Facs
Transcript
a temporal [i.e. temporary] banning of the demonic from the earth, but only temporal, not final. Finally, towards the great struggle at the end of history, the demonic will let loose again, out of its underworld prison, and will reappear.
This is the language of the myth. Now we tried to translate this language in the problem of the European situation in the twenties, and it is easy to do this. The biblical vision is not utopian. The development of the divine is connected with the development of the demonic. Both of them grow in power and destructiveness. But there is always one special demonic power which can be fought against and which will be thrown into the prison and banned for a time. This is the depth and wisdom of the biblical symbolism, which you could see in the actual history of this century. Some demons were de-demonized, for instance the capitalists. Others grew in power, for instance the nationalistic. But also the nationalistic was conquered, for a certain time. These demonic forces are not the ultimate; they can be attacked and they can be conquered. And in the very attack against them, even Lutheran Christianity in Germany has developed its greatest spirituality and power against the transcendentalism of the Lutheran tradition. A man like Karl Barth changed several times when he saw that Hitler represents what religious socialism had told him, years and years before, namely not a secular phenomenon of history only, but in its depth-dimension a demonic force reaching down to dimensions of the ultimate – then he changed his position, and again started the fight which he had done as religious-