The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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One of the difficulties with Frei's characterization of theology as "the endeavor to articulate the grammar or internal logic of [the language of the Christian church] under its own norm or norms" (74) is that it renders theology inadequately distinguishable from philosophy, provided philosophy is understood, as it should be, as, on its analytic side, the attempt to articulate the grammar or internal logic of our various language games (and forms of life), including religion.

On the other hand, one of the clear advantages of my characterization of theology as critical reflection on Christian witness with a view to validating the claims to validity that bearing it makes or implies is that theology can then be adequately distinguished from philosophy, understood analytically as explication of the depth grammar or internal logic implicit in our religious as well as other ways of speaking (and living).

True, theology itself may be reasonably held to have an analytic side, even as philosophy, for its part, can be reasonably taken to be more than analytic, in that it is properly concerned with critically validating claims to validity as well as critically interpreting the forms of life-praxis that make or imply them. But this is a problem, presumably, only for a position such as mine, as distinct from those patterned, like Frei's, on the analytic model. It is, in any event, easily solved by acknowledging that, whereas human existence simply as such supplies all the necessary conditions of the possibility of philosophy, only specifically Christian existence (which, of course, necessarily presupposes human existence) can provide all of the conditions necessary to the possibility of theology.

7 July 1992

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