The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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The fact that the same language is used and the same statements are made by the direct witness of proclamation, on the one hand, and by the indirect witness of teaching, on the other, need not mean that there is no real difference between the two forms of witness or that it is, at any rate, an unimportant difference. It may mean only that the real and important difference between them is not necessarily indicated by a difference in language and statements. But by what, then, is it indicated?

It is indicated, I suggest, by the different uses of language and statements -- even of the same language and statements -- in direct and indirect witness respectively. Whereas the language and statements of direct witness are used to call directly for a decision of faith, the language and statements of indirect witness are used to explicate what is and is not involved in making this decision and in believing and acting accordingly.

Thus the Gospel of Mark's well known summary of Jesus' proclamation, "The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel," might appear at first glance to involve both uses of language and statements and thus both forms of witness: the indirect witness of teaching in the first clause; and the direct witness of proclamation in the second. But I should say that the controlling use of language and statements in both clauses is to call directly for a decision of faith, and so the entire sentence is an instance of direct witness. One could perhaps make the same point by saying that the first clause, though as much a direct call to decision as the second, nonetheless only implies the call, while the second clause explicitly issues it.

But, however one makes the point, there is no good reason to apply the distinction quite so finely. Even a sermon, which may very well appear to involve the indirect witness of teaching as well as the direct witness of proclamation, may be entirely proclamation, provided the controlling use of its language and statements is to issue a direct call for decision. Or, again, an extended discourse that appears to involve the direct witness of proclamation as well as the indirect witness of teaching, may, as a whole, be teaching, because the controlling use of its language and statements is to explicate the meaning of the decision of faith rather than to call for the decision itself.

11 September 1999

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