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There is no exact parallel-such as, arguably, there should be-between Marxsen's answers to the two questions, "What makes Christian ethics 'Christian'?" and "What makes Christian dogmatics 'Christian'?" in its way, expresses the same selfunderstanding that dogmatics expresses, but in the sense that the actor performing the action it calls for is her-or himself a "Christian" living eschatological existence, or, as he can also say, "living 'christologically'" (cf., e.g., "Christliche" und christliche Ethik: 243).

Whereas he allows that Christian dogmatics is "Christian" insofar as it expresses, in its time and place, and thus in the concepts and terms understandable therein, the same understanding of existence originally evoked by Jesus in his encounter with the first community, he argues that Christian ethics is "Christian" only insofar as it expresses "eschatological existence" -- not in the sense that it, too, in its way, expresses the same self-understanding that dogmatics expresses, but in the sense that the actor performing the action it calls for is her- or himself a "Christian" living eschatological existence, or, as he can also say, "living 'christologically'" (cf., e.g., "Christliche" und christliche Ethik: 243).

True, any formulation of one's beliefs, like any specification of one's actions, will always be in the concepts and terms, or within the possibilities and limitations, of one's particular situation as a human being. Consequently, any analysis of beliefs or actions always has to reckon both with the selfunderstanding of which they are respectively the necessary implications

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