[507] QN: What justification do you have for the term "ultimate concern" as a good expression for ultimate concern? Why are we not better off in saying ultimate concern is faith^a, rather than vice versa? PT: I think I explained that in the very first hours last semester. I said the most ambiguous term probably in all Christianity and all religion and all philosophy of religion, is the term "faith," because faith is confused with belief IN things without evidence. And in order to avoid this confusion, I have rejected using the term "faith" except in a whole book, which I have now written, and which will come out some day [i.e., Dynamics of Faith], where all these confusions can be rejected.

But if I say faith NOW, in this moment here, then the connotations which you have learned from those teachers and parents who say "But you must believe!" are still so strong in the half-conscious of MOST of you that I simply don't dare to use that term. But otherwise you can give me any other term---for instance, in some other context I used the term "encounter with the holy," or "encounter with the ultimate," or something like that, in everything secular and everything which is not ultimate. All these phrases are possible. But if you use a traditional phrase, then you must first save this traditional phrase. QN: If you were placed in a situation of people believing predominantly in an unbroken myth, as a minister how would you speak to them? PT: Now there you have asked me the most difficult task of the minister. My only answer, which I know a little bit out of practice, is that on the pulpit, where you have a mixture of people, you have to be extremely cautious in applying, for instance, historical criticism to the biblical legends and myths. In direct teaching, confirmation classes or in adult teaching classes, you can speak openly with them, because those who come are SUPPOSEDLY already people who ask questions,