As will be seen below, the utter lack of a proper orientation to God prior to repentance and the sporadic and incomplete orientation after repentance render God of a character that is inaccessible to humanity.
This is not to say that the Bultmann—or the dialectical theologians, for that matter—has rendered God completely inaccessible in every way. God must be accessible to humankind in order to be of any relevance to human life; indeed, were God not so, the term "dialectical theologian" would itself be oxymoronic. Rather, Bultmann insisted that God reveals Godself on God’s own terms, not on human ones. That is, the encounter with God is a justification by faith, without regard for any accomplishments (works) of humankind. This revelation is a stumbling block to human comprehension, and it is one that Bultmann claims the liberal theologians are wrongfully trying to remove.
Existentialism and the Existentialist Interpretation of Scripture
Describing God as "Wholly Other" allowed Bultmann to establish what he considered an appropriate distance between God and human comprehension, but it seemed to obviate any connection at all between God and humanity. Bultmann realized that God’s "distance" from humanity can be relevant only as a characteristic of a larger relationship between humans and the divine. Stated logically, if A is in every way disconnected from B, then A is irrelevant to B. In the interest of providing a coherent description of the Christian faith, Bultmann sought a theological apparatus by which he could maintain God’s radical difference without sacrificing God’s relationality. He would find this apparatus within the existentialist philosophy of his Marburg colleague, Martin Heidegger.
Bultmann believed that Heidegger provided a penetrating account of the human situation, particularly with respect to the categories of consciousness, finitude, anxiety, and decision. Although Bultmann’s use of these categories is too complex for a full discussion, one can get at least a sense of his system (and his indebtedness to Heidegger) by looking at his analysis of choice or decision. Bultmann felt that people face certain decisions in their lives that are of existential signficance. These decisions are not just one aspect of what a person does; rather, they constitute the very heart of what it means to be an existent individual. That is, a person exists in and through the choices that he or she makes in any particular moment. Bultmann argues that what is involved in these decisions is the person’s self-understanding in light of the possibilities of the person’s life. This self-understanding is not a conception that arises through philosophical reflection on one’s own existence, but instead is a part of the act of existing itself – it is pre-philosophical, ontic reality (Schilling 1966, 83). In light of the importance Bultmann places of decision, it is no surprise that he approaches theology by speaking of faith in terms of decision and in terms of its transformative effects on the person’s self-understanding.
Bultmann would call the individual’s act of deciding an "existential event", as opposed to the philosophical description of this event, which he would call an "existentialist conceptuality." In general, Bultmann uses the word "existential" to refer to an individual human being experiencing his or her own existence and making choices that determine his or her future. As such, the word refers to a concrete event within the life of the existent person. Bultmann uses "existentialist", by contrast, to refer to a coherent body of philosophical concepts and a specific method of interpreting existence (Johnson 1991, 22). Existentialist thought makes use of concepts to illuminate human existence, but these concepts do not refer directly to individuals. Therefore, while an individual’s experience is the existential event, it only constitutes the data for reflection by existentialist thought. (A good example of this is the actual person’s experience of being in love, an existential event, versus a highly developed theory of love, an existentialist conception).
Later in his career, Bultmann used this distinction to sharply distinguish between faith and theology. For Bultmann, faith is the existent person’s decision in the concrete moment to accept a new self-understanding and, as such, is an existential event. Theology, on the other hand, attempts to be coherent reflection on the meaning of faith. It, therefore, requires an appropriate theoretical model (for Bultmann, his own existentialist model). So while the layperson has no need of existentialist concepts to be confronted by God’s word and the choice of faith, the theologian must use these in order to engage in the disciplined and scientific study of faith that Bultmann calls theology.
Perhaps Bultmann’s most important use of his existentialist methodology is in his interpretation of scripture. Indeed, Bultmann was at least as important a New Testament scholar as a theologian (Amongst other accomplishments, he invented Form Criticism, a method that notices that certain classes of pericopes in the synoptic gospels such as healing stories and exorcism stories often have a formulaic structure. These structures would indicate liturgical use in the church and thus imply a composition date much later than the death of Jesus). To understand what Bultmann meant by an existentialist interpretation of scripture, it is helpful first to see why he thought it was necessary. After all, why not just use the objectifying modes of thinking so successful in the natural sciences? Bultmann’s answer is that the approach of the natural sciences is inappropriate to hermeneutics because a person’s relation to history, and thus to texts of our history like scripture, is wholly different from her relationship to nature. For Bultmann, humans are right to differentiate themselves from nature and perceive it as truly other. But the case with history is different – humans cannot separate themselves from their historical existence. Unlike the natural scientist, the person engaged in historical studies is considering a living complex of events in which she is essentially involved. Therefore, the history complex cannot be observed "objectively" in the sense used in the natural sciences, for every word spoken about history is at the same time said about the person speaking (Bultmann 1991, 92).
Bultmann felt that many exegetes of his day had not recognized this insight. Thus, they chose a hermeneutic that attempted to be neutral, when in fact such neutrality is impossible. Bultmann argued that instead of assuming a posture of distance and control, the exegete ought to approach a text with the consciousness of the problematic character of his own existence. According to Bultmann, when we ask the question of the meaning of a text, then we are asking questions about the possibilities for our existence that arise from the encounter with the text, questions that may only be asked when we recognize that our existence is open and therefore uncertain (Bultmann 1991, 133). Since the exegete’s interpretation is at the same time an elucidation of his own existential possibilities, he ought to confront the text "just as we confront other men to whom we stand in living relationship and with whom we first achieve any existence at all, that is, in the relation of I and Thou" (Bultmann 1991, 134). Thus, just like we relate to people, we must relate to a text in a way that acknowledges its claim upon us, its claim to inform our existence and say something new.
Bultmann’s argument applies to any text that makes claims about history and human existence, not just scripture. For Bultmann, the distinctive character of New Testament exegesis is that the exegete is confronted by the New Testament contention that humanity does not have its own existence at its disposal in such a way that it can pose the question of existence for itself – this is found only in the experience of faith (Bultmann 1991, 135). The decisive question for understanding the scriptures, then, is whether or not the demand of faith is acknowledged. Bultmann felt that the exegete accomplishes this "believing questioning" only if she stands in her existence under the tradition of the church founded upon the word (Bultmann 1991, 135).
An example of Bultmann’s existentialist interpretation of scripture is his reading of the eschatology of Jesus. Like other theologians, Bultmann realized the problem of having an eschatological Jesus who wrongly proclaimed the end of the world and the impending Reign of God. But Bultmann repudiated the effort to explain these teachings of Jesus by pronouncing them a later product of the Church. Instead, he saw the eschatological teachings as constituting a unity with the ethical teachings that, according to Bultmann, may be stated as the following: "Fulfillment of God’s will is the condition for participation in the salvation of his Reign" (Bultmann 1991, 118). Interpreted through existential categories, Bultmann sees Jesus affirming that it is the person’s relation towards God that decides his fate and that the hour of decision for or against God is of limited duration. Thus, Jesus’ eschatology represents, in existential terms, the demand for a decision here and now that is of ultimate significance. Of course, Jesus himself understands his message in terms of an eschatological world-view, which mythologizes the individual’s hour of decision to a decisive event for the entire world. But the existentialist interpretation allows us to see that it is not the belief in the end of the world that is the religious significance of Jesus’ eschatology. Rather, it is the idea of God that operates in it and the idea of human existence it contains (Bultmann 1991, 120).
Later in his career, Bultmann would repudiate the personalistic, existential elements of his hermeneutical theory in favor of a more scientific, existentialist methodology. This is particularly evident in his 1950 essay "The Problem of Hermeneutics," where he first draws the sharp distinction between faith and theology described above (Johnson 1991, 24). This essay is also significant because it is representative of the distance that had grown between Barth and Bultmann since Bultmann’s favorable review of Barth’s Epistle to the Romans in 1922. In the 1950 essay, Bultmann argues that interpretation only comes about when the author and interpreter have the same "life relation" to the subject matter under discussion (Bultmann 1991, 142). This is only possible if the exegete brings a particular pre-understanding to the text, an understanding that allows the basic intentions of the questions asked by the exegete to correspond to the intentions of the answers given in the text. So for a scientific understanding of theology, "everything turns on the appropriate interpretation of the question" posed to the scriptures (Bultmann 1991, 155). For Bultmann, this meant that philosophical reflection on the questions we want to ask is required even before we look to scripture for answers. Bultmann’s conviction of philosophy’s importance in theology stood fundamentally at odds with Barth’s own opinion ( who rejected any philosophical intrusion into theology), and thus it is no surprise that the 1950 essay portrays Barth only as a theological opponent who must be combated.
Kerygma as the Source of faith
Bultmann’s existentialist theology was founded on the Cross of Christ. He saw this event not as a primarily historical event, but rather as an existential event. Christ’s life and death, as proclaimed in the kerygma, form the catalyst for the existential crisis that reconciles humanity to God. The kerygma thus survives independent of the historical question of Jesus and of Jesus’ own claims of Messiahship (Bultmann 1991, 123). In fact, Bultmann felt that the Christian faith did not exist until the kerygma was formed (i.e., the kerygma proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Crucified and Risen One, to be God’s eschatological act of salvation), an accomplishment Bultmann largely cedes to the theological developments of the apostle Paul (Bultmann 1991, 103). It is in Paul’s writings that the Christianity gains an adequate self-understanding, as he concentrates not on Jesus’ teachings and their further development, but rather on the significance of Christ and the kerygma of the early community (Bultmann 1991, 213).
Bultmann’s precise conception of kerygma was decisively influenced by his training in the history of religions school. This influence led Bultmann to his basic theological principle that God’s word or revelation never appears in a pure or direct form. According to Bultmann, we can know revelation only through the mediation of language. Language, in turn, is affected by the cultural forms in which it arises. Therefore, in order to understand the kerygma of the early church, one must examine the existential conditions dominant in the church’s culture of origin.
Thus, in his quest for the kerygma of Christianity, Bultmann examined in addition to Christianity such contemporary Hellenistic religions as apocalyptic Judaism, Astral Worship and Gnosticism (to name a few). He noted that each of these told mythical stories about cosmic battles between the forces of evil and good. The remarkable similarities between these stories led Bultmann to conclude that Christianity was itself "a remarkable product of syncretism" (Bultmann 1991, 185). That is, the mythological mindset so commonplace among other religions in the first two centuries undoubtedly impacted the mindset of Christianity such that its own mindset was comparably mythological. Therefore, Bultmann felt that it was no surprise to see the origins of the kerygma imbued with these mythological forms of thought.
But despite the many similarities between Christianity and the other Hellenistic religions—particularly gnosticism—Bultmann argued that the theological core of the kerygma itself was unique to Christianity, and in fact independent of any mythological worldview. This core was the proclamation that God, as that which is the ground of any person’s "world," had sent Jesus to bring humanity to a consciousness of its own finitude and thus dependence on God. That is, one’s "world" (viz., oneself) is not complete outside of its grounding in God, and thus can be restored to its true nature only by reorientation to that ground. Until one has appropriated the grace of God manifested in Christ’s work, he is "alienated from his own true nature, alienated from life, enslaved under hostile powers and in bondage to death" (Bultmann 1991, 186).
This reorientation is accomplished only through the recognition of God’s judgment in the event of the cross. It is here where God proclaims that a person’s very being is not their own, but is the gift of God; every being might otherwise not have been, and thus one’s very existence is not one’s own. Christ is the example par excellence of authentic living, and by His death demonstrates that mortality is beyond our control. By Christ’s example, it becomes evident that people have failed to recognize their creatureliness, and thus have structured their "worlds" inauthentically. By not acknowledging their dependence on God as that in which their very existence rests, all human beings have sinned and stand guilty before God.
The Cross of Christ, however, is not simply a revelation of God’s judgment upon the world; it is also a revelation of God’s grace. Inasmuch as Christ’s example and death on the Cross bring to human attention that character of an authentic orientation to existence itself, it also prescribes the appropriate means by which humans can reorient their lives to achieve just such an authentic orientation. That is, in pointing out the problem, God has also made available the solution. Thus, Bultmann writes, "Only the man who knows himself to be a sinner can know what grace is. He knows himself as a sinner only in so far as he stands before God; therefore he can only know of sin when he also knows of grace. The sight of God’s judgment and God’s grace together belongs to the nature of faith" (Bultmann 1987, 51).
Adherence to the gospel message is thus an act of faith, according to Bultmann. When one recognizes the true nature of one’s existential situation in God, one adopts a new existential understanding of selfhood. "It is an act of obedience, in which man surrenders all his "boasting", all desire to live on his own resources, all adherence to tangible realities, and assents to the fact of a crucified Lord" (Bultmann 1991, 197). Echoing Paul, Bultmann claims the "scandalous fact of a crucified Lord" is the center of Christian proclamation (Bultmann 1991, 197).
The kerygma is not itself a guaranteed success. Rather, it is somewhat limited in three respects. First, the redemptive significance of the Cross is not apparent to everyone; while it is often spoken, it is only rarely heard. This is because only the person who listens in faith will recognize the existential anxiety and resolution that the Cross embodies. Bultmann writes that faith "… is obedient hearing of the Word—that is, of the Word which tells me that I am a sinner and that God in Christ forgives my sins—and such faith is a free act of decision. For only in the free act of decision is the being of man as a historical being achieved. … Then follows the theological task of guarding this act of faith against the misunderstanding of its as a work" (Bultmann 1987, 132). Listening in faith is listening in a way that is receptive to a truly authentic response to the most fundamental of human concerns: one’s own existence. It is thus of utmost importance that the kerygma be preached often, with boldness, and with utmost clarity.
Second, the kerygma does not entail a permanent change. Bultmann is in this respect quite down-to-earth in his appraisal of human faith. Just as it was nearly impossible to gain an authentic existential orientation to life, it is equally easy to lose that orientation as life brings on new situations and challenges. That is, the realities that had previously appeared sufficient to the exclusion of God continue even after the encounter with the Cross to tempt the believer to rely on them instead of God. Thus, Bultmann writes that faith "can be, indeed it must be, doubted time and again" (Bultmann 1987, 50). Thus, the kerygma is not merely a singular event in the life of the believer, but a lifelong process of faith; "it has reality only as the obedience of faith that is always new" (Bultmann 1991, 231).
Finally, the kerygma as the church receives it is itself buried in the mythological structure of its roots. Yet, despite its close connection to the Word in the New Testament, the kerygma cannot be confined to any sacred formula from the past. As mentioned above, the kerygma becomes God’s liberating word only when it is heard, only when it confronts people in their concrete situation and demands a decision. Thus, the kerygma can never be fixed because it is ever extending itself to new people, and hence its language will always reflect the changing contexts of the people who hear it. This problem was of particular concern to Bultmann, and thus will receive detailed attention below.
Demythologization
Bultmann first proposed the concept of demythologizing the New Testament in a 1941 lecture, published as the essay "New Testament and Mythology" (Johnson 1991, 39). The essay provoked a heated controversy in Germany, but the project of demythologization was not generally recognized in the rest of the world until the 1948 publication of Kerygma and Mythos (Johnson 1991, 39). This book quickly placed Bultmann into the American theological scene, and its subject of demythologization became the center of controversy in the theological material of many countries. The debate became so heated, in fact, that heresy trials were instituted in Germany and the United States against those who used Bultmann’s theology in their preaching (Johnson 1991, 39).
The uproar around demythologization was ironic because the program presented no ideas that were not already contained in Bultmann’s earlier works. Indeed, "demythologize" was new to his theology only as a word. But the project itself was important because it allowed him to synthesize several themes of his theology into one theological approach. The goal of demythologizing the New Testament was just as the word would suggest: the removal of mythology from the Christian kerygma. It is in the analysis of exactly what Bultmann considered mythology that we see his old themes showing up.
First, Bultmann judged as mythological the prevalent world-view of the first Christians. As discussed above, Bultmann realized that the earliest Christians framed the kerygma within the generally accepted mythological outlook of their time. He felt that this world-view could not be accepted in the modern world, where a scientific world-view was prevalent. The distinction between the two is best clarified by their respective view on miracles. The mythological world-view has no problem accepting the existence of supernatural violations of the natural order. But for the scientific mentality, the universe appears as a closed system of law abiding cause-effect relations, and therefore this concept of miracle is no longer credible in the modern era. In this sense, to demythologize the gospels means to strip away their outdated and unacceptable world-view so that the kerygma may be heard in the modern context.
Second, Bultmann viewed mythology as a particular way of thinking about God. Mythology uses objectifying concepts and images to understand that which transcends the world. Thus, mythology speaks of God in terms of space (heaven) and time (eschatology), when in fact these categories can only distort the reality of God. In this sense, mythological thinking is not confined to a certain time in history, but is prevalent in all eras, from the ancient Christians to liberal Protestantism. At the same time, Bultmann can talk about Paul’s demythologization despite his mythological world-view because Paul de-objectified a prior understanding of God. Understood this way, demythologization is a rejection of objectifying thinking about God and of any philosophy that would not recognize God as Wholly Other.
Bultmann argued that demythologization does not mean the elimination of every mythological story from the New Testament. Rather, it is a method of interpretation that recognizes mythology and rejects any attempts to ascribe ultimate significance to it. As such, demythologizing is only the negative step of a more comprehensive method of interpretation that Bultmann had been propounding for many years before he introduced the word "demythologize", the existentialist interpretation of scripture. For example, returning to the example of the Jesus' eschatology described above, Bultmann demythologizes the eschatology of Jesus so that his existentialist analysis can uncover its real meaning and significance. For Bultmann, the ‘No’ of demythologization exists only for the positive work of the existentialist interpretation, the rendering "clear the call of the Word of God" (Bultmann 1991, 304).
