Existence and faith : shorter writings of Rudolf Bultmann / selected, translated, and introduced by Schubert M. Ogden.

Includes bibliographical references.

Introduction / Schubert M. Ogden -- Concerning the hidden and the revealed God -- The new approach to the synoptic problem Faith as venture -- The concept of revelation in the New Testament -- The historicity of man and faith -- Paul -- Romans 7 and the anthropology of Paul -- The task of theology in the present situation -- How does God speak to us through the Bible? -- Faith in God the creator -- Jesus and Paul -- The Sermon on the Mount and the justice of the state -- The meaning of the -- Christian faith in creation -- History of salvation and history -- On behalf of Christian freedom -- Man between the times according to the New Testament -- Ignatius and Paul -- Christmas -- Autobiographical reflections -- Is exegesis without presuppositions possible?

"There would be no existentialism were not man concerned with the nature and destiny of his own existence. The fundamental principle of existential thinking is that man's existence precedes his essence. Essence - that abstraction by which traditional philosophy has sought to encompass the variety, immediacy, concreteness, and subjectivity of an individual human life - is for the existential thinker an irrelevance. Existential thinking has had its origins in the efforts of man to come to terms with his ultimate destiny. Such existential thinking - originating in the Bible and refined in the thought of St. Augustine, Pascal, Kierkegaard - was authentically religious. It is not unusual therefore that Rudolf Bultmann, one of the revolutionary innovators of twentieth-century theology, should have addressed himself to the problem of existence. Moreover, It is not unusual that the essays of Bultmann should reveal his abiding preoccupation with making clear the existential categories that underlie the faith of Christianity and the dilemmas of the modern man who would believe. Existence and Faith contains twenty hitherto untranslated essays which, although they range in content from 'Faith as Venture' and 'The Historicity of Man and Faith' to specific essays on 'Jesus and Paul' and 'The Sermon on the Mount and the Justice of the State, ' enjoy a unity imparted to them by Bultmann's passionate search for the meaning of human existence and faith"--P. [4] of cover.