Faith without Dogmatism: Karl Jaspers’ Critique of Bultmann's and Barth's Dogmatic Theologies

Abstract

In his mature philosophical writings, Karl Jaspers juxtaposes his own theory of reason with what he considers irrational and dogmatising tendencies in the works of Rudolf Bultmann and Karl Barth. On Jaspers's view, both Bultmann and Barth construct theologies that serve as a priori frameworks through which to understand all the contingencies of existence. In opposition to such dogmatisms, Jaspers advances a hermeneutics that forbids, in advance, any permanent conclusions by proposing that we understand religious, artistic, and other approaches to transcendence as ciphers. Such ciphers, Jaspers holds, offer no fixed and final interpretation of transcendence but offer a way to remain non-dogmatically open to a wide range of possible understandings of it. As opening up a non-dogmatic form of communication, cipher-reading is guided by reason's will to openness and communication. However, as I ultimately point out, Jaspers's own effort to develop a non-dogmatic hermeneutics is beset by some of the very difficulties he identifies in the theologies of Barth and Bultmann.