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.]