The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden

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One point that Gamwell doesn't make, or make as much of as may be desirable, is that the one all-inclusive end that Christians are called to serve is the glory of God—which consists, of course, in the good of God's creatures and therefore can be served only by serving creaturely good and thus meeting creaturely need.

There is no question, naturally, that Gamwell would agree with this, and it is even likely that some of his formulations imply it—as, for example, when he speaks of "the kingdom of God" not only as that "from which we all come," but also as that "to which we all go," or when he says that political choices determined by other ideals "serve other gods." But the First and Great Commandment is that we shall love God with the whole of our being, not that we shall love our neighbor as ourselves, which is rather the second commandment that is like the First and that we are called to obey precisely as and because we are called to obey the First.

Thus, while Gamwell is certainly right that "[t]he purpose of our calling is to love one another," this is true because it is the purpose necessarily implied by our one primary, all-inclusive purpose to love God with all that we are and have.

18 August 1997

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