Bultmann and Moltmann

Jenson ( The knowledge of things hoped for : the sense of theological discourse , 174) summarizes his critique of Bultmann thusly: “For Bultmann, when Jesus’ history is to be told as about God, as eschatological occurrence, it is reduced to the ‘that.’ In the proclamation we meet the Christ who lives in the event of the proclamation; to do this we do not need to learn about the historical Jesus. This is the christological version of the claim that direct language of personal encounter, which occurs here in a meeting with Christ, is informative apart from any impersonal verifiability. This claim we have already rejected. In general, the whole problem of verifiability recurs in the discussion of hermeneutics as hte problem of the relation between the ‘Jesus of historical research’ and the ‘Christ of the proclamation.’”

By “impersonal verifiability,” Jenson means something like this: “Jones told me x.” “Who is Jones?” “Jones is married to the Smith girl, and works in the lab.” That sort of impersonal, third-person narration is essential if we are to make personal encounters publicly verifiable. For Jenson, of course, the narration in the case of Jesus is the story of His life. “Jesus lives in my heart.” “Who is this Jesus?” “He was born of Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate . . . .” We identify the Christ of the proclamation, in short, in the same way we identify persons in ordinary life - through story-telling.

Then this nifty critique of Moltmann, along similar lines (215-6):

“Moltmann always lets the kind of knowing which is knowing how things now are, appear only in a negative role. God, who reveals Himself in promise and commission does not, according to Moltmann, prove his deity ‘[over against the question man already has about God.’ Moltmann presses theological utterance against an exclusive alternative: “The truth of the promise . . . does not lie in an adaequatio rei et intellectus . . . rather in the specific inadaequatio intellectus et rei in which it places the hearer.’ Why must the second exclude the first? . . . Moltmann urges that historical research as a ‘positive’ science must simply be overcome. It is closed to the future in that it takes its own horizon for absolute.”

To which Jenson responds, “This is no doubt a possibility, and one we constantly realize. But it is not the only possibility of history concern as the search for adaequatio rei et intellectus. Research can also be openness to the future - indeed, it must be.”