Page History

...

I find it interesting that Niebuhr again and again appeals to what is "ideally" the case, or to "the ideal possibility." Thus he can say, for instance, "Ideally religion is the force which brings all individual action and vitalities into a total harmony by subjecting them all to the realm of meaning" (Reinhold Niebuhr on Politics: 128). Or he can say, The ideal possibility is that faith in the ultimate security of God's love will overcome all immediate insecurities of nature and history" (75_)._

If the second statement may be most reasonably interpreted as belonging to an explicitly Christian or "theological" context of meaning, and thus as presupposing a specifically Christian understanding of existence, this is hardly true of the first statement, whose context is evidently more abstract, abstracting from anything and everything specifically Christian and being concerned to clarify the meaning of "religion and action" in a purely general, formal, "philosophical" way. But, then, what could allow one, in that context, to speak, as Niebuhr does, of what is "ideally" the case, if not something like a proper philosophical (including metaphysical) theology? Were he simply to appeal to what is "ideally" the case, or "the ideal possibility," as understood from a specifically Christian standpoint, his whole argument would be as confused as it would be confusing, and the question of the credibility of a Christian understanding of existence could only be begged, never answered.

...