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could be used to express and/or taken to have is what the witness of faith really means, as distinct from what it appears to mean or is said to mean. But while I evidently use it in just this sense, the way I use it in at least some places may be only too easily taken to have the different sense of what the witness of faith normatively means. Thus I can say, "In the final analysis, the real meaning of the Christian witness is the real meaning of the canonical Christian witness" (140). As unobjectionable as this formulation may be in itself, as compared with saying that the real meaning of the Christian witness is the canonical Christian witness, it may nonetheless promote the very confusion between meaning and validity, or interpretation and validation, that any adequate prolegomena, to theology -- especially historical theology -- is at pains to overcome.

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