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Saturday, March 05, 2005
Since we're never finished anyway....
Coye, remember this? I want to pick it up again, but I'm too lazy to keep going back to a million months ago.
OK, Davey, let's do this. I'm going to have to ask you to hang with me for a little while, and I promise that I will get to both the importance of the Eucharistic moment and my response to your ideas about grace. Given the amount of writing I've been doing over the last couple of days, I may have to do this post in two or three stages. That might work better anyway; I can check to see if you are following with me through a couple of tricky turns. Let's start...
We are assuming that our everyday way of living takes place as a hermeneutical experience of the world. When we read a text, we project our own prejudices (literally our pre-judgments of what the text means) onto the text, but the text brings us up short by contradicting our preconception of its meaning. This is Heidegger's hermeneutical circle (later developed by Gadamer). All experience works this way: I project a meaning onto the world around me, and the world brings me up short. I project my revised conception of the world, and am brought up short once again. (That's the circle part.) I walk into my room and see someone sitting at Josh's desk. I believe it to be Josh. On further examination, I find that it is not Josh but Dave sitting at his desk. I then presume a reason that Dave is in my room and test it out against the "text". It is sort of like a bat with echo location: I send out a signal and see what is reflected. Forgive me if you are already familiar with this, but it is vital to understand what I'm talking about.
Because my understanding of a text (all things are texts or function as texts to my understanding) begins with my projection of my pre-understanding, the answer I receive will always bear traces of me. To put it another way, you only get answers to the questions you ask, and because my questions come from my concerns, the answers will be a sort of reflection of my own image. Marion (following Nietzsche and Heidegger) sees this as the origin of idolatry: I ask questions about God and receive back my own reflection. This differs somewhat from a projection theory of God because it is not based on a hidden psychological need; rather, it is the necessary result of the functional structure of my consciousness. No concept of God escapes the traces of my own image because all knowledge is gained through hermeneutical inquiries that require my prejudiced questions. All my conceptions of God are necessarily idols: little gods formed by my own image.
Our next move will take us towards the Sacramental action of God and a kind of experience that supercedes the text and so escapes our idolatrous concepts, but I will stop now and ask if you are ready to move on. I also need to go to sleep. Tell me if this makes sense and if you're ready for me to continue.
---
Before I begin again, I want to quote Marion, "We must ask forgiveness for every essay in theology." That is to say, I offer the following in humility as a possible way of escape from idolatry. This is only a piece of an ongoing conversation that I hope will never stop.
The goal of theology is the saying of the Word in words, but if they proceed from us, our theology and our interpretation of Scripture will only return us to ourselves. The Word of God (the Word that is God) cannot be said by our words; only Christ says [himself] the Word, and He does this in the name of the Father. Even when we confess Him as the Word, we cannot say Him as he says Himself the Word. When we interpret Scripture, we cannot in our everyday hermeneutics go beyond the word to the Word-- instead we are returned to ourselves by the words of the text. We cannot speak the Word, and we cannot reach the Word through interpreting words.
This is where you, Dave, rightly point us to the mystery of Grace: God acting in our action; this is also where we need to think about the Sacramental. The Church teaches that Christ is the One True Sacrament-- He is the fullness of the Godhead come to us in flesh. As such, Christ is the One who offers the sacraments (such as baptism and communion) to us. It is God who baptises (not the priest), and it is Christ who offers us Himself in the bread and wine. We receive the Word made flesh. Within the Church we find the continued and continuous action of God.
What is the action of Christ in the Eucharist? (Keep in mind that the Eucharist is not merely bread and wine but the action which surrounds it.) Christ gives His body to us, and through our eating makes us into the body of Christ of which He is the head. We who share his mystical body become members of that body. This not only makes us one with Christ, it makes us one with each other since there is but one body. In the Anglican Church, we say: "We who are many are one body because we all share the same bread, the same cup." That is why we call it communion. If we can hope anywhere for a non-textual non-idolatrous experience of God, it is in this Sacramental action of Christ. The Eucharist is a transformational experience of the Word; in it, the Word presents Himself in a way that exceeds our intentions and answers questions that we could not formulate: it goes beyond the text. But even if we experience the Word beyond our hermeneutical limitations, we could not speak about it in our words without transgressing the Word; our saying of the Word would be idolatrous.
The singular importance of the Eucharist lies in its relationship to Christ's body: it is the action which characterizes our unity in the body of Christ and it is the characteristic action performed by that body. Simply put, of everything the Church does, the Eucharist is most closely tied to our identity as the body of which Christ is the head. In it, the Word becomes flesh among us; the Word takes on our flesh.
The Word does not take on my (Coye's) or your (Dave's) flesh, but in Communion we ARE the body of Christ. It is at this site that the Word says Himself the Word in our words. Christ the Word incarnates Himself in the words of the Church: He says Himself in the mystical body (the Church) He has created by giving us His body (the Eucharistic Sacrament). Theology within the Church is the Word speaking Himself.
What does that mean practically? This is a question that I'm still working on quite a bit. In fact, I'm not sure that I believe it, but I believe it's worth thinking about. Basically, it means that theology belongs to the Church. No, actually it means that theology belongs to Christ and is spoken within the Church. I don't believe it means that we all go take communion and are suddenly speaking infallibly Ex Cathedra. I think it means that when we come together as the Church, Christ is in the midst of us; He inhabits our speech and continues to speek Himself to humanity as He did when He was incarnate in Palestine. It means that theology done in the acadamy (as a place separate from the Church and its Sacramental identity) can reach nothing but idols. It means that the word of God is only the Word of God within the Church, and that I cannot separate myself from the Church and claim to truthfully interpret the Scriptures.
Well, I'm sure I left something crucial out or put it all in an entirely inappropriate order, but I'm going to leave it as it is and see what you think about it. (I take this almost in its entirety from Marion's "God Without Being", but I don't claim to do justice to his writing.)
Now that I've said that, I'm going to end with Marion's reading of the road to Emmaus: Jesus accompanies the two disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and along the way he interprets all of the Scriptures for them, explaining that the Christ had to suffer and die. "curiously, the account of Luke 24, which expressly informs that Christ 'carried out the hermeneutic' of the text, does not recount the argument to us, or a fortiori the developments of the argument. Oversight? ... The hermeneutic lesson appears truncated, even absent, only if one takes it to be different from the Eucharistic celebration where recognition takes place; for immediately after the breaking of bread, not only did the disciples "recognize him" and at last "their eyes were opened" (Luke24:31), but above all the hermeneutic went through the text to the referent: "and they said to one another 'did not our hearts burn within us when he was speaking along the way, when he opened to us [allowed us to communicate with] the text of the Scriptures?'" (Luke 24:32). The Eucharist accomplishes, at its central moment, the hermeneutic (it occurs at 24:30, halfway between the two mentions of the Scriptures, 24:27 and 24:32). It alone allows the text to pass to its referent, recognized as the non-textual Word of the words. Why? We know why: because the Word interprets in person. Yes, but where? Not first at the point where the Word speaks of the Scriptures, about the text, but at the point where he proffers the unspeakable speech, absolutely filial to the Father-- "taking bread, he gave thanks" (24:30)...The Word intervenes in person in the Eucharist to accomplish in this way the hermeneutic..."
"The Word does not take on my (Coye's) or your (Dave's) flesh, but in Communion we ARE the body of Christ."
Please clarify: does grace, kind of grace we have been speaking of, exist outside the moments of Eucharist? Does the church exist outside of it? Are we the body of Christ outside of it?
Yes to all three, if by "moment" we mean the place and time of a Eucharistic ritual. If, on the other hand, "moment" refers to what is important or significant about the Eucharist (ie, what is "momentous"), then the answer is "no". The central importance of Sacramental theology lies in the recognition that it is God who acts in the Sacrament (that is, it is not our work of observance or remembrance but His work of bestowing unmerited grace). It is Christ's action that bestows grace and creates the Church as His body; and, if theology is going to escape idolatry, then it must be Christ who speaks Himself. Why, then, the Eucharist instead of baptism (or perhaps even another[?] Sacrament)? As I said before, the Eucharist is the characteristic act of the Church: it characterizes (ie, represents or symbolizes) the fact that we are the body of Christ, and performing this action is what characterizes (gives character to, distinguishes) the Church ("as often as you meet together, do this"). Now, a Sacrament is a symbol which both represents something AND IS the thing it represents; accordingly, the Eucharist both represents the fact that the Church is Christ's body and also makes it so. The moment (importance) of the Eucharist is that in the Eucharistic moment we both receive and become Christ's Body.
No further need to clarify the actual sacrament ritual: I'm still a bit foggy on how this ecclesiology operates outside the ritual, where, on one hand, grace-the church-the body exist and function as such, yet where something of this must undergo some kind of entropy for there to be a need to continually return to "receive and become Christ's Body."
This is a crucial question for everything else we discuss: what becomes of the Church, and how must it operate, when it is "scattered" like salt among the differnt parts of the town-city-world for the rest of the week?
This might not strictly be an answer to your question, but I think it can go some distance towards answering it: Remember the Ark of the Covenant from "Raider's of the Lost Ark"? It was a physical object imbued with a magical quality so that whoever possessed it possessed the power of God (but be careful because you might melt). I can't ephasize how much this is NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE! The bread and wine of Communion are not magic food that make us the body of Christ and last roughly a week so we'd better make it to Church on Sunday. The Eucharistic ritual is NOT a spiritual gas station that we visit more or less regularly depending on the kind of mileage we're getting (I've been looking into a hybrid, myself). Meeting together as a church community and hearing the word and celebrating the Eucharist are things that characterize a kind of life. There is no "rest of the week"-- there is only my life which is marked by my commitment to and participation in the life of the Church (Christ's Body). If we are to be Christ's Body through which He speaks Himself the Word, then it is not because of our temporal proximity to receiving the Eucharist or our geographical distance from the church building. We are His Body because He has drawn us to Himself and continues to give Himself to us for our sake (the moment of the Eucharist).
As you said, you didn't strictly answer my question. You did help to clarify some aspects of it, though.
As for being honest with my prejudice cards: You have to realize- I know basically nothing about sacramental theology. I have never been part of church which practiced the Eucharist as such. So this is why I'm a bit incredulus about a position in which the Eucharist occupies the space of "characteristic act of the Church."
For me, I have always been taught to take Christ at His words: "do this in rememberance of me," and Paul in his interpretation, "as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim (i.e. you are living monument of) the Lord's death until he comes." I put these directly in line with OT acts like building a monument in a highly visible place (and obviously like enacting the passover) so that the incredibly important act of God which they represent will be both proclaimed and remembered for ages to come.
However, the Church is much more than a monument, and the Body of Christ is also characterized by its response to the assention of Christ--by the constant receving of the spiritual gifts of grace which set the Church alive and growing in , but not of, the world.
It is going to be very difficult not to speak past each other in this. . .
I think it may be possible to reach a conclusion similar to Marion's (that is, theology is THEOlogy when Christ the Word speaks Himself the Word through His Body the Church) without necessarily sharing Marion's convictions about the nature of the Eucharist. You, Dave, are no Pelagian (even if a theology of ordinances bears traces of pelagianism), and you believe (at least in all my experiences of your faith) that Christ is continually offering us grace through Himself and through His body (even if not Sacramentally instantiated). You also speak about a grace that works itself out as a partnership between the actions of God and the actions of His children (or God acting in our actions). With these premeses, you can reach a conclusion about THEOlogy at its best that is very similar to Marion's; granted, it will not be the strong version of "we ARE the BODY of Christ such that He can speak Himself the Word through our corporate flesh" (like the strong argument "this IS my body, given for you"), but you can make the weaker (not a weaker as in less valid but a weaker claim as in less ambitious) argument that theology properly undertaken must be performed by those whose lives are shaped by their relationship to Christ and His Church. At least, I think you can. Let me know what you think, or even if you would WANT to make such a claim.
Oh, and those who believe in a Sacramental Eucharist also believe that they are (in your words) taking Christ at His words: "this is my body" and "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves" (John 6:53). As usual, it is not a matter of "we are following Christ's words and you are following tradition/interpretation/etc."; it is a matter of whose tradition and whose interpretation of His words. If you or someone else would like to discuss the relative merits of believing in Sacraments or Ordinances, I would be a willing participant in a new post on the topic (carried out in charity, of course; enough human blood has been spilled over the nature of Christ's blood).
John's text is pretty hard to dance around from an Ordinance perspective. I'll have to let it sit like coals on my head for a few days and see what happens.
Anyway: I do find it curious that the gospel that contains the strongest text toward a Eucharist-Sacrament position--that is, the gospel of John--excludes any discription of critical parts of the Lord's supper. This was obviously intentional by the author. I'm just not sure what that intent was.
And, a first response to your first response: I think you have described my thoughts correctly.
I do want to learn more about sacramental THEOlogy though. I did not mean to end a conversation by pointing out my prejudices, I was hoping to begin one. So, hopefully we can do that somewhere sometime. I don't know if the blog is the best place for it, though it may be a good place to start.
So then, what place does theology (or, perhaps, "religion") have in the academy? Is the religion at work in the halls of higher learning the same sort of thing that goes on within the Church? If not, what sort of religion CAN exist and opperate within the academy, and how does it relate to the THEOlogy of the Church?
1)To see my qualms regarding "religion," you can go back to my original comments on the Fish article. My comments garnered little attention, but I (of course) think they are important.
2) I do not see a similarity between the way "the academy" (or the any work place) is constructed and the way the Church is constructed. The Church is the sum aggregate of the members of the body of Christ by means of his grace. The accademy is a loosly defined network of human and institutional interactions that exists within our cultural system, carrying with it a sub-set of roles and norms. The members of Christ's body do not cease to function as the members of Christ's body simply because they come to act within this human network.
How could it be otherwise?
To be a member of Christ is altogether totalizing: you ARE his. You cannot be any other.
Yes, a Christian is a member of Christ's body in, as you say, a totalizing way. And, yes, the Academy is something like a "loosly defined network of human and institutional interactions that exists within our cultural system, carrying with it a sub-set of roles and norms." In fact the Academy is defined as the Academy primarily by its normative modes of investigation and discussion: a man is an academic when he discusses academic subjects using academic language and gains recognition by the acadamy (degrees, reputation, tenure, $$$, etc), and an activity is academic when it is recognized by the Academy as "academically serious" and executed with the approved (usually "peer-reviewed") methodology. There is no serious question as to whether a Christian qua Christian can be an Academic (there is nothing in Christianity that forbids acting within the normative methodology of the Academy), but there is the question of whether an Academic qua Academic can do theology. (Remember, a doctor can build a house, but he cannot build it qua doctor; a doctor qua doctor treats patients.) This isn't to say that an Academic cannot be a Christian or cannot do theology, but can she do THEOlogy AS AN ACADEMIC? If not-- if the kind of THEOlogy we've been discussing is unnacceptable by the norms of the Academy-- then:
1) what is the status of the activity called theology (theoLOGY, perhaps)carried on by the Academy, what value does it have, and what is the relationship between theoLOGY and THEOlogy? We do, after all, send our priests and ministers to seminaries to earn academic degrees, and most of those seminaries exist within the physical and/or intellectual space of the Academy.
2) How do we evaluate the claims and prescriptions of THEOlogy if it is entirely free from the normative operations of academic theoLOGY?
Dave, I will re-read you comments about "religion" from the original Fish post sometime soon (we might actually come all the way around to discussing Fish again; can you believe it?).
First, I doubt if there is any qua Qua qua in any other realm realm than THEOlogy (or, to mean the same thing, THEOpromorphic ecclesiology). I agree with Auden's "small beer" statements, though not, I think, with his feelings toward these catagories. I think Auden senses "small beer" as a loss of something--I don't think I do.
That is, I belive that we, by defintion (within the stated catagory of diction!), cease to be Christians QUA Christians if we grant any catagory like scientist qua scientist among ourselves or even among anyone for that matter.
Anyway, I'm sure you don't agree-- but I'd like to talk it out.
First, I doubt if there is any qua Qua qua in any other realm realm than THEOlogy (or, to mean the same thing, THEOpromorphic ecclesiology). I agree with Auden's "small beer" statements, though not, I think, with his feelings toward these catagories. I think Auden senses "small beer" as a loss of something--I don't think I do.
That is, I belive that we, by defintion (within the stated catagory of diction!), cease to be Christians QUA Christians if we grant any catagory like scientist qua scientist among ourselves or even among anyone for that matter.
Anyway, I'm sure you don't agree-- but I'd like to talk it out.
16 comments:
Here's where you left off:
OK, Davey, let's do this. I'm going to have to ask you to hang with me for a little while, and I promise that I will get to both the importance of the Eucharistic moment and my response to your ideas about grace. Given the amount of writing I've been doing over the last couple of days, I may have to do this post in two or three stages. That might work better anyway; I can check to see if you are following with me through a couple of tricky turns. Let's start...
We are assuming that our everyday way of living takes place as a hermeneutical experience of the world. When we read a text, we project our own prejudices (literally our pre-judgments of what the text means) onto the text, but the text brings us up short by contradicting our preconception of its meaning. This is Heidegger's hermeneutical circle (later developed by Gadamer). All experience works this way: I project a meaning onto the world around me, and the world brings me up short. I project my revised conception of the world, and am brought up short once again. (That's the circle part.) I walk into my room and see someone sitting at Josh's desk. I believe it to be Josh. On further examination, I find that it is not Josh but Dave sitting at his desk. I then presume a reason that Dave is in my room and test it out against the "text". It is sort of like a bat with echo location: I send out a signal and see what is reflected. Forgive me if you are already familiar with this, but it is vital to understand what I'm talking about.
Because my understanding of a text (all things are texts or function as texts to my understanding) begins with my projection of my pre-understanding, the answer I receive will always bear traces of me. To put it another way, you only get answers to the questions you ask, and because my questions come from my concerns, the answers will be a sort of reflection of my own image. Marion (following Nietzsche and Heidegger) sees this as the origin of idolatry: I ask questions about God and receive back my own reflection. This differs somewhat from a projection theory of God because it is not based on a hidden psychological need; rather, it is the necessary result of the functional structure of my consciousness. No concept of God escapes the traces of my own image because all knowledge is gained through hermeneutical inquiries that require my prejudiced questions. All my conceptions of God are necessarily idols: little gods formed by my own image.
Our next move will take us towards the Sacramental action of God and a kind of experience that supercedes the text and so escapes our idolatrous concepts, but I will stop now and ask if you are ready to move on. I also need to go to sleep. Tell me if this makes sense and if you're ready for me to continue.
---
Before I begin again, I want to quote Marion, "We must ask forgiveness for every essay in theology." That is to say, I offer the following in humility as a possible way of escape from idolatry. This is only a piece of an ongoing conversation that I hope will never stop.
The goal of theology is the saying of the Word in words, but if they proceed from us, our theology and our interpretation of Scripture will only return us to ourselves. The Word of God (the Word that is God) cannot be said by our words; only Christ says [himself] the Word, and He does this in the name of the Father. Even when we confess Him as the Word, we cannot say Him as he says Himself the Word. When we interpret Scripture, we cannot in our everyday hermeneutics go beyond the word to the Word-- instead we are returned to ourselves by the words of the text. We cannot speak the Word, and we cannot reach the Word through interpreting words.
This is where you, Dave, rightly point us to the mystery of Grace: God acting in our action; this is also where we need to think about the Sacramental. The Church teaches that Christ is the One True Sacrament-- He is the fullness of the Godhead come to us in flesh. As such, Christ is the One who offers the sacraments (such as baptism and communion) to us. It is God who baptises (not the priest), and it is Christ who offers us Himself in the bread and wine. We receive the Word made flesh. Within the Church we find the continued and continuous action of God.
What is the action of Christ in the Eucharist? (Keep in mind that the Eucharist is not merely bread and wine but the action which surrounds it.) Christ gives His body to us, and through our eating makes us into the body of Christ of which He is the head. We who share his mystical body become members of that body. This not only makes us one with Christ, it makes us one with each other since there is but one body. In the Anglican Church, we say: "We who are many are one body because we all share the same bread, the same cup." That is why we call it communion. If we can hope anywhere for a non-textual non-idolatrous experience of God, it is in this Sacramental action of Christ. The Eucharist is a transformational experience of the Word; in it, the Word presents Himself in a way that exceeds our intentions and answers questions that we could not formulate: it goes beyond the text. But even if we experience the Word beyond our hermeneutical limitations, we could not speak about it in our words without transgressing the Word; our saying of the Word would be idolatrous.
The singular importance of the Eucharist lies in its relationship to Christ's body: it is the action which characterizes our unity in the body of Christ and it is the characteristic action performed by that body. Simply put, of everything the Church does, the Eucharist is most closely tied to our identity as the body of which Christ is the head. In it, the Word becomes flesh among us; the Word takes on our flesh.
The Word does not take on my (Coye's) or your (Dave's) flesh, but in Communion we ARE the body of Christ. It is at this site that the Word says Himself the Word in our words. Christ the Word incarnates Himself in the words of the Church: He says Himself in the mystical body (the Church) He has created by giving us His body (the Eucharistic Sacrament). Theology within the Church is the Word speaking Himself.
What does that mean practically? This is a question that I'm still working on quite a bit. In fact, I'm not sure that I believe it, but I believe it's worth thinking about. Basically, it means that theology belongs to the Church. No, actually it means that theology belongs to Christ and is spoken within the Church. I don't believe it means that we all go take communion and are suddenly speaking infallibly Ex Cathedra. I think it means that when we come together as the Church, Christ is in the midst of us; He inhabits our speech and continues to speek Himself to humanity as He did when He was incarnate in Palestine. It means that theology done in the acadamy (as a place separate from the Church and its Sacramental identity) can reach nothing but idols. It means that the word of God is only the Word of God within the Church, and that I cannot separate myself from the Church and claim to truthfully interpret the Scriptures.
Well, I'm sure I left something crucial out or put it all in an entirely inappropriate order, but I'm going to leave it as it is and see what you think about it. (I take this almost in its entirety from Marion's "God Without Being", but I don't claim to do justice to his writing.)
Now that I've said that, I'm going to end with Marion's reading of the road to Emmaus: Jesus accompanies the two disciples from Jerusalem to Emmaus, and along the way he interprets all of the Scriptures for them, explaining that the Christ had to suffer and die. "curiously, the account of Luke 24, which expressly informs that Christ 'carried out the hermeneutic' of the text, does not recount the argument to us, or a fortiori the developments of the argument. Oversight? ... The hermeneutic lesson appears truncated, even absent, only if one takes it to be different from the Eucharistic celebration where recognition takes place; for immediately after the breaking of bread, not only did the disciples "recognize him" and at last "their eyes were opened" (Luke24:31), but above all the hermeneutic went through the text to the referent: "and they said to one another 'did not our hearts burn within us when he was speaking along the way, when he opened to us [allowed us to communicate with] the text of the Scriptures?'" (Luke 24:32). The Eucharist accomplishes, at its central moment, the hermeneutic (it occurs at 24:30, halfway between the two mentions of the Scriptures, 24:27 and 24:32). It alone allows the text to pass to its referent, recognized as the non-textual Word of the words. Why? We know why: because the Word interprets in person. Yes, but where? Not first at the point where the Word speaks of the Scriptures, about the text, but at the point where he proffers the unspeakable speech, absolutely filial to the Father-- "taking bread, he gave thanks" (24:30)...The Word intervenes in person in the Eucharist to accomplish in this way the hermeneutic..."
"The Word does not take on my (Coye's) or your (Dave's) flesh, but in Communion we ARE the body of Christ."
Please clarify: does grace, kind of grace we have been speaking of, exist outside the moments of Eucharist? Does the church exist outside of it? Are we the body of Christ outside of it?
Yes to all three, if by "moment" we mean the place and time of a Eucharistic ritual. If, on the other hand, "moment" refers to what is important or significant about the Eucharist (ie, what is "momentous"), then the answer is "no". The central importance of Sacramental theology lies in the recognition that it is God who acts in the Sacrament (that is, it is not our work of observance or remembrance but His work of bestowing unmerited grace). It is Christ's action that bestows grace and creates the Church as His body; and, if theology is going to escape idolatry, then it must be Christ who speaks Himself. Why, then, the Eucharist instead of baptism (or perhaps even another[?] Sacrament)? As I said before, the Eucharist is the characteristic act of the Church: it characterizes (ie, represents or symbolizes) the fact that we are the body of Christ, and performing this action is what characterizes (gives character to, distinguishes) the Church ("as often as you meet together, do this"). Now, a Sacrament is a symbol which both represents something AND IS the thing it represents; accordingly, the Eucharist both represents the fact that the Church is Christ's body and also makes it so. The moment (importance) of the Eucharist is that in the Eucharistic moment we both receive and become Christ's Body.
No further need to clarify the actual sacrament ritual: I'm still a bit foggy on how this ecclesiology operates outside the ritual, where, on one hand, grace-the church-the body exist and function as such, yet where something of this must undergo some kind of entropy for there to be a need to continually return to "receive and become Christ's Body."
This is a crucial question for everything else we discuss: what becomes of the Church, and how must it operate, when it is "scattered" like salt among the differnt parts of the town-city-world for the rest of the week?
This might not strictly be an answer to your question, but I think it can go some distance towards answering it:
Remember the Ark of the Covenant from "Raider's of the Lost Ark"? It was a physical object imbued with a magical quality so that whoever possessed it possessed the power of God (but be careful because you might melt). I can't ephasize how much this is NOT WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT HERE! The bread and wine of Communion are not magic food that make us the body of Christ and last roughly a week so we'd better make it to Church on Sunday. The Eucharistic ritual is NOT a spiritual gas station that we visit more or less regularly depending on the kind of mileage we're getting (I've been looking into a hybrid, myself). Meeting together as a church community and hearing the word and celebrating the Eucharist are things that characterize a kind of life. There is no "rest of the week"-- there is only my life which is marked by my commitment to and participation in the life of the Church (Christ's Body). If we are to be Christ's Body through which He speaks Himself the Word, then it is not because of our temporal proximity to receiving the Eucharist or our geographical distance from the church building. We are His Body because He has drawn us to Himself and continues to give Himself to us for our sake (the moment of the Eucharist).
As you said, you didn't strictly answer my question. You did help to clarify some aspects of it, though.
As for being honest with my prejudice cards: You have to realize- I know basically nothing about sacramental theology. I have never been part of church which practiced the Eucharist as such. So this is why I'm a bit incredulus about a position in which the Eucharist occupies the space of "characteristic act of the Church."
For me, I have always been taught to take Christ at His words: "do this in rememberance of me," and Paul in his interpretation, "as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup you proclaim (i.e. you are living monument of) the Lord's death until he comes." I put these directly in line with OT acts like building a monument in a highly visible place (and obviously like enacting the passover) so that the incredibly important act of God which they represent will be both proclaimed and remembered for ages to come.
However, the Church is much more than a monument, and the Body of Christ is also characterized by its response to the assention of Christ--by the constant receving of the spiritual gifts of grace which set the Church alive and growing in , but not of, the world.
It is going to be very difficult not to speak past each other in this. . .
I think it may be possible to reach a conclusion similar to Marion's (that is, theology is THEOlogy when Christ the Word speaks Himself the Word through His Body the Church) without necessarily sharing Marion's convictions about the nature of the Eucharist. You, Dave, are no Pelagian (even if a theology of ordinances bears traces of pelagianism), and you believe (at least in all my experiences of your faith) that Christ is continually offering us grace through Himself and through His body (even if not Sacramentally instantiated). You also speak about a grace that works itself out as a partnership between the actions of God and the actions of His children (or God acting in our actions). With these premeses, you can reach a conclusion about THEOlogy at its best that is very similar to Marion's; granted, it will not be the strong version of "we ARE the BODY of Christ such that He can speak Himself the Word through our corporate flesh" (like the strong argument "this IS my body, given for you"), but you can make the weaker (not a weaker as in less valid but a weaker claim as in less ambitious) argument that theology properly undertaken must be performed by those whose lives are shaped by their relationship to Christ and His Church. At least, I think you can. Let me know what you think, or even if you would WANT to make such a claim.
Oh, and those who believe in a Sacramental Eucharist also believe that they are (in your words) taking Christ at His words: "this is my body" and "unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in yourselves" (John 6:53). As usual, it is not a matter of "we are following Christ's words and you are following tradition/interpretation/etc."; it is a matter of whose tradition and whose interpretation of His words. If you or someone else would like to discuss the relative merits of believing in Sacraments or Ordinances, I would be a willing participant in a new post on the topic (carried out in charity, of course; enough human blood has been spilled over the nature of Christ's blood).
John's text is pretty hard to dance around from an Ordinance perspective. I'll have to let it sit like coals on my head for a few days and see what happens.
Anyway: I do find it curious that the gospel that contains the strongest text toward a Eucharist-Sacrament position--that is, the gospel of John--excludes any discription of critical parts of the Lord's supper. This was obviously intentional by the author. I'm just not sure what that intent was.
And, a first response to your first response: I think you have described my thoughts correctly.
I do want to learn more about sacramental THEOlogy though. I did not mean to end a conversation by pointing out my prejudices, I was hoping to begin one. So, hopefully we can do that somewhere sometime. I don't know if the blog is the best place for it, though it may be a good place to start.
So then, what place does theology (or, perhaps, "religion") have in the academy? Is the religion at work in the halls of higher learning the same sort of thing that goes on within the Church? If not, what sort of religion CAN exist and opperate within the academy, and how does it relate to the THEOlogy of the Church?
1)To see my qualms regarding "religion," you can go back to my original comments on the Fish article.
My comments garnered little attention, but I (of course) think they are important.
2) I do not see a similarity between the way "the academy" (or the any work place) is constructed and the way the Church is constructed. The Church is the sum aggregate of the members of the body of Christ by means of his grace. The accademy is a loosly defined network of human and institutional interactions that exists within our cultural system, carrying with it a sub-set of roles and norms. The members of Christ's body do not cease to function as the members of Christ's body simply because they come to act within this human network.
How could it be otherwise?
To be a member of Christ is altogether totalizing: you ARE his. You cannot be any other.
Yes, a Christian is a member of Christ's body in, as you say, a totalizing way. And, yes, the Academy is something like a "loosly defined network of human and institutional interactions that exists within our cultural system, carrying with it a sub-set of roles and norms." In fact the Academy is defined as the Academy primarily by its normative modes of investigation and discussion: a man is an academic when he discusses academic subjects using academic language and gains recognition by the acadamy (degrees, reputation, tenure, $$$, etc), and an activity is academic when it is recognized by the Academy as "academically serious" and executed with the approved (usually "peer-reviewed") methodology. There is no serious question as to whether a Christian qua Christian can be an Academic (there is nothing in Christianity that forbids acting within the normative methodology of the Academy), but there is the question of whether an Academic qua Academic can do theology. (Remember, a doctor can build a house, but he cannot build it qua doctor; a doctor qua doctor treats patients.) This isn't to say that an Academic cannot be a Christian or cannot do theology, but can she do THEOlogy AS AN ACADEMIC? If not-- if the kind of THEOlogy we've been discussing is unnacceptable by the norms of the Academy-- then:
1) what is the status of the activity called theology (theoLOGY, perhaps)carried on by the Academy, what value does it have, and what is the relationship between theoLOGY and THEOlogy? We do, after all, send our priests and ministers to seminaries to earn academic degrees, and most of those seminaries exist within the physical and/or intellectual space of the Academy.
2) How do we evaluate the claims and prescriptions of THEOlogy if it is entirely free from the normative operations of academic theoLOGY?
Dave, I will re-read you comments about "religion" from the original Fish post sometime soon (we might actually come all the way around to discussing Fish again; can you believe it?).
First, I doubt if there is any qua Qua qua in any other realm realm than THEOlogy (or, to mean the same thing, THEOpromorphic ecclesiology). I agree with Auden's "small beer" statements, though not, I think, with his feelings toward these catagories. I think Auden senses "small beer" as a loss of something--I don't think I do.
That is, I belive that we, by defintion (within the stated catagory of diction!), cease to be Christians QUA Christians if we grant any catagory like scientist qua scientist among ourselves or even among anyone for that matter.
Anyway, I'm sure you don't agree-- but I'd like to talk it out.
But now I have to go!
First, I doubt if there is any qua Qua qua in any other realm realm than THEOlogy (or, to mean the same thing, THEOpromorphic ecclesiology). I agree with Auden's "small beer" statements, though not, I think, with his feelings toward these catagories. I think Auden senses "small beer" as a loss of something--I don't think I do.
That is, I belive that we, by defintion (within the stated catagory of diction!), cease to be Christians QUA Christians if we grant any catagory like scientist qua scientist among ourselves or even among anyone for that matter.
Anyway, I'm sure you don't agree-- but I'd like to talk it out.
But now I have to go!
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