| 8. God the Remote and the Near. Sin and Forgiveness | ||||
In the thought of forgiveness must be found the final significance of the paradox of God remote and near. God is the remote God, which means first of all: God is not a part of that world which the thought and activity of man can control. God is the near God, which means first of all: God is the Creator of this world of men, which He governs by His providence. This paradox is understandable because the same apparent contradiction characterizes the life of man; for man has departed from God, but God has come to man. | ||||
Man has departed from God; he does not see God s activity in the everyday events of the world; the thought of omnipotence is to him an empty speculation which gains meaning only if he sees God s miracles. And when he takes refuge in prayer to God, he abandons the idea of an omnipotent God and confesses that he cannot perceive God. God is the distant God; that means, man stands in the world alone, without God, given over to fate and death like the prodigal son in the strange land. God is the near God; that can only mean, the very sense of insecurity which characterizes the life of man separated from God arises from the fact that God is seeking man. And that God is seeking man can only mean that God imposes His claim upon him. That man is separated from God, then, evidently means that man does not fulfill this demand of God upon him. The distance of God from man has the same cause as the nearness of God, namely, that man belongs to God, that God imposes a claim upon him. When man fails to hear this demand, he himself transforms God s nearness into remoteness. | ||||
The above statements cannot be understood as theoretical reflection on the nature of man; for, like the nearness of God, the demand of God can be affirmed only when it is actually felt. This requirement is not that a man should possess a general knowledge that such a thing as a claim of God upon men exists, but that he himself should hear this demand. Then this attitude of man is not something objective, which lies passive before the gaze of the observer, but it is part of the process of living, which is in motion at every instant. Thus this attitude appears anew at every moment, because in each moment God claims man. But that means that man in his present life stands continually at the crisis of decision. The decisive character of the present moment was made clear above, in the sense that the attitude of man in the present determined his future. But it is precisely because of the claim of God that this is true. | ||||
For this demand is not a stage play, but deeply serious; to the man who fails to obey this demand, the future is a condemnation. To him God is the distant God; he is a different man than before. He has not because of this disobedience reached a different level of development, is not passing through a new stage in growth; rather, everything has at once become new for him. Under the judgment of condemnation, he has become a wholly different man, he stands as a sinner before God. Since he is a sinner, God is remote from him; and precisely because God is the near God, the man who does not hear His demand is in His sight a sinner. Since God is near, no neutrality before Him is possible, there is no far-off realm in which His claim would not hold. | ||||
Therefore man can never control the world and its possibilities and find security in it; rather the whole world stands under the curse of remoteness from God, and it is a secondary consideration whether a man views it as a soulless and soul-destroying automaton, or as the playground of Satan and his hellish hosts. The world stands under a curse, even if the man does not recognize it and tries to find his way in the world by the use of his reason, even if he seeks to understand it by means of the concepts of God and of omnipotence. For so long as he is not aware that the present moment is final, is claimed, constrains to decision, his idea of God is a phantasm. | ||||
Jesus does not discuss how large a proportion of mankind is sinful; he evolves no theory that all are sinners, no theory of original sin. For sin is something condemned by God in the concrete present moment; not a universal attribute of human nature theoretically understood apart from time. Sin no more than God can be discussed in general propositions; otherwise I should be able to distinguish myself from my sin, whereas in reality I am myself the sinner. Sin is not a sort of appendage to man; it is the characteristic of sinful humanity. Hence Jesus does not preach that all are sinners, but speaks to sinful men. | ||||
Further, he does not discuss the nature of sin, since this is for him and his hearers a self-evident proposition, corresponding to the Jewish thought of God which Jesus shares. Sin is the character which belongs inevitably to the man remote from God who denies the claim of God. Since the thought of God s claim and of decision is more radically conceived by Jesus than it is in Judaism, his concept of sin is also more radical. | ||||
Because the crisis of decision in the present moment gives man his essential character, he cannot console or justify himself by viewing his sin as a weakness which forms no part of his true nature, or as a mistake which is an exception to be outweighed by appealing to his normal self. For since the whole man is compelled to decision, the whole man is here at stake, and determines by his choice his whole future. Nor can man in the face of the call to repentance point to his ideal self which lies outside the realm of empirical fact. His sins do not mark a stage in his moral development, nor are they a condition which in a sense provides material for further moral progress, nor something which he ought to and can overcome (he, after all, is the sinner!); but it is the position in which he is wholly involved, so that he cannot by virtue of a "better self" escape from it. He stands before God as a sinner, that is, his sin has not relative but absolute character; he is condemned, and can appeal to nothing which he has been or has achieved. And at this point the deeper radicalism of Jesus compared to Judaism becomes evident; for Judaism still assumed the value of human achievement or at least allowed the repentance of man to have value as a quality which recommended him to God. | ||||
If there is any help for man who is a sinner, it can only be the forgiveness of God. Jesus proclaims the forgiveness of God, and here also he does not proclaim anything new to Judaism. For what consolation does the Jewish prayer of penitence offer, except the grace of God who forgives sins ? "Praise to Thee, Lord, who freely forgives," says the Jew in his daily prayer. However, in the message of Jesus the more radical thought of God s grace and forgiveness corresponds to the more radical concept of sin. In Judaism God overlooks the sins of the religious, and this is God s grace; God condemns the completely sinful and godless, and therefore the religious man feels himself fundamentally good. He can point, if not to his good works, at least to his humble confession of sin, and therefore appeal to God s grace. Thus the seer in 4 Ezra not only mentions the first possibility | ||||
"For the righteous, who have laid up many good works | ||||
"For in truth there is none born of women who sins | ||||
And consistently he hears the angel answer: | ||||
"You have often reckoned yourself with the sinners. Do so no more. You will receive more praise from the Most High because, as is fitting, you are humble and do not count yourself with the righteous. Therefore you shall have so much greater honor." (4 Ezra 8:47-49) | ||||
To rebuke men who think they have something to depend upon before God, Jesus told the tale of the Pharisee and the tax-collector. | ||||
"Two men went up to the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, the other a tax-collector. The Pharisee stood up and prayed, God, I thank Thee that I am not like other men, robbers, evil doers, adulterers, or even like this tax-collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I have. But the tax-collector stood at a distance, would not even raise his eyes, but beat his breast and said, God be merciful to me, a sinner. I tell you, he went home justified rather than the other." (Luke 18: 10-14) | ||||
The Pharisee was not condemned because he spoke falsely in what he said; but the fact that he compared himself with others, that he desired to exhibit his virtue before God, showed that he did not rightly understand what God s grace meant. For God s grace can be known only when a man realizes his utter helplessness, and perceives nothing more in himself to which he can appeal. The Pharisee also did not understand God s demand, else he would have known that this left him no surplus time to do some special deed which would give him an advantage over other men; that a man can never do more than is required of him. | ||||
"So you must say, when you have done all that was | ||||
Only when the requirement of obedience is wholly grasped can the thought of grace and of forgiveness be wholly understood; and the message of forgiveness then appears in its unity with the call to repentance. Forgiveness does not mean that the sin is to be compensated for (the man is wholly disobedient); it can only be forgiven. When a man accepts forgiveness, he condemns himself most severely, he really bows his head under the judgment of God. And as his character as sinner signified that he failed in the decision and became another man, a condemned man who had lost his freedom, so forgiveness means that he is to become a new man through God s grace, that he has his freedom once more, that God does not abandon His claim upon him but also does not deprive him of His grace that God means to bring him out of remoteness into nearness to Himself. | ||||
What happens in forgiveness may be understood by considering the meaning of forgiveness in the relationship between two men who love each other. If a man has offended another, not to say wronged him, nothing can restore him to the old relationship except the forgiveness of the other. And this forgiveness cannot rest on any thought of compensation, as if there were still so much that is good and valuable in the offender that the other could overlook the mistake. For by the offense the relationship is wholly destroyed, and the one becomes to the other entirely a stranger. The love which once existed depended if it was genuine not on certain attractive qualities, but embraced the whole man. And the whole man now stands, since he did not meet the crisis, before the other as a different man, and all his attractive qualities and his possibilities of development do not help him at all. Only one thing can help him if something new happens, if his friend has the strength to forgive him and thereby make him a new man. If something new happens that means, that forgiveness is not a necessary result determined by the nature of the man who forgives, something upon which the offender can count (if he did, he would obviously be unworthy of it); but it is an act arising wholly from the free good will of a person, wholly a gift. | ||||
In the same way God s forgiveness is real forgiveness only if it is His free act, an event. Man can assert it only if he experiences it as an event in time, even as sin is an event. He cannot assume it, nor can he deduce it from a conception of God. Thus it is clear that Jesus in this connection too does not preach a new idea of God as if God had hitherto been represented as too arbitrary and hard, vindictive and angry, and was rather to be thought of as benevolent and gracious. On the contrary. The Jews knew that God is a gracious God as well as a God who is angry with the sinner, so far as it can be known through the possession of an intellectual concept of God. And no one has spoken more forcibly of the wrath of God (although without using the word) than Jesus, precisely because he proclaims God s grace. Because he conceives radically the idea of the grace of God, he makes it plain that God s forgiveness must be for man an event in time, that the relation of "I" and "Thou" exists between God and man, that God stands opposite to man as another Person over whom the man can have no sort of control, who meets man with His claim and with His grace, whose forgiveness is pure gift. | ||||
This is the reason that the preaching of Jesus is addressed first of all to the poor and sinful, and that he allowed himself to be blamed as the friend of tax collectors and sinners. | ||||
"The gospel of deliverance is proclaimed to the poor." (Matt.11:5) | ||||
"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God." (Luke 6 :20) | ||||
For such perceive God s claim more clearly than the respectable people, and also know better how to accept a free gift. A whole series of comparisons and parables illustrates this fact. | ||||
"But how do you judge? A man had two sons; he went to the first and said, My son, go today and work in my vineyard. He answered, Yes, sir, and did not go. Then the man went to his second son and said the same to him. But he said, I will not go. Then he thought better of it and went. Which of the two obeyed his father ? They said, The second. Then Jesus said, Truly I tell you, tax-collectors and prostitutes will enter the Kingdom of God before you." (Matt. 21: 28-31) | ||||
"Who of you who has a hundred sheep, and has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the pasture and go after the lost one until he finds it? When he has found it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulder; and when he comes home he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, Be glad with me, for I have found my lost sheep again. I tell you, so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance. | ||||
"Or if a woman has ten pieces of silver and has lost one, does she not light a lamp and clean the house, and seek carefully until she finds it? and when she has found it she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, Be glad with me, for I have found my lost silver piece. So I tell you, there will be joy among the angels of God over one sinner who repents." (Luke 15 :4-10) | ||||
"A man had two sons, and the younger of them said to his father, Give me my share of the property. And he gave him his share of the whole. Not long after, the younger took all that he had and went into a distant land, and there spent his money in luxurious living. And when he had wasted it all, there was a severe famine in that land, and he began to suffer from hunger. Then he went and attached himself to one of the citizens, who sent him into the fields to herd his swine. And he tried to satisfy his hunger with the husks which the swine ate, and no one gave him anything. Then he came to himself, and said, How many of my father s hired servants have more than enough bread, while I am dying here of hunger. I will arise and go to my father and say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me one of your hired servants. And he rose and went to his father. | ||||
"But when he was still far off, his father saw him and pitied him, and ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. Then his son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Quick, bring the best coat and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. And bring the fatted calf and kill it, for we will have a feast. For my son here was dead and is again alive, he was lost, and is again found. And they began to feast. | ||||
"But his oldest son was in the field. When he came back and reached the house, he heard music and dancing. Then he called one of the servants and asked him what it meant. He told him, Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has him safe again. Then he was angry and would not go in. His father however came out and urged him. | ||||
But he answered his father, Think how many years I have served you, and I have not disobeyed your orders, but you never gave me a kid so that I could have a feast with my friends, and now when your son comes, who wasted your property with prostitutes, you kill the fatted calf for him. But he said to him, My son, you are always with me, all that is mine is yours. But we must rejoice and feast, for your brother here was dead and is again alive, he was lost and is again found." (Luke 15 :11-32) | ||||
All these words are directed against those who cannot realize what God s grace and forgiveness are, who do not understand that man can receive God s goodness only as a gift, and that therefore it is really only the sinner who knows what grace is. Finally, this is why children can serve as an example. They do not yet know what achievements and claims are, and they can accept free gifts. | ||||
"And children were brought to him, for him to lay his hands on them; but his followers rebuked them. When Jesus saw that, he was indignant, and said to them, Let the children come to me; forbid them not; for to such belongs the Kingdom of God. I tell you truly, he who does not accept the Kingdom of God like a child will never come into it. And when he laid his hand upon them, he put his arms around them." (Mark 10:13-I6) | ||||
Now it may be asked, if God thus meets man as a "Thou," is He not conceived as a person? Are not all these ideas of God and man meaningless, since they depend upon a personal conception of God? For how can God be thought of as a person? Is this not na ve anthropomorphism? Indeed all these ideas do become without meaning if the human person, the "I," who is first of all concerned, is looked at from without, if the "I" is described as one can describe in general propositions the nature of a human being; if, as usually results, the individual man is regarded as a specimen of the genus homo. In that case of course God as personal also must appear as such a specimen, perhaps somewhat greater and more spiritual, above all "invisible"; then God would indeed be a "gaseous vertebrate," as has been satirically said. | ||||
In the thought of Jesus, however, man is not seen in this way from outside, thus himself acting as observer; instead, the observer s standpoint is abandoned. Man is seen in his essential being, in his life, which is lived in specific decisive moments in the present, which cannot be understood through a general description of humanity. A man has no control in his ideas over this essential self, for he cannot stand to one side and observe it, he is it. Obviously no one can prove to a man that he has this essential life, because for this proof the observer s standpoint would be necessary. But a man can know that in this actual life of his he is confronted and claimed by a "Thou." Indeed it is in reality only this claim which gives him his life as a self. And that he, "coming to himself," knows himself to be claimed by an inescapable "Thou," means that he knows of God, and of God as a Person who speaks to him as "thou." He can therefore regard God no more than himself from an observer s standpoint, and the reproach of anthropomorphism has lost its terrors for him. | ||||
This understanding of God and His forgiveness shows conclusively how far Jesus stands from all humanistic idealism, according to which the concept of sin in the real sense does not exist. Humanism knows merely the development of humanity with its possibilities and its different stages; here the true value of man is the ideal self, which is beyond his concrete empirical existence, and because of which no man can be wholly lost. Love is a universal love of mankind, so that individuals may be ignored and humanity may be made happy through institutions. | ||||
It is clear that belief in forgiveness presupposes a God who acts as a person and whose act of mercy is an event in time. Thus it is a wholly false supposition that Jesus belief concerning God marks an especially high level in humanity s developing consciousness of God, that to him as some one has expressed it God became the "representation of the ought-to-be as the power of love." In this view, when the primitive idea of God, which was based on the personification of powers of nature, vanishes gradually behind the infinitude of the causal sequence, the concept of God gains in coherence and consistency in proportion as it achieves a firm position in connection with the claims and needs of the human spirit, and becomes the "irreducible coefficient of the achievement of moral processes in self-consciousness." Jesus so it is thought completed the decisive modification in the concept of God from the personified power of nature, the power over what is, to the "representation of the ought-to-be as the power of love." | ||||
Whoever speaks in this way, however he may desire to honor Jesus, has not understood him. First of all, he has not understood that he himself, according to Jesus, is claimed by God, an authority experienced as external to himself, and is by Him constrained to decision in the present moment that God requires from him obedience. Instead of the Power whom man obeys and for whom he decides, he knows only the law of his own spiritual being, and the idea of God becomes "the irreducible coefficient of moral processes in self-consciousness." Thus he can no longer think of God as the Power over what is (as Jesus conceived Him), but only as the Power over what ought to be, that is, only the personification of what the law of his own being demands of him. Then at the moment of claimed or rendered obedience, the demand is actually made by the man himself, the true ideal man, who by his autonomy establishes himself and his own value. Jesus knows no such ideal man; he has before his eyes the actual concrete man as he stands before God. Otherwise the assertion of the love and forgiveness of God is meaningless, for in Jesus thought love and forgiveness are not ideas but are real events in the life in time of concrete men | ||||
Both sin and forgiveness are temporal events in the life of men. Thus, even though all men are sinners before God, sin is not a universal characteristic of the existence of man or of human nature such as corporeality, nor is it some magical or mysterious quality of the sinner. Jesus does not recognize any evil nature; he regards as evil only the evil will of the disobedient man. Therefore the grace of forgiveness is not the infusion into the sinner of a higher nature which in some magical or mysterious way transforms him. However remote the sinner is from grace, and however great the transformation to be effected by forgiveness, yet pardon is for him the most comprehensible thing in the world, as easy to understand as a word of love and pardon between man and man, without being in the least something to take for granted. | ||||
Just as God does not mean to Jesus a higher nature to be enjoyed in the sacrament, God s forgiveness also is no sacramental grace but a personal act of God. Then it is also plain that the experience of grace and of the forgiveness of God, which destroys the old man and creates the new, does not transfer man to a higher plane, either where he can passively enjoy his new nature or where he must guard it with anxious care through asceticism. Rather, grace holds fast the demand for obedience, since real forgiveness condemns disobedience. Whoever then becomes a new man through forgiveness is reborn to obedience. If any one thinks he has received forgiveness, without becoming conscious of God s will in his own life, such forgiveness is illusory, as the parable of the unmerciful servant shows. (Matt. 18:23-35) | ||||
Thus it has finally become clear in what sense God is for Jesus God of the present and of the future. God is God of the present, because His claim confronts man in the present moment, and He is at the same time God of the future, because He gives man freedom for the present instant of decision, and sets before him as the future which is opened to him by his decision, condemnation or mercy. God is God of the present for the sinner precisely because He casts him into remoteness from Himself, and He is at the same time God of the future because He never relinquishes His claim on the sinner and opens to him by forgiveness a new future for new obedience. | ||||
The less the grace of God is assumed to be an essential quality of Deity on which man can depend, and the more it is understood as becoming effective only in the act of forgiveness to the individual man, so much more urgent must be the question, when and how man gains the right to speak of forgiveness. The act of forgiveness! Is there any such act ? Is there a criterion to determine when it occurs, how it is accomplished, so that a man may become sure of forgiveness ? Obviously not a subjective spiritual experience can be meant; there can be in question only an event which confronts man, which happens to him from without; an event which manifests itself as an act of God, because it confronts a man as authority. It presents the claim of God to him and thus it identifies the forgiveness as divine, because it is pure gift, delivering man while judging him. | ||||
Again, this event which comes to the man cannot be an occurrence to be looked at objectively, a part of the world of objects constituting man s environment, which can be observed and analyzed in order to establish the fact that it is the event of forgiveness, to which the man can now relate himself. For the act of forgiveness between God and man, as between man and man, escapes observation. The act of forgiveness does not occur in empty space; it is real only in its reference to the particular man. Therefore only he who is forgiven knows the act of forgiveness. | ||||
What more can be said of this act of forgiveness? The tradition of the church has rightly held fast to the fact that forgiveness is an event, and speaks in this sense of the acts of salvation. The only question is whether the church has understood the event in the same sense as Jesus. It sees the event, the decisive act of deliverance, in the death of Jesus, or in his death and resurrection. In this the church is wrong, so far as the death and resurrection of Jesus are understood merely as given facts of history which may be determined and established by evidence. As soon as the observer s standpoint toward the event is taken, it is no longer the event of forgiveness for that can never be experienced by an observer. Therefore all speculations and theories are false which seek to establish by proofs that the death and resurrection of Jesus have the power of forgiveness and atonement for sin. If the death and resurrection of Jesus are asserted as redemptive acts, in the sense of cosmic events which affect mankind in general so that the individual can rely upon them, this is not the meaning of Jesus neither sin nor forgiveness is really taken seriously. Not sin, for it is thought of as a universal human attribute; nor forgiveness, for it is conceived as a mere event in the world of external objects, on which man by his very theories and proofs exercises judgment, asserting that divine forgiveness can and must be thus and so. | ||||
Moreover, Jesus did not speak of his death and resurrection and their redemptive significance. Some sayings of such a character are indeed attributed to him in the gospels, but they originated in the faith of the church and none of them even in the primitive church, but in Hellenistic Christianity. The two most important of these sayings are the words concerning "ransom" and those spoken at the Lord s supper. | ||||
"The Son of man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as ransom for many." (Mark 10: 45) | ||||
"When they ate, he took the bread, said the blessing, and broke it, gave it to them and said, Take it, this is my body. | ||||
"And he took the cup, gave thanks, and gave it to them, and they all drank from it. And he said to them, This is my blood of the covenant, which is shed for many." (Mark 14:22-24) | ||||
The first of these sayings is a Hellenistic variation of an older saying, which Luke has preserved: | ||||
"Who is greater, he who sits at table or he who serves? You say, he who sits at table? But I am among you as one who serves." (Luke 22:27) | ||||
The words concerning the Lord s supper are liturgical formulations from the Hellenistic celebration of the Eucharist, replacing an older account, of which traces still remain, especially in Luke. | ||||
It is then certain that Jesus did not speak of his death and resurrection as redemptive acts. This would not prevent others from so speaking of them, if they mean events in which they become aware of the divine forgiveness. Just as it cannot be determined that any events of history including the cross of Jesus manifest "objectively" the divine forgiveness, so it is impossible to prove on objective grounds that they may not do so. In both cases a man would assume to possess the criterion of how the event of divine forgiveness must appear. If the event of forgiveness is a happening in time which comes to a man from without, yet is not an observable process which can be objectively demonstrated, then there remains only to inquire how the character of this event in the sense of Jesus can be more clearly defined. | ||||
Jesus does not point to any way which can be universally recognized, in which a man becomes conscious of the forgiveness of God he simply proclaims this forgiveness. The event is nothing else than his word, as it confronts the hearer. For the truth of his word he offers no evidence whatever, neither in his miracles, the significance of which is not to accredit his words (for he expressly repudiates attestation through miracles (Mark 8:11, 12)), nor in his personal qualities, which apparently aroused in his contemporaries antagonism rather than faith. If he had for some men a certain fascination, this may rather have tended to distract attention from the content of his words; and certainly there is no mention of this in the record. | ||||
Also neither in his sayings nor in the records of the primitive church is there any mention of his metaphysical nature. The primitive community did indeed believe him to be the Messiah, but it did not ascribe to him a particular metaphysical nature which gave his words authority. On the contrary, it was on the ground of the authority of his words that the church confessed that God had made him Lord of the church. Greek Christianity soon represented Jesus as Son of God in the sense of ascribing a divine "nature" to him, and thus introduced a view of his person as far removed as possible from his own. | ||||
Equally foreign to him is the modern view of him as a "personality." He would by no means have understood, and would certainly never have approved, the tendency to regard his personal power of faith, his enthusiasm, his heroism, and his readiness for sacrifice as attestation of the truth of his word. For all these are human traits, and are included in the realm of human possibilities and human judgment. And no amount of energy and sacrificial courage can ever prove anything concerning the truth of the cause which a hero represents. The view of Jesus as a great character or a hero is simply the opposite of Jesus conception of man; for man as a "character" has his centre in himself, and the hero relies on himself; in this the greatness of the man consists; this is the esthetic point of view. Jesus however sees man in his relation to God, under the claim of God. | ||||
There is indeed one estimate of him which is consistent with his own view, the estimate of him not as a personality, but as one sent by God, as bearer of the word. In this sense he says: | ||||
"Blessed is he who finds no cause of offense in me." ( Matt. 11: 6) | ||||
"Whoever acknowledges me before men, him will the Son of Man also acknowledge before the angels of God. Whoever denies me before men, will be denied before the angels of God." (Luke 12 :8, 9) | ||||
Perhaps the form in which Mark preserves this last saying is older; at least it shows clearly what the early tradition regarded as the significance of the person of Jesus. | ||||
"Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man will be ashamed, when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels." (Mark 8:38) | ||||
Jesus is therefore the bearer of the word, and in the word he assures man of the forgiveness of God. | ||||
That this word can be the event of divine forgiveness will indeed be understood only if we set ourselves free from a commonly held modern view-point which has had a fatal influence on historical study. This is the habit of understanding the word only as the natural self-expression of the speaking individual. It then makes little difference whether this individual is seen aesthetically or idealistically as personality, character, "form" (Gestalt), or the like; or naturalistically in the light of evolution as the exponent of a particular historical or cultural situation. From these view-points, a word can no longer be in the real sense an "event" for the hearer; for by means of correct analysis he can have in view beforehand all the possibilities of what may be said to him. | ||||
But if we return to the real significance of "word," implying as it does a relationship between speaker and hearer, then the word can become an event to the hearer, because it brings him into this relationship. But this presupposes ultimately a wholly different conception of man, namely that the possibilities for man and humanity are not marked out from the beginning and determined in the concrete situation by character or circumstances; rather, that they stand open, that in every concrete situation new possibilities appear, that human life throughout is characterized by successive decisions. Man is constrained to decision by the word which brings a new element into his situation, and the word therefore becomes to him an event; for it to become an event, the hearer is essential. | ||||
Therefore the attestation of the truth of the word lies wholly in what takes place between word and hearer. This can be called subjective only by him who either has not understood or has not taken seriously the meaning of "word." Whoever understands it and takes it seriously knows that there is no other possibility of God s forgiveness becoming real for man than the word. In the word, and not otherwise, does Jesus bring forgiveness. Whether his word is truth, whether he is sent from God that is the decision to which the hearer is constrained, and the word of Jesus remains: "Blessed is he who finds no cause of offense in me." | ||||
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