#14 In Defense of Hans Kung

I am finding just how difficult it is, as you can tell, to keep up a commitment to write every day while having a full time job, a marriage, and all the other tasks that life brings. Marriage comes first of course and so I’m obviously not writing everyday but hope to manage my time well enough throughout the next year so that I will come close.

There are a ton of topics that I’d like to write about and have in the mental pipeline, and new ideas are popping up constantly. If more interesting ideas come into my head, I relegate others down on the list for later discussion. Today I came across a particularly interesting website. On further review of the website, it turns out the author clearly has very strong views on religion in general. He’s certainly not a conservative. I can’t tell for sure if he would even like to identify himself with the title Christian. But I would say that the way in which he writes is dogmatic. He knows what he believes and everything else will fit into that framework.

With that said, the topic which led me to his website: Hans Kung. You’ll notice in my post #11 entitled What I’ll Read, that I’ll be reading his book Christianity. His first was called Judaism. His next will be called Islam. This trilogy provides a history of each religion, not primarily to examine the history in the way N.T. Wright would, but a broad, paradigmatic overview of the sweep of ideas, events, and people in the history of the religion. What is important to him is not the past, but the present and the future.

The following is part of the website’s broad introduction of Kung:
“Two aspects of his life and work have captured the imaginations of many:
1. As an eminent scholar, at one time considered a bright and rising star in the Roman Catholic Church, he stands out for having criticized and challenged the idea that Christian authority can be absolute. In his Church this takes the form of the so-called infallibility of the Bishop of Rome (the Pope). His book Infallible? An Enquiry (1978) led to his official permission to teach being withdrawn by Pope John Paul II.
2. Working from a Christian community which (officially at least) regards itself as the only organization which can mediate "salvation from sin", Kung has championed the position that the scope of ecumenism is far wider than the Christian denominations. In his view, the ecumenical calling of the Church embraces the whole earth, including other faiths and the so-called secular world.
Born in Switzerland, Kung studied in Rome until 1955, during which time he came into contact with top theologians of the day. His studies continued in Paris until 1957, when he gained his doctorate with a dissertation on Karl Bath's doctrine of justification.
Having been recognized as a major intellect, Kung won the chair of Fundamental Theology at Tubingen University. But his refusal to revoke the challenge of his book on papal authority led to him leaving the post and moving to the independent Institute for Ecumenical Research at Tubingen University. He is no longer considered an official representative of Roman Catholic theology there.
He helped in the preparation and presentation of the Second Vatican Council (1962-5). Perhaps it was the Roman Catholic Church's subsequent retreat into ongoing conservatism which has gradually driven Kung further and further away from the official line on other Christian churches and faiths... when he says that in relation to the world there can be no absolute standpoint, and that our perceptions can't be purely objective, one might be forgiven for thinking that he is open to the possibility that all truth is provisional. But it turns out not to be so.”

The article goes on to analyze Kung’s ecumenism in particular and that is what particularly interested me. It quotes a person unknown to me, who says that Kung’s position,
“... has more to do with the nature of man than that of truth. We are only what we are; evolved animals still washed by hormones, feelings, incomplete perceptions (we see a narrow range of electromagnetic spectrum, hear a narrow range of the audio spectrum, feel gross but not fine changes in temperature) and generally filter all our perceptions and their subsequent conclusions through a broad set of filters.”
Conservatives will be taken aback by the mention of evolution, but that is inconsequential to the point I/they are trying to get at. Indeed there’s a foundation for an ecumenical argument. The interesting thing is, I completely agree with it. Various allusions and influences from my past pop into my head at this point such as ‘nature vs. nurture’ arguments and the like and if I really wanted detail, I would get into them with what little knowledge I have. Instead, I was refreshed by the idea of what I’m going to call, and this is completely due to the lack of a better word, the sympathetic view.
I’m not going to define the view in a sentence, because sentences are too easily misunderstood, disposed of, and usually never portray the true meaning of the speaker anyway. I will allude to what I mean as follows. In regards to the nature versus nurture debate, the sympathetic view holds that nurture (experiences, upbringing, influence) has more influence in who we become then nature (simply put: our DNA). I have no psychological training and could be reading into my childhood too much but I see strongly how my upbringing, experiences, and influences have influenced who I am. Therefore I, whether I’m right or not, tend to see nurture as the leading force in that debate.
Another way to describe what I am calling the sympathetic view is the ‘individual responsibility vs. structural/systematic causes’ views regarding poverty, crime, and yes, even sin. Who can deny that individual responsibility must play a crucial role in order for society to function properly? And yet, I cannot help but to tend to sympathize and side with the structural/systematic causes view in that debate.
I hate to take Jesus’ words and interpret them as if I knew what they meant. I would piss me off if someone did that to me 2000 years from now. Nonetheless, he is who I am looking to find/get to know, so I am going to interact with his words in my mind as I write. So without further adieu, to further my picture of the sympathetic view, here are three examples of what I see as an example of this view from him from Jesus words. The first is in Luke 12:41:
“And Peter said, ‘Lord, are you addressing this parable to us, or to everyone else as well?’ And the Lord said, ‘Who then is the faithful and sensible steward, whom his master will put in charge of his servants, to give them their rations at the proper time? Blessed is that slave whom his master finds him so doing when he comes. Truly I say to you, that he will put him in charge of all his possessions. But if that slave says in his heart, ‘My master will be a long time in coming,’ and begins to beat the slaves, both men and women, and to eat and drink and get drunk; the master of that slave will come on a day when he does not know, and will cut him in pieces, and assign him a place with the unbelievers. And that slave who knew his master’s will and did not get ready or act in accord with his will, shall receive many lashes, but the one who did not know it, and commited deeds worthy of a flogging, will receive but a few. And from everyone who has been given much shall be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.”
What an interesting question that Peter has asked, especially as it relates to interpretation. One of the difficulties of this parable is that Jesus seems, to the 21st century interpreter, to have never answered Peter’s question. Perhaps Peter felt the same way. Even if we can discover whether he did or did not answer Peter’s question, we would still be hard-pressed to discover what Peter meant by the words us and everyone else as well. Remember of course that at the end of the question we find the words ‘as well,’ meaning that the question is not ‘either just us or just them,’ but rather ‘either just us or both us and them together.’
It seems to me that there are at least three options for the meaning of us: 1. those entrusted with the master’s will in the original audience that acted in accordance with it or 2. those entrusted with the master’s will as a whole in all ages that acted in accordance with it. The disciples would obviously put themselves in one of those two categories. Similarly, it looks like there are at least two options for the meaning of everyone else: 1. those entrusted with the master’s will in the original audience that didn’t act in accordance with it or 2. those entrusted with the master’s will as a whole in all ages that didn’t act in accordance with it.
One important note: What is important is not what Peter meant by us and everyone else but what Jesus thought he meant. Why? Because we are studying Jesus’ response, not Peter’s motives behind the question. Also, I am assuming that neither us nor everyone else refers to those not entrusted with the master’s will. This is warranted based on the context and the view of Jesus as a prophet to the Jewish people, within the framework of the parable of the vineyard.
If Jesus interpreted us as meaning option 1 and everyone else as meaning option 1, then this is a polemic against the Jewish heirarchy of the day. They will actually receive more lashes than another group not mentioned above. Those who, although they did not do act in accordance with his will, were never entrusted with his will in the first place, will be spared such a severe punishment. If Jesus thought that by us Peter meant option 2 and by everyone else he meant option 2, then this is a timeless statement that in those who know the master’s will, in any age, will be held to a higher standard than those who do not know it.
Either way you look at it, I think one thing is clear. The standard is not the same for everyone. For a second example of the sympathetic view in Jesus words, see Matthew 11:24 where he is speaking the people of the Jewish cities of his day. He says,
“Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles had occurred in Tyre and Sidon which occurred in you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes. Nevertheless I say to you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgement, than for you. And you Capernaum, will not be exalted to heaven, will you? You shall descend to Hades; for if the miracles had occurred in Sodom which occurred in you, it would’ve remained to this day. Nevertheless I say to you that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgement, than for you.”
Yes, the same Sodom that housed the arch-enemy of today’s culture wars, the homosexuals. In the third and final example I have of the sympathetic view in scripture is in Matthew 20:1-16 where this double-standard, as we might call it, also applies to those who do act in accordance with his will,
“For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. And when he had agreed with the laborers for a denarius for the day, he sent them into his vineyard. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the market place; and to those he said, ‘You too go into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you.’ And so they went. Again he went out about the sixth and ninth hour, and did the same thing. And about the eleventh hour he went out, and found others standing; and he said to them, ‘Why have you been standing here idle all day long?’ They said to him, ‘Because no one hired us.’ He said to them, ‘You too go into the vineyard.’ And when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, ‘Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last group to the first.’ And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each one received a denarius. And when they received it, they grumbled at the landowner, saying, ‘These last men have worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden and the scorching heat of the day.’ But he answered and said to one of them, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what is yours and go your way, but I wish to give to this last man the same as to you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with what is my own? Or is your eye envious because I am generous?’ Thus the last shall be first, and the first last.”
We can of course transport this statement to the 21st century and take it to mean that those who became followers earlier in life will be rewarded with eternal life the same as those who later came, or that those who followed better will be rewarded the same as those who made more mistakes. I think this is to miss the point though. The Jewish people, those who were entrusted with the will of God, would to the original audience, be those who started working early. The Gentiles, or those not entrusted with the will of God, would be seen as those who had come in the eleventh hour and yet received the same reward.
Thus we have what N.T. Wright would call a subversion of the dominant paradigm. The last, which are those not entrusted, would become first. The first, which are those entrusted, would become last. This seems to be Hans Kung’s dominant paradigm. As the quote from the article above states, Kung’s position has more to do with the nature of man than with absolute truth. As it relates to my examples, the will of God is a constant, but that is not the point. The point is that some were entrusted with that will and some were not. Those who know it are held to a higher standard than those who do not.
The article goes on, “The only valid response is to trust that what we experience has meaning. Rationality can't prove that there is meaning in the creation, but it can support that contention. This trust, therefore, is a matter, quoting Kung,
“… of human reason … of the whole, concrete, living man, with mind and body, reason and instinct, in his quite particular historical situation, in his dependence on traditions, habits of thought, scales of values, with his interests and in his social environment (1978).”
Or, interpreted as the article does, “Kung is simply pointing out that we must each arrive at our understanding, or trust, of the purposefulness of existence through our own experiential filters. It is not within a human to perceive outside his own being.” You can’t expect those not entrusted with the will of the master to perceive outside of their own reality. In other words, we can only know what has been revealed to us. Therefore, we have what appears to be a double-standard.
The article then launches into bashing Kung for being relativistic saying that truth does not “follow either from strong feelings or from the most vivid visions.” At this point he sounds like a religious conservative arguing arrogantly for the concept of absolute truth. Judging from the rest of his site, he is actually a religious liberal arguing for absolute truth. I think he is missing Kung’s point, however, which I think models more closely the biblical view, that we can only know what has been revealed to us.
The article goes on to criticize Kung for the following quote:
“Jesus did not die into nothingness. In death he died into the incomprehensible and comprehensive absolutely final and absolutely first reality … God.”
The article says, “...he writes in an oblique manner which seems to say something, but in fact says very little. I wonder if there is any excuse for such writing.” Once again, I think he is misunderstanding Kung. I think that to understand what Kung is saying, you have to understand the mission of his life, ecumenism. His desire is peace on earth and the only method of achieving that for him is peace between religions as he states on the first page of Christianity. Though the idea of nothingness means nothing to the modern western Christian, it means a great deal to other religions and belief systems around the globe, for whom there is nothingness after death. This goes back to the point that while there may absolutely be life after death, from everything they know, everything that has been revealed to them, and with all knowledge they have been entrusted with, there is nothingness after death. So yes, there is an excuse for such writing.
Now, as to the other charge of whether Kung says something or very little, let’s consider his words. This is interesting to think about but raises more questions than answers. If Jesus was no man before he came to earth, was he no god when he came to earth? If he was a man while he was on the earth, was he a god after he ascended? Is he still a man or did he return to being a god? At this moment, Tuesday, December 06, 2005 at 10:24 p.m. is Jesus a man or God. I think Kung’s idea is that, while we see man as the concrete reality and god as a nebulous mental concept, God is the absolute first reality, and if anything, man is the creation of God’s mind. In this belief, Kung answers his own questions. I am still not so sure.

#13 Story in C.S. Lewis

As I walk by the newspaper dispensers each day, I tend to glance at the covers to see if anything interesting is happening. I normally keep on walking as I gaze because I’m on my way to the train. Today, as I walked by, I actually turned and stopped to look. The cover story of the USA Today read, “Is that lion the King of Kings?” This was a national newspaper with the phrase “King of Kings” on the front cover, no less. Moreover, the phrase had the word “the” in front of it, as if there was only one. I later found the article at work and yet another voice in it proclaiming the importance of story as it relates to belief. See my earlier posts #1 Read the Bible Like a Harry Potter Novel #5 From Exegesis to Theology, #6 Critical Realism, and #9 Story in Wright, Miller, & Witherington. To those three names let’s add C.S. Lewis. Here is the quote from the article.

“Lewis, who died in 1963, gave the clearest explanation of the books and why he wrote them in an essay titled "Sometimes Fairy Stories May Say Best What's to Be Said.

‘I thought I saw how stories of this kind could steal past certain inhibitions which had paralyzed much of my own religion in childhood. Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or about the sufferings of Christ?

I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings. And reverence itself did harm. The whole subject was associated with lowered voices, almost as if it were something medical.

But supposing that by casting all these things into an imaginary world, stripping them of their stained-glass and Sunday school associations, one could make them for the first time appear in their real potency? Could one not thus steal past those watchful dragons? I thought one could.’"

What particularly stuck out to me was the reference to stained-glass, Sunday school, a certain kind of reverence, a certain kind of obligation. These are all later Christian inventions applied to the religion. Originally this religion was a story. A story which could “steal past certain inhibitions which had paralyzed” he says. I find the same kind of paralysis has been in my own mind, although I never notice it when it’s there. However, reading the story of Jesus afresh through Wright and the others, as well as others before them, has broken down unnecessary inhibitions. Some might, having been regenerated by story, return to stained-glass and Sunday school. I, on the other hand will never be there again. By the way, if you’ve read my previous post #5 From Exegesis to Theology, you will understand how I am using stained-glass and Sunday school as symbols of the end of the road, not the beginning. They are symbols for the roof, not the foundation. You will understand where it is that I will never be again.