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According to Gamwell, "the argumentative assessment of religious claims is incomplete without showing that the real ground of ultimate worth is necessarily affirmed in human existence as such" (_JR_, 82, 3 \[July2002\]: 364). But, surely, what has to be shown if such argumentative assessment is to be complete is not simply that the real ground of ultimate worth is necessarily affirmed in human existence as such (what else?\!), but also that it is necessarily affirmed therein _as what the religious claims in question assert or imply it to be_. This, however, raises the question whether, or to what extent, specific religious claims can be critically validated \-\- as Gamwell insists they must be \-\- by transcendental argument.

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Because I took this to be so, I found I had to reassess my earlier resistance to the traditional theological teaching according to which certain so-called mysteria stricte dicta – -- specifically, trinity, incarnation, and grace – -- are beyond the competence of human experience and reason as such to validate as credible. I generally resisted this teaching because I was reluctant to accept anything as credible simply on authority. But if it belongs to the very nature of a religion, particular and insofar arbitrary as it perforce is, to lay claim to decisive authority for itself; and if all experiences of the particular are beyond human experience and reason simply as such, there was evidently reason to question my resistance.

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