BUlTMANN AND

GADAMER: THE ROlE OF

FAITH IN THEOlOGICAl
HERMENEUTICS

THOMAS B. OMMEN

I. THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS AND PUBLIC THEOLOGY

A NUMBER OF CONTEMPORARY THEOLOGlANS have stressed the need to

develop a "public" form of theological discourse. Such a demand-evident,
for example, in the work of Gordon Kaufman, Schubert Ogden, David
Tracy, and Wolfuart Pannenberg-is closely linked to a critique of the
parochial character of much Christian theology. Such theology too often
seems to be an "in-game," which only the Christian can play or properly
understand. Breaking out of this insularity, this restrietion to the language
game of Christian faith, is an essential requirement for an intellectually
legitimate theological enterprise.
One aspect of such a movement out of a parochial form of theology is a
critique of a fideistic view of theological hermeneutics. Such hermeneutics
assume that a complete understanding of Christian texts depends upon a
preunderstanding which is itself Christian. 1 The distinctive experience
opened up by Christian faith makes it possible for an individual to attain
an authentie understanding of the true meaning of scriptural and other
traditional texts. Particularly when one moves beyond a merely critical
historical reconstruction of meaning to the application or mediation of
meaning, the condition for the possibility of understanding is the interpreter's

I Wolfhart Pannenberg, Theology and the Philosophy 01 Science (Philadelphia: Westminster

Jess, 1976), espe pp. 320-321.

THOUGHT Vol. 59 No. 234 (Septell1ber 1984)

BUlTMANN AND GADAMER 349

participation in Christian tradition and personal transformation by the

Christian gospel. A critique of this model of faith-determined hermeneutics
is characteristic of the work of many of the proponents of public theology.
They have emphasized the need to ground the understanding of Christian
texts on a wider range of human experience, one that is not restricted to
the Christian believer. 2
There is an important parallel to this debate over a "public" theology
and the role of faith in theological hermeneutics in Hans-Georg Gadamer's
critique of Rudolf Bultmann's approach to the interpretation of Scripture.
Gadamer's disagreement with Bultmann on the nature of theological
hermeneutics has not received much attention, a fact which is surprising in
light of the important contribution of both authors to hermeneutical theory
and in light of the current debate over the possibility of a public model of
theological discourse. My purpose in this paper is to contrast the different
ways in which Bultmann and Gadamer understand the role of faith in
theological hermeneutics, especially in biblical interpretation.
In the first part of the paper, I will examine Bultmann's defense of the
notion that the interpreter of Scripture need not be a Christian. In his
search for a "universal" form of preunderstanding, Bultmann anticipated
many ofthe concerns ofthe public theology ofthe present day. The second
part of the paper considers Gadamer's critique of Bultmann's attempt to
move biblical interpretation out of the circle of Christian faith. The final
section of the paper is my own assessment of the issues in the dispute and
of their bearing on the contemporary theological discussion.

11. BULTMANN'S CONCEPT OF THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

Bultmann's theory of hermeneutics accentuates the importance of preun-

derstanding in interpretation. 3 The interpretation of any text depends upon
the "living relationship" to the subject matter which the text expresses.
Thus, to understand texts in the history of mathematics, the interpreter
must possess some familiarity with mathematical principles. Preunderstand-
ing is also shaped by the "interest" which guides interpretation. Such an
interest determines "the direction of the form ulation of the inquiry" and
"the direction of the investigation."4 For example, the objective reconstruc-

2 I have developed this point at length in my paper "The Preunderstanding of the

Theologian," in Theology and Discovery: Essays in Bonor 0/ Kar! Rahner, ed. William Kelly,
S. J. (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1980), pp. 231-261. Cf. Schubert Ogden,
"Theology and Religious Studies," Journal 0/ the American Academy 0/ Religion (1978), p. 14,
and Ogden, "Response" to John Connelly, Proceedings 0/ the Catholic Theological Society 0/
America (1974), p. 64.
3 For Bultmann's theory of hermeneutics see espe "Is Exegesis Without Presuppositions
Possible?" in Existence and Faith, ed. Schubert Ogden (Cleveland: World Publishing, 1960),
pp. 289-296, and "The Problem of Hermeneutics," in Essays Philosophical and Theological
(London: SeM Press, 1955), pp. 234-269.
4 Rudolf Bultmann, "The Problem of Hermeneutics," p. 253.
350 THOUGHT

tion of past events or the attempt aestheticaBy to relive the experience of

past authors lead to different interpretative approaches and results.
The appropriateness of an interest and living relationship is dependent
upon the nature of the text. For some writings a narrow or limited
relationship might be enough. But "serious" literature, such as Christian
Scripture or the classics of philosophy, demands a more fundamental form
of preunderstanding. Such texts are attempts to grapple with the basic
problems of human existence, and they must be approached with a
recognition of this deep existential claim. The question brought to the text
should be the question 0/ the meaning 0/ life itself. The interpreter must
feel the past as a summons to examine and judge his or her own
understanding of existence. The object of interpretation in such instances
is "an interest in history as the sphere of life in which human existence
moves, in which it attains understanding of itself and its own particular
possibilities and develops them.,,5 Heidegger's work, in particular, has
revealed the importance of what he caBs the "historicality" (Geschictlichkeit)
of understanding. The notion of historicality points to the fact that tradition
properly emerges in understanding as possibility. The past is Dasein's mode
of becoming present to itself. Understanding is not merely viewing or
neutral objective awareness; it is repetition. 6
This existential demand was not recognized, Bultmann believes, in most
models of hermeneutics of the last century. In a critique which paraBels
that of Gadamer in many respects, Bultmann notes the loss of self in the
aesthetic hermeneutic characteristic of Romanticism and in the objective
portrayal of past historical "facts" by the positivists. 7 Such hermeneutics
overlooked the essential subjectivity that must properly enter interpretation.
"Presuppositionless" exegesis is possible only in the sense that meaning is
not forced on a text or judged before interpretation. But such openness
must be complemented by existential understanding. "The 'most subjective'
interpretation is in this case 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.,,8 The great defect of nineteenth-century hermeneutic is
that this existential relationship to history was neglected.
With aB ofhis emphasis on existential understanding, however, Bultmann
has a broad view of the possibility of an openness to the "claim" of

5 Ibid.
6 Martin Heidegger, Being and Time (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), pp. 437-438.
7 Bultmann, "The Problem of Henneneutics," p. 253. After running through a variety of
approaches to history-objective, aesthetical, etc.-Bultmann concludes: "Lastly, the object of
interpretation can be established by interest in history as the sphere of life in which human
existence moves, in which it attains its possibilities and develops them, and in reflection upon
which it attains understanding of itself and of its own particular possibilities." Existentiell
understanding refers to understanding in which the meaning of the interpreter's own existence
is involved; the truth of an understanding is judged as a possibility for one's own life.
8 Bultmann: "The Problem of Henneneutics," p. 256. For examples of Bultmann's critique
of nineteenth-century hermeneutics see "The Problem of Hermeneutics," espe pp. 247ff., and
History and Eschatology (New York: Harper & Row, 1957), pp. 74ff. and pp. 124-125.
BULTMANN AND GADAMER 351
Scripture. Readers do not have to be Christians to be "stirred by the
question of their own existence." Bultmann's desire to locate a preunder-
standing for exegesis and biblical theology which is in some sense "universal"
stands out. In this respect, Bultmann's work is an anticipation of the public
theology of the present day. There is no "believing" hermeneutic for the
Bible. The Bible must be interpreted as any other book would be interpreted.
The basis for understanding in exegesis and biblical theology is ultimately
not the fact that the interpreter and authors of Scripture stand in the same
process of Christian tradition, but that they live in the same world and face
common problems of human existence. This means that there must be a
wider experiential foundation than explicit faith for an understanding of
talk about God. The biblical witness obviously articulates the meaning of
existence not on a purely human or historical level, but by referring beyond
the world to God. In Bultmann's view, the question of God is basic to
human experience and can be posed by philosophy. To ask the question of
the meaning of human existence is, at some point, to ask the question of
God. Any interpreter who takes seriously the question of the meaning of
existence and the related question of God possesses that preunderstanding
essential to the interpretation of Scripture.
Karl Barth and other "right-wing" critics of Buhmann have argued that
this broad view of preunderstanding undermines the distinctiveness of
revelation. They have emphasized that any attempt to speak of a "prior
understanding" of an action of God entails a reduction of revelation to an
aspect of human self-awareness. We shall note later how Gadamer shares
the same concern. Bultmann agrees that an experience of the act of God
as a personal event in one's own life, as an existentiell reality, is mediated
by faith. The interpreter knows concretely that he or she is forgiven through
faith in Jesus Christ. "Authentic" human understanding on an existentiell
level is properly Christian. But there is a difference between this existentiell
understanding and the existential or reflective interpretation of the notion
of "forgiveness" needed in biblical interpretation. An appreciation of the
"claim" of the Christian kerygma and an understanding of the meaning of
its basic terms does not depend on explicit faith. The basic categories of
faith can be examined as possibilities of existence even by the nonbeliever.
All of the basic Christian ideas "have a content that can be determined
ontologically prior to faith and in a purely rational way.,,9 This same
possibility of preunderstanding applies to revelation: "What revelation
means in general cannot be any more exactly and completely specified by
the man of faith than by the man of unfaith. Every man, because he knows
about death, can also know about revelation and life, grace and forgiveness."IO
For a scientific and critical interpretation of biblical texts, preunderstanding
is properly raised to thematic and explicit awareness with the aid of

9 Bultmann, "The Histolicity of Man and Faith," in Existence and Faith, p. 96.
10 Ibid., p. 100.
352 THOUGHT
philosophy. A philosophical expression of the question of the meaning of
existence serves as the proper basis for theology, as Bultmann's own use of
Heidegger's categories in his construction ofa theology ofthe New Testament
illustrates. In its reflective illumination of the main structures of being-in-
the-world, philosophy provides the interpreter with appropriate criteria. The
forum of rationality in which philosophers attempt to communicate is
public and not restricted to any particular community. Bultmann's effort
to connect preunderstanding to philosophy highlights again the public
character of that model of hermeneutics which he has constructed.

IH. GADAMER'S CONCEPT OF THEOLOGICAL HERMENEUTICS

In his concept of theological hermeneutics, Bultmann stresses the expe-

rience which is reflected in being-in-the-world and which thus becomes
accessible, in principle, to anyone. Gadamer sees some legitimacy in such
a recognition of the "general conditions" that govern all forms of interpre-
tation, but beyond these general conditions for understanding lie the
particular requirements characteristic of specific kinds of understanding,
including biblical interpretation. Such specific requirements ultimately
necessitate a grounding of theological hermeneutics on the foundation of
Christian faith. Two such conditions stand out in Gadamer's analysis: 1)
the Christian conviction that authentie existence is dependent on divine
grace, a recognition which takes one beyond a focus on "self-understanding";
2) the interpreter's necessary involvement in the "effective-history" of
Christian tradition. Let us examine each of these in turn.

A. AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE AND DIVINE GRACE

The emphasis on a wider human setting of preunderstanding undercuts

the awareness, in Gadamer's view, that the gospel proclaims an event that
transcends human understanding. Christianity rests on the conviction that
"man cannot reach an understanding of himself by his own means."ll At
some crucial point, Christian theology locates a failure of human under-
standing overcome only by divine grace. 12 "From the theological point of
view, faith's self-understanding is determined by the fact that faith is not
man's possibility, but a gracious act of God that happens to the one who
has faith."13 A preunderstanding in biblical hermeneutics defined exclusively
in terms of a philosophical analysis of the question of the meaning of life
is thus ultimately insufficient. The impact of a "gracious act of God" runs

II Hans-Georg Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneulies (Berkeley: University of Califomia

Press, 1976), p. 206.
12 Gadamer, Truth and Method (New York: Seabury Press, 1975), p. 295.
13 Gadamer, Philosophical Hermeneutics, pp. 53-54.
BULTMANN AND GADAMER 353
counter to the intention of a merely scientific methodology, which must
see such an uncontrollable and ultimately transcendent intervention as a
violation of its claim to universality. The importance of an act of God to
authentie existence carries one beyond a model of self-understanding
defined in purely human terms.
I want to pose the question of whether our relation to the New Testament can
be understood adequately in terms of the central concept of the self-understanding
of faith, or whether an entirely different factor is operative in it-a factor which
goes beyond the individual's self-understanding, indeed beyond his individual
being. 14
Such a factor "beyond" merely human self-understanding is properly
mediated not by philosophy but by the Christian gospel.
The authority of revelation gives theological hermeneutics its particular
character. Such hermeneutics differs from other hermeneutics in its recog-
nition of a message which has absolute authority over those who proclaim
it. The ongoing "application" of scriptural meaning-which is a necessary
aspect of the full scope of effective-historical consciousness-does not add
anything to the texts which are interpreted. In contrast, for example, to
legal hermeneutics, "the gospel of salvation does not acquire any new
content from its proclamation in preaching such as could be compared
with the power of the judge's verdict to supplement the law.,,15 The power
of the gospel-not the ideas of the preacher-is the foundation of authentie
understanding. Thus the appropriate preunderstanding is shaped by the
interpreter's experience of the power and authority of the gospel in the
context of the Christian eommunity. Christian faith, not philosophy, is the
condition for the possibility of authentie understanding. "The existential
foreunderstanding, which is Bultmann's starting point, can only be a
Christian one." 16
Bultmann too sees a gap between the awareness of the question of God,
which anyone can possess, and the understanding of the Christian witness
as an authentie answer to that question-as gospel. Faith brings the biblical
interpreter in an inward way to recognize in the gospel of Jesus Christ the
forgiveness of sins and the release from a striving for a self-guaranteed
security. But there is a difference for Bultmann between the existentiell
level of personal faith and the wider context of preunderstanding character-
istic of exegesis. It is this distinction which Gadamer challenges.

B. THEOLOGY AND CHRISTIAN EFFECTIVE HISTORY

Prejudgments for Gadamer come not merely from the shared existentials
of world-experienee, but from the tradition in which the interpreter is

14 Ibid., p. 45.
15 Gadamer, Truth and Method, pp. 295ff.
16 Ibid., p. 296.
354 THOUGHT

located and to which he or she belongs. The mind ofthe interpreter includes
a fabric of meanings which have been provided by tradition. This body of
traditional presuppositions forms part of the horizon of interpretation and
makes possible the encounter with history.17
The problem of theological hermeneutics is thus set by Gadamer in the
context ofwhat he would call "effective-history." A continuity of experience
and language links the horizon of past Christian communities and the texts
they produced to the interpreter in the present. As the interpreter is molded
by the Christian community and its uses oflanguage, he or she is introduced
into a tradition which extends back to its scriptural beginnings. This bond
to tradition functions much more on the prereflective than on the reflective
level. If we are truly to mediate or "apply" the meaning of the Christian
witness in the texts of Paul or Aquinas, this linguistic continuity is
presupposed.
A conviction that involvement in a particular community shapes the
decisive understanding of the Bible leads Gadamer to criticize Bultmann's
notion of a "universal" form of preunderstanding. The critique is presented
in that section of Truth and M ethod in which Gadamer specifically considers
"the case oftheological hermeneutics as developed by Protestant theology.,,18
Gadamer notes Bultmann's conviction that all interpretation involves a
living relationship between interpreter and text. Thus scriptural hermeneutics
"presupposes a relationship to the content of the Bible.,,19 But Gadamer
disagrees with Bultmann that the Bible is to be interpreted in the same way
that one would interpret any other book, and that the preunderstanding
required is given with human life itself. To understand the Scripture as the
"divine proclamation of salvation" is to carry the interpreter necessarily
beyond a simple "scientific or scholarly interpretation of its meanings. ,,20
The questions Gadamer directs to Bultmann make his objections
quite clear:
Does there exist in every man a previous connection with the truth of divine
revelation because man as such is concemed with the question of God? Or must we
say that it is first from God, i.e. from faith, that human life experiences itself as
being affected by the question of God? But then the sense of the presupposition that
is contained in the concept of foreunderstanding becomes questionable. For then
the presupposition would be valid not universally but solely from the viewpoint of
true faith. 21

The question of God, which for Bultmann is a basically human and

properly philosophical question, is, for Gadamer, truly perceived only from
the standpoint of faith.

17Ibid., p. 245. For Gadamer's discussion of effective-history, which is cfUcial to his notion
of tradition, see Truth and Method, pp. 267ff.
18 Truth and Method, pp. 295ff.
19 Ibid., p. 295.

2° Ibid., pp. 295-296.

21 Ibid., p. 296.
BULTMANN AND GADAMER 355
The importance of a preunderstanding shaped by faith is evident for
Gadamer in the fact that a Jew and a Christian will interpret the text of
the Old Testament in different ways.22 The fact that both recognize the
"question of God" does not alter the different path of understanding each
will follow, given his or her different faith presuppositions, and the different
assessment by each of alternative interpretations. An interpretation of
Scripture which includes within it a moment of "application" necessarily
points beyond the general requirements for understanding to the particular
conditioning of each interpreter. The message of Scripture should be
perceived as a possibility for existence now, as Bultmann emphasized. But
such a recognition of the "claim" of the text is affected by the tradition in
which that claim has been shaped and in light of which it is perceived. A
model of theological preunderstanding defined in terms of the neutral and
universal categories of philosophy does not adequately preserve this existential
significance of interpretation.
Gadamer's clear demand for a distinctively Christian form of theological
preunderstanding is somewhat qualified when he asks in Truth and Method
whether the non-believer could achieve an adequate preunderstanding by
recognizing that religious texts are attempts to answer the question of
GOd. 23 This would presume that the question of God could be taken
"seriously" in the absence of any particular religious commitment or
training. While this seems for Gadamer to be possible, it is difficult to
attain. The Marxist, for example, is likely to recognize not the question of
God in history, but the working of class interest. The presupposition of the
question of God as a serious one "is obviously valid only for someone who
already sees in it the alternative of belief or unbelief in the true God. Thus
the hermeneutical significance of fore-understanding in theology seems itself
theological."24 To understand Christian texts is to allow oneself to be
claimed by belief as areal possibility. The interpreter must allow himself
"to be addressed whether one believes or whether he doubts."25 Interestingly,
with this last statement, Gadamer seems to modify his demand for a
distinctively Christian preunderstanding. Presumably, one could understand
texts referring to God as long as the question of God is taken seriously as
areal possibility for one's own life, even if "doubt" rather than "belief" is
the end result of interpretation. But such a question is normally not taken
seriously outside of explicit faith.

IV. CONCLUSION

This concluding section of the paper critically assesses the central issues
in the dispute between Bultmann and Gadamer on the nature of theological

22 Ibid.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.
356 THOUGHT

hermeneutics. The main theme is Gadamer's conviction that the appropriate

preunderstanding for the interpretation of Christian texts is not the existentials
of human life but rather explicit Christian faith. For Gadamer, more than
an openness to the questions of the meaning of life and of God is required
in biblical interpretation. A unique experience mediated by grace and by
the interpreter's participation in Christian tradition is the condition for the
possibility of authentic understanding. This is especially the case because
all "effective-historical" interpretation involves a moment of application
properly grounded in a tradition of experience.
The central risk in Gadamer's approach is that it undermines the claim
of the Christian gospel itself to provide a decisive illumination of the
meaning of human existence. 26 An awareness of this wider dimension of
the Christian claim is apparent in Bultmann's attempt to connect the truth
of revelation to basic structures in human experience. Bultmann's concern
to link biblical hermeneutics to a preunderstanding and to criteria which
reach beyond the circle of faith is not merely a surrender to secular culture.
Such a concern reflects a recognition that the Christian witness itself claims
to provide a decisive insight into the meaning of human life. A full
"application" of the meaning of Scripture is endangered by a restriction of
preunderstanding to the particular experience accessible only to a member
of the Christian community. Hermeneutical theory has correctly emphasized
the importance of preunderstanding or prejudgments in scriptural as in
other forms of interpretation. But a limitation of preunderstanding to the
experience of Christian faith is incompatible with the truth claim of
Christianity itself. Although the symbols of Christianity arose in a particular
tradition of experience, they point beyond this limited setting. To exanline
the claim of Christianity itself is thus to look for the connections between
the experience of Christian faith and human experience in its widest sense,
including the experience of the non-Christian and non-believer.
A certain ambiguity with regard to this broader human significance of
Christian symbols is apparent in Gadamer's consideration ofthe importance
of the "question of God." He asserts, in opposition to Bultmann, that the
question of God can be properly seen as important only by the believer.
But does it make sense historically or existentially to restrict a recognition
of the question of God to the explicit believer? Must one already believe in
a Christian or some other theistic way to seriously experience belief as a
real possibility for one's own life? This assumption is challenged both by
the centrality of the question of God in modern atheism and by the
recognition of God as a limit question in philosophy itself. There are,
admittedly, some reductionist interpretations of religion which do seem to
be closed to a serious asking of the question of God. To see such positions

26 Inasmuch as my major purpose in this paper is the contrast of Gadamer and Buhmann,
there is not time to fully develop this critique of Gadamer nor to defend a non-believing form
of theological hermeneutics. Both topics are more completely treated in my paper "The
Preunderstanding of the Theologian" (see footnote 2).
BUlTMANN AND GADAMER 357

as the only way of understanding Christian tradition outside of explicit

belief, however, is too extreme. Indeed, Gadamer's own awareness that one
can "seriously" ask the question of God even if "doubt" rather than
"belief" is the end result of interpretation is not too far removed from
Ogden's and Tracy's argument that the precondition for theology is not
explicit beliefbut a willingness to take seriously those basic human Questions
to which religious syrrlbols respond. 27
To ask about the possibility of a reflective interpretation of Christian
claims from a non-Christian or non-believing standpoint is to ask, in
Gadamer's terms, about the possibility of a particular "conversation." The
basic thrust of Gadamer's henneneutic, in contrast to some strands of
Wittgensteinian thought, is to challenge the isolation and autonomy of
particular language-games. 28 The translation of meaning between languages,
the "strangeness" of tradition even to someone who stands in it, the
emphasis on historical appropriation over against an unbroken, ahistorical
continuity of tradition-all point to the centrality of a conversation between
distinct horizons of experience. What stands in the way of such a conversation
between the different horizons of unbelief and belief? This question becomes
all the more pressing in light of Gadamer's contention that one is not
merely born into or converted to but can "acquire" a relationship to a
particular tradition. "Every conversation presupposes a common language,
or it creates a common language. ,,29 A relationship to tradition, an openness
to its claim to truth, is essential to hermeneutics. Such a relationship to
tradition is not restricted to that individual who already finds hirnself or
herself within a given effective-historical process. "Hermeneutics must start
from the position that a person seeking to understand something has a
relation to the object that comes into language in the transmitted text and

27 In The Analogical Imagination (New York: Crossroad, 1982) Tracy distinguishes the
preunderstanding of fundamental theology from that of systematics. While a non-believing
approach is appropriate to the former, ordinarily "the systematic theologian as interpreter will
believe in the religious classic being interpreted: at least in the minimal sense of one who has
experienced some resonance of that claim with the limit-questions of existence; or in the
maximal sense, with the response called faith-itself a shock of recognition freely experienced
by the theologian and experienced as given (gift) by the event expressed in the classic." (p. 183,
ft. 7) The "minimal" form of believing understanding Tracy describes is not far removed from
Bultmann's openness to the claim of the text. The "factual" (not "in principle") state of
preunderstanding is normally one of faith, however, and in this sense Tracy comes doser to
Gadamer in an understanding of theological hermeneutics. What Tracy does not adequately
show is how the task of text interpretation can be so radically different in these two functional
specialities of theology. The interpretation of normative or "classical" texts occurs in both
fundamental and systematic theology, as Tracy makes clear in Blessed Rage for Order.
Fundamental theology as weIl as systematics is concerned with the application or mediation of
textual meaning in contemporary terms. The Christian community is concerned with the
public justification of its distinctive traditions and symbols. To this author at least, it is not
clear that the task of interpreting Christian texts is fundamentally different as one crosses from
one theological specialty to another or addresses a different theological public.
28 I have discussed some aspects of a Wittgensteinian approach to theological method in
"Wittgensteinian Fideism and Theology," Horizons (1980), pp. 183-204.
29 Truth and Method, p. 341.
358 THOUGHT

has, or acquires, a connection with the tradition out of which the text
speaks. "30 Again, the emphasis on "acquiring" a relationship to a tradition
introduces a counterpoint to the notion that preunderstanding mysteriously
"happens to" someone within a required community of experience~
Such an active creation or acquisition of a common language is represen-
tative of the work of many of the human sciences. An anthropologist, for
example, who is an outsider, can fonn an understanding of Vietnamese
culture or a modern historian of the institution of chivalry without directly
taking part in those traditions. Cannot the "outsider" to Christianity carry
out the same conversation? As Patrick Sherry notes in his critique of
Wittgensteinian Fideism:
Those who lack a religious interest may indeed not know how to use religious
concepts and therefore faB to fully understand the relevant activities, doctrines, etc.
Moreover, it is probably true that the most direct path to learning about the real
point of religion is to participate in prayer, meditation and other spiritual practices,
in an attempt to achieve some degree of spiritual transformation and holy living;
this participation acquaints one with the background in life which makes religious
concepts meaningful. But there is nothing to prevent the outsider coming to
understand the religious way of life, particularly by studying the beliefs on which it
is based, even though he will lack the experiences which characterize direct
participation. 31

The initial distance characteristic of such a relationship can be connected

to Gadamer's own observation that a distance from a horizon can function
as a critical "filter" which enables one to identify its real claim to truth. A
critical, reflective appropriation of a tradition requires a certain distance
from it. A cultural, historical, or experiential separation from a way of life
can accentuate its limitations as weIl as its real contributions.
But more than a distance from a text is the basis for effective-historical
consciousness. There is also that element of participation in or belonging
to a tradition which Gadamer emphasizes. Can such an experience be
found in the "living relationship" of the non-Christian to Christian texts?
It is important to recall at this point that it is a preunderstanding in
theological henneneutics which is sought. One should not confuse being
religious with reflection upon religion. Bultmann's distinction of existentiell
and existential understanding points to the difference. Being able to pray
with conviction is one thing; having an ability to understand the notion of
prayer is something else. Similarly, assenting to and asserting a religious
claim is not the same thing as theologically justifying it. If this distinction
of theology from faith is kept in mind, the familiarity with tradition
required in theological henneneutics is the willingness to take Christian
claims "seriously."
Moreover, a form of participation in Christian tradition also exists in the
impact of Christianity on Western culture. As Gordon Kaufman has

30 Ibid., p. 262.
31 Sherry, Religion, Truth and Language Games (New York: Bames and Noble, 1977). p.
132.
BULTMANN AND GADAMER 359
emphasized, the language of Christianity is not restricted to the Christian
community but is imbedded in the history of Western culture. It is thus
not necessary to be raised in or converted to a Christian community in
order to acquire a theological understanding of its language:
Theology . . . has public not private or parochial foundations. It is not restricted
either to the language and traditions of a particular esoteric community (the Church)
or to the peculiar experience of unusual individuals. Everyone speaks the common
language; everyone knows, understands and uses (to some degree) the words with
which theology begins and which it analyzes. Hence there is no problem of how
one can get into some charmed "circle of faith" or "theological circle" in order to
do theology or to understand what is going on in theology. We are already there
simply by virtue of speaking and understanding English. As regards its foundations,
theology is no more parochial or exclusive than any other discipline. 32
The Western non-Christian has a form of involvement in what Gadamer
would call effective-history and the Wittgensteinian the Christian language-
game ifthese are viewed culturally and not merely ecclesially. For Kaufman,
this suffices as a foundation for theology. Kaufman's attempt to broaden
the view of theological preunderstanding via cultural linguistics can be
viewed as a complement to Bultmann's emphasis on the wider "existentials"
of human experience.
To point in this way to a wider linguistic foundation for theological
hermeneutics is to suggest an access to an understanding of key Christian
concepts like "God" and "grace" not restricted to the horizon of Christian
faith. In his view of theological hermeneutics, as noted before, Gadamer is
in many ways closer to Barth and other right-wing critics of Bultmann than
to Bultmann hirnself. The only access to even the question of God is
through faith mediated by the gospel. The "fallen" character of human
existence accounts for the importance of the effective-history of Christian
tradition.
In contrast, Bultmann finds the basic element in theological preunder-
standing in human lire in a general sense. The question of the meaning of
human existence at some point properly generates the question of the
existence of God. If time permitted, other wider models of theological
understanding might be explored which also point beyond the circle of
faith, but in non-Heideggerean terms, e.g., the neo-classical metaphysics of
Ogden and Tracy, Pannenberg's universal history, pragmatic or political
criteria, and various models of unrestricted communities of discourse which
Karl-Otto Apel and others have pointed out. The limits of this paper
prevent a fuller investigation of such wider experiential and linguistic
theological approaches to hermeneutics. Such a foundation for theological
reflection is needed, however, for a truly public model of theology. My
purpose in this paper has been more limited: an examination and critical
assessment of Bultmann's and Gadamer's different conceptions of the role
of faith in theological henneneutics.

32 Kaufman, An Essay on Theological Method (Missoula: Scholars Press, 1975), pp. 8-9.