Kerygma and Myth: The Final Word :)

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

Mythology

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

֑Existentialism and the Kerygma

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

Conclusion

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

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

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