Bultmann on grace

Influenced by both Luther and Barth, Bultmann makes the incongruity of grace the center of Pauline theology: this grace exposes, judges, and overcomes the perverted human desire to seek recognition and reward from our own resources. He likewise emphasizes the priority of grace, though distancing himself from the Augustinian understanding of predestination: God’s grace is prevenient (vorkommende) in opening up the possibility of a new self-understanding, not in determining how one will respond. Bultmann’s cautious treatment of Paul’s language of powers, and his emphasis on freedom, decision, and obedience, signal his reluctance to perfect the efficacy of grace, at least as found in the Augustinian and Calvinist traditions. Unlike Marcion and modern liberalism (but here like Augustine and Calvin), for Bultmann, grace is not singular in the sense that it is incompatible with notions of divine judgment and wrath: it is, rather, the paradoxical act of the righteous judge. Nor is it noncircular in the sense that it carries no demands: Bultmann’s emphasis on the demand of grace and the obedience of faith is markedly different from Luther’s, at least in tone. For Bultmann, to speak of “pure gift” or “radical grace” means above all one thing: there are no grounds for boasting before God, whose grace operates not in accordance with human effort but precisely to undercut the self-destructive human desire to establish our own righteousness and worth.—J. M. G. Barclay, Paul and the Gift, 140