Rudolph Bultmann and William Dilthey: Interaction Notes by Van Wyk

koot van wyk (DLitt et Phil; ThD)

Kyungpook National University

Sangju Campus

conjoint lecturer of Avondale College

25 August 2009

History and Hermeneutics and two persons are involved in this writing. Should one focus on the two themes history and hermeneutics or should one focus on the two persons? Or on all. The last option is probably the best.

Neither of these two men are standing in a vacuum by themselves. They were influenced by others before and during their times. Dilthey lived before Bultmann between 1833-1911. In a work by Bultmann in 1950 "The Problem of Hermeneutics" he appealed to Dilthey more than 12 times in less than 12 pages.

The hermeneutics of suspicion started earlier than Friedrich Schleiermacher but he helped formulating it. It is in contrast to our own approach to hermeneutics, which is the hermeneutics of affirmation. The hermeneutics of affirmation is asking readers of the text to stick with the rules and regulations of hermeneutics as they are formulated and supported by the Scripture itself and in the life and works of authors of the Bible and especially Jesus. The Holy Spirit also plays a significant role in interpretation which is denied by the hermeneutics of suspicion scholars, and Schleiermacher would be one. A Holy Spirit model that is focussing on feelings outside the biblical norm as norm for interpretation is no longer the Holy Spirit but eisegesis. Dilthey also drank, just like Bultmann at the cup of suspicion.

When one substitutes the Word of God for inner human feelings, the common sense approach, the human existence as norm, modern pop-culture, the inevitable result is suspicion of the Word of God and secondly, criticism of the traditional approach of hermeneutics of affirmation.

The socalled new approach is seen and was seen by Schleiermacher, Dilthey and Bultmann, each in its own centuries: Schleiermacher in the 18th, Dilthey in the 19th Enlightenment, exciting, fresh, new, modern, updated.

Schleiermacher said about the rules for hermeneutics that are normally discussed in detail by people like Louis Berkhof (Calvinistic tradition) and Gerhard Hasel (SDA), that even though you have all the historical and linguistic knowledge of the text, you can still not understand it. By itself the statement sounds correct, since the Holy Spirit is also needed to guide the understanding, but Schleiermacher fails to say it, and here he is wrong. The suspicion scholars hail Schleiermacher as a turning point in hermeneutics by throwing away hermeneutical rules (traditional ones of the hermeneutics of affirmation).

They further are very impressed by the views of Dilthey on the role of one's existence in the analysis of history or past events. Bultmann also was intrigued by this dimension in historical analysis and thus placed strong emphasis on this aspect (existentialism) of historiography.

We come back to the point that these two scholars had much to say about how you write history and also how you interpret or do hermeneutics.

In fact, existentialism, which they did not invent but was already operative before both of their formulations, influenced their description and definition of history and hermeneutics. Whoever is going to cite Dilthey or Bultmann and read them long enough, will end with a hermeneutics of suspicion, inevitably. The interesting part of the proper rules of hermeneutics that are outlined by Gerhard Hasel in various of his books, is that these human limitations mentioned by these scholars are not set aside by Seventh Day Adventists. Suspicion is a negative aspect of human existence that works with the unbeliever, since faith is needed to have proper eyes in reading the text. The Holy Spirit is needed to hold the presuppositions at bay and to lessen the role of existential self-imposition upon the description of the reader or onlooker. Hasel made it clear, many times in his books, that the blank mind is not possible to start interpretation. All of us come to the text with a baggage on our shoulders. For example, I can list a view items in the bag: our own personal history, own lifestyle, own values, own taste and dislikes, our own IQ and EQ deficiencies, our own upbringing and education, our own experience and common sense. All of it are tainted with sin and unless the Holy Spirit is assisting, we will be scew, not maybe so.

To continue on the theme of the role of Dilthey and Bultmann, one can say that the way it works is that the suspicion concepts developed and streamlined by earlier scholars like Schleiermacher on hermeneutics were wrapped around their definitions of history, ending in a greater role given to human existence as norm for interpretation and description than the role of God from the outside through revelation. Francis Schaeffer in his book, Escape from Reason has already outlined in simple terms these dialectical issues between Faith and Reason. 

Let us look at some examples and citations from Dilthey and Bultmann:

1. Dilthey wants to use aspects of the human as the glasses through which history and hermeneutics should be looked at.

The subject-matter of history lies not outside of man but inside man in his thinking, feeling, willingness.

"Understanding is a rediscovery of the I in the Thou . . . This identity of mind in the I, in the Thou, in every subject within a community, in every system of culture . . . and of world history, makes possible the joint result of the various operations performed in the human studies. The subject is here one with the object" (see W. Dilthey, Gesammelte Schriften [Stuttgart: Teubner, 1962], VII, 191 and translated into English by A. Hodges, Wilhelm Dilthey. An Introduction [London: Trench & Trubner, 1944], 114).

van wyk notes:

1.a. when one thinks of the Thou, it is not God for Dilthey, but pantheism, some outside data in the surroundings of the individual.

1.b. The object in his thinking is the person or human and the environment is filled with subjects and when the two are becoming one, then one has understanding.

1.c. In application it means that pop-culture for young Seventh Day Adventists in society is a subject of great attraction and then by beholding it long enough, the object or young person in the Seventh Day Adventist church becomes identified with the subject pop culture. The result is that they want to re-enact the subject in their worship style on sacred days to equalize the secular time with the sacred time.

1.d. Actually what we have here with Dilthey is the process as it happens in the unbeliever or in the secular believer since John and Paul said that we should not conform to this world or the principles of this world. In relevant terms for Seventh Day Adventism it implies that the youth should not be swept away by pop-culture idols and simulation or emulation, whether in fashion, whether in music, whether in lifestyle.

2. Dilthey felt that there is a common human affinity that links all humans of all ages and that not by introspection but by studying history, discovering this common human affinity, one can learn about oneself.

"Not through introspection but only through history do we come to know ourselves" (Dilthey 1962: VII, 279). At VII, 212 (in the English translation at 120) he said that "We understand individuals by virtue of their affinities with one another, the common factor which they share".

van wyk notes:

2.a. What we have here is the ingredients for ecumenism and pluralism.

2.b. There is an element of truth that all humans throughout history shared the same humanity or nature. Our technological advances cannot change our nature or humanity but only the speed with which we change from one event to another.

2.c. The modern man is alienated from others faster than in older times since the older times were group orientated. Individualism is in quantity of participants greater these days than before in other centuries. However, the sinful nature of man before and today are the same, the same passions, desires, likes, dislikes and that can be an ingredient to think of data of the past and put it into a understanding frame.

2.d. Again we have to correct Dilthey that it is only through revelation and salvation history that we come to understand ourselves. It is not enough to have a minimalist understanding of ourselves by focussing only on the horizontal, we need to focus also on the vertical, meaning not NASA objectives to the Moon or Mars but on the role of God and Revelation in human life.

3. Dilthey thought that "exegesis is a work of personal art conditioned by the mental make-up of the exegete; and so it rests on an affinity intensified by a thoroughgoing communion with the author" (Dilthey's words quoted by Rudolph Bultmann in his work Essays Philosophical and Theological [London: SCM, 1955], 238 and in the German at 215). I once heard William Dever saying the same thing about archaeology and its interpretation in the 1990's.

van wyk notes

3.a. Dilthey is correct that the epistemology of the exegete does matter. Hendrik Stoker, the South African Calvinist Christian Philosopher went a few steps ahead of Dilthey: one's ontology [the way you live] affects your epistemology [the way you thinks] and it in turn determines or affects one's methodology and finally that affects the end-product or deontology.

3.b. When one throws away all norms and work with humanism, common sense, rationalistic systems and Enlightenment sentiments, then the endresult is nihilistic and then it does not matter which way the end-product will appear. Why? There is nothing to test it on. In this way, it is a work of art that is determined by the artists likes and dislikes. There is no outside norm towards which thinking is aligned or towards which description is conforming.

3.c. The so-called freedom of the science to come up with anything [that is why it is an art] is actually a bondage to humanism and shrinking the human into horizontalism. Why? Verticalism and the whole universe is cut out of this phenomenon. All thinking is from below up instead of from on high down (see Francis Schaeffer in his book Escape from Reason).

4. Rudolph Bultmann liked these ideas of Dilthey so much that he said similarly that the more subjective or human you are, the more objective you are. The "more subjective interpretation is . . . the 'most objective', that is, only those who are stirred by the question of their own existence can hear the claim which the text makes" (Bultmann 1955: 256 and in the German at 230).

5. Bultmann felt that any investigation is navigated by the question the interpreter is asking and that question is a prior understanding or pre-understanding. Without this pre-understanding interpretation is not possible according to Bultmann. Again, like Dilthey, it is the interpreter or human interpreting that is the navigator in interpretation (Bultmann 1955: 239).

6. Like Dilthey, Bultmann also insists that the personal life of the interpreter becomes a kind of link with the author of the text in the past and conflating their lives proper interpretation can take place. In fact there is no other way for them. This is the only way for interpretation. The modern interpreter determines what need to be read in the author of the ancient text, not the author of the ancient text or the text itself.

van wyk notes

6.a. It is true that unfaithful interpreters will color their reading of an ancient text to mirror their own lives or minds. The task of the Holy Spirit for the faithful is to remove these barriers as far as possible to arrive at more objective understanding dertermined from the text rather than from the human [his reason, common sense, life experience, personal history, pathology, likes and dislikes, passion, hangups].

6.b. Gerhard Hasel that is a great supporter of Fundamentalism and Biblicism, did not deny that presupposition plays a part in interpretation. But, he pointed out that the task and role of the Holy Spirit is essential for interpretation, a role and function in the process of interpretation that is denied or avoided by Bultmann, Dilthey and others. A few times he said that we all come to the text not with an empty head but with a baggage of presuppositions. In the Seventh Day Adventist church exegesis as a whole, for example in their Symposium on Hermeneutics, they have outlined this same role of pre-understanding and interpretation.

6.c. Whereas Bultmann and Dilthey want to make it the essence of interpretation, the SDA position is that pre-understanding is a barrier, that is to be rectified, modified or aligned to the Scripture itself with the help of the Holy Spirit.

6.d. Subjective hermeneutics is for Adventism, contrary to Dilthey and Bultmann, not a goal but a handicap. It is a pathology in the process of hermeneutics, not a source of strength. It cannot be the navigator, setting the agenda of what is to be discussed, what is to be collected, how it is to be synthezised. The Holy Spirit is in Adventism the guide that navigates the subjectivity of the reader to conform to the holistic reading of the Bible, to respect the ancient text, to avoid superimposing modern idiosyncracies on the ancient text.

7. Bultmann insists that selfunderstanding is vital to do interpretation or to understand the past and history. "It is valid in the investigation of the text to allow oneself to be examined by the text and to hear the claim it makes" (Bultmann 1955: 254 and in the German at 228). "The demand that the interpreter must silence his subjectivity and extinguish his individuality, in order to attain to an objective knowledge, is therefore the most absurd one that can be imagined" (Bultmann 1955: 255).

van wyk notes

7.a. Bultmann's view is diametrically opposed to Adventism.

7.b. Moses was told to take of his shoes when he appeared at the burning bush and the Word of God needs special gloves to be handled, definitely not dirty hands.

8. Bultmann regarded the Bible the same as any other literature and therefore the problem of hermeneutics in other literature is no different than in the Bible. The role of pre-understanding in interpretation is inescapable. "There cannot be any such thing as presuppositionless exegesis. Every exegete is determined by his own individuality" (R. Bultmann, Existence and Faith [London: Collins, 1964], 344-345). He said that it does not mean necessarily that the perspective is a prejudice but it must be a way to raise questions (Bultmann 1964: 346 and in the German page 146).

van wyk notes

8.a. Gerhard Hasel also pointed out that the Bible must be interpreted just like one interprets other literature of the Umwelt but he said that with a reference that the historical data of the Bible should be respected in the similar passion and intensity with what historians and scientists respects Umwelt literature. You can't be negative about the Bible and positive about Umwelt literature. 

8.b. The inescapable situation of the role of pre-understanding is a central point in Seventh Day Adventist scholars view of hermeneutics. Bultmann is not single on this point.

8.c. Bultmann does not encourage prejudice but one must raise questions. Raising questions in and during interpretation is older than Schleiermacher and it is called the Hermeneutics of Suspicion. Bultmann is a contender for suspicion. Here he is riding an old horse and it is contrary to the Hermeneutics of Affirmation.

8.d. Karl Barth rejects Bultmann's view since it means that biblical truth is reduced to "propositions about the inner life of man" (Bultmann 1955: 259-260). Seventh Day Adventists have a similar criticism of the paradigm of Bultmann. Barth rejected Bultmann not because of the role of pre-understanding (SDA's will also not reject him because of this) but because Bultmann wants to use anthropology to do exegesis and it is in stark contrast with objectifying talk of God.

8.e. In his book The Two Horizons by Anthony C. Thiselton (1980), 239, he tries to have a maximalist view of existence and selfunderstanding that will make Bultmann saying more than just an anthropological approach to hermeneutics. However, Bultmann's nihilism, rejection of the supernatural, miracles, virgin birth etc. makes it impossible to see him with a maximalist meaning in the use of the term existence and selfunderstanding. 

9. It has been said that the difference between Barth and Bultmann is that Barth is theocentric but that Bultmann is anthropocentric. Prof. Lombard of Unisa said this as early as 1976 at Helderberg College in a lecture on Barth. Even though scholars always try to break free from typifications like this, it may be safely said that it holds for the greater part of the work of Barth and Bultmann as true.

10. It is also said of Barth and Bultmann that they tried to answer Liberalism and Modernism by two different methods: Barth with focussing on God as center and Scripture as opposed to Bultmann focussing on man as the center of interpretation. The Hermeneutics of Suspicion is served by Bultmann and the Hermeneutics of Affirmation is given a better chance with Barth. However, both of them are seen as liberal. Probably scholars mean that he is suspicious because he [Bultmann] always wants to raise questions and probably Barth is liberal, because he is new in his ideas. The chances that the theology of Bultmann will lead to nihilism and rejection of religion is 100% and the chances that the theology of Barth will lead to nihilism or rejection of religion is lower than 5%.

Conclusion

Whereas Karl Barth is reacting against liberalism of Modernism with a Theocentric Theology, Rudolph Bultmann, knowing very well what Barth said, insisted that it must be an Anthropocentric Theology. And so we come to our own day with the movement from Modernism to Post-Modernism. Barth looked up and Bultmann looked down. Barth saw the norm above and in Scripture and Bultmann and Dilthey saw it in man himself.

Whereas Dilthey and Bultmann saw man and his cultural environment as the building stones for sense in understanding, Barth insisted that Scripture and Revelation must provide that data.

Whereas young SDAs today are saying that they do not care about liberalism or conservatism dialects or normative or anormative discussions [the post-modern stance], the future SDA member has to maintain the stance set by Barth, that Scripture and Revelation as embodied in it and God is the cornerstone of hermeneutics. Popculture from the environment and the centrality of the human as attraction in worship [fashion, hairstyle, clothes, accessories, talking style, beauty, attractiveness, rhythm, music, sound, movement, idol simulation] cannot be the norm for worship or theology. Anthropocentrism or culturecentrism or popculture is subjective. What is needed is an objective norm that change the human and not prop up his alienation with his parents and generation gap with his grandparents, or exclude all his younger sisters and brothers, even babies. Theocentrism and the Bible is the norm needed to correct this derailment of the worship train.

Dear God

Help me to daily seek your presence in my life through the Bible and not TV music concerts, listening and reading your Word for understanding and not MP3 to update on popidols. In the final run of events, take lead in moments when I am feeble to decide. Amen.