The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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It occurs to me that what I am actually doing in my essay, "A Priori Christology and Experience," is what Bultmann called for in saying that, in his opinion, "christology should at last be liberated from the domination of an ontology of objectifying thinking and set forth in a new ontological conceptuality" (NTM: 130, n. 58). In other words, my criticism of the a priori christologies presupposed respectively by orthodox and revisionary christologies is precisely by way of radically freeing christology from the domination of (two distinctive types of) an ontology of objectifying thinking, while my constructive proposal of an alternative a priori christology is by way of setting christology forth in a new ontological conceptuality.

It also occurs to me that my two types of a posteriori christology (sc. christology dominated by an ontology of objectifying thinking) correspond almost exactly to the two types of inappropriate christology that Bultmann regularly distinguishes -- from one another as well as from an appropriate christology -- e.g., when he distinguishes christology as "metaphysical speculation about a heavenly being" from christology as "a character sketch of [Jesus'] personality as having a messianic conciousness" (GV 1: 265 f.; cf. also 204 f.); or distinguishes the christology of Greek Christianity, which speaks about Jesus' "metaphysical being" by ascribing "a divine 'nature'" to him, from "the modern view of his person as a 'personality,'" with its talk of "the strength of his personal faith, his enthusiasm and heroism, and his willingness to sacrifice as verifying his word" (Jesus: 178 f.).

Finally, it occurs to me that my christology, even more than Bultmann's own (thanks to his exclusivistic claim), meets his demand that faith be "freed from bondage to every world picture projected by objectifying thinking, whether it is the thinking of myth or the thinking of science." By its very own essence, faith cannot be proved because of "the identity of its ground with its object." "Those who would believe in God as their God need to know that they have nothing in hand on the basis of which they could believe, that they are poised, so to speak, in midair and cannot ask for any proof of the truth of the word that addresses them. For the ground and the object of faith are identical. ... [T]he continuum of nature and history is ... profane, and it is only sub specie the proclaimed word and against appearances that what has happened or happens in nature or history acquires for believers the character of an act of God or a wonder" (NTM: 121 f.).

17 November 1996

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