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9. The Faulty Foundation of Christianity
- The University of Alabama Press
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THE FAULTY FOUNDATION OF CHRISTIANITY "God Himself will come and save you. Then shall the eyes of the blind be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped." (Isaiah 35:4f.) I AM NOT CONCEITED ENOUGH TO BELIEVE THAT IN THE PRECEDING eight chapters I have succeeded in presenting all that Judaism has to teach. But perhaps I have presented a path towards the Jewish feeling concerning the world, or, at least, the path that I have taken. These are the elements of Judaism which we have uncovered: the distinction between noble and ignoble misfortune, the call of man to face both complexes with the proper attitude, conscious of his moral freedom as far as ignoble misfortune is concerned, and, aware of his shortcomings, humbled in the face of noble misfortune; we have noticed the conflict which arises out of the simultaneity of these contrasting approaches, the "incompatibility of the correlated"-divine grace overcoming that conflict-and the recapture of the lost world on this earth by means of grace, the this-worldly miracle. In almost all these aspects, Christianity differs essentially from the fundamental feeling of Judaism. So far I have limited myself to occasional allusions. But now, once we have covered the entire distance, it may be possible to encompass in greater detail the differences between Judaism and Christianity, and to determine the common source that appears to be responsible for those differences. That common source is the view that there is only one grace for all men and that that grace must consequently be characterized in all cases by one and the same predetermin~d fact-the belief in Christ and his vicarious sacrificial death, suffered by an incarnate God in order to save mankind from original sin. Judaism, too, knowsthat it is not by his own strength that man can rise above the conflict of sins and truly live, but only through the 170 PAGANISM-CHRISTIANITY-JUDAISM power of divine grace. But, according to the Jewish view, divine grace does not depend on any other condition. There is no fast marching route towards grace. Grace can be offered throughout the entire breadth of life. God alone knows in what form grace is granted to the individual. I believe that in everybody's life at least oncepossibly more often-grace does appear, and man has only to accept it. In this area nothing can be proven, since generalizations are impossible . For the same reason there are individual ,differences in the form of one's life after one has received grace. Nor are there commonly valid principles as to whether grace, once granted, can be lost again, whether it may be enjoyed a second or a third time, or whether everyone is potentially ready for grace. No rules or laws are applicable here. Only the inner experience is decisive, an experience in which God meets individual man; but that path is not a leisurely walk, where two or three men can be found side by side. It is rather a narrow track which everybody must go alone, with no pattern or example to follow, and no assistance at hand. In contrast to this, dogmatic Christianity establishes the following plan: the belief in Christ is valid for all and redeeming for all. In this connection my term "dogmatic Christianity" is narrower than would be "official Christianity." In this sense Kierkegaard, too, belongs to "dogmatic Christianity," although nobody will call the raging opponent of "a thousand officials hired for the prevention of Christianity" an "official representative." Here is what a teacher of Christian theology, Bartmann, writes, and he could hardly have done otherwise: If we can obtain grace by our own strength, we can also get salvation ... But in that case, as Paul has already written concerning the Judaizers (Galatians 2:21) Christ would have died in vain, or, at least, we would not owe our salvation mainly to him. A supernatural salvation would turn into a natural one, and the boundary separating the two would be gone. It is typical that Bartmann does not take into consideration the possibility of a different approach, where man, rhough not saved by his own strength, would indeed be saved directly and immediately through God and through individual grace, granted throughout the entire breadth of life. Then, too, Christ has died "in vain," in the theological sense of the miracle, not in that of the heroic-human one, in which his death will be a tremendous example for all times. But...