By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Who is the Jesus who is said to be Christ?
1. The Jesus who is said to be Christ is not the empirical-historical Jesus, but rather the existential-historical Jesus.
2. As such, Jesus is the decisive re-presentation of the meaning of God for us.
3. The meaning of God for us has two essential aspects: God as authorizing the authentic understanding of our existence; and our authentic self-understanding as authorized by God. Consequently, as the decisive representation of the meaning of God for us, Jesus is at once the decisive revelation of God and the decisive authorization of our authentic self-understanding.
4. To be thus decisive, however, presupposes being fully explicit (although the converse does not hold: being fully explicit does not imply being decisive). Thus, because Jesus is the decisive re-presentation of the meaning of God for us, and therefore at once the decisive revelation of God as authorizing a certain self-understanding and the decisive authorization of a certain self-understanding as authorized by God, Jesus is also the fully explicit presentation, and, in that sense, the re-presentation, of the meaning of God for us.
rev. 31 January 2000
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