David Congdon, Revelation, Salvation and Making Connections
¶ 2
Second, I would like to offer a way
of clarifying the relation between the revelation of God on the one hand to
other phenomenological descriptions of humanity, culture, and nature on the
other. Bultmann opens this door with his use of the existential nature of human
existence. The point here is to clarify revelation as our primary source for
knowledge of God, but our knowledge of humanity and world might serve as an
important point of contact for theology, preaching, and witness in the world.
The debate between Bultmann and
Barth, as Dr. Congdon describes it, has made one thing increasingly clear. If
we are to know anything about God, it will be because God reveals who God is.
The initiative is from God. Revelation is therefore an expression of the grace
and love of God for humanity. We hear revelation as a strange or foreign
presence. In part, such strangeness arises out of differing cultural and
intellectual settings. Yet, its strangeness also arises out of its
eschatological and therefore divine nature. Its strangeness is a sign of human
sin. Therefore, the revelation of God is manifestation of divine love and
grace. God revealed who God is in Jesus Christ, especially in his cross and
resurrection.
In considering the revelation of
God, the cross is central to Bultmann. He says the cross is a permanent
historical fact. As an historical act, crucifixion was a political act by the
Roman Empire against rebels to their rule. However, Bultmann thinks his death
as a political criminal was an accident of misunderstanding by Roman
authorities. Historically speaking, his death was accidental and meaningless. To
bring another theologian into the conversation, Moltmann disagrees with this
assessment because that age united politics with religion. He thinks Pilate
assessed the situation well, given the refusal of early Christianity to engage
in emperor worship and willingness to experience martyrdom.[1]
Moltmann says that historically, Bultmann is quite correct that we do not know
whether Jesus found meaning in his death and if he did how he arrived at that
meaning. He may have simply suffered a collapse. However, he wants it clear
that Jesus died with the experience of God forsaking and abandoning him. Jesus
clearly did not have the fine or beautiful death praised in Socrates or in the
Stoic philosophy.[2]
The abiding and saving significance
of the cross is that it reveals the judgment and deliverance of humanity. Preaching
the cross is the event of redemption that challenges all who hear to
appropriate this significance for themselves. We experience crucifixion with
Christ through this turn to the cross in faith. Thus, Bultmann resists turning
the cross into a myth. He also resists making it a meaningless historical event
by stressing the role of faith. Authentic existence today depends upon this
turn in faith to the cross. Yet, in criticism, it would appear that Bultmann deprives
the cross of any significance of its own. It has significance only in the
existential process of crucifixion with Christ, whereas this should be
secondary. Bultmann wants to translate the cross into an eschatological history
that originates in the historical event of the cross and continues in the life
of the believer. If the crucifixion of Jesus is primary, then our crucifixion
with Christ derives its significance from the death of Christ “for us.” The
revelation of God in the cross, the one crucified for the godless, makes it
possible for us to follow him. The danger in Bultmann is the cross becomes an
example for the Christian to follow.[3]
Salvation of humanity is possible
because of the eschatological nature of the revelation of God. One of the questions
Bultmann as theologian raises is whether studies of the phenomena of the human
can help the theologian explain the nature of this salvation and revelation. For
Bultmann, this revelation reveals the future. Bultmann will provide an
historical point of reference by focusing upon the eschatological preaching of
Jesus as opening the door to understanding Jesus himself as the eschatological
action of God. (In this approach, Pannenberg has learned much from Bultmann.) More
importantly, Bultmann will rely upon the existential analysis of human
existence to understand the nature of the turn to Christ by those who have faith.
He can say that the revelation of God is a matter of human beings coming to
themselves and understanding themselves truly. Arriving at our authentic self
is salvation. Thus, revelation is the basis of authenticity. One cannot achieve
authenticity through individual effort. Divinity discloses itself in
authenticity. Revelation addresses us. Preaching is revelation. Faith discloses
the object of faith. Faith belongs to revelation. Revelation has no content.
Rather, it means individuals come to a new awareness of themselves. Revelation
is the arrival of the eschaton.[4]
In this way, his devotion to the existentialist analysis of human existence
becomes a way to bring the revelation of God into contact with humanity as
understood in a particular way. I should also stress, with the help of the
study of Dr. Congdon, that Bultmann never lost the Christ-centered nature of
this salvation and revelation. We will discuss this in another section.
I happen to think that this use of
Heidegger by Bultmann the theologian is reasonable. In fact, his approach
raises the question of other human reflections on the phenomena of the human
relate to the theological attempt to understand and proclaim the revelatory act
of God in Christ.
I suggest that Pannenberg can
assist us in this question. He will also engage Heidegger, for example, but in
a quite different way than does Bultmann. In fact, as I have kept reading
Pannenberg over the decades, I have come to appreciate the nuance he brings to
the table. Neither philosophy nor science can demonstrate anything like the
existence or character of God. Orienting ourselves to this eschatological
action of God will always be a matter of faith. However, he wants to probe
human existence, most thoroughly in Anthropology
from a Theological Perspective. He also wants to probe nature, mostly in
his Systematic Theology and in
several essays. He will do all of this from a phenomenological perspective
because our capacity to even hear the "foreign" and
"strange" word from God relies upon some kind of capacity (we might
call this creation in the image of God or prevenient grace) that allows us to
hear it as revelation. Human openness to the world becomes a "hint"
of the divine orientation of humanity. He sees this in the religious
orientation of humanity, which is for him constitutive of human existence. In
this, Pannenberg and Bultmann intersect. Faith is openness to the future. Both
see anthropology making an important contribution at this point. Bultmann will
not broaden this conversation with philosophy into other areas. Pannenberg will
do so. Thus, he wrestles with biology and physics because for him, the
systematic theologian has the responsibility of showing that God could have
created the world science describes. Again, this is not proof. He engages
science because he wants to show that it does not make theological talk
irrational. He is also willing to use science as an analogy for certain
theological truths. Christ as the Word, for example, has an analogy in the
information systems of biology and physics. The Spirit is life-giving and
pervasive in the way that field theory describes energy. For him, he is
following the same theological method as John in the use of the philosophical
term Logos. I like the designation of this approach as a "reserved
apologetic,” as a friend shared with me. I do not know if Pannenberg would
agree with the term, but I like it because I think it accurately describes what
Pannenberg is doing.
The theologian may well conclude
that Heidegger is deficient in his analysis of human existence. What will be
the different point of contact such a theologian will attempt to establish? The
theologian may want to engage critically such an approach to human existence in
a way we do not find in Bultmann. Such a critical engagement with a variety of
the human sciences shows the ad hoc character of such connections for theology in
a clearer way than the approach of Bultmann.
To conclude, I have high regard for
Karl Barth. This regard does not blind me from seeing his deficiency here. Barth
rightly saw the danger of a full-blown natural theology that would bring one
far from the revelation of God. He wrongly believed Bultmann fell into this
error. The devotion of Bultmann to his studies of the New Testament ought to
suggest to us, if not to Barth, that Bultmann remained committed to
understanding this revelation. Thus, I think Barth became so alert to the
danger that any intentional and positive use of studies of the phenomena of the
human in theology he tended to dismiss. I think he makes a category mistake
here. The reality, I think, is that Barth himself uses philosophy, especially
Kierkegaard, Sartre, Buber, and Heidegger, in a powerful and critically
engaging way in Church Dogmatics III.2.
He actually provides a good example of how a theologian can utilize the best
efforts of studies of the phenomena of the human to provide a point of contact
with culture today.
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