The Logical Order of Things About Which We Know Next to Nothing

Augustine (6th c. fresco)

THERE HAVE BEEN, at times, moments of expected flack since I’ve outed myself as a single predestinarian. At worst it’s deemed a belligerent betrayal, at best with a wink and a nod it’s seen as a defect—often in intelligence. Not too long ago, a dear friend approached me quite concerned about not having vocalized my thoughts on this subject to him or others near to me (he did this for all the right reasons; we all should be so lucky to have at least one friend who cares to this extent), also suggesting my thinking has changed on this issue. With my typical smug chuckle, I didn’t offer any explanation one way or the other—but I thought there wasn’t much of a point when it’s a presumed fact that the breadth of the Reformed tradition excludes single predestination.

Read more »

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church (2)

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991)

IN THE FIRST POST ON THIS TOPIC, I briefly covered Hans Boersma's three reasons for recapturing Henri de Lubac's views on Holy Communion. The first two were glanced at there; some preliminary work as we gear up for the third reason will occupy us here.

Picking up where we left off, the Counter-Reformation scholastics kind of mutilated St. Augustine when it came to the Eucharist (as did their twentieth-century heirs). Case in point, for Boersma, was the way these folks handled the bishop's well-known Sermon 227 on the unity of the body of Christ that resulted from the celebration of Communion. In it, St. Augustine allegorizes the grains that join together to form one loaf, comparing that to individual believers coming together to form one body. There's no talk of real presence, let alone transubstantiation, notes Boersma: "All the focus seems to be on the unity of believers, on their fellowship or communion, which resulted from the many grains being joined together in a loaf of bread." In short, the Eucharist makes the church.

Read more »

'He that Cometh' Maketh the Church (1)

Henri de Lubac (1896–1991)

IN THE NOV/DEC ISSUE of Books & Culture, Hans Boersma wrote an article, "The Eucharist Makes the Church," in which he uses Henri de Lubac's views on the Supper as a grand moderating position that ought to do three things: (1) help us recapture the pre-modern, sacramental view of the world (over against the rationalism of the High Middle Ages and the neo-scholastic theology of the early 20th century); (2) reappropriate a pre-modern "sacramental" hermeneutic with respect to Scripture (here Boersma has in mind St. Augustine's exegetical approach of literal meaning pointing beyond itself to spiritual meaning); and (3) apply the genuine ecumenical potential inherent in de Lubac's sacramental outlook.

It is the last area that interests me most here. With respect to the other two, simply note that Boersma's narrative (which he implies is de Lubac's) goes something like this: Postmodernity is little more than modernity coming home to roost. These, kicked off, as it were, by the rationalism of the High Middle Ages . . . 

. . . are predicated on the abandonment of a pre-modern sacramental mindset in which the realities of this-worldly existence pointed to greater, eternal realities, in which they sacramentally shared. Once modernity abandoned a participatory or sacramental view of reality, the created order became unhinged from its origin in God, and the material cosmos began its precarious drift on the flux of nihilistic waves.

Recovering de Lubac is of particular importance, therefore, because he fought the same battles many of us are fighting, according to Boersma. What battles? Why, the ones precipitated by the neo-scholastics, of course! They are (1) the strict separation between nature and the supernatural and (2) the rationalist apologetic approach to the Bible and the history of Christian thought.

So, in short, "the pre-critical sacramental outlook of the medieval tradition," good; High Middle Ages, not so good. The Catholic renwal movement of nouvelle théologie, good; Pope Leo XIII's neo-scholastic love affair with St. Thomas, not so good. Leo's encyclical, Aeterni Patris, and policies "entrenched Thomist philosophy and theology as the normative system of Catholic thought."

With respect to the Eucharist, Boersma casts de Lubac (or, rather, de Lubac casts himself—I need a historical theology expert of this era to confirm or deny) as situated between two extremes: Protestantism on the one hand, and Catholic neo-scholasticism on the other. De Lubac mentions John Calvin by name as one who "watered down" both the reality of Christ's presence in Holy Communion and the traditional idea of the church as the body of Christ. The two go hand in hand, he argues, because with only a "virtual presence" of Christ in the sacrament, one would end up with only a "virtual presence" of Christ in the church, too (I know my friend Keith Mathison would take serious umbrage with this charge of "virtual presence." I am glad to see that Calvin was de Lubac's Protestant target, however—probably because his view is the only Protestant one worth holding; if anyone can figure out Luther's, let me know).

But de Lubac's main antagonist, writes Boersma, was his Catholic compatriot (both his contemporary neo-scholastics and their 17th-century predecessors). All of them were unable to find transubstantiation in the early church, most notably in St. Augustine, and "this difficulty led them to engage in mental gymnastics in their interpretation" of the North African bishop.


Coming up next: We'll look at de Lubac's recapturing of St. Augustine's sacramental outlook and Boersma's attempt to push it in an ecumenical direction. And I'll clear up the title for this post too.

Read more »