What we can learn from Barth and Bultmann on the authority of Scripture

Early in his career, Neo-Orthodox theologian Karl Barth became a pastor of a small town in Switzerland. During his ten years as a pastor, he realized that the liberal theology with which he had come to associate himself became worthless:

  An entire world of theological exegesis, ethics, dogmatics, and preaching, which up to that point I had accepted as basically credible, was thereby shaken to the foundations, and with it everything which flowed at the time from the pens of German theologians.(1)

 His liberal theology could not contribute to his pastoral work. However, he discovered the glorious inspiration and power that lies in Scripture and he found that it was what he needed.(2)
Barth saw the Bible as a fallible witness characterized by humanness. However, he treated it like it was the inerrant Word of God. Because, even if it is a mere witness susceptible to error, he did recognize that it is the source of knowledge about God's activity and Jesus Christ. He also believed that it becomes the divinely inspired Word of God when God uses it to communicate Himself to the reader.(3)
Furthermore, Barth was not interested in finding the historical details of Scripture and he rejected trying to prove God's existence. To him, "The Bible is. Revelation happens. . . . [The Bible's] inspiration lies in God's use of it as a special instrument and witness."(4) Thus, the Bible's real divine significance lies in the subjective experience of God's self-communication to the reader. (This is similar to how John Calvin viewed Scripture. He believed that the "Word of God is a dynamic experience that occurs when Spirit and Scripture interact."(5))
At the end of his career, Barth was asked to summarize briefly his entire life's work. "In the words of a song my mother taught me when I was a child," he said, "'Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so.'"(6)

Another theologian to reject the infallibility of the Bible was Rudolf Bultmann. He believed that the Bible is full of myths. Not myths as we think of them but rather "the ways in which a culture symbolizes and objectivizes its entire world view."(7) Bultmann's conception of myths does not "deny the possibility of a knowledge of truth that is genuine and permanently valid. Rather, mythical utterance in this sense would always be essentially involved in this sort of knowledge, being simply another way of expressing the analogical character of such knowledge."(8) In Scripture, they are symbolic, dramatic images contributing to its message.
With this, Bultmann believed that "theological exegesis can not operate from a detached neutral viewpoint,"(9) but rather, the Bible should be "interpreted in terms of what God says about human existence through the mythological accounts."(10) This hermeneutic is called "demythologization." It is the process “of interpreting the NT in existential terms, that is, of laying bare its kerygma in such a way that it shall immediately strike home to the man of today.”(11) To Bultmann, the Bible's kerygma captures the individual. Again, the focus is a subjective experience of the Bible's message.

What can we learn from this?

We Christians can get so caught up in apologetics that we lose sight of the real power of Scripture. Especially since we are in the third quest for the historical Jesus, the Bible has become something we feel we have to defend.

That being said, we cannot throw the history of the Bible out the window and lean only on a subjective, reader-response method of interpretation. Studying the historical context of the Bible is very important (I am indeed a biblical studies student). But studying the historical context of the Bible only enhances the power of its message. It clarifies what the writers meant, and that clarifies the message, and the message is what is important.

I am not a biblical studies student because I want to prove that the Bible is legitimate; I am a biblical studies student because I want to grow in an understanding of God and his message to humanity.
There are many things we cannot know about the Bible. Biblical scholars for many years have revealed this. But that's okay. We don't need to know. It is not the importance of knowing that the Bible teaches, it teaches the importance of faith. And faith, Abraham Joshua Heschel says, "is derived from our perceptiveness to the word that has gone out to all of us."(12) Faith can be got from the Bible: "It is the Bible that enables us to know the Bible."(13)

"There are no proofs," says Heschel, "Proofs cannot open the gates of mystery for all men to behold. The only thing we can do is open the gates for our own soul for God to behold us."(14) God's presence is in the Bible, but we "cannot sense His presence in the Bible except by being responsive to it."(15)
Instead of defending the integrity of the Bible, try just saying "read it." As Bultmann believed, inside the Bible lies a power that can capture the soul. As Barth believed, the Bible does have difficulties (and anyone in biblical studies knows this), but the essence of the Bible is not in its authenticity as a book full of objective, universal truth claims that explain life, but rather in its authenticity as the source of God's Word. God's Word doesn't need proofs. "Must the sun be labeled with a mark of identification in order to be acknowledged?"(16) The Bible is God-breathed and inspired in that, when one opens his heart and reads it, he is captured by the miraculous power of God's message.

Notes:
(1) Karl Barth, "Concluding Unscientific Postscript on Schleiermacher" in The Theology of Schleiermacher (Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1982), 262.
(2) See John Webster, "Introducing Barth," in The Cambridge Companion to Karl Barth (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 1-16 (particularly the section "Barth's life," 2-9). 
(3) See Roger E. Olson, "The Founder of Neo-Orthodoxy: Karl Barth," in The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 577-586.
(4) Ibid., 583. 
(5) Anthony B. Robinson, & Robert W. Wall, Called to be Church (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans, 2006), 68.
(6) Olson, 579. 
(7) Robert A. Oden, Jr., "Myth and Mythology," in Vol. 4 of The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 947.
(8) Karl Rahner, and Herbert Vorgrimler, "Myth," in Theological Dictionary, ed. Cornelius Ernst, trans. Richard Strachan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 303.
(9) T. J. Ryan, "Bultmann, Rudolf Karl," in Vol. 2 of New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd ed., ed. Berard L. Marthaler (Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003), 690. 
(10) P. J. Cahill, and J. Ryan, "Demythologizing," in Vol. 4 of New Catholic Encyclopedia, 2nd. ed., ed. Berard L. Marthaler (Farmington Hills: Gale, 2003), 657.
(11) Karl Rahner, and Herbert Vorgrimler, "Demythologization," in Theological Dictionary, ed. Cornelius Ernst, trans. Richard Strachan (New York: Herder and Herder, 1965), 121.
(12) Abraham Joshua Heschel, God in Search of Man (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1983), 255.
(13) Ibid., 253. 
(14) Ibid., 233.
(15) Ibid., 252.
(16) Ibid., 222.

What makes a heretic? Part 2: John Piper and John Sanders

In open theism, describes John Sanders, 

  God has flexible strategies. Though the divine nature does not change, God reacts to contingencies, even adjusting his plans, if necessary, to take into account the decisions of his free creatures. God is endlessly resourceful and wise in working towards the fulfillment of his ultimate goals. Sometimes God unilaterally decides how to accomplish these goals but he usually elicits human cooperation such that it is both God and humanity who decide what the future shall be. God's plan is not a detailed script or blueprint, but a broad intention that allows for a variety of options regarding precisely how his goals may be reached.(1)

Also, 

  the omniscient God knows all that is logically possible to know. I call this "dynamic omniscience" in that God knows the past and present with exhaustive definite knowledge and knows the future as partly definite (closed) and party indefinite (open). God's knowledge of the future contains knowledge of what God has decided to bring about unilaterally (that which is definite), knowledge of possibilities (that which is indefinite) and those events that are determined to occur (e. g. an asteroid hitting a planet). Hence, the future is partly open or indefinite and partly closed or definite. God is not caught off-guard since he has foresight, anticipating what we will do. Also, it is not the case that just anything may happen, for God has acted in history to bring about events in order to achieve his unchanging purpose. Graciously, however, God invites us to collaborate with him to bring the open part of the future into being.(2)

In a chapter against open theism, John Piper--a very popular and respected Calvinist who was highly inspired by Jonathan Edwards--refers to a story of a young woman whose husband abandoned her. Why would God let me marry him if He knew he would abandon me? she wondered. In order to comfort her and help her keep her faith, her open theist pastor explained to her that God did not know that that was going to happen. 

Piper uses his own story as a response to that.

A woman from his own congregation heard the first story and wrote him a letter responding to it. She said that worse had happened to her with her husband and she was comforted by the fact that God did know what was going to happen and that "God intends this whole thing for my good. It's not just that everything will turn out all right in the end; it's that right now he is working his purpose out in my life, to move me to the next degree of glory."

For this reason, among many others, Piper concludes that open theism is "theologically ruinous, dishonoring to God, belittling to Christ, and pastorally hurtful."(3)

Most evangelicals agree with Piper on this. In 2004, John Sanders lost his tenure and was booted out of  Huntington College because he is an open theist and, worse, a popular one.(4)
This was after being kicked out of the Evangelical Theology Society a year earlier for the same reason.(5)

Does anyone know of a Calvinist that was fired from a University or kicked out of the ETS for being a Calvinist? I sure don't.
Why?

Back to Piper's story.
I suppose it would be better to tell the lady, "Not only did God know about the fact that your husband would abandon you, he caused him to"..........

Somehow, it is better to say that God causes evil than to say that God doesn't know the entirety of the definite future.
Why is that the case?
Why is it that saying the future is partly indefinite to God's knowledge is synonymous with denying Christianity?
And why is it not the same for believing that God is the cause of evil? 
Why isn't Calvinism considered "theologically ruinous, dishonoring to God, belittling to Christ, and pastorally hurtful"? (It definitely is to me)

I would like to add that Sanders wouldn't deny that God is "working his purpose out" in the lady's life. He would say that God adapted to what her husband did and altered his glorious plans for her accordingly.


Notes:
(1) Sanders, John. "An Introduction to Open Theism." Reformed Review (Online) 60, no. 2 (March 1, 2007), 35.
(2) Ibid., 35-36.
(3) See John Piper, "Grounds for Dismay: The Error and Injury of Open Theism," in Beyond the Bounds: Open Theism and the Undermining of Biblical Christianity, eds. John Piper, Justin Taylor, and Paul Kjoss Helseth (Wheaton: Crossway Books, 2003), 371-384.
(4) Stan Guthrie, "Open or Closed Case?" Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2004/decemberweb-only/12-20-32.0.html
(5) Ted Olsen, "ETS Leadership Issues Recommendations on Kicking Out Open Theists." Christianity Today: http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2003/octoberweb-only/10-27-41.0.html

What makes a heretic?: Jonathan Edwards and Rob Bell

The works of Jonathan Edwards were reprinted in the 1970s-80s. This reprinting had a huge impact on Christian thinking.
Edwards believed that God is literally the direct cause of every single thing in the universe, and God causes all of it for his glory. And to deny that this is true, for Edwards, means to deny God altogether.(1)
God's causation of all things includes evil. God causes man to do evil. All the rapes, murders, genocides--everything evil under the sun was caused by God through man for His glory.

So, in this view, not only did God only choose to save some and not others, but he is also the direct cause of the evil that the reprobate commit. On top of that, God causes them to be punished for those sins forever and ever. God causes men to sin and then punishes them for the sin that he caused them to commit.

And somehow this is, on a general level, okay with Christians.
In fact, Edwards is considered "one of the most important theologians of American evangelicalism."(2)

Rob Bell, on the other hand, merely suggests that maybe people can come out of hell in the next life.

First, I need to make it clear that nowhere does Bell ever say that hell does not exist:

"Do I believe in a literal hell?
Of course.
Those aren't metaphorical missing arms and legs."(3)

Bell merely suggests that hell could be "'a period of pruning' or 'a time of trimming,' or an intense experience of correction."(4) 

He alludes to the idea that hell could be a refining fire, burning the sin and corruption off of the sinner so that he can die "the kind of death that actually brings life."(5) 

That's it. He doesn't take any of the horror out of hell; just the forever and ever.
When Christians hear this, they freak out.
They call him a heretic. They say he simply cannot be considered a Christian. They suggest that he is "New Age."(6)

This is not a defense of Rob Bell's Love Wins.(7) Rather, I am proposing a question.


The question is this: 

What is it about Christianity today that is okay with the idea that God directly causes all of the evil in this world, that he causes humanity to sin and then dooms them to torment in hell where they will be tortured every day, 7 days a week, 12 months a year, 100 years a century, century upon century--and he is glorified by all of it; yet, Christianity today will immediately, ruthlessly reject--with passion--the idea that hell is a refining fire that purifies the sinner of his corruption and evil?

What is it about Christianity that is okay with God being the cause of the evil and torment of billions of people, but is totally not okay with God bringing people out of hell? 

I would like to add that George MacDonald, who inspired C. S. Lewis and is a highly respected Christian theologian, believed the exact same thing.
Also, Origen, one of the church fathers, believed not just that God would reconcile the inhabitants of hell back to him, but that eventually God would reconcile even the devil and his demons back to heaven.   
 

Notes:
(1) See Roger Olson, The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition & Reform (Downers Groves: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 506-507.
(2) Ibid., 509.
(3) Rob Bell, "Hell," in Love Wins (New York: HarperCollins, 2011), 71.
(4) Ibid., 91.
(5) Ibid., 77.
(6) This statement is absolutely false. The New Age movement is very out-of-the-box magic stuff light-years away from Christianity. It has to do with Shamanism and a lot of weird crap. People tend to associate New Age with anything that reinterprets Scripture. This is absolute ignorance and just shows that they don't know what they are talking about.
(6) I do not actually agree with Bell. However, I do think it is good that he is raising the questions (whether or not they were raised in the right manner is the question). And I do think his view holds water and is a possibility. I don't think there is anything wrong in his believing it, but I personally do not.