By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
1. What, in fact, is believed or done is one question; what, by right, ought to be believed or done, another.
2. Christian dogmatics and Christian ethics are alike modes of critical reflection on what Christians believe and do respectively, with a view to (1) determining critically whether what they, in fact, believe and do is what they, by right, ought to believe and do; and (2) stating constructively what they, by right, ought to believe and do.
3. What a Christian, by right, ought to believe is whatever she or he already does and must believe at least implicitly insofar as she or he is really a Christian, i.e., has a Christian self-understanding, and thus trusts and is loyal as a Christian, by right, does and is.
4. Similarly, what a Christian, by right, ought to do is whatever she or he already does and must do at least implicitly insofar as she or he is really a Christian, i.e., has a Christian self-understanding, and thus trusts and is loyal as a Christian, by right, does and is.
5. Among the things that a Christian, by right, ought to believe (= credenda) are certain properly practical beliefs about what Christians, by right, ought to do (= agenda).
6. Correspondingly, there is a sense in which Christian dogmatics, as the critico-constructive statement of what Christians, by right, ought to believe, includes Christian ethics as the critico-constructive statement of what Christians, by right, ought to do.
7. In this sense, it is correct to say, in Marxsen's words, that Christian ethics is an aspect of Christian dogmatics.
8. More important is that Christian dogmatics and Christian ethics have the same twofold concern in asking what, by right, Christians ought to believe and do: they are concerned both with the appropriateness or "Christianness" of what is to be believed and done and with its credibility or truth, practical as well as theoreticaL
n.d.
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