The Coming Evangelical Collapse?

Conversation with William Lane Craig

Bultmann on Freedom

I have been doing a bit of reading for my thesis project next year and I came across this quote I would like to share from the New Testament scholar Rudolf Bultmann:

Genuine freedom is not subjective arbitrariness. It is freedom in obedience. The freedom of subjective arbitrariness is delusion, for it delivers man up to his drives, to do in any moment what lust and passion dictate. This hollow freedom is in reality dependence on the lust and passion of the moment. Genuine freedom is freedom from the motivation of the moment; it is freedom which withstands the clamor and pressure of momentary motivations. It is possible only when conduct is determined by a motive which transcends the present moment, that is, by law. Freedom is obedience to a law of which the validity is recognized and accepted, which man recognizes as the law of his own being. This can be only be a law which has its origin and reason in the beyond. We may call it the law of spirit or, in Christian language, the law of God.

- Rudolf Bultmann, Jesus Christ and Mythology, (New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons, 1958), 41.

Paul Tillich On Relativism

The logical position against any claim of relativism to absoluteness is that "absolute relativism" is a self-contradictory term, an impossible combination of words. If one avoids this impossible combination of words, relativism itself becomes relative; therefore an element of absoluteness is not only a possibility but even a necessity, otherwise no assertion at all can be made.

But absolute relativism is also impossible practically. If I am asked to surrender totally to relativism I can say "But I live! I know what 'true' and 'false' mean, I do something I can describe as 'better' than something else, I venerate something which concerns me ultimately and which for me is holy." The question then is: How can one make such statements if relativism has the last word? In the different reality of man's encounter with reality there must be some absolutes that make meaningful life possible, of it would be like the chaos before creation, described in Genesis. Therefore I believe it may be a service to life itself to find these absolutes and to show their validity and their limits.

- Paul Tillich, My Search of Absolutes, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 65-66.

Amen Paul!

Does the God of Christianity Exist, and What Difference Does It Make?

Discussion with Christopher Hitchens, Douglas Wilson, William Lane Craig, Lee Strobel, and Jim Dennison.

BEWARE OF TRUTH

A defense of Derrida by Peter Benson at Philosophy Now.