The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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I have been struck again and again by the thought that Bultmann's understanding of Christian faith lies, as it were, in the middle, between a mythological kind of religion, on the one hand, and a humanistic-idealistic faith, on the other.

Thus, for example, he is insistent, over against a mythological kind of religion -- a crass supernaturalism, if you will -- that the language of faith is genuinely understandable and that faith, accordingly, is not a matter of blind, arbitrary acceptance of authority. On the other hand, he is just as insistent, over against humanism-idealism, that the language of faith is gospel as distinct from law and that faith, accordingly, is a matter of submission or obedience to what is genuinely supernatural and beyond rational understanding.

I'm not particularly pleased with this formulation of my thought. But it may at least help me to think further along the same lines, pending a more adequate formulation.

22 January 2002

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