¹ Gordon Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence: An Inquiry into the Problem of Theological Meaning, The Heritage of Christian Thought: Essays in Honor of Robert Lowry Calhoun, ed. Cushman, R. E. and Grislis, E. (New York: Harper and Row, 1965), 182–96Google Scholar; On the Meaning of “God”: Transcendence without Mythology, Harvard Theological Review 59 (April, 1966), 109–29Google Scholar; On the Meaning of “Act of God,” Harvard Theological Review 61 (April, 1968), 175–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

² Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 184.

³ Several of the attempts to circumvent this difficulty have taken the form of denials that the term “God” refers to a transcendent reality. These “reductionist” efforts have proved singularly unconvincing, however (cf. Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 183). For an analysis of the failure of Protestant theology to deal with the meaning of “God” as a reality “transcending” the finite world, see Claude Welch, God, Faith, and the Theological Object — An Historical Dialectic, The Harvard Theological Review 59 (July, 1966), 212–26Google Scholar.

⁴ Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 187.

⁵ I am proposing to measure Kaufman's performance by a standard that seems representative of the secular outlook, analytic philosophy. It is fair to say that analytically oriented examinations of religious discourse have been conducted, for the most part, from the outside, that is, without a first-hand knowledge of recent theological literature. On the other hand, there is a danger that theologians will respond to the challenge of analytic philosophy in an equally cursory fashion. It is important, then, to conduct a detailed examination of the work being done in analytic circles in any assessment of its theological import. I believe that such an examination will make it necessary to put certain questions to Kaufman's proposal from the side of recent analytic thought. To put those questions will, I hope, ad-vance the dialogue a stage further.

⁶ , Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 190Google Scholar.

⁷ , Kaufman, On the Meaning of “God,” 125fGoogle Scholar.

⁸ Thus Kaufman holds that use of the model of interpersonal transcendence excludes any notion of “natural” knowledge of God from the theological enterprise. What this model makes clear is that “no referent for the word ‘God’ could possibly be located apart from his act of revelation, for the other person transcends my world in this sense absolutely.…” Two Models of Transcendence, 194.

⁸ Macmurray, John, Persons in Relation (London: Faber, 1961), 169Google Scholar. Quoted in , Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 189Google Scholar.

¹⁰ , Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 189Google Scholar.

¹¹ I am prepared to extend this charge to a fair amount of recent theology. A good example of this way of describing the self is Schubert Ogden's approving commentary on Bultmann: “Man is…an ‘existing’ self.…Man's inmost reality — his being a self or an ‘I’ — completely transcends not only the external world…but also the inner world that is denned by his own subjective feelings and experiences.” Existence and Faith: Shorter Writings of Rudolf Bultmann, ed. Ogden, Schubert M. (New York: Meridian Books, Inc., 1960), 15Google Scholar. In an interesting article which assays the implications of a residually Cartesian understanding of the self for Christology, Robert L. King indicates that it is, in part, Schleiermacher's influence on Protestant theology that has led to this way of describing the self. The Concept of the Person, The Journal of Religion 46 (January, 1966), 37–44CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

¹² Strawson, P. F., Individuals: An Essay in Descriptive Metaphysics (New York: Doubleday Anchor Books, 1963), Chapter 3Google Scholar.

¹³ Ibid., 94.

¹⁴ Ibid., 95.

¹⁵ Ibid., 96. “Private experiences” are a class of particulars, sensations, mental events, sense-data, which can only be identified by reference to particulars of another type, i.e., persons. They suffer from what Strawson calls “general identifiability dependence.”

¹⁶ Ibid., 103.

¹⁷ This is the awkward position in which Gilbert Ryle, who is equally the opponent of Cartesian accounts of the person, finds himself on the matter of self-knowledge. Cf. his The Concept of Mind (New York: Barnes and Noble, Inc., 155.Google Scholar

¹⁸ , Strawson, op. cit., 105Google Scholar.

¹⁹ , Kaufman, On the Meaning of “God,” 126Google Scholar.

²⁰ , Strawson, op. cit., 109 (italics mine)Google Scholar.

²¹ , Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 191Google Scholar.

²² A full analysis in the analytic context of concepts having to do with action and agency is beyond the scope of this paper. I have attempted such an analysis in my unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, The Meaning of Transcendence: A Theological Inquiry in the Context of Philosophical Analysis (Vanderbilt, 1968)Google Scholar.

²³ , Kaufman, Two Models of Transcendence, 191fGoogle Scholar.

²⁴ It is above all Austin Farrer who has taught us to think this way about our agency. Cf. his Finite and Infinite, 2nd ed. (London: A. and C. Black, 1943)Google Scholar.

²⁵ Farber, Austin, Faith and Speculation (London: A. and C. Black, 1967), 111Google Scholar.

²⁶ Kaufman might wish to object to the use of the agent-act model on the ground that it leads to unwarranted speculative assertions about God. Following Barth, KAUFMAN objects to any suggestion that we know what God is apart from revelation. I do not find this objection convincing, however, for the notion of God as an unrestricted agent is intended only as a formal designation; it implies no knowledge of his “intentions,” to what purpose(s) he acts, or the like. On this score, Kaufman is no better off. For to take God as one who “reveals” his divine nature and will is already to impose a formal interpretation on the divine being. “Revelation” is an intentional activity, and thus one is just as vulnerable to the charge of construing God on analogy with finite agency when we speak of him as a being who reveals himself. The difference is that the agent-act model enables us to conceive of God as a transcendent being who reveals himself.

²⁷ , Kaufman, On the Meaning of “God,” 109–24Google Scholar.

²⁸ Ibid., 116.

²⁹ Ibid., 121.

³⁰ Ibid., 125.

³¹ Interestingly enough, Kaufman sometimes suggests that his analysis leads to the positing of “active will” as that which is transcendent (Ibid., 123). But this requires that we distinguish, within the self, “will” from that which limits it, and then abstract the notion of unlimited will from the concrete, unitary self. We are only in a position to do this, I am arguing, from the standpoint of the way we experience our own agency.

³² Ibid., 123.

³³ Ibid., 121 (italics mine).

³⁴ It seems reasonable to conclude that Kaufman's analysis should be understood as an effort of faith to understand itself and to make itself intelligible to those who might care to listen. His claim is that the self-understanding involved is accessible and intelligible to those who do not believe, in the sense that the analogical movement from finite experience and concepts to an interpretation of transcendent being can be clarified. But any suggestion that this movement of thought necessarily follows from a clear grasp of the human situation, apart from faith, should be eliminated from Kaufman's program. I see no good reason for his allusion, at one point, to the need for an argument for “the truth of theism” (Ibid., 123) since the exclusive use of the interpersonal model requires that knowledge of the existence and nature of God come from “revelation” alone.

³⁵ , Farrer, Faith and Speculation, 112ffGoogle Scholar.

³⁶ This is a formal designation of the matter, and I will allude only briefly in the next section to what it is the believer “has to do” with the divine being.

³⁷ , Kaufman, On the Meaning of “Act of God,” 185Google Scholar.

³⁸ Ibid., 194.

³⁹ Ibid., 191.

⁴⁰ Kaufman cannot escape the task of conjuring with this problem. In at least one case, that of Jesus, he is prepared to say that there is a “direct one-to-one correspondence and coincidence of human activity with divine” (ibid., 199). That means, does it not, that in and through Jesus's actions God enacted intentions de-signed to further his ultimate purpose(s). The paradox that follows, assuming that KAUFMAN is unwilling to see the humanity of Jesus obliterated, is that of two agents for the self-same action. Of course, the paradox must be spread much wider than the actions of Jesus, but it remains the same paradox wherever one finds it.

⁴¹ My comments are informed by the reflections of Austin Farree in his most recent writing, mentioned above, Faith and Speculation.

⁴² , Kaufman, On the Meaning of “Act of God,” 193Google Scholar.

⁴³ In so far as Kaufman wishes his comment, to the effect that purpose is an interior connection between the phases of an event, to be taken as the model for divine purpose in the world, he need not suggest that purpose is “visible” at all. It will be clear, however, that he has in mind, once again, an act such as that of raising my arm. The “phases” of this act might be taken as either the minute physical occurrences which carry it or segments of the arc through which my arm moves. The inspection of either type of phase will not reveal the purpose of the unitary act. As I have suggested already, this model eliminates the idea of divine sub-acts, each one of which is purposeful, and ultimately the idea of divine agency altogether. Cf. above, 181–182.

⁴⁴ , Farrer, Faith and Speculation, 106Google Scholar.

⁴⁵ In addition to Strawson, I would cite the work of J. L. Austin, S. Hampshire, and John Wisdom as having considerable importance for contemporary theology. I have used some of their materials in the work mentioned above (note 22).