Past history is for him something dead and done with, something which does not vitally affect us, something which exists only in the memory, which is dependent on tradition and all its hazards, and which is therefore subject to criticism and essentially relative. The antithesis to Historie is the present, that which affects us vitally, the eschatological, the eternally present, the eternal "now"' (p. 81).
1.
Schniewind is having none of this elevation of the 'present'! 'It is doubtful whether we can speak of "now" in any legitimate sense at all. To say that timelessness is the axiomatic hinterground of time is pure speculation, so is the identification of this timelessness with the present or with eternity. All that the human mind can perceive is the relativity of our concept of time as such.'
[We do not have to be able to affirm or deny what Schniewind is saying to realise how much philosophical weight these terms are carrying in Bultmann's demythologizing.]
[I agree with Schniewind that it is invalid to identify 'eschatological' with 'present'. Even in John's Gospel, it is only the framework of a final judgement which gives such drama to Jesus' claims of present realisation. Yes, it is true that the believer in Christ experiences the eschatological judgement favourably in the present [I think, if we go with Luther, which I would like to. However, even after a couple of years of study I still feel unease about 'righteousness' and 'justification'], but the believer remains in this world and still awaits Christ's return.]
Schniewind asserts a tension between the present and the "historic" (Geschictlich) (p. 82). 'Bultmann’s definition of the "historic" in terms of decision and encounter actually demands a linear conception of time. Every decision means a dividing, a choosing: B follows A. Each event is connected with other events before and after.'
2.
Historie and Geschichte. 'Geschichte means the mutual encounter of persons, Historie the causal nexus in the affairs of men. The latter is the subject matter of historical science, which seeks to divest itself of all presuppositions and prejudices and to establish objective facts. Geschichte, on the other hand, cannot achieve such impartiality, for the encounter which it implies vitally affects our personal existence: it demands resolve and decision, yes or no, love or hate.( The antithesis to "objective" in this context is not "subjective" but "personal", and it would he better to speak of "neutral" than of "objective.")' (p. 82)
'If this be so, it is impossible to run away from Historie to Geschichte. We cannot reject Historie because it is not vitally present for us and accept Geschichte because it is. It is impossible to escape from the relativity of past history. That relativity is not simply due to the limitations which affect history like any other science, nor yet to our dependence on the art of the historian and his capabilities for the reproduction of the past; it is the necessary consequence of man’s creatureliness. We are all inescapably enmeshed in the toils of causality. Our personal relationship with our fellow men involves us also in the relativity of-each successive moment. Every personal encounter is open to ambiguity and misconstruction, yet this very relativity provides the material for the uniquenesses, the events and decisions of Geschichte.'
[Yes, this is true. But is this denying fundamentals of existentialism? If so, I guess Bultmann won't be too happy.]
3.
'It is just here that the scandalon lies -- one who is a legitimate subject for historical research, with all its uncertainties and inferences, is nevertheless the unique and ultimate revelation of God.' (p. 84)
'Historical research may well lead to historic encounter. But the historian can never prove that this is the unique and ultimate encounter with God, even though he cannot ignore the possibility that it is so.' (p. 85)
'The closed world view of modern science, both in physics and in psychology, leaves no room for a unique historical event with an eschatological -- i.e. final and absolute -- significance.'
VIII
Schniewind basically denies Bultmann's positions on the incompatibility of the modern and scientific mind set with belief in the end of time, the intercession of Christ for us (see above) and Spirit(s). His treatment of the Devil is interesting. He simply asserts that 'belief in such powers per se is no more affected by scientific knowledge than belief in God himself' and that the rejuvenation of an understanding of the New Testament's daemonology is 'is all the more profound since our view of man and the world is less optimistic than it was'. (p. 93)
'The starting-point for a right understanding of eschatology is the words and deeds of Jesus. Eschatology is neither a mythological picture of the end of the world nor a mythological expression of the idea of timelessness, but the message of the age to come. In the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth that age has become a present reality. What eschatological existence and authentic Being really are can only be interpreted aright in the light of Jesus of Nazareth. Only in him, in his cross, is the wretchedness of man made fully apparent. Only in him, in his victory, are Satan and the evil spirits really intelligible and not just an obscure piece of mythology. The signature of Jesus is the cross, and the cross is totalis derelictio, his complete desertion by God.' (pp. 99-8)
The modern preacher 'must not in deference to modern man make light of those elements in the kerygma which modern man is likely to regard as myth, for the simple reason that every attempt to preach Christ God is bound to seem myth to him.' (p. 100)
'The proclamation will never escape the charge of myth. This possibility is part of its scandalon. But where it is rightly understood it is seen at once to be the answer to thc question posed by myth. When late Jewish eschatology asked about the future judgment and the world to come, its question was a legitimate one. The answer is the crucified and risen Lord, an answer which at the same time means the judgment of the Jewish hope, which sought to evade the judgment by pictorial elaboration and by rites of consecration.' (p. 99)
An online version here.
I
Introduction
Bultmann is not liberal. He is interested in 'the once-for-allness of the deed, the revelation of God in Christ'. [Note: 'revelation' is God's act of salvation and not an act in which humans are ontologically changed by something outside of themselves. Christ is not an exemplum ... or is he, in effect, only that?]
The Fall of Adam serves to explain the 'why' of every actual sin (p. 46).
Luther himself bemoaned naive literalism in preaching: 'Even Luther poured scorn on such literalism: "Oh, that heaven of the charlatans, with its golden stool and Christ sitting at the Father’s side vested in a choir cope and a golden crown, as the painters love to portray him." (W.A., XXIII, p. 131.)'
Schniewind states that any preacher worth his salt is prepared to 'paraphrase, translate and change terminology' in order to 'speak the Word of God to the concrete situation of the hearers' (p. 47). But what if the New Testament speaks in myth. How are we to deal with that? Demythologising is not simply a translation - and might this then affect the substance of what is said?
II
A.
Schniewind's definition of mythology differs from Bultmann's: 'By "mythological" we mean the expression of unobservable realities in terms of observable phenomena. It is doubtful whether the human mind can ever dispense with myth. Every attempt to escape from mythology leads either to nihilism or to the question whether the invisible has in fact become visible, and if so, where? The Christian answer is, in W. Herrmann’s phrase, "God is Jesus" (Col. 1:15; John 14:9). Bultmann would agree in principle.'
[The above would appear to say that all talk of God is mythological by definition. Is this true? Depends on your definition of myth!]
Schniewind question's whether Bultmann's existentialist language is mythological. What do "authentic", "symbol", "totality" and "source" refer to?
He then turns to the Incarnation as the supreme example of the transcendent becoming earthly. Col. 1:15: "He is the image of the invisible God". He quotes W. Herrmann: "It is wrong to say that Jesus is God, for that implies that we already know what God is. It implies that Jesus is merely a theios, a divine being. We really ought to say that God is Jesus. Jesus is the very presence of God, the divine being himself."
Schniewind complains that Bultmann has not been definite enough about this when he used such phrases as "God's eschatological emissary" and "the agent of God's presence and activity".
That the psychikos anthropos finds it impossible to accept the faith of Christians is no new phenomenon.
"After all, is not the Christian claim that the eternal God has come to us in an individual man with all the limitations of time and space essentially mythological in character - i.e., does it not speak of the eternal as if it were involved in time and space, and of the invisible as if it were visible?" (p. 52)
[Schniewind has 'upped the ante'. He has claimed that the central event of Christianity which Bultmann himself holds dear is mythological in character. This last quote is interesting: "as if it were" - this is an odd way of putting it. Is he not involved, actually, in time and space?]
[One further point. Has Schniewind changed Bultmann's definition of mythology? And, to concentrate on the incarnation is fine. What about divine providence and Bultmann's worry concerning the interaction between 'the spirit world' and this outside of the Incarnation?]
B.
Any 'act of God' or the concept of sin will appear mythological to modern man. Humans are 'fallen away' from God and are in rebellion and under God's wrath, but none of these concepts make sense philosophically apart from Christ and the Bible. Likewise, we only know the depth of humanity's hubris in the light of the Cross.
Even if sin is a universally understandable concept "Man's radical self-assertion blinds him" to its fact. "Hence it is no good telling that him he is a sinner. He will only dismiss it as mythology." (p. 31, 54) Schniewind points out this equally applies to faith in Christ.
Has Bultmann missed the radical answer to this questions which exists itself in the New Testament - God in Christ?
[What Bultmann has done is demythologised and remythologised. This is a good criticism and all well and good. However, we are still left with the question as to what apocalyptic language, for instance, refers to. We may be uneasy with taking the language literally - but what else is it saying? What are we to do with this language? I assume here that the demythologised political readings of G. B. Caird and N. T. Wright doesn't take us very far.]
III
Schniewind points out twice that Bultmann has made 'the God of Christian revelation the answer to questions which have been raised within the framework of atheism'.
The first criticism is over the forgiveness of sins. Bultmann defines man's problems using the existential framework. So, faith is the "the freedom of man from himself ... openness for the future ... Such faith is still a subtle form of self-assertion so long as the love of God is still a piece of wishful thinking (p. 32)". Christ is then presented as the solution to our problem of self-assertion.
In response, Schniewind states, "But surely, in justice to the New Testament, the whole argument ought to be reversed. It is because and in so far as we have become the objects of God’s love that we are freed from our past and open for God’s future. Because we are loved by God, our old man, our "adamite existence" as Schlatter called it, our old life in rebellion against God and cut off from fellowship with him, has been delivered over to death. "The old things are passed away" (2 Cor. 5:17). The "old things" in question are our past qualified as enmity to God, not the past in a merely chronological sense, the structure of our Being in time. It means our bondage to this present evil age, to a period of time which is moving towards the day of judgment."
[And yes, Schniewind believes in a coming, literal, Day of Judgement, without taking the mythological language of the New Testament in a literal way. "In other words, the mythological pictures of the day of judgment are simply signposts to the truth. God either rejects us (wrath) or accepts us (righteousness). This takes place at the last day -- that is, when our present time series and the world in which we are enchained have come to an end." (p. 56)]
Secondly, for Bultmann the forgiveness of sins is not a juridical concept but 'freedom to obey'. Schniewind argues that he has once again reversed the New Testament conception: 'Once more the argument should surely be reversed. The primary consideration is God and his coming judgment. It is our encounter with that judgment which betokens our sentence of death. But our acquittal is Christ himself. In the passage quoted by Bultmann (2 Cor. 5:17) the emphasis lies on the words "in Christ". The real meaning of eschatological existence and of the renewal of man is discernible only in the light of the revelation of God in Christ. We have no other means of discovering the meaning of those things. If we had, all God would be doing in revealing himself would be helping us to achieve eschatological existence and the renewal of our being. But the truth is, it is only our encounter with God in Christ which shows us what these things really are. Without that encounter, eschatological existence is misconstrued as the absolute timelessness of the mystics and the renewal of man as moral uplift. And there is a further difficulty. It looks as though for Bultmann the forgiveness of sins does not show its true character until it has produced freedom, from sin and consequent obedience to the imperative. If that were so, the forgiveness of sin would only be a means to an end, and the end would be the ethical renewal of man. This is to place a higher premium on the imperative "thou shalt" than on the indicative "thou art".' (pp. 57-8)
IV A
Schniewind believes the central message of the cross is unmythological and involves personal relationship with Christ. [He does not mention the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.] He appears to deny substitution: 'There is not a word here about the balancing of an account, or of wrath and punishment as burdens which Jesus took upon himself. The real meaning is that he entered into our deprivation from God, although he was himself the Son of God, the One "in whom God acts in a unique and final present", "true God and eternal life".' The New Testament contains 'pictoral' depiction of the effect of the cross and Christ's intercession for us, but it discretely knows that these are limited analogy.
In contrast, Bultmann has reduced "the crucifixion of our passions" to "no more than a striking euphemism for self-mastery" (p. 65) - "no more than the ordinary acceptance of suffering" (p. 66).
IV B
Bultmann does not believe that the meaning of the cross lies primarily in a past historical event (e.g. ~33AD). Rather the cross occurs beyond the bounds of time as an eschatological event and so an ever present reality. 'It is at this point that the significance of the cross is to be apprehended -- in the concreteness of our human life as historical. Everything Bultmann says about the cross is located not at Calvary but in our human experience. Of a unique event wrought out in the personal relationship between God and men on the stage of history, of a story of the dealings of God with man, of a unique and final revelation of God in Christ crucified (cp. Rom. 3:25; 2 Cor. 5:18), there is never so much as a word.'
[We might say, the cross comes to perform the 'function' of the intercession of the ascended, risen Christ.]
Four points.
1. The above ignores the witness of the New Testament - although Bultmann would probably say 'demythologizes it'.
2. The gospel documents themselves are barely mentioned by Bultmann (with the exception of John) - why? In Mark and Acts, Christ's death and resurrection functions as an historical event and only so as an event of theological significance. Are these Gospels not part of 'the word of the Church'?
3. Nor must we split the Gospels from the Epistles. Bultmann himself pioneered work in identifying the law and eschatology as key unifying elements.
4.Jesus is Lord as the Messiah. This caused the Jewish objection which the apologists engaged with. Bultmann wishes to preserve the scandalon of the cross, but to remove Christ from his basis in the lived history of the first century Palestine is to lose a key element in our continuity with the earliest tradition. The claim of the credibility of the witness is part of the kerygma. (p. 69)
V
Schniewind circles in on Bultmann's suggestion that the Easter event the beginning of the disciples' faith in the resurrection. [If they had faith in the resurrection, what do we have faith in?]
He agrees with Bultmann that "Christ meets us in the preaching as One crucified and risen. He meets us in the preaching and nowhere else. The faith of Easter is just this -- faith in the word of preaching." (p. 70) And he understands this to mean that we have no access to the resurrection except through the witness of the apostles.
Schniewind is concerned, however, for the uniqueness and finality of the Easter event. The fact that we are dependent on the witness of the apostles' does not change the fact that are Christ's resurrection was the unique event which the disciples witnessed.
Bultmann's 'eschatological event' seems to mean little more than belief in an invisible world. 'If so, what is the difference between it and any other belief in transcendental reality or immortal life? In that case the question remains why the events of the cross and resurrection were necessary for such an eschatological attitude. Do not Bultmann’s disregard of the uniqueness and finality of Jesus and his interpretation of the event of Christ in terms of "historic-personal existence" betray him into reducing the Christological events to the level of symbols or stimuli?' (p. 74)
'Can we hold fast to this kerygma of a unique and final revelation while at the same time avoiding the Scylla of historicism and the Charybdis of a symbolic Christology?' (p.75)
VI A
For Bultmann, what does 'eschatology' and 'history' mean? Eschatological existence is in effect the life of the believer, detached from this world reliant on God for security (p. 76).
'"Historic" existence is contrasted with "nature". Nature is the sphere of the demonstrable and calculable, the realm of causality. "Historic" being, on the other hand, is realized in decision and resolve. Nature, we may add, is always consistent, and is therefore patient of experimental research. History, on the other hand, is characterized by the Either/Or, and therefore bears the stamp of uniqueness, contingency, and spontaneity.' (p. 76)
'We may perhaps interpret this somewhat as follows. Life in faith means life based on realities beyond our control. Such a life is realized in decision and resolve, which has to be continually renewed in response to the word or kerygma of the Church. This word is not susceptible to logical proof, but when proclaimed it becomes an event. Is this a fair interpretation of Bultmann’s position? If it is, there is no need for the kerygma to contain anything specifically Christian, no need for it to be riveted firmly to the Man Jesus of Nazareth. Cross and resurrection, in so far as they have a place in the kerygma at all, figure only as symbols of detachment from the world. The suspicions we raised under the two preceding theses would seem to be abundantly justified.' (p. 76)
Bultmann is anxious to assert that this concrete and historical event is only the event of salvation when it is an eschatological event and thus when it 'becomes visible in the word of preaching which is based on that event and brings it to fruition'. (p. 77)
The events of AD1-30 have not present 'existential reality' viewed as 'mere past history'. 'The paradox of the Christian Gospel is just this -- those events are present realities although they belong to past history.' (Bultmann p. 77)
Schniewind is once again concerned for the 'once-for-allness' of the New Testament. He feels Bultmann has lost the character of eschatology as a time of judgement. Christ's resurrection reveals the sentence pronounced ahead of time. We live in a period of the overlapping of ages.
[I'm pretty sure a better appreciation of existential categories would be helpful here. My suspicion is that Bultmann is stuck in these categories, the exclusion of traditional metaphysics. One wonders if he has any way of saying that God 'exists'? Presumably God exists as he makes an eternal decision 'for us'? My point is that the only reality he feels comfortable talking of seems to be human reality described in existential categories. All the rest, at least that which purports to be descriptive of transcendent reality ... is just mythology. Somebody turn the light on, please.]
VI B
'History'
'Past history is for him something dead and done with, something which does not vitally affect us, something which exists only in the memory, which is dependent on tradition and all its hazards, and which is therefore subject to criticism and essentially relative. The antithesis to Historie is the present, that which affects us vitally, the eschatological, the eternally present, the eternal "now"' (p. 81).
1.
Schniewind is having none of this elevation of the 'present'! 'It is doubtful whether we can speak of "now" in any legitimate sense at all. To say that timelessness is the axiomatic hinterground of time is pure speculation, so is the identification of this timelessness with the present or with eternity. All that the human mind can perceive is the relativity of our concept of time as such.'
[We do not have to be able to affirm or deny what Schniewind is saying to realise how much philosophical weight these terms are carrying in Bultmann's demythologizing.]
[I agree with Schniewind that it is invalid to identify 'eschatological' with 'present'. Even in John's Gospel, it is only the framework of a final judgement which gives such drama to Jesus' claims of present realisation. Yes, it is true that the believer in Christ experiences the eschatological judgement favourably in the present [I think, if we go with Luther, which I would like to. However, even after a couple of years of study I still feel unease about 'righteousness' and 'justification'], but the believer remains in this world and still awaits Christ's return.]
Schniewind asserts a tension between the present and the "historic" (Geschictlich) (p. 82). 'Bultmann’s definition of the "historic" in terms of decision and encounter actually demands a linear conception of time. Every decision means a dividing, a choosing: B follows A. Each event is connected with other events before and after.'
2.
Historie and Geschichte. 'Geschichte means the mutual encounter of persons, Historie the causal nexus in the affairs of men. The latter is the subject matter of historical science, which seeks to divest itself of all presuppositions and prejudices and to establish objective facts. Geschichte, on the other hand, cannot achieve such impartiality, for the encounter which it implies vitally affects our personal existence: it demands resolve and decision, yes or no, love or hate.( The antithesis to "objective" in this context is not "subjective" but "personal", and it would he better to speak of "neutral" than of "objective.")' (p. 82)
'If this be so, it is impossible to run away from Historie to Geschichte. We cannot reject Historie because it is not vitally present for us and accept Geschichte because it is. It is impossible to escape from the relativity of past history. That relativity is not simply due to the limitations which affect history like any other science, nor yet to our dependence on the art of the historian and his capabilities for the reproduction of the past; it is the necessary consequence of man’s creatureliness. We are all inescapably enmeshed in the toils of causality. Our personal relationship with our fellow men involves us also in the relativity of-each successive moment. Every personal encounter is open to ambiguity and misconstruction, yet this very relativity provides the material for the uniquenesses, the events and decisions of Geschichte.'
[Yes, this is true. But is this denying fundamentals of existentialism? If so, I guess Bultmann won't be too happy.]
3.
'It is just here that the scandalon lies -- one who is a legitimate subject for historical research, with all its uncertainties and inferences, is nevertheless the unique and ultimate revelation of God.' (p. 84)
'Historical research may well lead to historic encounter. But the historian can never prove that this is the unique and ultimate encounter with God, even though he cannot ignore the possibility that it is so.' (p. 85)
'The closed world view of modern science, both in physics and in psychology, leaves no room for a unique historical event with an eschatological -- i.e. final and absolute -- significance.'
VIII
Schniewind basically denies Bultmann's positions on the incompatibility of the modern and scientific mind set with belief in the end of time, the intercession of Christ for us (see above) and Spirit(s). His treatment of the Devil is interesting. He simply asserts that 'belief in such powers per se is no more affected by scientific knowledge than belief in God himself' and that the rejuvenation of an understanding of the New Testament's daemonology is 'is all the more profound since our view of man and the world is less optimistic than it was'. (p. 93)
'The starting-point for a right understanding of eschatology is the words and deeds of Jesus. Eschatology is neither a mythological picture of the end of the world nor a mythological expression of the idea of timelessness, but the message of the age to come. In the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth that age has become a present reality. What eschatological existence and authentic Being really are can only be interpreted aright in the light of Jesus of Nazareth. Only in him, in his cross, is the wretchedness of man made fully apparent. Only in him, in his victory, are Satan and the evil spirits really intelligible and not just an obscure piece of mythology. The signature of Jesus is the cross, and the cross is totalis derelictio, his complete desertion by God.' (pp. 99-8)
The modern preacher 'must not in deference to modern man make light of those elements in the kerygma which modern man is likely to regard as myth, for the simple reason that every attempt to preach Christ God is bound to seem myth to him.' (p. 100)
'The proclamation will never escape the charge of myth. This possibility is part of its scandalon. But where it is rightly understood it is seen at once to be the answer to thc question posed by myth. When late Jewish eschatology asked about the future judgment and the world to come, its question was a legitimate one. The answer is the crucified and risen Lord, an answer which at the same time means the judgment of the Jewish hope, which sought to evade the judgment by pictorial elaboration and by rites of consecration.' (p. 99)
Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Maybe Bultmann had a point!
This dates from 1522 - Erasmus' commentary on Psalm 2. See the sentence beginning the third line down ... Click Here.
Tuesday, February 21, 2006
Kerygma and Myth 2
Rudolf Bultmann, 'New Testament and Mythology', in Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, ed. by Hans-Werner Bartsch, trans. by Reginald H. Fuller, (London: S.P.C.K.,1972). pp. 17-44.
An online version here.
II Demythologizing in Outline
A. The Christian Interpretation of Being
1. Human Existence apart from Faith
The primary anthropological duality in the New Testament is not between spirit/soul and body. "This world" refers not to the physical but creation in rebellion to God. Death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23) and not a corollary of physicality. The universality of sin is seen as the result of Adam's sin, but this stands in contradiction to the individual responsibility expressed in Paul's "for that all sinned" (Rom. 5:23).
Bultmann moves on to sarx (Rom. 8:13) which appears to be related to "this world" although he does not specify the relationship. 'For "flesh" embraces not only the material things of life, but all human creation and achievement pursued for the sake of some tangible reward, such as for example the fulfilling of the law (Gal. 3:3). It includes every passive quality, and every advantage a man can have, in the sphere of visible, tangible reality (Phil. 3:4ff.).'
"The natural man" seeks his security in the things of this world which are by definition ephemeral and part of "this world" in revolt against God. 'Man' therefore becomes a prisoner and a slave of corruption and he is dominated by the "powers of this world". Indeed it is in this process that they acquire "the character of mythical entities".
The Life of Faith
The 'authentic life' then, the life in or after the Spirit, means a life reliant on unseen and intangible realities. Forgiveness of sins leads to release from the past and openness to God's providential care in the future. This is not asceticism but a distancing of oneself from the world. And this life is true eschatological existence, shorn of the mythological garb of Jewish Apocalyptic and Gnosticism. We see this conception in the way the fourth gospel removes the imminent cosmic event and talks of a summons to believe in the present. This freedom is not a libertarian Gnosticism because the decision for faith must be renewed 'in every fresh situation'. There can be no proof of one's relation to the Spirit in the sense 'psychic phenomena'. Paul himself became wary of such things in his dealings with the Corinthians and 'the New Testament knows no phenomena in which transcendent realities become immanent possessions'.
'The Spirit does not work like a supernatural force, nor is it the permanent possession of the believer. It is the possibility of a new life which must be appropriated by a deliberate resolve. Hence St. Paul’s paradoxical injunction: "If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk." (Gal. 5:25). "Being led by the Spirit" (Rom. 8:14) is not an automatic process of nature, but the fulfillment of an imperative: "live after the Spirit, not after the flesh". Imperative and indicative are inseparable. The possession of the Spirit never renders decision superfluous. "I say, Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Thus the concept "Spirit" has been emancipated from mythology.' (p. 22)
The fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) show how faith, in detaching one from 'this world', can enable true community to flourish.
B The Event of Redemption
1. Christian Self-Understanding without Christ?
Bultmann worries that an existentialist philosophy is not necessarily christocentric. The problem here is of a rationalised existentialist Christology of universal validity loses 'rigid and exclusive reference to the person of Jesus' (p. 24). If the New Testament is necessary it is only as a precursor to existentialism via Luther and Kierkegaard. Bultmann agrees that existentialism and Christianity calls individuals to 'be what you are!' but that the New Testament speaks only so to believers. Man apart from Christ is in a state of despair.
Our understanding of the Fall is crucial. 'Philosophy' presumes that humans need only be shown their plight to escape it. The New Testament is less optimistic and Paul's claims that 'every impulse of man is the impulse of a fallen being' and that a fallen human inevitably seeks self-glorying and self-assertion in an attempt to control their own destiny. These acts are sin (p. 30, 1 Cor. 1:29). 'If the authentic life of man is one of self-commitment, then that life is missed not only by the blatantly self-assertive but also by those who try to achieve self-commitment by their own efforts. They fail to see that self-commitment can be received only as a gift from God.' (p. 29) 'Self-commitment' here is term from Kamlah which Bultmann understands to mean 'surrender to the universal reality', the antithesis of autonomy. The Fall then has at least a noetic effect in that humans are unable to understand God and their plight without revelation.
Here follows something of a problem. 'Self-assertion is guilt only if it can be understood as ingratitude'. Therefore the individual must be able to be aware of their existence as a gift from God. But if one is aware, is one blind? John 9 appears to be in the background here. 'Man’s radical self-assertion then blinds him to the fact of sin, and this is the clearest proof that he is a fallen being.' (p. 31)
In Paul's language of the expiation of sin and righteousness as a gift from God we see the cutting of ties with the past and the opening up of a free future. Forgiveness of sins is therefore not the remission of punishment, because this would not solve the problem of the individual's present life. Instead it refers to a freedom to obey in a new eschatological existence (p. 32).
'The event of Jesus Christ is therefore the revelation of the love of God.' (p. 32) This revelation makes man free from himself, free to be his new self, free to obey in faith and love. Faith here cannot be faith in an abstract concept of the love of God, as that would lead to self-assertion again - a form of wish-fulfillment. 'Only those who are loved are capable of loving.' The event of Christ must therefore be a concrete expression of the love of God for an individual in response to which the individual can do nothing but receive and thus be transformed.
'Here then is the crucial distinction between the New Testament and existentialism, between the Christian faith and the natural understanding of Being. The New Testament speaks and faith knows of an act of God through which man becomes capable of self-commitment, capable of faith and love, of his authentic life.' (p. 33)
2. The Event of Jesus Christ
Bultmann is concerned that to speak of any act of God is mythological language. He thus turns to this expression of love which makes authentic existence possible and asks if it is essentially a mythical event.
(a) The Demythologizing of the Event of Jesus Christ
Essentially the same pattern of interpretation occurs here as before. The New Testament does describe 'the event of Jesus Christ' in mythical terms but also demands a restatement of this event in non-mythological terms.
Christ's life is portrayed as a mixture of the historical and the mythical (p. 34). These two perspectives clash. So he argues, not particularly persuasively, that they Virgin birth accounts are 'difficult to reconcile' with Paul and John's understanding of preexistence. A number of apparently related perspectives in tension are provided which contrast Christ's exalted and humbled states. So, for instance, the 'historical event of the crucifixion' is set side-by-side with 'the definitely non-historical event of the resurrection'. Bultmann believes himself compelled to ask whether all this mythological language is just an attempt to express the meaning of the historical figure of Jesus as 'an event of salvation' (p. 35). If so, then we can dispense with mythology and hold to the content.
For Bultmann, pre-existence and the Virgin birth are 'clearly attempts to explain the meaning of the Person of Jesus for faith'. 'Our interest in the events of his life, and above all in the cross, is more than an academic concern with the history of the past. We can see meaning in them only when we ask what God is trying to say to each one of us through them.' (p. 35) [There is a strange mixture of desire for concrete event, but lack of interest in events which are peripheral to the saving event of the cross and the resurrection. Perhaps this is always necessary. For Bultmann it is because mythology' is simply unacceptable. He has yet to set out his mythological account of Christ's resurrection. I feel led here to wonder what is really so incredible when we are considering the Creator entering Creation - is it that too mythological?]
(b) The Cross
We turn now to the cross, the crux of the event of redemption which must be concrete and historical in order to illicit our love, and ask whether we can conceive of it as historical or whether it is too closely bound to mythology.
Most biblical language with regard to the cross and the atonement gets short-shrift. The idea of a pre-existent Son of God who dies for sin of the world and thus cancels the penalty of death - 'a mixture of sacrificial and juridical analogies' - 'has ceased to be tenable for us to-day' (p. 35).
Bultmann believes the New Testament has more to say than this, especially with regard to the deliverance of humans from the power of sin. The cross becomes the judgement of ourselves as fallen creatures, because it is the defeat of the powers of this world which is really a reference to the defeat of ourselves.
The cross is not a mythical event wrought outside of ourselves, but is an objective event which God has turned to our advantage - in which we participate. The eschatological language conveys the cross's revolutionary significance 'in and beyond time' for faith.
The sacraments make the cross a present reality - their primary purpose is to elicit faith by demonstrating the cross. The cross is present in the life of believers as they experience their worldly desires crucified (Gal. 5:24). Col. 1:24 expresses the relation of the cross to present reality - Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Church".
"The preaching of the cross as the event of redemption challenges all who hear it to appropriate this significance for themselves, to be willing to be crucified with Christ." (p. 37)
[What remains mystifying at this point is the relationship between the cross and the believer. How can Bultmann conceive of the judgement of the cross as the judgement of man?]
Bultmann concludes this section with a few remarks as to how one is to comprehend the cross and so apprehend it through faith. The first believers were personally connected to Christ and they knew the cross before the resurrection. We are not in this position and cannot appropriate the cross through historical study. The New Testament however proclaims Christ as resurrected and only in understanding Christ thus can we approach the cross.
(c) The Resurrection
Bultmann poses the question as to whether the Resurrection is simply a mythological attempt to explain the significance of the cross.
The Cross and the Resurrection do form a unity in the New Testament, so that judgement and new hope are proclaimed at the same moment. As such, the Resurrection is no mere miraculous proof of the significance of the cross, even if parts of the New Testament may seem to suggest this (Acts 17:31) - it is part of the redemptive act (p. 39). Bultmann considers all such physical language as misguided, including Lk. 24:39-43 and 1 Cor. 15:3-8, because one 'cannot establish one article of faith by invoking another' (p. 40). This is the primary problem, irrespective of the problems of believing the reports of the apprehension by the physical senses of Christ's physical resurrection or the 'the impossibility of establishing the objective historicity of the resurrection no matter how many witnesses are cited, as though once it was established it might be believed beyond all question and faith might have its unimpeachable guarantee.'
Bultmann turns to Romans 6 to demonstrate believers participation in both Christ's death and resurrection. [Although this particular identification of believers with resurrection in the present is thought by many scholars today to be difficult given Paul's negative theology concerning realized eschatology in 1 Corinthians. This particular issue is also often cited as a reason for considering Ephesians deutero-pauline.] The Christian life is therefore understood to be Resurrection life (Phil. 3:10). [Once again one might ask whether this power is to understood as presently experienced or a future hope. However, if the language was future Bultmann would no doubt demythologize it. :)]
How then do we come to believe in this cross and resurrection of saving efficacy (p. 41)? "There is only one answer. This is the way in which the cross is proclaimed. It is always proclaimed together with the resurrection. Christ meets us in the preaching as one crucified and risen. He meets us in the word of preaching and nowhere else. The faith of Easter is just this -- faith in the word of preaching." [word, Word? This is a strange sentence. How can one have faith in the word of preaching? All Bultmann has said to date points one towards Christ crucified and risen. I suppose Bultmann is asserting that only in preaching can we know this figure - just a funny way of putting it. It seems to confuse message with medium(?!) or perhaps sign with thing signified.]
"The real Easter faith is faith in the word of preaching which brings illumination. If the event of Easter Day is in any sense an historical event additional to the event of the cross, it is nothing else than the risen of faith in the risen Lord, since it was this faith which led to the apostolic preaching. The resurrection itself is not an event of past history. All that historical criticism can establish is the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection. The historian can perhaps to some extent account for that faith from the personal intimacy which the disciples had enjoyed with Jesus during his earthly life, and so reduce the resurrection appearances to a series of subjective visions. But the historical problem is not of interest to Christian belief in the resurrection. For the historical event of the rise of the Easter faith means for us what it meant for the first disciples -- namely, the self-attestation of the risen Lord, the act of God in which the redemptive event of the cross is completed." (p. 42)
[What is going on with Bultmann's understanding of history?! Is he failing to distinguish between the results of historical criticism and objective past event? It is hard to imagine he is falling prey to any such naive mistake.]
[Resurrection here is 'the self-attestation of the risen Lord' - but this is self-referentially incoherent - how can resurrection be defined in terms of an action of the 'risen one'?!]
[What he is positing, I think, is that redemptive event of the cross is completed in the preaching and its effects on believers. In effect, Christ is raised 10,000 times - he is raised when one responds in faith and enters new life.]
'In other words, the apostolic preaching which originated in the event of Easter Day is itself a part of the eschatological event of redemption.'
We cannot look for proof in the resurrection to bolster our faith, because in doing so we are only turning to the faith of others - the first believers. [The empty tomb would appear not to be a matter of faith.]
Like the word and the preaching, the Church too is part of the eschatological event.
Conclusion
Some may claim that there is still much in the New Testament to be demythologized - particularly if it is insisted that talk of an act of God or an eschatological event must be mythological. 'For the redemption of which we have spoken is not a miraculous supernatural event, but an historical event wrought out in time and space.' (p. 43) [In our lives, in Christ's death.]
'For the kerygma maintains that the eschatological emissary of God is a concrete figure of a particular historical past, 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.'
'The agent of God’s presence and activity, the mediator of his reconciliation of the world unto himself, is a real figure of history. Similarly the word of God is not some mysterious oracle, but a sober, factual account of a human life, of Jesus of Nazareth, possessing saving efficacy for man. Of course the kerygma may be regarded as part of the story of man’s spiritual evolution and used as a basis for a tenable Weltanschauung. Yet this proclamation claims to be the eschatological word of God.'
'All these assertions are an offense, which will not be removed by philosophical discussion, but only by faith and obedience. All these are phenomena subject to historical, sociological and psychological observation, yet for faith they are all of them eschatological phenomena. It is precisely its immunity from proof which secures the Christian proclamation against the charge of being mythological. 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".'
[Christ's historical life, and ours, are where the transcendent and divine finds expression in this world for us.]
An online version here.
II Demythologizing in Outline
A. The Christian Interpretation of Being
1. Human Existence apart from Faith
The primary anthropological duality in the New Testament is not between spirit/soul and body. "This world" refers not to the physical but creation in rebellion to God. Death is the wages of sin (Rom. 6:23) and not a corollary of physicality. The universality of sin is seen as the result of Adam's sin, but this stands in contradiction to the individual responsibility expressed in Paul's "for that all sinned" (Rom. 5:23).
Bultmann moves on to sarx (Rom. 8:13) which appears to be related to "this world" although he does not specify the relationship. 'For "flesh" embraces not only the material things of life, but all human creation and achievement pursued for the sake of some tangible reward, such as for example the fulfilling of the law (Gal. 3:3). It includes every passive quality, and every advantage a man can have, in the sphere of visible, tangible reality (Phil. 3:4ff.).'
"The natural man" seeks his security in the things of this world which are by definition ephemeral and part of "this world" in revolt against God. 'Man' therefore becomes a prisoner and a slave of corruption and he is dominated by the "powers of this world". Indeed it is in this process that they acquire "the character of mythical entities".
The Life of Faith
The 'authentic life' then, the life in or after the Spirit, means a life reliant on unseen and intangible realities. Forgiveness of sins leads to release from the past and openness to God's providential care in the future. This is not asceticism but a distancing of oneself from the world. And this life is true eschatological existence, shorn of the mythological garb of Jewish Apocalyptic and Gnosticism. We see this conception in the way the fourth gospel removes the imminent cosmic event and talks of a summons to believe in the present. This freedom is not a libertarian Gnosticism because the decision for faith must be renewed 'in every fresh situation'. There can be no proof of one's relation to the Spirit in the sense 'psychic phenomena'. Paul himself became wary of such things in his dealings with the Corinthians and 'the New Testament knows no phenomena in which transcendent realities become immanent possessions'.
'The Spirit does not work like a supernatural force, nor is it the permanent possession of the believer. It is the possibility of a new life which must be appropriated by a deliberate resolve. Hence St. Paul’s paradoxical injunction: "If we live by the Spirit, by the Spirit also let us walk." (Gal. 5:25). "Being led by the Spirit" (Rom. 8:14) is not an automatic process of nature, but the fulfillment of an imperative: "live after the Spirit, not after the flesh". Imperative and indicative are inseparable. The possession of the Spirit never renders decision superfluous. "I say, Walk by the Spirit and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh" (Gal. 5:16). Thus the concept "Spirit" has been emancipated from mythology.' (p. 22)
The fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22) show how faith, in detaching one from 'this world', can enable true community to flourish.
B The Event of Redemption
1. Christian Self-Understanding without Christ?
Bultmann worries that an existentialist philosophy is not necessarily christocentric. The problem here is of a rationalised existentialist Christology of universal validity loses 'rigid and exclusive reference to the person of Jesus' (p. 24). If the New Testament is necessary it is only as a precursor to existentialism via Luther and Kierkegaard. Bultmann agrees that existentialism and Christianity calls individuals to 'be what you are!' but that the New Testament speaks only so to believers. Man apart from Christ is in a state of despair.
Our understanding of the Fall is crucial. 'Philosophy' presumes that humans need only be shown their plight to escape it. The New Testament is less optimistic and Paul's claims that 'every impulse of man is the impulse of a fallen being' and that a fallen human inevitably seeks self-glorying and self-assertion in an attempt to control their own destiny. These acts are sin (p. 30, 1 Cor. 1:29). 'If the authentic life of man is one of self-commitment, then that life is missed not only by the blatantly self-assertive but also by those who try to achieve self-commitment by their own efforts. They fail to see that self-commitment can be received only as a gift from God.' (p. 29) 'Self-commitment' here is term from Kamlah which Bultmann understands to mean 'surrender to the universal reality', the antithesis of autonomy. The Fall then has at least a noetic effect in that humans are unable to understand God and their plight without revelation.
Here follows something of a problem. 'Self-assertion is guilt only if it can be understood as ingratitude'. Therefore the individual must be able to be aware of their existence as a gift from God. But if one is aware, is one blind? John 9 appears to be in the background here. 'Man’s radical self-assertion then blinds him to the fact of sin, and this is the clearest proof that he is a fallen being.' (p. 31)
In Paul's language of the expiation of sin and righteousness as a gift from God we see the cutting of ties with the past and the opening up of a free future. Forgiveness of sins is therefore not the remission of punishment, because this would not solve the problem of the individual's present life. Instead it refers to a freedom to obey in a new eschatological existence (p. 32).
'The event of Jesus Christ is therefore the revelation of the love of God.' (p. 32) This revelation makes man free from himself, free to be his new self, free to obey in faith and love. Faith here cannot be faith in an abstract concept of the love of God, as that would lead to self-assertion again - a form of wish-fulfillment. 'Only those who are loved are capable of loving.' The event of Christ must therefore be a concrete expression of the love of God for an individual in response to which the individual can do nothing but receive and thus be transformed.
'Here then is the crucial distinction between the New Testament and existentialism, between the Christian faith and the natural understanding of Being. The New Testament speaks and faith knows of an act of God through which man becomes capable of self-commitment, capable of faith and love, of his authentic life.' (p. 33)
2. The Event of Jesus Christ
Bultmann is concerned that to speak of any act of God is mythological language. He thus turns to this expression of love which makes authentic existence possible and asks if it is essentially a mythical event.
(a) The Demythologizing of the Event of Jesus Christ
Essentially the same pattern of interpretation occurs here as before. The New Testament does describe 'the event of Jesus Christ' in mythical terms but also demands a restatement of this event in non-mythological terms.
Christ's life is portrayed as a mixture of the historical and the mythical (p. 34). These two perspectives clash. So he argues, not particularly persuasively, that they Virgin birth accounts are 'difficult to reconcile' with Paul and John's understanding of preexistence. A number of apparently related perspectives in tension are provided which contrast Christ's exalted and humbled states. So, for instance, the 'historical event of the crucifixion' is set side-by-side with 'the definitely non-historical event of the resurrection'. Bultmann believes himself compelled to ask whether all this mythological language is just an attempt to express the meaning of the historical figure of Jesus as 'an event of salvation' (p. 35). If so, then we can dispense with mythology and hold to the content.
For Bultmann, pre-existence and the Virgin birth are 'clearly attempts to explain the meaning of the Person of Jesus for faith'. 'Our interest in the events of his life, and above all in the cross, is more than an academic concern with the history of the past. We can see meaning in them only when we ask what God is trying to say to each one of us through them.' (p. 35) [There is a strange mixture of desire for concrete event, but lack of interest in events which are peripheral to the saving event of the cross and the resurrection. Perhaps this is always necessary. For Bultmann it is because mythology' is simply unacceptable. He has yet to set out his mythological account of Christ's resurrection. I feel led here to wonder what is really so incredible when we are considering the Creator entering Creation - is it that too mythological?]
(b) The Cross
We turn now to the cross, the crux of the event of redemption which must be concrete and historical in order to illicit our love, and ask whether we can conceive of it as historical or whether it is too closely bound to mythology.
Most biblical language with regard to the cross and the atonement gets short-shrift. The idea of a pre-existent Son of God who dies for sin of the world and thus cancels the penalty of death - 'a mixture of sacrificial and juridical analogies' - 'has ceased to be tenable for us to-day' (p. 35).
Bultmann believes the New Testament has more to say than this, especially with regard to the deliverance of humans from the power of sin. The cross becomes the judgement of ourselves as fallen creatures, because it is the defeat of the powers of this world which is really a reference to the defeat of ourselves.
The cross is not a mythical event wrought outside of ourselves, but is an objective event which God has turned to our advantage - in which we participate. The eschatological language conveys the cross's revolutionary significance 'in and beyond time' for faith.
The sacraments make the cross a present reality - their primary purpose is to elicit faith by demonstrating the cross. The cross is present in the life of believers as they experience their worldly desires crucified (Gal. 5:24). Col. 1:24 expresses the relation of the cross to present reality - Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and fill up on my part that which is lacking of the afflictions of Christ in my flesh for his body’s sake, which is the Church".
"The preaching of the cross as the event of redemption challenges all who hear it to appropriate this significance for themselves, to be willing to be crucified with Christ." (p. 37)
[What remains mystifying at this point is the relationship between the cross and the believer. How can Bultmann conceive of the judgement of the cross as the judgement of man?]
Bultmann concludes this section with a few remarks as to how one is to comprehend the cross and so apprehend it through faith. The first believers were personally connected to Christ and they knew the cross before the resurrection. We are not in this position and cannot appropriate the cross through historical study. The New Testament however proclaims Christ as resurrected and only in understanding Christ thus can we approach the cross.
(c) The Resurrection
Bultmann poses the question as to whether the Resurrection is simply a mythological attempt to explain the significance of the cross.
The Cross and the Resurrection do form a unity in the New Testament, so that judgement and new hope are proclaimed at the same moment. As such, the Resurrection is no mere miraculous proof of the significance of the cross, even if parts of the New Testament may seem to suggest this (Acts 17:31) - it is part of the redemptive act (p. 39). Bultmann considers all such physical language as misguided, including Lk. 24:39-43 and 1 Cor. 15:3-8, because one 'cannot establish one article of faith by invoking another' (p. 40). This is the primary problem, irrespective of the problems of believing the reports of the apprehension by the physical senses of Christ's physical resurrection or the 'the impossibility of establishing the objective historicity of the resurrection no matter how many witnesses are cited, as though once it was established it might be believed beyond all question and faith might have its unimpeachable guarantee.'
Bultmann turns to Romans 6 to demonstrate believers participation in both Christ's death and resurrection. [Although this particular identification of believers with resurrection in the present is thought by many scholars today to be difficult given Paul's negative theology concerning realized eschatology in 1 Corinthians. This particular issue is also often cited as a reason for considering Ephesians deutero-pauline.] The Christian life is therefore understood to be Resurrection life (Phil. 3:10). [Once again one might ask whether this power is to understood as presently experienced or a future hope. However, if the language was future Bultmann would no doubt demythologize it. :)]
How then do we come to believe in this cross and resurrection of saving efficacy (p. 41)? "There is only one answer. This is the way in which the cross is proclaimed. It is always proclaimed together with the resurrection. Christ meets us in the preaching as one crucified and risen. He meets us in the word of preaching and nowhere else. The faith of Easter is just this -- faith in the word of preaching." [word, Word? This is a strange sentence. How can one have faith in the word of preaching? All Bultmann has said to date points one towards Christ crucified and risen. I suppose Bultmann is asserting that only in preaching can we know this figure - just a funny way of putting it. It seems to confuse message with medium(?!) or perhaps sign with thing signified.]
"The real Easter faith is faith in the word of preaching which brings illumination. If the event of Easter Day is in any sense an historical event additional to the event of the cross, it is nothing else than the risen of faith in the risen Lord, since it was this faith which led to the apostolic preaching. The resurrection itself is not an event of past history. All that historical criticism can establish is the fact that the first disciples came to believe in the resurrection. The historian can perhaps to some extent account for that faith from the personal intimacy which the disciples had enjoyed with Jesus during his earthly life, and so reduce the resurrection appearances to a series of subjective visions. But the historical problem is not of interest to Christian belief in the resurrection. For the historical event of the rise of the Easter faith means for us what it meant for the first disciples -- namely, the self-attestation of the risen Lord, the act of God in which the redemptive event of the cross is completed." (p. 42)
[What is going on with Bultmann's understanding of history?! Is he failing to distinguish between the results of historical criticism and objective past event? It is hard to imagine he is falling prey to any such naive mistake.]
[Resurrection here is 'the self-attestation of the risen Lord' - but this is self-referentially incoherent - how can resurrection be defined in terms of an action of the 'risen one'?!]
[What he is positing, I think, is that redemptive event of the cross is completed in the preaching and its effects on believers. In effect, Christ is raised 10,000 times - he is raised when one responds in faith and enters new life.]
'In other words, the apostolic preaching which originated in the event of Easter Day is itself a part of the eschatological event of redemption.'
We cannot look for proof in the resurrection to bolster our faith, because in doing so we are only turning to the faith of others - the first believers. [The empty tomb would appear not to be a matter of faith.]
Like the word and the preaching, the Church too is part of the eschatological event.
Conclusion
Some may claim that there is still much in the New Testament to be demythologized - particularly if it is insisted that talk of an act of God or an eschatological event must be mythological. 'For the redemption of which we have spoken is not a miraculous supernatural event, but an historical event wrought out in time and space.' (p. 43) [In our lives, in Christ's death.]
'For the kerygma maintains that the eschatological emissary of God is a concrete figure of a particular historical past, 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.'
'The agent of God’s presence and activity, the mediator of his reconciliation of the world unto himself, is a real figure of history. Similarly the word of God is not some mysterious oracle, but a sober, factual account of a human life, of Jesus of Nazareth, possessing saving efficacy for man. Of course the kerygma may be regarded as part of the story of man’s spiritual evolution and used as a basis for a tenable Weltanschauung. Yet this proclamation claims to be the eschatological word of God.'
'All these assertions are an offense, which will not be removed by philosophical discussion, but only by faith and obedience. All these are phenomena subject to historical, sociological and psychological observation, yet for faith they are all of them eschatological phenomena. It is precisely its immunity from proof which secures the Christian proclamation against the charge of being mythological. 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".'
[Christ's historical life, and ours, are where the transcendent and divine finds expression in this world for us.]
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