By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
According to Schleiermacher, "God" in the properly religious sense of the term means "the whence" of our feeling of absolute dependence and of the absolute dependence of all things. By analogy, then, "Jesus" in the properly Christian sense of the word means "the whence" of our specifically Christian feeling of absolute dependence on God, understood religiously as "the whence" of our feeling of absolute dependence and of the absolute dependence of all things. The relation here can only be an analogy, however, because "the whence" referred to by "God" is transcendental or, more exactly, existential-transcendental, while "the whence" referred to by "Jesus" is historical or, more exactly, existential-historical.
This analogy implies, among other things, that, just as all that we can say about God religiously must somehow derive from our simply human feeling of absolute dependence and of the absolute dependence of all things, so all that we can say about Jesus as well as God Christianity must somehow derive from our specifically Christian feeling of him as decisive for our feeling of absolute dependence and of the absolute dependence of all things on God.
The analogy can also be formulated by saying that, just as God is first in the orders of being and feeling, although last in the order of knowing for our religious experience simply as human beings, so Jesus is first in the orders of being and feeling, although last in the order of knowing for our specifically Christian religious experience.
Still another way of stating the analogy is to say that, as God is to the world as the one primary religious sacrament, so Jesus is to the church as the one primary Christian sacrament. Thus one may also say that, just as God is whatever has to be in order for there to be the world as the primary religious sacrament, so Jesus is whatever has to be in order for there to be the church as the primary Christian sacrament.
June 1988; rev. 7 October 2003
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