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Wiki MarkupWhat, exactly, is "the fundamental decision which decides \ [a human being's\] life on earth and in eternity"?

If one says, as Christians find it natural to say, that it is the decision of faith in God's prevenient love for all of us and of returning love for God and for all whom God loves, the formulation is still too narrow, assuming, at any rate, that "God," "faith," and "love" are all used in their ordinary theistic, not to say, specifically Christian senses. This means, among other things, that it will not do to advise Christians who wish to bear witness of their faith (to whatever extent they can do so, given the experience and assumptions of those to whom they wish to bear it) that they should strengthen such persons in their faith in and love for God even if they cannot yet give them full communion with Christ and his church.

Wiki MarkupThe truth is that even talk about faith in and love for God is but one way of formulating the fundamental decision, as distinct from being that decision itself. In terms of John XXIII's distinction, it, too, belongs to "the form in which \ [faith\] is clothed," as distinct from "the content of faith."

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If one really opens oneself to strictly ultimate reality at the deeper level of one's optio fundamentalis, one implicitly opens oneself both to the meaning of strictly ultimate reality for us and to who- or whatever is sent or appointed to represent it; and in accepting strictly ultimate reality in its meaning for us, one already accepts implicitly who- or whatever decisively re-presents this meaning. In this sense, or for this reason, Christians may say of anyone who is thus open and accepting that she or he exercises a votum implicitum Christi s. ecclesicæ.

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