The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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The parallels between Wesley and Bultmann at the crucial point are strikingly close.

Wesley's talk about "heathen honesty," and so on, being comprised within being "almost a Christian" evidently makes substantially the same point that Bultmann makes by taking humanistic-idealistic morality and spirituality to be law in relation to gospel.

But even more striking is that Wesley's distinction (following the teaching of his church) between faith as belief and faith as sure trust and confidence corresponds exactly to Bultmann's distinction between faith as holding doctrines to be true or accepting a Christian world view and faith as obedient trusting in God's promise to be my God.

Reflecting on these parallels yet again, I'm even more certain that the significance of Bultmann's accomplishment for anyone with a Wesleyan background must lie, above all, in providing the conceptuality-ontology in terms of which the Christian self-understanding can be appropriately as well as credibly explicated.

1 December 2001

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