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77 Humanity and the Problem of History Niebuhr considers the human creature to be at once marked and bound by temporality and to contain within itself intimations of eternity—a capacity to transcend the temporal in the realm of pure spirit. The relationship of the human creature to time and eternity is also the question of history, and here Niebuhr wrestles with the problem of the human creature’s relation to the contingency of history. Niebuhr continues to place the emphasis entirely on the ability of the self-transcending self to free itself from the temporal flux. Instead of showing that human finiteness and involvement in history is essentially good, he contrives to suggest that what is good about the human situation is that the human creature is never wholly bound to the finite and the temporal. Historical existence is taken to be the occasion of the divine revelation rather than its condition. God speaks to human creatures through history, it seems, and allows them to see a meaning in history; God’s will in history becomes something to be discerned by human spiritual sensitivity instead of the content of God’s revelation to be received in faith. This aspect of Niebuhr’s thought comes to the fore in his consideration of human destiny in the second volume of the Gifford Lectures.But it is seen most clearly in his explanation of the place in myth and symbol in religion.These concepts hold so central a place in his teaching that they must be examined in some detail. In the Preface to Beyond Tragedy Niebuhr explains that the chapters of the book elaborate different aspects of one theme.“The theme is Christianity ’s dialectical conception of the relation of time and eternity, of God and Chapter Six Reinhold Niebuhr’s Doctrine of Humanity: An Investigation 78 the world,of nature and grace.It is the thesis of these pages that the biblical view of life is dialectical because it affirms the meaning of history and of man’s natural existence on the one hand, and on the other insists that the centre, course and fulfilment of history lie beyond history.”1 Niebuhr adds that orthodox Christianity “represents a petrifaction of a more mythical and dialectical biblical thought,”a development that is “the consequence of Greek rationalism upon the more mythical and Hebraic biblical thought.” He continues: “An ancillary theme of these essays is therefore the necessary and perennially valid contribution of myth to the biblical world view.”2 Thus, the concept of myth is given a central place in Niebuhr’s exposition of the message of Christianity in this work, which appeared in 1937—four years before the first volume of the Gifford Lectures. For this reason, Beyond Tragedy has been described as a turning point in Niebuhr’s thinking and writing.3 Yet, while his explicit recognition of the prime importance of myth in his view of Christianity undoubtedly constitutes one stage in the process of giving his teaching a rounded expression, it is not at all certain that it deserves to be called a turning point. For there is little evidence that Beyond Tragedy marks any change of opinion. Instead, we find Niebuhr working his way to a definitive expression of a mode of thinking previously set out in some detail. That the concept of myth expounded in Beyond Tragedy is not a departure for Niebuhr can be seen from the careful explanation of the concept given in An Interpretation of Christian Ethics (1935) and, before that, in Reflections on the End of an Era (1934). In his previous writings, while the term “myth” appears,4 it is not much in evidence; but the term “symbol,” myth’s companion and near-synonym,5 is to be found in Niebuhr’s earliest works. From these last it is clear that, even in the 1920s, he recognized “the necessary and perennially valid contribution” of myth (or symbol) to the biblical view in much the same way as he did in the mid-1930s, since at that time, too, he had definite views concerning the relation of history to eternity. For example, the “dialectical”affirmation of the meaning of history and its transcendent fulfillment, which the Preface to Beyond Tragedy describes,is described also,although with the aid of a different terminology, in his first book, Does Civilization Need Religion? There he writes, “When dealing with life’s ultimates, symbolism is indispensable, and a symbolism which has a basis in historic...

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