The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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What do I mean when I distinguish between saying that a particular institutional church simply is the visible and therefore true church and saying, instead, that the visible and so true church subsists in a particular institutional church?

I think I mean the same kind of distinction that I have long tried to make between saying that Jesus is the only way to salvation and saying, instead, that the only salvation is the salvation to which Jesus is the way (or, alternatively, by distinguishing between saying that salvation is to be found only in Jesus and saying, instead, that the only salvation to be found anywhere is the salvation that is to be found in Jesus). I could also distinguish between saying that salvation is to be found only in Jesus and saying, instead, that the only salvation is to be found in Jesus.

Similarly, one may distinguish between saying that the visible and therefore true church is to be found only in the ... Church and saying, instead, that the only visible and so true church is to be found in the ... Church. It is presumably something like the second of these things that the Second Vatican Council means to say when, instead of claiming that the visible and therefore true church is to be found only in the Roman Catholic Church, it claims simply that the only visible and so true church subsists in the Roman Catholic Church.

n.d.; rev. 20 August 2003

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