The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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I have an ever clearer sense that it is, above all, Maurice's vision that I am, in effect, struggling to understand and express, given the changed conditions of our world today, as compared with his. I say that it is Maurice's vision I share, assuming that Christensen's interpretation of his thought is essentially sound and that the criticism that Christensen makes on the basis of this interpretation can be responsibly answered—in much the same way in which Bultmann finally responded to the criticism of demythologizing (and existentialist interpretation) by arguing that it was a demand of faith itself.

On Christensen's interpretation, Maurice consistently refused to allow any conditions for God's unconditional love, thereby sharply distinguishing between the strictly transcendental aspect of "the divine order" and its historical aspect—the first alone being constitutive in significance, the second being in all its parts, including even its constitutive part, representative only. Certainly, it is just this that I, too, see in my vision and want to bring to expression, so far as I am able to do so.

Of course, Bultmann's whole method and methodology are essential to doing this, even though he himself, in effect, sets limits to the application of his method by assigning a constitutive significance to the event of Jesus Christ, i.e., constitutive, not just with respect to Christianity, but also with respect to the possibility in fact of authentic human existence. So, too, Rahner's Roman Catholic systematic theology is, to a considerable extent, inspired by the same vision, even if it succeeds in expressing this vision only more or less inconsistently. Finally, Tillich's theology is also helpful, although there is much in it, too, especially in christology, that is scarcely coherent with the vision; and, of course, the underlying metaphysics is, if not too vague or inconsistent to judge, more a classical than a neoclassical metaphysics, even if, unlike Hartshorne's, it can be fairly said to be a transcendental rather than a categorial metaphysics.

10 September 1999

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