712. Corrigenda et Retractationes

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                                                                      Corrigenda et Retractationes

On Theology

"The Authority of Scripture for Theology": 45-68

59, first full ¶, line 6 et seq. -- "There remains the distinct alternative -- and, in my judgment, the only correct alternative -- of following the intention of the scriptural principle itself and relocating the auctoritas externa in the original witness that constituted the apostolic church, even as it was, in another sense, constituted by it."

60, first full ¶, line 17 et seq. -- "He wishes to stress, rather, that in this unique case, the distinction that necessarily remains between any theological authority and that which authorizes it is no longer also a temporal distinction between a later witness and an earlier one, but is the strictly semantic distinction between what is said and meant in these earliest traditions of witness themselves, on the one hand, and the decisive event to which they refer, on the other."

66, first full ¶, l. 19 et seq. -- "Of course, this is not a new question for Christian theology, having been raised in effect as soon as scripture came to be viewed as a collection of writings, the only adequate methods for dealing with which are the same historical- and literary-critical methods that must be employed in analyzing and interpreting any historical document."

66, second full ¶, l. 1 et seq. -- "The key to an answer, I submit, is the insight that the writings of the Old Testament contain the most fundamental religious assumptions, and thus provide all the main concepts, of the Jesus-kerygma of the earliest church."

67, I. 6 et seq. -- "But, without doubt, the religious assumptions of apocalypticism, and so also those of the Jesus-kerygma, are the express subject of the distinctive religious tradition whose foundations are documented by the Old Testament (Bultmann, 1949). Consequently, if theology asks, as it must, for the meaning of the Jesus-kerygma, and thus for the understanding of human existence -- of ourselves, the world, and God -- that the Jesus-kerygma assumes, the answer, clearly, is that it is a certain form or development of the understanding of existence that is variously expressed in the writings of the Old Testament.
      "Logically speaking, then, one may say that the relation of the Old Testament to the earliest Christian witness is like that of the assumptions of an assertion to the assertion itself, or, alternatively, like that of a question to its answer. But if this is correct, there is no doubt that the Old Testament, in its way, is also a theological authority, nor does using it as such pose any particular difficulty. For in the nature of the case, the assumptions of an assertion must be as authoritative as the assertion itself, just as the authoritative answer to a question must endow the question itself with an equivalent authority."

67, second full ¶, l. 7 et seq. -- "The relation of prophecy to fulfillment, even when properly interpreted, is not the same as that of assumption to assertion, or that of question to answer. And yet there is a considerable and important overlap between the two kinds of relation, which is all the more striking when we consider, as we must, that, in the case of the existential question, there logically cannot be any sharp distinction between question and answer and that the same is true as between the assumptions of a religious assertion and the assertion itself."

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"Theology and Religious Studies: Their Difference and the Difference It Makes": 102-120

112, 1. 3 et seq. -- "Unexpected experiences force revisions in our stock of empirical knowledge and skills, and the need to bring our basic norms to bear in novel situations, or the realization that the norms themselves are more or less controversial and in need of justification, drives us to seek yet a deeper understanding even of them."

113, third full ¶, l. 8 et seq. -- "But what clearly decides the issue against allowing that any study of religion is eo ipso a religious study is that religion itself is crucially a matter of answering one form of the question as to what is the case. "

115, l. 4 et seq. -- "For even if the criteria of religious truth are sufficiently different from those of other fields of inquiry to be judged sui generis, this can only be the judgment of the same philosophy of religion that is as much a concern of philosophers as of students in religious studies."

115, first full ¶, l. 1 et seq. -- "If the difference of religious studies in no way implies their having special criteria of truth, however, it just as little implies that the student in religious studies must already be religious. True, I have implied by my account that the student in religious studies must be able to ask and interested in asking the question of faith to which religion exists to provide the answer; and if such ability and interest are taken to be sufficient conditions of being 'religious,' then, of course, the student in religious studies must already be so."

115, first full ¶, l. 15 et seq. -- "Consequently, I see no good reason to suppose that the student in religious studies needs to be any more religious than the sociologist or the philosopher, who are also, in their ways, students of religion. The only qualification required of either kind of student is the ability to ask and the interest in asking the question constitutive of her or his respective field of study; and in the one case no less than in the other this question arises in any human existence that is sufficiently reflective."

116, second full ¶ in Part 3, l. 4 et seq. -- "This would seem to indicate," etc.

118, l. 7 et seq. -- "It would, or at any rate could, exist as a distinct field of study whether or not the Christian religion or any other particular religion existed, provided only that there were at least some human beings who were religious in one way or another and there was someone both able to pursue and interested in pursuing the question as to the meaning and truth of their particular religion."

119, third full ¶, l. 3 et seq. -- "Here, too, the only necessary conditions of asking and answering this question are the prior existence of its constitutive object and of some subject able to ask and interested in asking about this object. But the sufficient ground of their being such a subject in the case of theology's question is there being someone able to ask and interested in asking the question of faith; and since one becomes a Christian not merely by asking this universal question but only by giving a specific answer to it, being a Christian clearly is not among the necessary conditions of being a theologian."

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"Theology in the University": 121-133

122, second full ¶ in Part I, l. 5 et seq. -- "To be sure, the word 'God' itself can be used so broadly that it means simply ultimate reality in its meaning for us, whatever this meaning may prove to be, or -- to speak less existentially and more metaphysically -- it may mean simply ultimate reality in its structure in itself, however we may finally conceive this structure."

126, second full ¶, l. 7 et seq. -- "Moreover, any human being, simply by virtue of the capacity for reflection that makes us human, would have the ability to engage, if not also the interest in engaging, in just such critical inquiry."

126, second full ¶, l. 14 et seq. -- '"Tradition indicates that one might also speak of it as 'natural theology,' were not the presupposed distinction between 'natural' and 'supernatural' (or 'revealed') for various reasons problematic."

126, third full ¶, l. 3 et seq. -- "Also necessary for this type of constructive theology is the claim of some specific religion or other to decisive authority, and hence to express the truth about God or the ultimate decisively."

127, first full ¶, l. 7 et seq. -- "But just as religion exists only as specific religions, so theology of this second type exists only as specific theologies corresponding to the specific religions on which they are the critical reflection."

127, first full ¶, l. 13 et seq. -- ''This phrase is appropriately used to distinguish the specific theology corresponding to the Christian religion," etc.

127, first full ¶, l. 20 et seq. -- "Depending on how narrowly or broadly one defines the term 'religion,' one may reasonably hold that not only Judaism but also Buddhism and even Communism are each a specific religion, of which there may well be a corresponding specific theology constituted by the question as to the meaning and truth of this religion's distinctive claim."

131, l. 3 et seq. -- "On the contrary, all that it asks of its students is that they have the ability and interest necessary to asking the universally human questions about the meaning and structure of ultimate reality, to which Christian thinking and speaking in one way or another give answers," etc.

132, second line from the bottom of the page et seq. -- ''This must be said, at any rate, provided that this curriculum includes, either in religious studies or in philosophy, asking and answering the properly philosophical theological question as to the meaning and truth of all thinking and speaking about the ultimate, and thus of specifically Christian thought and speech about God as well."