Dare We Follow Bultmann?

Second in a Series by Evangelical Scholars

Bultmann’s theology sets out in opposition to the rationalistic and idealistic misunderstanding of Christianity by the earlier liberal theology. Two themes characterize Bultmann’s theological program, and he develops them thoroughly and applies them assiduously. They are:

1. The Entmythologisierung (demythologizing), the method whereby Bultmann proposes to open for modern thought a way (apologetic and pastoral) to the Gospel.

2. The existential interpretation of the Gospel, whereby he intends to disclose the true meaning of the biblical kerygma.

Though closely related and interdependent, these themes can be distinguished from one another, and we propose to deal with them successively.

Bultmann’s theology is often labeled with the catchword Entmythologisierung (demythologizing). The Entmythologisierung is, however, not the most characteristic aspect of his theology. Nor does Bultmann himself regard it as such (Bultmann sees the real theme of his theology rather in the motive of existentialism). The method of the Entmythologisierung had been applied before Bultmann, although under other names. Bultmann’s own application of this method does little more, basically, than to observe the great traditions of the Enlightenment. In this respect he follows the radical biblical criticism of the liberal and “history of religions” schools of which in more than one sense he is the executor. It is true that Bultmann criticizes these predecessors of his for their interpretation of the purport of the Gospel, but on the whole his program of the Entmythologisierung follows their line.

It cannot be said that Bultmann’s definition of “mythos” is lucidly clear. Nevertheless there can be no doubt about his intention. The “mythical” mind, says Bultmann, explains certain phenomena and occurrences by the intervention of supernatural, divine powers. Modern scientific thought, however, can only operate on the basis of a closed relation of natural causes and effects. It knows therefore the world around him, and himself also, to be a self-contained unity; it can no longer accept the idea of a divine or demonic intervention in nature or in the functions of the human being. Bultmann concedes that the prevalent concept of man and the universe in modern science is no longer that of the nineteenth century, but he rejects as naïve and unrealistic any pious attempt to justify belief in miracles on the ground of its modified concept of the law of causality. Nor can man accept both the miraculous and the scientific views. Every representation in the Bible that does not answer to the modern concept of a closed world order, Bultmann tells us, must be dismissed by the modern mind.

It is evident that this amounts to nothing less than a far-reaching a priori decision screening the content of the Gospel for what is and what is not acceptable to modern man. Not only is the concept of man and of the universe at stake, but also the concept of God. The God of Scripture and of the Gospel is the Lord of the universe, and that not only because he is its Creator and directs it from moment to moment, but all the more so because in Christ he acts upon man and universe, and enters into the history of the world. The coming of Christ constitutes the center of a whole history of redemption which encloses the life of man and world from beginning to end.

But as soon as a closed order of the universe is accepted, and whatever does not fit into this scheme because of its unworldly and transcendent origin is disqualified as myth, this biblical concept of God is immediately radically changed and destroyed. For God then becomes the absent and distant God, the inactive God of deism, not the God of Abraham, of Moses, of Isaiah, not the Father of Jesus of Nazareth. Something which appears within the closedness of the world order may indeed be understood by faith as an act of God, but such an occurrence is real only to faith. As object of faith it coincides only with the act of faith.

Not less drastic is the limitation which likewise is imposed on the concept of the coming and work of Jesus Christ, in order to conform the latter to the demands of the “Entmythologisierung.” Should an attempt be made to penetrate, by means of the formgeschichtliche method, to that which “lies behind” the Gospels, and to establish the “historical core” of the “mythological form” of the various components of the synoptic material, the investigation indeed strikes up the historic figure of Jesus of Nazareth. And it is conceded that he spoke and represented the Word of God in a decisive manner—and that not only for the faith of his contemporaries, but also of modern man. Modern man, however, must forego (so we are told) the “mythical attire” in which his contemporaries have enshrouded him; and this applies not only to his supernatural descent and to the miracles that were attributed to him during his earthly ministry, but to everything that is related about him after his death on the cross. The resurrection of Christ—to which the New Testament testifies so overwhelmingly—is, however, not altogether void of meaning (so Bultmann assures us) even for modern man. It is a proof of the importance (die Bedeutsamkeit) which the Christian Church from the very beginning attached to the decease of Christ, to his voluntary surrender into death. This witness of the resurrection is, however, proof only of the belief of the disciples in the resurrection, not of the resurrection itself. For since the resurrection cannot be accounted for according to the general law of science, it falls under the category of the mythical, the miraculous. It cannot be established as an “objective” fact by any number of witnesses whatsoever. Bultmann accordingly regards Paul’s argument in 1 Corinthians 15:3–8 (where the apostle gives a summary of the eyewitnesses of the resurrection) as fatal. For this implies that the truth of the kerygma depends on that which, according to the criterion of modern thought, could not have happened.

Inevitably the question arises whether this theology of Entmythologisierung still admits of any act of God in the history of the world and of man. For when, according to scientific thought, both the universe and the human personality can be conceived only as a self-contained unity, what remains of the essence of the New Testament preaching which (as Bultmann agrees) consists of the redeeming acts of God in Jesus Christ? Answering this question, Bultmann maintains that the acts of God should never be represented as intervention in the closed unity of natural, historical, or psychological life. Nevertheless, an occurrence in the natural sphere may be understood by faith as an act of God. This Bultmann calls the paradox of faith. He denies, however, that the acts of God—although being real only insofar as they are experienced by faith—are thereby wholly drawn into the sphere of subjectivity. He describes the acts of God as an encounter which takes place when the Word of God is preached, and which confronts man with a necessity for decision. Faith understands this occurrence to be such an encounter (of which the New Testament is the source and legitimation). In this way the act of God brings faith to decision and surrender, whereby the human existence attains its true destination. This happens when man abandons in faith those things which are visible and which he can control, and surrenders himself to that which he cannot control. Man, however, cannot bring himself to this surrender (which Bultmann calls Entweltlichung, that is, the act of detaching or disengaging one’s self from the world). For this, man needs the call which comes to him from the Word of God. And in this call God acts upon man by granting him the possibility of faith (which the New Testament calls “the Holy Spirit”).

It is this act of God (which is ever new, and by which man is ever again called away from the world and made to choose for the future) that Bultmann regards as the demythologized core of the eschatological Gospel and the authentic heart of the preaching of the Church. The Entmythologisierung is, therefore, necessary, and that not only as prerequisite to the acceptance of the Gospel by modern man, but also because modern man is confronted with the truth of the Gospel only in this way. Every preacher who takes the Gospel seriously—whether he accepts the Entmythologisierung or not—must, therefore, attain to this existential interpretation of the Gospel and of the acts of God described therein. For only in this way does he remain loyal to the Word of God.

IS THIS THE GOSPEL?

And so we have arrived at the very center of our question: Can we afford to follow Bultmann? It is really the question whether the existential interpretation of the Gospel (in the sense Bultmann describes it) indeed confronts us with the kernel of the Gospel. If this be the case, the Entmythologisierung and its limits can still be discussed, but as problems of lesser importance. Bultmann himself puts it this way: not the problem of the myth but the problem of hermeneutics and the existential interpretation of the Gospel is the basic motive of his theology.

We are of the opinion that a closer investigation of this basic motive is a sine qua non for a fair judgment of Bultmann’s theology. But at the same time it must be stressed that the theme of existential interpretation cannot in Bultmann be separated even for a single moment from that of the Entmythologisierung. It is impossible to review the former without the latter. It is an illusion to suppose that the Gospel speaks freely in Bultmann’s attempt to disclose the true core of the Gospel. It can speak only insofar as the a priori of the Entmythologisierung allows it to do so. The realm within which Bultmann allows us to decide what can (and what cannot) pertain to the true core of the Gospel is not that of the Gospel itself, but is limited and hedged in by the precepts of the Entmythologisierung. It is within this boundary that the existential meaning and purport of the Word of God must be determined.

It may be that an interpretation which depends on modern existential philosophy can thrive with these bounds. The principles of Bultmann’s hermeneutics are derived from this existential philosophy.

It is, however, quite another question whether these hermeneutical principles can provide an instrument that is adequate to bring out the kerygma of the New Testament. The basic question is whether this kerygma—in order to be really heard—does not require more room than the bounds within which existential philosophy operates. We ourselves are convinced that this existential interpretation of the New Testament amounts to a radical restriction and reduction of its content, both in breadth and in depth. God himself, the acts of God, and the kingdom of God are allowed on the scene only insofar as necessary in order that man may truly be man. The whole of theology and Christology can be expressed in categories of anthropology. What is theologically “useful” in the New Testament teaching of God and Jesus Christ pertain only to the right judgment and self-judgment (Seinsverständnis) of man.

Undoubtedly this approximates the important truth that true knowledge of God effects true knowledge of one’s self, and that God’s acts in Jesus Christ are truly understood only when they thrust into the very existence of man, convert him, and change him. If Bultmann’s desideratum of an existential interpretation of the New Testament were directed only at the rejection of a purely objective knowledge of God and Jesus Christ, and the maintenance of a practical “existential” appropriation of the salvation of the Lord, every Reformed Christian would have to bestow his full approval. Hoc est Christum cognoscere: beneficia eius cognoscere (to know Christ means to know his benefits). The big difference, however, between this maxim of the Protestant Reformation and the use Bultmann makes of it is the following. The Reformation—in line with the New Testament—places man in the realm and light of the great deeds of God in Jesus Christ, thereby bringing him to self-knowledge. Bultmann, on the contrary, places the acts of God in Christ in the light and within the limits of what he knows about man. This is his hermeneutic principle, his existential Vorverständnis (advance understanding). Within this human horizon alone does he allow room for the rise of divine light.

However much we wish to respect Bultmann’s lofty theological construction, we are of the opinion that his existential interpretation of the New Testament amounts to a reversal of the relation in which the Gospel speaks of God and man. For the redeeming knowledge of the Gospel consists of this: that the God who encounters us in Jesus Christ is the God of heaven and earth, the God of the kingdom in which he will make all things new, and who reconciled the world once and for all (ephapax!) with himself in the death and resurrection of his Son. In the light of this God, within the dimensions of this kingdom, and in the power of this reconciliation, the Gospel gives a place to man; and it is in this light, too, that man is to be known in his distress, in his guilt, and in the possibility of his redemption. This order cannot be reversed without injustice to the biblical kerygma, yes, without destroying the very foundation of the Gospel.

SCRIPTURAL VIEW OF MAN

The discussion with Bultmann is, therefore, not limited to the problems of true theology and Christology, but encompasses the biblical foundation of anthropology as well. Bultmann operates in the belief that he can express the New Testament teaching of man in the categories of Heidegger. The Pauline antithesis between “flesh” and “spirit,” for example, means, for Bultmann, basically nothing else but that man lives in a situation wherein he must choose between the visible and the invisible, between that which he can control and that which is out of his reach, and so on. But is this Entweltlichung (detachment) really what Paul designates by “life according to the Spirit,” and what is elsewhere described as conversion, surrender, love? Is Bultmann’s antithesis not derived from philosophical rather than from biblical thought? Is sin really described in the biblical sense when it is qualified as not being willing nor being able to decide against the relative, the visible, the available? Is it indeed the relativity of man’s existence on earth which threatens man in his essence? Does not sin become in this way a purely anthropological concept, that is, merely sin against man’s own destination?

The starting point of the New Testament concept of sin lies elsewhere: not in the analysis of human existence, but in the sovereignty of God over man, in the recognition of God’s law, and in the knowledge of God’s will. To surrender to this will undoubtedly also means for man to be truly free and to be brought to true human existence. But here man in his guilt and distress appears sub specie Dei; nor do redemption, reconciliation, and freedom appear sub specie hominis. The Vorverständnis does not consist of the knowledge of man, but of the knowledge of God and of the Cross and Resurrection.

FACING THEOLOGICAL DECISION

Can we afford to follow Bultmann?

When we answer this question in the negative, that is not because Bultmann’s Anliegen (his “translation” of the Gospel for modern man) leaves us cold. Nor is it because we are not concerned with the problem which arises when modern people hear the biblical kerygma. And still less because we cannot learn much from Bultmann’s enormous knowledge of the New Testament and its Umwelt (environment).

What prevents us from following him is the narrowness into which he drives us. And this narrowness is suffocating. When in the vital encounter of God and man the criterion of the reality of God’s acts is merely the question, do they bring man to his true “existence”?, the designation of anthropocentric theology is apparently not unjustified. Is this interpretation of the message of the New Testament legitimate? Is this not a total recension of the Gospel in terms of existentialist philosophy? It is an enigma to me how the Gospel (of which the Pauline confession, “For from him and by him and to him are all things,” forms the mainstay) can be identified with a program which ascribes to God no more power or activity than is necessary to “let man be man.” Does not the redeeming power of the Gospel—and this applies to modern man in his limitation as well—rest rather in this: that man learns to entrust the existence of the world and of himself once again to the hands of him who, in the death and resurrection of Christ, redemptively triumphs over all that is in heaven and on earth?

Psalm Twenty-nine

Give to the Lord, O ye mighty,

Give to the Lord strength and glory,

O mountain-glowing glory to His name!

Adore Him in spine-tingling beauty,

O sweetness of His rose-bloomed holiness,

O tender petals falling from His face!

I grasp and try to smell them all,

Plummeting down to me,

But ah! how myriad many

Fall through my fingers to the sea.…

CHARLES R. BACHMAN

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

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