the parousia in modern theology: some questions ... - Tyndale House

32 TYNDALE BULLETIN
theology which may be described as the de-eschatologization
of Christian doctrine.
Those who are already familiar with Albert Schweitzer's
work on eschatology may perhaps assume at once that we
are referring to his thought, and it remains true that he is
the early inspiration behind this approach. However, more
recently Schweitzer's position has been developed by two
other writers, namely Fritz Buri and Martin Werner. 9 Buri's
work was published in 1934 and 1946-7; Martin Werner
published his impressive study The Formation of Christian
dogma in its first edition in 1941. A second edition ap-
peared in 1954, and an English translation in 1957. The aspect
of Schweitzer's interpretation which Werner took up and
developed, is expressed by Schweitzer himself in the follow-
ing words. He writes, "The whole history of 'Christianity'
down to the present day . . . is based on the delay of the
Parousia, the non-occurrence of the Parousia, the abandon-
ment of eschatology, the progress and completion of the
‘de-eschatologizing’ of religion which has been connected
therewith". 10
Following Johannes Weiss, Albert Schweitzer rightly
believed that nineteenth-century liberal scholarship, with
its bias towards immanentism, had grossly underestimated
the importance of apocalyptic as a context of thought
surrounding Jesus and Paul. Jesus, Schweitzer further
argued, saw himself as standing at the very end of history.
Like John the Baptist, he expected the coming of the king-
dom of God in the immediate future. The arrival of the
kingdom, which would take place at any moment, constituted
a supernatural act of God which would entail the transforma-
tion of the elect and indeed of the world-order itself into a
super-earthly state. Schweitzer continues, "The Parousia
of the Son of Man, which is logically and temporally identical
with the dawn of the kingdom, will take place before (the
Twelve) shall have completed a hasty journey through the
9 F. Buri, "Das Problem der ausgebliedenen Parusie" in Schweizerische
theologische Umschau (1946) 101ff.; Die Bedeutung der neutestamentlichen
Eschatologie für die neuere protestantische Theologie Berne, Zürich (1934);
and M. Werner, The Formation of Christian Dogma. An Historical Study of
the Problem ETr. Black, London (1957).
10 A. Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus. A Study of its
Progress from Reimarus to Wrede ETr. Black, London (1936) 358.