By Schubert Ogden
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).
...