2. Apologetic Theology and the Kerygma: Apologetic theology is answering theology.” It answers the question implied in the “situation” in the power of the eternal message and with the means provided by the situation whose questions it answers.
naturalism, and historism.///An especially weak and disgusting form of apologetics used the argumentum ex ignorantia; that is, it tried to discover gaps in our scientific and historical knowledge in order to find a place for God and his actions within an otherwise completely calculable and “immanent” world. Whenever our knowledge advanced another defense position had to be given up; but eager apologetes were not dissuaded by this continuous retreat from finding in the most recent developments of physics and historiography new occasions to establish God’s activity in new gaps of scientific knowledge. This undignified procedure has discredited everything which is called “apologetics.”///There is, however, a more profound reason for the distrust of apologetic methods, especially on the part of the kerygmatic theologians. In order to answer a question, one must have something in common with the person who asks it. Apologetics presupposes common ground, however vague it may be. But kerygmatic theologians are inclined to deny any common ground with those outside the “theological circle.” They are afraid that the common ground will destroy the uniqueness of the message. They point to the early Christian Apologists who saw a common ground in the acceptance of the Logos; they point to the Alexandrian school which found a common ground in Platonism; they point to Thomas Aquinas’ use of Aristotle; above all, they point to the common ground which apologetic theology believed itself to have found with the philosophy of the Enlightenment, with Romanticism, with Hegelianism and Kantianism, with humanism and naturalism. They try to demonstrate that in each case what was assumed to be common ground actually was the ground of the situation; that theology lost its own ground when it entered the situation. ///Apologetic theology in all these forms – and that means practically all nonfundamentalist theology since the beginning of the eighteenth century- is, from the point of view of recent kerygmatic theologians, a surrender of the kerygma, of the immovable truth. If this is an accurate reading of theological history, then the only real theology is kerygmatic theology. The “situation” cannot be entered; no answer to the questions implied in it can be given, at least not in terms which are felt to be an answer. The message must be thrown at those in the situation – thrown like a stone.///This certainly can be an effective method under special psychological conditions, for instance, in revivals; it can even be effective if expressed in aggressive theological terms; but it does not fulfil the aim of the theological function of the church. And, beyond all this, it is impossible.///Even kerygmatic theology must use the conceptual tools of its period. It cannot simply repeat biblical passages. Even when it does, it cannot escape the conceptual situation of the different biblical writers. Since language is the basic and all-pervasive expression of every situation, theology cannot escape the problem of the “situation.”///Kerygmatic theology must give up its exclusive transcendence and take seriously the attempt of apologetic theology to answer the questions put before it by the contemporary situation.///On the other hand, apologetic theology must heed the warning implied in the existence and the claim of kerygmatic theology. It loses itself if it is not based on the kerygma as the substance and criterion of each of its statements.///More than two centuries of theological work have been determined by the apologetic problem. “The Christian message and the modern mind” has been the dominating theme since the end of classical orthodoxy. The perennial question has been: Can the Christian message be adapted to the modern mind without losing its essential and unique character? Most theologians have believed that it is possible; some have deemed it impossible either in the name of the Christian message or in the name of the modern mind.///No doubt the voices of those who have emphasized the contrast, the diastasis, have been louder and more impressive – men usually are more powerful in their negations than in their affirmations. But the continuous toil of those who have tried to find a union, a synthesis, has kept theology alive. Without them traditional Christianity would have become narrow and superstitious, and the general cultural movement would have proceeded without the thorn in the flesh which it needed, namely, an honest theology of cultural high standing.///The wholesale condemnations of theology during the last two centuries of theology which are fashionable in traditional and neo-orthodox groups are profoundly wrong (as Barth himself has acknowledged [8] in his Die protestantische Theologie im neunzehnten Jahrhundert). Yet certainly it is necessary to ask in every special case whether or not the apologetic bias has dissolved the Christian message. And it is further necessary to seek a theological method in which message and situation are related in such a way that neither of them is obliterated. If such a method is found, the two centuries old question of Christianity and the modern mind can be attacked more successfully. ///The following system is an attempt to use the method of correlation as a way of uniting message and situation. It tries to correlate the questions implied in the situation with the answers implied in the message. It does not derive the answers from the questions as a self-defying apologetic theology does. Nor does it elaborate answers without relating them to the questions as a self-defying kerygmatic theology does. It correlates questions and answers, situation and message, human existence and divine manifestation.///Obviously, such a method is not a tool to be handled at will. It is neither a trick nor a mechanical device. It is itself a theological assertion, and, like all theological assertions, it is made with passion and risk; and ultimately it is not different from the system which is built upon it. System and method belong to each other and are to be judged with each other. It will be a positive judgment if the theologians of the coming generations acknowledge that it has helped them, and nontheological thinkers as well, to understand the Christian message as the answer to the questions implied in their own and in every human situation.