By Schubert Ogden
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On the mysteria stricte dicta
1. I have generally resisted the traditional teaching according to which certain mysteria stricte dicta – -- specifically, trinity, incarnation, and grace – -- are beyond the competence of human experience and reason to validate as credible. This I have done because I do not want to accept anything as credible simply on authority.
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5 October 1988; rev. 30 January 2002; 8 December 2008
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1. That the explicit primal ontic source authorizing authentic existence is one named "Jesus" could not possibly be known by common human experience and reason simply as such, but only by human experience and reason qualified by particular historical experience of the one so named.
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5 October 1988; rev, 30 January 2002; 8 December 2008
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1. I have claimed that "any properly existential assertion, including any assertion of Christian faith, both implies and, to an extent, is implied by the truth of certain properly metaphysical assertions" (Doing Theology Today: 254). But to what extent, exactly, is any true existential assertion of Christian faith implied by the truth of certain properly metaphysical assertions?
2. It is implied to the extent that any assertion of Christian faith implies a certain answer to the existential question about the meaning of ultimate reality for us. If, then, certain properly metaphysical assertions are true, because they correctly describe the necessary conditions of the possibility of our own existence and all existence – -- and in this sense describe the structure of ultimate reality in itself – -- a certain answer to the existential question of the meaning of ultimate reality for us must also be true. What answer? The answer that takes account of the structure of ultimate reality in itself as thus described. To the extent, then, that any assertion of Christian faith implies the same answer, to the same extent this assertion is itself implied by the truth of certain properly metaphysical assertions.
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1988; rev. 30 January 2002; 8 December 2008
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1. According to Bultmann, the only reply that can be given to someone who asks for a criterion of the truth of the witness of faith is to show that this witness re-presents to us our two basic possibilities of self-understanding, thereby forcing us to decide for either one or the other (GV, 1: 284).
2. In principle, this seems to me to be correct; for beyond establishing that the self-understanding – -- or understanding of existence, of self, others, and the whole – -- implied by faithful acceptance of the witness of faith is our authentic possibility, given the structure of our existence as such, there's nothing else that theology could do to establish the credibility of this witness.
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14 June 1982; rev. 30 January 2002; 8 December 2008
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1. What is the christological significance of the fact, if it be a fact, that "there is an element of arbitrariness . . . in any arrangement of roles and offices," so that "it is nearly always arguable that a different set of arrangements would enable an activity to be more effectively conducted, or an institution to function better"? What follows for christology from reflecting that "only rarely does it seem that the existing set of arrangements is the only one conceivable," and that "this element of arbitrariness extends to nearly every form of authority" (E. D. Watt, Authority: 106 f.)?
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3. Authority is justified if two conditions are satisfied: (1) it is important to the pursuit of some activity or to the work of some institution through which some activity is pursued; and (2) this activity or institution itself is important, at least to those pursuing it or working in it. But, then, the procedures, roles, arrangements of offices, and the authority associated with them that are important to an activity pursuit of which is itself important, are all so many means, to be justified in the only way in which any means can be justified – -- by their aptness for attaining the end of the activity. This is to say, then, that the authority claimed by the Christian religion as a means is justified if (1) it is important to pursuit of authentic human existence as such; and (2) this pursuit itself is the ultimate concern of every human being.
4. Moreover, even if the most reasonable instance of authority is, to some extent, arbitrary, "such arbitrariness need not detract from its reasonableness." After all, "the arbitrariness of the choice of red as the colour of stop lights does not show that it is unreasonable to stop at red lights" (107). Mutatis mutandis, the arbitrariness that a first century Palestinian male Jew should be chosen as the bearer of God's decisive revelation does not show that it is unreasonable to acknowledge the lordship of this particular human being. On the other hand, it clearly would be unreasonable to claim that this is the only way in which the decisive revelation of God, or of the meaning of ultimate reality for us, can be received – -- just as unreasonable, indeed, as to claim that red is the only color that could possibly be used for stop lights. If, in some other social-cultural context, yellow, say, could be agreed upon as the color for stop lights, stopping at yellow stop lights would be just as reasonable, even if also just as arbitrary, as stopping at red lights is in our context. In the same way, if in another social-cultural context, some other person or thing could decisively mediate the revelation of God, or of the meaning of ultimate reality for us, there would be nothing unreasonable in acknowledging the unique religious authority of that person or thing, although such acknowledgment, like any other of the same kind, would still involve a certain unavoidable arbitrariness.
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