Bultmann's demythologized kerygma

About this book

In the early years of Neo-orthodoxy's revolt against classic Liberalism, Karl Barth and Rudolf Bultmann were the chief exponents of an existential Christianity. Gradually, the former became disenchanted with any and all efforts to construct a theology in conjunction with any philosophy and since around 1930 has endeavored to purge theology of alien elements. Bultmann, however, has remained unwaveringly convinced that Christianity must be interpreted existentially and has devoted his entire academic career to the development of a program and a methodology of a truly existential Christianity. His program is popularly described by the phrase, "demythologization of the New Testament," and his methodology, aiming at a "positive" (existential) construction of the Christian faith, has been "borrowed" from the school of form criticism and the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Bultmann claims that his entire program is simply a consistent following through of the Reformation principle of sola fide. As Bornkamm correctly discerns: "Bultmann cannot accept any 'objective' revelatory realm of being that can be recognized, established, and understood in and by itself prior to its relation to faith." - p. 1.