Abstract:
God, and not the Bible as such, is the church's primary authority. Jesus of
Nazareth is the manifestation of God in history. In a post-Aufkllirung environment
one cannot escape the demand to think historically. To discern what could
be seen as the "ground" of faith, one needs to distinguish the "proclaiming Jesus" from the "proclaimed Jesus", though these two aspects are dialectically intertwined.
This dialeclic can be described as the "Jesus kerygma" or the "cause of
Jesus". The aim of this article is to argue that if Christians focus only on the
church's kerygma they base their ultimate trust upon assertions of faith, rather
than upon the cause of faith. The dictum that the cause of Jesus is the canon
behind the canon is explained in terms of the distinction between ''fides qua
creditur" and "fides quae creditur", and postmodern historical Jesus research.
