Category Archive: Theology – Liturgical
Sacraments & the Mind
I’ve been fairly busy recently, and haven’t been able to read as much as I would have liked to. I’m still working my way through E. Brooks Holifield’s The Covenant Sealed. He points out that many of the early Puritans thought that “conceptual understanding was essential to sacramental worship” (pp. 35-36). In fact, it seems that some of the early Puritans saw the efficacy of the sacraments as a matter of reasoning. William Perkins wrote:
The signes and visible elements affect the senses outward and inward: the senses convey their object to the mind: the mind directed by the holy Ghost reasoneth on this manner, out of the promise annexed to the Sacrament: He that useth the elements aright, shall receive grace thereby: but I use the elements aright in faith and repentance, saith the mind of the believer: therefore shall I receive from God increase of grace. Thus, then, faith is confirmed not by the worke done, but by a kind of reasoning caused in the mind, the argument or proofe whereof is borrowed from the elements, being signes and pledges of God mercie (cited p. 53, emphasis Holifield’s).
Elsewhere, Perkins wrote,
[When] the elements of bread and wine are present to the hand and to the mouth of the receiver; at the verie same time the body and bloud of Christ are presented to the minde: thus and no otherwise is Christ truly present with the signes (cited p. 58).
William Bradshaw wrote in a similar vein:
Hence also it appears, that we specially eate the flesh of Christ, and drink his bloud, when with a beleeving heart and mind, we effectually remember and in our remembrance, we seriously meditate of, and in our meditations are religiously affected, and in our affections thoroughly inflamed with the love of Christ, grounded upon that which Christ hath done for us, and which is represented and sealed unto us in this Sacrament (cited p. 59).
From quotations such as these, it seems that at least some of the Puritans thought that the way the sacraments (and the Lord’s Supper in particular) work is by making us think. Moved, it appears, by a fear of any kind of ex opere operato view (“not by the worke done,” says Perkins), they adopted instead a view grounded on the primacy of the intellect — as if God’s way of working was primarily (or even, perhaps, only) through the mind and depended on intellectual understanding: no intellectual understanding, no efficacy of the sacraments and no grace enjoyed by those who use the sacraments.
Ex Opere Operato
Once again, I’m indebted to Joel Garver. He has a very helpful post on the phrase ex opere operato, a phrase which is often tossed around in discussions of the sacraments. Thanks, Joel!
“Spiritual” Worship?
Last night, I started reading E. Brooks Holifield’s The Covenant Sealed: The Development of Puritan Sacramental Theology in Old and New England, 1570-1720. I’ve often seen the book in footnotes and bibliographies and I finally tracked down a copy.
So far, I’ve read only the first part of the first chapter, the section dealing with Luther and Zwingli. I’m just starting the section on John Calvin. But already, I’ve begun to wonder about a theological strain which can be found in the early Reformers and which still infects the church today, namely, the idea that real worship is “spiritual” as opposed to physical — an idea which tends to downplay the sacraments.
If I recall correctly, Carlos Eire, in War Against the Idols, points out that the iconoclasm of many of the Reformers was grounded on Christ’s statement that God is Spirit and must be worshipped in spirit and truth, which they took to mean that our worship should be purged of all the “externals” and “physical stuff” which characterized medieval Roman Catholic worship. I’d agree that there were problems with medieval worship, but I question the “spiritual worship is non-physical, non-external worship” argument and the exegesis and the understanding of God’s “spirituality” that lie behind it. It seems like a remnant of gnosticism, not to mention a far cry from the robust and even sensual worship we find in Scripture.
Zwingli’s view of the sacraments, in particular, seems to have been shaped by this emphasis on “spiritual” worship. Holifield writes:
Zwingli believed that the Spirit acted directly on the souls of men without the mediation of material instruments. Implicit in that belief was a devaluation of external means, which, he said, could “never cleanse the soul.” In effect, Zwingli divided the world into material and spiritual spheres which could never intersect, and then he located Christian existence solely in the realm of spirit. Consequently, internal spiritual baptism, constituted by an immediate relation between the Spirit of God and the spirit of man, was not necessarily related to the external water baptism. Zwingli’s presuppositions left little room for baptismal efficacy. In 1525 he even denied that the sacrament could strengthen faith: “It does not justify the one who is baptized, nor does it confirm his faith, for it is not possible for an external thing to confirm faith” (p. 7)
By 1531, Zwingli did admit that the sacraments could strengthen faith, which is certainly an improvement on his earlier position.
It strikes me that this same sort of view lives on today. If Paul says something about baptism which sounds as if baptism is efficacious in some way, then people conclude that Paul mustn’t be talking about water baptism. He must mean Spirit baptism instead.
Looking for a topic for a doctoral dissertation in Reformation church history? Here’s one worth studying. Where did this “spiritual worship versus ‘physical, external’ worship” view come from? Some of the Reformers got it from Erasmus, but did it originate with him? Why the opposition to “externals”? What’s the exegesis behind that? Does it have something to do with the Reformer’s understanding of the move from Old Covenant to New Covenant? I expect so. What’s the rest of the history of this “not water baptism but Spirit baptism” interpretation? How did Reformed people end up claiming that God’s real work is immediate (i.e., unmediated)?
I imagine Holifield is going to give me some answers, though I want to be cautious as I read him. Reformation scholars, like other scholars, sometimes (mis)read their sources in terms of their own categories and questions. At any rate, the book looks like a very interesting read.
Calvin for Kids
Joel has just translated and published Calvin’s “Instruction in Christian Doctrine for Young Children,” which he wrote while in Strasbourg in 1538-1539. I especially like the way it begins:
Teacher: My child, are you a Christian in fact as well as in name?
Child: Yes, my father.
Teacher: How is this known to you?
Child: Because I am baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Thanks for making this catechism available, Joel!
Recent Reading
Last week, I read N. T. Wright’s Holy Communion for Amateurs. It’s meant to basic introduction to the Lord’s Supper, but it covers a lot of ground in a helpful and very readable way. There are certainly spots at which one might quibble. My friends who’ve studied liturgics more than I have might question the liturgical order Wright presents toward the end of the book, for instance. I’m surprised that Wright didn’t include anything about the efficacy of prophetic symbolic action (e.g., Ezekiel beseiges a clay tablet he calls “Jerusalem” and the city itself is beseiged), since that’s something Wright discusses elsewhere. But I appreciated what Wright did include. Now I’m wondering whether Wright’s forthcoming The Meal Jesus Gave Us is the same book with a different title or perhaps a larger work on the same subject.
The other book I read last week was Tim Power’s Dinner at Deviant’s Palace, a fairly light bit of science-fiction, set in a future California (Irvine, Venice, and Ellay). Powers’ presentation of the seductive power of evil is okay, but a little clunky in places. Still it was an enjoyable read.
Jesus’ Baptism and Ours
I can’t say that I had thought much about the relationship between Jesus’ baptism by John and the meaning of our baptisms. Here’s a quotation from Geoffrey Bromiley’s Sacramental Teaching and Practice in the Reformation Churches:
The clue to the meaning of baptism is to be found in the baptism of Jesus Himself at the hands of John. As was noted by many sixteenth-century exegetes, all the persons of the Trinity are present and active at this baptism. The Father speaks the word of election from heaven, acknowledging Jesus as the elected Son. Baptism is thus a sacrament of the covenant of election. The Son is the One baptized, accepting the baptism of repentance, and thus entering the way of identification with sinners which was to reach its climax in His obedient self-offering on the cross. Baptism is thus a sacrament of the fulfillment of the covenant in the substitutionary death and resurrection of the incarnate Son. The Holy Spirit is the One who descends upon the Son, empowering Him for the ministry upon which He enters. Baptism is thus a sacrament of the outpouring of the Holy Ghost (p. 21).
Bromiley goes on to say that baptism indicates to us that our salvation is not grounded in our own decision, but in the Father’s loving choice of us, that it rests on the finished work of the Son, and that now, by the Holy Spirit, we are “called and claimed for the new life effected in Christ” (p. 22). To my mind, this section on baptism was the most interesting part of the book and I won’t be done thinking about it for quite a while.
For the Life of the World
The other night, I started reading For the Life of the World by Alexander Schmemann. I’ve often heard it recommended and I’ve seen several references to it, most recently in Peter Leithart’s wonderful Blessed Are the Hungry, but I haven’t read it … till now. And yes, I know that Rick has already read the book at least twice! I really enjoyed the first chapter, which is all I’ve read so far. Here’s a sample quotation:
All that exists is God’s gift to man, and it all exists to make God known to man, to make man’s life communion with God. It is divine love made food, made life for man.