By Schubert Ogden
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Of course, these two constitutive Christian assertions \-\- properly christological and properly theological \-\- are existential assertions. (Actually, it might be better to say that, while the constitutive Christian confession is "existential," the two constitutive Christian assertions are "existentialist" \-\- in the same sense in which Bultmann can identify a certain kind of interpretation as "existentialist," and thus speak of "existentialist interpretation \[of scripture, proclamation, etc.\]," as distinct from the sense of "existentialist" when he speaks of "existentialist analysis \[of human existence\]" as "a philosophical analysis of existence.") Therefore, they necessarily imply certain properly metaphysical and ethical assertions, but for the validity of which the two constitutive Christian assertions themselves could not be valid. Whether these assertions _are_ valid, however, or, more exactly, whether they are credible as well as appropriate, is the proper business of systematic theology, in its third, "philosophical," phase, to determine. |
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The question, obviously, is whether the threefold distinction between (1) existential; (2) existentialist; and (3) metaphysical and ethical can be upheld – -- or, better, whether this terminology provides the most appropriate way in which to uphold it. One thing seems clear: I am, in any event, bound to distinguish, in some terms or other, between (1) self-understanding; (2) understanding of existence; and (3) metaphysics and ethics. For just as any self-understanding necessarily implies a certain understanding of existence, so any understanding of existence necessarily implies a certain metaphysics and ethics. The most important thing, accordingly, is to uphold this distinction in whatever terms may prove to be most appropriate for doing so.
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