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8.All of this scarcely goes beyond the level of insight already attained by Bultmann's analysis of what christological formulations are and are not all about.

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Wiki MarkupAlready in his analysis there is the clear recognition that the christology implied by Jesus' summons to decision for or against his word/person cannot take the form of "theoretical observation at all," either as "speculation about a heavenly being" or as "the construction of a so-called messianic consciousness." (In parallel passages, BuItmann speaks of the second, significantly, as "a character sketch of \ [Jesus'\] personality as having a messianic consciousness," or as a view of "his person as a 'personality,'" "in terms of his character as a hero.") Without so much as mentioning "a priori christology," Bultmann is, in effect, talking about precisely that \ -\- rejecting the two usual options, both "transcendentalist" and "modern," and clearly implying a third option, according to which an adequate christology is a matter of explicating the decision for a person or event, of obedience to the demand re-presented by the person or event, of obedience that lets one's own situation be disclosed as new through the person or event \ -\- in short, a christology that itself, as he says, is, in the first instance, witness or personal address.

February 1989; rev. 6 February 2010