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In any case, the question that now occurs to me is whether there isn't an important connection to be made between all this and my continuing reflections on rightly locating "the 'objective' component of the revelatory correlation." According to these reflections, taking something to be revelation actually involves a double taking. The subject of revelation first takes something as something, i.e., as re-presenting a certain possibility of self-understanding/understanding existence; and only then does (or can) the subject also take this possibility to be our authentic/true possibility as human beings. But, then, the "objective" component in the revelatory correlation is not simply the something taken, but the something taken in that particular way -- namely, as re-presenting a certain possibility of self-understanding/understanding existence, which itself is then taken to be the possibility of understanding oneself authentically/understanding existence truly. Thus the proper question to ask in determining whether or not what is taken to be revelation really is so is not whether someone has re-presented our authentic/true possibility by what she or he says or does, but whether the possibility that someone is taken to representre-present is also correctly taken to be that authentic/true possibility.

Wiki MarkupAlso relevant here, of course, are such distinctions as: the scholastic distinction between among material object and formal object; Luther's distinction between _res_ or _factum_, on the one hand, and the _usus rei_ or the _usus facti_, as well as the _vis rei_ or the _vis facti_, on the other; and Bultmann's distinction between "understanding \ [or translating\] the text, which "can take place only by methodical \ [historical\] interpretation," on the one hand, and "hearing God's word in faith," which "can only be the work of the Holy Spirit," on the other. But however the distinction is made, experiencing something _as_ existentially significant, because it explicitly re-presents some possibility of self-understanding/understanding existence, is undoubtedly distinct both from experiencing the same something nonexistentially and from so experiencing it as also to decide for the self-understanding for which it calls by actualizing the possibility it is experienced as re-presenting.

But, then, the three-part distinction between the validity, the efficacy, and the effectiveness of a means of salvation should be correspondingly clear. Whether or not such a means is valid depends entirely on whether or not it appropriately re-presents the meaning of ultimate reality for us -- be its re-presentation primal, primary, or secondary. Whether or not it is effective depends entirely on whether or not it is received through faith by the person using it. But whether or not it is efficacious depends only on its being experienced as existentially significant because it calls one to decide for or against a particular possibility of self-understanding/understanding existence. In other words, the efficacy of a means of salvation, unlike its validity, is not entirely independent of the person using it, although, unlike its effectiveness, is entirely independent of the person's faith. What it is not independent of, but entirely depends on, however, is that person's taking it as something, i.e., as something existentially significant, because it explicitly calls for the decision of faith or unfaith.

Of course, my taking something to be a means of salvation doesn't make it such, even though it does make it such for me. If it really is a means of salvation, then, whether I take it to be so or not, it has to be such that it re-presents -- whether primally, primarily, or secondarily -- our authentic/true possibility as human beings, and does so not only to me but to anyone else who takes it to do so. In this sense, it has to be valid, and its validity is "objective" in that it depends in no way depends on me or on any other person using it or administering it but only on its own appropriateness -- on its being appropriate, formally as well as materially, to the meaning of ultimate reality for us. And whether or not it really is thus appropriate is entirely a matter of critical reflection -- specifically, of theological judgment -- as distinct from existential decision. But whether a means of salvation is not only valid but also efficacious very much depends on how it is used -- on whether one takes it as explicitly re-presenting a certain possibility of self-understanding/understanding existence, for or against which it summons one to decide. On the other hand, whether a valid means of salvation is effective as well as efficacious is eminently a matter of existential decision, depending, as it does, on whether one decides through faith for the possibility it re-presents -- again, primally, primarily, or secondarily.

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