By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
There is, or certainly appears to be, a necessary connection between: (1) holding, as I do, that the only tenable christology is a re-presentativist, as distinct from a constitutivist, christology; and (2) holding, as I also do, that the specific beliefs, rites, and social organization of a specific religion cannot, in the nature of the case, be critically validated by transcendental arguments.
Transcendental arguments properly function to establish the constitution of human existence (and also, of necessity, the constitution of existence generally). In this sense, or for this reason, such arguments establish what may be called the "constitutive factors" of human existence (as well as of existence generally).
But no specific religion as such, in its specific beliefs, rites, and social organization, is, or can be, such a "constitutive factor." At most, it can re-present -- more or less adequately -- what the "constitutive factors" really are and mean. Nor is there any way to rule out the possibility that another specific religion as such, in its specific beliefs, rites, and social organization, can re-present the reality and meaning of the same "constitutive factors" -- again, more or less adequately.
10 November 2009
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