332 - Bultmann

Bultmann
By David Fergusson
Collegeville, MN, The Liturgical Press, 1992. 175 pp. $12.95.

The towering work of Rudolf Bultmann increasingly belongs to the domain of historical theology and, as such, needs competent interpreters for both the present student generation and the wider, educated public. In this primer, David Fergusson, a professor of theology at Aberdeen, proves to be just such an interpreter, deftly dissecting the massive Bultmannian literary corpus so as to exhibit for beginners the prominent themes of faith, hermeneutics, New Testament theology, and demythologizing.

The lucid exposition of these themes is itself bracketed by a succinct account of Bultmann's liberal heritage and of his present fate at the hands of the critics. In Fergusson's view, Bultmann's continuing influence is not found in a surviving school bearing his name, but, rather, in the persisting provocations of his kerygmatic existentialism. These have prompted diverse reactions from process theism, post-liberalism, the new quest for the historical Jesus, and continental political theology.

Fergusson also introduces students to the historical context of Bultmann's thought (for example, the anti-Nazi subtext of the 1941 essay on demythologization), to the pertinent secondary literature (much of it in German), and to plausible objections to Bultmann's views, all ably done without getting sidetracked and without lapsing into partisan polemics.

333 - Bultmann

Nevertheless, one does discern a Barthian tilt when Fergusson takes Bultmann to task for his insufficient trinitarianism and when he repeats the old charge that Bultmann collapses theology into anthropology. In reply, the doctrine of the Trinity, if arguably a datum of dogmatics, is at best only an implication of a New Testament theology disciplined by scientific study. As for the alleged collapsing of the divine into the human, Bultmann actually argues for their soteriological correlation both in the event of Christ and in that of Christ proclaimed. While Fergusson's Bultmann is an excellent introduction, it stands within a Barthian tradition of Bultmann interpretation. Therefore, it best serves as a supplement, rather than as a substitute, for the reading of Bultmann himself.

James F. Kay
Princeton Theological Seminary
Princeton, NJ.