1 24 5 https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/85aba223d3b2f92a6e7e791a8c2dd8d4.pdf 659494314d17a742939f4883366da7ef PDF Text Text   God Language: The Deeper Issue Article by Colette Volkema DeNooyer Minister of Faith Development and Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought March 1993, pp. 18-21 A decade ago, in the early 1980s, Richard Rhem preached a sermon entitled “The Gender of God: The Humanness of Jesus.” The message brought that day pointed to the wonder of the incarnation being not that God had visited us in male flesh but that God had “pitched a tent” in human flesh. Then in 1986, in this journal, Rhem developed that theme further in an article entitled “The Accident of the Incarnation” using accident in its philosophical sense of not belonging to the essence of the matter. Never in the decade of the eighties was there a ripple of consternation from the Christ Community congregation. That the incarnation transcended human gender differentiation seemed apparent to all. That God was not choosing maleness over against femaleness in this revelatory act appeared to stand uncontested. Then in the Epiphany season of 1992, we determined as a ministry team that the community’s commonly held biblical-theological understanding should find bolder and more obvious expression in both our worship experience and our liturgical forms. We had been sensitive to sexist language—using masculine pronouns less and less in prayers, sermons, and hymnody, publishing in bulletins our intention to be an inclusive community. But on a fateful Sunday morning in January we proposed that the community join us in addressing God as “Our Mother/Father who art in heaven...” The reaction from a vocal few was immediate and sharp. We had touched a nerve and discovered that many had not truly understood the implications of our earlier theological conclusions. We had been naive. A good friend, learning of the rumble we had caused and our dismay, chided us gently for failing to see that a little tinkering with language was © Grand Valley State University   �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 2   hardly sufficient to get at the larger issue of male domination in the church, reinforced perhaps by sexist language but hardly caused by it. He wrote, True, we need to change our language. But I am not as hopeful as you seem to be about language changes constructing a new social reality. An emergent reality (a true novum) will forge its own language (as has always happened, from the emergence of Christianity to Marxism), but I am not sure, especially in our age when we play fast and loose with words, that a reformation in language will bring a reformulation of social reality. Rescripting the present “paradigm” merely relieves points of potential rupture and allows the old story to continue. He was alerting us to the painful reality that little real change happens until there is a reduction to chaos. He cites Simone Weil who wrote of the necessity of “decreation.” His final shot was a suggestion that we fully engage the issue, for it might just be time for us all “to chaoticize, deconstruct, decreate.” After such a cogent puncturing of our noble project we were forced to plunge more deeply into the relationship of language and social reality. Our friend is quite right; we are dealing with a paradigm shift of major proportion. In Speaking the Christian God, Janet Martin Soskice cites Rosemary Radford Ruether making the point sharply: We cannot simply add the “mothering” to the “fathering” God, while preserving the same hierarchical patterns of male activity and female passivity. To vindicate the “feminine” in this form is merely to make God the sanctioner of patriarchy in a new form. (“The Female Nature of God,” Speaking the Christian God, 66) Soskice adds, Similarly, tinkering with the language of the liturgy, changing “he” to “he and she,” may be a cosmetic change which, from the feminists’ point of view, conceals a more profound and idolatrous teaching to pray to a male God. (Speaking the Christian God, 86) What this foray into language has revealed is the critical challenge that feminist theology throws out to the classical Trinitarian and Christological creedal formulations that came to expression in the philosophical language and conceptuality of the first five centuries of church history. Such an expression was a proper and necessary translation of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth and the experience of the apostolic community, but it was a culturally conditioned translation fully as much as any contemporary theological formulation in the post-modem paradigm (e.g., liberation, black, or feminist theology). © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 3   Hans Küng contends that, ironically, it was Karl Barth who inaugurated the postmodern paradigm that is so explicitly grounded in human experience (the experience of suffering and oppression). Barth had turned sharply from experience as the ground for knowledge of God. His particular target was Schleiermacher, who grounded faith in God in the “feeling of absolute dependence.” Barth found the Protestant liberalism of the nineteenth century so in tune with European culture that there was no word of judgment or grace to address to the social chaos in the aftermath of the First World War. In his struggle to find a word for preaching, he wrestled with Paul’s “Letter to the Romans.” He found there the God who is “Wholly Other.” His conviction about the deceitfulness of human experience was confirmed when he witnessed his esteemed professors of theology sign on with Hitler’s National Socialism, the movement that led to the Second World War and the horrors of the Holocaust. His whole great theological project was posited on the conviction that only God reveals God; knowledge of God is the gift of God effected by the miracle of the Holy Spirit. Against Brunner he denied that there is anything in the human person that provides a “point of contact” for divine revelation. Such a radical position drew criticism. Bonhoeffer spoke of Barth’s theology as a “house without doors.” There was no way to get in if one were not already in. Bonhoeffer called it “Revelational Positivism.” Paradoxically, from the perspective of the present it is evident that Barth’s theology did not arise apart from his own personal, existential experience; it was precisely in reaction to that experience that his theology took shape! After Barth turned the tide of European theology in the first half of this century, the pendulum began to swing back to the pole of experience. In the revision of his Christian Faith (1985), Hendrikus Berkhof added one entirely new section— paragraph ten—entitled “Revelation and Experience.” The place of experience also played a considerable role in his Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics (1982). He points to some theologians through the centuries who have a special gift for sensing shifts taking place in a given culture and in human perception— people like Augustine, Luther, Wesley, Barth, and Küng, who experience existence very differently from previous generations. In such instances new experience calls forth a new language of faith. In former times such prophetic voices have been labeled heretical. But today there is a growing recognition and acceptance of a plurality of faith formulations. For, as Berkhof writes, “someone may be so driven by a series of experiences that his personal faith and theology affect the very nerve of the tradition of faith.” He speaks of “ahead-of-the-pack” thinking arising in recent decades from unexpected sources: The unheard-of phenomenon of groups of believers, previously not at all part of the dogmatic process, who began to intervene in it. Pacesetting dogmaticians ... giving expression to the faith in a way that was hardly recognizable to those who had learned to read the Bible from the perspective of a very different set of experiences… In their best works they © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 4   give evidence of new discoveries made in Scripture. To the “official” practitioners of dogmatics they pose the question of what unconscious conditioning factors have had their distorting or inspiring effect on them. (26) We have come to recognize that it is not enough to refer to Scripture, the creedal tradition, and the transconfessional dimensions of ecumenicity “as the funding sources of dogmatics.” This becomes evident when these are held in common, yet opposite experiences may make our respective interpretations of the gospel mutually unintelligible. This is, of course, the flash point of contemporary controversy. Berkhof raises the question, “[I]s it our duty radically to exclude the factor of our life experiences?” But he then further asks, “Who can jump over his own shadow?” Of course we cannot. The call for contextual theology has simply made us aware of our own contextuality—the fact that no theology arises out of a cultural vacuum devoid of experience. In reference to the claims of Third World theologians and First World feminist theologians for whom experience is the key to theological understanding, Berkhof contends, We cannot cancel out their bewilderment by proclaiming: “Not what we say is important but what the Scripture says” or the question is, “Who is Christ himself?” All our central words such as “salvation,” “Christ,” “Church,” and “Scripture,” have a much more contextual shape and focus than we are aware of. (71-72) Rosemary Radford Ruether in her seminal work, Sexism and God-Talk (1983), asserts: What have been called the objective sources of theology; scripture and tradition are themselves codified collective human experience. She further declares: Human experience is the starting point and the ending point of the hermeneutical circle. Codified tradition both reaches back to roots in experience and is constantly renewed or discarded through the test of experience. “Experience” includes experience of the divine, experience of oneself, and experience of the community and the world, in an interacting dialectic. Received symbols, formulas, and laws are either authenticated or not through their ability to illuminate and interpret experience. Systems of authority try to reverse this relation and make received symbols dictate what can be experienced as well as the interpretation of that which is experienced. In reality, the relation is the opposite. If a symbol does not © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 5   speak authentically to experience, it becomes dead or must be altered to provide a new meaning. (12-13) What the feminists have uncovered is the sociology of theological knowledge putting the lie to the claim that its ground is an objective, divine, and universal authority apart from human experience. Here, of course, we arrive at a watershed of understanding. With our present knowledge of the development of dogma, our knowledge of that process in the early centuries of creedal formulation with the intervention of emperors and the political motivation of popes and patriarchs, one can hardly deny an historically conditioned understanding of all theological formulation. In Theology for the Third Millennium, Hans Küng reminds us that new prophetic traditions are not born in a cultural vacuum. New paradigms, while incorporating the truth of the old paradigm, break through with new revelatory insight. Then at some point in the process this new insight comes under the control of leaders who institutionalize the inaugurating vision. A series of criteria are imposed to determine the correct interpretive line, and soon the new paradigm begins to ossify. If, however, present experience is sidelined or denied a place in the continued development of theological understanding, those for whom the symbols no longer illumine their experience of being human may well drop out, abandoning the faith of their foremothers and forefathers. Janet Soskice asks, “Does the ‘father God’ have a future?” She answers: If Christianity has a future, then the answer is probably “yes.” But it would be reasonable for a dispassionate student of religions to wonder whether Christianity will survive the rapid changes taking place—around the world, not just in the privileged West—in women’s self-understanding. In my opinion, Christianity now faces a serious challenge, and one that addresses core metaphors, narratives, and ideologies. ... It may be that Christianity will not meet the challenge or will linger on as a pleasing anachronism distant from the life of the cultures it inhabits. You may well think we are watching yet another stage in the death throes of a dinosaur. (Speaking the Christian God, 94) Christian faith need not die unless we cling to symbols and forms that no longer mediate the truth in compelling fashion, idolizing the medium and confusing it for the message itself. In his journal, Morning Light, Jean Sulivan writes, Your certitudes—are you so blind? What are they generally based on? The failure to deepen your knowledge. We rush past questions in order to avoid anxiety.... Some weep for the certitudes of the past. We must preserve, they say, this or that which was beautiful and good. Perhaps that’s true, but those who © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 6   complain like that are weeping for themselves. In the last analysis, we shouldn’t weep but create. Gothic churches were built over Romanesque structures, which were built over pagan fountains and temples. To create is the only important thing, to rediscover the fervor that produced the thing you’re weeping for. (123-24) The legitimate place of experience in theological formulations given voice by Küng, Berkhof, Ruether, and Sulivan among others seems to us beyond refute. But refuted it is. An example is Speaking the Christian God, subtitle: “The Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism,” eighteen essays addressing the question of the use of Father as a designation for God. Covering the spectrum from moderate to strident, the necessity of the Father designation is defended as the sine qua non of classical, Western, Trinitarian theology, indeed of Christian faith. This is an excellent collection of essays for identifying that the stakes in the feminist challenge run deeper than a superficial adjustment of pronouns. What is maintained almost uniformly throughout from various perspectives—language theory, worship, as well as creedal formulation—is that feminist claims must be denied because they undercut cherished creedal paradigms as well as a traditional orthodox reading of Scripture. Without the slightest apology or concession for possible human fallibility, the opinions of Church Fathers and early Christian councils are cited as pronouncements of eternal and divine truth. Present experience of ecumenical councils, popes, bishops and church leaders would seem to alert us to the ever-present political and personal agendas that dog very human leaders. Our contemporary understanding of parliamentary procedures and authorized committee reports should caution us that as Ernest Campbell has noted, “There was a lot of good stuff left on the cutting room floor!” Many of the writers in Speaking the Christian God seem to forget that the distance of centuries removes us from the passionate conviction of the opposition’s arguments as well as votes that at times were almost too close to call. That is precisely the claim of Reuther. And her exegetical work is impressive. It is remarkable that the appeal for preserving the Father designation in Christian usage in Speaking the Christian God is replete with references to the writings of the Church Fathers and the ecumenical councils but wrestles little with biblical material. The defenders of the classic creedal formulations have not gone back far enough! In absolutizing the formulations of the post-apostolic period when the gospel moved out into a Hellenistic world, the writers in Speaking the Christian God attribute an authority to those formulations that failed to recognize that these were already translations of the revelatory events. These formulations pulsated with passionate human experience in a cultural context that supplied the linguistic and philosophical tools by which to bring that experience to expression. But the experience of the post-apostolic age is hardly ours, and the language and philosophical conceptuality are alien to us on the threshold of the third millennium. © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 7   Stephen M. Smith in “Worldview, Language, and Radical Feminism: An Evangelical Appraisal,” (one of the essays in Speaking the Christian God) writes that we live in a time of massive cultural conflict. This conflict, he says, “is in reality a clash of worldviews.” Right! And is it not about time? There was no significant threat to the philosophical worldview within which the classic creedal formulation came to expression until the eighteenth century. But consider what has happened since. Not only have there been revolutionary breakthroughs in our understanding of the physical universe, but even more significant for our present focus, the rise of historical thinking has illumined the process of development of human understanding. Could it be that the classic paradigms, once the Spirit’s medium for the revealing of the living God, must be dismantled to make room for a new paradigm that takes up the truth of the old but makes space for the emergence of the new? One theologian who is seeking to bring to expression a new understanding of God in light of contemporary experience is Sallie McFague. She receives sharp criticism from Smith for holding a monist world view, which she acknowledges, but in the sense of panentheism, which The Oxford Dictionary of the Christum Church defines as “the belief that the Being of God includes and penetrates the whole universe, so that every part of it exists in him, but (as against pantheism) that his Being is more than, and is not exhausted by, the universe.” The issue must not be whether McFague challenges and undercuts the orthodox world view, but whether or not her models of God are able to illumine more adequately our present human experience as she wrestles with the biblical story and the revelation that was en-fleshed in Jesus. In her probings, McFague is engaged in the very process that is the responsibility of every serious theologian—testing the received tradition and bringing it to fresh expression. Otherwise dogmatics becomes fundamentalist, the mere reiteration of formulations that illumined yesterday’s experiences, and that is idolatry. A much more sympathetic reading of McFague comes from James Fowler who writes, She ... makes clear that we require new metaphors if our faith is to enable us to make sense of our contemporary experiences.... In our religious language we are naming ourselves, one another, our world, and our relatedness to God in terms from bygone times. Such anachronistic names, helpful in earlier times, are distorting and hurtful now. (Weaving the New Creation, 61) Brian Wren, a minister in the Reformed Church of England is well known as a writer of meaningful contemporary hymnody. In his book What Language Shall I Borrow? he addresses the concerns and issues that motivated him to write such hymns as “Bring Many Names,” in which he expands our language horizons by referring to God as: © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 8   Strong mother God, working night and day, Planning all the wonders of creation... Warm father God, hugging every child, feeling all the strains of human living... Old aching God, grey with endless care, calmly piercing evil’s new disguises... Young, growing God, eager, on the move, seeing all, and fretting at our blindness ... Great, living God, never fully known, joyful darkness far beyond our seeing ... The poem that opens What Language Shall I Borrow? a poem written by Wren, sums up his understanding that language can be one step in the process of freeing ourselves from idolatrous attachment to earlier faith expressions. The Main Question If every naming of God is a borrowing from human experience, And if language slants and angles our thinking and behavior; And if our society makes qualities labeled “feminine” inferior to qualities labeled “masculine,” forming women and men with identities steeped in those labelings, in structures where men are still dominant though shaken and women still subordinate though seeking emancipation... Then it follows that using only male language (“he,” “king,” “father”) to name and praise God powerfully affects our encounter with God and our thinking and behavior; So that we must then ask © Grand Valley State University �God Language: The Deeper Issue, Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Page 9   whether male dominance and female subordination and seeking God only in male terms are God’s intention or human distortion and sin; For if these things are indeed a deep distortion and sin, So that women and men are called to repent together from domination and subordination, Then how can we name and praise God in ways less idolatrous, more freeing, and more true to the Triune God and the direction of love in the Anointed One, Jesus? His prolific production of hymns for worship is his answer to “The Main Question.” And that brings us back to where we began. The letter from our friend is full of profound insight—a little cosmetic tinkering with the language of worship is not enough. We have to do with a far more profound issue, indeed, with the necessity of a whole new paradigm for our speaking of God. And that will probably come about only through chaos and decreation. But in the meantime it is not unimportant to watch our language as a sign that the Christian community is honestly listening for the ways in which God may be coming to us through the voices of experience. References: Henrikus Berkhof. Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics. Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1985. Rosemary Radford Ruether. Sexism and God-Talk: Toward a Feminist Theology. Beacon Press, 0010 Anniversary edition, 1993. Janet Martin Soskice, “The Female Nature of God” in Speaking the Christian God: Holy Trinity and the Challenge of Feminism. (Editor Alvin F. Kimel). William B. Eerdmans Pub. Co., first edition, 1992. Brian Wren. What Language Shall I Borrow?: God-Talk in Worship: A Male Response to Feminist Theology. First published 1989; Wipf & Stock Pub., 2009. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hendrikus Berkhof, Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics, 1989, Rosemary R. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 1993, Janet M. Soskice in Speaking the Christian God, 1992, Brian Wren, What Language Shall I Borrow?, 2009 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19930301 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1993-03-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource God Language: The Deeper Issue Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Colette Volkema DeNooyer & Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 1, 1993 entitled "God Language: The Deeper Issue", it appeared in Perspectives, pp. 18-21. Tags: Nature of God, Creeds, Historical Thinking, Metaphors for God, Nature of Religious Development, Theological Paradigms. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Introduction to the Study of Dogmatics, 1989, Rosemary R. Ruether, Sexism and God-Talk, 1993, Janet M. Soskice in Speaking the Christian God, 1992, Brian Wren, What Language Shall I Borrow?, 2009. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Creeds Historical Thinking Metaphors for God Nature of God Nature of Religious Development Theological Paradigms https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/afd3b40b4aecfe3e3eb959246fc447f7.pdf 4bdbfa03d5b19d3667f982afeaad4e64 PDF Text Text Sleeping Through a Revolution Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Perspectives A Journal of Reformed Thought April 1991, pp. 8-14 Reformed theology in America, the roots of which lie in the Netherlands, has managed to sleep through the revolution of the modern world and survive. Through strong ethnic identity, internal growth, and a militant mind that maintained an adversarial attitude over against modern culture, a Reformed community of Dutch origin still exists. But the defensive posture that has largely characterized it has prevented it from translating the richness of its sixteenthcentury legacy of Reformation theology into a proclamation of the gospel to engage modern thought. I was struck by this fact as I read Hendrikus Berkhof’s Two Hundred Years of Theology. Berkhof wrote this work after retiring from the dogmatics chair at the University of Leiden. He calls it a personal journey because he wrote to satisfy his own curiosity about the philosophical and theological developments since the Enlightenment of the eighteenth century. The engagement of the gospel and modern thought has been the passion of Berkhof’s own endeavor as a Christian thinker. He traces the efforts of those theologians who sought to build a bridge between the gospel and modern culture, a culture dominated by the assumptions of the Enlightenment: the autonomy of the human person, human rationality as the measure of truth, the historical conditionedness of all truth, and the epistemological dualism of subject-object, of knowledge and faith. Berkhof’s conclusions at the end of his survey are sober. Was the effort successful? He answers in the negative: “Secularized culture manifested polite indifference if not outright intolerance.” Nevertheless, the struggle was necessary and its consequences significant. What struck me as I followed the story of the past two hundred years – the world of modern culture in the wake of the Enlightenment – was that the community of which I am a part was not even engaged in the struggle. As I reflected on my own theological education, I realized I was thoroughly schooled in theological development through the Reformation, but understood very little of the revolution in cultural understanding effected by the Enlightenment, especially © Grand Valley State University   �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 2   the understanding of the human process of knowing and the rise of historical thinking. In an attempt to understand why there has been so little engagement with the thought and cultural assumptions of the modern world in my own tradition, I turned to the study of paradigm shifts in the history of dogma, a study spearheaded by Hans Küng. Küng traced theological development with major epochal shifts over two thousand years. He, along with David Tracy, gathered an international Ecumenical Symposium at Tubingen in 1983 to discuss “A New Paradigm of Theology.” Papers delivered at the symposium are published in the volume Paradigm Change in Theology. At the symposium, Küng charted the epochal shifts in theology to test his scheme of periodization. Beginning with the primitive Christian apocalyptic paradigm, the historical progression moves through the ancient church Hellenistic, the medieval Roman Catholic, the Reformation Protestant with its two consequent paradigms of counterreformation – Roman Catholic and Protestant Orthodox paradigms – the modern Enlightenment paradigm, and on to the present contemporary ecumenical paradigm. Küng came on the idea of paradigm shifts in Thomas S. Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, in which Kuhn portrayed scientific development as occurring, not as had been commonly assumed, in smooth cumulative progress, but rather in leaps triggered by paradigm shifts, the displacement of one model of understanding by another. Küng applied Kuhn’s discovery to theological development and found points of significant shift there as well. Paradigm as Kuhn defined it and as Küng utilizes it means “an entire constellation of beliefs, values, techniques, and so on shared by the members of a given community.” Küng’s periodization marks off those points in the movement of history where a major shift in understanding took place, a shift from one constellation of beliefs to another – a change in the explanation model through which Christian faith was interpreted. The points of shift can be debated and the flow of history cannot be rigidly sectioned off. Nevertheless, the periodization Küng has suggested has been widely received. Küng developed his study of paradigm shifts further in Theology for the Third Millennium. There he pointed out the interesting difference between paradigm shifts in the natural sciences and in theology. In science, as data pile up that cannot be explained within the existing paradigm, pressure builds to find a new paradigm. When the new paradigm becomes available, one that succeeds in explaining a broader range of data, it replaces the old paradigm, which becomes obsolete. But this is not the case with paradigm shifts in theology. The same process operates: new understanding of the knowing process and of the nature of human knowledge, new data – for example, data acquired through the rise of the historical-critical method of biblical study, new philosophical insights, scientific © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 3   knowledge – eventuate in a major shift in understanding of the Christian tradition. A new paradigm comes into being. But in contrast to the process in the natural sciences, the old paradigm does not become obsolete; it continues to be the paradigm within which certain Christian communities understand Christian faith and existence. Thus, the two thousand years of theological development traced by Küng, reveal eight major paradigms. But the fascinating fact is that all eight paradigms continue to claim the loyalty of significant communities. All eight continue to exert their influence down to the present. This insight enabled me to discover how Reformed theology, with roots in the Netherlands, has been able to remain largely unscathed by the world of modern thought. It has continued to live within the paradigm of Reformed orthodoxy that took shape in the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century, insulated from the acids of modernity. A form of the gospel thus has been preserved, but at a great price. The failure to engage the modern world under the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment has led to a kind of ghetto existence and a failure to bring the rich legacy of Reformation theology to new expression. An historically conditioned theological confessional position has been frozen in time, absolutized, and perpetuated largely intact over generations, largely untouched by ongoing cultural, philosophical, and scientific assumptions. Theologically we are stuck, and the best and the brightest know it. Reformed orthodoxy has slept through the revolution of human understanding and knowledge created by the Enlightenment, never to this day having come to terms with the autonomy of the human person, the throwing off of all forms of authoritarianism, and the rise of historical thinking. These cultural assumptions are now being challenged. Many observers believe we are living at an epochal hinge point in history, experiencing the emergence of the postmodern age. But we will not be able to move directly from a seventeenth-century paradigm to the postmodern world without going through the baptism of the Enlightenment. While its assumptions are losing their self-evident status, what will not be lost is the value of critical rationality, and what will not be tolerated is any return to authoritarian claims, be they of church, of tradition, or of Bible. In theology old paradigms keep their adherents even when theological development has left them behind. But they can do so only by some form of authoritarian claim. In the case of Reformed orthodoxy the authoritarian claim of the Bible has held theological movement hostage, hindering meaningful dialogue with the sciences and philosophy. We are theologically stuck, and we will not become unstuck until we learn to value Scripture as authority, but break loose from its authoritarian use. In order to give that contention foundation, I will review in brief the philosophical and theological movement of the past two and a half centuries, indicating how philosophical, especially epistemological, analysis has impacted © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 4   theological formulation in the broader Christian tradition. Under the domination of Enlightenment assumptions, that development has reached an impasse. I will then discuss new possibilities for theological breakthrough opened by the emerging postmodern paradigm. Finally, with reference to one of the great Dutch Reformed theologians, Herman Bavinck, I will suggest what is necessary if our tradition is to come to new and fruitful expression. The Copernican-Galilean controversy out of which modern culture arose was a severe challenge to the medieval synthesis of theology and Aristotelian science achieved by Thomas Aquinas. A challenge to the Aristotelian cosmology and natural philosophy was a challenge to theological orthodoxy, both to Catholic and to Reformation orthodoxy. In that opening battle between the church and natural science, science won its independence from the intellectual and theological authority of the church. The early representatives of philosophical and scientific endeavor lived in two houses: the house of human rationality in which they plied their scientific skills, and the house of faith, in which they remained faithful to the church and its theological authority, understood as based beyond human reason in revelation. This was true of Descartes, considered the father of modern philosophy. He remained in the church, but understood his critical thinking as belonging to the natural realm – a purely human activity. It was Descartes who set the thinking subject over against the object to be thought, the world of material reality. He argued for the certainty of knowledge that could be arrived at by the mind observing the universe, which was understood as a vast machine. This subjectobject split became determinative for modern thought in science, philosophy, and theology. The mechanistic character of the natural world became the premise on which Newton described the natural laws by which the universe operated. The solid success of the natural sciences, in their effort to understand and control nature, seemed to verify Descartes’ model of human knowing and Newton’s model of the physical universe. The Enlightenment of the eighteenth century cannot be explained or understood without reference to Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) and his critical analysis of how human knowledge is attained. His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is broadly acknowledged as the foundational work of German philosophy. In his Two Hundred Years of Theology, Hendrikus Berkhof contends that this work of Kant’s must be valued “as a radical new beginning for evangelical theology,” and that in the wake of its appearance, orthodox scholasticism, rationalism, and supernaturalism found that, at a single stroke, the road forward had been blocked. In addition, the appearance of Kant’s Critique meant... the birth of the new theology, or rather: The modern way of posing questions, and modern methodology, in theology. (pp. 1 ff) © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 5   Although Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason destroyed the traditional proofs for the existence of God, thereby striking terror in the hearts of conservative theologians, it is Berkhof’s conviction that Kant’s purpose was positive in intent. Kant himself wrote, “I therefore had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for belief.” For Kant, faith and knowledge were separate but complementary and both were necessary. Here again we see the split of faith and reason which Aquinas synthesized when the overwhelming influence of Aristotelian thought in the West forced an accommodation with revelation in the thirteenth century. It is the same split mentioned above in regard to Descartes and Newton. In Kant, however, we have an acute analysis of the human knowing process brought about by the growing autonomy of human reason, which was throwing off all authoritarian structures, whether ecclesiastical (the church) or revelational (the Bible). Kant was a child of the Enlightenment. Preeminent philosopher though he was, he nevertheless maintained an intense theological and religious interest. Berkhof believes that it was “Kant’s purpose to save religion as well as the Enlightenment: in this double objective... lay his deepest passion as a thinker” (p. 5). Dividing the realm of knowledge into two fundamentally separate domains, he posited the world of phenomena and the world of the noumena. The former was accessible to unaided human reason. The empirical knowledge gained by the knowing subject was not a direct mirror of the natural world but the product of the interaction of the knowing mind and the data of the senses. For the noumenal world, the things in themselves – for example, the universe as a causal whole, the human self as free agent, and God – no empirical verification was possible. Yet, for practical reasons, Kant argued, faith in them was absolutely necessary. This assertion was made in Kant’s second work, The Critique of Practical Reason. This fundamental dualism has shaped and determined modern culture; it is the inheritance of the Enlightenment, whose center is the autonomous human person. This dualism has been regarded as axiomatic – the climate of opinion that has dominated the modern period. It is on this background that the whole enterprise of modern theology must be understood, at least the theology that attempted to bridge the gulf between the gospel and modern culture, the theology of classic nineteenth-century liberalism, to use Küng’s schematization of epochal paradigms. This is evident in the theology of Friedrich Schleiermacher, regarded as the father of modern theology. If Kant successfully blocked the road to the knowledge of God through rational inquiry, through metaphysical speculation, then what road remains open and on what basis can knowledge of God be grounded? Appeal to authority (of church, tradition, or Bible) was no longer compelling. Where, then, could one turn except to the interior life of the individual – to “the feeling of absolute dependence,” an experience that Schleiermacher maintained was common to all humankind at some time or other. This was not to claim, as did © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 6   Feuerbach and others later in the whole development of modern atheism, that religion, or specifically Christianity, arose from the feeling of dependence of the human person. No. Rather, the feeling of absolute dependence was the human precondition for it. Schleiermacher was pointing to the place into which revelation enters. The ongoing development of modern theology was filtered through Kant philosophically and Schleiermacher theologically, whether a theologian followed them or rejected them. They determined the shape of the playing field and the rules of the game. We can see this in the theology of Albrecht Ritschl, whose influence came to flower in the 1870s. Ritschl was the first German theologian to recognize the intellectual shift from idealism to realism under the impact of such thinkers as Feuerbach, Comte, Marx, and Engels; the significant achievements of science, technology, and industry; the alienation of the working class; and the impact of Darwin’s Origin of the Species (1863). The cultural mood in Germany turned more and more to the world of experience and to the natural laws governing it. Ritschl concluded in such a cultural milieu that the knowledge of God could be realized only in the act of faith – faith directed toward the saving activity of Christ. Religious knowledge, he claimed, consists in value judgments, a term for which he is best known and most misunderstood. Berkhof explains: He intends to maintain the uniqueness of the Christian faith as a way of access to the “conception of God” through trust in Jesus Christ – apart from any ground other than that given in the unity of revelation and faith. (p. 121) Wilhelm Herrmann developed the intention of Ritschl’s theology. He was convinced, as was Ritschl, that the highest of religion and morality was united in the figure of Jesus. Again following Ritschl under the impact of Kant’s epistemology, faith and knowledge were held distinct. The authority of Scripture, dogma, or creed had to do with knowledge, not faith. He wrote, They cannot bring about a saving personal encounter; they appeal to our thinking only as law. Religion is a totally independent world, though closely bound up with morality, because it relates us to divine revelation and must be the answer to the misery of our moral condition. Herrmann was deeply concerned about the philosophical base of his theology. For him, Kant loomed large, “whose mighty thoughts emerge increasingly in almost all domains of human learning as the select governor of all true research.” He valued Kant’s analysis of the knowing process positively “because in every connection he has placed the value of faith, its independence from science, in the clearest light.” In his analysis of Herrmann’s theology, Berkhof offers an © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 7   illuminating image by which to understand Herrmann over against the rising tide of historical consciousness and historical thinking. When I read Herrmann what emerges in my mind is the image of a rock in the midst of a rising flood. In Ritschl the rock of moral autonomy still had a broad surface. Now, however, with the waves of the flood rising higher and higher, it became much narrower. The parts that are closer to the sea – like corporeality, psychological deveopment, history, social relationships, and the authority of Scripture and Christian tradition – have already been inundated. Herrmann now withdrew to the narrow center, to individual (though conceived as interpersonal) inwardness where the individual is in communion with God through “the inner life of Jesus.” With a splendid sort of consistency, he devoted his intellectual powers to the defense of the peak of this rock. (Two Hundred Years of Theology, p. 146) The rise of the historical-critical method of biblical research led Herrmann to realize that the certainty of faith could not rest on the probable results of historical criticism. Faith does take shape in history, but its basis is above history and beyond the reach of historical research. Is it possible to posit a basis for faith above history invulnerable to the acids of historical criticism? Ernst Troeltsch, a student of Ritschl, did not think so. He rejected the possibility of grounding faith in inner experience, thereby finding an absolute ground in history. Troeltsch, too, recognized that the deterministichistorical mode of thinking was inundating the gospel, but he did not believe, contrary to Herrmann, that there was yet a ridge of the rock above the flood. Troeltsch saw no alternative but to plunge into the stream of historicism with its relativity. Jesus could not be lifted out of the stream of history. Every historical person and phenomenon is subject to historical conditionedness. In Berkhof’s words, history is an ever-moving stream in which the movement of each drop is determined by the mass of water that precedes it, and each drop shares in determining the direction of what follows. That is the fundamental view of “historicism,” another term for determinism applied to historical reality. (p. 150) Historical thinking, which arose in the eighteenth century, is another hallmark of modern thought. It has marked all subsequent modern thought as indelibly as has Kant’s analysis of the knowing process. In Troeltsch the full consequences of historical thinking were drawn; Herrmann’s “inner life of Jesus” was “time conditioned,” thoroughly enmeshed in the stream of history. The struggle to find a basis for faith continued into the twentieth century. The catalyst for a major reversal of the tide of continental theology was Karl Barth. The first edition of Barth’s Romerbrief sent shock waves through the world of © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 8   academic theology and philosophy. Associated with Barth’s name in the early period was Rudolf Bultmann, who affirmed Barth’s move, seeing in it a shift to an existentialist interpretation of the gospel – a direction soon rejected by Barth. For Bultmann, Barth’s early probings seemed consistent with the effort of their common teacher, Wilhelm Herrmann, to find a basis for faith beyond the relativities of history. For Herrmann and even more radically for Bultmann, there was a basic distrust in historically ascertainable facts as vehicles of revelation. Revelation for Bultmann occurs above history in the “existing” individual who, in the encounter with the claim of the gospel, is called to decision, the decision of faith or unbelief apart from recourse to the investigation of any ground for faith in historical data. Bultmann’s whole program of demythologizing the gospel was an attempt to peel off the husk of historical happening, for which only relative certainty could be gained, and find the kernel of God’s appeal in the Christ event. That Jesus was is all that can be claimed as certain. The “Das” of Jesus is the point at which God’s claim touches historical reality. Barth’s first edition of Romerbrief was a seismic shock, but for Barth it was only an initial probe – he was in transition. The second edition showed Barth not so interested, as was Bultmann, in the existential analysis of the human person addressed by the gospel, but in the God Who addresses the human person. In the preface to the second edition of Romans, he writes: If I have a system, it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, and to my regarding this as possessing negative as well as positive significance: “God is in heaven, and thou art on earth.” The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy. Philosophers name this Krisis of human perception the Prime Cause: The Bible beholds at the same cross-roads the figure of Jesus Christ. The second edition of Romans marked Barth’s turn to the interpretation of the Bible, a turn precipitated by his disillusionment with involvement with the social democracy movement, which failed to mobilize resistance to World War I, and the “crisis” created by the need to preach weekly. In his wrestling with Paul’s letter to the Romans, Barth was overwhelmed with the sense of the absolute priority of God revealed in the event of Jesus Christ and the working of Spirit. Barth was on the way, on a new way, and for a time continued to grope and feel his way. For him – as for Bultmann - the thin ridge of the rock on which their teacher Herrmann had grounded faith was flooded. There was no place to stand. God’s revelation in Jesus Christ, effected in the individual by the miracle of the Spirit’s illumination, came “vertically from above.” In the world, in the domain of history, there were no vestiges of perceptibility except, for example, the crater which indicates that a meteor has slammed into the earth. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page 9   It is clear that even the paradigm shift to the contemporary period demonstrates continuity with the nineteenth century. Barth and Bultmann both radicalized the efforts of Ritschl and Herrmann to ground faith beyond history in order to place faith beyond the attack of historical criticism and the widespread Enlightenment assumption that historical reality can yield only relative certainty. It is further clear that the crucial question that has dogged theological reflection over the past two hundred years is the question forced by the rise of historical consciousness, the question of how absolute truth can be discovered in history’s ongoing movement, how faith can find a certain resting place in the ambiguity of history. The later Barth, the Barth of Church Dogmatics, turned more and more to history, valuing it as the “place” of revelation, in contrast to his early work. However, to the end he never answered what has been perhaps the most serious criticism of his theology, a criticism expressed sharply by his young friend and admirer, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who spoke of Barth’s “positivism of revelation,” a “take it or leave it” approach that denied the legitimacy of questioning the grounds of the revelation, of the claims of the gospel’s appeal. In the final analysis, neither Barth nor Bultmann were able to ground the Word in history, within this worldly existence. The attempt to do so is the story of the post-Bultmannians and the postBarthians – students of these giants who felt the pressure of the cultural mood to find within human historical existence the experience that afforded a place for revelation accessible to empirical verification. The development of Christology “from below,” such as one finds in the early writings of Pannenberg and in Küng, are examples of this swing back to the attempt to give historical foundation to the gospel’s claim. In the Netherlands the work of Kuitert, Berkhouwer’s successor, is an attempt to find in history “the footprints of God.” The pendulum swings back and forth. Berkhof concludes that if one starts, as Barth did, with God, it seems impossible to reach real people, and to start “from below” as Kuitert and others have done makes it questionable whether one reaches God. It seems clear that the assumptions of the Enlightenment – the autonomy of the human person, the subject-object split in the process of human knowing, the historical consciousness – have created false alternatives (an approach from below or an approach from above) thereby bringing theological work to an impasse. If Enlightenment assumptions have led to an impasse, are there indications that by moving out from under the dominance of those assumptions, breakthroughs might be possible in a new cultural period? In a volume of essays entitled Postmodern Theology, James B. Miller contends just that. Miller sets forth the variety of forms in which Descartes’ subject-object dualism and Kant’s knowledge-faith dualism have been manifested in modern thought. From a different angle, he points to the impasse noted above: © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page10   The logical positivist movement implicitly accepted this dualism, but denied meaningfulness to the nonempirical, nonscientific side (i.e., the domain of the noumenal.) Reductionists sought to explain religions and religious phenomena in exclusively scientific (or social scientific) terms, thus denying the autonomy (or independent reality) of the religions (i.e., explaining the noumenal in terms of the phenomenal.) In contrast, the existentialist movement, while implicitly accepting the dualism, invested all significant meaning on the side of faith, moral action, and the religious life (i.e., in the noumenal domain. (p. 5) In Miller’s last group, the existentialists, we can see the line of development we have been tracing from Ritschl through Herrmann to Barth, Bultmann, and their successors. Indeed, we can see it already in “the father of modern theology,” Schleiermacher, who sought the ground for theology in the interior life of the individual. Miller himself sets in contrast the two poles represented by Barth with his “positivism of revelation” – the uncritical confidence that the revelatory “word” provides absolute knowledge of God and God’s purpose for the world, and the logical positivists who held that reason and empirical observation were the sole and sufficient sources of absolute knowledge of the world. Thus, Miller observes, the modern worldview or, as it has been named here, the domination of the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment, continues to form the dominant perspective in Western and Christian culture. He writes: It is found in the popular understanding of science as an impersonal, detached, and objective search for the facts of nature. Its neoorthodox theological manifestation is “normal” Christian theology. The prophetic rhetoric of the theology justifies a program of cultural change through social action. Its existentialist roots encourage contemporary forms of pastoral care and spiritual renewal which turn people away from their intrinsic relation to nature and history and focus them on a kind of atemporal personhood. It offers a revealed (and so, absolute) dogmatics of transcendence for those who would claim for Christianity a right to cultural dominance. (pp. 7f.) Miller sees such dominance slipping away; he senses that we are entering a postmodern world. Developments in biology and physics are pointing the way to a fundamentally new worldview. If the Enlightenment paradigm characterized reality as mechanical and dualistic, the model for the postmodern world, according to Miller, is historical, relational, and personal. He describes what this means for the emerging understanding of the world and how the understanding of the human process of knowing is changing. The world is not simply here; it is evolving. In contemporary biology the world does not embody an eternal essence, but is rather on ongoing process of creating, humans being both the product of and participants in this ongoing process. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page11   The world is understood “to be relative, indeterminate, and participatory.” Existence is fully relative, meaning nothing exists in and of itself; “To be is to be related,” in contrast to the absolutes of Newton’s time-space categories. Quantum theory in physics has overthrown the “substantial universe;” the world does not have a history, but is history. Heisenberg’s principle of uncertainty points to the indeterminacy of the core of reality and this, in turn, points to the core of reality as an unfathomable mystery. Interestingly, there is more awe before mystery in contemporary physics than in much theology. We began this inquiry with Descartes and Kant and their epistemological analysis. The understanding of what it means to know is called in question by these developments in biology and physics. Miller contends, From a postmodern perspective, all knowledge is historically implicated. Nothing is known apart from its cultural setting, and that setting is constitutive of what is known. There are no culturally neutral facts. Knowledge is not so much found as made, or better, it does not grow so much as it is grown. (p. 11, italics his) There is a significant difference between this conception of the historical character of all truth and the historicism of the modern period as represented by Troeltsch, for example. Here the human subject is not caught in an impersonal historical determinism, but is a participant in the unfolding history of the whole of reality. Truth relative to any community of knowers makes all knowledge incomplete. Alfred North Whitehead described the world not in terms of substances, but in terms of events, pointing thereby not to a world of static substantiality, but to a world of dynamic temporality. From Whitehead has developed the inquiries of the school of process theology. Miller considers what new theological insights are offered from such a conception of reality. In regard to creation, the idea of the dualistic relationship between God and world is called into question, as well as the objectifying of the world as a thing. The view of God creating provides the possibility of overcoming cosmological dualism and historical determinism. Anthropology looks different from such a perspective as well. The processes producing the human person are not different from those out of which all else in the universe emerges. Humankind becomes in such a view part of but not the center of the cosmic drama. There are also implications here for Christology. Incarnation might be understood to characterize every moment of the history of the universe with Jesus of Nazareth being the one who articulates the incarnational model in his teaching and the one who in his person is said to demonstrate the © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page12   meaning of that model for human living. In this sense, Jesus’ uniqueness as incarnation is historical but not ontological. (p. 19) With these brief references to Miller’s application of a new understanding of human knowing and human knowledge, we can see the potential fruitfulness of theological inquiry that throws off the dominance of the cultural assumptions of the Enlightenment and allows the fresh breakthroughs in biology and physics to overcome the impasse into which modern thought has led us. The shape in which Christian faith has come to expression in every cultural epoch has borne the marks of the cultural assumptions of each successive epoch. This is no less true of the modern period under Enlightenment assumptions than of Reformation theology under the assumptions of the sixteenth century with its heritage of medieval thinking and Renaissance humanism. The challenge before us is to bring the legacy of sixteenth century Reformation theology to new expression, given the openings provided by the emerging postmodern age. In his Two Hundred Years of Theology, Berkhof provides a chapter on the engagement with modern thought in the Netherlands. What he has to say about Herman Bavinck is especially interesting in regard to this discussion. Bavinck was firmly rooted in the Reformed Church of the Secession led by Abraham Kuyper. Brilliant and highly gifted, he studied at Leiden under Scholten, against the prevailing tradition of his church. He was attracted to ethical theology, an attempt to mediate the gospel and modern thought. Kuyper appealed to him to be clear in his objections to this mediating theology but was never satisfied with Bavinck’s criticism – it was not strong enough. Bavinck remained within the Secession Church and, in time, became Kuyper’s successor at the Free University. He wrote his Gereformeerde Dogmatiek and in the first volume enunciated the theological foundations upon which his work was built. The objective principle of knowledge is primary: the Holy Scriptures. He was viewed, according to Berkhof, as “the faithful theological partisan and alter ego of Kuyper.” Yet Berkhof notes that apart from the second edition of his dogmatics and a onevolume summary, Bavinck produced little in the field of dogmatics during his years at the Free University, and nothing that was new and original. He observes, He [Bavinck] felt increasingly that the modern period needed a much more vigorous renewal of theology than he himself had produced or was able to produce. Particularly the issues arising from the historical-critical interpretation of Scripture needed a very different approach. (p. 113) Berkhof goes on to say that Bavinck’s views on the issues at stake became increasingly relativistic, and, in 1910, he sold a large part of his dogmatics library; during these years his interest turned to issues posed by culture. © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page13   Berkhof writes that after 1900 “Bavinck increasingly felt that his theological direction was leading to a dead end.” Was it only historical-critical research that undermined his earlier certainty? Berkhof asks. Or was it deeper? Did he finally yield to his earlier fascination with ethical theology, recognizing that the issue between it and his Reformed orthodoxy was not really an issue between theocentricity and anthrocentricity, but rather between intellectualism and personalism? Is faith submission to the authority of scripture truths or is it the personal encounter with God through the person of Christ by which we are transformed into personalities? Bavinck opted for the priority of the scripture principle, . . . Hence Bavinck remained more strongly burdened than he wished by the legacy of the Reformed scholasticism of the seventeenth century and gave up intellectual tools he could not well do without in the continuing confrontation with the modern spirit. (p. 114) One cannot help but wonder why Bavinck’s latter years were not more fruitful. Why did he sell most of his dogmatics library? Why did his interest turn to issues in the broader culture? Berkhof does not speculate, but he does tell us that Bavinck felt his theological direction was leading to a dead end. Could it be that he sensed he was stuck? Was he not perhaps blocked from fruitful engagement with modern thought by his own objective principle of knowledge, the holy Scriptures? Indeed, not by Scripture as such, but by Scripture as understood by premodern seventeenth-century Reformed scholasticism, a view still prevalent in present-day Reformed orthodoxy. Scripture itself is the cumulative translation of tradition over several centuries. Where it is not valued as an inspired human witness to encounter with the living God, but rather as a book of absolute truths not only about God but also about science, cosmology, anthropology, and history, how can genuine dialogue with ongoing human intellectual and spiritual development be engaged in? It is impossible. Given Bavinck’s ecclesiastical context, to raise that issue would have been fruitless; it would not have been tolerated. Reformed theology in this country faces the same dilemma. Its doctrine of Scripture has remained immune from the acids of criticism, and an authoritarian use of Scripture continues, making it impossible either to engage the cultural assumptions that remain as a legacy of the Enlightenment, or to capture the attention of an obviously spiritually destitute and groping present generation where the yearning for transcendence is pervasive. Perhaps the insights and breakthroughs in science and the spiritual bankruptcy of the West have created the moment that will compel us to move beyond both the theological impasse traced above and an authoritarian use of Scripture. In his biography of Karl Barth, Eberhard Busch records a conversation of Barth in which he referred to being dubbed orthodox. That was fine with Barth, if it pointed to a willingness “to learn from the Fathers.” © Grand Valley State University �Sleeping Through a Revolution Richard A. Rhem Page14   But he rejected any restriction to the doctrinal position of any teacher, school or confession.... “Confessions” exist for us to go through them (not once but continually), not for us to return to them, take up our abode in them, and conduct our further thinking from their standpoint and in bondage to them. (Karl Barth, p. 375) That is the freedom we must discover in order to enter the contemporary discussion, bringing the richness of Reformed theology into engagement with a postmodern world. References: Hendrikus Berkhof. Two Hundred Years of Theology, report of a personal journey. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, translation by John Vriend of 200 Jahre Theologie: Ein Reisebericht, 1985) Hans Küng. Paradigm Change in Theology: A Symposium for the Future. David Tracy, editor. Crossroad Publishing Co., 1989. Hans Küng. Theology for the Third Millennium: An Ecumenical View. Anchor, reprint edition, 1990. James B. Miller. Postmodern Theology: Christian Faith in a Pluralist World. Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References H. Berkhof, 200 Years of Theology, 1989, Hans Küng, Paradigm Change in Theology, 1989, Theology for the 3rd Millennium, 1990, James Miller, Postmodern Theology, 2006 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19910401 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1991-04-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Sleeping Through a Revolution Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Perspectives: A Journal of Reformed Thought Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on April 1, 1991 entitled "Sleeping Through a Revolution", it appeared in Perspectives, April 1991, pp. 8-14. Tags: Reformed Theology, Orthodoxy, Historical Thinking, Faith, Postmodern, Nature of Religious Development. Scripture references: H. Berkhof, 200 Years of Theology, 1989, Hans Küng, Paradigm Change in Theology, 1989, Theology for the 3rd Millennium, 1990, James Miller, Postmodern Theology, 2006. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Faith Historical Thinking Nature of Religious Development Orthodoxy PostModern Reformed Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/7343baf68ec2d1edecdc8126ef3e9296.pdf c1acdd19689a14c2f35f52c77378d5aa PDF Text Text Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey by Hendrikus Berkhof (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1989, translation by John Vriend of 200 Jahre Theologie: Ein Reisebericht, 1985) 1990 Book Review “A Personal Perspective on a Personal Journey” By Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Publication of Review Unknown On Christmas, 1990, I spoke with Hendrikus Berkhof. His voice was strong, his mind clear; over the telephone one would not have known but that it was the same “Henk,” full of questions, intensely interested in all that was happening in the world and in the church – and, as always, there was his genuine interest in all that concerned me, my family and church. It was good to hear him thus, but even so I knew he was home for only a few hours from the nursing home where he now makes his home. On May 26 Hendrikus Berkhof was stricken with a cerebral hemorrhage that left him unconscious for two weeks and hospitalized into September. I flew over to see him and his dear wife Corry the first week in July. During those days I could see him make a turn. He recognized me immediately and immediately spoke to me in English, although in very weak voice. With his one good arm he reached out to touch my face, a kind of blessing, realizing I had come to be with him. Paralyzed on his left side, he cannot yet walk and how much progress remains to be made cannot be predicted at this point. My Christmas conversation, however, convinced me that he will keep up the struggle; that great mind and heart will not be muted. Perhaps the most moving aspect of our conversation was his expression of deep gratitude to God whose grace has been experienced richly as Henk and Corry have traversed this valley. In September they celebrated their golden anniversary. With his four children and their families gathered around him he spoke of the goodness and grace of God and God’s faithfulness in the present adversity. That this should be the case is no surprise to me; rather, it is precisely what I should have expected from this Christian gentleman, theologian, preacher, churchman and, for me, mentor and dear friend. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 2 of 41 One of the highest privileges of my life has been the opportunity to study under Hendrikus Berkhof for four years in Leiden and then subsequently to know the richness of intimate friendship with him and Corry. In 1989 we spent ten days together in Scotland, studying together and touring the Highlands. He spoke of our special relationship and denied that it could any longer be termed that of mentor/student. But of course I know better. He will always be my teacher. More than any other he has shaped me as a theologian and pastor. It was thus with great pleasure that I accepted the assignment of reviewing Two Hundred Years of Theology, with the request that I do more than review the book but also give a personal portrait of the author. I received this work almost as a personal gift from my teacher. The two hundred years he surveys from his own personal perspective is precisely the course of theological development I studied with him from 1967 -1970. His Christian Faith, which, after five reprintings, was revised in 1986, will obviously stand as his statement of the Christian faith as it comes to expression within the Reformed tradition in the last quarter of the twentieth century. But Two Hundred Years of Theology reveals the man in the passion of his life – to bring to expression the Gospel in such a fashion that it engages the minds and hearts of the contemporary generation. Obviously, to survey two hundred years of theology is to reflect on that endeavor to bring the Gospel to expression over many generations. But the sharp focus of the study consists precisely in the manner in which that task was executed in the several generations surveyed. There was much that transpired during the two-hundred-year period that receives no attention or is mentioned only in passing. Berkhof makes no claim to give a full review of theological inquiry for the period. His intention, clearly stated, is to trace the respective attempts to bridge the Gospel proclamation and modern thought. Ever and again and with increasing intensity I asked myself how, speaking generally, these two can coexist.... (p. xi) Modern thought, set in opposition to the Gospel, is the thought that arose in the epoch of the Enlightenment. (Berkhof uses the term “post-Enlightenment” to designate the two hundred years under review. That should not be confused with the designation of our present time as the Post-Enlightenment period in the sense of moving beyond the assumptions of the Enlightenment). Berkhof’s focus is theological thought in face of the assumptions of the Enlightenment. In the eighteenth century...modern thought assumed the position of leadership in European culture. Since then, as “self-evident” truth in cultured circles, it stripped from the Christian worldview its halo of self-evident truth which it had held in Europe for almost a thousand years. (p. xii) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 3 of 41 Berkhof was nurtured in the Reformed tradition as it came to expression in the Calvinism of the Netherlands. At the close of a long and fruitful career in the church and the university, preaching and teaching Christian faith, Berkhof surveys the dialogue of Christian theology and modern thought over the past two hundred years to satisfy his own curiosity first of all, for he recognizes that his whole ministry has been the articulation of the faith in the face of modern thought in the wake of the Enlightenment which overthrew all authoritarian structures in state and church and declared the autonomy of the human person. Berkhof’s strength and great gift to the Reformed tradition and the whole church is the articulation of the faith in face of modern thought, having earned his right to address the contemporary scene because of the seriousness with which he has grappled with modern thought, doing so with sensitivity, genuinely seeking to hear and understand; doing so with openness and humility, seeking insight on the way to a deeper grasp of truth; doing so with appreciation for the positive aspects of the broader culture. In his effort to understand and in his honest appreciation for the modern world of Western civilization he never lost sight of the fundamental contradiction of the sovereign and gracious Creator and the creaturely claim to autonomy – the discontinuity between God and humankind, the impossible gulf that separates the two, a gulf that can be bridged only from the side of God as an act of pure grace, a gulf that has been bridged in Jesus Christ. For me, coming under the tutelage of a person of such breadth of scholarship who evidenced at the same time a deeply personal Christian experience and commitment to the faith in its Reformed perspective, but with the enrichment of broad ecumenical appreciation, it was a whole new world. I was amazed at the gap in my own theological education: thorough through the sixteenth century but almost totally lacking in the whole development of modern thought, the thought patterns that have shaped the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, thought patterns that must be engaged in any responsible proclamation of the Gospel in the contemporary world. I may have been at fault, not being ready or willing to hear the claims of philosophical thinking in the wake of the Enlightenment. What I missed completely, for whatever reason, was the factor that changes everything – the rise of historical consciousness that developed on the continent in the eighteenth century and led to what is now taken for granted in our culture, namely, that all biblical, theological, philosophical and ideological statements are conditioned by the historical context in which they arise. Fortunately, when the force of this revolution in human understanding took hold of me, I was under the careful and caring guidance of one whose whole life has been a passionate pursuit of bringing to expression the grace of God as it has been manifested in the ambiguity of the historical situation. Two things became strikingly evident to me: my own orthodox Reformed faith understanding was not a timeless expression of eternal truth but a timely confession of Christian faith shaped in the tumultuous context of sixteenth-century Europe. Secondly, the whole development of modern theology which I had viewed negatively, as threat, was an attempt to translate the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 4 of 41 gospel into terms that took cognizance of the Copernican turn in human understanding effected by critical analyses of the knowing process and by the rise of historical consciousness. In other words, it was an attempt to do what the church is always called to do – to articulate the gospel in every generation and in the context of every historical epoch. From Hendrikus Berkhof I learned to listen with appreciation and openness to the broad spectrum of expressions of the Christian faith in the respective periods in which they were articulated. I learned, to borrow Clarence Becker’s phrase, that “the climate of opinion” in any given period is so powerful and controlling that often an honest attempt to bring the gospel to expression will end poorly with only a truncated message coming through. But even so I learned to value the effort and to learn, both from those efforts that were somewhat successful, and from those that lost the message in a maze of human reasoning. Hendrikus Berkhof is a gifted scholar. To read Two Hundred Years of Theology, one recognizes immediately that one is reading an author who has a thorough grasp of the subject matter, who has fully digested the thought of the persons about whom he writes and that, with an encyclopedic grasp of the thought development, he is not content simply to render a survey but rather goes on to critique, to question and finally to put his own feet down over against that which he has set forth. His own account of the faith which one finds in his Christian Faith is thus his own; arising out of a thorough grasp of the tradition out of which he speaks, the whole development of dogma in the history of the church, and a broad engagement with modern thought. The thinkers whom he treats in Two Hundred Years, …tried, more or less deliberately, to build a bridge between the gospel and their secularized cultural environment, but did they succeed? Were they able to translate the gospel into modern language such that it could again be heard and understood in intellectual circles and elicit a genuine yes or no? But who is able to judge whether they achieved this goal? We probably cannot say more than this: from where we stand now, this or that attempt seems to us successful or unsuccessful. Such assessment is important, for we are in the same situation and can learn, both in a positive and in a negative way, from preceding generations. (p. xiii) Berkhof invites us to join him in his personal journey through two hundred years. Beginning with Kant, Berkhof recognizes that the dialogue of theology and modern thought is a dialogue between theology and philosophy. The great German philosophical tradition was carried on by those who had genuine theological interest and involvement. From the development of philosophy, theologians gained knowledge of the modern person’s understanding of life. Throughout the study Berkhof will again and again point to the Lebensgefühl, life understanding, sense of life, that was influential in shaping theological expression. His survey will highlight those persons who acknowledged the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 5 of 41 new situation for theology after the critical analysis of the knowing process by Immanuel Kant and insight in the milieu of modern thought to proclaim the gospel. Before we can fully appreciate the seismic shift in philosophical and theological thought effected by Kant’s critical analysis of the knowing process we need some sense of the pre-modern world. With the overwhelming influence of Aristotelian philosophy brought to the west by Averroës in the twelfth century, the Church was faced with the necessity of proclaiming its message in some sort of accommodation with Aristotle. Thomas Aquinas provided the synthesis which made room for Christian theology in an Aristotelian intellectual climate. This was a major accomplishment but the synthesis exacted a price: reality was now split into two realities, nature and supernature. A virtual metaphysical dualism was constructed separating the heavenly sphere from the earthly. For the latter, reason reigned supreme; the former was accessible to faith. Thus a bifurcation of reality resulted in a bifurcation of the knowing process. This split in reality would bear bitter fruit but it did forestall the onset of atheistic thought which became a dominant stream of modern thought in the period surveyed by Berkhof. Berkhof begins his personal journey with the critical analysis of epistemology by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). His Critique of Pure Reason (1781) is broadly acknowledged as the foundational work of German philosophy and, Berkhof contends, it must also be valued “as a radical new beginning for evangelical theology.” As a result of its appearance, orthodox scholasticism, rationalism, and supernaturalism found that, at a single stroke, the road forward had been blocked. In addition, the appearance of Kant’s Critique meant...the birth of the new theology, or rather: the modern way of posing questions, and modern methodology, in theology. (p. 1f) The pre-modern worldview had achieved a harmony between nature and grace, reason and faith, Aquinas offering the consummate articulation of that harmony. As James Miller writes: By the eve of the birth of modern culture, the relation between Aristotelian science (including a geocentric cosmological model developed by the secondcentury astronomer Ptolemy) and Christian theology had become so integral that it was virtually impossible to determine where one stopped and the other began. As a consequence, it was difficult to see how a philosophical or cosmological challenge to the system of Aristotelian natural philosophy could be anything less than a challenge to theological orthodoxy as well. Thus, the stage was set for the Copernican-Galilean controversy out of which modern culture emerged and in which natural science as a discipline became independent of the intellectual or theological authority of the Christian church. (Postmodern Theology, p. 2) Separating Thomas Aquinas and the Thomistic harmonization of the natural and the supernatural and Immanuel Kant are four centuries which saw the Renaissance turning © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 6 of 41 to the human subject, the Reformation which could only have happened in a culture already permeated by Renaissance influence but which some would contend was a detour, a conservative reaction rather than a development of the ferment of the fifteenth century, and the birth of modern philosophy in the work of Descartes. The linkage between the pre-modern culture described above and Kant’s critical philosophy, however, should not be missed. The Enlightenment was the flowering of the Renaissance turning to the human subject. The bold declaration was the autonomy of the human person no longer under the tutelage of authoritarian structures, be they ecclesiastical (church or Scripture) or sociopolitical. The early representatives of philosophy had never at the onset of the modern period remained faithful to the church and lived in two houses: their critical analysis of thought and scientific experimentation was carried on in the autonomy of human reason; their spiritual existence was the appropriation of God’s grace, mediated through the church – this tidy possibility provided by Thomas’ dual structure of reality. It was not long however before the modern thinker found the supernatural realm optional; the autonomous human person found that critical rationality was quite sufficient to deal with “the real world;” the church remained a spiritual home for those who needed it. Enter Immanuel Kant. This is the beginning point of Berkhof’s journey because Kant’s analysis of the human knowing process changed everything. In his Critique of Pure Reason he destroyed the traditional proofs for the existence of God and struck terror in the hearts of conservative theologians. Actually his purpose was positive. He himself wrote, “I therefore had to abolish knowledge in order to make room for belief.” For him faith and knowledge were complementary. They were separate but connected and both were necessary. It is Berkhof’s contention that it was “Kant’s purpose to save religion as well as the Enlightenment: in this double objective, we think, lay his deepest passion as a thinker.” (p. 5) Dividing the realm of knowledge into two fundamentally separate domains, he posited the world of phenomena and the world of the noumena. The former was accessible to human reason – empirical knowledge which was not a direct mirror of the natural world but the product of the interaction of the knowing mind and the data of the senses. This he called the knowledge of the phenomenal world. The noumenal world consisted of things in themselves – the world apart from the activity of the knowing subject – that which simply was not available to empirical verification because no sensory experience was possible. For example, the universe as a causal whole, the human self as a free agent, and God. Yet precisely these three realities must exist, must be true. To cite James Miller again: Therefore, though knowledge of the world as a whole, of the self, and of God were denied by Kant, faith in them, he argued, was absolutely necessary for practical reasons. (Postmodern Theology, p. 5) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 7 of 41 This assertion was set forth in his second critical work, The Critique of Practical Reason. It is this fundamental dualism that has characterized modern culture; it is the inheritance of the Enlightenment and it is the “climate of opinion” that has dominated the modern period, the milieu in which two hundred years of theology has been executed. How did the Gospel come to expression in light of the limits of human knowing in a world where the authority of tradition and Scripture was no longer self-evident? This is Berkhof’s focus. He deals with the development of the German philosophical tradition because German philosophers were so theologically self-conscious and aware: Fichte and the beginning of the Romantic movement which included the great Schleiermacher who remained a theologian and pastor and sought to articulate the Gospel to its “cultured despisers,” many of whom made up his own circle of friends; and, of course, Hegel in whom German Idealism reached its fullest expression. Berkhof is comfortably at home in this philosophical dimension and is able to lift the philosophical threads that shaped the theological tapestry of the nineteenth century. Without some degree of philosophical orientation one can hardly begin to understand the theological thinking that came to expression in this 200-year period – or in any period for that matter. How can we understand Schleiermacher, regarded as the father of modern Protestant theology, except in the background of Kant? If Kant successfully blocked the road to the knowledge of God through rational enquiry, through metaphysical speculation, then what road remains open and on what basis can knowledge of God be grounded? Schleiermacher turned to the interior life of the individual – to “the feeling of absolute dependence,” an experience he claimed was common to all humankind at some time or other. As Berkhof is careful to point out, Schleiermacher was not claiming that Christianity arose from the feeling of dependence; rather, this feeling is the human precondition for it. He was pointing to the place into which revelation enters. Was he successful in bringing Christian faith to expression amidst its cultured despisers? Berkhof observes, One can hardly say that history proved him right. What he took such pains to formulate as the method of theology after the Enlightenment has become, consciously or unconsciously, the common property of the greater proportion of theologians. But there were, and are, only very few “Schleiermachians.” The actual execution of his design has prompted many to admire but few to imitate him. For some it was too radical; for others too traditional; and, of course, both possibilities were inherent in this method. (p. 46) Berkhof entitled the chapter “Schleiermacher’s Direction” because he understands Schleiermacher as having had a distinct base and goal. The base was the modernity which he totally affirmed. The goal was redemption in Christ, a subject which in his own time he wanted to express in all its fullness. Throughout his lifetime he was on his way from that base to this goal. (p. 48) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 8 of 41 Berkhof’s sense is that he was so caught up with the base that it is questionable whether he really reached his goal. Barth wrestled with Schleiermacher throughout his remarkable career. Strong rejection alternates with obvious admiration as Barth deals with this one who so strongly shaped the nineteenth century, which Barth had so strongly rejected in his own radical turn from his inherited liberalism to the theology of the Word. Berkhof, observing the whole movement from Schleiermacher to Barth, renders the opinion that They were both in motion from the same base (Woher) to the same goal (Wohin)... (p. 49). Only viewed thus in their commonality of concern, Berkhof contends, can the great difference between them come to light. The delight and profit of accompanying Berkhof on his journey is to learn from him the relationships and inter-connections that constitute the theological landscape of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He concludes the chapter on Schleiermacher with this paragraph: It is no accident that suddenly we have moved from Schleiermacher to our own time. As the first to think through so deeply the problems of modern theology, he is just as up-to-date and relevant for us as he was for his contemporaries. Perhaps we have to say: more relevant. For in his day most theologians had as yet no inkling of what the problems were and could therefore lightheartedly shrug off Schleiermacher’s answers. The bigger the blueprint, the longer the time before it takes effect. (p.49) We will go on to deal with Ritschl and the line of German theological development, but we must note here another alternative to Kant’s destruction of a reasoned proof of the existence of God. Schleiermacher moved to the interior life of the human subject; the Danish Lutheran theologian, Sören Kierkegaard, in strong reaction against Hegel’s idealism, pointed to the concretely existing individual who is confronted by the revelation of Jesus Christ and is called to conversion, to the leap of faith in the moment of decision. Sketching Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments, Berkhof writes, Only in the paradox of the God-man can one lay hold of the unity of the eternal and the historical; and this paradox is only acknowledged in faith. This faith has nothing to do with one’s intelligence or will. It is itself as much a paradox as the paradox with which it enters into a positive and happy relationship. Faith, therefore, is purely a gift received in the “moment” in which the eternal appears in time and by which the learner becomes “contemporaneous” with the teacher. In this contemporaneity, this leap from sinful alienation from God into existence, the historical distance from Jesus, who is now contemporaneous, falls away. (p. 74) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 9 of 41 Kierkegaard reacted strongly against Hegel not only, but also against confessional orthodoxy of his day, for there too, he claimed, the individual was pushed aside just as much by universal and objective truths. Berkhof sees Kierkegaard as an important figure in the relationship between culture and gospel: He brought the Christian faith into conflict with the Zeitgeist, doing this, however, in the concepts of that time. Having in his language become an idealist to the idealists, he proclaimed to them the faith in a new way so that it no longer appeared to them as something antiquated but as a stumbling block and folly. He did not do this by way of a fresh interpretation of dogma and tradition.... The new and contemporary dimension consisted in the fact that he focused the whole of revelation on the goal of subjectivity and by that means placed it in a new light. (p. 76) Was Kierkegaard the “most thoroughly reflective completion of pietism”? Berkhof raises the question but notes this critical difference: Whereas pietism presupposed and maintained the orthodox system of doctrine, Kierkegaard made its content existential. Kierkegaard failed to impact his own time and subsequent decades took little note of him, but the alternative he posed to both the liberalism flowing from Hegel’s idealism and confessional orthodoxy came to flower in the twentieth century in the early Barth and in the theology of Rudolf Bultmann. Following a discussion of Hegel and the Hegelian left, those thinkers that moved from Hegel’s system to atheism, Berkhof discusses “the after-effects of idealism in theology,” portraying the two streams that issued in confessionalism and liberalism. Berkhof points out: Two theological points of view were dominant here...: One could either, in company with Hegel, look in Christianity for the truth of universal reason (and run the risk of subordinating the gospel to the spirit of culture (Kulturgeist), or one could join Schleiermacher in proceeding from the independent source and nature of the gospel (and run the danger of isolating the gospel from the culture). This contrast led to two distinct theological schools. (p. 62) The first school, the liberal wing, Berkhof designates as the “Hegelian school” but he does not deal with this line because it lies outside his sharp focus. The second school, “the confessional group, the theology of mediation, gets major treatment because precisely here the bridge between gospel and culture was the center. The roots of this theology lie in Schleiermacher but there was little of the brilliance of Schleiermacher and the effectiveness of the movement was slight in terms of negotiating a dialogue with © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 10 of 41 culture. It did serve to strengthen the church – it was, in Berkhof’s words “an ecclesiastical modality;” it had “a saving influence internally.” Both the liberal and mediating theological groups declined abruptly with the rise of Ritschl’s influence in the 1870’s. This causes Berkhof to raise questions directly related to his own special interest. Both schools wanted to translate Christian truth into the idiom of modern consciousness (Lebensgefühl). And for both, this Lebensgefühl was unquestionably the atmosphere created by German idealistic philosophy. In that regard, however, both were fundamentally wrong. Already when those schools arose, idealism was close to its demise. (p. 68) The important insight here is that theologians that valued being up-to-date – related to the climate of opinion of the day – failed to sense that their cultural context was moving beyond them. Here is Berkhof’s statement: The worlds of Feuerbach and Comte, of Marx and Engels, the achievements of science, technology, and industry, the struggle of the working class, the “signs of the times” of 1848, and later the German translation of Darwin’s main work (1863) – all these events and influences occurred out of the hearing range of theological studies and lecture halls.... The theologians could not find a point of contact in the new empiricistic, naturalistic, and atheistic culture of Europe, as they had found it in the world of idealism. (p. 68) Berkhof does not fault theologians alone for this failure to sense where modern thought was going. Even “enlightened” members of the educated class shrank back from the forward movement of Enlightenment thought. Idealism as far back as the Hellenistic beginnings of the church, seemed the gospel’s native air; with this new intellectual climate there seemed no possibility of establishing a relationship. Albrecht Ritschl, according to Berkhof, was the first “to fling a plausible bridge in German theology to the Lebensgefühl of realism.” In the decade of the 1870’s Ritschl’s work had a major impact because, Berkhof contends, “what many scholars had felt unconsciously came suddenly to the surface: liberal and mediating theology had attempted to relate the gospel to a world that was no longer there.” What these theologians in both camps failed to recognize was that to make the gospel audible in the modern world requires the change of conceptual apparatus and theological language with the changing cultural climate and this means as well that any such theological construction will, given time, become obsolete. Berkhof gives a sympathetic treatment of Ritschl, acknowledging his considerable shortcomings, but valuing him for his serious effort to give voice to the gospel in a shifting cultural scene. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 11 of 41 The cultural mood in Germany turned more and more to the world of experience and the natural laws governing it. The reality of space and time gained much more weight and a much clearer autonomy than an idealistically disposed mind could handle. Still, this reality was not experienced in a deterministic fashion. The experience of the mechanisms of nature went hand in hand with a strong sense of progress, of human freedom and power. Humanity is clearly not a product and plaything of the powers of nature but superior to them as their ruler. By utilizing the predictable laws of nature humanity can establish a realm of progress that becomes ever more free. (p. 115f) This was the cultural mood into which Ritschl addressed his theological understanding. He moved from Hegelian idealism to open-minded research utilizing the historicalcritical method. He was serious, disciplined, wanting to be “heart and soul, a believing Christian, and at the same time belonging with the entire fabric of his life to his own culture and time.” Turning from Hegelian idealism to Kant’s critical idealism, he fluctuated in his relationship to Kant but seemed finally convinced that metaphysics and natural theology were no longer options. He held that the knowledge of God is realized only in the act of faith – faith directed toward the saving activity of Christ. Religious knowledge he claimed consists in value judgments, a term by which he is best known and most misunderstood. Berkhof cites him thus: “It is the duty of theology to conserve the special characteristics of the conception of God, namely, that it can only be represented in value-judgments.” Berkhof observes: He intends to maintain the uniqueness of the Christian faith as a way of access to the “conception of God” through trust in Jesus Christ – apart from any ground other than that given in the unity of revelation and faith. In that context he utilized Kant to the extent Kant is useful... (p. 121) Berkhof defends Ritschl against a common misunderstanding that with the concept of value judgment he delivered the Christian faith to pure subjectivism. But, Berkhof counters, the word value was much in vogue at the time and it intended to represent the autonomy of the world of the mind vis-a-vis the mechanism of nature. Berkhof cites two significant statements in which Ritschl explains his use of the word: Religious knowledge moves in independent value-judgments, which relate to man’s attitude to the world, and call forth feelings of pleasure or pain, in which man either enjoys the dominion over the world vouchsafed him by God, or feels grievously the lack of God’s help to that end. (Justification and Reconciliation, p. 205, cited in Berkhof, p. 122). In Christianity, religious knowledge consists in independent value judgments, inasmuch as it deals with the relation between the blessedness which is assured by God and sought by man, and the whole of the world which God has created and rules in harmony with His final end. (p. 207) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 12 of 41 Ritschl is striving to explain the relationship between divine providence and human dominion over the world. He also used the concept in dealing with the divinity of Christ and religious knowledge. Berkhof sets forth Ritschl’s intent sympathetically but acknowledges that the word value judgment...is misleading; it creates the impression that it is solely grounded in subjective human appreciation, as a postulate or projection, without having an objective context. Ritschl’s line of thought was not at all intended anthropocentrically but relationally and functionally... : in the face of the saving encounter with the Christ of revelation a person finds himself forced to make this judgment. (p. 123) Ritschl was welcomed by many who “in the age of Emperor Wilhelm II understood and welcomed this presentation of the gospel as moral power.” Others saw it as “a betrayal of the gospel to the spirit of bourgeoisie” and Berkhof observes that this is the fate of every theology that seek to articulate the gospel for its own time and culture. In any case he “let the voice of the gospel and the voices of the Reformation speak again.” One of his students who was to become the philosopher of religion of the religioushistorical school, Ernst Troeltsch, described Ritschl’s position thus, according to Berkhof: In his relation to history Ritschl remained stuck halfway. In this respect he seems to identify with the historical consciousness which marks the modern mind, though at bottom he is not modern at all but still supernaturalistic. One cannot simultaneously recognize the limited individuality and many-sided dependence of all historical figures on the one hand, and on the other, infer from the historical process the absoluteness of Christianity and its founders.... (p. 129) That was Troeltsch’s conclusion and he turned away from Ritschl developing to the full the implications of historical consciousness which he faulted his teacher for failing to do. Berkhof’s journey continues with a discussion of the alternative positions of Troeltsch and Wilhelm Herrmann who was deeply impacted by Ritschl and developed the line of thought he found in Ritschl in his own impressive work. We begin with Herrmann because he developed the intention of Ritschl’s theology. What impressed him about Ritschl, Berkhof notes, was his fundamental theme: “The calling of people to relate and conduct themselves as free personalities within a determined world.” Like Ritschl he found the highest of religion and morality united in the figure of Jesus. Faith and knowledge were held distinct as was true in Ritschl following Kant’s critical philosophy. This separation of faith and knowledge was evidenced in “his persistent struggle against any form of confusion between a personal faith in Christ and faith in the authority of Scripture, dogma, or creed: © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 13 of 41 They cannot bring about a saving personal encounter; they appeal to our thinking only as law. Religion is a totally independent world, though closely bound up with morality, because it relates us to divine revelation and must be the answer to the misery of our moral condition. (p. 144) Herrmann was more concerned for the solidity of his philosophical base than was Ritschl. Kant loomed large, “whose mighty thoughts emerge increasingly in almost all domains of human learning as the silent governor of all true research.” Herrmann valued Kant “because in every connection he has placed the value of faith, its independence from science, in the clearest light.” Berkhof offers an illuminating image by which to understand Herrmann in relation to the question of Berkhof’s quest – how in modern thought and culture the gospel was brought to expression. When I read Herrmann what emerges in my mind is the image of a rock in the midst of a rising flood. In Ritschl the rock of moral autonomy still had a broad surface. Now, however, with the waves of the flood rising higher and higher, it became much narrower. The parts that are closer to the sea – like corporeality, psychological development, history, social relationships, and the authority of Scripture and Christian tradition – have clearly been inundated. Herrmann now withdrew to the narrow center, to individual (though conceived as interpersonal) inwardness where the individual is in communion with God through “the inner life of Jesus.” With a splendid sort of consistency, he devoted his intellectual powers to the defense of the peak of that rock. (p. 146) The rise of the historical-critical method of biblical research led Herrmann to realize that the certainty of faith could not rest on the probable results of historical criticism. Faith does take shape in history but its basis is above history and beyond the reach of historical research. “The inner life of Jesus” which comes to expression in the narratives about him, legendary as well as historical, bring our personhood into contact with the reality of Jesus’ personal life. Berkhof dates Herrmann’s complete divorce between revelation and history around 1910, the period of the heated debates about the historicity of Jesus. The Ritschlian school attacked Kähler’s distinction between the historische Jesus and the geschichtliche Christ. This distinction which, as Berkhof notes, can only be made in German, became very influential. It gained broad acceptance because it promised a separate but peaceful relationship between the gospel and modern historicism which could serve as a bomb-proof bunker for faith in Christ. (p. 147) In his Ethik Herrmann entered into dialogue with the intellectual Umwelt and thus Berkhof focuses on that work first because in it “a bridge was built between the gospel and the modern world.” In human encounters in which trust relationships grow we recognize an “unconditional demand” and a longing to achieve “a different life than nature can furnish us.” © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 14 of 41 In religion man is referred to the “inner situation of human individualism” in which “he is faced before a power before which all resistance is excluded because he knows himself to be totally dependent on it in free surrender.” (p. 147f) Herrmann’s other major work Der Verkehr des Christen mit Gott describes how the encounter with the superior personal life of Jesus proceeds and effects inner human renewal. How does the saving experience of the grace of God come about? Herrmann’s stress is on inward transformation – concrete human experience. A fact of redemption, for a person who wants to escape the bondage of his own powerlessness, can only be that which transforms him inwardly. That, however, is effected only by his own experience, not by that which he is merely told about. Hence we call a ‘fact of redemption’ the inner life of Jesus which became known to us in contact with the tradition. (p. 148) How does the process of becoming known actually occur? The personal mystery of Jesus is mediated to us through the transmission of his image. In that context we discover that “the Christ of the New Testament displays a firmness of religious conviction, a clarity of moral judgment, a purity and power of will, as they occur together in no other figure of history. (p. 148) Sounding like Luther, Herrmann writes, God takes our self-esteem and creates for us an unbreakable spirit; he destroys our joy in life and makes us blessed; he kills and makes us alive. (Der Verkehr, p. 94, cited in Berkhof, p. 149) Berkhof points out the difference with Luther being that for Luther it is the power of the law that kills while for Herrmann it is a natural human experience, an experience common to Christians and non-Christians. This was the Lebensgefühl of Herrmann’s Europe. The Gospel meets this need reflected in the common human experience. Berkhof puts the critical question to Herrmann’s formulation: “Is the God who is complementarily related to our needs still really God? Or is he perhaps only the projected reflection of human ideals and human misery? Berkhof notes, as we shall see later, that in the year Herrmann died (1922), the revised edition of Barth’s The Epistle to the Romans appeared. In it Barth, Herrmann’s admiring student, concluded that indeed Herrmann’s God was a human projection, not the “wholly other” of biblical revelation. Two alternatives flowed from Ritschl: Herrmann’s development of Ritschl’s intention and, from Ritschl’s student Ernst Troeltsch, a rejection of the attempt to ground faith in inner experience, thereby finding an absolute ground in history. With Herrmann, Troeltsch was recognized as the leader of German Liberal theology. But Troeltsch took another path. Recalling the image referred to above, Berkhof writes, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 15 of 41 He [Troeltsch] also saw that the rock of ethical freedom and, connected with it, of the gospel was inundated by the deterministic-historical way of thinking in vogue. But he did not believe that he could occupy and hold a small peak as a last resort. He left this tight spot and plunged into the stream. To him an absolute moment in history was a contradiction in terms. For that reason he had to disagree with Ritschl and Herrmann, who sought to lift Jesus out of history with its laws of analogy and correlation. It is true everywhere and for everyone: history is an ever-moving stream in which the movement of each drop is determined by the mass of water that proceeds it, and each drop shares in determining the direction of what follows. That is the fundamental view of “historicism,” another term for determinism applied to historical reality. (p. 150) In that paragraph, Berkhof pictures vividly the climate of opinion created by the rise of historical consciousness and the rise of historical consciousness has marked all subsequent modern thought as indelibly as has Kant’s analysis of the human knowing process. Troeltsch admired Herrmann’s work but concluded that Herrmann had failed to ground faith in an historically unconditional place; rather, his orientation to “the inner life of Jesus” was “time conditional,” thoroughly enmeshed in the stream of history. Troeltsch endeavored to rescue Christian faith and ethics from the historical relativism which appeared all-encompassing. For him the historical as such can have only relative significance. However, utilizing metaphysical psychology, he developed his “philosophy of values.” Whereas the natural sciences look for causality and universality, the science of history looks for the individuality which expresses itself in the realization of transindividual values in history. (p. 152) With this theory of the transhistorical values realized in history in the individual, Troeltsch believed he had overcome relativism. History has not a limitless number of competing values; “such values are exceedingly few in number” and “disclosures of really new goals for the human spirit are rare indeed.” By what criterion are such disclosures to be judged? Berkhof cites the following statements from Troeltsch: We may likewise understand the criterion of evaluation as something that emerges within the movement of life as a result of a universal perspective on the one hand, and involvement in the movement on the other. The converging lines evident in these basic features suggest, however, a normative, universally valid goal toward which the whole is directed. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 16 of 41 It is the concept rather, of a common, orienting goal that may from time to time manifest itself in history in clear and distinct preparatory forms but always remains a goal “out in front.” At this point, Berkhof indicates, Troeltsch moves from the historically empirical to metaphysics. Berkhof cites Troeltsch further: This idea [namely, of an absolute goal] requires a turn to the metaphysical, a retracing of all man’s goals and orientations to a transcendent force that activates our deepest stirrings and is connected with the creative core of reality. The various eruptions, breakthroughs, and manifestations of the higher spiritual life are rooted in the goal-oriented character of this force. It stands over against what is merely given in nature and turns up at different points – ...till it has found concentrated expression, from that point on pressing forward to goals that exceed all knowledge and imagination. This is the permanent element in the concept of evolutionary development, which in this case signifies not only a postulate that accompanies all faith in the spiritual life but also a fact of experience that has been manifested with some degree of clarity. (p. 152f) From this position Troeltsch went on to claim for Christianity the highest level of the apprehension of truth. Berkhof comments, It would seem that, with this “absoluteness of Christianity,” an “absoluteness” based on historical development (because “absolute truth belongs to the future and will appear in the judgment of God and the cessation of earthly history.”) Troeltsch came very close to a kind of Hegelian pantheism and immanentism. Over against this, however, there is a strong personalism, because for Troeltsch as a modern person it is precisely the personalistic legacy of Christianity which constitutes a connection of culture, individual life, and progress. (p. 153) Herrmann and Troeltsch carried on a dialogue about the place of history in Christian experience. Troeltsch rejected Herrmann’s appeal to the personality of Jesus while claiming that although mediated by history, what came to expression of the inner life of Jesus was above history and beyond the reach of historical-critical research. Herrmann found it impossible to accept Troeltsch’s idea of development which brought with it the possibility that Jesus might in the future be superseded by a greater revelatory concretion in event or person. In the final analysis they were not so far apart except that Troeltsch appealed to the socio-psychological reality of the Christian community. In Troeltsch’s essay “The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus for Faith,” he dealt with the question whether the Christian church can have a future apart from its being grounded in the historicity of Jesus. Berkhof points out, He denies it on grounds of social psychology; without a fellowship, a cult, and a historical personality to ground it, only an individualistic spirituality remains. As © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 17 of 41 such a historically based cult community, Christianity can well maintain itself, even by historical-critical norms. (p. 155) Thus he is close to Ritschl and Herrmann. However, the difference between them lies in the fact that for Troeltsch, his claim is grounded in social-psychology; it is not for him a dogmatic pronouncement. But Troeltsch wearied of the struggle to claim absolute value out of history and historical development. A concluding sentence of his significant The Social Teaching of the Christian Churches reads, “The Truth is – and this is the conclusion of the whole matter – the Kingdom of God is within us.” World War I dealt his view that European culture was the highest stage of ethical-cultural development a blow. Universal history, which was once his starting point, now became a question to him. He began to see that even his central idea of “personality” lacked universal historical validity but was typical for one culture – namely Western culture. Even the basis of his historicism became historicized. Against a boundless relativism he sought shelter in a pantheistic metaphysic....(p. 157) Berkhof concludes the discussion of these two giants of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries under the heading “Convergence and Contrast.” They illustrate two ways in which, “while affirming the contemporary deterministic-empirical culture, one can still speak of ‘the absoluteness’ of Jesus or of Christianity.” Both sought to save faith and modern culture. But Berkhof claims, In their attempts at reconciliation neither Herrmann nor Troeltsch could in the end avoid returning to the supernaturalism they despised. In the case of Herrmann, Jesus – with his unique inner life – remained the big exception and the great miracle in the midst of history. Troeltsch radically exposed himself to the temptation of contemporary culture. But for him, too, Jesus remained the hitherto unsurpassed high point in the great movement of the Spirit. For the sake of redemption of the human personality neither was able to abandon faith in the personhood of God. For the salvation of human beings both men reached for a Beyond – Herrmann for the inner life of Jesus beyond observable history, Troeltsch for the kingdom of redeemed spirits, also beyond history. (p. 160) Concentrating on his own focus in this survey, Berkhof reflects on the contrasts and the convergence of the alternatives followed by Herrmann and Troeltsch. He contends that in the effort to reconcile the gospel and modern culture, one can begin at either pole. The gospel cries out for concentration on the one thing necessary; culture ventures into the full spectrum of life in the world. Beginning with either pole it is difficult to do justice to the other. Finally both Herrmann and Troeltsch experienced and expressed Christian faith entirely within the framework of the cultural presuppositions of their time. After the crisis of World War I both thinkers’ influence waned; yet, the significant intellectual and spiritual effort of both has gained a new hearing. Berkhof claims we have still not been able to free ourselves from the choice between the two and the struggle in which they engaged continues to challenge us into the present. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 18 of 41 We move now to the next generation, to students of Herrmann, who appeared for a brief time to be one in their development and radicalization of Herrmann’s effort to find a secure place for faith to rest beyond the relativities of history and the acids of historical research. Karl Barth’s Romerbrief, first edition, sent shock waves through the world of academic theology and philosophy and his salvo was affirmed by Rudolf Bultmann. Under the title of “The Split in the Herrmann School” Berkhof discusses these two formidable theologians and their followers. The word “split” indicates that the time of apparent agreement was brief; in Bultmann and Barth alternative answers were given to questions of faith and history. Understandably, Berkhof can do little justice to the gigantic theological enterprises of Bultmann and Barth in two chapters comprising about 45 pages. Yet the treatment is helpful because of his sharp focus – the deeply felt chasm between the cultural assumption of their sitz-im-leben and the gospel. Bultmann followed his revered teacher, Herrmann, who thoroughly mistrusted historically ascertainable facts as vehicles of revelation. Bultmann’s mistrust was even greater – closer to Troeltsch at that point, although repeating Troeltsch’s attempt to find some absolute point amidst history’s relativities. In Bultmann, “the Christian experience of faith is not in the conventional sense ‘grounded’; it implies a radical release from empirical certitude.” Berkhof suggests that Troeltsch’s influence may have caused Bultmann to radicalize Herrmann’s position. The Achilles’ heel of Herrmann was, certainly, that for his faith in Jesus he needed a little segment of history, namely, “the inner life of Jesus” or the “secret of his Person,” however nonvisual it might be. Troeltsch did not believe in this rock as a place of refuge to which one could go in the midst of the flood of historical determinism. And Bultmann...had to concur here with the opponent of his teacher. However, unlike Troeltsch he did not plunge into the sea, but believed he could find revelation concerning the sea above the inundated rock, in a higher atmosphere which the flood could not reach, in the free air of human existence addressed by God, on a level of reality which can only be reached by a radical detachment from the world. (p. 164f) Here we hear the echoes of Kant’s distinction between pure and practical reason; the historical Jesus belongs to the first, the preaching of the crucified Jesus to the second. Bultmann was concerned only with the “that” of the life of Jesus; nothing beyond the “that” of his historical existence is relevant for faith. Even Herrmann’s “inner life of Jesus” was surrendered to the relativization of historical criticism. As Berkhof explains, Bultmann wanted to sever the last remaining connection between Historie and Geschichte in order to protect the faith from any and every critical assault on the part of science. (p. 165) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 19 of 41 Barth’s Romans impressed Bultmann. Here he heard an undergirding and development of Herrmann’s theology. Bultmann, a trained New Testament scholar did object to Barth’s interpretation of Paul and he criticized Barth’s understanding of the relationship between revelation and history, an understanding similar to Herrmann’s, falling short of the radical disjunction of faith and history which Bultmann advocated. Berkhof feels that from the beginning Bultmann was more interested in Barth’s statements about the human self than he was in Barth’s primary concern to point to the goodness of God and the objectivity of the Word of God. Berkhof points to the center of Bultmann’s concern in his analysis of human existence which he gained from the early Heidegger, who for a time was his colleague at Marburg. Heidegger’s philosophy of existence presented Bultmann with an understanding of the human condtion into which the gospel is proclaimed. Berkhof cites Bultmann’s statement: For the existential interpretation of human existence says precisely that the human subject (or human being, I might also say) is not without his world, nor even without God insofar as the philosopher regards it as legitimate to speak about God, so that self-understanding is also understanding of (God and) the world. (p. 168f) Is this “natural theology” or a Christianized Heidegger? Berkhof contends the two converge in Bultmann and offers as evidence Bultmann’s statements in his essay “The New Testament and My Theology:” ...according to Heidegger the “mundaneness” of the world “causes people to be satisfied with an illusory existence; as a result they miss out on “the reality of existence.” This condition of lostness is what the New Testament calls “sin.” According to Heidegger people must now lay hold of existence on their own: Become what you are! (p. 169) Philosophy believes it is enough that one be shown one’s true nature but Bultmann denies philosophy’s self-confidence. People must first be liberated from themselves. This happens through the message of Christ, through the forgiveness of sin, by which alone people receive the “freedom for obedience,” surrender to the love of God, and therewith the authenticity of their existence. (p. 169) During the fifties Bultmann’s influence was powerful and pervasive. His existential analysis of the human person who is addressed by the Word of God, the proclamation of the Christ of faith apart from any rooting in history beyond the “that” of Jesus’ existence, enabled him to deliver the gospel safe from the relativities of historical research, research in which he himself was a master. But with the advent of the next decade the pendulum began to swing back and the climate of opinion was shifting. The © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 20 of 41 Bultmannian school was beginning to fall apart. First the work of Ernst Kassemann who actually stepped outside the Bultmann circle with its existentialist interpretation of the gospel, but then by Bultmann’s students Ernst Fuchs and Gerhard Ebeling who remained with the existentialist understanding but who sensed a need for a broader place to stand in concrete history, there was a return to interest in the historical Jesus, to something more than the “that” of his existence. Berkhof views this move on the part of the Neo-Bultmannians as a shift from idealism to empiricism which was similar to the shift that had occurred in the previous century. A theological generation grew up for whom the language of the great predecessors was no longer intelligible. However diverse Barth, Brunner, Bultmann, Niebuhr, and Tillich were, their basic concepts like “revelation,” “Word of God,” “absolute and infinite Being,” even the vocable “God,” all belonged to a conceptual Uberwelt which was not open to empirical verification....I see no indication that the Neo-Bultmannians consciously involved themselves in this shift toward empiricism. But since 1950 it was in the air, expanded rapidly, and manifested itself in many areas. The “shift” from “Christ” to “Jesus” belongs entirely to this new climate. For many during these years it made the gospel credible again to have it anchored in the historical Jesus. (p. 175f) Berkhof points out that this was really a return to Herrmann who also had to proclaim the gospel to a generation under the strong influence of empiricism. He never gave up the connection to empirical history. Bultmann argued with his students who moved back to the concern with the historical reality of Jesus and Berkhof comments: In my opinion, the conflict between Bultmann and his disciples has not been resolved. His disciples were stronger in their accentuation of the essential continuity between Jesus and Christ...Bultmann’s second objection against his disciple-critics is one they could not, in my judgment, invalidate: the post-Easter kerygma is not identical with the message of Jesus and does not (very often – I would prefer to say) refer back to the message and conduct of the earthly Jesus. (p. 177) As the debate came to sharp focus the questions that were clearly at issue were: Is the historical necessary to the explanation of the kerygma (Bultmann, Marxen)? And: is this minimal history sufficient for the explanation of the kerygma (Künneth)? By answering the first question in the negative one remains strictly within the existentialist framework. By answering the second question in the negative one breaks out of this framework in favor of an ontological mode of thought. (p. 178) The climate of opinion permeated with a move to the empirical opened up a return to concentration on the historical ground of faith especially in the work of a circle of young © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 21 of 41 scholars around Pannenberg. Berkhof explains this move as reflective of the way Troeltsch posed the issue. The gospel must not be positioned as far from history as possible but be understood altogether as historical power and as answer to the quest for truth in history. It seemed the path of theological development had curved back to where it was in 1910. The alternatives were still the same. (p. 178) But with our move to the Post-Bultmann School we have moved too fast, for we must backtrack and pick up the other student of Herrmann, generally acknowledged as the greatest theological thinker of the twentieth century, Karl Barth. Berkhof knew him personally and respected him deeply. While maintaining his own independence, he nevertheless himself was significantly impacted by this great man. Berkhof opens the chapter with the interesting development of Barth, biographical information so necessary to understanding him and the revolution he ignited. He cites the following statement of Barth from the preface to the second edition of his Romans: If I have a system it is limited to a recognition of what Kierkegaard called the “infinite qualitative distinction” between time and eternity, and to my regarding this as possessing negative as well as positive significance: “God is in heaven, and thou art on earth.” The relation between such a God and such a man, and the relation between such a man and such a God, is for me the theme of the Bible and the essence of philosophy. Philosophers name this krisis of human perception – the Prime Cause; the Bible beholds at the same cross-roads – the figure of Jesus Christ. (p. 194f) These are weighty sentences, Berkhof writes. He locates the respective emphases in Barth’s development. The Romans work came out of Barth’s turn to the interpretation of the Bible. With his friend Thurneysen he was disillusioned with involvement in the Social Democracy movement which failed to mobilize resistance to the war and together they were looking for a place to stand – a “crisis” brought about by the need to preach weekly. The first edition of Romans (1919) was the eruption of all that was stirring in the young Barth as he moved away from the nineteenth century with its classic liberalism, struggled with the Bible and the darkness that enveloped the continent torn apart with war. The first edition of Römerbrief was not a product of a finished theological position. Berkhof speaks of “The Detour of the First Edition of Römerbrief.” Berkhof cites Busch, Barth’s biographer: In Barth, the question of according God a place of central importance was becoming more and more fundamental. And since he had met Blumhardt, it was very closely connected with the eschatological question of the Christian hope. (Busch, Karl Barth, pp. 87, 89, cited in Berkhof, p. 186) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 22 of 41 Berkhof points out that Barth wrestled with the question of how the Kingdom of God manifested itself tangibly in a world hostile to God. In the grip of this question Barth had read Romans with the excitement of a discoverer. For him it became primarily the great witness to the absolute priority of God, visible in the work of Christ and the working of the Spirit, the Spirit who in an organic process, on the basis of Christ, transformed creation into the glory of Christ. This working of the Spirit is the inner side – perceptible to the eye of faith – of our secular exterior side. Ontology, objectivity, realism, and universalism – these are the categories which here determine Barth’s exposition of Paul. Paul helped him to proclaim the superior power of God in an alienated world and even to make it visible for those to whom this is given. (p. 186f) The publication of Romans sent shock waves through the philosophical and theological centers of the continent. Educated in the finest tradition of German culture, Barth’s move was incomprehensible to his teachers. It appeared that he had joined the side of orthodoxy. But, Berkhof contends, he was still far from the Reformation tradition and had no real appreciation for the classic teaching of justification. In the years following the publication (1919-1922), Barth continued to grope and feel his way. Berkhof, tracing the various ideas and persons that influenced Barth, concludes, I doubt that it was philosophical influence which helped Barth negotiate the great switch-in-subject which initiated in the 1916 lecture about “The Righteousness of God” and following the detour via the theology of Württenberg (The first edition of Römerbrief), provisionally found its “final” form in the second edition of Romans. According to Barth’s own sense of the matter, he owed the sudden shift in direction from the first to the second edition of Romans to an “inspiration” which at first even frightened himself.... If one nevertheless thinks here of extra theological influences, it makes more sense to look for them in the realm of the negative, in the disillusionments he suffered, especially after the war, from the liberal theology of experience on the one hand, and from social democracy on the other. These disillusionments drove him past all the relativities of human life to God – as the origin, the judge(crisis), and the hope of all that is known. In contemplation of the absolute God the merely human was condemned and redeemed to the status of relativity and so made bearable. In the first edition of Römerbrief Barth still viewed the relationship between God and the world as harmonious, organic, more or less perceptible. In the second edition of Romans discontinuity and imperceptibility predominate. God is no less present than before but his presence had fundamentally become “imperceptible,” “lightninglike.” (p. 197) Berkhof raises the question how in the space of four years Barth could read the same Pauline letter so differently. He is convinced the answer lies not in the domain of intellect but “in the depths of his Lebensgefühl (sense of life).” Educated in the Ritschlian theological school, the advancing secularization ate away at the ground on which faith rested. In Herrmann there was a thin ridge still rising above the flood; for © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 23 of 41 Troeltsch even that was gone, although he still sought the absolute in history’s relativity. For Barth, Berkhof contends, the “base” is totally gone. “History” is completely secularized and the event of the world of God is now “verticalized.” God’s work in the world has lost its final vestiges of perceptibility. The retreat has become a clean break...the second edition of Romans is also a document of that cultural epoch and the Lebensgefühl which was part of it.... A new, intensely painful experience of the godless world and, on the basis of that experience, a new quest for the God of the Bible – these two factors determined Barth’s groping progression during these years. (p. 198) Though he revered Herrmann, Barth nevertheless had to take leave of him. Bultmann had not noticed the “switch-in-subject” in the second edition of Romans and interpreted Barth in line with Herrmann. And there was structural similarity between Barth and Herrmann, as Moltmann points out: The “defenseless non-groundability of religious experience” in Barth becomes, in theologically consistent form, the “transcendental subjectivity” of the selfrevealing God, a process in which the “self” retains all the attributes, all the relations and distinctions in which it had been formulated by Herrmann. (p. 199, quoting Moltmann, Theology of Hope, p. 54) In a lecture in 1924 Barth pointed out where he separated from Herrmann. It was not a repudiation but rather a radicalization of Herrmann. Herrmann tried to ground his theology on “experience,” on “the facts we ourselves experience,” but in the section cited by Barth he continues: “But its beginning and its end is nonetheless man’s humbling of himself before the unsearchable.” Therefore, if experience lives from that which transcends experience, and if this is its beginning even, then “the unabrogable subjectivity of God” has become the starting point of our thinking, and it “becomes obligatory to ask whether dogmatics does not have to begin where Herrmann ends.” (p. 199) Surveying the whole of Barth’s theological enterprise, Berkhof holds that the relationship between Barth and his teacher must be characterized as “ambivalence” rather than a “break.” Barth’s strong stress on “the unabrogable subjectivity of God” led to differences: no point of contact in ethics; stress on the Word event; more space for salvation-historical facts, especially the cross and resurrection; a wider use of scriptural witness, including the Old Testament; and emphasis on the priority and superordination of justification over sanctification and of faith as acknowledgment over trust; also, a higher valuation of the church, its office, and its confession. But there were similarities as well: The twin pillars of his mature thought as it comes to expression in his Church Dogmatics are thus Christocentrism and, as its counterpart, the radical repudiation of natural theology. With these positions Barth was not in opposition © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 24 of 41 to the nineteenth century but to the Ritschl–Herrmann line of thought within that century. But when secularization advanced still more, Barth withdrew revelation even further from the world. It was not the “diastasis” which distinguished him from these predecessors but the degree of radicalism with which it was applied. Herrmann found final support in “the inner life of Jesus.” Barth also gives that up and then severs the connection between Geschichte and Historie. But is that a possibility if one wants to proceed on the basis of Jesus Christ, inclusive of his “historical” appearance? ( p. 200) Berkhof claims Barth could not do it even in the second edition of Romans. He quotes from Romans: In the Resurrection the new world of the Holy Spirit touches the old world of the flesh, but touches it as a tangent touches a circle, that is, without touching it. And, precisely because it does not touch it, it touches it as its frontier – as the new world. The Resurrection is therefore an occurrence in history, which took place outside the gates of Jerusalem in the year A.D. 30, inasmuch as it there “came to pass,” was discovered and recognized. But inasmuch as the occurrence was conditioned by the Resurrection, in so far, that is, as it was not the “coming to pass,” or the discovery, or the recognition, which conditioned its necessity and appearance and revelation, the Resurrection is not an event in history at all. (p. 201 from Romans, p. 30) Later, in Church Dogmatics, Berkhof writes, Barth attempted to bring Geschichte and Historie closer together but even there “failed to reach clarity on this decisive issue in modern theology.” Berkhof moves to Barth’s relationship to Schleiermacher which, in his early years, was unambiguous; he set himself over against Schleiermacher’s anthropological starting point, the grounding of religious reality in the “feeling of absolute dependence.” Despite his great admiration for Schleiermacher’s magnificent achievement, in general he found himself rejecting Schleiermacher’s theology. This rejection went so far that he closed with the question, “How can the idea [the idea that Schleiermacher has brought us to a dead end] be squared with the providence of God which rules over his church?” and with the observation: “What remains is clearly – and I do not see how it can be avoided – the possibility of a theological revolution [Barth’s italics], a fundamental NO! to the entire body of Schleiermacher’s teaching concerning religion and Christianity.” (p. 202) A bit later Barth treated Schleiermacher’s thought again, concluding that he “allowed himself to be forced into the fundamentally unworthy position of an apologist” because at bottom he was interested in Christianity “only for the sake of culture.” Yet Barth was never through with Schleiermacher. In 1968 he wrote, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 25 of 41 I am certain of my course and of my point of view. I am, however, not so certain of them that I can confidently say that my “yes” necessarily implies a “no” to Schleiermacher’s point of view. For have I indeed understood him correctly? (p. 203) He ends, Berkhof writes, with the same ambivalence we saw above over against Herrmann. It is interesting to note here that in his revision of Christian Faith, Berkhof himself added a section on Schleiermacher’s appeal to experience. In the mid-1920’s, Barth seemed to have found his place to stand and he wrote Die Christliche Dogmatik im Entwurf. But after discovering the theological method of Anselm of Canterbury, he wrote a book on Anselm’s method and started over with his own dogmatics, this time calling it Church Dogmatics. The title Church Dogmatics brings out, for Barth, the binding force of the faith which underlies all dogmatic thought. Connected with this in Anselm’s thought is that reality precedes possibility, not vice versa. “I believe in order that I may understand” (Credo ut intelligam). The content of faith does not permit itself to be grounded by the human intellect but only to be unfolded by reflection. (p. 206) Berkhof concludes the chapter on Barth by raising the critical question which will be taken up in his next chapter, an interesting debate about Barth’s method that took place in the Netherlands. For us it is decisive to see how Barth gave up the goals of liberal theology and left its path behind him in order now to fall into line with classic theology as it was given its shape by Athanasius and Anselm, by Luther and Calvin. After the Enlightenment and after Schleiermacher, one can still do this with impunity? At no time in his life did Barth take this question lightly, but after intense struggle he nevertheless answered it in the affirmative. His students adopted his answer as self-evident and repressed the question. However, the question must make itself heard again, despite or precisely because of Barth. In the post-Barthian period Berkhof points out that question again became the central problem of theology. Barth’s influence was dominant from 1930-1960. His power of thought and consistently thought through position was cogent but not without its detractors. Brunner’s position was mediating in regard to the question of the “place” in the human person where revelation is received. Paul Tillich opposed Barth’s “Kerygmatic” theology with his own apologetic approach, a theology of correlation which finds the human question answered in God’s revelation. It was Dietrich Bonhoeffer who expressed for many the weakness of Barth’s approach. Berkhof writes of Bonhoeffer’s critique of Barth in his Letters From Prison: © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 26 of 41 Bonhoeffer is at his most genial when in these letters he treated the system which imprisoned him essentially as part of the past and concentrated totally on the rise of the new, “mature,” radically secularized “religionless” man. When the Letters were published this secularized sense of life (Lebensgefühl) was fully on the march, and people even spoke of a second Enlightenment ( Aufklårung). (p. 209) Bonhoeffer had become a disciple of Barth and they maintained a close personal bond but his prison experience moved him away from Barth’s theology. He characterized Barth’s position as a “positivism of revelation” (“take or leave it”) – a poignant criticism, and Barth was stung by it. Bonhoeffer ushered in the post-Barthian era. Berkhof observes, It arose directly from his analysis of the new cultural epoch. In the anthropocentric age in which Barth had sought his way as a theologian, his starting with God as the subject of faith and theology was a liberating new beginning. In Bonhoeffer’s time this point had already become self-evident in theology. But in the period which he foresaw, such a starting point would be completely unintelligible. For the people for whom the wording hypothesis “God” would be a total redundancy, “the authority of the Word of God” would only constitute a double enigma: first, because they would accept nothing on authority any more and, second, because they could not handle the idea of a “speaking God.” (p. 209f) Berkhof sees Barth’s starting point heavily influenced by the collapse of German cultural assumptions in the aftermath of World War I. There was a felt need for “a basic foothold in a higher, supramundane reality.” But in the post-World War II days the pendulum swung back. For different reasons, neither Barth nor Bultmann were ever able to ground the Word in history, within this-worldly existence. Technology in the after-math of the war also had a transforming effect on society. Life was understood as being shaped “from below.” Berkhof chooses the work of H.M. Kuitert of the Free University in Amsterdam as the representative of those who sought to come to terms with the new Lebensgefühl. Kuitert came under Barth’s influence through his teacher, G. C. Berkhouwer. Berkhof indicates that his understanding of Barth and subsequent departure from Barth center in Barth’s phrase “the unabrogable subjectivity of God.” Berkhof quotes Kuitert: For Barth revelation is an immediate occurrence; it is the speaking God himself….that is the figure of the transcendental subjectivity in optima forma to which Barth adhered throughout his entire life. (p. 213) Kuitert sees the line back to Herrmann and Kant here and claims that thereby Barth freed himself from any attempt to ground the knowledge of God either in history or in religious experience. But, Kuitert objects, Barth thus identified his faith concept with the subjectivity of God. Berkhof explains, © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 27 of 41 Barth claims an exceptional position for his own theological approach. He bases this on the subjectivity of faith granted us and realizing itself within us. Thus he excused himself from all discussion and from the necessity of giving an account of his thoughts. To the legitimate question: How do you know? He has no answer. (p. 213) Barth did later appeal to the biblical witness and the tradition of the church but the relationship between Scripture and the immediacy of the knowledge of God remains unclear. Barth also came to view the role of history more positively but even so God’s acts in history are alien to history itself. Kuitert insists that the alternatives cannot be avoided. Either the vocable God remains empty, or it receives an arbitrary content from within subjectivity, or it receives its content [i.e., we predicate] from within [historical] experience. (p. 214) Barth operates in a closed circle. Another Dutch theologian, Sperna Weiland, describes Barth’s theology as “a house without doors.” Berkhof explains, With its unreasoned appeal to revelation it withdraws from communication with the outside world and culture in general. (p. 214) Kuitert’s challenge to Barth’s approach engendered a lively debate within the Netherlands, young Barthians coming to the master’s defense. Our interest here, however, is in Kuitert’s alternative. In a new cultural milieu Kuitert felt the need to deal with prologomena in the traditional sense. As Berkhof points out, We must start with “man,” on an “anthropological floor” which believers and unbelievers have in common. Thus Kuitert again picks up the theme of the “apologetic” theology which Tillich opposed to the “kerygmatic” theology of Barth. (p. 220) Kuitert insisted that theology can claim to be a science only if it is willing to do more than simply bear witness, even though it cannot provide “verification” in the sense of the natural sciences. Theology must be descriptive in character: It examines religion and religions, and thus makes also God an object of its intellectual striving. (p. 220) The phenomenon of faith, Kuitert contends, can be described on three levels: anthropological, historical and institutional. On the first level, Kuitert deals with primal faith or basic trust. One trusts oneself to what one cannot as yet perceive. This basic trust has Christian-theological relevance. It does not turn theology into anthropology but humankind is bound to this “anthropological floor” in speaking about God. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 28 of 41 On the historical level Kuitert turns to the phenomenology of religion. Basic trust comes shaped in the form of a concrete religion. Berkhof points out, All religions have “God” as their point of reference. This does not mean, however, that the differences between them are immaterial. It is often certain very distinct experiences which press people to pronounce the name “God”: as an expression of meaning. Such experiences are only possible within certain frameworks of interpretation. (p. 221) Herein lies the possibility for testing plausibility. Built into faith, Kuitert insists, is an argument which makes an appeal to experience. Berkhof cites Kuitert: The grounds of faith therefore consist in that which religious people sense as the footprints of God in our world of experience. (p. 221f) When those footprints are no longer discernible, religious faith dies a slow death. Kuitert uses as an example the death of the fertility religion in the ancient Near East. When trade and industry, and finally artificial fertilizer, undermined the decisive role of the fertility of the earth, it turned out that what people took to be the footprints of God were not that at all. (p. 222) Kuitert also speaks of a religious conviction which is turned into a “search hypothesis” which guides one in the search for God. Without some such hypothesis, he claims, we perceive nothing of God in the world and whatever is perceived of God is dependent upon the search-hypothesis with which one begins. Such a hypothesis is not an end in itself; rather, the end is the personal experience of God and the experience of salvation. Kuitert’s third level is the institutional. The Christian search-hypothesis takes the form of Christian doctrine. Berkhof gives his own appraisal of the debate between Kuitert and the post-Barthians. He puts the issue in sharp focus: The question I have to answer is: For the interpretation of the gospel in today’s world, does Kuitert offer a better starting point than Barth? The weakness of Barth’s position is well known: since he starts with God, he does not seem to reach real people. Kuitert starts “from below;” can he, from this direction, arrive at the God of the gospel, the father of Jesus Christ? …The Christian faith orients itself to the footprints of God in the way and work of Jesus. His footprints can never be surpassed. How can one arrive at an assertion about them if even this faith ever has to be confirmed in history as it unfolds? (p. 226) Berkhof points out that Kuitert’s reference to the historicity of God and the claim that God is love are Christian assertions with no plausibility granted by outsiders. We are dealing with assumptions of the western Christian tradition and, Berkhof writes, we are © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 29 of 41 thus revolving within a cultural circle facing the same problem that Troeltsch faced – trying to find an absolute point within the history of religion. In contrast to Troeltsch, Kuitert is not looking for an absolute point but “for that which in history has proven itself tenable.” He is looking for certain presuppositons that will make dialogue with outsiders possible. But, Berkhof concludes, that …what emerges is that we are led, also from below, into a closed circle in a way similar to that of which Barth was accused with his starting point “from above.” It is of no help that this closed circle is presented as a concentration of experiences. For the people who have had no such experiences themselves, these experiences are transformed into authorities. (p. 227) And so, Berkhof asks, “Does Kuitert essentially understand Christian faith differently from Barth?” He takes Kuitert’s own statements that the knowledge of God is the fruit of God’s self-revelation and that a God humans can account for can never be the true God. Thus Berkhof contends, These statements, as also the theory of plural search-constructs, negate the capacity of the anthropological floor to support an accounting for the faith in dialogue with outsiders. In one’s belief one clearly has to do with a closed circle. (p. 227) Berkhof holds that Barth’s contention that only by starting with God does one come to God is confirmed by Kuitert by his own affirmation and, negatively, by the failure to ground an alternative approach. Barth’s weakness remains. Berkhof concludes, Both Barthians and post-Barthians live from the questions their counterparts do not answer. (p. 228) Berkhof concludes his journey with chapters on “Immanent Transcendentality: The Catholic Bridge,” “North America: From Social Gospel to Neo-Orthodoxy,” and “Paul Tillich: The Bridge of Correlation.” The chapters are interesting and well-done giving the survey a broad ecumenical and geographical spectrum, an important inclusion because the central question of the book comes into focus from new angles as was the case earlier in a chapter on Anglican theology and a chapter on Conservative theology which treated the work of Martin Kåhler. The treatment of Catholic theology deals most extensively with Karl Rahner as might be expected, but Berkhof also lifts up the thinking of Maurice Blondel and Henri de Lubac who made valuable contributions to the effort to bridge the gulf between gospel and culture. Berkhof notes the advantages with which Catholic theology begins over against Reformed theology, beginning as it does with the assumption of harmony between nature and grace, thanks to the synthesis worked out by Aquinas, whereas Reformed theology begins with the contrast between sin and grace. Aquinas, responding to the dominant influence of Aristotle brought to the west by Averrhoes, was carving out a place for the gospel in a world being shaped by the Aristotelian philosophy of nature. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 30 of 41 Berkhof says that one might have hoped that once again such an effort might have been made over against modern thought in the wake of the Enlightenment but, he claims, such an expectation has not been realized largely because of the suspicion with which the dominant curial theology in Rome has viewed such attempts: Fundamentally, the Roman hierarchy has continually sought, right into modern times, to rescue the validity of Thomistic thought, whereas thinkers it mistrusted wanted to make Thomas’ intent and motive operational again under changed conditions and with new, hence with non-Aristotelian, categories. (p. 229f) Having to fight their own hierarchy, Catholic theologians have been paralyzed in their struggle to engage modern thought, and the intramural battle has again and again been settled unilaterally in an authoritarian fashion. Nonetheless, Berkhof points to impressive achievements in Catholic theology. Preceding his treatment of Rahner, Berkhof summarizes the significant efforts of Blondel and de Lubac to do again what Thomas did: that is, to hold together in a greater unity the duality of nature and grace. In their work one sees the advantage of Catholic theology with its assumption of harmony between nature and grace. These thinkers recognized that in the modern world Thomas’ nature-grace continuum had resulted in a divorce of the two realms, leaving the whole development of nature to the secular sphere and thus to human autonomy. Writing at the time of Vatican II, de Lubac warned against “The dualist or, perhaps better, the separatist thesis:” While wishing to protect the supernatural from any contamination, people had in fact exiled it altogether – both from intellectual and from social life – leaving the field free to be taken over by secularism. Today that secularism, following its course, is beginning to enter the minds even of Christians. They too seek to find a harmony with all things based upon an idea of nature which might be acceptable to a deist or an atheist: everything that comes from Christ, everything that should lead to him, is pushed so far into the background as to look like disappearing for good. The last word in Christian progress and the entry into adulthood would thus appear to consist in a total secularization which would expel God not merely from the life of society, but from culture and even from personal relationships. (cited from The Mystery of the Supernatural, pp. xi-xii on p. 239f) The Catholic theologian that receives the fullest treatment by Berkhof is Karl Rahner who made the principle of transcendentality the basis of his theology, applying it across the full spectrum of dogmatics. Berkhof defines the approach thus: The principle of subjectivity has for its counterpart that of transcendentality because “this subject is fundamentally and by its very nature pure openness for absolutely everything, for being as such.” This experience is called transcendental experience because it belongs to the necessary and inalienable structures of the knowing subject itself, and because it consists precisely in the transcendence beyond any particular group of possible objects or of categories. Transcendental © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 31 of 41 experience is the experience of transcendence, in which experience the structure of the subject and therefore also the ultimate structure of every conceivable object of knowledge are present together and as identity. (Berkhof, p. 242 cites Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith: An Introduction to the Idea of Christianity, p. 20) Transcendence as “experience,” Berkhof indicates, derives not from Kant’s analysis of the knowing process, but from the phenomenology and the analysis of existence. Another citation from Foundations is helpful: Whenever man in his transcendence experiences himself as questioning, as disquieted by the appearance of being, as open to something ineffable, he cannot understand himself as subject in the sense of an absolute subject, but only in the sense of one who receives being, ultimately only in the sense of grace. In this context “grace” means the freedom of the ground of being which gives being to man, a freedom which man experiences in his finiteness and contingency, and means as well what we call “grace” in a more strictly theological sense. (Rahner, Ibid, p. 34) Has Rahner, in attempting to avoid the new-scholastic dualism of nature and grace, let nature pass into the realm of supernatural grace? This is Berkhof’s question. He finds Rahner denying that. Rather, he advocates “a sort of supernaturalization of what we call ‘nature’.” For him creation and created human nature must be understood solely as the infrastructure of the grace-conditioned unity of the Creator and the created in the incarnation of God, and in the final goal of the beatific vision of God based on it. (p. 244) Rahner denies the existence of “pure nature,” and the possibility of human existence as autonomous. Rahner contends: Our actual nature is never ‘pure’ nature. It is a nature installed in a supernatural order which man can never leave, even as a sinner and unbeliever….And these ‘existentials’ of man’s concrete, ‘historical’ nature are not purely states of being beyond consciousness. They make themselves felt in the experience of man. By simple reflection on himself, in the light of natural reason, he cannot simply and clearly distinguish them from the natural spiritual activity which is the manifestation of his nature. (from “Nature and Grace” in Theological Investigations, Vol. 4, p. 183, cited on p. 245) Berkhof’s discussion of Rahner’s complex thought continues but this is perhaps enough to enable us to hear Berkhof’s critique. He points to the continuing dichotomy of nature and grace that shines through the more modern existential language, a different dichotomy than one finds in Reformation theology, the dichotomy of sin and grace. Still, Berkhof notes, the liberal and mediating theologies of post-Enlightenment © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 32 of 41 Protestantism in their engagement with modern thought struggled to express the nature-grace relationship and came very close to the manner of Thomas Aquinas as he sought to express the gospel in a thought-world dominated by Aristotle. Berkhof writes, Nature – in other words, the created structure of human existence – is for all of them the infrastructure which persists despite and in sin, an infrastructure on which the grace of revelation builds and without which it would be unintelligible. (p. 253) For Berkhof Rahner’s grand theological enterprise fails because he has subordinated the sin-and-grace dichotomy to the nature-and-grace dichotomy and the nature-and-grace relationship is, in Berkhof’s view, all too harmoniously construed. He concludes, As a result this grand theological project seems to overshoot the goal of a confrontation between the gospel and the modern world. For the (restricted) application of the notion of transcendentality we should – presumably – not go beyond the boundaries set by Blondel. (p. 255) Berkhof concludes his journey with a visit to the American scene beginning with the theology of Jonathan Edwards and Horace Bushnell, then the Social Gospel movement and the work of Walter Rauschenbusch, and finally a treatment of the Niebuhrs, thinkers for whom he has high regard. He reserves a chapter for a treatment of Paul Tillich. Tillich’s method of correlation, the gospel as the answer to the human question, is precisely the focus that Berkhof has kept through his journey of 200 years. Tillich’s life and vocation began in Germany. His war experiences destroyed the idealistic foundation of his thought. A man of great giftedness and broad interest, he was engaged with the full spectrum of cultural experience. Fleeing the Nazi plague, he came to this country to continue his long and fruitful career. Berkhof notes that, as a thinker and a Christian, Tillich had always lived and thought in the context of the polarity between question and answer. This formed the foundation of his mature theology and, consequently, he became for many “the bridge builder between their personal problems and the gospel.” His method was correlation. Tillich described it thus: The method used in the theological system and described in the methodological introduction of the first volume is called the “method of correlation,” namely, the correlation between existential questions and theological answers. “Correlation,” a word with several meanings in scientific language, is understood as “interdependence of two independent factors.” It is not understood in the logical sense of quantitative or qualitative coordination of elements without causal relation, but it is understood as a unity of the dependence and independence of two factors. (Systematic Theology, Vol. 2, American edition, p. 13, cited in Berkhof, p. 289) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 33 of 41 Berkhof raises the question whether then God in self-revelation is dependent on the human subject. He gives Tillich’s response that in God’s self-manifestation God is dependent on the way the human person receives that manifestation. As Brunner declared the divine-human encounter means something for both sides. For theology this means: Theology formulates the question implied in human existence, and theology formulates the answers implied in the divine self-manifestation under the guidance of the questions implied in human existence. (Ibid, Vol. 1, p.61, cited in Berkhof, p. 290) Berkhof discusses the method explaining Tillich’s contention that to raise the question belongs to the essence of human existence. Tillich favors the word “quest” rather than question. The quest is present whether or not it comes to expression; it is fundamentally singular and it rises out of the depths expressing one’s “ultimate concern.” Out of the human depths, the quest arises out of the human predicament, the experience of selfalienation, dread, brokenness, despair. It represents a search for integration, harmony, reunion with the true self. It is philosophy’s task to take account of all of this and to render a right analysis of human existence. Every human being, Christian or not, must be able to fathom life’s final questions and, doing so, will be confronted with the gap in human existence, a gap which cannot be bridged. One discovers a question without an answer. The description of Tillich’s thought sounds like a re-run of Heidegger’s Existentialist analysis of the human situation but, as Berkhof indicates, what distinguishes Tillich is the ontological framework of his thought – a shift also apparent in the later Heidegger. Tillich’s interest in the human quest is its theological value. He acknowledges that his analysis of the human situation derives from his historical context; the quest will differ according to the epoch. For the Church Fathers it was the quest for immortality; for the Reformation it was the quest for the justification of the sinner. Whatever the historical period and the quest, Tillich contends however that all the ultimate questions circle around the opposition between “finite” and “infinite,” “human existence” and “absolute being.” This is the quest that comes to expression in modern existentialism. The respective epochs of human history will have variously shaped quests but they will all be fundamentally oriented to the relationship between existence and essence. The answer does not lie within the question; it comes from without. The human subject is the question; God in self-manifestation is the answer, an answer not at human disposal. The two poles, question and answer, form an ellipse, the image of Tillich’s system. Philosophy, in an attitude of objectivity, is concerned with the question; theology is existentially involved in the answer. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 34 of 41 The center of Tillich’s theology is the paradox that universal being manifests itself in a historical person. The unity of the absolute and the finite, foolishness to philosophy, is the great miracle in which light we live and think. Berkhof notes that Tillich presented his doctrine of faith as “answering theology” in contrast to Barth’s “theology of proclamation.” He also spoke of his work as “apologetic” theology as against Barth’s “kerygmatic” theology – helpful contrasts by which to gain a feel for these two giants. And Berkhof points to Tillich’s popularity in the fifties and sixties in a theological world sighing under “the burden of Barth’s rigorous theology of the Word.” The alternative Tillich offers appears simple and convincing. But on closer scrutiny questions arise. Did Tillich correctly understand man’s existential quest (if we may speak of it in such general terms)? Is not giving answers as essential to human beings as asking questions? (p. 295) Berkhof doubts if human self-understanding can be captured in the word quest. Tillich struggles to give logical explanations of his correlation scheme but, Berkhof points out, he operates within a circle and intentionally so. Immediately at the outset of his prolegomena he introduced the concept of the theological circle. Like all humanities, theology is based on “mystical experience” and rests therefore on a “mystical a priori.” Besides, it works with the norm of the Christian message, and so its circle is narrower than that of the philosophy of religion. (p. 296) Tillich sought to narrow the gap between philosophy and theology, having admitted the circle, by claiming that modern philosophy bears a Christian stamp. Berkhof quotes him accordingly: In this sense [in the sense of a philosophy ‘whose existential base is historical Christianity’] all modern philosophy is Christian, even if it is humanistic, atheistic, and intentionally anti-Christian. (1:27) And again: The modern vision of reality and its philosophical analysis is different from that of pre-Christian times, whether one is or is not existentially determined by the God of Mount Zion and the Christ of Mount Golgotha. (1:27, cited in Berkhof, p. 296) The marks of the Christian tradition simply cannot be erased from the face of modern thought. Berkhof renders his conclusion regarding Tillich’s system thus: …in Tillich the answer shapes the question – as a rule by selection from given materials. Only the person who already knows the answer knows wherein the © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 35 of 41 true question consists: the question from within his anxiety, estrangement, and guilt (fundamentally Tillich’s anthropology is reformationally pessimistic) is for healing, salvation, and reconciliation and therein for the meaning of life and the courage to be. But can one view this question as a universally human question (since after all modern existentialism is a post-Christian phenomenon)? (p. 296) Tillich himself realized that the claim to universal validity could be called in question as he himself reflected on modern culture and Asiatic religions. But Tillich concluded that …nevertheless we must hold before all these groups the “mirror” of human misery, show them “the structures of anxiety, of conflict, of guilt,” because these structures mirror what we are, and if we are right, they are in other people also, and they will concur with our analysis. Whether we are successful is in question; we take the risk. In this regard Tillich turns to pedagogy: There are two principles we should follow in the religious education of our children. The first is that the questions which are really in the hearts of the children should be answered and the children should be shown that biblical symbols and the Christian message are an answer to just these questions. And secondly, we ought to seek to shape their existence in the direction of the questions which we believe are the more universal ones. This would be similar to what we do with primitive people in the mission field. We seek to answer their questions and in doing so we, at the same time, slowly transform their existence so that they come to ask the questions to which the Christian message gives the answer. (Theology of Culture, pp. 202-3, 205-6, cited on p. 297) Has Tillich offered an alternative to Kerygmatic theology? This is the question Berkhof’s interest raises. Whatever one may say, Berkhof argues, the gap between Tillich and Barth is much narrower than either suspected at the time. Referring back to Schleiermacher, Berkhof writes, As in Schleiermacher, so in Tillich, human self-understanding is not identical with the question to which revelation gives an answer; it is only the “place” (Schleiermacher) at which man finds himself and at which the gospel "calls” him. Nevertheless, like Schleiermacher and differently than Barth, Tillich avoids – as long as possible – presenting the transition to faith in the God-given answer-andquestion as a break with the presupposed human understanding of existence. God is at work everywhere, and hence there is a “latent Christianity” everywhere, which can, however, only be discovered in the light of Christ. Barth also asserts that the creation is “the external ground of the covenant” and that there are therefore many “lights of the world”; indeed, Jesus Christ, precisely in his exclusiveness, is universally inclusive. While Tillich would say that the right question is selected from the given situation in the light of the gospel, Barth would say that the gospel itself first creates in man the question appropriate to it. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 36 of 41 In Tillich the classic doctrine of “common grace” regains the place it had lost in Barth. (p. 297f) Berkhof’s critical question put to Tillich’s method is whether the answer of the gospel does not remain in the grip of a non-evangelical formulation of the question and therefore suffer distortion. Berkhof must conclude that it is impossible to view Tillich’s theology as a genuine bridge between the gospel and modernity, but this conclusion, he maintains, does not diminish the significance of this great theologian. Berkhof’s journey is concluded but he pauses to take a backward glance over the way he traveled. He begins his review with the question “What really happened?” He acknowledges that the reader may have experienced confusion; yet, one need not despair for, contrary to what many theologians – and the evangelical church tradition – generally maintain, theology is not a heavenly enterprise but a form of human scholarly quest involving trial and error. Theology is not like the natural sciences where progress is possible, one generation building on another (although Thomas Kuhn has called that in question even in the physical sciences). Rather, in theology and the humanities in general, there is not progress; rather, Here one …moves continuously in a circle around one’s object, ever and again viewing it from a different angle – and the angle changes with the experiences and predicaments of every given cultural epoch…. We are talking about a search, a questioning, an encounter, an interaction. Here neither subjectivism nor objectivism but inter-subjectivity is, in many cases, the highest obtainable measure of objectivity. (p. 299f) For theological method, this means that systematic-theological conceptions are the ways in which the Christian community gives an account of the gospel as its source and norm. The Western world out of which Berkhof speaks and in which his journey was taken is a culture estranged from the gospel and that is the challenge to the church – to bring the gospel to expression in such a fashion that it might again become a vital option. Theology serves an intermediary function interrogating the gospel from within its experiences within the culture. The theologian stands not outside, but within the culture, sharing consciously or unconsciously its experiences and presuppositions. The theologian stands between the gospel as a normative word and concrete human experience. He or she is in an encounter situation, more existential than in the other humanities because of the ultimacy of the issues involved. The best theologian is not the person who knows how to escape the dangers inherent in this process of encounter, for such people do not exist; the best theologian is the person who is most aware of these dangers and hence practices modesty and caution in what he says. (p. 300) Commenting on the modern culture, Berkhof holds that the presuppositions given with the Enlightenment have remained essentially intact: the autonomy of the human © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 37 of 41 person, the objectivizing and manipulating of nature, and the marginalizing of God. But experience has been varied: Great technical achievements, wars, revolutions, environmental exhaustion, etc., can change people’s views and conduct and force them to modify (not, however, to abandon) the presuppositions. The theologian will sense all this and in his feedback situation and mediating activity question the gospel from changing points of view. (p. 301) As Berkhof has indicated throughout the journey, this has been the case: Schleiermacher within the perspective of German idealism; Ritschl in the light of the realism of the technical-industrial world; Barth in the collapsing German culture after World War I. The situation in which theological formulation comes to expression is dynamic, calling forth different nuances and emphases at different times – not surrendering the gospel to the spirit of the times – but speaking in timely fashion the judgment and grace that the gospel offers. Theology appears chaotic and many theologians have given it a bad name by condemning the thinkers of the preceding generation for interpreting the gospel falsely. But, queries Berkhof, …was the interpretation of the previous generation really false? And did the succeeding generation then do it right? Against their better knowledge many theologians still seem to proceed from a static, unhistorical, freely available “truth” and to believe that it is most safe within their keeping….In contrast my journey has taught me that the basic concerns and aims of the several schools, modalities, and generations have much more in common than concentration on the larger and smaller differences…would ever lead one to suspect….For me as an observer the journey has been an exercise in tolerance. (p. 301) So that’s what happened. Was it legitimate? That is Berkhof’s next question. The great degree of commonality discovered among the respective theological schools does not lead Berkhof to a kind of relativistic mix without distinctions. There is room for mutual criticism and correction – a function he himself has executed with brilliance. The most fundamental question to be raised is the question with which he opened this study: Is an understanding possible between the gospel and the presuppositions of our modern culture? Modern culture’s presuppositions are described in the Old and New Testaments as sinful. Is the effort to relate these two worlds a hopeless enterprise? No. Central to both worlds is the human person and salvation. Human revolt is not a modern phenomenon; it is recorded as early as Genesis 3 and finds expression throughout the biblical story. Now the man who breaks his ties with God because he respects his salvation is there when God is not is nevertheless not abandoned by God,….God pursues this wayward human being with his judgment and grace. And judgment stands in the service of grace. Though man wants to live without God, God does not want to © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 38 of 41 live without man, and therefore man is never God-less….Whatever may have motivated the theologian not to take the godlessness of modern man with total seriousness – in the light of the gospel this attitude must at least in part be regarded as legitimate. (p. 302) The task, to be legitimate however, must involve both dialogue and dispute. The gap may not be patched over; rather it must be uncovered in order that it may be bridged. Berkhof points to Paul as a model of one who was in solidarity with his culture because of a greater solidarity with the gospel: “I do it all for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessing.” In I Corinthians 9:19-23 solidarity with Paul’s world is stressed. In I Corinthians 1:18-31 however, the break with his culture comes to expression. The message is a stumbling block and foolishness but is nonetheless proclaimed as God’s power of salvation. Paul in Athens, Berkhof contends, was right on, illustrating “the double solidarity, the mutual contradiction, and the conflict.” From this evidence one can infer that the relationship between the gospel and the world is dialectical, ever swinging back and forth between yes and no. The question concerning legitimacy can thus be answered with the observation that everyone is justified in his theological methodology provided that when he says yes or no he bears in mind the counterpart and brings it to his audience in one way or another. (p. 304) Berkhof explicates the key word dialectic by continuing with Paul. In Philippians 3:4b14, the autobiographical paragraph relating Paul’s movement from his Jewish experience to his experience of Christ, Berkhof points out a perspective not often appreciated. Paul, the Jew, was on the way. He was not pointing to that experience as a time of darkness and despair. Rather he speaks of his experience of Christ as so much more. The encounter with Christ brought him into crisis. He then moved from the crisis into Christian existence. There was continuity and break. Speaking of the theologians he has surveyed in this journey of two hundred years, Berkhof says, they were determined from the beginning to be Christian, but they wanted also to be modern people. On that basis they want to start their intellectual journey, traveling in the direction of the gospel. What unites the beginning and the end of the journey is the time of man and his salvation. In the course of that journey it has to become apparent sooner or later, however, that the road is not at all as innocuous as it seemed in the beginning. The wandered is thrown off course. He experiences the transvaluation of his values. Gain becomes loss and what he prided himself on turn to “refuse.” But the crisis does not mean the end of the road. After the crisis there awaits him a road that does not end within our world and time, one on which large differences of opinion can and do arise among travel companions, on which all sorts of lapses and aberrations are possible. (p. 305f) © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 39 of 41 That says Berkhof is the journey that has been going on now for nearly two thousand years. On the journey everyone must travel by himself. This road is itself the Truth. One does not “stand” in the Truth but “walks” in it on the way toward the goal that is not attainable this side of eternity. (p. 306) Berkhof does not want to be understood in an individualistic fashion. There is a broad community with intensive interchange. There is the swing of the pendulum as the way develops. …The Spirit finds theological reflection where it is initially at home, however “carnal” that home may be. The Spirit then leads us toward a crisis in our thinking. After the crisis our thought has to and is allowed to proceed under the guidance of the motto “I believe in order that I may understand.” However, just as our thinking before the crisis is threatened by an uncritical modernity, so after the crisis there is the danger of scholastic sterility. The gospel is the great non-selfevident factum which is ever threatened by betrayal on our theological journey. (p. 306f) Berkhof then relates the question of legitimacy to the key word “dialectical.” I now venture to say: the measure of legitimacy belonging to a given theological method or system corresponds to the measure in which it is involved in the double movement toward crisis an away from crisis. (p. 307) Over the two hundred years, Berkhof observes, we have seen liberal theologians who in their movement toward the gospel stopped short of the crisis and we have seen, too, orthodox theologians who detached the gospel from the arena of struggle, thinking mistakenly they could begin the process of thinking beyond the crisis. The greatest theologian is one who consistently “plumbed and pondered the double movement: the one toward the crisis and the one following the crisis.” Paul remains for Berkhof the model. In the last two hundred years Berkhof points to Schleiermacher and Barth. Both were one-sided on opposite sides; yet the crisis was evident in both. Berkhof raises the question whether a person can ever think on some level beyond such one-sidedness. That for him is a major question. What one gains in comprehensiveness one loses in power. A third question in this backward glance is “Did it mean anything?” Berkhof uses “mean” in the sense of succeed – was the goal achieved? His answer is in the negative. With certain exceptions “secularized culture manifested polite indifference if not outright intolerance.” Orthodox theologians have been no more successful. Being regarded as they were, outsiders, some were respected for that but considered even less credible than their liberal colleagues. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 40 of 41 But Berkhof qualifies his negative response. Outside not much impact was made, but within the churches the work done has been crucial, enabling many brought up within the church to remain within it or to return to it. They have been useful, if not for the penetration of the light of the gospel, then for the presence of the gospel in the intellectual world. (p. 309) The efforts of theologians have thus been more successful in conserving the faith than recruiting people from outside. Berkhof concludes this retrospective with a final question: “Now what?” Today, Berkhof claims, theology on a world scale appears more confusing than ever. But actually this has a positive side because there is a broad and diverse interest in theological reflection. Everywhere large groups are joyfully discovering that they themselves, each in their own uniqueness, are known and called of God. In all these new theologies the word experience serves as a point of entry…. In the 1970s one often had the feeling that in the multiplicity of experiences and the demand of “contextuality” arising from them, the oneness of the object, the universal cause of the gospel, threatened to disappear from sight and that only a tower of Babel was left. (p. 310) Such was not the case, however, Berkhof contends, for even academic theology in the West operates out of its own sitz im Leben. The real difference lies in the cultural, social, and political climate from within which people are trying to discover the gospel and to which people want to communicate it. The recent plurality of theologies can be explained by younger theologians beginning their journey from within their own experiences (blacks, women, liberation theologians, etc.). But Berkhof argues, …they must sooner or later push their own experiences toward the crisis of the gospel and walk a road on which they do not harden into an ideology but let their experiences be criticized, corrected, deepened by the crucified and risen Lord, and placed in his context. (p. 311) Does two hundred years of theology in the West, which coincides with the heyday of Western bourgeois culture, constitute an epoch on its last legs? Berkhof thinks not. The issues of struggle for this post-Enlightenment period are to be found in the biblical record as well and non-Western theologies display the same experience-revelation tension that has characterized Western theology. However, Western theology will lose its predominance; it will die in its Western-ness in order to rise again in globalism and pluralism will be more extensive. © Grand Valley State University �Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, Review by Richard A. Rhem Page 41 of 41 The process is ongoing – taking the road that leads into crisis of revelation and emerging from the crisis able to incorporate our experiences into a new experience. We must again and again start within our respective contextualities in order then to fuse our context increasingly with the context of the gospel, in a way such that the message gains superiority over all that which emerges from our situational analyses…. Everyone who spends so much time in the praeambula fidei, be it of a sociological, linguistic, philosophical, or political nature, is in danger of losing the chance to enrich his Umwelt with the great and new experience of the Word of God. (p. 312) © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, 1989 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19900702 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1990-07-02 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Book Review created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 2, 1990 entitled "Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey", on the book Two Hundred Years of Theology, Report of a Personal Journey, written by Hendrikus Berkhof. Tags: Hendrikus Berkhof, Reformed Theology, History of Theology, Modernity, Ecumenical, Historical Thinking, Enlightenment, Faith Journey. Scripture references: Hendrikus Berkhof, Two Hundred Years of Theology, 1989. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Ecumenical Enlightenment Faith Journey Hendrikus Berkhof Historical Thinking History of Theology Modernity Reformed Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/4fa6a435f09e1814c4fa10de5a650117.pdf 0ee6ec047ba31a3f574ca1b011efdd5f PDF Text Text Theological Method: The Search For a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Reformed Review A Theological Journal of Western Theological Seminary 101 East 13th Street, Holland, Michigan Spring, 1986 Leafing through a manila folder labeled “Theological Methodology” was an exercise in nostalgia. A few of us requested a reading course with Dr. Osterhaven in which we would examine various models of theological method and write a paper for presentation to the group. Perhaps it was there that my interest in theological method was stimulated or, perhaps, the desire to study the subject with Dr. Osterhaven arose from a distinction made by one of his esteemed teachers, Dr. Albertus Pieters, whose Facts and Mysteries of the Christian Faith fascinated me as a youth. Dr. Pieters distinguished systematic and biblical theology and gave clear preference to the latter. It was a moment of awakening; I was faced with the fact that the systematician's logical formulations might not always faithfully reflect the biblical witness; indeed, at times they might actually distort biblical truth. No task places one in the tension between the richness and diversity of the biblical witness and the systematization of the faith more than the task of preaching each Lord's Day. Thus I have continued to be challenged with the need to do theology in such a way that what comes to expression in the sermon is a faithful witness to biblical faith evidencing sensitivity to the contemporary situation. The sermon is the end product of the significant encounter of the Word and the world in the mind and heart of the preacher, and the theological task must be pursued to that end that the truth may find expression within the present horizon. It will be my purpose here to reflect on the substratum on which the sermon rests in the conviction that preaching with integrity demands not only theological understanding, but also self-consciousness of one's theological method. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 2 It is a great privilege to offer the following discussion of theological method in honor of a highly esteemed teacher in whose person the authenticity and integrity of the Christian thinker is modeled out. A NEW BASIC MODEL OF THEOLOGY? In May of 1983, seventy professors of theology from around the world gathered at the University of Tubingen in Germany. The international ecumenical symposium was organized by the Institute for the Advanced Study of Religion at the University of Chicago, the International Magazine for Theology, Concilium, and the Institute for Ecumenical Research in Tubingen. The leading spirit in organizing the event was Professor Dr. Hans Küng, head of the Tubingen Institute. The key question was, “Is a base consensus in Christian theology possible today despite all differences?” In his introductory remarks, Hans Küng set the stage for the discussion. He said, The natural sciences, humanities, democratic plural societies and freedom movements of all kinds all have radical consequences, specifically also for theology, whose outgrowths have not yet even been conceptualized, much less dealt with. But is theology dependent on such multifaceted tensions, such divergent systems, or even fads? Or is a new, changed basic model of theology recognizable? Is there, then, a new “paradigm of theology,” which might adequately react to the present changed experience? Are there universal constants despite all the differing theories, methods, and structures in such a “new paradigm” which every Christian theology must advance because, scientifically, they are held accountable by the Christian faith? The key word in understanding the task of this symposium is “paradigm” which was introduced into this theological discussion from a discussion in the natural sciences by Thomas Kuhn whose book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, became the catalyst for reflection on the history of theological development. Kuhn defined paradigm as, an entire constellation of beliefs, values, technics, and so on shared by the members of a given community.1 On the basis of that understanding of paradigm, Hans Küng charted the history of theology, attempting to locate those points of significant ferment in the Church which led to the evolving of a new model or paradigm. He set forth a tentative periodization beginning with the primitive Christian theology that was shaped by apocalypticism followed by the Greek and Latin Fathers of the Patristic period, the East-West schism of the Eleventh Century, the Reformation of the Sixteenth Century, including the Counter-Reformation of the Roman Church, the development of modern philosophy and the natural sciences of the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, including the Enlightenment, the French and © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 3 American Revolutions and the Twentieth Century theological movements beginning with Barth's Dialectical Theology and including Existentialist, Hermeneutical and the various Liberation Theologies of the present. From these major shifts in the history of the Church and in theological posture, Küng finds five models or paradigms operational in the present whose roots lie in the major shifts of the past. Stemming from the Ancient Church is the model of Eastern Orthodoxy; from the Medieval period there remains a Roman Catholic traditionalism; from the Reformation era there developed a Protestant orthodoxy which is still embraced; from the Enlightenment classical Liberalism developed and in strong reaction to that Nineteenth Century Liberalism, the revolution whose catalyst was Karl Barth in the early decades of this Century, Dialectical Theology with several variants in the present. His schematization gives credence to the contention that eruptive events in Church and society often result in new insights, new angles of vision which are the catalyst for the conception of a new paradigm, a new model of theology. The Symposium held at Tübingen in 1983 had as its purpose the endeavor to find a new paradigm that could gather the best insights of the biblical studies of the modern period along with the understanding of the world, history and human existence available to us through all of the academic disciplines. Such a paradigm, Kiting contends, must be truthful, not conformist or opportunist; free, not authoritarian; critical, not fundamentalist or traditionalist; ecumenical, not denominationalist or confessionalist. A theology in the horizon of the present world of experience and critically rooted in the biblical tradition would be a theology at the same time both Catholic and evangelical, both traditional and contemporary, both Christocentric and universalist, both theoretical-scholarly and practical-pastoral. In sum: the quest is for a critical, ecumenical theology. In a paper read to the Symposium, Küng discussed the process by which these major shifts took place in the history of the Christian tradition. As indicated above, the study by the historian of science, Thomas Kuhn, was the catalyst for surveying shifts in theological understanding. Kuhn's book was a major challenge to the traditional self-understanding of natural science. According to Kuhn, progress in the natural sciences has not come through an orderly acquisition of knowledge which has cumulatively issued in our present body of scientific data. Much rather, progress has come in spurts, through major breakthroughs in understanding which have forced the replacement of a former model of understanding with a new model or paradigm. Küng writes, Kuhn's heretical main thesis is that radically new theories arise neither by verification nor by falsification but by the replacement - in individual cases, highly complex and protracted - of a hitherto accepted explanatory model (paradigm) by a new one. 2 © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 4 As an example of this process, Küng cites the shift from a Ptolemaic astronomy to the Copernican view. ... The more the movements of the stars were studied and corrected in the light of the Ptolemaic system, the more material was produced to refute that system. And the same thing happened not only with the Copernican revolution but also with the Newtonian, the chemical and the Einsteinian revolutions. ... The process may be tedious, protracted and complex. And these are transitional periods in which at first only the stereotypes of the old model begin to break up. But the critical state of the traditional theory increasingly comes to light. A period of pronounced insecurity generally precedes the emergence of new theories, which in the end leads to the destruction of the paradigm. In a word, crisis is the usual condition for the rejection of a hitherto accepted paradigm. 3 Scientific progress according to Kuhn comes not through an evolutionary, cumulative process, but through scientific revolution. Confirming and developing the thesis of Thomas Kuhn in regard to systemological analysis is Stephen Toulmin, who in the preface to his basic work entitled, Human Understanding, states his central thesis as follows: ... in science and philosophy alike, an exclusive preoccupation with logical systematicity has been destructive of both historical understanding and rational criticism. Men demonstrate their rationality, not by ordering their concepts and beliefs in tidy formal structures, but by their preparedness to respond to novel situations with open minds - acknowledging the shortcomings of their formal procedures and moving beyond them.4 From Kuhn’s work in the history of science and Toulmin's study of human understanding we come to the surprising recognition that the respective scientific disciplines and philosophical movements do their model building and systematization in the wake of new insight - some breakthrough in understanding or some intuitive grasp of truth which shatters the prevailing model or paradigm, forcing upon the community (academic or social or ecclesiastical) a new way of looking at Reality. This development has been especially fruitful in the theological discussions being carried on by the Universities of Tubingen and Chicago, highlighted at the Symposium to which I referred above. Hans Küng's attempt at a periodization of theological development is an attempt to demonstrate that there are fascinating parallels between that development and development in the natural sciences. He lists five parallels: © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 5 A. As in natural sciences, so also in the theological community, there is a “normal science” with its classical authors, textbooks and teachers, which is characterized by a cumulative growth of knowledge, by a solution of remaining problems (“puzzles”) and by resistance to everything that might result in a changing as replacement of the established paradigm. B. As in natural science, so also in the theological community, awareness of a growing crisis is the starting position for the advent of a drastic change in certain hitherto prevailing basic assumptions and eventually causes the breakthrough of a new paradigm or model of understanding. When the available rules and methods break down, they lead to a search for new ones. C. As in natural science, so also in the theological community, an older paradigm or model of understanding is replaced when a new one is available, D. As in natural science, so too in the theological community, in the acceptance or rejection of a new paradigm, not only scientific, but also extra-scientific factors are involved, so that the transition to a new model cannot be purely rationally extorted, but may be described as a conversion. E. In the theological community as in natural science, it can be predicted only with difficulty, in the midst of great controversies, whether a new paradigm is absorbed into the old, replaces the old or is shelved for a long period. But if it is accepted, innovation is consolidated as tradition. 5 Küng adds a word from Albert Einstein at this point, who said on one occasion, “Smashing prejudices is more difficult than smashing atoms.” But Küng adds, “Once they are smashed, they release forces that can perhaps move mountains.” These theses set forth by Küng he calls only provisional. They are offered for discussion and he is well aware where the critical question arises. After stating these parallels, he continues, And yet the question is thrust upon us: Does not theology, even Christian truth itself, faced by nothing but paradigm changes and new conceptions, become a victim of historical relativism which makes it impossible any longer to perceive the Christian reality and makes every paradigm equally true, equally valid? Perhaps the natural scientist is not very much concerned with this problem, but it is of the greatest consequence for the Christian theologian ... Let us therefore pose the question: Does a paradigm change involve a total break? 6 Küng's conviction is that in both science and theology there is preserved a continuity when there is a shift in paradigm. In theology he insists, We have to avoid the choice not only between an absolutist and a relativist view, but also between a radical continuity and a radical discontinuity. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 6 Every paradigm change shows at the same time continuity and discontinuity, rationality and irrationality, conceptual stability and conceptual change, evolutionary and revolutionary elements. 7 Further, in theology and the historical sciences much more than in the basically un-historical natural sciences, “ ... it is therefore not a question of a new invention of a tradition. It is a question of a new formulation of tradition, admittedly in the light of a new paradigm.” The problem of continuity is a more serious problem for theology because theology deals with “truth.” Kuhn as a scientist must leave alone the ultimate questions of the “whence” and the “whither” of the world process and the human drama. Theology addresses those very ultimate questions. Thus there are not only parallels between the development of natural science and theology but there are also some significant differences. Christian theology lives out of the primordial event which is its source, its norm and to which it must continually return - the event of Israel and of Jesus Christ as set forth in the Scriptures. This primordial event which has found its preeminent expression in Jesus and is attested to in Scripture is not simply a past datum to be analyzed and interpreted but is a dynamic living force which time and again breaks out - for example, in the personal crisis of a Martin Luther. As Küng expresses it, The gospel itself then - obviously always in connection with a particular development in contemporary world history - appears here as a direct cause of the theological crisis, as ground of discontinuity in theology, as impetus to the new paradigm. 8 Further, because theology is anchored to a past historical event, a new paradigm may emerge and theological upheaval may occur, but there can never be the total replacement or total suppression of the old paradigm. Thus Küng declares a revolution in Christian theology can never take place except on the basis of and ultimately because of the gospel, and never against the gospel. 9 Another difference from a paradigm shift in the natural sciences is that in theology, because of the existential nature of the “decision of faith,” the academic decision for one paradigm or another is not always distinguished from the “decision of faith;” the person for whom the Christian reality comes to clear expression in a new paradigm causing him to abandon the old paradigm may be seen as choosing against the gospel itself of which the paradigms are but structures for understanding. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 7 Finally, and closely connected to the foregoing observation, is the fact that when the Church and theological community reject a paradigm, ... rejection easily leads to condemnation, discussion to excommunication; gospel and theology, content of faith and outward form of faith, are identified.10 Because this is such a powerful tendency in the Christian community, when a new model of understanding is accepted, it is soon turned into tradition and tradition in turn becomes a new traditionalism. With the discussion of how knowledge has advanced in the history of science as the catalyst, Küng has thus surveyed the development of theological understanding to the present, observing both parallels and differences between the history of science and the history of theology. But his purpose is not simply information but, rather, the study is being engaged in in order to determine if there is a base consensus in Christian theology today. Are all the elements of ferment at work today in the Church pointing to a new paradigm in theology and, if so, what would such a paradigm look like? We have noted some of the essential characteristics that must be reflected in a new basic model for theology in our day. Beyond the characteristics listed, the parameters of any new paradigm must be set by two constants which provide the two poles in reference to which the Christian message must come to expression: The first constant: The present world as horizon. The second constant: The Christian message as standard. The “horizon” within which theological reflection must happen and theological formulation must occur is “our own present world of human experience.” Küng asserts: One thing should now be clear: that the reality of world, humanity, myself, is revealed in depth in its obvious ambivalence, its radical contingency and its continual change: an ongoing history of success and suffering, justice and injustice, happiness and unhappiness, salvation and disaster, sense and nonsense. Nor does this mean making the world evil, so that theologians can more easily get their God involved; it means taking stock without prejudice of what is. Theology does not create any reality, but interprets it. 11 The second constant has already been noted in our discussion of the differences between theology and the natural sciences. Küng describes it this way: If ecumenical theology wants to be Christian theology, its other pole must be the Judeo-Christian tradition and its primary norm cannot be anything except the Christian message on which this tradition is constructed as on © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 8 its ultimate ground. That is to say, the Christian primordial and basic testimony, the gospel itself in the sense of the good news in its entirety, as recorded in the Old and New Testament Scriptures, is the basic norm of ecumenical theology. 12 These two poles or constants then form the context within which theological formulation must come to expression. If we observe the history of theology after the great awakening of the Sixteenth Century, we see how in both the Catholic and Protestant traditions there was a hardening of theological positions. The Seventeenth Century saw the development of an orthodoxy shaped by Rationalism, which froze the new insights of the Reformers into carefully defined doctrinal positions with little regard for the present horizon. In the wake of the Enlightenment of the Eighteenth Century there was an attempt to come to terms with the new understanding of both human reality and the natural world. The classic Liberalism of the Nineteenth Century was an effort to proclaim the gospel within the confines of a weltanschaung - that had no room for transcendent Reality; the gospel, the second constant, was dissolved into the first, into the horizon of this world. In sharp reaction, Karl Barth reversed the whole tide of Nineteenth Century Liberalism, loudly proclaiming a theology of the Word, pointing to the God Who is the “Wholly Other.” Because he was in a posture of such sharp reaction, the early Barth nearly obliterated the present horizon, the first constant, although he was too deeply imbued with the culture of his day wholly to lose sight of it. The present discussion comes at a time when we are able with historical distance to gain some objectivity as we face the task before us. The theology of the future must never again lose sight of either constant. Our task is to find an expression of the Gospel which is faithful to the Word and honest with the world. If such an understanding of theology's task meets with anything like a consensus, then we may be poised for a fruitful period of theological activity. SPEAKING THE TRUTH IN A PLURALISTIC AGE Under the auspices of the Program for Studies in Religion at the University of Michigan, Hans Küng led a seminar during the Fall Term of 1983 on the subject of “Paradigm Change in Theology.” It was a cross-discipline seminar including students and professors from the schools of the arts and literature, law, and medicine. One of the papers studied was written by Professor David Tracy of the university of Chicago Divinity School, a Catholic scholar who has been a major participant in the discussion of paradigm shift in the symposium discussed above. Tracy has grappled with the matter of theological methodology. In his first book Blessed Rage for Order, published in 1979, he identified five theological models: Orthodox, Liberal, Neo-Orthodox, Radical, and a Revisionist model. These five © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page 9 models are the result of a different schematization than that followed by Küng, cited above, but there is great similarity of view as to the models operative in the present period. Tracy's Revisionist model, which he will endeavor to build, is his attempt at finding a new paradigm. It is his contention that a Revisionist model must be constructed which will enable the ecumenical Church to proclaim a message that will make the claim of truth recognizable in a pluralistic age. The Revisionist model is a critical correlation of the two principle sources for theology, the two constants mentioned above, cited by Küng: Christian texts and common human experience and language. Tracy sets forth the following theses: The Principle Method of Investigation of the Source, “Common Human Experience and Language,” Can Be Described as a Phenomenology of the “Religious Dimension” Present in Everyday and Scientific Experience and Language.” 13 The Principle Method of Investigation of the Source “The Christian Tradition” Can Be Described as a Historical and Hermeneutical Investigation of Classical Christian Texts. 14 Having set the agenda for his endeavor, Tracy moved on in his next work, The Analogical Imagination, to set forth the method and execute it in terms of his own commitment to the Catholic Christian Tradition. The Preface announces, “In a culture of pluralism must each religious tradition finally either dissolve into some lowest common denominator or accept a marginal existence as one interesting but purely private option?” Tracy is not willing to accept either option. A theological strategy must be found that can articulate the genuine claims of religion to truth. This is the task he sets for himself: a responsible affirmation of pluralism through the discovery of public criteria by which truth can be affirmed. Theology must develop public criteria of truth and discourse because it deals with the fundamental questions of existence and because it speaks of God. Recognizing that the theologian addresses three arenas, Society, Academy and Church, Tracy insists that the criteria of publicness applies in all three areas. Theology is the generic name for three disciplines: fundamental, systematic and practical theologies. Publicness is demanded of each. The primary focus of fundamental theology is the Academy, of systematic theology, the Church and of practical theology, Society. They differ not only in their primary reference group, but also in terms of their modes of argument, ethical stance, religious stance and in terms of expressing claims to meaning and truth. On the way to a responsible pluralism all conversation partners must agree to certain basic rules for the discussion. Two constants are present: the interpretation of a religious tradition and the interpretation of the religious dimension of the contemporary situation from which and to which the theologian speaks. In regard to the first, it is incumbent upon the theologian to make explicit her/his general method of interpretation, to develop “criteria of appropriateness” © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page10 whereby specific interpretations of the tradition may be judged by the wider theological community. In regard to the interpretation of the contemporary situation there must be an analysis of the “religious” questions, the question of the meaning of human existence in the present situation. There are major differences as well. Tracy addresses the question as to what constitutes a public claim to truth in the three sub-disciplines of theology. Fundamental theology's defining characteristic is ... a reasoned insistence on employing the approach and methods of some established academic discipline to explicate and adjudicate the truth claims of the interpreted religious tradition and the truth claims of the contemporary situation. 15 Various models are available, but whichever model is chosen fundamental questions and answers are articulated in such a way that any attentive, intelligent, reasonable and responsible person can understand and judge them in keeping with fully public criteria for argument. Personal faith may not enter the argument for the truth claims in fundamental theology. SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AS A HERMENEUTICAL TASK The systematic theologian's major task is the reinterpretation of the tradition for the present situation. Where the fundamental theologian will relate the reality of God to our fundamental trust in existence (our common faith), the confessional systematic theologian will relate that reality to their arguments for a distinctively Christian understanding of faith. Christian theology ... consists in explicating in public terms and in accordance with the demands of its own primary confessions, the full meaning and truth of the original “illuminating event” ... which occasioned and continues to inform its understanding of all reality. 16 Thus the task of the systematic theologian is a hermeneutical task. The “illuminating event” Tracy calls a religious classic. As in a classic work of art, the religious classic contains the possibility of ever-new “disclosures.” Classics Tracy defines as texts, events, images, persons, rituals and symbols that are assumed to disclose permanent possibilities of meaning and truth. The hermeneutical theologian seeks to articulate the truth-disclosure of the reality of God embedded in the tradition for the contemporary situation. If the systematic theologian speaks out of a particular tradition, is systematic theology public discourse? Can the claim of Truth be made for theological © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page11 statements arising out of a particular tradition? Tracy believes it can if systematic theology is understood as a hermeneutical task. It is Tracy's contention that systematic theology is hermeneutical. This means that systematic theology's task is to interpret, mediate and translate the meaning and truth of the tradition. Where this is not the case, where the notion of authority shifts from a truth disclosed to mind and heart to an external norm for the obedient will, theologians can no longer interpret and translate the tradition but “only repeat the shop-worn conclusions of the tradition.” Eventually, the central, classical symbols and doctrines of the tradition become mere “fundamentals” to be externally accepted and endlessly repeated.17 Tracy points to the contrast of a hermeneutical theology: The heart of any hermeneutical position is the recognition that all interpretation is a mediation of past and present, a translation carried on within the effective history of a tradition to retrieve its sometimes strange, sometimes familiar meanings. 18 How is this done? Recognizing that one begins within a tradition which has shaped one, that one is socialized, acculturated and thus without the possibility of finding some position “above” one's own historicity, ... the route to liberation from the negative realities of a tradition is not to declare the existence of an autonomy that is literally unreal but to enter into a disciplined and responsive conversation with the subject matter the responses and, above all, the fundamental questions, of the traditions.19 Tracy refers to Hans-Georg Gadamer's model of conversation as a model for understanding the dialogue with the tradition. Real conversation occurs only when the participants allow the question, the subject matter, to assume primacy. It occurs only when our usual fears about our own self-image die. ... That fear (dies only because we are carried along, and sometimes away, by the subject matter itself into the rare event or happening named “thinking” and “understanding.” For understanding happens; it occurs not as the pure result of personal achievement but in the back-and-forth movement of the conversation itself. The word “hermeneutical” best describes this realized experience of understanding in conversation. For every event of understanding, in order to produce a new interpretation, mediates between our past experience © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page12 and the understanding embodied in our linguistic tradition and the present event of understanding occasioned by a fidelity to the logic of the question in the back-and-forth movement of the conversation.20 Using the model of conversation Tracy shows how one enters into the history of the illuminating event. When interpreting a classic one recognizes its “excess of meaning” demands constant interpretation and is at the same time timeless – ... a certain kind of timelessness - namely the timeliness of a classic expression radically rooted in its own historical time and calling to my own historicity. That is, the classical text is not in some timeless moment which needs mere repetition. Rather its kind of timelessness as permanent timeliness is the only one proper to any expression of the finite, temporal, historical beings we are. ... The classic text's fate is that only its constant reinterpretation by later finite, historical, temporal beings who will risk asking its questions and listening, critically and tactfully, to its responses can actualize the event of understanding beyond its present fixation in a text.21 To be understood, a classic cannot be repeated; it must be interpreted. Thus Tracy claims, All contemporary systematic theology can be understood as fundamentally hermeneutical. This position implies that systematic theologians, by definition, will understand themselves as radically finite and historical thinkers who have risked a trust in a particular religious tradition. They seek, therefore, to retrieve, interpret, translate, mediate the resources ... of the classic events of understanding of those fundamental religious questions embedded in the classic events, images, persons, rituals, texts and symbols of a tradition.22 At the heart of Tracy's argument is the conviction that “classics exist;” they exist in all domains of human endeavor. He does not merely assert that they exist but builds a carefully argued case for their existence and specifically for the existence of the religious classic. The task of the systematic theologian is to interpret religious classics. Systematic theology intends to provide an interpretation, a retrieval (including a retrieval through critique and suspicion) and always, therefore, a new application of a particular religious tradition's selfunderstanding for the current horizon of the community. 23 Applying this understanding of systematic theology's task to the specific task of the Christian thinker, Tracy declares, In Christian systematics, that self-understanding is itself further © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page13 grounded in the particular events and persons of Jewish and Christian history: decisively grounded, for the Christian, in God's own self-manifestation as my God in this classic event and person, Jesus Christ. 24 SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY AS PUBLIC DISCOURSE But now the crux of the matter is reached: how does the systematic theologian address the wider public with discussion characterized by “publicness” thus stopping the retreat of Christian faith into the sphere of privateness and yet remain faithful to ... the radical particularity of the relationship of that gift's disclosure to the particular events of God's action in ancient Israel, in Jesus of Nazareth, in the history of the Christian Church? 25 Acknowledging the dilemma, Tracy believes it can be overcome. The means of overcoming the dilemma is the recognition of the public nature of the classic: ... grounded in some realized experience of a claim to attention, unfolding as cognitively disclosive of both meaning and truth and ethically transformative of personal, social and historical life. 26 Tracy therefore contends, Whenever any systematic theologian produces a classic interpretation of a particular classic religious tradition (as both Barth and Rahner have,) then that new expression should be accorded a public status in the culture. Every classic ... is a text, event, image, person or symbol which unites particularity of origin and expression with a disclosure of meaning and truth available, in principle, to all human beings. 27 And again, Any person's intensification of particularity via a struggle with the fundamental questions of existence in a particular tradition, if that struggle is somehow united to the logos of appropriate expression, will yield a form of authentically sharable public discourse. 28 Thus Tracy argues, classics exist, religious classics exist, and classic status in any field including the religious accords a text, work of art, symbol or other form of expression public status. Religious classics are © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page14 ... expressions from a particular tradition that have found the right mode of expression to become public for all intelligent, reasonable and responsible persons. 29 At the heart of the Christian tradition the classic expression is found in the event of God's self-disclosure in Jesus Christ. Tracy claims, One need not be a believer in Christianity to accord it (and thereby its central, paradigmatic, classic event) authentically religious status: a manifestation from the whole by the power of the whole. 30 Christology is the attempt to respond through some interpretation to the event of Jesus Christ in one's own situation. ... The Christian interpreter of this classic event recognizes in some present experience of the event - more precisely, in the claim disclosed in that event (paradigmatically in experiencing that event in manifestation and proclamation) as an event from God and by God's power. To speak religiously and theologically of the Christ event is ultimately to speak of an event from God. 31 The Jesus remembered by the tradition is experienced in the present mediated through the word of proclamation and sacramental action. Jesus remembered as the Christ is the experience of the presence of God's own self. The second part of Tracy's work entails the actual execution of the method here described. His is the attempt of a systematic theologian engaging in the hermeneutical task of mediating past and present so that the event of Jesus Christ remembered in the tradition comes to expression again in the present in a manner that affords the possibility of public discussion with all persons of good will who will engage in reasonable conversation. In Tracy's Revisionist model we find the essential characteristics set forth by Küng for a new paradigm in theology determined by a critical correlation of the present horizon and the biblical texts. Herein lies the present challenge to Reformed theology. Through the impact of biblical studies and the explosion of knowledge across the whole spectrum of human inquiry we have been alerted to the danger of confessionalism and the imperative to take seriously the horizon of contemporary experience. The opportunity is ours to realize the ideal of the Reformation. The Church of the Sixteenth Century was re-formed according to the Word of God and at its best it recognized that it must always be being re-formed. The Reformed branch of the Protestant Reformation expressed itself in many Confessional statements and refused to reduce them all to one credal formulation. The Lutheran branch sought to bring the various strands of its confessional position into a unifying © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page15 statement with the Formula of Concord which then served as the norm of right doctrine. The Reformed churches feared that such a statement of unity might impede the continuing efforts to confess the faith in each new historical situation and thus determined to continue to confess its faith in ever-new credal formulations as the times demanded. It goes without saying that the ideal was soon abandoned. The high Calvinism of the Seventeenth Century with its rationalism and careful scholastic definitions was a complete break with the best insights of the early Reformers. Not only in the Reformed tradition but Protestantism generally has been plagued with the fossilizing of doctrinal formulation, the absolutizing of historically conditioned creeds and a defensive posture which has ill prepared it to meet the explosion of knowledge in the sciences, natural and social. Failing to act on its own best insight that the Church needs constant reformation of its understanding of the Faith, Reformed Orthodoxy has been severely threatened by the rise of historical thinking which is so characteristic of the modern period. Of course, the Church can continue to close its mind to the knowledge and insight that streams forth in a mighty torrent as we continue to unlock the secrets of the cosmos and, with a mindset of an earlier Century and a defensive posture, it can ward off the demands for reformation. In so doing it will lock the faithful into a system of ideas and structure of belief that become increasingly out of touch with their experience of the world, and it will continue to offend its brightest and most sensitive spirits who will finally be forced out when they can no longer deny the compelling truth that calls for a new understanding of the Faith. This is not a new problem for the Church. It is new only in the rapidity of breakthroughs on all frontiers of knowledge and in the rapid spread of that knowledge that is now possible in the Electronic Age which is creating the “Information Society.” But a Church confident of the Truth as it has come to expression in Jesus Christ will find the present day an exciting day in which to identify the questions and find the appropriate mode in which to witness to the self-disclosure of the God in the face of Jesus Christ. ENDNOTES 1 Thomas Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. (Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1962), p. 175. 2 Hans Küng, Does God Exist? (New York: Doubleday and Company, 1980), p. 107. 3 Ibid., p. 108. 4 Stephen Toulmin, Human Understanding. (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1972), p. vii. 5 Hans Küng, “Paradigm Change in Theology,” unpublished paper read at the Symposium. 6 Ibid., p. 17. © Grand Valley State University �Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Richard A. Rhem Page16 7 Ibid., p. 17. p. 20. 9 Ibid., p. 21. 10Ibid., p. 21. 11 Ibid., p. 25. 12 Ibid., p. 26. 13 David Tracy, Blessed Rage For Order. (New York: Seabury Press, 1979),p. 47. 14 Ibid., p. 49. 15 David Tracy, The Analogical Imagination. (New York, New York: Crossroad, 1981), p. 62. 16Ibid., p. 65, 66. 17Ibid., p. 99. 18Ibid. 19 Ibid., p. 100. 20Ibid., p. 101. 21Ibid., p. 102. 22Ibid., p. 104. 23 Ibid., p. 131. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid., p. 132. 26 Ibid. 27Ibid., p. 132F, 133. 28Ibid.,p. 134. 29Ibid.,p. 233. 30Ibid.,p. 234. 31Ibid. 8Ibid., SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY Kuhn, Thomas, The Structure of Scientific Revolution. Chicago, Illinois: University of Chicago Press, 1962. Küng, Hans, Does God Exist?. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1980. Küng, Hans, “Paradigm Change in Theology,” unpublished paper at Symposium, University of Michigan, 1983. Toulmin, Stephen, Human Understanding. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1972. Tracy, David, Blessed Rage For Order. New York: Seabury Press, 1979, Tracy, David, The Analogical Imagination. New York, New York: Crossroad, 1981. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. References Hans Küng. Does God Exist?, 1980, "Paradigm Change in Theology,", 1983, David Tracy. Blessed Rage for Order, 1979, The Analogical Imagination, 1981. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19860301 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1986-03-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource Theological Method: The Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The The Reformed Review a journal of the seminaries of the Reformed Church in America Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on March 1, 1986 entitled "Theological Method: The Search for a New Paradigm in a Pluralistic Age", it appeared in The Reformed Review, Vol. 39, No. 3, pp. 242-254. Tags: Preaching, Theology, History of Christian Tradition, Pluralism, Ecumenical, Historical Thinking. Scripture references: Hans Küng. Does God Exist?, 1980, "Paradigm Change in Theology,", 1983, David Tracy. Blessed Rage for Order, 1979, The Analogical Imagination, 1981. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Ecumenical Historical Thinking History of Christian Tradition Pluralism Preaching Theology https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/67450db648a60e2c64f7cdb5a81fa11e.pdf 6134a1e45b48a65c513371461ff0c784 PDF Text Text A Theological Conception of Reality as History Some Aspects of the Thinking of Wolfhart Pannenberg Article by Richard A. Rhem Minister of Preaching and Theological Inquiry Christ Community Church Spring Lake, Michigan Published in Reformed Review A Theological Journal of Western Theological Seminary 101 East 13th Street, Holland, Michigan Autumn, 1972 I. Pannenberg in the Context of Modern Theology In his essay entitled “Evangelical Theology in the Nineteenth Century” Karl Barth speaks with great respect of the daring with which the leading theologians of that period, which was so replete with magnificent achievements in the arts and sciences, wrestled with the challenges of the modern world. They displayed an openness to the world which ought always to characterize theology and they accounted themselves well, both as Christian men and as scholars. However, Barth points out, their strength was also their weakness in that they allowed this confrontation with contemporary culture to become their decisive and primary concern. This, he maintains, was the key problem of nineteenth-century Protestant theology. This general assumption of openness to the world led necessarily to the specific assumption that theology could defend its own cause only within the framework of a total view of man, the universe, and God; which would command universal recognition.1 One of the leading exponents of this point of view criticized by Barth was Ernst Troeltsch, although his work extended well into the first quarter of the twentieth century. Troeltsch was critical of the leading representatives of the liberal tradition also, but for precisely the opposite reason. Though he, himself, had much in common with the dominant Ritschlian school, he was nevertheless critical of the Schleiermacher-Ritschl-Herrmann line of development because, although they accepted fully the application and the results of the historicalcritical method in the investigation of Christian origins, they still maintained the © Grand Valley State University   �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 2   uniqueness of Jesus, rooting the redemption wrought by God through him in his person. For all their openness to the modern world and their conviction that theology must be restructured in the light of the modern world-view of the natural sciences, the epistemology of Kant, and the newly prestigious science of history, they nevertheless stubbornly maintained the necessity of the present experience of redemption being indissolvably related to Jesus of Nazareth. To Troeltsch this appeared to be a futile grasping after the last remains of dogmatic thinking which located absolute and definitive revelation in a particular historical phenomenon. He acknowledged that these theologians had broken with the old dogmatics of Protestant orthodoxy, but in the light of the development of historical thinking and the application of the historical method, he was convinced that they were holding an impossible position. They were resisting the pressure of consistent thinking by stopping short of admitting the relativity of each and every historical appearance. For Troeltsch the decisive fact was not the historical person of Jesus, but rather the idea which was concretized in him and from him has issued forth into history. Once launched, the idea or principle is independent of its initiator, its essence to be sought not in its initial embodiment but rather in the pluriformity of its historical configurations at any given stage in its development. In the Schleiermacher-Ritschl-Herrmann line of thought Troeltsch saw a mixing of types of theological method and consequently a failure to distinguish the person of Jesus from the principle he incarnated. He criticized the failure sharply to distinguish person and principle, personality and idea, and likewise the contention that the historical person and a personal relationship to him were essential to saving faith in God. He saw this position rooted in the later churchly Schleiermacher and being strongly advocated in his day by Ritschl and Herrmann.2 In Troeltsch’s view the very historical-critical approach to Christian origins, especially to Jesus himself, undercut any attempt to salvage from the uniformity of history a final and absolute revelation of God. This was clearly demonstrated, Troeltsch maintained, by the fact that the History of Religions school, of which he claimed to be the dogmatician, had itself sprung from the Ritschlian school, differing only in the greater consistency with which it pursued the consequences of the very methods accepted by Ritschl, himself. Thus Troeltsch was convinced that the theology of the future would have to purge away these last vestiges of the old dogmatic approach and carry through more rigorously the requirements of the historical-critical method which draws all historical phenomena, Jesus of Nazareth not excepted, into the movement of historical process, allowing for no absolute uniqueness in the midst of the relative. Paradoxical as it may appear, Karl Barth quite agreed with Troeltsch—agreed, that is, that to subject Jesus to historical-critical research behind the witness of the New Testament is to bring him down to where he is one historical person among others, one in whom there cannot possibly be found the final and definitive revelation of God. Of course, agreement with Troeltsch, that having followed the path they did, the great nineteenth-century theologians could not © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 3   consistently stop halfway, does not imply that Barth advocates with Troeltsch that their successors should draw the logical conclusion, as Troeltsch counseled. On the contrary, Barth examines the Schleiermacher-Ritschl-Herrmann Theology and discovers their fatal error, not in their failure to follow consistently the course on which they embarked, but rather in the course they chose to follow in the first place. It was not their decision to grant recognition to the use of the historical-critical method and then failure to draw the conclusions to which it led. Rather it was their understanding of religion as an innate potential of the human spirit and their failure to see that, defined in such terms, the Christian faith was not being spoken of at all. If Christianity was a phenomenon of the religious capacity of man, then it was one religion among others and could be understood only as Troeltsch maintained, by a comparative historical study. In such an instance there could be no talk of an absolute and definitive revelatory significance or meaning in history. If one started where Troeltsch started, Barth maintained, one would end where Troeltsch ended. But then, according to Barth, we have to do not with the religion of revelation, but with the revelation of religion3 and the application of the historical-critical method will discover in Jesus no more than a man among other men and in Christianity no more than a religion among other religions. The History of Religions school is only the logical outcome of a theology that speaks of the believing man rather than of the revealing God. Theology which takes itself seriously can speak only from the revelation of God who has grasped it, paying homage to no world-view, be it ancient or modern, no philosophical system or no anthropological analysis of the religious capacity of man. Theology must speak from out of the revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Thus Barth completely repudiated the counsel of Troeltsch and pursued the dogmatic method, reducing historical-critical research to a secondary, helpingrole in the explication of the biblical witness to Jesus Christ. One of the young theologians in the 1920’s who joined with Barth in his revolt from the theology of the nineteenth century was Rudolf Bultmann. He too recognized the poverty of Liberalism and its failure to give centrality to the decisive redemptive act of God in Jesus Christ. He criticized Liberalism for reducing Christianity to a system of timeless and eternal truths and the History of Religions school for reducing Christ to a cultic symbol.4 However, what for Barth was a secondary matter became for him the central concern, namely the hermeneutical problem. Granting that Christian theology must start from the Word of God, Bultmann could never emphasize too strongly that revelation must be understandable to man. This man he found most adequately defined by the analysis of existentialist philosophy as set forth by the early Heidegger. While he, himself, was unexcelled in the application of the historical-critical method, Bultmann denied that the results of such research were of any consequence for faith, faith which was not belief in factual information about Jesus, his life, death, and resurrection but rather obedience to the kerygmatic Word in the present moment calling men to a new self-understanding. Bultmann the historian and © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 4   Bultman the theologian never met; for apart from the fact that Jesus appeared faith has no relation to history. Great differences separate Troeltsch, Barth, and Bultman from one another. Troeltsch sees no alternative to pursuing the historical method in the analysis of the phenomenon of religion. Barth rejects the idea that the Christian faith is first of all a religion and he pursues the dogmatic method, judging all religion by the norm and criterion of Jesus Christ. Bultmann interprets the Christian faith within the possibilities afforded by an Existentialist analysis of man. Interestingly enough, however, there is one point on which they all seem in agreement; that is the understanding of the nature of history and the principles of historiography. For Troeltsch, history and the methods by which it is investigated rule out in advance any final and definitive revelation of God in history. The early Barth agreed and moved revelation to the frontier of time and eternity. Later he brought revelation back into history, defining history from the perspective of Jesus Christ but at the same time he continued to recognize the validity of historical science as defined by Troeltsch maintaining that it had no competency to deal with God’s revelatory action in history. Bultmann as a practicing historian followed the historical-critical method as defined by Troeltsch and, because he saw history as the realm of the relative and transient, he removed revelation from the sphere of history to the realm of human existence. All three agreed that history and historical science are what the great historians of the nineteenth century said they are and all three agreed that, that being the case, there was no trace of God’s revelatory action discoverable in history by the historian. In the last decade this whole conception of history and accompanying historiography has been called into question by the German theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. German theology has often been characterized by drastic swings of the pendulum and, as Pannenberg’s early writings appeared, it seemed that once again the pendulum was swinging from the theology of the word which has dominated the twentieth century in its various forms to a theology of history. As Pannenberg has continued to address himself to the problems of revelation, history, and theological method, however, it is evident that we have to do here with more than simply a reaction to the one-sided emphasis of dialectical theology, a reaction in its turn as one-sided on the other side of the issue. Much rather, Pannenberg has sought to do justice to the valid insights of those who have preceded him. Specifically, he acknowledges the valid insight of Troeltsch that Christianity cannot be arbitrarily isolated from the rest of man’s religious experience, but much rather can be understood only in relationship to the whole of the history of religions. However, with Barth and Bultmann, over against Troeltsch, he speaks of the priority of revelation in terms of which the respective religious experience of man is to be judged, rather than seeing religious experience as the expression of an innate potentiality within man. With Troeltsch, over against Barth and Bultmann, Pannenberg sees the necessity of relating the Christian faith to the whole of reality. But over against Troeltsch, © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 5   he does not interpret Christianity in subjection to the prevailing worldview of modern man, but rather interprets the whole of reality theologically, submitting his argumentation before the bar of human judgement, being convinced that a Christian interpretation of the whole of reality is more rational than any other. With Troeltsch and against Barth and Bultman, Pannenberg insists that the claim of a revelation in history must be historically perceptible by means of historicalcritical research. The central revelatory event, the resurrection, serves as the model for his understanding of the relation of historical reason and revelation. But against Troeltsch, he affirms the historical verifiability of such revelatory action. In short, Pannenberg pursues the historical method as advocated by Troeltsch but, rather than ending with the loss of a final and definite revelation of God in history, he proclaims with Barth and Bultmann the finality of Jesus Christ in the definitive self-revelation of God. How is this possible? The answer lies in the fact that precisely where Troeltsch, Barth, and Bultmann were one, Pannenberg parts from all three; that is at the point of the understanding of the nature of history and the principles by which the past is known. Troeltsch gave definitive statement to the understanding of nineteenth century historiography. Barth and Bultmann recognized that in those terms the final revelation of God could not be posited within history and, rather than subjecting the understanding of history to a thorough critique, they removed revelation from the competency of the historical-critical method (Barth) and from the arena of history itself (Bultmann). By a critique of Troeltsch’s understanding of history and the principles of historiography Pannenberg attempts to do justice to Troeltsch’s demand to pursue the historical method while leaving room for a definitive revelation of God in history which Barth and Bultmann in their respective manners recognized as essential to the Christian tradition. Thus, in a sense, by tracing the understanding of revelation, history, and theological method in these four thinkers, we come full circle but, through Pannenberg’s critique of Troeltsch, the whole perspective is turned around and, rather than understanding Jesus in terms of the modern worldview of reality, reality is understood from the perspective of Jesus, the end of history, who has appeared proleptically in the midst of history. II. The Universality of Systemic Theology The theology of Wolfhart Pannenberg is characterized by a tension which, in his view, is given with the task of systematic theology itself.5 Systematic theology always resides in a tension between the two poles of the subject matter with which it has to do. On the one hand, there is the Christian tradition itself for which it is responsible, specifically, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as witnessed to in the Scriptures. On the other hand, Systematic theology must be concerned with all truth in general as represented in its various facets by all nontheological disciplines. Systematic theology cannot, as is the case in other © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 6   disciplines, devote itself exclusively to the investigation of its special subject matter, for inherent in its task is a universality which impels it to take up the question of truth per se. This universality follows inevitably from the fact that theology purports to speak of God. “One uses the word God meaningfully only when one intends thereby the Power determining everything that is.”6 To speak thus of God as the author of all reality brings with it the intellectual obligation to relate all truth to the God of the Bible and then to understand it anew from him. Pannenberg acknowledges that the theological task thus conceived may appear presumptuous. Yet, to the extent that the theologian is conscious of what he is doing when he speaks of God, he has no alternative. Pannenberg acknowledges further that the task can never be consummated once for all. But if this responsibility appears as an almost unbearable burden, it likewise constitutes the peculiar dignity of theology, especially in an intellectual situation which is characterized by fragmentation as a result of the present high degree of specialization, for it falls to theology to seek truth in its unity. Such a conception of the task of systematic theology is by no means generally accepted. Particularly in the last hundred years theology has been conceived rather as an independent science alongside of the other sciences with its own special subject matter, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ witnessed to in the Scriptures. Pannenberg counters, however, that the revelation of God is only really conceived of as the revelation of God when it is understood in relation to all truth and knowledge and when all truth is integrated into it. Only thus is it possible to speak of the biblical revelation as the revelation of the God who is the creator and perfecter of all things. Since Harnack’s famous characterization of the apologist’s assimilation of the Greek philosophical quest for the true structure of the divine into the Christian tradition as the “hellenization” of the gospel, that endeavor has been generally judged in a negative light. Pannenberg, however, rejects that negative judgement. While he grants that the apologists were not, in fact, successful in carrying through the assimilation in all respects, he disputes the idea that their efforts resulted in a complete capitulation to the philosophical quest. But apart from the degree to which the early church fathers were successful or unsuccessful in what they undertook to do, the real issue, as far as Pannenberg is concerned, is the fact that they undertook the task of offering the Christian gospel as the answer to the Greek philosophical quest. This undertaking is generally recognized as having been inevitable in that the Hellenistic world into which the gospel came was dominated by the Greek philosophical conception of God. Thus, in spite of the disastrous mingling of the Christian message with Greek metaphysics, there was no alternative. But such a view, Pannenberg insists, misses the primary point, which is that the Christian message itself necessitated the encounter with the Greek philosophical quest. He contends: © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 7   The discussion with the philosophical question of the true form of the Divine was, indeed, occasioned by the encounter with the Hellenistic Thought-world, but it was also inwardly rooted in the biblical witness of God as the universal God, responsible not only for Israel, but for all people. In the claim of the God of Israel to be the God, alone having jurisdiction over all men, it was, therefore, theologically rooted that the Christian faith had to enter into the philosophical question of the true nature of God and until today must give an answer to it.7 The ancient church fathers as well as the authors of the great scholastic summas understood the universality of theology, the responsibility that rests upon him who would speak of God. That modern theology has not so conceived of its task can be traced to Albrecht Ritschl’s attempt to carve out for theology its own sphere, the sphere of religious experience, rejecting all metaphysical elements of the Christian tradition in the face of the critique rendered by Positivism. Liberal Protestantism passed this heritage along to Dialectical Theology which had reacted so strongly against it. Pannenberg observes that Barth’s struggle against every vestige of natural theology is really in many respects an extension and radicalization of Ritschl’s idea of an independent theology with its own special theme.8 If we would discover where theology lost its universality, however, we must go back much further. Evangelical theology has never had a universal character since it inherited the Scripture-positivism which has been its hallmark from the doctrine of Scripture formulated in the late Middle Ages in, for example, the School of Occam. It has been axiomatic in the Protestant tradition that the theological task consists in the exegesis of Scripture. Thus to find the root of the loss of universality we must go back into Scholasticism, specifically to the thirteenth century and Thomas’ careful demarcation of two spheres of knowledge, natural and supernatural. Pannenberg recognizes the exigencies under which this bifurcation took place. Aristotelian philosophy prevailed, being generally acknowledged as the embodiment of all “natural” thought. If one would hold to the truth of the Christian tradition, one could do so only by setting it alongside the summation of “natural” truth as unfolded in Aristotelianism. Aristotelian philosophy represented that truth which could be discovered by man’s natural faculties; the Christian faith represented that truth which could only be bestowed by revelation. Neither Aristotelian philosophy nor the Christian tradition was intended for this kind of reciprocal supplementation, according to Pannenberg, but he asserts: It would seem much rather to have been the expression of a compromise of theology with the intellectual power of Aristotelianism. In this compromise lie the historical roots of the last of the universality of theology.9 © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 8   For Thomas, who was responsible for the consummate expression of the naturalsupernatural division of the spheres of knowledge, the two spheres were carefully coordinated into a systematic whole. In the course of time, however, the structure fell apart rendering the sphere of natural knowledge independent of any reference to the truth of revelation, the consequence of which was increasingly to render “supernatural” knowledge superfluous for a knowledge of the world and to make of theology a positivistic science of Scripture. Such a state of affairs hardly accords with Paul’s struggle to “take every thought captive to obey Christ” (II Cor. 10:5) and, with the unparalleled explosion of knowledge in the modern period in the wake of the development of the scientific method, the division of spheres of knowledge formulated by Thomas has resulted in an almost unbridgeable gulf. The task of understanding the whole of reality in its unity from the perspective of its author, the God of creation, is formidable indeed, and yet unless it is undertaken, the universality of theology will never be realized and theology, as an independent science with its own special theme, the exegesis of Scripture, will fade increasingly into the background of man’s pursuit of truth. Concentration of its own special theme has about it a pious sound and it makes for a comfortable co-existence of theology with the other sciences. It can only signify, however, the utter failure of theology to carry out its peculiar intellectual responsibility which is to take in claim all truth as witness to the one true God as the author of reality and, in turn, to understand all truth anew from him. Where does one begin? How can such an overwhelming task be undertaken? It is Pannenberg’s conviction that the conception of theology as an independent science alongside others with its own special subject matter must be rejected and that its universal character must be recognized by its addressing itself to the second pole of its dual concern, namely, to the questions which concern man in his experience of reality in the present cultural situation. Only by seeking the truth per se can theology do justice to its special subject matter, the revelation of God in Jesus Christ as witnessed to in the Scriptures; for in that it purports to speak of God, it purports to speak of the Power determining all reality. Implicit in the responsibility of speaking of the Power determining all reality is the necessity of thoroughly grasping how modern man experiences reality, for only by speaking of the Power determining reality as it is presently experienced can theology speak convincingly. It is, therefore, incumbent upon theology to speak of God in terms of the present experience of reality. Thus the most general question which theology must answer is how one can speak of God in the present cultural situation. Only by determining this can theology once again undertake to exercise its universal function. III. Revelation As History Pannenberg’s unique contribution to contemporary theological discussion has had to do primarily not with the content of revelation so much as the mode of its occurrence. Stated theologically the question has been, How does God manifest himself to man? Stated anthropologically it is the question of how man perceives © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page 9   that self-revelation. The theological question has issued in the debate as to whether God reveals himself directly or immediately through his word, that is, through an act of speaking the content of which is God himself, whether he himself speaks, or another speaks in his name; or whether God reveals himself indirectly or mediately through his activity, his activity being conceived not in terms of a series of special acts next to other events explainable as “natural” as opposed to “supernatural” but rather his continuous dynamic relationship to the whole of reality as its Creator, transcendent Ground, and Destiny. In oversimplified terms, it is a question of whether God “speaks” to man directly, thus making known his essence to man, or whether God’s essence can be known only indirectly from what he does. Obviously, when stated thus “word” and “act” are placed in a falsely antithetical relationship and a biblical theology will rather understand them in a positive relationship with the priority given to word or act depending on the point of view of the biblical writer. Nonetheless, setting the question up in terms of the two poles, word and act, is helpful in identifying the problem. If we approach the problem from the anthropological side, that is, if we ask how the revelation of God is perceived by man, then we are asking whether God in his self-manifestation can be known by man through the exercise of his rational faculties or whether God can be known only through the means of some suprarational faculty however that may be understood. Essentially this is a question of whether God in his self-manifestation can be perceived by reason or whether he can only be perceived by faith. It should be underlined here that this is not a question of whether man by his own rational faculties can discover God or whether God must make himself known to man. If the question we are asking is misunderstood in this way—a not uncommon misunderstanding—the real issue will be missed. The point rather is: Granted that God can be known by man only through his self-disclosure, is that self-disclosure rationally perceptible or only supra-rationally perceptible. Again, it is not a question of whether the content of God's revelation is rational or supra-rational. It is possible to hold, as does Karl Barth, that the self-revelation of God is highly rational and yet deny that man through the exercise of his rational faculties can discover that revelation apart from an illuminating act of the Holy Spirit which can be described only as a miracle. For Barth, to be more accurate, revelation is never “there” to be perceived, but rather it “occurs” in the illuminating act of the Holy Spirit, although once it is given it is rationally comprehensible. From this it should be evident that of the two questions, or rather the two aspects of the one question concerning the revelation of God, the most basic question is not whether God reveals himself through word or event but whether man as a rational creature is able through the exercise of his rational faculties to comprehend the revelation of God. Whether that revelation takes the form of spoken word or historical event is to be determined subsequently. The primary © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page10   division of opinion will occur on the anthropological or epistemological question as to whether man as man can perceive the revelation of God. This point is illustrated by the fact that, for example, Bultmann and Cullmann represent two radically different positions in regard to the question of where God reveals himself, in word or event. However, in spite of their differences on the mode of revelation, they both agree in their own way that man comes into the possession of knowledge of God through an illuminating act of the Holy Spirit and not through the exercise of his reason over against the “proclaimed word” (Bultmann) or the “acts of God” (Cullmann). On this question Kerygmatic Theology and Heilsgeschichtliche Theology are in agreement. With regard to the first question as to how God reveals himself, whether through word or event or in combination of the two, we have an inter-theological debate. With regard to the second question, as to how man perceives the revelation of God, we are dealing with a matter that has wide-ranging implications for the whole sphere of human knowledge, depending on how we answer the question. If we answer it as do Barth, Bultmann, or Cullmann, to name only three representative figures, holding that man as man, by the exercise of his rational faculties can never achieve a knowledge of God apart from a supplementary illuminating act of the Holy Spirit, then, to employ Kantian terms, we remove theology as an independent science, into the realm of practical reason; or, in Ritschl's terms, we make theological statements as value-judgments; or, in Existentialist terms, we make theological truth equivalent to the truth of expression of the existing individual. If, on the contrary, we hold that although man by his own creative reason could never discover the knowledge of God, yet, given the fact that God has revealed himself and that man as man can achieve the knowledge of God so revealed, then we place theology squarely in the center of human knowledge wherein it will be obliged to demonstrate the revelation of God before the court of human judgment in terms of the generally accepted canons of rationality. For if the theologian is convinced that God is and that he has disclosed himself, and, further, that that revelation is available to rational reflection, he will not be content simply to affirm his conviction, nor will he be able to appeal to some sort of esoteric experience wherein his knowledge was ascertained, but he will find it incumbent upon himself to support the truth of his knowledge of God through rational argumentation. The case as stated here is intentionally stated in the sharpest possible contrasts in order most clearly to isolate the central problem we wish to discuss in our critique. It is our conviction that only in such a posing of the problem does the real significance and urgent importance of Pannenberg’s theology become evident. We have sketched in brief outline the crisis which developed in evangelical theology with the loss of the authority of Scripture. We have seen that that authority was undermined through the rise of historical thinking although, paradoxically, historical thinking itself and consequent secularism are in part fruits of the Christian tradition. Protestant theology over the last century and a half can best be understood as an attempt to come to terms with historical © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page11   thinking, but to the present no satisfactory solution has been found. We concentrated particularly on the attempt of Dialectical Theology as formulated respectively by Barth and Bultmann to disengage the revelation of God from the sphere of history thus removing theology from the lordship of historical thinking. More and more, however, it has become clear that the creation of a special sphere of theological truth inaccessible to the judgment of reason is selfdefeating, leaving theology in the position of affirming an existential truth (Bultmann) or a revelational truth (Barth) neither of which can claim generally binding power. Theological truth is reduced to private truth. We have attempted in our exposition of Barth and Bultmann not only to understand what they were saying, but why they were saying it. If we come to conclusions differing from theirs this is not because we have seen the problem more clearly than they saw it, but rather because we view it in a changed climate of opinion, changed at least in part through the genius of their labors. We are convinced that it is possible today in a climate of opinion radically different than that which prevailed in the opening decades of our century, to affirm the universality of theology. We are further convinced that in the systematic theology of Pannenberg we have the most adequate and most comprehensive attempt yet made to integrate the true insights of post-Enlightenment or modern thought into a theological understanding of reality. In the theology of Pannenberg we have the revolutionary truth of historical thinking, which is the hallmark of modern thought, incorporated into a conception of the Christian tradition which at the same time maintains the essence of the latter. We have seen both in our introductory discussion of the rise of historical thinking and in our exposition of Pannenberg’s theology that western thought shows widespread agreement on the fact that the whole of reality must be conceived as history, as dynamic process in contrast to the cosmological thinking of Greek philosophy which conceived Being as static. It was the greatness of Ernst Troeltsch that he recognized the fundamental revolution in human thinking which historical thinking occasioned. He was convinced that historical thinking was incommensurable with the Christian theological tradition because that tradition was formulated in terms of Greek metaphysical conceptually which had been undercut by post-Enlightenment thought. He was so certain that historical thinking was irreversible that he felt compelled to re-formulate the Christian faith in accommodation to it. In so doing he gave up the idea of a final, definitive revelation of God in the course of history, specifically in the history of Jesus. Troeltsch’s conception of the nature of history and his formulation of historiographical principles was so much the consummate expression of the prevaling intellectual climate that for a considerable period they were viewed as axiomatic. This was the climate of opinion when the young theologians who were to be grouped together as constituting the dialectical movement came on the scene. They were not prepared to challenge Troeltsch’s conception of the nature of history nor his formulation of the principle of the historical-critical method. Of one thing, however, they were certain: in such a view of history and © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page12   historiography there was no room for the definitive revelation of God in Jesus Christ. Therefore, being convinced that they must speak of God in his deity, his sovereignty, and his freedom in his revelation, they removed that revelation from the history whose nature Troeltsch described and from the access of the historical-critical method whose principles Troeltsch formulated. We noted above the self-defeating consequence of the removal of revelation from history. Theology pursued as an independent science becomes a matter of private truth. The widespread questioning, particularly of the position of Bultmann by his own eminent students, is an indication of the dissatisfaction felt with his handling of the problem of revelation and history, and, while Barth has indeed moved the occurrence of revelation back into the sphere of history, his existence, the subjectivity of truth, the openness and contingency of the historical process, reality itself as historical process—into a theological conception of history which finds in Jesus the definitive revelation of God, that we have contended that Pannenberg’s theology is the most adequate formulation of the truth of historical thinking and the Christian tradition yet attempted. His theological conception of history is not simply a rejection of and reaction against the prevailing dialectical theology as that theology had been over against the nineteenth century Protestant Liberalism and the historicism of Troeltsch. While Pannenberg rejects the authoritarianism and revelational positivism of dialectical theology, he nevertheless is concerned to preserve the essence of what that theology was saying, namely, that God in his sovereign freedom has disclosed himself in Jesus Christ. He recognizes the justification of dialectical theology’s reaction against Troeltsch’s historicism and he too is critical of Troeltsch. However he is equally aware that Troeltsch had a grasp of something which theology simply cannot bypass, the recognition of the revolutionary nature of historical thinking whose truth must be incorporated into the Christian tradition. In Pannenberg’s theological conception of history there is a meeting of the best insights of Troeltsch with the best insights of the theology of the Word, and the result is a significant advance, a breakthrough in theological understanding. IV. Dogmatic Theses Drawn From Pannenberg’s Thinking Thesis I: Utilizing the best insights of twentieth century historical science, Pannenberg has presented a valid critique of both Troeltsch’s understanding of the nature of history and his formulation of the principles of historiography thus creating the possibility of a theological conception of history and asserting once again theology’s universal function. It is characteristic of Pannenberg’s theology that he speaks of God in relation to the whole of reality. In so doing he seeks to integrate the best insights of the respective disciplines into a theonomous conception of reality. It is equally characteristic of his procedure, however, that he claims no privileged perspective as a Christian theologian when discussing, for instance, the anthropological structure of human existence or the nature of history. When discussing historical- © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page13   critical thinking he does not begin with some theological requirement to be forced on the historian, but rather listens to how the historians themselves understand their subject. How do they understand the nature of history? How do they conceive of the task of the historian? How do they justify the historiographical principles with which they carry out their investigation? His own critique of the science of history is then an immanent critique. Given an understanding of history as advocated by Collingwood, for example, principles of historiography as formulated under the impact of positivism must be modified. This is but one illustration of his method throughout. Only after he has determined what the leading thinkers in the various disciplines themselves have to say about the nature of their subject and their methodological principles does Pannenberg begin his theological reflection on that subject matter. He claims that if he is seriously to speak of God, which as a theologian he must do, then he cannot allow the historian’s truth to stand in isolation as simply the truth about history. Rather, if God is God then the historian’s truth which he has discovered by means of investigation and reflection must be relatable to the one unifying ground of truth, namely, God. What he does argue in this dialogue with the various disciplines of science is that, given their own self-understanding, the reality with which they have to do is more adequately explained on the presupposition of God than without him. To use history again as an example, Pannenberg cites several leading historians of the past and present to the effect that concrete historical research of a limited historical period always presupposes a wider context which ultimately presupposes some sort of universal-historical conception. But, he argues, such a conception of the total course of events is unavailable, as the historians too are vividly aware. Any universal-historical scheme which denies the contingency of events and the openness of the future contradicts our understanding of history. This was the fatal weakness of Hegel’s scheme, and since Hegel historians have eschewed every all-encompassing system. However, Pannnberg points out, the contemporary historian is in a dilemma: on the basis of his understanding of his work, universal history must be thought, but on the basis of his understanding of the nature of history such a conception cannot be thought. In other words, by means of this immanent critique of historical science Pannenberg points to an inner contradiction. Then, taking a cue from Collingwood, he asks what are the prerequisites for a model of history if its unity as well as its contingency must both find place? He concludes that such a conception is possible only if we conceive of a ground of history which is both the source of the contingency of its events as well the basis of its unity. Can such a ground be found within history itself? Pannenberg attempts to discover such, but concludes that there is no possible ground within history which can meet the requirements of the model. Therefore, he concludes, on the basis of the requirements of historical research and the nature of history, both as understood by the historian, a transcendent ground which bears the whole of reality as history must be presupposed. But, the objection may be raised, did not Hegel presuppose just such a ground, the Absolute, and did not his system fall in ruins before the recognition of the © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page14   openness of the future? Quite true, Pannenberg responds, and the objection to Hegel was completely justified. However, in rejecting Hegel’s grounding of the historical process on a transcendent Power, subsequent philosophy of history lost the only possibility of establishing the unity of history required for historical science. Hegel was not wrong in establishing history on a transcendent ground, but only in his conception of that Absolute coming to self-realization in his own philosophy. What is required is a transcendent ground, which not only establishes the unity of history but also is its future, its End. But how can such a Power be conceived, for the End has not yet arrived? We are back at the same point apparently. Now, however, Pannenberg offers a model which meets the requirements: the proleptic appearance of the End of history in the midst of history. If the End has already appeared, albeit provisionally, then the whole of history can be anticipated. Yet if the End has appeared proleptically, then obviously the process of history is still under way and the future is still open. Where did Pannenberg come up with such a model? Not out of the blue, of course. It is a model suggested by the eschatological character of the Christ-event. The model itself proves nothing. It can only be verified by determining if it explains the facts and, indeed, it must be subjected to a double test: is it an adequate explanation of the Christ-event and is it an adequate explanation of reality as history. In the case of the first test we are in the area of biblical theology; in the case of the second we are still dealing with history as the historian understands it. We limit ourselves here only to the latter case. The question is: does the model of history as process moving toward a still outstanding End within which, however, the End has already provisionally occurred meet the requirements of the historian’s conception both of his work and his subject matter? It would seem to meet these requirements. The next step would be to pursue concrete historical investigation in the framework of this model. Only then can it be determined if the model is, in fact, a true conception of reality as history. Here there are two criteria: positively, the model will be verified if it is able to effect the most adequate explanation of the data encountered in historical research; negatively, the model will be confirmed if known data remains unexplainable without the model. This verification process will be carried out by the historian using the best scientific techniques at his disposal. The phenomena presented to him are not perceived with any sort of “eye of faith,” nor must he operate with some sort of supernatural conception of God. In short, no special pleading is involved in his phenomenological research. Is this model the only possible model? Not necessarily. At least that cannot be presupposed. Anyone is free to propose a model as long as it fits the requirements of historical science’s own self-understanding. Should such a “competitive” model be presupposed, then it in turn must be judged on the basis of the criteria cited above. The conception of models can be various but they must all be subjected to the criterion of truth, that is, they must be tested as to their adequacy in © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page15   explaining available data and the impossibility of explaining data without them. In such a process of testing the model which corresponds to reality as presently comprehended will emerge. Only through such a procedure is it still possible to speak of truth. Further, should the model constructed in the light of the eschatological understanding of the Christ-event prove true, it would, at the same time, be a verification of the Christian conception of reality. The point we must make here is that Pannenberg has proposed a theological conception of reality not because, being a theologian, he automatically begins at this point. Whether he does or not is not the point. We may even grant that the model he constructs is suggested by his own orientation in the Christian tradition. This still does not detract from the general validity of his procedure. His theological perspective imposed on the historian neither his historiographical principles nor his conception of the nature of history. He allowed the historian himself to dictate the terms. Given those terms, he argued that those terms require some such model as he proposed. Still he makes no extrinsic demand on the historian. He simply asks him to test the model, working as a historian. Whether this model meets the criteria of truth or not is not in any sense dependent on a position of faith or theological position. The results are submitted to the bar of generally valid canons of rationality. But, someone objects, does this not subject the truth of the Christian faith to the judgment of human rationality? The answer is yes. There can be no sidestepping that test. There is no sheltered cove within which the Christian tradition can practice its faith. Either it is true and commends itself as such to human rationality or it must give up its claim to truth and be content to exercise itself as a private affair. This is not to say that man comprehends the depths of the mystery of the Deity or the secrets of the whole of reality. It does mean to affirm, however, that if God has revealed himself to man in the midst of history, then that revelation must be comprehensible to man. If God only makes himself known “vertically from above,” by miracle, through some supernatural illumination of the Holy Spirit, by means of some esoteric gnosis, why bother about a revelation in history. If revelation is punctilear, why the horizontal line or point on the plane of history? If revelation occurs only here and now, then why does it need a “dass” in history? As an anchor to guard it from myth? But why not myth? Because the Christian faith claims to be historical, not mythical? But why be concerned about the Christian faith unless it is true? And if it is true then revelation has occurred in history, so why all the strenuous efforts to deny that it is “there?” Bultmann admitted that he must come to terms with modern thought and so when he operates with a conception of history as defined by the positivist and then goes on to carve out a place for the Christian faith in the realm of existence we must admit that he is at least consistent. But what shall we say of Barth? He faults Bultmann for allowing modern thought to dominate. Barth rejects the idea. But what has he done? The very same thing! Barth’s whole amazing theological © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page16   endeavor can well be understood as an affirmation of the truth of the Christian faith in the face of positivistic thinking in which there was no room for it. But the paradox of the matter is that the very Achilles’ heel of his whole position is his contradictory statements about the historicity of revelation and the inaccessibility of that revelation to historical-critical research. The charge of revelational positivism is not unjustified. Is it not that he who denied the sovereignty of modern thought constructed his own theology as if positivistic historiography were indeed sovereign? Not exactly. Barth’s theology shatters all positivistic historiography as far as the whole of reality is concerned. But he left it intact as far as the historical process is concerned. He allowed Troeltsch the final word as far as historical science was concerned, thus conceiving the historical process as a self-contained entity set over against God. Historical science is competent to deal with the one-dimensional reality of history but theology speaks of the One who encounters the man who lives in that one-dimensional reality, and consequently historical science is not competent to deal with the intercourse of man and God. Pannenberg’s superiority must be recognized in two directions. Over against Troeltsch he says that the historical-critical method, to be sure, has an anthropocentric element inherent within it, but to that anthropocentric methodological element you have wedded an anthropocentric worldview, which not only is not intrinsic to the method but even hinders its effectiveness. Your anthropocentric worldview precludes any consideration of a transcendent reality and consequently contradicts the very requirements of historical research itself. Furthermore your conception of the principle of analogy which is a valuable tool for gaining knowledge is posited on the postulate of the universal similarity of all historical phenomena, thus again denying the insight of history itself that events are contingent and that history is the place of the arrival of the new, the unique, the unforeseen. The principle of analogy is not wrong but the application is. Rather than using it to determine the similarities of the respective phenomena, use it to delineate their differences, their uniqueness. Furthermore your principle of development denies the contingency of events and the genuine openness of the future. Your model of history as a self-contained, unfolding entity beyond which hovers the absolute, known only relatively within the course of development is an inadequate model in the light of historical science itself. At this point Pannenberg addresses Barth and argues that it is not Barth’s conception of history as encounter that is wrong but only his submission to positivistic historiography as being the legitimate conception of historical science. By his divorce of historical science from revelational history, Barth has introduced an unendurable contradiction into his theological enterprise. Such a contradiction has been responsible for the feeling as expressed by James Barr: “Though I still feel that it is Barth’s God whom I seek to worship, the intellectual framework of Barth’s theology has in my consciousness to a very great extent © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page17   collapsed in ruins.”10 Barth, Pannenberg would affirm, has begun to speak as a Christian before he has justified his speaking as a theologian, in fact, without recognizing the legitimacy of such a procedure, or even denying its possibility. Barth, in one sense, can be recognized as nothing if not bold. It is a question however if he was bold enough. In a world, a cultural situation, that is largely determined in its intellectual milieu by atheistic thinking, can the theologian speak seriously of God unless he has at least created the “room” for such talk by an immanent critique of atheistic thought itself? If the existence of God cannot be demonstrated, at least the acids of atheistic thought can be neutralized and a theological conception of reality can be demonstrated to be rationally as justifiable as an atheistic conception. Indeed, in Pannenberg’s thought we would even claim that the theological conception is shown to be more rational. However that may be, to think the matter through to its limits so that one is placed before the alternatives is no little gain. Human rationality reaches its limits but that is true not only for theological thought, but for atheistic as well. A rational choice is not necessarily a choice in which every piece of data is explained, every mystery disclosed. It is rather a choice in the face of all possible evidence. It is a choice made in the light of the widest possible understanding of reality. In this respect it can be maintained that the commitment of oneself to the God revealed in Jesus Christ is grounded upon a rational decision—a decision made in the light of all possible evidence. In this way theology stands in the middle of the sciences seeking to unify all truth through its relation to the God who is source, ground, and goal of truth. The universal function of theology is once again asserted and the world of fragmentary experience, specialized knowledge unrelated to the whole of reality, is brought into relation to him who is the Truth. The theologian claims no quarter. He demands no “eye of faith,” no special inspiration. He proposes his model, a model constructed out of the requirements of the respective sciences themselves. He then submits his model to impartial testing by the phenomena dealt with in the individual sciences. He brings the results before the bar of rational judgment. Should a competing and contradictory model prove more adequate, he has no recourse. But should his model pass the test, then he has demonstrated that a theological conception of reality is in fact rationally defensible. Is the risk too great? No, not if, when he speaks of God, he is speaking of the Creator of the whole of reality who will bring all things to consummation. Then the model will be verified. And if it is not? Then he must cease to be a theologian, for then there will be no theology. Is not the task too arduous? Certainly it is arduous, but have not the most profound thought and the most profound thinkers arisen out of the Christian tradition over the course of the centuries? The magnitude of the challenge is no deterrent. Much rather, if in the modern period the church has alienated the best minds, it is not because she demanded too much but too little. A call to serious © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page18   intellectual pursuit of truth will not offend but the lack of it certainly will— and has. Thesis II. Dogmatic theology must rethink the entire theological spectrum of truth from the perspective of historical thinking. Harnack’s criticism of the Hellenization of the gospel has a validity which can hardly be denied. Rather than judging this “translation” negatively as he did, we can understand today that the Greek metaphysical conceptuality was the most effective means at hand for expressing the central truth of the Christ-event, “God with us.” In the history of the transmission of traditions this was a necessary and effective new stage. It entailed nonetheless grave difficulties because an event actualized in a tradition that for centuries had been nurtured on the idea of the dynamic relationship of God and man in the historical process which was moving toward consummation had to be translated into meaningful terms for a culture that had been fully indoctrinated with the metaphysical categories of Plato and Aristotle and their successors. In such a setting, that which formed the culminating point of God’s self-disclosure in Jesus—his resurrection from the dead— there was formed an untranslatable conception which could only be announced, proclaimed, but scarcely comprehended. In such an environment the emphasis soon shifted to the coming of the Son of God, the idea of Incarnation. Such a conception did allow the message of God’s presence with man in Jesus to be expressed, but as the Christological controversy vividly demonstrates, it brought in its wake insoluble problems which plague us to the present.11 The church lived for centuries undisturbed by the irreconcilable contradictions of Chalcedon because Christian theology has been conceptualized by means of Greek metaphysical categories and thus the central idea of Incarnation communicated the Christian message. The crisis of theology today is not in the first instance a crisis of Christian belief but a crisis of Christian theological formulation which could not help but collapse when the Greek metaphysics in terms of which it was framed was undermined. This occurred through the rise of modern thought becoming particularly damaging to traditional theology through the rise of historical thinking which undercut the unquestioned authority of Scripture. The reaction of Christian theology to the crisis created by modern thought has often been defensive, evidencing an underlying insecurity. At other times it has sought so desperately to accommodate itself to modern thinking that it has given up its own central affirmation of God’s presence in Jesus, thus robbing the world of its one source of hope in the God of the future. These two extreme reactions can be found again and again over the past two centuries. On the one hand there has been a jealous guarding of traditional conceptuality: incarnation—true God—true man; three in one—coequal and co-eternal; inspired, infallible Scripture, etc., under the mistaken notion that God and his truth were cradled in the respective stammering human attempts to express it. On the other hand, there was an uncritical acceptance of modern thought, positivistically orientated, which from © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page19   the beginning practically shut out the possibility of a transcendent reality, let alone a God present in the causal nexus that defined reality. Where lies a solution? Is it not significant that western thinking, believing itself now to be free from the archaic metaphysical bondage of theology, has discovered reality as history? And furthermore it has been shown, for example, by Lowith that the conception of reality as history moving toward an End “is rooted in the Judaeo-Christian tradition. Is it not possible that we are in a position today to rethink such basic conceptions as the Trinity, the natures of Christ, and the Consummation and come to more fruitful results than has perhaps been the case in the long tradition of Christian thinking ? Thesis III. All Christological statements must be made from the perspective of the resurrection. Barth begins with the given of the Incarnation, Jesus, truly God and truly man. The question, how do you know this?, is simply out of place. If we know it we need not ask, and if we do not know it, it is futile to ask. The life of Jesus plays itself out between the twin miracles of the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection, both wholly the work of God, neither accessible to human judgment, examination or confirmation. From this everything follows. Prior to this there can be no discussion. Bultmann starts with the kerygma. In response to the proclamation you either say “yes” or “no” but you may not ask “Why should I?” or “Is it true?” Either question is already proof that revelation has not occurred. Even the Post-Bultmannians who feel uneasy with this approach are looking everywhere for a basis for the kerygma except in the one place that Bultmann and almost all New Testament scholars agree it is located, namely, in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Ebeling and Fuchs are retreading the paths of Herrmann, Bornkamm speaks of Jesus’ authority, Kasemann of his message, but none of them seriously considers the one place in which every kerygmatic utterance is rooted. It is here that Pannenberg makes a most significant contribution. He has dared to assert once again that you cannot ground New Testament Christology anywhere but where the New Testament itself grounds it. In so doing he has made progress possible in several areas where thought had reached an impasse. Perhaps the most crucial area is that of the natures of Christ. The long and bitter Christological struggles need not be recounted here. It is sufficient to say that Chalcedonian Christology is not a solution but represents an impasse, a compromise between conceptions which are logically irreconciliable. We understand the problem and we comprehend the intention, but what person would ever suggest that Chalcedon represents an intelligible and satisfying conclusion? © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page20   We would suggest that perhaps the problem lies in the inability of Greek conceptuality to express a phenomenon which was essentially historical. In the intellectual milieu of the Greek world the appearance of the Servant of God, the Messiah, was proclaimed in conceptuality which culminated in incarnational Christology and with incarnational Christology the whole problem of the divine and human presented itself but with no possibility of solution. We would ask, in terms of the Old Testament, in terms of the Messianic expectation, why must Jesus be God? In fact, is the Messiah as God really true to the Old Testament tradition? Chalcedonian Christology has such a long and impressive tradition that we often never question what biblical imperative there is for the divinity of the Messiah. The answer, of course, is not to reject Chalcedon, as does Bultmann because he is so determined by positivistic thinking that he cannot conceive of Jesus as anything more than a man, let alone his resurrection. If we must choose between Barth or Bultmann, we must choose Barth, for between the signs of the Virgin Birth and Resurrection God is present in history, but Barth can assert this only as an assertion and is utterly unable to say more about how we can understand incarnation. It is the incarnation as a starting point that is wrong. To start there is to be cut off immediately from all rational reflection. Revelational positivism is inevitable. Incarnation is a valid idea if it is recognized to be a step in the interpretive tradition leading from Jesus, an interpretation of an historical phenomenon that occurred in a Jewish apocalyptic setting rooted in the Old Testament tradition. Pannenberg has argued powerfully that Jesus must be understood in his own context and that in that context the resurrection “spoke.” One of his great contributions is his calling in question of the fact, meaning bifurcation. The fact in its historical context bears its own meaning. In the tradition expecting the final intervention of God at the End raising the dead, the resurrection of one who had been dead and buried meant the End had arrived. He has also quite rightly seen that resurrection did not carry that meaning in another context. Consequently translation was necessary. This brings us to the one point where we feel Pannenberg has not completely followed through on his own insights. He has recognized that an End-expectation and coming judgment are necessary presuppositions for a meaningful belief in resurrection and that consequently Paul stressed these matters to the Gentiles. He has further discussed how in our day resurrection can be meaningful as a more adequate conception of the immortality of the soul. The one thing he has been unable to do is to show how resurrection was translated meaningfully in the first century. The fact is that it was not. Is not Paul’s Athenian experience evidence of an indissolvable offense that adhered to the Christian message as heard by the Greek? Resurrection was the key and resurrection was untranslatable into the conceptuality of Greek metaphysics. © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page21   Is not this the reason that the focus shifted from resurrection to incarnation in terms of which God’s intervention into human history was powerfully expressed? God’s intervention, yes, but then the Messiah must have been God. Is not this why Jesus must be God? Thinking which utilizes Greek metaphysical conceptuality can only conceive of God’s presence in history in terms of incarnation. However, such was not the case with Hebrew thought. God would bring future deliverance through his Servant—David’s Son! God did not have to “enter” history for the Israelites. History was his domain—no self-contained, independent entity set over against him. In his holiness he ever dwelt in the midst of his people. Why the modern crisis of theology? Is it not rather the crisis of metaphysics? And why the crisis of metaphysics? Is it not occasioned by the rise of historical thinking? What is the answer then? It must be obvious. We ought to recognize incarnational Christology as no longer a meaningful interpretation of the historical self-disclosure of God in his servant Jesus, the Messiah. Paradoxically Greek metaphysical thinking in terms of which the Christian tradition has formulated its faith has fallen into disrepute making it possible once again to understand Jesus and his resurrection historically, as was the case for Peter and Paul. But this raises another question regarding Pannenberg. He has thought through the matter of natural law and has sought to show that the resurrection is not really a “break” in nature. Here we are uneasy. That in its context it had meaning we grant. But was it not also a “break” in historical continuity even for a Paul? To be sure, all historical phenomena are unique and history is the place of the new, it is irruptive. But still the resurrection cannot be leveled down to being an event next to others. Now if, as the apocalyptic tradition expected, with the resurrection of Jesus the End of history was in fact arrived at, then the historical process would have unfolded with no “break” in its continuity. Or if, as Bultmann holds, there was no resurrection, then the historical process still continues with no “break.” But if it happened, as Pannenberg claims it happened—and we think he is right—namely, that what Paul thought was the beginning of a fast-approaching End, was really—as we know 2000 years later— an isolated, proleptic occurrence of a still future End, then there has occurred in the midst of the historical continuum a radical, indissolvable “break,” an act of God which is unique, in a sense “more unique” than the uniqueness of historical phenomena in general. Pannenberg has acknowledged the problem of identifying the resurrection of one man with the expectation of the resurrection of all men. That is just the point. The expectation of the resurrection of all men was indeed the presupposition for finding meaning in Jesus’ resurrection. But, the resurrection of Jesus nevertheless shattered apocalyptic preconceptions also. It was to Jew and Greek alike an unforeseen, unforseeable self-disclosure of the God who remains free and sovereign even in his historical self-revelation. © Grand Valley State University �Theological Conception of Reality as History Richard A. Rhem Page22   Why has Barth been able to speak so powerfully the truth of the Christian faith to his generation? Because he said what the gospel wants to say: “God with us.” Why does such a powerful witness engender such sharp reaction? Is it not because while saying what the gospel wants to say, he has utilized a metaphysical conceptuality which no longer commands respect? We come back to our question why Jesus must be God. If God anointed his Servant, the Messiah, to proclaim his Kingdom and announce the new age and then raised him from the dead as a confirmation of that message and of his Servant, what does it add to the matter if Jesus were divine? If Jesus were God then resurrection is not quite so amazing. But if Jesus is my brother because a man like me and if God raised him from the dead, then something truly amazing has occurred. The New Age has dawned in the midst of the Old. Then while still struggling in the old aeon, I have a real basis for Hope. Then I live in anticipation. That is, I live by faith. If this is the case then I can understand the Apostle who wrote: On the human level he was born of David’s stock, but on the level of the Spirit—The Holy Spirit—he was declared Son of God by a mighty act in that he rose from the dead. . . Jesus Christ our Lord. (Rom. l: 3b-4, NEB). 1Karl Barth, The Humanity of God, Richmond, 1960, p. 19. 2Ernst Troeltsch, Die Bedeutung der Gescbichtlichkeit fesu fur dem Glauben, Tubingen,1911, p. 11. 3Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, I.2 Edinburgh, 1960, p. 284. 4Rudolph Bultmann, Kerygma and Myth, London, 1953, pp. 13ff. 5“Die Krise des Schriftprinzips,” Grundfragen Systematischer Theologie, Gottingen, 1967, p. 11. 6Ibid. 7“Die Aufnahme des philosophisches Gottesbegriffs,” Grundfragen .... pp. 308f. 8Ibid., 9”Die p. 297. Krise des Schriftprinzips,” Grundfragen …, p. 20. 10James Baar, Old and New in Interpretation, SCM, 1966, p. 12. 11Cf. H. Berkhof, The Doctrine of the Holy Spirit, Richmond, 1964, for his daring challenge to traditional Trinitarian conceptuality. © Grand Valley State University � Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Richard A. Rhem Collection Description An account of the resource Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar. Subject The topic of the resource Clergy--Michigan Reformed Church in America Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.) Religion Interfaith worship Sermons Sound Recordings Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Rhem, Richard A. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived <a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a> Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives. Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Kaufman Interfaith Institute Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Sound Text Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context KII-01 Coverage The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant 1981-2014 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource audio/mp3 text/pdf Text A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Identifier An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context RA-4-19721001 Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1972-10-01 Type The nature or genre of the resource Text Title A name given to the resource A Theological Conception of Reality as History - Some Aspects of the Thinking of Wolfhart Pannenberg Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available The Reformed Review; a journal of the seminaries of the Reformed Church in America Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Richard A. Rhem Rights Information about rights held in and over the resource <a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a> Language A language of the resource eng Description An account of the resource Article created, delivered, or published by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on October 1, 1972 entitled "A Theological Conception of Reality as History - Some Aspects of the Thinking of Wolfhart Pannenberg", it appeared in Reformed Review, pp. 178-188. Tags: History of Theology, Historical Thinking, Truth, Eschatology, Revelation. Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource application/pdf Eschatology Historical Thinking History of Theology Revelation Truth