By Schubert Ogden
...
Unless I am mistaken, a big difference between Niebuhr's position and my own, notwithstanding all the other points at which they clearly converge, is that he is on one side of these issues -- or of this one issue, variously formulated -- while I am on the other side. But, then, like so many other Christians, including classical Protestants, Niebuhr's position is still predicated in principle on a covenant of works even if it is predicated in fact on a covenant of grace. (One respect in which this is emphatically not true of his position, however, is that, he nowhere asserts or implies, so far as I am aware, that the obedience of Jesus Christ is the causa meritoria of God's grace as distinct from being the preeminent symbol," or culminating disclosure," of it.)
16 July 2003