[601] dimension of ultimacy^a. It loses the substance ^bof ultimate concern step by step, becomes shallow and empty, and then becomes desperate about itself. This is the moment where new heteronomies enter into the vacuum, as for instance in the modern time, the totalitarian^c heteronomies coming from the states^d; or being represented still by the churches in their authoritarian or fundamentalistic^e ways of thought. Now if this is so, then nothing is more urgent than the question: is there something beyond the alternative of a repressive heteronomy^f and an emptying autonomy^g? To this fundamental question, l answer: Yes, there is something; let's give it the name ''theonomy''--it is not a quite adequate name, but it is so well related to ''heteronomy'' and ''autonomy'' that one might use it. But then one must define it. It is not a divine law represented by the Church and put upon the culture^h--that would be heteronomy. THEOnomyⁱ is autonomy, but aware of its depth-dimension; is autonomy moving on the basis of an ultimate concern. Now the question of course is: how far is this possible? Is it possible at all? It IS possible, if we look at human history^j. It is never completely actualized. There is always the one or the other predominant, either the autonomous element or the heteronomy element. In any case, we have periods of history in which the forms of life, the artistic ^kforms, the cognitive^l forms, the political^m forms, expressed ultimate concern, with or against the churches. And such periods, as for instance the archaic-Greek philosophicalⁿ period, or the 11th or 12th centuries in the Middle Ages^o, or the Reformation^p period--such periods are, in some way, theonomous. They do not separate the ultimate concern and the preliminary concerns. They see, in their preliminary concerns, in the