By Schubert Ogden
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Whether or not X so experiences Y that Y becomes a revelation or act of God for X depends, finally, on how X takes, or as what X experiences and understands, Y. Unless X experiences and understands Y as making explicit a certain possibility for X's self-understanding, Y cannot be a revelation or an act of God for X – -- just as Y cannot be such a revelation or act of God unless X experiences the self-understanding that Y is taken to re-present as X's own authentic possibility.
Of course, what Y may think, say, and do toward so re-presenting this possibility to X is by no means irrelevant to X's experiencing Y as just such a revelation or act of God. And the same is true ofwhat yet others – -- A, B, and C – -- may think, say, and do by way of re-presenting Y as precisely God's revelation or act (cf. Doing Theology Today: 136 f). But although what A, B, and C may think, say, and do may in this way facilitate X's experiencing Y as God's revelation or act (GV, 1: 110 ff.), in the final analysis, A, B, and C can in no way guarantee it, since it depends, finally, on the free decision of X her- or himself – -- in fact, on X's twofold free decision: (1) to take Y as re-presenting a certain possibility for X's own self-understanding; and (2) to experience and understand this possibility as X's own authentic understanding of her- or himself.
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