Faithfully Seeking Understanding: Selected Writings of Johannes Kuhn

The Finality of Christian Revelation

84 The Fina li t y of Chr isti a n R evel ation Einleitung in die katholische Dogmatik (1846 ed., 99–118) This selection comes from Kuhn’s first edition of the dogmatics, which he would revise after returning from his foray into the state legislature. Kuhn employs here a familiar trope by placing his own argument within two extremes. In this case it concerns a fundamental Enlightenment critique of Christianity: that biblical revelation is by no means final. The opposite claim says that firstcentury Christianity achieved an apotheosis in understanding the revelatory message of Jesus, and that there can be no progress in this understanding. The passage below is one of the clearest examples of how Kuhn worked through the problem of making theology intellectually legitimate without eradicating its fundament. In making this argument Kuhn returned to the debates in biblical hermeneutics that shaped his earlier biblical scholarship. He also addressed the major tenets in Protestantism that attempted to either modify Christianity to make it relevant, or legitimate a biblicism that saw any development as a corrupting force. It is noteworthy that in the middle of the nineteenth century one can find a Catholic who understands the fundamental positions in Protestant thought and who argues persuasively that the Catholic position is the most intellectually feasible. Christian Revelation C 85 C The sis: The truth of revelation is not capable of increasing or being purified; however, it is capable of development and mediation through human thought and knowledge. One sees such a development in the Catholic formation of dogma, which is the objective dialectic of the Christian faith. Since new testament revelation is doubtlessly further along than Old testament revelation, one might suppose that new testament revelation could move in another direction. at the very least such a notion should not be dismissed out of hand. if the opinion were simply that the human mind [Geist] performs the task of advancing revealed truth, then such an opinion would need to be jettisoned because it would contradict the concept and essence of revelation. revelation progresses inwardly and independently from the continual insights of the human mind that expands and corrects itself. as soon as this is understood, then one cannot argue from the concept of revelation. instead it must be understood from its content and final purpose, whether revelation has come to its end in Christianity , or whether it is still approaching this end. according to its real [reellen] side, divine revelation desires the complete unification of the divine and the human;1 stated negatively, it seeks to sublate the separation caused by sin. according to its ideal side, it wants complete religious truth and understanding. to put it negatively, it seeks to sublate the mind’s blindness to god precipitated through sin. From the outset we see divine revelation head toward these ends and draw ever more closely around itself the circle at whose middle-point stands the Christ foretold in the proto-gospel.2 This entire process has come to an end with Christ, in whom that metaphysical and moral unification has been completely realized, and in whom lives the most complete 1 kuhn borrows the language of the real and ideal sides of a given reality from idealism, especially Schelling. to take an example: suppose one wanted to explain the phenomenon of human language. The real side would find this reality to consist in the physical activities, the movement of the vocal cords, the sound waves traveling through space. The ideal side would see the reality of language in the transaction of the “inner word” or the communication of an idea that could not be reduced to chemical equations or physical measurements. (tr.) 2 kuhn likely means here the Old testament and inter-testamental writings. (tr.) 86 C Christian Revelation god-consciousness. Therefore his word is the culmination of all divine revelation. even the neologists, notes david Friedrich Strauss,3 recognize the Christian revelation, which, as the new testament itself claims, consists in what is final, highest, and self-contained in Christian consciousness . everything prior functions as a preparation for Christ, who fulfills the promise. Moreover, what is given to humanity in Christ’s person (in whom the fullness of divinity resides by nature) and his teaching cannot be objectively surpassed by anything. any further progress can be only subjective, that is, in the human appropriation of the gift offered in Christ (eph 4:13ff...