The process of Orthodoxy

The difficulty for any religious movement is that its internal justification for stability is the pointer back into the founding times, into in illo tempore, where the orthodoxy was completely revealed and implementable, while from the external viewpoint, the orthodoxy is the end result of the process.

The internal justification has a hard time with the fact that the external view often can point to internal events that tilt the trajectory one way or the other without any justification in the terms of the dogmatics.

For example, the resolution of the contention between the Judeo-Christians for whom the Gospel of Matthews is written and the Hellenistic Christians targeted by the works of Luke is not independent of the population sizes of these two groups, nor of the wars that the Jewish state fought against the Romans after the initial destruction of Jerusalem (which both Gospels assume). It is even possible that at the time of Matthews, the plane was already tipped against the Judeo-Christian groups, possibly by evicting the early Christian community that was Jewish from Jerusalem before its destruction in 70 ad (so the German Wikipedia on Judeo-Christians).

Clearly, Paul's writings presume a more Hellenistic and less Judeo-Christian setting and support that possibility, especially when considering the differences in the depiction of the Apostel Convention in Jerusalem (Gal 2 vs Acts 15).

Amusingly, one of the main time points in this process of the separation is the synod of Jamnia, that has itself the structure of a time point that is supposed to encapsulate a process---not only the termination of the canonical structure of the Hebrew Bible, but also the expulsion of the Judeo-Christians from the synagogue and the elevation of the Nazarim as a heretical sect into the Birkat HaMinim. As Günter Stermberg is quoted at the end of the German Wikipedia article on Jamnia, the retelling of the tradition made

aus vielfältigen, kontroversen und widerstrebenden Prozessen ein punktuelles Ereignis

out of a plurality of controverse and antagonistic processes a single-point outcome (own translation)

 QED

Demythologizing Debate---Part 6: Bultmann's Reactions

This post continues our series on demythologizing by giving Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, a chance to respond to his German critics: Lohmeyer, Schniewind, Thielicke, Schumann.

Bultmann's Reaction

... it is important to remember that every interpretation is actuated by the framing of specific questions, and without this there could be no interpretation at all. Of course, these questions need not be frame explicitly or consciously, but unless they are framed the texts have nothing to say to us. (p.191).

Bultmann believes that "the question of human existence" is the right way  to frame Biblical inquiry "at any rate within the Church" (p.192). This contribution to the question is also what drives history, in Bultmann's mind.

For the ultimate purpose in the study of history is to realize consciously the possibilities it affords for the understanding of human existence. (p.192)

Though the existential setup is such that man is oriented toward God, as Bultmann reminds us with St Augustine (p.192), the tools of the exegetical [and hermeneutical, RCK] trade are profane.

Every exeget is dependent upon a terminology which has come down to him by tradition, though it is accepted uncritically and without reflection, and every traditional terminology is in one way or another dependent upon a particular philosophy. (p.193)

Bultmann is looking for an appropriate terminology, without agreeing to the philosophical answers or to the specific solutions of a philosophical system. Bultmann believes that this terminology is abstract from the contents [just as Schumann argues that the myths are capable of expressing Christian truths, RCK].

... apart from the resolve to be a human being, [that is, RCK] a person who accepts responsibility for his own Being, not a single word of Scripture is intelligible as a word with an existential relevance. (p.194)

This is an acceptable approach, because there is an anthropological constant to this process.

Discussion on this subject is possible because every existential self-understanding lies within the possibilities of human existence, and therefore every existentialist analysis based upon an existential self-understanding is generally intelligible. (p.195)

And if the acting of God is in a category different from other worldly action, how can anyone speak about it except if they are affected by it?

... if the action of God is not to be conceived as a worldly phenomenon capable of being apprehended apart from its existential reference, it can only be spoken of by speaking simultaneously of myself as the person who is existentially concerned. (p.196)

This is the reason that natural actions are dependent on the observer in their interpretation.

To every other eye than the eye of faith the action of God is hidden. Only the "natural" happening is generally visible and ascertainable. In it is accomplished the hidden act of God. (p.197)

This is not pantheism, because the identity asserted is "paradoxical", not "direct" (p.197).

In faith I can understand a thought or resolve as something which is the work of God without necessarily removing it from its place in the chain of cause and effect. (p.197)

Bultmann believes Christianity not to be a Weltanschauung, because it requires the constant receptiveness of the believer to hear what God has to say (p.198). Unlike Pantheism, God does not lose the hidden quality.

But from time to time the believer sees concrete happenings in the light of the word of grace which is addressed to him, and then faith can and ought to apprehend it as the act of God, even if its meaning is still enigmatic. (p.198)

The conception of miracles as ascertainable processes is incompatible with the hidden character of God's activity. It surrenders the acts of God to objective observation, and thus makes belief in miracles (or rather superstition) susceptible to the justifiable criticisms of science. (p.199)

To the proclamation of the word of God's grace, as found in the New Testament, man responds by faith (p.200). But that word has to have a specific structure:

It is so only when Scripture is heard as a word addressed personally to ourselves, as kerygma---i.e. when the experience consists in encounter and response to the address. That Scripture is the Word of God is something which happens only in the here and now of encounter; it is not a fact susceptible to objective proof. The Word of God is hidden in Scripture, just like any other act of his. (p.200)

Bultmann also objects to being accused of destroying eschatology (p.205). Bultmann clarifies the relationship between historical event and historical investigation as follows:

That God has acted in Jesus Christ is, however, not a fact of past history open to historical verification. That Jesus Christ is the Logos of God can never be proved by the objective investigation of the historian. (p.207)

The eschatological interpretation of Jesus Christ is not the problem; the cosmic eschatology in which the NT places it (p.208).

The eschato- || logical event, which Christ is, is consequently realized invariably and solely in concreto here and now, where the Word is proclaimed (2 Cor 6:2; Joh 5:24) and meets with faith or unbelief (2 Cor 2:15f; Joh 3:18; Joh 9:39). (pp.208f)

 Though the context of discovery for demythologizing was the scientific world view, Bultmann now sees this need as coming from faith itself.

... the restatement of mythology is a requirement of faith itself. For faith needs to be emancipated from its association with every world view expressed in objective terms, whether it be a mythical or a scientific one. (p.210) 

This is a variant of "justification by faith alone apart from the works of the Law" in the Paulo-Lutheran tradition (p.211).

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 5: Schumann

This post continues our series on demythologizing by looking to parts of Friedrich K. Schumann's rejoinder to Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, for deeper insights.

Schumann

Schumann sets out with summarizing Bultmann's argument (p.175). Schumann sees Bultmann as arguing that an interpretation of the mythical framework must come from principles inside the New Testament that avoid abandonment or subtraction of the mythology.

... the interpretation [of the mythical parts, RCK] must be derived from the New Testament itself, from the aim which led it to select just these mythological elements. Now, the aim of the New Testament is to offer an existential understanding of the message of Christ. (p.176)

In short, it [i.e. the true and authentic life, RCK] means "eschatological existence".  Such an interpretation appears to have two advantages: first, it secures the essential truth of the New Testament message, and secondly it emancipates it from myth, and particularly from the eschatology of Jewish apocalyptic and Gnosticism. [sic!] (p.177)

Schumann reminds us of Bultmann's attempt to preserve the mythical figure of the Christ as a historical figure through Jesus of Nazareth.

Thus the peculiarity of the New Testament is that it speaks in mythological language of an historical figure and of the history of || that figure. (pp.178f)

Schumann then rightfully asks,

Why is it necessary to transcend the language of history in this peculiar way ["in this particular instance", RCK]? (p.179)

The question is therefore whether the mythological language is the only possible vehicle for conveying the meaning of Jesus for salvation history, .... (p.179)

The "acutest form" of this question poses itself with respect to "the proper language for the cross and resurrection of Jesus" (p.179), as the crucifixion designates a historical event, but its significance is mythical. Bultmann's solution is to regard the crucifixion as "the eschatological event" (p.180). The problem then, according to Schumann, becomes how we know that this particular historical event is supposed to be treated in this fashion.

So in attempting to emancipate the cross from mythology we are thrown back to a similar question with regard to the resurrection. (p.180)

Bultmann then points to the "inseparable unity of the cross and resurrection" (p.180), which Schumann agrees with, but finds as merely adding "to our difficulties" (p.180), because the redemptive quality of the cross is not established through the resurrection, but is termed to be equivalent to it, and this is indicated through the way it is preached, that is "proclaimed" in Bultmann's word (p.181).

This brings Schumann directly to the problem of whether the modern system of science permits such a notion as an eschatological event (p.182), even if it is, with Bultmann, "an historical event wrought out in time and space" (quoted (p.182)). Schumann believes that Bultmann understands that this is the residual paradox of the New Testament.

... the idea of a single historical event in time and space as the judgement pronounced by God over the historical process in time and space and the radical transformation of its whole constitution is inconceivable for those who accept the modern world view, and it would be impossible to make such a notion intelligible in terms of such a view. (p.182)

Bultmann in Schumann's reconstruction accuses mythology from attempting to supply "secular proof" for something that is eschatological, i.e. immune to such proof (p.182).

Schumann then turns to key points of methodology (p.184).

Schumann is unconvinced that the fit between philosophical theories of existence and fallenness on the one side and the Christian view of this situations, which is only mediated in Christ, have enough overlap (pp.184f).

To be fallen to "nothingness" is quite different from being fallen to sin and guilt and being fallen under the wrath of God. (p.185)

Schumann is skeptical of Bultmann's optimism that a formal description of the human condition can be had independent of personal existential attitudes thereof (p.185), and is convinced at least that Heidegger did not succeed in providing such a formal description (p.185). The Bible at least, in the phrase "created in the image of God", denies that man's Being can be described independent of his relationship to God (p.186).

Schumann prefers to interpret the mythological speech, such as Jesus calling God his father, by treating it as metaphorical speech, analyzing the relation between the literal meaning and the relevant features of the relationship between Jesus and God. (p.190) [[RCK: This is very akin to Barth's God as the original father argument.]]

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 7: Farrer

This post concludes our series on demythologizing by giving Austin Farrer as an English reader the opportunity to respond to the German Debate, between Bultmann (initial essay, response) and his German critics:  Lohmeyer, Schniewind, Thielicke.

Austin Farrer

Farrar approaches the problem by cataloging the "refusals of the modern mind" (p.214), distinguishing between necessary ("sun stood physically still for Joshua"), accidental ("blind eye for imagery based on the procedures of pre-scientific agriculture"), lamentable ("atrophy of ... the sense of poetry"), factitious ("Communism, physical materialism, economic utilitarianism") (p.214).

The different refusals require different addresses (p.215): Farrer considers factitious refusal akin to a disease and suggests to work to abolish them. The response to accidental and lamentable refusal is cultivation and imparting of information. But the necessary refusal must be accepted.

If, therefore, man cannot understand a "mythical" language because they are dogmatic materialists, it is a case of factitious error, and the direct target of our attack. If because they have lost their sense for poetical expression and living metaphor, it is lamentable and we ought to sustain and augment whatever rudiments of poetic sense remain. If because the Biblical images draw on unfamiliar fields of experience, it is accidental and must be met largely by the substitution of familiar images, not (if you like to say so) by demythicization but by remythicization. But if it is because of a real conflict with the way in which any decent modern man is bound to think, then indeed it is time to talk about removing the offensive element from the Biblical story by radical translation into harmless terms. (p.215)

The biggest problem is how to deal with poetic symbols vs literal facts (p.215). Farrer argues that in the NT, the relationship is often left undecided. St Luke probably thought that Jesus' genealogy was roughly correct (p.215), while John probably did not consider his sketch of the Heavenly Jerusalem correct to the extent a vista is (p.216).

But the middle cases ... are the more typical; if we ask with Bultmann ... whether spirits good and evil were really thought to be breaths of subtle and potent air physically invading the human person, we run into a mist of ambiguities. (p.216)

Farrer thinks Bultmann is making it too easy on himself by pretending to know that "the Word never becomes flesh by making physical fact as immediately pliable to his [i.e. God's, RCK] expression as spoken symbols are" (p.216). Farrer leaves the possibility open that God could make a symbolic expression into physical fact (p.216). Farrer sides with Lohmeyer that the symbolic dereferencing of religious expressions need not terminate (p.217), because there is no literal description that can terminate the recourse (pp.216f).

The techniques of historical scholarship cannot establish that God lived in man, but only that certain things were done and certain words were said. (p.219)

[[RCK: I would say that "certain words were written" is probably the strongest one can go.]]

Farrer then goes Catholic on his readers (p.222) before pointing to an inherent need for demythologizing in Christianity, realized in prayer.

The crucifixion of the images in which God is first shown to us is a necessity of prayer because it is a necessity of life. (p.222)

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 4: Thielicke

This post continues our series on demythologizing by looking to parts of Helmut Thielicke's rejoinder to Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, for deeper insights.

Thielicke

Thielicke sees Bultmann's essay as "an ecclesiastical event" [probably in allusion to the eschatological event, RCK] (p.138). 

Bultmann has asked the question whether salvation history, int its formal aspect at any rate, is to be regarded as myth rather than history, and as myth not only in its outer framework but in its essential core, in the event of Jesus Christ. (p.138)

Thielicke takes from Luther the focus on faith being something "located extra me" (p.139), from which the "controversy with Bultmann" acquires the role of a "status confessionis" (p.139).

[Each theologian, RCK] ... must decide what is the kernel of the gospel, and what is merely the outward husk which has been shaped by human imagination, by traditional interpretation, by the tendency to produce credal formulae, by the subsequent historical consolidation of the truths of faith. What is "truth" and what is "mythology"? What is divine and what is human? (p.140)

Thielicke contrasts the sincerity of Bultmann with the "vagueness, nay more, the downright insincerity ... of much modern preaching" (p.140). Pragmatics take the place of theology: "How much will the congregation stand?" Thielicke concedes that there is a line between the "husk of mythology and the kernel of revelation" and merely asks: "Where exactly should the line be drawn?"

Thielicke believes, and endeavors to show in the first, that Bultmann's restatement of mythology "is the elimination of salvation history and the substitution of philosophy for theology" (p.141). Against this, Thielike takes the confessional document of the Hessian church and points to the inevitability of myth in human communication, an anthropological given, so to speak (p.141).

Thielicke interprets Bultmann as defending the kerygma against the religionsgeschichtliche Schule,

... not by denying the influence of its environment [upon the kerygma, RCK], nor by a naive dogmatism which the study of the History of Religions has rendered obsolete, but by penetrating through the temporary framework of mythology to the permanent truth behind it. (p.143)

Thielicke praises Bultmann for his realistic view of the situation post-religionsgeschichtliche Schule, for

... the only real answer to the History of Religions school will come from a theologian who recognizes its discoveries and who realizes the complete change in the situation which those discoveries have brought about. (p.143)

Thieklicke agrees with the assessment that the mythology is ubiquitous and cannot be subtracted out, and that the Gospel cannot be converted into a timeless truth (p.144). The latter especially

... deprived salvation history of its historical roots and reduced it to a Weltanschauung (p.145).

Thielicke then reconstructs Bultmann as wanting to leave the myth in place but to interpret it, as "convey[ing, RCK] a particular understanding of human life." (p.145) Thielicke illustrates this with speculating on the creatio ex nihilo, which is not concerned with how the world came about, but what the role of the creature is vis-a-vis God as the creator in his uncontested absolute sovereignty (p.145).

Thielicke's protest begins with Bultmanns "understanding of life" (p.146), which he considers a reformulation of Schleiermacher's "self-consciousness".

Consequently the event in the process of revelation is not an objective reality, it is simply a change in the subjective consciousness of man. When the prologue of the Fourth Gospels [sic! RCK] says "The Word became flesh" it means by "flesh" not the historical fact in the manger at Bethlehem but the acquisition of the new understanding of human life which has its origin in that point of history. (p.147)

[[RCK: One wonders what Bultmann will do with this example, given that he clearly argued in the same essay---cf. (p.11); (p.34)---that the pre-existence of the Logos in the Gospel of John is incompatible with the nativity story in Bethlehem in Matthew and Luke, as well as James.]]

Thielicke considers the status of the events in history as negative or at best indirect (p.148). [[RCK: This is indeed so insofar as Bultmann only needs one historical event in his salvation history, the crucifixion.]]

Thielicke then objects on principles to bringing secular theology to bear on the interpretation of the Bible, which has the facultas se ipsum interpretandi, which can only be "violated ... with fatal results" (p.149).

This is what happened in Kant's philosophy, and again in theological idealism. (p.149)

Thielicke sees that Bultmann agrees with the philosophers, including his former pupil Kamlah, up and to the point of how to achieve redemption (p.151).

However, Thielicke inverts the relationship between resurrection and an encounter with the Christ (p.154):

... the resurrection is the only thing which creates a real encounter with Christ. (p.154) 

Thielicke admits that the mere historical nature of the empty tomb and similar "can never provide an adequate basis for faith, for they are still relative" (p.153).

Just as the Old Testament can only be understood and can only become an encounter in the light of the fact of Christ, so too the life of Jesus makes sense only in the light of the resurrection, and only so can become an encounter. (p.154)

And just as it is impossible to interpret the fact of Christ as a mythological inference from Old Testament prophecy, so also the resurrection cannot be regarded as a mythological inference from an encounter with Christ. In both cases the past has been absolutely superseded by a stark  fact of history, and placed in an entirely new light. (p.154)

Thielicke then turns to the question of how the "fundamental Christological events of Christmas, Good Friday, Easter, and Pentecost" are treated with Bultmann (p.155). Thielicke knows that the crucifixion and resurrection are collapsed into a present experience of "illumination" for Bultmann (p.155), referring to the phrase "I die and rise again with Christ" (p.36f), but with the resurrection being not historical, Thielicke is unsatisfied, arguing that Bultmann is making "salvation history evaporate into this questionable `present` of his" (p.156).

Thielicke is in general unhappy with the demarcation line between mythology and revelation, "the dividing-line between the eternal and the temporary, the divine and the human", as part of the Christian message is the penetration of that separation (p.157).

Thielicke then takes a separate tack, where he tries to show that mythology is "an essential element in human thought, and is it not therefore just a as valid an approach to reality as, e.g. that of natural science" (p.158). This transfers the problem into one of epistemology, and Thielicke wonders whether they are not complementary approaches, as it were (p.158)---with recourse on Bachofen, reading "symbol" as "mythological symbolism" (p.159).

Using Alfred Jeremias definition of Biblical myth---"the narration of a heavenly process, presented in a definite logical series of motifs reflected symbolically in objective events" (p.160)---and analogizing it to Kant's Ding an sich, which "affects our capacity for apprehension with its categorical determination" (p.160), Thielicke reconstructs a transcendental element, "a reality which utterly transcends consciousness, and which possesses an objective validity of its own" (p.160).
From this construction, Thielicke concludes that

Myth and history are not a priori antitheses. (p.161)

Thielicke now enumerates tasks that the theologians have to tackle, including separating "legendary embroidery" from "myths which contain transcendental truth, and which are therefore absolutely indispensible" (p.161),  among which he numbers "the myths of the creation, the fall, etc" (p.161). Some myths, such as the Virgin birth, are "pictorial explanations of certain facts in history" (p.162). Thielicke then suggests that "remythologizing" be the watchword, since Bultmann is in the end too academic about the problem:

... our age is not one of enlightenment. So far from accepting enlightenment as an ideal, it is consciously, and still more unconsciously, searching for a new myth. (p.162)

Thielicke wonders whether such remythologizing will cause the new myths of the age, of which he mentions "spirit, existence, or blood" (p.162), would not rupture when filled with the Christian dogma---similarly to the way Schleiermacher's Christliche Leben destroyed the religious sketch of the Reden (p.163 Fn 3); Thielicke specifically cites the Deutschen Christen as a failure of such a re-imagination (p.164).

With remythologizing eliminated, and Bultmann's interpretation a failure,

because it involves the substitution of an abstract philosophy of existence for a kerygma rooted in history (p.164)

Thielicke asks whether Christianity can be modernized at all, and faces the dilemma theologically (p.164). Thielicke briefly toys with Oscar Cullmann's idea of using "prophecy" instead of "myth" (p.166), a point that Cullmann raised then and again in his own Heil als Geschichte, pp.80-82 [[RCK: cf. my discussion here]].

Thielicke then points to the fundamental difference between Biblical and pagan myth, and sees the pagan myth under the divine judgement of the fall.

Man shows by this [i.e. the pagan myth, RCK] a quite definite concern as to what God shall be and what he shall not be. The pagan myth is not so much the expression of a history between God and man as its actual accomplishment. ... In its mythology a people registers and betrays its relation to the truth. (p.166)

Thielicke also notes that in the same way God chose to take flesh, He also chose to place himself into the mind of man (p.167). Thielicke plays here with the imagery of the ancient construction techniques.

Human reason is only a crib, fashioned from the same wood as the cross. (p.167)

Thielicke points out that such a preparation has happened with philosophical terms, for example following the French Thomist Jacques Maritain, with the logos. [[RCK: Thielicke had already alluded to this (p.164).]]

Thus the speculation and the mythology which grew up around the Logos, or rather the insight into the truth which these represent, is taken up and used by revelation as a vehicle, however inadequate, for the event of revelation. ... It is inadequate, because it is a temporal concept, and the truth which it has to express is a transcendent one. (p.167)

Thielicke then begins to wonder why God had not delayed until Einstein and Copernicus, so that a more appropriate world view be found for the revelation [[RCK: sounding like Tim Rice in Jesus Christ Superstar, for all intents and purposes.]] Thielicke acknowledges the Catholic line of thinking on this issue:

[Catholic theology's, RCK] ... suggestions still hold good, even if we cannot agree with the hypothesis of the analogia entis, however attractive it may be in this particular connection, and even if we cannot accept the view that the movement from praeparatio evangelica in classical thought via the Logos to the Christian revelation in an unbroken line from nature to grace. (p.168)

Thielicke initially grapples with the problem that the three-storied, outmoded model of the world in the NT somehow served better for the "idea of transcendence" (p.169; p.171), but then begins to take advantage of the preliminary notion of the "hypothesis" concept.

It was to bring out this difference that the distinction was drawn between Weltbild and Weltanschauung, the former representing a transsubjective, scientific fact, and the latter man's subjective interpretation of himself, and interpretation which is quite independent of the Weltbild. (p.170)

Here Thielicke has effectively re-iterated the independence between myth and science he had claimed already earlier. The affirmation as a faith of the Weltbild  produces an immanent ethics, religion, and philosophy of history (p.170). Thielicke then claims that far from the Weltbild being at fault, it is the Weltanschauung that competes against the Christian world view (p.171),.

Having thus grounded mythology as an anthropological given (p.172; cf. p.158) and seeing the task of the symbol interpretation via Bachofen to be the particularization for the individual (p.173), Thielicke reminds the reader to pay attention to the different types of myth (p.173). This is the proper response of the Church to Bultmann's problem statement (p.174).

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 3: Lohmeyer

This post continues our series on demythologizing by looking to parts of Ernst Lohmeyer's rejoinder to Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, for deeper insights.

Lohmeyer

Lohmeyer haggles with Bultmann over the way myth needs to be conceptualized and what its function os.

It is just here that the enigma of myth lies: it dares to speak of an absolute Deity in human words and with analogies from human relationships, and moreover is successful in doing so. (p.128)

Lohmeyer also wants to emphasize the aspect of the world, cosmology, which he sees sadly neglected in  Bultmann's treatment.

Myth revolves around the inexhaustible wealth of these relations between God and the world and man: it lives and springs like a ceaseless fountain from these three sources of theology, cosmology and anthropology. (p.128)

Lohmeyer next investigates the relationship between theology as science and preaching.

[Christianity, RCK] ... is an historical religion, and at the same time the final, eschatological, only true religion---Jesus Christ, not only yesterday, but to-day and for ever. (p.130) 

For Lohmeyer, the myth functions like a symbol, and can form "the mode in which God reveals himself" (p.130).

... myth never recognized any limit to its applicability, any more than modern science does. Both are potentially capable of drawing all truth into their own sphere, and even where something happens, which does not fit into its conceptions, it is brought into relation with those conceptions, and even the most ordinary occurrence may become the vessel of a mythical revelation. (p.132)

Indeed, Lohmeyer thinks that existentialism is a form of secularized Christianity (p.134).

Lohmeyer analogizes myth to the other modes of expressions, such as "a dialogue, a doctrine, or a prayer" (p.135).

Interpretation must always establish the permanent content of truth behind the mode of expression, and ascertain why historically it was uttered in that particular mode. (p.135)

In this Lohmeyer is given to a much dated hermeneutics.

When the truth is established as valid apart from the investigator himself, scientific theology has achieved its aim. (p.136) 

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Demythologizing Debate---Part 2: Schniewind

This post continues our series on demythologizing by looking to parts of Julius Schniewind's rejoinder to Bultmann, whose essay was the first part, for deeper insights.

Julius Schniewind

In Part VII of his critique, Schniewind faces some of the terminological problems of Bultmann. 

"Historic" existence is contrasted with "nature". Nature is the sphere of the demonstrable and calculable, the realm of causality. "Historic" being, on the other hand, is realized in decision (p.11) and resolve (p.22). 

Schniewind then goes on to extend that definition excavated from Bultmann.

Nature, we may add, is always consistent, and is therefore patient of experimental research. History, on the other hand, is characterized by Either/Or, and therefore bears the stamp of uniqueness, contingency and spontaneity. (p.76)

Bultmann had argued in the discussion with Thielicke that

... we know that the act of God is what it claims to be only when we realize that it happened pro me. (cited (p.77))

And

The paradox of the Christian Gospel is just this---those events are present realities although they belong to past history. (cited (p.77)) 

Schniewind largely agrees with Bultmann.

... faith is soemthing given "in with and under" the testimony of the cross and resurrection. ... The event of salvation is valid for all time; it is a permanent Now. For here is the unique and final revelation of God. (p.78)

But Schniewind worries that Bultmann's sense of eschatological is too wide, covering all of religious experience, not just the "last things" as the literal meaning would suggest (p.78).

Schniewind then goes on to criticize the temporal structure with which Bultmann operates. To Schniewind, the present, the now,

... is never an object of possession: it is the mathematical point between the past and the future. (p.81)

Schniewind equally objects to the identification of the present with the eschatological (p.81).

Eschatology deals with the telos, with the meaning and the goal of the time process, not with the eternal present. (p.81)

Here, Schniewind and Bultmann pass company on their interpretation of the Gospel of John, which is not illuminative to the problem at hand.
Schniewind also challenges Bultmann's notion, that the "historic" (geschichtlich)  can be defined as decision, because of the event separation within the decision of the before and after.

... both decisions and events imply a time-process rather than an immediate and unconditional present. (p.82)

Schniewind then turns to the problem, how Geschichte and Historie relate to each other, a problem that he traces back to at least Martin Kähler (p.82).

Geschichte means the mutual encounter of persons, Historie the causal nexus in the affairs of men. The latter is the subject matter of historical science, which seeks to divest itself of all presuppositions and prejudices and to establish objective facts. Geschichte, on the other hand, cannot achieve such impartiality, for the encounter which it implies vitally affects our personal existence: it demands resolve and decision, yes or no, love or hate. (p.82)

[[RCK: One wonders where Schniewind got that distinction of Geschichte and Historie from, maybe this is Kähler 1892, like Schniewind writes; cf. (p.82).]]

Schniewind now denies that it possible to "run away" from the relativism of Historie to Geschichte, as Bultmann seems to do (p.83).

We cannot reject Historie because it is not vitally present for us and accept Geschichte because it is so. (p.83)

[The, RCK] ...  inseparability of the historic-contingent and the historical-relative reappears in historical research on the level of scientific thought. The mainspring of historical research is historic encounter, and the uniqueness of events, whether singly or collectively. On the other hand, all historical research worth the name leads simply in the pursuit of its pre- || cision work to the question of decision, to the historic encounter. (pp.83f)

Schniewind then loses steam and returns to the preservation of the "skandalon" (p.86) in Bultmann's reconstruction.

Bultmann says .... commenting on the mythoi of the Pastoral Epistles, that every religion rejects the claims of its opposite numbers as myths, and claims absolute truth for itself. (p.86)

Instead, Schniewind ends up reconstructing a different anthropological constant, the desire for rebirth, which he finds even in Indian philosophy (p.94).

Bultmann's Reply

Eschatology tells us the meaning and the goal of the time process, but that answer does not consist in a philosophy of history, like pantheism, where the meaning and goal of history are to be seen in each successive moment, or like the belief in progress, where the goal is realized in a future Utopia, or myth, which offers an elaborate picture of the end of the world.  (p.116)

Indeed, eschatology is not at all concerned with the meaning and goal of secular history, for secular history belongs to the old aeon, and therefore can have neither meaning nor goal. It is concerned rather with the meaning and goal of the history of the individual and of the eschatological community. (p.116)

Bultmann is also very clear on the kerygmatic, non-historical style of the New Testament.

Neither St Paul nor St John mediate an historic encounter with the historic Jesus. Even if the synoptic gospels appear to do so, that is only when they are read in the light of the historical problems which have arisen since their day, not when they are read in their original sense. (p.117)

To understand Jesus as the eschatological phenomenon ... is to proclaim that he has come, and that is what St John does so clearly. (p.117) 

Bibliographic Record

Rudolf BULTMANN, Ernst LOHMEYER, Julius SCHNIEWIND, Helmuth THIELICKE, Austin FARRER, Kerygma and Myth: A Theological Debate, edited by Hans Werner BARTSCH, translated by Reginald HORACE, New York -- Evanston (Harper and Row), 1961.

Current state of Pentateuch research

John Van Seters socio-historical study of the Pentateuch will be re-issued in October of this year.

The basic scheme is as follows:
= Dtrn (7th century)
= Josh to 2nd Kings (= DtrH the deuteronomistic historian) (early exilic period)
= Gen/Ex/Lev/Num (formerly J) (late exilic period)
= Pentateuch redaction under P in post-exilic times

The biggest worry I have with this is that it puts the Davidic/Salomonic United Kingdom too late. Under this view, it is not a theological retroprojection of the Josianic Reform movement that is to be restored, but entirely without historical context. That's a bit too radical even for my tastes.

(see the 2004 edition http://books.google.at/books… for details)