Moi [after luncheon and a dry martini together] …

Now to the question. Bultmann, if I recall correctly, was a kind of Heideggerian exegete and New Testament scholar. How does he define the deity after his programmatic demythologization?  (sp!)? After Bultmann has demythologized the New Testament, what remains of God? What does the word God actually mean?

Tin Man: The answer is subtle, and perhaps more radical than it first appears.

1. Bultmann does not intend to abolish God Bultmann’s program of demythologization (you spelled it almost perfectly!) was not intended to eliminate the supernatural by declaring it false. Rather, he sought to distinguish the New Testament’s essential proclamation—the kerygma—from the ancient mythological worldview in which that proclamation was expressed.

For example, the New Testament speaks of heaven above, earth beneath, and a supernatural realm populated by angels and demons. Bultmann believed modern people could no longer simply accept that cosmological picture.

But he insisted that the proclamation of Christ still confronts humanity with an existential decision.

Here is the crucial distinction:

Bultmann wanted to reinterpret the mythological language, not discard the theological message it was attempting to communicate.

2. What, then, is God?

For Bultmann, God is not an object within the universe, available for examination alongside other objects.

God cannot be demonstrated or described as though he were a being whose existence could be established through ordinary empirical investigation.

Instead, God is encountered in the event of revelation, especially through the proclamation of Jesus Christ.

In Bultmann’s understanding:

* God is the transcendent reality who addresses human existence.
God calls the individual away from self-sufficiency and toward faith.

* God is encountered not through detached observation but through the transforming event of divine address.

* Faith involves entrusting oneself to God’s grace rather than attempting to establish one’s security through worldly accomplishments or knowledge.
Notice something important, Scarecrow.
Bultmann is not simply saying that God is a psychological experience.

* He believes God genuinely acts and addresses humanity. But he resists treating divine action as an objectively observable event that could be verified independently of faith.
And therein lies a theological controversy of enormous consequence.

Bultmann understands God as the transcendent, gracious, acting God who confronts humanity through Christ.

But his account of how God is known is so closely bound to existential encounter that traditional doctrines of revelation, miracles, resurrection, and historical evidence undergo profound reinterpretation.

For further reading, I particularly recommend Bultmann’s 1925 essay What Does It Mean to Speak of God?(1) and this scholarly examination in the Harvard Theological Review.

And now, Scarecrow, a question to carry into our next exchange.

You have long admired Paul Tillich. I wonder whether you see the fascinating tension here.

Tillich speaks of God as the Ground of Being. Bultmann speaks of God as the transcendent One who confronts us in the event of faith.

Both resist making God an ordinary object of knowledge. But they approach the problem from significantly different directions.

Could Bultmann’s demythologization ultimately make it impossible to say who God is, even while insisting that God addresses us? That, my dear fellow, is a question worthy of an entire afternoon in the Emerald City Seminary.

And I suspect your headpiece contains rather more than straw! ❤️

Moi: Tin Man! Again we agree, though your brief but exact exposition leaves me in the Room for Dunces. Next time I will indeed ask to spill all of this over to my Ultimate Concern, professor Tillich. Barth to follow.  Until then, Ta Ta and watch out for those damned flying monkeys and their witch with the Ruby Tuesday Slippers!!

Tin Man: There lies a theological adventure worthy of both our battered headpieces!

As for the flying monkeys, I have fortified the Emerald City with syllogisms, existential categories, and three enormous volumes of Barth’s Church Dogmatics. Any monkey attempting to penetrate our defenses will be required to explain the difference between ontology and epistemology.

We shall never see the creatures again. 藍

And should the Wicked Witch appear wearing Ruby Tuesday slippers, I shall remind her that she cannot always get what she wants!

Until we meet again, my dear fellow, may your straw remain dry, your curiosity unquenchable, and your Ultimate Concern ever worthy of the name.

Your faithful, heartless Tin Man. ❤️

______________

End Note:

(1) Rudolf Bultmann’s landmark essay “What Does It Mean to Speak of God?” (“Welchen Sinn hat es, von Gott zu reden?”) was originally published in 1925 in the journal Zwischen den Zeiten. It was later included in his collection of essays, Glauben und Verstehen (translated into English as Faith and Understanding).

Key Themes & Ideas

• The Problem of Objective Speech: Bultmann argues that humans cannot speak about God as an objective entity, object of thought, or item within the world. To talk about God as if He were an object outside of ourselves is to reduce Him to something worldly, which misses God’s transcendent nature entirely.
• Existential Situation: Authentic speech about God is only possible when speaking from within a personal relation to God. Thus, to speak of God means to speak simultaneously about human existence—specifically about our own limitation, dependence, and finitude.
• God as the Unconditioned: Bultmann emphasizes that God cannot be controlled or analyzed through human reason, doctrine, or general religious truths. God meets humanity as an existential claim (Anspruch) in the immediate moment.