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2. In fact, Knox is not all that satisfying in what he says (or implies) about the other important distinction between the "visible" and the "invisible" church. His tendency, indeed, is either simply to ignore the church in the second respect or to reverse the relative order of importance between it and the church in the first respect. Thus typical of his view is a statement like the following: "The church[, being essentially a historical community,] is not a new thing, or something newly created whenever the Word is preached and the sacraments administered (though this is true, too, in a sense), but is a great social body continuously existing through the centuries" (137). Compare the comparably typical statement of Bultmann, where the reverse order of importance is asserted: "The church only exists where the faithful are assembled around this word [sc. of proclamation that preaches the cross as God's judging and liberating act and asks everyone whether he is willing to submit to the cross and understand himself in terms of it]. Therefore, the church is neither a religious association nor a sociological phenomenon, but rather is in its essence invisible, namely, as the community of those among whom God creates life – and rules. And this is true, even if the church is also the visible community of the faithful, recognizable through word and sacraments" (Existence and Faith: 201; cf., also, New Testament and Mythology and Other Basic Writings: 42: "The preachers, the apostles, are human beings who can be understood historically in their humanity. The church is a historical, sociological phenomenon, whose history can be understood historically as a part of the history of culture. And yet they are all eschatological phenomena, eschatological occurrence . . . . They are all phenomena that are subject to historical, sociological, and psychological examination, and yet for faith they are all eschatological phenomena.").

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