1085. Marxsen is entirely correct . . .

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Marxsen is entirely correct that the statement, "God has raised Jesus from the dead," is a "consequence" of lived faith (as well as, naturally, of its "prehistory"). But the assertion made by means of this statement, even as by any other christological statement of any type whatever, is properly said to be, not merely a "consequence," but a necessary presupposition or implication of lived faith, but for the truth of which lived faith itself would be groundless. In this sense, the assertion made by means of the statement, far from being a mere "consequence," is rightly said to belong to the foundation of lived faith -- specifically, its "dogmatic or doctrinal foundation."

This may not be rightly said, however, of the statement itself, any more than of any other christological or theological statement, even such supposedly irreducible statements as those about the divine-human person of Jesus Christ or the triune nature of God taken to be explicitly taught already in scripture, even if formulated definitively against heresy only by the later church councils. Why not? Well, because all such statements, including any that are supposedly irreducible, are at most implicit in the foundational witness of the apostles, i.e., the "organic or ministerial foundation of faith," even as they are all simply alternative and completely interchangeable ways and means of formulating what this witness asserts to be its "essential or substantial foundation."

On the other hand, this is in no way to deny the possible validity of the statement that "God has raised Jesus from the dead," or of any other christological or theological statement -- whether the adoptionist christological statements also to be found in the traditions redacted in the New Testament writings or even the mariological statements finally defined by the modern Roman Catholic Church as dogmas of faith. Any christological or theological statement can be valid insofar as it is understood as one of the ways or means of making the assertion(s) that alone belong to the "dogmatic or doctrinal foundation of faith."

14 January 2005; rev. 17 February 2010