1987 waldstein on bultmann

The foundations of Bultmann's work

Michael Waldstein

What is needed for a constructive sifting of Bultmann' s legacy is a more positive and

more critical assessment of the Enlightenment .... What is needed is a

renewed philosophy and theology of nature.

Rudolf Bultmann is without doubt the most infuential New Testament scholar of this century. In the first half of the century his influence made itself felt primarily in Protestant exegesis, but since then it has become increasingly important in Catholic scholarship as well.I In 1976, the year Bultmann died, Karl Neufeld, S.J. wrote:

In scientific exegesis and theology Bultmann' s work is alive-perhaps more intensely than ever. His contributions are present as foundations, for the most part invisible ones, in most wor1<s which dominate New Testament exegesis and theology today. 2

1For an extensive discussion of Bultmann's impact on Catholic theology, primarily in Germany, see Klaus Hollmann, Existenz und Glaube: Entwicklung und Ergebnis der Bultmann-Diskussion in der katholischen Theologie (Paderborn: Bonifacius, 1972); early Catholic reactions to Bultmann are collected in Kerygma und Mythos (Vol. 5; ed. Hans W. Bartsch; Hamburg: Reich, 1955); see also Rudolf Bultmann in Catholic Thought (ed. Thomas F. O'Meara, O.P.; New York: Herder and Herder, 1968); for a summary of the more recent situation see Hermann Haring, "Ungeliebter Kronzeuge-Zur Bultmannrezeption in der katholischen Theologie," in Rudolf Bultmanns Werk und Wirkung (ed. B. Jaspert; Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1984) pp. 379-395.

2Karl H. Neufeld, "Theologie durch Kritik: Zum Tod Rudolf Bultmanns," StZ (1976) p. 773. Translations of works cited in German are my own.

Communio 2 (Summer, 1987). © 1987 by Communio: International Catholzc Review

116 Michael Waldstein

Bultmann's contribution to the study of the New Testament lies primarily in his historical-critical work, e.g. his pioneering work in Gospel criticism (form criticism) and his history of religions work (the New Testament in the context of hellenistic syncretism).3 It would be a mistake, however, to see him only as a great historical critical scholar. He is remarkable for the comprehensiveness and unity of his work. Philosophical reflection, historical research, exegesis, and a new theological synthesis-he brings them all together into a unified vision.

A full clarification of Bultmann's legacy would have to consider all these aspects in their interrelation. The purpose of this article is more limited. It attempts to make a partial contribution toward such a clarification by analyzing some of the basic philosophical and theological principles which govern the whole of Bultmann' s work. 4

A. The enigma of Bultmann

Bultmann became generally famous through his project of "demythologizing" the New Testament.

The world picture of the New Testament is a mythical world picture. . . . The presentation of the salvation occurrence, which constitutes the real content of the New Testment proclamation, corresponds to this mythical world picture. The proclamation talks in mythological language: the last days are at hand; "when the time had fully come" God sent his Son. The Son, a preexistent divine being, appears on earth as a man (Gal. 4:4; Phil. 2:6 ff.; 2 Cor. 8:9; John 1:14, etc.); his death on the cross, which he suffers like a sinner (2 Cor. 5:21; Rom. 8:3) makes atonement for the sins of men (Rom. 3:23-26; 4:25; 8:3; 2 Cor. 5:14,19; John 1:29; 1 John 2:2, etc.). His resurrection is the beginning of the cosmic catastrophy through which the death

3Cf. Helmut Koester, "Early Christianity from the Perspective of the History of Religions: Rudolf Bultmann's Contribution," in Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect: The Centenary Symposium at Wellesley (ed. E. Hobbs; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985) pp. 59-74.

4My analysis is primarily based on the recently published notes of Bultmann's course on the nature and foundations of theology, taught four times from 1928 to 1936: Theologische Enzyklopddie (ed. Eberhard Jiingel and Klaus Muller; Tiibingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1984). I am also relying on the excellent monograph by Roger Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing: Philosophy and Historiography in the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann (Leiden: Brill, 1974). For a clear survey of Bultmann's theology, see Walter Schmithals, An Introduction to the Theology of Rudolf Bultmann (London: SCM, 1968).

Foundations of Bultmann's work 117

brought into the world by Adam is annihilated (1 Cor. 15:21-22; Rom. 5:12 ff.) ... All of this is mythological talk, and the individual motifs may be easily traced to the contemporary mythology of Jewish apocalypticism and of the Gnostic myth of redemption. Insofar as it is mythological talk it is not credible to men and women today because for them the mythical world picture is a thing of the past. . . . Experience and control of the world have developed to sucfi an extent through science and technology that no one can or does seriously maintain the New Testament ~orld picture. 5

This text gives the impression that Bultmann is simply an Englightenment rationalist, an opponent and destoyer of Christian faith. In support of this impression one can point to his roots in Nineteenth Century liberal theology and its rationalist historiography.

Liberal theology owed its distinctive character chiefly to the primacy of historical interest , and in that field it made its greatest contributions. These contributions were not limited to the clarification of the historical picture. They were especially important for the development of tfie critical sense, that is, for freedom and veracity. We wfio have come from a background of liberal theology could never have become theologians nor remained such had we not encountered in that liberal theology the earnest search for radical truth. We felt in the work of orthodox university theology of all shades an urge toward compromise within which our intellectual and spiritual life would necessarily be broken. We can never forget our gratitude to G. Kruger for that often cited article of his on "unchurcfily theology." For he saw the task of theology to be to imperil souls, to lead men into doubt, to shatter all naive credulity. Here, we felt, was the atmosphere of truth in which alone we could breathe.6

5Rudolf Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology: The Problem of Demythologizing the New Testament Proclamation" (1941), in New Testament and Mythology and other Basic Writings, transl. by Schubert M. Ogden (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984) pp. 1-43; here pp. 2-4.

6 Rudolf Bultmann, "Liberal Theology and the Latest Theological Movement," in Faith and Understanding (Vol. 1; New York: Harper and Row, 1969) pp. 28-52; here pp. 29-30. The collapse of orthodoxy can be observed already in Bultmann's letters as a young student of theology. "The closer I get to my final exam, the greater are my doubts about our Church, whose servant I will become. The old orthodoxy had a fine, firm structure, and was easily able to satisfy those in need of faith. The structure has collapsed and there is nothing new to take its place" (August, 1904). "My main annoyance is currently dogmatics. We really do need a reform! What nonsense is taught about 'Revelation,' 'Trinity,' 'Miracles,' 'Divine Attributes'-it is frightening! And everything is done out of love for tradition. I have sadly had ample opportunity to observe in my own home, how people can cling to their


Yet, at the same time, Bultmann is also a radical opponent of this enlightened "atmosphere of truth." In sharp reaction against liberal theology he joined Barth and Gogarten in the movement of dialectic theology.? Like Barth and Gogarten, he i5 a deeply believing theologian and preacher of the Word of God. He understands demythologizing as the consistent and reflected formulation of authentic Christian faith.

Radical demythologizing is the parallel to the Pauline-Lutheran doctrine of justification through fa1th alone without the works of the law. Or, rather, it is the consistent application of this doctrine to the field of knowledge. Like the doctrine of justification, it destroys every false security and every false demand for security. It makes no difference whether this security is based upon good action or well substantiated knowledge ... They alone find security who let all security go, whoto speak with Luther-are ready to enter into inner darkness. 8

Here lies the enigma of Bultmann. His work seems to be built on two contradictory foundations: aggressive rationalism and deep Christian faith. In the attempt to unravel this enigma I will present first Bultmann' s dialectical doctrine of knowledge and then the outlines of his theology of the Word of God.

B. A dialectical doctrine of knowledge

1. Reason and power

In the year before he died Bultmann explained his understanding of hell to an American physician:

The existential meaning of hell is not that of an image of a physical place below the world full of torments. Instead, it is the recognition of the power of evil, indeed, the evil of the poisoned and poisoning atmosphere which humankind has created for itself when we began

inherited customs and how much unhappiness results from this" (June 1905). Antje Bultmann Lemke, "Bultmann's Papers," in Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect, pp. 3-12; here pp. 6 and 8.

7Bultmann, "Liberal Theology and the Latest Theological Movement," spells out this reaction; cf. The Beginnings of Dialectic Theology, ed. by James Robinson (Richmond: John Knox, 1968).

8Rudolf Bultmann, "On the Problem of Demythologizing" (1952), New Testament and Mythology, pp. 95-123; here p. 122; translation slightly altered; emphasis added.


to assume that we could create security through scientific knowledge and the ability to dominate the earth. With this attitude, the world does become hell. Such confusion leads to the battle of all against all. Here are the roots of our doubts, our questioning the meaning of life. 9

This judgment on scientific knowledge and its power over nature stands at the very foundations of Bultmann's thought. " ... genuine historical existence can be buried under and ... it is especially buried under today by the aftereffects of the Enlightenment that so dominate our modern thinking."w It is in opposition to the Enlightenment and its ideal of science and power that Bultmann develops the foundations of his thought. 11 Before turning to these foundations, I turn therefore to the particular line of Enlightenment thought which he appears to have in mind.

Francis Bacon compares the learning of the Greeks to the "boyhood" of knowledge: "it can talk, but it cannot generate, for it is fruitful in controversies, but barren of works." 12 In opposition to the Greek insistence on contemplation (theoria), Bacon proposes that the true end of knowledge is "the benefit and use of life."13 Thus he claims, " ... I am laboring to lay the foundation, not of any sect or doctrine, but

9Antje Bultmann Lemke, "Bultmann's Papers," pp. 11-12. 10Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology" (1941), p. 25. 11In analyzing Bultmann's thinking as a reaction to the Enlightenment and

its ideal of science and power, I am developing suggestions made by Hans Jonas in "Gnosticism, Existentialism and Nihilism," in The Gnostic Religion: The Message of the Alien God and the Beginnings of Christianty, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon, 1963), pp. 320-340. Jonas wrote his dissertation on Gnosticism in the 1920s under the joint direction of Bultmann and Heidegger. He played a seminal role in the development of Bultmann's thinking, especially in the development of the concept of "demythologizing." It is fascinating to follow his intellectual voyage from the existentialism of Bultmann and Heidegger to a critique of this heritage and the development of an alternative more in harmony with traditional Jewish faith in creation. One of the foci of this alternative is a renewed philosophy of nature which retrieves contributions of Goethe and, behind him, of the natural philosophy of antiquity. The biographical aspect of this voyage is itself highly dramatic. As a prominent Jewish intellectual, Jonas had to leave Germany in 1933 (his mother died in Auschwitz). He returned to Germany as an infantry-man of the allied forces. It was during the war that he conceived the central ideas of his philosophy of nature.

12Francis Bacon, "The Great Instauration," in The New Organon and Related Writings (New York: Bobbs-Merill, 1960), p. 8.

131bid., p. 15.


of human utility and power."14 In his "New Organon" (placed against the old Organon, Aristotle's writings in Logic) he expresses this point in the famous words, "Human knowledge and human power meet in one; . . . nature to be commanded must be obeyed."15 Similarly, Descartes writes in the "Discourse on Method":

... it is possible to reach knowledge that will be of much utility in this life; and . . . instead of the speculative philosophy which is now taught in the schools we can find a practical one, by which, knowing the nature and behavior of fire, water, air, stars, the heavens, and all the other bodies which surround us ... we can employ these entities for all the purposes for which they are suited, and so make ourselves masters and possessors of nature.16

The connection between knowledge and power is a pervasive influence at the very foundations of Descartes's philosophy of nature. It is the basic reason why he eliminates from nature most of the aspects that cannot be grasped by mathematics, that powerful instrument of the mind which is most suited to mechanical control.

In Kant power takes a further step. It determines not only the outer inventory of nature, as in Descartes, but the inner structure of knowledge as well. According to Kant we produce the objects of our knowledge. Sensation is stimulated by a "thing in itself" which exists apart from the mind, but of which we can know nothing except that it exists and produces an amorphous mass of sensation. The mind immediately forms and orders this amorphous mass according to categories that lie in it ahead of time. The result of this ordering activity is what we call the outside world of nature. Just as technological power imposes an external order on nature, so the mind, in constructing the world of nature, imposes an external order on amorphous sensation.

The Kantian description of knowledge in terms of a structure of power is extremely important for Bultmann. When he speaks of science and reason, he speaks, with certain important modifications, of this Kantian power-reason.

14Ibid., p. 16. 15Bacon, "The New Organon," ibid., p. 39. 16Rene Descartes, "Discourse on Method," in Discourse on Method and

Meditations (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1960), p. 45. Cf. also Rules for the Direction of the Mind (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1961), p. 63.

Foundations of Bultmann' s work 121

2. The Neo-Kantians and Heidegger

In Marburg Bultmann came in contact with a group of Neo-Kantian professors who were to have a lasting influence on him: Wilhelm Herrmann, Hermann Cohen, and Paul NatorpY Hermann, who was perhaps Bultmann's most important teacher, writes:

Since its beginning, science has sought order in the world. In Kant, science reached the insight that it itse1f creates this order ... Whether the world functions according to law has ceased to be a question for science after Kant. For only those things which are bound into unity with all others, or determined by law, are demonstrably real. They form the world conceived or presented [vorgestellt] by science. That reality follows laws is not the result of scientific research, but its presupposition. In this [presupposition] we have the eternally fixed point through which alone there are demonstrably real things. 18

The Marburg Neo-Kantians followed Kant's basic premise, the reduction of reality to a construction of the mind. However, they took two significant steps beyond Kant. The first step was to eliminate Kant's "thing in itself," that remnant of the old "realist" metaphysics. Hermann Cohen writes:

Here is the fundamental weakness of Kant: that thinking has its beginning in something outside of itself. We begin with thinking itself. Thought does not need to have origins outside of itself. 19

In this first step the Marburg Neo-Kantians radicalized Kant's rationalism. The entire world is built up according to the rational patterns of the mind, and there are no mysterious outside forces that give rise to our ideas. To know is to construct objects, to objectify, according to a principle of law, and the primary pattern of law is mathematics.zo

In sharp contrast to this rationalism one finds in the Marburg Neo-Kantians also a deeply felt religious thinking

17See Johnson, The Origins of Demytholgizing, pp. 38-86. 18Wilhelm Herrmann, "Unsere Kantfeier," in Gesammelte Aufsiitze (Tii

bin~en: Mohr/Siebeck, 1923), pp. 26-32; here p. 26. 1 Hermann Cohen, Logik der reinen Erkenntnis (Berlin: .Bruno Cassirer,

1902), p. 11. Quoted from Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, p. 44. 20See Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, pp. 49-50. The concept of

"objectification" is central in Bultmann's thought. It stands at the very roots of the operation of demythologizing as an operation of de-objectification.


aimed at retrieving the spontaneous and non-rational element in the life of the individual. Paul Natorp writes:

The claims of individuality remain unsatisfied in relation to the abstract and impersonal laws of reason; after all, we are individuals, feeling men, not merely rational creatures who are subjects of knowledge and will. We are heirs of Goethe as well as of Kant. 21

There is thus a clear and sharp dualism in Marburg Neo-Kantianism: on the one side stands the world of reason, dominated by the model of mathematics and natural science, on the other side stands the sphere of the individual, the sphere of passionate and nebulous sensations, of religious intuitions and experiences. 22 This dualism is extremely important for Bultmann. He accepts it as the framework of his own dialectical view. One can grasp this framework in an early essay in which he distinguishes culture, i.e., the world of reason, from religion.

Culture is the methodical unfolding of human reason in its three areas, the theoretical, the practical and the aesthetic. Essential for it is the activity of the human spirit. This spirit is what builds the three worlds of culture: science, law and morality, and art. ... (R)eligion is not present in objective formations, as culture, but in being realized, i.e. in that which happens to the individual. The coming to be and the life of the individua1 are its meaning.23

This text was written in 1920, three years before Bultmann met Heidegger. It already contains the essential foundation of his program of demythologizing. Still, it was Heidegger who gave to Bultmann the existentialist conceptual instruments for fully formulating this program. 24

21Paul Natorp, Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der Humanitaet (Leipzig: J. C. B. Mohr, 1894), p. 59. Quoted from Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, p. 66.

22See Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, pp. 65-66. 23Rudolf Bultmann, "Religion und Kultur," in Anflinge der dialektischen

Theologie, vol. 2, ed. by Jiirgen Moltmann (Munich: Kaiser, 1963), pp. 11-29; here pp. 17 and 19.

24In a letter written in 1923, shortly afer Heidegger's arrival in Marburg, Bultmann writes, "(In my seminar) I treat the position of the justified in the world. This seminar is especially instructive because our new philosopher, Heidegger, a student of Husserl, participates in it. He comes from Catholicism, but he is totally a Protestant. This he showed convincingly when, the


Martin Heidegger's existentialist analysis of human existence seems to be only a profane philosophical presentation of the New Testament view of who we are: beings existing historically in care for ourselves on the basis of anxiety, ever in the moment of decision between the past and the future, whether we will lose ourselves in the world of what is available and of the "one," or whether we will attain our authenticity by surrendering all securities and being unreservedly free for the future. 25 ·

3. Authentic truth

According to the existentialist understanding which Bultmann adopted from Heidegger, being human in the authentic sense does not mean being an object in the natural world. It means being a historical possibility which continually realizes itself through decision. Bultmann is quite radical in formulating this principle:

... only in it [i.e., the free deed] and nowhere else do we really exist in the authentic sense since [decision] is nothing else than our existence itself. 26

Bultmann' s doctrine of knowledge is based on this existentialist principle: he sees authentic knowledge and truth exclusively in terms of decision. The following texts provide a good summary:

The original intention of knowledge is evidently guided by concrete occasions, by a purpose on account of which one wants to know, by the concern [Sorge] which moves life. 27

other day, he spoke in a debate after a lecture by Hermelink on Luther and the Middle Ages . . . I also noticed with interest that Heidegger is familiar with contemporary theology. He is especially an admirer of Herrmann and knows Gogarten and Barth." Antje Bultmann Lemke, "Bultmann's Papers," pp. 9-10.

The relation between Bultmann and Heidegger is very complex, involving common background and mutual influence. As an early student of both, Hans Jonas was particularly important in this interaction. Cf. Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, pp. 169-256; Hans Jonas, "A Philosopher Remembers Bultmann," in Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect, pp. 13-16.

25Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology" (1941), p. 23. 26Rudolf Bultmann, "Welchen Sinn hates, von Gott zu reden," in Glauben

und Verstehen, vol. 1 (Tiibingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1933), p. 35. 27Bultmann, Theologische Enzyklopiidie, pp. 35-36.


The original meaning of the question, What is truth?, as the question of the challenge [Anspruch] of the moment, is the question, What should I do?, on the presupposition that at every moment I am at stake, that through my deed [become something. The whole truth, my truth is in question. I want to understand myself.28

One can unfold the doctrine of these texts in four successive steps, building from the foundation.

(a) Authentic truth is inseparable from existential self-understanding. It is a challenge in the light of which I understand myself in the concrete moment and realize my existence in decision. Anything which is not such a challenge is not authentically and really true.

(b) Since authentic truth is an aspect of my existential self-understanding, I do not stand vis-a-vis an "object" when I encounter it. I do not think about something, but I stand in a challenge. Authentic truth is thus prior to the subjectobject distinction. It is non-objective (and also non-subjective).

(c) Since truth is inseparable from my selfunderstanding, the truth is completely and radically concrete. It is that which challenges me. And everything which falls outside this completely concrete challenge is not really truth.

(d) Truth is, therefore, radically temporal or historical. It is not a general validity, but the challenge of the moment, valid only for that moment.

If human existence is temporal-historical, concerned in every concrete moment with itself and ... grasping at every moment a concrete possibility of itself,-if, I say, the Being of human existence [das Sein Cies Daseins] is thus Being-able-to-be inasmuch as every Now is essentially new and receives its meaning only now, now through decision, and thus not from a timeless meaning of the world, then the question of truth has meaning only as the question of the one truth of the moment, my moment. 29

4. Inauthentic truth as objectification

Bultmann argues that other modes of truth, such as "objective" and "universally valid" truth derive from authentic truth by a certain corruption. Following the four points listed above, one can summarize this derivation as follows:

28Ibid., p. 49 29Ibid., p. 50. Heideggerian terminology is palpable in this text.


(a) In the very nature of knowledge there is a tendency to break away from authentic truth, because knowledge can remember or "preserve" the encounter of the moment. In this "preservation" of the moment, truth is no longer seen as a challenge to my existence. It is no longer an aspect of my selfunderstanding. I take a point of view outside the challenge.

The possibility of distancing itself from life lies from the outset in knowledge, because knowledge lifts the being it encounters into the sphere of the objective and thus preserves it and still"knows" it, even when the real [aktuelle] relation to the being is no longer present.3°

(b) It is this detachment from the challenge which gives rise to the subject-object distinction. I no longer stand in the challenge, but I think about something. And so I stand vis-a-vis an object. Inauthentic truth is thus the same as objectification.

(c) Objectification, in turn, is the basis for universal truth, truth which is no longer applicable to me alone, but to a variety of objects.

(d) Objectification is also the basis for positing "timeless" truths, truths which are not valid only now, but always.

5. Nature as an artifact of inauthentic knowledge

When knowledge is cut off from the existential situation of the moment, its object increasingly becomes the great causal system of the world of nature, to be known by universal laws. This system then proceeds to devour our authentic historical existence.

It is important to note carefully that, according to Bultmann, this scientific world is a human artifact. There is not a real "natural world" ready to be "discovered" by natural science. Nature, as science sees it, is rather a product of science. It is the product of a way of looking in which we are cut off from our genuine life which lies only in the moment of decision and self-understanding. The world of science is, as it were, a frozen objectification of the only truth which is really truth, that of the moment. When the mind forces the truth of

30Ibid., p. 44.


the moment to hold still, when it thus lifts that truth into objectivity, the world of science comes to be.

In my historical [geschichtlich] reality I do not encounter nature as an objective reality which follows certain laws, but as the fullness of

fossibilities for my action and suffering, for my decisions. Only when disregard my existence do I see nature as an object, and inasmuch

as I then place myself into a certain relation to it, I see myself as a natural ooject among others, standing with them in causal connections governed by law. 31

This dialectic between authentic and inauthentic truth brings us back to the dualism of the Neo-Kantians, the basic framework of Bultmann's thinking. However, the NeoKantians, in accordance with their positive assessment of the Enlightenment, saw "objectified" reality as something positive next to the non-objectified life of the self (cf. Natorp's statement quoted above, "We are heirs of Goethe as well as of Kant"). Bultmann, on the other hand, sees "objectified" reality in profoundly and radically negative terms as a falling away from authentic existence.32

C. A theology of the Word of God

1. Simultaneously just and sinner

(a) Science and sin: Although science is a corruption, it is not a matter of some wrong choice.33 As people of the twentieth century we inescapably live in the scientific world.

Although we cannot avoid living in this world, we sin by doing so. We commit, in fact, the basic sin, the sin of self-assertion, the sin of evading the challenge of the moment in order to find an ultimate security in something "objective" and "permanent" or even "eternal."

... sin together with death goes back to the flesh (Rom. 8:13; Gal. 6:8, etc.). But what is meant by flesh [sarx]? It is not what is corporeal or sensual, but the whole sphere of what is visible, available, disposable, and measurable, and as such the sphere of what is transient. This sphere becomes a power over us insofar as we make it the foundation of our lives by living "according to it," that is, by succumbing to the

31Ibid., p. 107. 32See Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, p. 251. 33See Bultmann, "Wahrheit und Gewissheit," in Theologische Enzyklopiidie,

pp. 183-205; here pp. 197-198.


temptation to live out of what is visible and disposable instead of out of what is invisible and nondisposable-regardless of whether we give ourselves to the alluring possibilities of such a life imprudently and with desire or whether we lead our lives reflectedly and with calculation, on the basis of our own accomplishments, "the works of the law."34

This, then, is how Bultmann connects science and sin: The inauthentic way of thinking which defines science and which constitutes the world of nature, the world of the flesh, is an expression of the self-assertion of human power. Thus to live in the natural world is to live in sin; it is the attempt to gain life through "works of the law. "3s

(b) Bultmann and Luther: It is instructive to compare Bultmann and Luther at this point. For Luther the central question is, "How may I find a gracious God?" In his answer he rejects anything that lies in our power. What he struggles against is the Catholic who has devised a mechanism for securing salvation in "works of the law." For Bultmann the central question is, "How may I gain my authentic historical existence?" In his answer he too rejects anything that lies in our power. What he struggles against is the Enlightenment powerreason which has devised for itself a mechanism for securing life in science.

Luther is concerned with moral guilt, while Bultmann is concerned with the loss of authentic historical existence. Yet they agree in their rejection of human works and in the sharp dialectic according to which sin and true life are intertwined: simul justus et peccator, at the same time just and sinner. According to Luther, we remain sinners, even when the justice of Christ is imputed to us; acccording to Bultmann, we continue to live in the scientific world of nature, even when we are called by God into authentic decision. 36

2. God as the challenge of the moment

(a) God and the challenge: Once this dialectic between sin and authentic existence is grasped, one can see the place for God in Bultmann. The dialectic has two sharply distinct sides:

34Rudolf Bultrnann, "New Testament and Mythology," p. 16. 35See Johnson, The Origins of Demythologizing, p. 194. 36See Ibid., pp. 198-200.


one side is the realm of non-objectified existential challenge; the other side is the world of objectified truth, the world of escape from the challenge, the world of substantial sin. Given these two sides, it is clear that God is located on the first side, that of existential challenge .

. . . what is the question of God, if not the question of truth? Precisely when the question of truth is posed as the question of the moment, can it be anything else than the question of God, who, if he is thought at all, is meant as the power which rules the now, as the challenge [Anspruch] which makes itself heard in the now?37

(b) No being behind the challenge: In order to understand Bultmann it is decisive to resist the temptation of a traditional interpretation. His notion of God must be understood on the basis of his dialectic~ Traditional Christianity ascribes objective existence to God. But for Bultmann, God is not an objectively existing being which, among other things, challenges me in the moment. No! God is the challenge of the moment and nothing besides. No being stands behind this challenge, for that being would be part of the world, something objectified, something which is not felt as a challenge, something, therefore, which is contrary to the deepest nature of God as absolute Lord. God does not exist "objectively." God is not "generally" valid. God is the challenge in which I stand, concrete and temporal, valid only for me in my moment.

God is thus unknowable for science. And this unknowability does not mean that the object "God" is too great, too vast, too incomprehensible; it does not mean that our knowledge is not "adequate." No idle talk about God's unknowability! God is not a complete or partial X, so that our lack of knowledge of him would have the character of a lack of knowledge of hidden things, of some hinterland or over-world. In this case, knowledge of God would be thought of as in principle knowledge of the world, and the insufficiency of our knowleage of the world would be confused with that of our knowledge of God. 38

The knowledge of God is the knowledge of the challenge of the moment. His call becomes heard as the challenge of the moment to us. God is invisible to the objectifying vision of scientific research. 39

37Bultmann, Theologische Enzyklopiidie, , p. 50. 38lbid., p. 51. 391bid., p. 57.


3. Scripture alone

(a) God in Scripture: To define God as the challenge of the moment is not to say that the voice of the moment is automatically God. God is not simply the voice of conscience, but a concrete authoritative word spoken from the outside into the moment .

. . . one can speak of God only as the how of our existence [das Wie unserer Existenz], i.e., as the one whom I encounter always anew in the moment. But my moment, in order for me to hear God in it, must be determined by a fact [Tatsache], something factual [ein Faktisches]. This happens when I encounter revelation as something spoken in the moment, or rather to the moment. From the standpoint of philosophical analysis, this is an accidental historical fact [zufiilliges geschichtliches Faktum]. 4o

It is possible to identify the accidental historical fact which is God. God, as the word spoken to me in the moment, is the revelation of Scripture .

. . . all proclamation points to Scripture, not as to its accidentally first stage, out as to that of which it speaks, namely, revelation. This first proclamation, and nothing else, is revelation .... Thus Scripture is the authority, the only authority for theology. 41

(b) Jesus as the scriptural Word of God: The definition of God as the historical word of Scripture spoken into my moment must be further specified. Jesus Christ is this Word of God.

. . . we come from a history of love inasmuch as in Christ the divine forgiveness has become reality for us, reality in the proclamation of the Church, and reality in the faith which receives this proclamation ... God's revelation as a historical [geschichtlich] event is thus Jesus Christ as the word of God. This word was instituted in the contingent historical [historisch] event Jesus of Nazareth and it is alive in the tradition of the Church. The fact of Jesus Christ does not take on importance as a fact which is visible outside of the proclamation, but onfy as a fact which we encounter in the proclamation, as a fact made present by the proclamation. Jesus Cnrist is the Word.42

40Ibid., p. 63. 41Ibid., p. 169 421bid., p. 95.


Bultmann makes two fundamental assertions in this text. On the one hand he asserts that Jesus is the unique Word of God. On the other hand he excludes any "objective" truth from this assertion. Jesus is significant for faith, not as a person with certain objective characteristics, divine or otherwise, but as the preached Jesus. The traditional doctrine that he is objectively divine is contrary to the faith because it falsely locates divinity in the world of objectivity, the world of substantial sin. God has no room in this world. He cannot enter it. God is only the concrete challenge addressed to me when the Scriptural message of Jesus is preached to me.

(c) Two senses of "historical": This definition of God as the Scriptural proclamation with Jesus as its historical content can be made more distinct by distinguishing two senses of "historical." In one way something can be historical (historisch) as an objectified thing of the past, subject to scientific historical criticism. In another way something can be historical (geschichtlich) as an address which challenges me in my moment .

. . . we can look at the history of the past in an objectifying way or else as personal address, insofar as in it the possibilities of human self-understanding become perceptible and summon us to responsible choice. The relation of these two modes of self-understanding must be characterized as "dialectical," insofar as the one is never given without the other. 43

On the basis of this distinction one must say that the historical (historisch) Jesus is not, and never was, the Word of God, while the historical (geschichtlich) Jesus is. The preached Jesus, or, as Bultmann says more often, the Christ of the kerygma (proclamation), is the Word of God, while the Jesus of objectifying historical critical studies is part of the scientific world of sin and definitely, as such, not the Word of God.44

43Bultmann, "On the Problem of Demythologizing" (1961), New Testament and Mythology, pp. 153-163; here p. 158.

44Still, the historical [historisch] Jesus is necessary as part of the dialectic between authentic and inauthentic truth: "This living Word of God is not invented by the human spirit and by human sagacity; it rises up in history. Its origin is an historical event, by which the speaking of this Word, the preaching, is rendered authoritative and legitimate. This event is Jesus Christ. We may say that this assertion is paradoxical. For what God has done in Jesus is not an historical fact which is capable of historical proof. The


(d) The absoluteness of Christianity: If one fails to interpret Bultmann in the light of his basic dialectic, one might think that his rejection of traditional Christian dogmatics would lead him to relativize Christianity. This is not the case. As it happens, the word of God is present only in Scripture and it is inseparable from Jesus. Christian theology is thus the only theology.

Theology, i.e., speaking of revelation and of faith, exists only as Christian theology. All other supposed theology is only talk about humanity since God is accessiole only in his revelation through Christ. However deeply such talk may grasp human reality, it still does not reach the reality of God. 45

4. Demgthologizing

(a) The liberal elimination of myth: The dialectic which stands at the foundation of Bultmann' s thought emerges as an exegetical method in the program of demythologizing. Inauthentic truth is the first factor in this method. New Testament myths (e.g., the Incarnation of the Son of God, his atoning death and his bodily Resurrection) can be maintained no longer because, on the level of objectifying thinking, they are contradicted by modern science.

Demythologizing in this sense was already practiced by Bultmann' s great opponents, the liberal theologians of the Nineteenth Century. Liberal theology failed, however, because it eliminated the center of the New Testament proclamation.

For the epoch of the older "liberal" theology, it is characteristic that mythological representations are simply eliminated as time conditioned and inessential while the great basic religious and moral ideas are explained to be essential. ... The kerygma is here reduced to certain basic religious and moral ideas, to an idealistic ethic that is religiously motivated. But the truth of the matter is that the kerygma is eliminated as kerygma, that is, as the message of God's decisive act in Christ .... The New Testament talks about an event through which God has brought about our salvation. It does not proclaim Jesus

objectifying historian as such cannot see that an historical person (Jesus of Nazareth) is the eternal Logos, the Word." Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1958), pp. 79-80.

45Bultmann, Theologische Enzyklopiidie, p. 159.


primarily as the teacher who has indeed said things of decisive importance and whom we therefore continue to revere, but whose person is in principle indifferent to anyone who has understood his teaching. Rather, it proclaims precisely Jesus' person as the decisive event of salvation. 46

(b) The existential interpretation of myth: Enlightenment rationalism is a common ground between Bultmann and liberal theology. For Bultmann, however, such rationalism is only one side of the basic dialectic of human knowledge. The failure of liberal theology stems from its failure to grasp the existential pole of the dialectic. In opposition to liberal theology, which simply discards myths, Bultmann argues, therefore, that "the task today ... is to interpret New Testament mythology" in order to preserve the central New Testament proclamation of God's saving act in Jesus. 47 In this interpretation, the New Testament myths must be taken, not in their "objective" content, but in their function as challenge to human existence.

Existential interpretation is not an arbitrary operation but it corresponds, Bultmann argues, to the very nature of myth. There is a certain tension between the true intention or point of myth and its "objective" content.

Myth intends to talk about a reality which lies beyond the reality that can be objectified, observed and controlled, and which is of decisive significance for human existence. It is the reality that means for us sa1vation or damnation, grace or wrath, and that demands of us respect and obedience. 48

In other words, myth intends to express a certain ultimate existential self-understanding. It aims at authentic truth, at the non-objectified challenge of the moment. But contrary to this intention it expresses this challenge in objective terms.

Mythological thinking ... naively objectifies what is thus beyond the world as though it were something within the world. Against its real intention it represents the transcendent as distant in space and as only quantitatively superior to human power. By contrast, demythol-

46Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology" (1941), pp. 12-13. 47Ibid., p. 12. 48Bultmann, "On the problem of Demythologizing" (1961), p. 160.


ogizing seeks to bring out myth's real intention to talk about our own authentic reality as human beings. 49

Bultmann thus defines myth within the framework of his dialectic between authentic and inauthentic truth as a phenomenon which, of itself, cries for existential interpretation. Myths are truer to themselves in existential interpretation than they are in their own "objective" understanding.

Therefore, the motive for criticizing myth, that is, its objectifying representations, is present in myth itself, insofar as its real intention to talk about a transcendent power to which both we and the world are subject is hampered and obscured by the objectifying character of its assertions. 50

5. An example of demythologizing in John:

In the text just quoted, Bultmann argues for the legitimacy of the project of demythologizing on the basis of his dialectical doctrine of knowledge. In other parts of his work he attempts to buttress his case by arguing on the historical grounds that the New Testament itself demythologizes in certain cases. Let me outline an example of this argument, taken from Bultmann's history of religions work on John. This example is instructive, because it shows how various aspects of Bultmann' s work (philosophical principles, historical studies, exegesis and theological synthesis) interrelate.

(a) The enigma of John: In an early essay on "The Importance of the Newly Edited Mandean and Manichean Texts for Understanding the Gospel of John" (1925), Bultmann delves into the "basic point" of the Gospel of John by locating John on a history of religions background.51 He begins by arguing on the basis of the text of the Gospel itself that John's basic point lies in the idea that Jesus is the revealer sent from the Father.

What is his [John's] central view, his basic conception? Without doubt it must lie in the assertion which is repeated again and again that Jesus

491bid., p. 161. 50Bultmann, "New Testament and Mytyhology" (1941), p. 10. 51"Die Bedeutung der neuerschlossenen mandiiischen und manichiiischen

Quellen fiir das Verstiindnis des Johannesevangeliums," reprinted in Exegetica, ed. by E. Dinkier (Tiibingen: Mohr/Siebeck, 1967), pp. 55-104; here p. 55.


is the one sent from the Father (e.g. 17:3,23,25) who brings revelation through words and works. sz

However, John is not interested in the revelation of anthropological, or cosmological, or theological mysteries. And thus, if one asks what Jesus reveals, no satisfactory content can be found. Jesus does not even primarily reveal his own person, for John does not give an image of his religious and moral personality. Although John describes Jesus as a divine being, 53

one cannot say that even this divinity is the true object of revelation.

All the miraculous and divine which appears in Jesus' life is obviously a mere means to an end. Granted, Jesus' humantiy "is merely a transr,arent medium for letting the divine light shine through on earth '-if only one could say what it is that shines through. Fundamentally, the transparent medium is not really the humamty, but the divinity of the Johannine Jesus. For the divine which becomes visible in him is apparently not the true object of revelation. 54

(b) John's history of religions background: The great puzzle of this "revelation of the revealer" can only be resolved by seeing how John adopted the Gnostic redeemer myth.55

Bultmann follows Reitzenstein' s reconstruction of this myth: A divine being, the Primal Man, falls at the beginning of time from the heavenly world of light into matter. Only part of him escapes; the rest is overpowered by matter and breaks up into particles of light (human souls). So trapped are these souls that they have forgotten their origin. In the fullness of time the Primal Man descends again into the world of matter and reveals himself to his lost fragments, to human souls. By revealing himself, he thus reveals the identity and destiny of souls and thereby saves them. His self-revelation is the saving event.

John adopted this myth and applied it to Jesus. Bultmann supports this claim by giving an extensive list of precise parallels between John and Gnostic sources, above all

52Ibid., p. 57. 53"True, Jesus is largely the divine man [theios aner], omniscient and in

possession of miraculous power. He is more, he is 'a divine being which m~estically floats across the earth as a stranger' [Wrede]." Ibid., p. 57.

Ibid. 55Cf. Ibid., pp. 58-59.


Mandean texts. 56 These texts, Bultmann admits, are later than the Gospel of John. The myth they contain, however, precedes the Gospel. One of the most important arguments for this conclusion, the argument, in fact, which decides the issue, is this: many elements of the Gnostic myth are present in John, but the central ideal which makes the myth work (the identity of the redeemer with the redeemed souls) is absent. The elements present in John have their natural place in the complete myth, where alone they function properly. Therefore, John's version must be secondary, dependent upon the integral myth as a later transformation.57

(c) John demythologizes the Gnostic myth: Why does John transform the redeemer myth? The reason lies in the "fundamental character" of his Gospel: Jesus is the revealer. As Bultmann notes, the Gnostic redeemer does not need to reveal any doctrine, except himself, because his fate is parallel to that of the soul and thus salvific when revealed. Also in John, Jesus does not reveal any doctrine: he simply is the revealer.

However, the great puzzle of the Gospel is increased by this similarity because the crucial element in the myth, the redeemer/redeemed identity, is absent in John. After stating this point, Bultmann concludes his article as follows:

The author is only interested in the that of revelation, not in the what. If faith is no longer content with myths as the objects of revelation and if no dogma suffices, rational knowledge or psychological experiences tend to take their place. But the author is equally far from both of these. One possibility still remains, however, that of taking the concept of revelation in a radical sense, i.e., without describing its content either by speculative propositions or psychic states, because both would pull down revelation into the human sphere. One cannot say of God Fzow he is, only that he is. The divine is nothing which is in any way given and describable. And thus the Gospel of John speaks of God, not, of course, by the via negationis of the mystics (all mystical divine attributes are lacking), but in the only way in which one can speak of God, through the depiction of the jolting [Erschiitterung] of all that is human through the revelation ... Revelation can only be depicted as the annihilation of all that is human, as the rejection of all human questions, as the refusal of all human answers, as that which puts the human person into question. 58

56lbid., pp. 59-97. 57See Ibid., pp. 97-99. 58lbid., pp. 103-104.


This text, published three years after Bultmann came in contact with Heidegger, still uses the language of dialectical theology rather than existentialism. Still, the program of demythologizing is already complete in its essential outlines as dictated by a dialectical doctrine of knowledge. The two poles of the dialectic are clearly spelled out: on the one hand there is God, wholly un-worldly, non-objective, contentless, a jolt which calls us into question; on the other hand there is the world of objective "content," of myth, of dogma, of rational knowledge and psychological experiences. It is on the basis of this dialectic that Bultmann interprets John. By mutilating the Gnostic myth, John indicates that God's revelation in Jesus lies only on the first side of this dialectic. In other words, he radically de-objectifies or demythologizes revelation.

D. Summary: liberation from hell

To set the stage for some critical reflections let me attempt to summarize the core of Bultmann's intentions. On one level of his thinking, Bultmann works from the platform of a radical Enlightenment rationalism. To modern enlightened consciousness, New Testament myths are no longer acceptable. Is the Christian faith, then, irretrievably lost? Demythologizing solves this dilemma with brilliant simplicity. It grants rationalist science complete sway in the sphere of objectivity and simply brackets this whole sphere by inserting it into a Lutheran dialectic. Science is unanswerable, but the final word still belongs to faith.

On a more basic level, however, Bultmann's platform is one of radical opposition to the Enlightenment. He attempts to preserve authentic human existence against the destruction of this existence by science and its power. Let me return to his explanation of hell:

. . . the evil of the poisoned and poisoning atmosphere which humankind has created for itself when we began to assume that we could create security through scientific knowledge and the ability to dominate the earth. With this attitude, the world does become hell. 59

If one reads this statement against the background of Bultmann' s dialectical doctrine of truth, one realizes its full

59 Antje Bultmann Lemke, "Bultmann' s Papers," pp. 11-12.

-Foundations of Bultmann's work 137

import. Bultmann is not concerned with a mere cultural critique of the Enlightenment and with mere cultural remedies, such as ecological awareness or a return to a simpler life in harmony with nature. He analyzes the predicament of science and power as an inescapable predicament. Hell is built into the very structure of human existence because human existence inevitably slips into inauthentic truth. The Enlightenment represents merely a particularly clear expression of this ontological predicament.

Still, even on this anti-Enlightenment platform, Bultmann accepts a particular line of Enlightenment thought. Here lies the solution to the enigma mentioned at the beginning of this article. In his resistance against the Enlightenment he, first of all, accepts a radical form of Enlightenment thought and, secondly, builds this thought as the negative pole into a dialectical doctrine of knowledge. He accepts Bacon's identification of science and power; he accepts the Cartesian reduction of nature to a mathematical machine without finality; and he accepts the Kantian importing of a structure of power into the very nature of "objectifying" knowledge. Human existence and its quest for meaning cannot but sense such a world as entirely foreign and threatening.

. . . a change in the vision of nature, that is, of the cosmic environment of man, is at the bottom of that metaphysical situation which has given rise to modern existentialism and to its nihilistic implications .... the essence of existentialism is a certain dualism, an estrangement between man and the world, with the loss of the idea of a kindred cosmos-in short, an anthropological acosmism ... 60

Jonas points out that Gnosticism and existentialism are strikingly similar in this respect. Like existentialism, Gnosticism sees the human self as trapped in the hellish prison of the "objective" visible world. But, if anything, the estrangement felt by existentialism is more radical.

There is no overlooking one cardinal difference between the gnostic and the existentialist dualism: Gnostic man is thrown into an antagonistic, anti-divine, and therfore anti-human nature, modern man into an indifferent one. Only the latter case represents the absolute vacuum, the really bottomless pit. In the gnostic conception the

60Jonas, "Gnosticism, Existentialism, and Nihilism," p. 325.


hostile, the demonic, is still anthropomorphic, familiar even in its foreignness, and the contrast itself gives direction to existence ... Not even this antagonistic quality is granted to the indifferent nature of modern science, and from that nature no direction at all can be elicited. This makes modern nihilism infinitely more radical and more desperate than gnostic nihilism ever could be for all its panic terror of the world. 6I

Once one understands that, according to Bultmann, this alienation is an inescapable ontological predicament, one will understand the full meaning of his theology of the Word of God. The Word of God redeems us by calling us radically out of this world. Gnostic theology also advocated a radical departure from this evil world into the sphere of light. The similarity, however, is only partial. Contrary to the Gnostic dream of escape into an "objective" sphere of light Bultmann holds that we must continue living in this world, fully engaged in its operation, even relishing its "atmosphere of truth," but at the same time free from it.

[Faith] is radical submission to God, which expects everything from God and nothing from ourselves; and it is the release thereby given from everything in the world that can be disposed of, and hence the attitude of being free from the world, of freedom. This freedom from the world is, in principle, not asceticism, but rather a distance from the world for which all participation in things worldly takes place in the attitude of "as if not" (1 Cor. 7:29-31). 62

E. Critical reflections

1. The need for a theology of creation

It is at this central point of Bultmann' s intentions, at the point of "liberation from hell," that critical reflection about his work can fruitfully begin. One of the most central criticisms to be brought against his vision is that it lacks a theology of creation. It lacks the assent to the fundamental goodness of the world e.s God's creature. In his essay "The Meaning of the Christian Faith in Creation" (1936), Bultmann

611bid., pp. 338-339. 62Bultmann, "New Testament and Mythology" (1941), p. 18 " ... let those

who have the modern world view live as though they had none." Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, p. 85.


interprets this faith as applying only to the sphere of authentic truth, at the exlusion of the sphere of objectivity. In our authentic existence, we are determined by God, but the world of nature is not objectively caused by God.

This kind of faith in creation is not a theory about some past occurrence such as might be depicted in mythological tales or cosmological speculation and natural scientific research; rather, it is faith in man's present determination by God. 63

Bultmann' s basic ontology does not permit any other position. He must deny the objective content of faith in creation, because the objective world is the result of an inauthentic mode of human knowledge. Far from being caused by God it arises as a self-enclosed objectification from human sin. 64

2. The need to speak of God objectively

Closely related to the issue of creation is the issue of the 11 objective" existence of God. If the world, in its objectivity, is God's creature, then its objective truth must in some way be a positive reflection of God and one must speak of God objectively.

In fact, Bultmann cannot escape from 11 objective" statements about God. When he claims that God is the chal-

63Rudolf Bultmann, "The Meaning of the Christian Faith in Creation," in Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, trans. by Schubert O~en (New York: Meridian, 1960), pp. 206-225; here p. 220.

Jonas is quite right to question the scientific aspects of Bultmann's view of a self-enclosed cosmos:" ... the question is permitted whether Bultmann, totally conceding the modern axiom of immanence, has not given more to modern science than is its due. This seems to be the case, for instance, when he writes, 'Modern science at any rate does not believe that the course of nature can be breached by supernatural forces' and he means to say that it believes that this cannot occur. But on such a 'can' and 'cannot' science does not pronounce .... Bultmann is, of course, right that subjectively this very faith, i.e., the science-inspired idea of a natural law that brooks no exception, is the dominant faith of 'modern man' including the theologian (less, perhaps, lately the scientist himself) .... Bultmann shared with Kant an exaggerated conception of the tightness and rigidity of worldly causality." Hans Jonas, "Is Faith Still Possible Today? Memories of Rudolf Bultmann and Reflections on Philosophical Aspects of his Work," Harvard Theological Review 75 (1982), pp. 1-23; here pp. 9-10, 14.


lenge of the moment he is formulating a general definition, one which holds for every moment. But if this is the nature of God in general and at all times, God is apparently not just the unique challenge of the moment.

Bultmann is quite aware of this dilemma. He attempts to escape it by saying that theology, when it speaks of God, must necessarily objectify; it must necessarily pull God down into the world of sin, while God is really the challenge of the moment beyond all theological talk. At the conclusion of his lecture "What does it mean to speak of God," he writes,

Even this lecture is a speaking about God and, as such, if God exists it is sin, and if God does not exist, it is meaningless. Whether it has any meaning and whether it is justified-no one of us can judge.65

Bultmann thus squeezes God to a point of complete disappearance between sin and meaninglessness in his attempt to keep theology untainted by any objective truth. Heinrich Schlier, a student of Bultmann who later became a Catholic, correctly diagnoses the nihilist implications of this attempt:

The Word of the Spirit never takes on form, never becomes concrete; it never becomes outward and objective, but is merely "picked up" at times in a sort of existential faith, a faith, however, which by no means truly exists because it vanishes as soon as it aprears. Here everything remains uncertain, including the certitude o our uncertainty in the prescence of the Self-revealing God. 66

As a defense against objective truth, however, even such radical nihilism is unsuccessful. For Bultmann claims that the general definition of God as the challenge of the moment is objectively true; it attains the real God. He does not sufficiently reflect about this fatal invasion of objective truth into the sphere of God.

3. The positive role of theoretical knowledge

(a) The inescapability of objective truth: Bultmann' s unsuccessful attempt to keep theology untainted by objective

65Rudolf Bultmann, "What Does it Mean to Speak of God," Faith and Understanding I, p. 65.

66Heinrich Schlier, "A Brief Apologia," in We are Now Catholics, ed. by Karl Hardt (Westminster: Newman, 1959), pp. 187-215; here p. 205.


truth points to a self-contradiction at the very foundations of his existentialist doctrine of knowledge. He claims that authentic truth is concrete (valid only for me) and radically temporal (valid only for the moment in which I now stand). But when he claims, as he does, that this doctrine is true, he claims to have laid hold of a truth which is neither concrete (it holds for all human beings) nor temporal (it is valid for all times). Yet he can hardly disqualify this truth by saying, "The general doctrine of truth is admittedly far from the moment; it is an objectification in which contact with the moment has been lost." For he claims to have grasped truth (i.e., the challenge of the moment) as it is, which means that contact has in fact not been lost.

There is a further self-contradiction, closely related to the one just mentioned. Bultmann claims that authentic truth is inseparable from self-understanding. In this claim, however, he does not attempt to understand himself; he attempts to understand the authentic situation of knowledge which is found in all human beings. He wants to know what that situation is, truly, in itself. And thus his interest is primarily theoretical or contemplative. By his own practice he refutes thus his existentialist theory and shows that the desire of knowledge for its own sake is the first and authentic desire in relation to truth. He shows that the question of truth is not primarily the question of existential self-understanding, but the question of contemplating (theoria) that which is.

With a certain violence Bultmann attempts to press "objective" truth into a radically negative position, dialectically opposed to existential truth. Wounded and chased out by the front door, however, objective truth re-enters by the back door, still intact. Bultmann' s dialectical doctrine of knowledge remains thus an unsuccessful attempt. By its failure it confirms exactly what it attempts to deny: the positive place of objective truth.

(b) Contemplation: Bultmann' s failure to notice the re-entry of objective truth is not accidental, but deeply rooted in his ontology. He understands God as radically futureoriented. True, God is only in the present, because he is the challenge of the moment. But he exhausts himself in the role of calling me out of my sinful past into my open future. The present, as such, is an empty turning-point from past to future. I cannot repose in the present as the presence of God.

This emptying of the present stems from Buttmann's negative assessment of "objective" being. Objective


being is what is merely "factual," what is merely and indifferently extant; it is nature as the product of objectifying thinking, stripped to mute thinghood.

This existentialist depreciation of the concept of nature obviously reflects its spiritual denudation at the hands of physical science, and it has something in common with the gnostic contempt for nature. No philosophy has ever been less concerned about nature than Existentialism, for which it has no dignity left ... To look at what is there, at nature as it is in itself, at Bemg, the ancients called by the name of contemplation, theoria. But the point here is that, if contemplation is left witn only the irrelevantly extant, then it loses the noble status it once had-as does the repose in the present to which it holds the beholder by the presence of its objects. Theoria had that dignity because ... it beheld eternal objects in the forms of things, a transcendence of immutable being shining through the transparency of becoming ... Thus it is eternity, not time, that grants a present and gives it a status of its own in tli.e flux of time; and it is the loss of eternity which accounts for the loss of a genuine present. 67

Jonas points to two reasons for the negative assessment of objective truth and contemplation in existentialism: the spiritual denudation of nature and the denial of the eternal creative source of being. We are thus brought back to the fundamental criticism that Bultmann's thought lacks a theology of creation.

4. Is demythologizing a hermeneutical procedure?

As a critique of Bultmann' s dialectical doctrine of knowledge, the above lines of argument call into question the very foundations of demythologizing. If objective truth is not a corruption, dialectically opposed to existential self-understanding, then it cannot be assumed that all objective or mythical statements about the divine are defective attempts to express an existential self-understanding.

Even if the dialectical doctrine of knowledge were correct, however, there are some problems with the legitimacy of demythologizing. Bultmann conceives of demythologizing as an interpretive or hermeneutical procedure.

By "demythologizing" I understand a hermeneutical procedure that inquires about the reality referred to by mythologicaf statements or

67Jonas, "Gnosticism, Existentialism, and Nihilism," pp. 337-338.


texts. This presupposes that myth indeed talks about a reality, but in an inadequate way.6s

The phrase "in an inadequate way" raises the following difficulty: To preach the word of God as something located in the non-objective sphere of existential challenge requires great conceptual clarity, a clarity which became possible only after the development of Bultmann's dialectical doctrine of knowledge. The ancient Christians did not have this clarity. And so they inevitably and continuously confused the Word of God with something objective. Bultmann acknowledges their confusion when he notes that the false objectivity of New Testament myths must be eliminated.

Demythologizing seeks to bring out the reaL intention of myth, namely, its intention to talk about human existence as grounded in and limited by a transcendent, unworldly power, which is not visible to objectifying thinking. Thus, negatively, demythologizing is criticism of the mythical world-picture insofar as it conceals the real intention of myth. Positively, demythologizing is existentialist interpretation, in that it seeks to make clear the intention of myth to talk about human existence.69

The problem lies in the negative aspect, that of de-objectification. If ancient Christian texts are mired in objectification, then Bultmann gives them too much credit when he interprets them as really proclaiming the non-objective Word of God. He is engaged in over-benign apologetics and not in critical exegesis. He miraculously converts mud into dear water. In other words, demythologizing is not a hermeneutical procedure, but the expression of a disagreement with the text. In its de-objectifying aspect, it replaces the text's theology with an opposed theology.

Bultmann protests emphatically, "Scripture is the authority, the only authority for theology."70 In fact, however, a dialectical doctrine of knowledge determines what can, and what cannot, be Word of God.

5. Does John demythologize?

This line of criticism can be pushed one step further. How do we know that the real intention of myth is to

68Bultmann, "On the Problem of Demythologizing" (1961), p. 155. 69Bultmann, "On the Problem of Demythologizing" (1952), p. 99. 70Bultmann, Theologische Enzyklopiidie, p. 169.


express an existential self-understanding? Bultmann cannot simply point to his dialectical doctrine of knowledge, for that would be begging the question. His only resort is the historical argument that the New Testament itself demythologizes. Let me briefly return to his argument on the "basic point" of John.

Colpe and Schenke have shown that the Gnostic redeemer myth in the form postulated by Bultmann is probably a post-Christian Manichean development. 71 This does not deprive Bultmann' s reconstruction of John's history of religions background of all value. In fact, it is still stimulating the scholarly discussion. 72 For the purposes of the demythologizing debate, however, the conclusions of Colpe and Schenke show that John cannot be interpreted as cutting critical holes into the Gnostic redeemer myth.

There is a more basic point: Suppose Bultmann is completely correct in his reconstruction. This would not yet prove his main point, namely, that John de-objectifies revelation. John could simply have chosen some mythical elements which suited him to state that Jesus, objectively speaking, was the Son of God made flesh. Bultmann does not even consider this obvious possibility. He reads his own theology all too quickly into the historical data.

F. Conclusion

The enigma with which I began this article is that Bultmann is both a deeply believing Christian. and a radical rationalist critic of the New Testament. Precisely this apparent contradiction constitutes the systematic unity of his work which is rooted in his dialectical doctrine of knowledge. By demonizing the Enlightenment and turning it into his most implacable enemy, he thought he could make it, paradoxically, comfortable to live with.

71Carsten Colpe, Die religionsgeschichtliche Schule (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1961); Hans Martin Schenke, Der Gott "Mensch" in der Gnosis (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, 1962).

72Helmut Koester, for example, writes, "Further work with the documents from Nag Hammadi will most likely confirm Bultmann's hypothesis of the existence of a pre-Christian Jewish Gnosticism. Thus, his most controversial hypothesis about the history of religions background of the New Testament will be confirmed." "Early Christianity from the Perspective of the History of Religions: Bultmann's Contribution," in Bultmann, Retrospect and Prospect, pp. 59-74; here p. 72.


I have never felt uncomfortable in my critical radicalism. As a matter of fact, I am quite comfortable in it. But I often have the impression that my conservative colleagues in New Testament studies feel quite uncomfortable, because I always see them engaged in salvaging operations. I calmly let things burn, because I see tbat what is burning is merely the imaginations and pictures produced by life of Jesus research and that this is "Christ according to the flesh." This "Christ according to the flesh," however, is of no concern to us. 73

But if even flesh in its objectivity is God's creature, and if the Word of God became flesh, then Bultmann's comfort is too easy. The more difficult road must be pursued. What is needed for a constructive sifting of Bultmann' s legacy is thus a more positive and more critical assessment of the Enlightenment which avoids both Bultmann's demonizing and uncritical acceptance of it. What is needed is a renewed philosophy and theology of nature which sees nature as God's creation and as the vessel of God's expression. Here lies the great contribution of Hans Jonas to the discussion with Bultmann:

... the deeply religious Bultmann ... rested his whole life on the New Testament as the revelation, but he was unable to make room for it in theory, because he felt compelled to concede more to the "scientific world-view" than science itself demands. Here is where I wish to come to his aid with the means of philosophy ... More than once I saw him in my mind raise his eyebrows skeptically, shake his head doubtfully, and I almost hear him say now: But my friend, aren't you speculating here? Aren't you speaking of God in the objective mode ... Yes, 1 would reply, so be it, and would try to explain that at some point even here one must, for the sake of thought and of faith, dare to become objective ... 74 D

73Bultmann, Glauben und Verstehen, vol. 1, p. 101. 74Jonas, "Is Faith Still Possible?" pp. 21-22. There is a remarkable conver

gence between Hans Jonas and Hans Urs von Balthasar in some of these issues. Like Jonas, von Balthasar attempts to develop a renewed theology of revelation with the help of a renewed philosophy and theology of nature. Cf. his The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics (3 vols.; San Francisco: Ignatius, 1982-1986).

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