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But how is this inner meaning to be recovered? The hermeneutical answer is: through one's own understanding of the problems of existence. Fuchs and Ebeling believe that the Biblical books are existential documents—that is, they are efforts to answer the basic questions man asks of life. Armed with his own understanding of the questions raised by existence, the theologian can look within Scripture for the equivalent questions raised by the Biblical writer, and for the answers given. Only then can the theologian turn his mind to the problem of retranslating that answer in a preaching word meaningful for contemporary man. One key existential answer of the Bible is found in Jesus' proclamation of the kingdom of God. In Fuchs's translation, this is an announcement of a "time of love," and Christian faith is faith in the victory of love over death.
Cultural Limitations. In his analysis of hermeneutic, Dillenberger argues that the abstract terminology employed by the Germans is too far removed from the language of daily life. Funk feels that the Marburgers sometimes fail to see the relativity of their own position as interpreters. Far from being a philosophical absolute, existentialism is itself a product of history and thus subject to the limitations of language. Theologians therefore must remember that their own expression of the existential questions may be quite as limited as was St. Paul's. Wilder, who is a brother of Playwright Thornton, criticizes Fuchs's emphasis on faith as obedience, ignoring the New Testament concern for the content of faith. In a chatty postscript, Fuchs answers that his colleagues are aware of the cultural limitations of existentialism; but they still believe it is the most useful starting point for their Biblical reinterpretation.
Robinson and Cobb are pleased that their series' first volume, The Later Heidegger and Theology, has already been translated into German, showing that a dialogue is in process. Although both books are forbidding in tone and terminology, the editors argue that the problems considered are not purely academic. Far from being a blue-sky issue, hermeneutic grapples with something that faces every preacher—how to make God's word vivid for a congregation—and represents a link between the pastoral ministry and academic theology. Says Robinson: "The new hermeneutic is designed to help the pastor do what he's paid to do: to tell people about Christianity in terms of their own lives."