The Christian God is the "God of Jesus Christ." He, whom Jesus means when he says, "My Father." He, by whom Jesus is sent. Through whom he lives, and towards whom he is turned. God is he who is "the God and Father of Jesus Christ." It is not possible to detach a "Christian conception of God," a "Christian truth," from the concrete Christ. What is Christian doctrine remains Christian only as long as it is heard as if from the mouth of Christ; as long as it is understood in a living way, drawing its life from him, from his existence and action. There is no "essence of Christianity" separable from him—we repeat, separable from him, and expressible in a free-floating, conceptual scheme. The essence of Christianity is Christ. What he is; whence he comes and towards what he goes; what lives in him and around him—heard living from his mouth, read from his countenance. A demand is here made of the philosophical mind, which is, in reality, a stumbling block for mere philosophy: that the definitive category of Christianity—and "category" means the inescapable condition for all assertions about a given subject matter—is the particular, unique reality of the concrete personality of Jesus of Nazareth.

- Romano Guardini, Pascal For Our Time (1935) (New York: Herder, 1966)