Page History

1.1. What does Bultmann understand by "\[an\] authority"? \-\- My hypothesis is that he understands the concept/term very much as I do, even if his understanding never becomes fully explicit. He uses it, for the most part, in the sense of "executive" authority, although I see nothing in what he says to make me think he couldn't or wouldn't use it in the sense of "nonexecutivenon-executive" authority as well; indeed, I see every reason to think he would be quick so to use it \-\- just as he analyzes and uses "doctrine" in the sense of "indirect," as well as "direct," address. In any case, his understanding of what is required to grasp "the real essence of history," namely, a "real encounter" with it, which takes place only in "constant dialogue," is all tied up with such other notions as that "history should really speak," that one must be ready "to hear the _claim_ of history," to "really _question_ history," and "to hear history as \[an\] authority" (8 f.; history does not speak, Bultmann says, "if one claims a neutrality toward it, but only if one comes to it moved by questions and wants to learn from it").

2.1. What is important in Bultmann's argument for an adequate critico-constructive christology? \-\- One thing, certainly, is that it leaves no doubt whatever that Jesus (as well as "his disciples") appeared with the consciousness of having been sent. Bultmann makes explicit reference to this on the first page of his exposition of Jesus' proclamation (27 f.); and he concludes his exposition, as well as the whole book, by explicitly returning to this very point. The question that Jesus leaves for his hearer to decide, he says, is "whether his word is truth," which is one and the same with the question, "whether he is sent from God" (182). But what is it to be sent from God if not to have authority, or to be an authority, just because one represents the divine claim on human beings? Speaking of the event that gives a human being the right to speak of forgiveness, Bultmann says: "it can only be an event that encounters one, that comes to one from outside, an event that attests itself as God's act in that it encounters one as the authority that represents the divine claim on one, the divine claim that attests forgiveness as also divine in that it is the pure gift that lifts one up by judging one" (177). The event Bultmann has in mind in saying this, of course, is Jesus, or, more exactly, "Jesus' word(s)," of which he goes on to say: "To be sure, the earliest community did hold \[Jesus\] to be the Messiah. But in doing so, it did not ascribe to him some special metaphysical being that gave his words authority, but rather confessed thereby that God had made him king of the community on the authority of his words" (180). Nor is his point any different when he goes on: "There is, to be sure, one estimate of \[Jesus'\] person that corresponds to his own intention \-\- not insofar as he is a 'personality,' but insofar as he is sent by God, insofar as he is bearer of the word. In this sense, he says, 'Blessed is one who takes no offense at me\!'" (181; cf. 29: "Jesus' message is sustained by this certainty: _the rule of God is coming_, is coming _now_\! And for him and his own, his activity in word and deed is the sign: the rule of God is breaking in. . . . In this last hour, the hour of decision, he is sent with the last, decisive word. Blessed is the one who understands it, who does not take offense at him\! \[Mt 11:6\]. For now's the time to decide for or against him: 'Anyone who is not with me is against me, and anyone who does not gather with me scatters' \[Mt 12:30\]. . . . Soon, when the rule of God breaks in, when the judge of the world, the 'Son of man,' comes, Jesus will be justified, and 'everyone who acknowledges me before men, the Son of man also will acknowledge before the angels of God; but anyone who denies me before men will be denied before the angels of God' \[Lk 12: 8 f.\]."). Incidentally, an important further confirmation of my hypothesis concerning Bultmann's understanding of authority is that his explanation of what attests Jesus' claim to decisive authority \-\- namely, his message (29) \-\- corresponds, point for point, to what he says about its "content," far from being "indifferent," deciding whether or not a word of scripture is God's commandment (67 f.).