I already posted a quotation today, but it is Rudolf Bultmann’s 125th birthday (for a couple more hours), so here’s one from his “Science and Existence,” in New Testament & Mythology and Other Basic Writings (translated by Schubert Ogden):
God’s revelation is revelation only in actu and is never a matter of God’s having already been revealed. Those who believe God’s word have certitudo in the existential act of faith, but they have no securitas. For God is not to be held fast in faith in the sense that believers can look back on their faith as a decision made once and for all. God always remains beyond what has once been grasped, which means that the decision of faith is genuine only as actualized ever anew… as the one who demands my decision ever anew, God ever stands before me as one who is coming, and this constant futurity of God is God’s transcendence. (pg. 144)
i love this. good stuff, ken.
By: carmen on August 21, 2009
at 9:57 am