Jesus Remembered: Christianity in the Making, vol. 1

FAITH AND THE HISTORICAL JESUS §5.2
against an understanding of faith primarily in terms of uniform dogma, is to be
welcomed; Herrmann's focus on the experience of faith was influential on both
Barth and Bultmann, and his emphasis on the faith of Jesus anticipated the later
interest in the subject in the second half of the twentieth century. But the will-o'the-wisp
of Jesus' 'inner life' was hardly a secure area of retreat from the threats
of historical method. 20
More effective and of more lasting influence was the contribution of
Kähler. He took the challenge of historical criticism more seriously, and instead
of ducking the challenge he accepted it in full. 'We do not possess any sources
for a "Life of Jesus" which a historian can accept as reliable and adequate'. Historical
scholarship leaves us with 'mere probabilities'. The sources contain nothing
capable of sustaining a biography of Jesus. 21 Despite Lessing, the effective
assumption in life of Jesus research had been that faith must rest on the historical
Jesus, that is, on Jesus insofar as he could be uncovered and reconstructed by
historical-critical research. But the multiplicity of different reconstructions only
made faith harder and not easier. 22 More to the point, only a few scholars have
the specialist training to carry through such reconstruction. Is faith, then, to depend
on the findings of a few scholars? Are critical historians to become the new
priests and pope of Christian faith? No! To tie faith to the historical accuracy of
this or that detail would wholly undermine faith. Faith looks only to the historic
Christ, the biblical Christ, 'the Christ who is preached'. 23 'The biblical Christ is
the "invulnerable area" from which faith can gain its certainty without relying on
the heteronomous guarantees of external authorities'. 24
This move to link faith with the preached Christ anticipated Bultmann, and
the shift from a reconstructed Jesus behind the Gospels to the Christ of the Gospels
anticipated the more recent focus on the Gospels themselves rather than on
Christ we mean that personal life of Jesus which speaks to us from the New Testament' (77);
'Doubt as to its actual historicity can really be overcome only by looking to the contents of what
we learn to know as the inner life of Jesus' (113); 'The traditional record may appear doubtful;
but the essential content of that record, namely, the inner life of Jesus, has the power to manifest
itself to the conscience as an undeniable fact. That means everything' (235-36). A second 'objective
fact' for Herrmann 'is that we hear within ourselves the demand of the moral law' (103).
20. Troeltsch was dismissive: 'The whole position is untenable in the face of historical
criticism' ('The Significance of the Historical Existence of Jesus' 192; see also 198).
21. Kähler, So-Called Historical Jesus 48, 50-52. 'The inner development of a sinless
person is as inconceivable to us as life on the Sandwich Islands is to a Laplander' (53).
22. 'Historical facts which first have to be established by science cannot as such become
experiences of faith. Therefore, Christian faith and a history of Jesus repel each other like oil
and water . . .' (Kähler, So-Called Historical Jesus 74).
23. Kähler, So-Called Historical Jesus 66, 72-73, 109-10 (Braaten's 'Introduction' 26-
27).
24. Braaten's 'Introduction' 29.
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