The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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I have been struck by Maurice's arguing that "there was no reason why anyone of the Lord's people should not be a prophet." "God had given His law to the whole nation. All were under it; therefore all might study it and delight themselves in it. It was a law which imported a government over the inner man, over the conscience and heart and will. The conscience and heart and will of every man might be awakened to know the nature of this government, to receive light from the source of light. And since light is given that it may be communicated, since it shines into a mind that it may shine forth from that mind, there was no reason why anyone of the Lord's people should not be a prophet" (The Prophets: 146).

Mutatis mutandis, I argue, there is no reason why any one of the religions should not be the true religion. Because the love of God is "universally present and efficacious in all human lives," not only is salvation "always and everywhere possible," but "any religious praxis [, also,] can be so transformed as to become the true religion"—insofar, namely, as it is "so transformed by God's love as to be constituted by it and representative of it" (Doing Theology Today: 183 f.).

2 October 2007

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