By Schubert Ogden
The Notebooks of Schubert Ogden
Bultmann argues that, in showing what Christian existence means, theology also has to show that "Glauben nur im Existieren wirklich ist und nicht als ein Fiir-Wahr-Halten von Lehren" (G V 3: 193).
But this seems to be the very point that Wittgenstein also wants to make about faith when he says that in giving us a historical report and saying, "Now believe!" Christianity is not asking us to believe with the faith proper to a historical report, but rather asking us to believe "through thick and thin"-"und das kannst Du nur als Resultat eines Lebens" (VB: 67). In other words, a faith that is actual only in existing and not in holding doctrines to be true is one and the same with a faith that one can have only as the result of a life-or, as one might perhaps better translate, only as the result of [a] living-and therefore is not simply believing a historical report.
21 February 1996