By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Christology in the strict sense consists, in part, in historical, albeit existential-historical, statements-such as, e.g., "conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin MaryI ••• descended into hell, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven," and so on.
Since all such existential-historical statements, including such as are legendary and mythical in formulation, are by way of making the constitutive christological assertion, which itself is existential-historical, constructive christology in the same strict sense consists simply in reformulating this assertion. More exactly, it consists in so reformulating the assertion as at once to answer the two related questions of the person and work of Jesus Christ in a way that is credible as well as appropriate, given the specific requirements of these criteria today.
25 August 1998; rev. 2 December 200d