Tuesday, February 28, 2006

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

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

An online version here.

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

1. Demythologizing and the Philosophy of Existence

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

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

2. The "Act of God"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

***

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

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

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

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

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

[Oh my giddy aunt ...]

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

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

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

[Stunning]

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

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

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

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