BULTMANN: PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY

click link:  http://www.mediafire.com/listen/0ytpmri03jyrh5u/bultpm.mp3

A TRUE PHENOMENOLOGY OF CHRISTIANITY FROM 1953:
Bultmann; much in the same manner as Levinas (but well ahead of his time), tells us that the self is confronted by both: a historical situation and text of existential importance. For Levinas, the text was the Torah and Talmud. For Bultmann, the text is exclusively the New Testament, and especially the gospel narratives (with a preference for John).
And both Levinas and Bultmann addressed the problem of a “kerygma-of-saying” that was enclosed in an “enclosure-of-said”. Bultmann calls this the “enclosure-of-myth”. Now; Bultmann precedes Levinas by about 8 years, so we should recognize just how ground-breaking Bultmann’s offering was and still remains today.

The “myth-of-the-said” that tries to enclose kerygma is composed primarily of Jewish apocalyptic and Greek Gnosticism. We need to extract the kerygma from this inauthentic enclosure and acquire the existential significance of New Testament narrative in its originary proclamation-state. Our task therefore includes this extraction coupled with the ongoing development of the self’s “self-understanding”.

The “psyche” makes its contribution by passing through the triad of: anxiety – faith – and eschatological-existence. The tension of “security vs anxiety” interrogates the self to open itself to the intangible love of god and openness to the future. This eschatological stance must be repeated again and again for every new situation; a continual negation of “egoism”.

The transition to the notion of the “true” passes through the relational-threshold of the “act-of-god”. For Bultmann, this means working through a triad: first; we internally posit the idea of “self-as-other”, where the love-of-god creates a self-acceptance equal to a self that is “other” than it already “is”; “self” becomes “eschatological-self”. Second; we pass through “dialogue with others where the “gnosis of revelation” is unveiled in the encounter with other selves that are also perceived eschatologically. And thirdly; the content of “kerygma” is articulated, as that within the Christ-event that is hidden under the mythical narrative. This means articulating the cross and resurrection as kerygma.

This threshold moment marks the self’s transition to cognition and the conceptual articulation of the cross and resurrection into an intelligible posited “word-of-reconciliation”. Essentially we are to posit the “saving-efficacy” of the cross as “intelligible” and available for proclamation and differentiation in actuality. For Bultmann, the cross is really all of the content we need. Resurrection simply stands for “faith” in the saving-efficacy of the cross. “Physical resurrection narratives” are later additions to the primitive text according to Bultmann.

“Praxis” means taking up the triad of: 1. taking up the stance of “being-for-another”; plus 2. Uniting that stance with the impelling “question-about-god” to form 3. A realized objectivity of the dialectical involvement of the kerygma in actuality. It will include using the existing lexical content of one’s tradition and its specific philosophy; but critiquing that philosophy with the “right” of an eschatological understanding of human existence.

What we can all learn here is how; after 61 years; a manuscript like this can take on new meaning in light of further offerings by post-moderns like Levinas and Derrida. 5 stars; and truly a transformative document.