824. Bultmann points out in one place ...

Bultmann points out in one place that inauthentic existence "deprives all that it encounters of any existential reference by its objectifying way of viewing things" (102). In another place, he contrasts looking at history "in an objectifying way" with looking at it "as personal address, insofar as in it the possibilities of human self-understanding become perceptible and summon us to responsible choice" (158; cf. also 131: "[T]he scientist who is an archeologist or a historian of art asks about the material used in a torso of Apollo or about its style in order to locate its place in history, while the poet hears it immediately say to him: 'You must change your life."'). I take it to be clear from these statements that, in order for something that we encounter to have an "existential reference," it is necessary for us to look upon it as "personal address," as summoning us to responsible choice among our own possibilities of existence.

This is pertinent because elsewhere Bultmann takes it to be a matter of course that "God encounters us always and everywhere," even though, as he hastens to add, "we do not see God everywhere unless --  as Luther often says-God's word is added and enables us to understand the particular moment in its light" (119). "In the light of this word," however, "our historical situations and encounters themselves become understandable precisely as words of God.... [E]very reality can now become a word of God because in it the transcendent reality calls to [us] both as judgment and as grace" ("Protestant Theology and Atheism": 334). "Christian faith believes that God acts on me, speaks to me, in each particular situation. It believes this because it knows itself to be addressed by the grace encountering me in the word of Jesus Christ, by the grace that opens my eyes to see that God works for good in everything with those who love him (Rom 8:28). But such faith is not a knowledge possessed once and for all, not a 'world view.' It can only be an event, and it can remain alive only in that believers ask in each situation what God would say to them here and now. In general, God is just as hidden in nature and history for believers as for everyone else. But insofar as each concrete occurrence is seen in the light of the word of grace spoken to me, faith should and can accept it as God's doing, even if its meaning remains enigmatic.... What God is now doing --  and it is not directly identical with the occurrence that can be objectively established -- perhaps do not yet know
and maybe never will know. But I must ask what God wants to say to me by it, even if it is only-or precisely-that I should be silent and bear it" (111 f.).
5 May 1997