Page History

Scanned PDF Version of this Document

I have generally resisted Bultmann's distinction between what is a matter of authority, on the one hand, and what is a properly "scientific" matter, subject to discussion, on the other. But perhaps there is a point to this distinction that I have failed to appreciate.

...

It is not so, however, in the case of an existential-historical communication. For while it is indeed true that such a communication is authorized by the reality it discloses, it is equally true – -- at any rate, of the original such communication – -- that the reality authorizing it is accessible as such solely through it. This is why there is the kind of correlation – -- or dialectic – -- between the primal source of authority and the primary authority authorized by it for which I have argued (The Point of Christology: 103). Although the witness of the apostles derives its authority from the Jesus who alone authorizes it, the Jesus who is the only source of its authority is the Jesus to whom it bears witness and who is accessible as such solely through its witness.

...

But one may grant all this, so far as I can see, even while inisisting insisting that, whether or not theology is a "science," it is, in its own way, a matter of critical reflection, subject to discussion – -- and that not only with respect to the appropriateness of its claims and the claims of Christian witness, but also with respect to the credibility of the same claims.

...