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"'[W]hat alone makes anything properly Christian [is] that particular experience of Jesus as of decisive significance for human existence which somehow comes to expression in al1 all that Christians think, say, and do. To be a Christian is to have experienced Jesus to be thus significant; for it is decisively through him that one's own existential question about the ultimate meaning of reality for us receives its answer" (Doing Theology Today: 6).

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"According to the Christian witness, faith is the kind of basic human attitude or disposition that can be formally characterized as an existential self-understanding, or understanding of our own existence, in relation to others and to the encompassing whole of ultimate reality. As such, however, faith is the only self-understanding that is not only explicitly authorized by Jesus who is said to be the Christ, but -- as Christians claim in saying that this is who Jesus is – -- is also implicitly authorized by the whole of ultimate reality itself as our authentic self-understandingunderstandin g. . . .

"[F]aith in the sense in which the Christian witness understands it may be characterized formally as an existential self-understanding. But ... it is the only self-understanding explicitly authorized by Jesus, whom Christians assert to be the Christ, the point of their assertion being that it is also the very self-understanding implicitly authorized as the authentic understanding of our existence by the mysterious whole of ultimate reality that they call by the name 'God.' If we ask now for the material content of this self-understanding, the only adequate answer is that it is an understanding of ourselves and all others as alike objects of the unbounded love of God, which is to say, of the inclusive whole of reality of which both the self and others are all parts. It is precisely the gift and demand of this unbounded love that are decisively re-presented through Jesus; and to understand ourselves as we are thereby explicitly given and called to do is to actualize the one possibility of self-understanding that is properly called 'Christian faith'" (109 ff.).

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"Nevertheless, there remains the issue -- and it is a rock-bottom, fundamental issue -- between a position ... for which the apostolic preaching that mediates our experience is forced to function as the primary source from which the Jesus of history must still be reconstructed, and a position ... for which this same earliest preaching is allowed to function as the primary authority through which the Jesus of history is even now to be encountered. In the one case, we have to do with the Jesus of history in his being in himself then and there in the past; while in the other case, we have to do with the Jesus of history in his meaning for us here and now in the present" (227 f.).

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"[T]he point of the first distinction between Jesus-in-his-being-in-himself and Jesus-in-his-meaning-for-us is that the actual Jesus, i.e., the human being Jesus bar Joseph, or Jesus of Nazareth, like any other human being, had a being in himself; he was what he was, and, assuming the objective immortality of everything actual, we may also say that he is what he was, whatever that mayor may or may not have been, everlastingly. At the same time, this actual Jesus was experienced and re-presented as having a meaning for us, i.e., for any and all human beings, in that his being actual, in the meaning belonging to it, opened up a new historical situation for any and all who experience his actuality in a certain way, either immediately or mediately. Indeed, the re-presentation of the actual Jesus by those who immediately experienced him in that way functions to confront others with the decision of whether they, too, will live in this new historic situation by appropriating his meaning as also his meaning for them. To speak of Jesus-in-his-being-in-himself, then, is to speak of the actual Jesus in the first way, even as to speak of Jesus in-his-meaning-for-us is to speak of the same actual Jesus in the second way. One may also say with Bultmann, that to speak of Jesus-in-his-being-in-himself is to speak of the 'what' of the actual Jesus, while to speak of Jesus-in-his-meaning-for-us is to speak of the 'that' of the actual Jesus as confronting others with a decision about the 'what' of their own actuality.

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"Thus, whereas the first distinction between Jesus-in-his-being-in-himself (≡ the 'what' of the actual Jesus) and Jesus-in-his-meaning-for-us (≡ the 'that' of the actual Jesus) is exclusively ontic, having to do with someone or something prior to and independent of us, the second distinction between the empirical-historical Jesus and the existential-historical Jesus is noetic as well as ontic, having to do with someone or something prior to and independent of us from the different standpoints of someone else experiencing [the someone or the something] accordingly" (cf. Notebooks, Spring 1991; rev. 9 October 2004).

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"On the other hand, the only way whereby the existential-historical experience, and thus the memory, of Jesus that is constitutive of the church can be mediated from one individual to another is through the first individual's [somehow bearing] witness to the second. Because this is so, it is hardly enough to say, as Knox does in speaking of what for him is formally normative Christian witness -- namely, the New Testament -- that it serves as 'a check upon, as well as a resource for, the life of the Church (including its memory) in every age' (The Church and the Reality of Christ: 50). Formally normative Christian witness, whatever is rightly taken to be such, is not simply a check or a resource for the life of the church, but rather is the check (auctoritas normativa) and the resource (auctoritas causativa) therefor" (Notebooks, 25 January 1997).

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"A Christian in the strict and proper sense is a person who so experiences Jesus, immediately or mediately, as to come to obedient faith in God decisively through himwhere him -- where 'obedient faith' means, first, entrusting oneself to God without reservation; and then, second, living loyally to God and to all to whom God is loyal without qualification.

"As such, a Christian at least implicitly believes certain things (credenda) and does certain things (agenda) -- namely, whatever is necessarily presupposed or implied by coming to obedient faith in God decisively 'through Jesus, in the sense ofunreserved of unreserved trust in God and unqualified loyalty to God and to God's cause" (Notebooks, 18 August 1998; rev. September 2002).

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"A Christian is someone whose human faith is Christian faith: someone, therefore,
-- who has come to faith in God by experiencing the explicit gift and demand of boundless love decisively through Jesus; and
-- who continues in this faith by believing 'the truth as it is in Jesus' and by acting in and for 'the freedom for which Christ has set us free.' . . .

"So, if [some]one asks, When did Christian faith begin? or Since when has there been Christian faith? the answer can only be: Since there has been someone who has actually come to faith in God by experiencing the explicit gift and demand of God as boundless love decisively through Jesus. This means, among other things, that the question sometimes asked, whether Jesus' own faith was Christian faith, so that Jesus himself was a Christian, has to be answered negatively . . . . [W]hatever form of faith Jesus' own faith may have been, it could not have been, in the nature of the case, properly Christian faith, because he could not have actually come to it by experiencing the explicit gift and demand of God's boundless love decisively through Jesus. Because for Christian faith experience of Jesus himself as thus decisive is necessary to the actualization of such faith, so that Jesus Jes us must always already exist as the one decisively through whom a Christian comes to faith by experiencing the explicit gift and demand of God's love, Jesus' own human faith necessarily could not h.ave been properly Christian faith although it certainly could have been a form of .. .'anonymous Christian faith.'  . . .

"[T]he Jesus whom Christians assert to be the Christ is not as such one with whom they believe in God, but rather the one decisively through whom they believe in God -- either immediately, as in the case of the apostles, or mediately, as in the case of all other Christians, who actually come to Christian faith only by means, directly or indirectly, of the apostles' prior faith and witness . . . . There are these two ways -- and, in the nature of the case, only these two ways -- in which [Christians] can so experience Jesus as thereby to come to faith in God decisively through him . . . . Either they experience him immediately, as the apostles experienced him -- an apostle in the strict sense of the word being someone whose experience of the explicit gift and demand of God's love decisively through Jesus is unmediated by any earlier such experience and witness thereto; or else they experience Jesus mediately, by means of the unmediated experience of the apostles and their witness of faith -- however few or many the other witnesses by which the apostolic witness itself has, in tumturn, been mediated before they finally experience it. Thus to be a Christian is always either to be an apostle or else to have come to one's own Christian faith in God only through the apostles and with them.

"A further point to be noted about the apostolic experience of Jesus as the gift and demand of God's love made fully explicit is that it could have been experience either of the earthly Jesus or of the risen Jesus" ("Who Is a Christian?" 3 f., 8 f.,9 f.).

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"A religion is ... constituted as a religion by an explicit primal source of all existential and therefore religious authority, comprising both an ontic and a noetic component. The ontic component of the explicit primal source of authority is the preexisting pre-existing reality experienced as authorizing the religion; the noetic component of the source is the immediate experience of that reality as thus authorizing it. These two components are interdependent, the ontic component being, in a way, dependent on the noetic as well as the other way around. Even though immediate experience of the authorizing reality obviously depends on the reality's being pre-existent, its only reality, so far as such immediate experience of it is concerned, is its reality as thus experienced, i.e., as authorizing, and hence both entitling and empowering, the religion in question.

"As for the Christian religion, its explicit primal source, which constitutes it as such, as the Christian religion, is the immediate experience of Jesus by the apostles as authorizing it -- Jesus as thus experienced being the ontic component of the source, the . apostles' immediate experience of him as such being its noetic component. Keeping in mind the interdependence of these two components, one can say that, if what is properly meant by the apostles are those who immediately experienced Jesus as the explicit primal source of the Christian religion, what is properly meant by Jesus is the one who was thus experienced by the apostles and to whom they bear witness accordingly. Because this is so, the witness of the apostles, which expresses their experience of Jesus as the explicit primal source of all existential authority, is the sole primary authority (and thus the formal norm) of the Christian religion" (Notebooks, 26 June 1980; rev. 29 April 1995).

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"By 'the empirical-historical Jesus,' then, I mean the historical reality that we are accustomed to refer to by the proper name, 'Jesus,' or 'Jesus of Nazareth,' considered in its being in itself then and there in the past insofar as we are able to know it today by way of empirical-historical inquiry. On the other hand, I mean by 'the existential-historical Jesus' this same historical reality in its meaning for us here and now in the present insofar as we are able to know it through existential encounter with it, mediate if not immediate . . . . [I]n both cases, we have to do with nothing other or less than the historical Jesus, or the Jesus of history, in the very broad, undifferentiated sense of these phrases. This is ... because we could not even ask about either the empirical-historical Jesus or the existential-historical Jesus, much less say anything at all by way of answering our question, except on the basis of a very particular historical experience of him – -- mediate if not immediate.

"But because Jesus could not be experienced sufficiently to ask or answer either question apart from particular historical experience of him, we today, who are neither his immediate contemporaries nor any of their earlier successors, could not possibly have such experience except mediately through the experience of those who were. Since it is also only mediately, through their experience, that we can ever hope to answer either question, we must sooner or later have recourse to the witnesses borne by such immediate contemporaries, through which alone we have access to their experience. This means, for all practical purposes, that we must eventually recur to the earliest stratum of Christian witness to Jesus that we today are in a position to reconstruct" (87 f.).

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"From a historical standpoint, it can be said without risk of contradiction that 'the sole residuum of the event [of Christ] was the church' [John Knox] -- understanding, of course, that the church, in turn, then left its mark on a much wider history in all kinds of direct and indirect ways. Although the church has always understood itself as the response to an event prior to it and independent of it, it has also claimed -- and with justification -- that the only access to this event is in and through its own life and witness. Thus, in our own individual faith and experience as Christians, it is always and only in and through the church that we have any share in the event of Jesus Christ, which is not only the origin of the church in history but the very principle of its existence as the church. The church continues to exist as the church only because, or insofar as, it is the community of believing and witnessing response to the event of Jesus Christ. And yet no Christian who understands the conditions of her or his own existence can ever think of playing the event off against the church in such a way as to imply that the church is somehow unimportant. And this is so, regardless of the judgments that she or he may make, and even find it necessary to make, about some one or more of the institutional churches. As critical as we may and must always be of all the Christian churches, our own included, the only ground of the appropriateness of our criticism -- because the only source of its criterion -- is the church itself as the community of believing and witnessing response to the decisive event of Jesus Christ" (110 f)..

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"So much, then, by way of general comment on the relation of the Christian understanding of the Holy Spirit to specifically Christian faith and experience. The point ... is twofold; : (1) that the church as the visible community of witness to Jesus Christ participates in the primary authority of the apostles that explicitly authorizes all specifically Christian faith and experience; and (2) that the primal source of such faith and experience as well as of the church's authority in explicitly authorizing it essentially involves what Christians understand by 'the Holy Spirit' – -- just as sure as it essentially involves what they mean by 'Jesus Christ'" (111 f.).

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"[I]n thus developing the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, I have not at all departed from the procedure I have been concerned to follow in previous discussions. In beginning, as I have ... , with Christian faith and experience, I have still begun, in effect, with Christian witness and its constitutive christological assertion that Jesus is of decisive significance for human existence because he decisively re-presents the meaning of God for us, and so the meaning of ultimate reality for us. I say I have begun with this assertion 'in effect' because it is precisely Christian faith and experience that this christological assertion, in one formulation or another, makes explicit. In the present chapter, however, . . . we have focused our attention ... on the meaning of God for us as the presence empowering our own existence in obedient faith as well as our existence and all other creaturely existence simply as such. But the connection with the constitutive christological assertion should be clear, for we have Paul's testimony that, 'if no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit,' it is also true, conversely, that 'no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says, "Jesus be cursed" (1 Cor. 12:3)"' (I16 116 f.).

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"Christ and grace and faith are the interdependent moments that determine the Christian proprium, in the sense of the distinctively Christian answer to the existential question of the ultimate meaning of human existence. Christ is the historical moment, grace and faith together, the existential moment -- grace being its metaphysical aspect, faith its moral aspect. Moreover, if grace and faith are essential to the decisive significance , of Christ, Christ is essential to grace and faith's decisively becoming event. In other words, the existential-historical Jesus is not just the external combination of two independent realities; he is a new, distinctively different reality, each of whose two essential moments, existential and historical, is qualified by the other . . . .

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"[I]t is at best one-sided to define 'Christian faith and witness' in purely formal terms as I have sometimes defined them -- namely, as 'human self-understanding and [life-]praxis insofar as they are mediated -- immediately or mediately -- through Jesus Christ' (Revisioning the Past: 17 f.). So formulated, the definition focuses solely on the ontic, as distinct from the noetic, pole of the Christian proprium; and as understandable as such one-sidedness may be, it is nonetheless exactly that. Consequently, my definition needs to be reformulated in some such way as this: [Christian faith and witness are] human self-understanding and life-praxis insofar as they are mediated -- immediately or mediately -- through experience of Jesus Christ .  . . .

"[T]he significance of the orthodox doctrine of the media salutis -- given the insight that Jesus Christ himself is the (= primal) medium salutis exhibitivum -- is that it allows one rightly to elaborate the distinction (= the difference as well as the unity, and the unity as well as the difference) between Christianity -- or, better, perhaps, 'Christianness' (= die Christlichkeit) -- on the one hand, and authentic human existence (= [eternal] life), on the other. Christianness is related to authenticity as means is related to end -- as "means of salvation," or, more formally, "means of ultimate transformation" from inauthentic to authentic existence. As such, however, Christianness has two poles: an ontic pole = Jesus Christ, and a noetic pole = faith. The first pole, accordingly, is rightly distinguished as the (= primal) medium salutis exhibitivum, the church and its so-called means of salvation being the other – primary and secondary -- media exhibitiva respectively, while the second pole is rightly distinguished as the (= primal) medium salutis apprehensivum, hope and love being the primary media apprehensiva, and good works, of mercy as well as of piety, being the secondary media apprehensiva" (cf. Notebooks, 1 November 1994).

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