Hanging by a Promise

The Hidden God in the Theology of Oswald Bayer

Miller

• Publisher: Pickwick Publications
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781630878832
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religion

Oswald Bayer is one of the most important contemporary interpreters of Martin Luther and confessional Lutheran theologians. As a Luther scholar, Bayer has identified the precise reformational turning point in Luther's life and theology, which is also the central point for a truly Lutheran theology: the promise of a forgiving and justifying God preached in Jesus Christ. As a Lutheran theologian, Bayer stresses that this promise of God is the ultimate subject matter of all theology, and that all other theological topics have the justifying promise of God as their basis and boundary.Hanging by a Promise investigates how Bayer addresses Luther's topic of the hidden God--a God of wrath who accomplishes everything--from the standpoint of the justifying promise of God. Luther's doctrine of the hidden God has been taken up, discussed, and interpreted by many in the modern Protestant theological tradition. Yet, Bayer addresses it in a way in which others before him have not. Going beyond interpretation and evaluation, Bayer actually makes use of Luther's hidden God in his own theology. For Bayer, the hidden God is the counterpoint to God's gracious promise given in the preached Christ, a counterpoint that brings serious tension into the very heart of theology.

1

Introduction

If there is one theologian in particular whose works Lutheran theologians in America should read today, it is Oswald Bayer. Bayer has contributed greatly to the pursuit of Luther scholarship, to scholarship on the eighteenth-century philosopher and linguist Johann Georg Hamann, and to systematic theology.1 These contributions have brought to light new perspectives and insights to theological, philosophical, and linguistic circles both in and outside of Europe. Bayer’s doctoral dissertation, entitled Promissio, presents Martin Luther’s understanding of God’s justifying Word of promise in the gospel of Christ as seen particularly in the reformer’s teaching regarding Holy Communion in The Babylonian Captivity of the Church (1520) as the essential theological core of the reformational movement.2 In his work, Martin Luthers Theologie: Eine Vergegenwärtigung, Bayer has provided a comprehensive commentary on Luther’s theology from the standpoint of God’s justifying promise as its center.3 In his works, Zeitgenosse im Widerspruch: Johann Georg Hamann als radikaler Aufklärer and Vernunft ist Sprache: Hamanns Metakritik Kants, Bayer has opened a new discussion in contemporary circles of linguistic philosophy and the philosophy of religion regarding the person, work, and thought of the long-neglected Enlightenment figure Hamann.4 As a systematic theologian rooted firmly within the Lutheran tradition, Bayer has offered his own uniquely Lutheran approaches to the discussion of theological hermeneutics, theological methodology, the doctrine of creation, the doctrine of sanctification, theological ethics, and sacramentology.5 Bayer’s greatest contribution to contemporary theology, however, lies in his project of doing systematic theology as a Lutheran from the standpoint of God’s justifying promise as the “basis and boundary” and only true subject of all theology.6 This focus on the foundational nature of justification in theology uniquely positions Bayer amongst others in contemporary theology as one who approaches the theme of divine hiddenness uniquely from the standpoint of God’s justification of the sinner in Jesus Christ.

Oswald Bayer’s Life

Oswald Bayer was born on September 30, 1939, in Nagold, Württemberg, Germany, where he was baptized the following day.7 His father was killed in June 1941, in Lithuania during the initial phases of Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union by the Third Reich. Bayer was then raised by his mother and maternal grandfather.8 In his formative years, Bayer greatly enjoyed being out in nature, cycling, and painting.9 In 1966, he married Eva Hennig, with whom he had two children, Bettina and Joachim.10 He studied theology at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms Universität in Bonn in the Bundesland of Nordrhein-Westfallen, at the Eberhard Karls Universität in Tübingen in the Bundesland of Baden-Württemberg, and at the Waldensian Faculty in Rome. He also spent time studying philosophy at the Ruprecht-Karls Universität in Heidelberg. He became a Doctor of Theology, graduating from Bonn in 1970 and having completed Promissio as his dissertation and habilitation under the theologian and Luther scholar Ernst Bizer and having also studied under Ernst Käsemann.11 After serving his vicariate in the Evangelical Church of Württemberg, Bayer served as a parish pastor of that same Church in Täbingen, Baden-Württemberg from 1972–1974. During the same time, Bayer served as an assistant professor (Privatdozent) at Tübingen, before teaching as a full professor of systematic theology at the Ruhr-Universität in Bochum from 1974 to 1979 and then back at Tübingen as a full professor of systematic theology from 1979 to 2005.12 In 1993, Eva Bayer died and Bayer later remarried to Athina Lexutt.13 In 2005, he retired from Tübingen and became a professor emeritus.14 In 2009, a Festschrift was published in Bayer’s honor on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. It was edited by Johannes von Lüpke and Edgar Thaidigsmann and was composed by theologians and scholars including Otto Hermann Pesch, Gerhard Sauter, Martin Seils, Notger Slenczka, Johannes von Lüpke, Peter Stuhlmacher, Volker Stümke, and Jürgen Moltmann. It was funded jointly by the Evangelischen Kirche in Deutschland (EKD), the Vereinigten Evangelisch-Lutherische Kirche Deutschlands (VELKD), the Selbständige Evangelisch-Lutherischen Kirche in Deutschland (SELK), and the Luther-Akademie in Sondehausen-Ratzeburg, and was titled Denkraum Katechismus.15 Bayer lives with his wife Athina in Hennef, near Bonn, and continues to be active today in writing articles, preaching, and giving guest lectures throughout the Lutheran world.16

Bayer’s Major Works

As was noted above, Bayer’s writings include works on Luther’s theology, the philosophy of Hamann, and on Lutheran systematic theology. His Luther scholarship includes both Promissio and Martin Luthers Theologie: Eine Vergegenwärtigung. Beginning in Promissio, Bayer approaches Luther’s theology as centered on the doctrine of justification. Bayer understands the reformer to teach a view of this doctrine in which God’s declaration of the sinner’s righteousness in Christ by faith happens through an active Word of God, which brings the human into a right relationship with God.17 In Promissio, Bayer traces the development of Luther’s understanding of justification through the active Word of God’s promise, beginning in Luther’s early Lectures on the Psalms (1513–1515)18 and his Lectures on Romans (1515–1516).19 Bayer then mo...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Foreword
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Chapter 1: Introduction
• Chapter 2: The Hidden God in the Theology of Martin Luther
• Chapter 3: The Reception of Luther’s Doctrine of the Hidden God in the Modern German Protestant Theological Tradition
• Chapter 4: Bayer’s Approach to Theology
• Chapter 5: Bayer’s Theology of Justification by the Promise
• Chapter 6: The Hidden God in Bayer’s Approach to Theology
• Chapter 7: The Hidden God and Bayer’s Doctrine of Justification
• Chapter 8: Bayer’s Interpretation of Luther on the Hidden God
• Chapter 9: Review, Assessment, and Possibilities
• Bibliography