The Presence of Eternity: History and Eschatology ebook

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) was a German theologian and professor of New Testament at the University of Marburg. He also wrote books such as The History of the Synoptic Tradition,Kerygma and Myth,Jesus Christ and Mythology,Jesus and the Word,Primitive Christianity,Translating Theology Into the Modern Age, etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 171-page hardcover edition.]

He wrote in the Preface of this 1957 book, “The following chapters contain the Gifford Lectures which I was invited to give … [in] March 1955. The printed text corresponds closely in substance to the lectures as they were delivered. Only minor additions have been made and the number of references to literature increased. I am conscious that there are many problems which should be discussed further than was possible for me within the framework of these lectures, and I must be content if my attempt to deal with them contributes to such further discussion.”

In the first chapter, he states, “The belief in an eternal order, ruling the life of men, broke down, and with it the ideas of absolute goodness and absolute truth. All this is handed over to the historical process which for its part is understood as a natural process which for its part is understood as a natural process ruled not by spiritual, but by economic, laws… therefore man is no longer understood as an autonomous being, but is seen as at the mercy of historical conditions. His historicity does not consist in the fact that he is an individual who passes through history, who experiences history, who meets with history. No, man is nothing but history, for he is, so to speak, not an active being but someone to whom things happen. Man is only a process without ‘true existence.’ The end, it seems, is nihilism. Can there be a salvation from nihilism? … Can we detect a law, an order in the course of history? … Or must we say that the historicity of man is not yet fully understood and must be thought out to its final conclusions in order to banish the conclusion of nihilism? Such questions can be answered only when we consider exactly the essence, the idea of history.” (Pg. 10-11)

He states, “The New Covenant is not grounded on an event of the history of the people as was the Old Covenant… The new people of God has no real history, for it is the community of the end-time, an eschatological phenomenon. How could it have a history now when the world-time is finished and the end is imminent!... Therefore no social program can be developed but only negative ethics of abstinence and sanctification… All this means that in early Christianity history is swallowed up in eschatology. The early Christian community understands itself not as a historical but as an eschatological phenomenon… The question then is… how long the expectation of the imminent end of the world can remain unshaken.” (Pg. 36-37)

He points out, “The problem of Eschatology grew out of the fact that the expected end of the world failed to arrive, that the ‘Son of Man’ did not appear in the clouds of heaven, that history went on, and that the eschatological community could not fail to recognize that it had become a historical phenomenon and that the Christian faith had taken on the shape of a new religion. This is made clear by two facts: (a) the historiography of the author of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles (b) the importance which tradition gained in the Christian community.” (Pg. 38)

He observes, “But eschatology was never abandoned, rather the expected end of the world was removed into an indefinite future. This happened without any great shock… in consequence of the developing sacramentalism. Two effects of sacramentalism were: (1) The interest of the believers was directed … to the salvation of the individual soul… (2) The powers of the beyond, which will make an end of this world, are already working in the present, namely, in the sacraments which are administered by the Church.” (Pg. 51-52)

He notes, “The longer the Parousia failed to come and the end of the world was removed to an indefinite distance, the longer the Church had a history in this world, the more an interest in history developed… The interest of the Church in its own history had a further special cause. The Church claims to be founded by the Apostles, and the bishops claimed to be the successors of the Apostles. This claim had to be justified and therefore catalogues of bishops stretching back to the Apostles had to be compiled.” (Pg. 56)

He asks, “What is the core of history? What is its real subject? The answer is: man… We usually distinguish between history and nature. The course of both passes within time. But the difference is clear, for history is constituted by human actions… History as the field of human actions cannot, however, be cut off from nature and natural events… All these conditions and events within nature, so far as they are relevant for human life and history, may be called encounters …in contrast to human actions. Indeed, not only human actions but also human sufferings belong to history; in a certain sense they are also actions in so far as they are reactions.” (Pg. 139-140)

He states, “it must be stressed that what we call ‘personality’ if also temporal-historical and is constant only as a possibility which is ever to be realized. Personality is not a substance behind the decisions, a substance in relation to which the concrete historical decisions are only accidents. My self-understanding as personality depends on my decisions, which may for the most part be unconscious, made without reflection… the ‘I’ is an ever-growing, ever-becoming, ever-increasing entity. Personality experiences its own history within the frame of universal history and interwoven within it, but nevertheless as a history which has its own meaning and is not merged into universal history.” (Pg. 146)

He explains, “Christian faith believes that it receives this gift of freedom, by which man becomes free from himself in order to gain himself… For man cannot say this word to himself, it must be said to him---always individually to you and to me. Just this is the meaning of the Christian message. It does not proclaim the idea of the grace of God as a general idea but addresses and calls man and imparts to him the grace of God which makes him free from himself. This message knows itself to be legitimated by the revelation of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the eschatological event, the action of God by which God has set an end to the old world. In the preaching of the Christian Church the eschatological event will ever again become present and does become present ever and again in faith.” (Pg. 150-151)

He notes, “It is the paradox of Christian being that the believer is taken out of the world and exists, so to speak, as unworldly and that at the same time he remains within the world, within his historicity. To be historical means to live from the future. The believer too lives from the future; first because his faith and his freedom can never be possession; as belonging to the eschatological event they can never become facts of past time but are reality only over and over again as event; secondly because the believer remains within history. In principle, the future always offers to man the gift of freedom; Christian faith is the power to grasp this gift. The freedom of man from himself is always realized in the freedom of historical decisions.” (Pg. 152)

He concludes, “man does not stand outside history. But now we can say: the meaning in history lies always in the present, and when the present is conceived as the eschatological present by Christian faith the meaning in history is realized. Man who complains: ‘I cannot see meaning in history, and therefore my life, interwoven with history, is meaningless,’ is to be admonished: do not look around yourself into universal history, you must look into your personal history. Always in your present lies the meaning in history, and you cannot see it as a spectator, but only in your responsible decisions. In every moment slumbers the possibility of being the eschatological moment. You must awaken it.” (Pg. 155)

This book will interest those studying Bultmann, or contemporary theology.

Rudolf Bultmann (1884-1976) was a German theologian and professor of New Testament at the University of Marburg. He also wrote books such as The History of the Synoptic Tradition,Kerygma and Myth,Jesus Christ and Mythology,Jesus and the Word,Primitive Christianity,Translating Theology Into the Modern Age, etc. [NOTE: page numbers below refer to a 171-page hardcover edition.]

He wrote in the Preface of this 1957 book, “The following chapters contain the Gifford Lectures which I was invited to give … [in] March 1955. The printed text corresponds closely in substance to the lectures as they were delivered. Only minor additions have been made and the number of references to literature increased. I am conscious that there are many problems which should be discussed further than was possible for me within the framework of these lectures, and I must be content if my attempt to deal with them contributes to such further discussion.”

In the first chapter, he states, “The belief in an eternal order, ruling the life of men, broke down, and with it the ideas of absolute goodness and absolute truth. All this is handed over to the historical process which for its part is understood as a natural process which for its part is understood as a natural process ruled not by spiritual, but by economic, laws… therefore man is no longer understood as an autonomous being, but is seen as at the mercy of historical conditions. His historicity does not consist in the fact that he is an individual who passes through history, who experiences history, who meets with history. No, man is nothing but history, for he is, so to speak, not an active being but someone to whom things happen. Man is only a process without ‘true existence.’ The end, it seems, is nihilism. Can there be a salvation from nihilism? … Can we detect a law, an order in the course of history? … Or must we say that the historicity of man is not yet fully understood and must be thought out to its final conclusions in order to banish the conclusion of nihilism? Such questions can be answered only when we consider exactly the essence, the idea of history.” (Pg. 10-11)

He states, “The New Covenant is not grounded on an event of the history of the people as was the Old Covenant… The new people of God has no real history, for it is the community of the end-time, an eschatological phenomenon. How could it have a history now when the world-time is finished and the end is imminent!... Therefore no social program can be developed but only negative ethics of abstinence and sanctification… All this means that in early Christianity history is swallowed up in eschatology. The early Christian community understands itself not as a historical but as an eschatological phenomenon… The question then is… how long the expectation of the imminent end of the world can remain unshaken.” (Pg. 36-37)

He points out, “The problem of Eschatology grew out of the fact that the expected end of the world failed to arrive, that the ‘Son of Man’ did not appear in the clouds of heaven, that history went on, and that the eschatological community could not fail to recognize that it had become a historical phenomenon and that the Christian faith had taken on the shape of a new religion. This is made clear by two facts: (a) the historiography of the author of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles (b) the importance which tradition gained in the Christian community.” (Pg. 38)

He observes, “But eschatology was never abandoned, rather the expected end of the world was removed into an indefinite future. This happened without any great shock… in consequence of the developing sacramentalism. Two effects of sacramentalism were: (1) The interest of the believers was directed … to the salvation of the individual soul… (2) The powers of the beyond, which will make an end of this world, are already working in the present, namely, in the sacraments which are administered by the Church.” (Pg. 51-52)

He notes, “The longer the Parousia failed to come and the end of the world was removed to an indefinite distance, the longer the Church had a history in this world, the more an interest in history developed… The interest of the Church in its own history had a further special cause. The Church claims to be founded by the Apostles, and the bishops claimed to be the successors of the Apostles. This claim had to be justified and therefore catalogues of bishops stretching back to the Apostles had to be compiled.” (Pg. 56)

He asks, “What is the core of history? What is its real subject? The answer is: man… We usually distinguish between history and nature. The course of both passes within time. But the difference is clear, for history is constituted by human actions… History as the field of human actions cannot, however, be cut off from nature and natural events… All these conditions and events within nature, so far as they are relevant for human life and history, may be called encounters …in contrast to human actions. Indeed, not only human actions but also human sufferings belong to history; in a certain sense they are also actions in so far as they are reactions.” (Pg. 139-140)

He states, “it must be stressed that what we call ‘personality’ if also temporal-historical and is constant only as a possibility which is ever to be realized. Personality is not a substance behind the decisions, a substance in relation to which the concrete historical decisions are only accidents. My self-understanding as personality depends on my decisions, which may for the most part be unconscious, made without reflection… the ‘I’ is an ever-growing, ever-becoming, ever-increasing entity. Personality experiences its own history within the frame of universal history and interwoven within it, but nevertheless as a history which has its own meaning and is not merged into universal history.” (Pg. 146)

He explains, “Christian faith believes that it receives this gift of freedom, by which man becomes free from himself in order to gain himself… For man cannot say this word to himself, it must be said to him---always individually to you and to me. Just this is the meaning of the Christian message. It does not proclaim the idea of the grace of God as a general idea but addresses and calls man and imparts to him the grace of God which makes him free from himself. This message knows itself to be legitimated by the revelation of the grace of God in Jesus Christ. According to the New Testament, Jesus Christ is the eschatological event, the action of God by which God has set an end to the old world. In the preaching of the Christian Church the eschatological event will ever again become present and does become present ever and again in faith.” (Pg. 150-151)

He notes, “It is the paradox of Christian being that the believer is taken out of the world and exists, so to speak, as unworldly and that at the same time he remains within the world, within his historicity. To be historical means to live from the future. The believer too lives from the future; first because his faith and his freedom can never be possession; as belonging to the eschatological event they can never become facts of past time but are reality only over and over again as event; secondly because the believer remains within history. In principle, the future always offers to man the gift of freedom; Christian faith is the power to grasp this gift. The freedom of man from himself is always realized in the freedom of historical decisions.” (Pg. 152)

He concludes, “man does not stand outside history. But now we can say: the meaning in history lies always in the present, and when the present is conceived as the eschatological present by Christian faith the meaning in history is realized. Man who complains: ‘I cannot see meaning in history, and therefore my life, interwoven with history, is meaningless,’ is to be admonished: do not look around yourself into universal history, you must look into your personal history. Always in your present lies the meaning in history, and you cannot see it as a spectator, but only in your responsible decisions. In every moment slumbers the possibility of being the eschatological moment. You must awaken it.” (Pg. 155)

This book will interest those studying Bultmann, or contemporary theology.