Sunday, March 10, 2019

Real spiritual presence

Lydia McGrew
Full disclosure: I'm a believer in a spiritual Real Presence, not in transubstantiation.

Apparently we have to be able to believe in some sort of special divine presence in particular physical locations in Old Testament passages. For example, the Holy of Holies.There was "something about it" so that only the High Priest could enter. The Ark of the Covenant. If the wrong person handled it, he would die. The Shekinah. So such statements as, "God is especially present in this box [the ark]" cannot literally be meaningless, or these OT passages wouldn't make any sense.

In those passages it may be that we can't go any farther in defining it than something like this: God had so ordained that he would specially interact with human beings in various ways (good and bad) in relation to that physical object or location. 

That's not really apophatic, but it is something of a surd. That's just how it is. You do this, you die. You do this, the walls fall down. You do this, you've offered a sacrifice of atonement for the people for another year. Why? Because God has set it up that there's something special--some special manifestation of his power or grace--in relation to this physical thing. And that can be referred to as "presence" despite the fact that God is omnipresent.

I think that that could be applied to the spiritual Real Presence in the Sacrament as well. In any event, the OT examples are a "proof of concept" that we can't rule it as per se meaningless to say that some object or location on earth "has" the "presence" of God in a way that other places or objects don't.


i) Catholics, Anglo-Catholics, Lutherans, and Eastern Orthodox affirm that the consecrated communion elements are the True Body and Blood of Christ (whatever that means). At the other end of the spectrum is the Zwinglian position. Then you have Christians who try to stake out a mediating position: spiritual presence. This provokes the scorn of Catholics, Lutherans et al. 

ii) One issue is exegetical. If you don't think the stock prooftexts for the real presence (e.g. Jn 6) in fact refer to the eucharist, then there's no pressure to explain in what respect Jesus is presence in the eucharist.

iii) Another issue is metaphysical. In classical theism, God is separate from time and space. On that view, God can't physically or literally occupy time and space. That's a question of philosophical theology rather than exegetical theology, although some biblical passages may point to classical theism in that regard.

iv) I expect that in the background of Lydia's discussion is 1 Cor 11:30: 

That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.

That's analogous to the effect of profaning the ark of the covenant. In the Mosaic covenant, there's a concept of sacred space and cultic holiness. Does that mean God is present in holy objects associated with the tabernacle? Another example is the tree of life and tree of knowledge.

Rather than presence, I'd say these are examples in which God assigns a beneficial or harmful effect to the use or misuse of certain physical objects. That's not inherent in the nature of the object. They're not poisonous or radioactive. The object doesn't cause that reaction. Rather, God institutes an extrinsic correlation.

v) However, we might explore different models of presence. Consider the notion of indirect presence. Take a love letter. The lover can't be with the beloved, so he writes her a letter. The letter is a stand-in for the lover. It says on paper what he'd say in person if he was there.

Photographs of loved ones are another example of indirect presence. Sometimes these are photos of the living, but sometime these are photos of the dearly departed. 

In the modern era, phones are another example of indirect presence. Likewise, it's now possible to see the person you are talking to. 

In that respect, there are degrees of indirect presence. To hear someone's voice has greater immediacy than reading their words. To see them talking to you via a computer screen has greater immediacy that merely hearing their voice.

vi) To take a different example, suppose a woman is a gardner. Everyday she puts fresh cut flowers on the dining room table. Suppose, at bedtime, her husband moves the flowers to her nightstand. Suppose her husband dies. Everyday she continues her routine of putting fresh cut flowers on the dining room table. 

Suppose, when she returns from errands, she doesn't see the flowers on the dining room table. When she goes into the bedroom she finds them on her nightstand. Suppose that happens every so often.

She's sure no one broke into the house while she was out. Moreover, the position of the flowers has coded significance. Something only the widow and her late husband were in a position to appreciate.

So she concludes that while she was out of the house, her husband's ghost moved the flowers, as a symbolic way of indicating his continued existence and enduring love for his wife. Changing the location of the flowers, in a way his wife would remember and cherish, is a mode of indirect presence. An oblique way to make contact. She never sees an apparition of her husband, but a token of his presence. 

vii) A related example is an unmistakable answer to prayer. It's not like a theophany or Christophany. But events arrange themselves in such an unlikely yet discriminating and auspicious way as to point beyond the observable events to the hidden hand of providence. 

vii) Another category is psychological presence. Take a premonitory dream in which a mother dreams that her grown son, who's far from home, is in grave danger. She wakes up and prays for him. The next day he phones her and tells her about he narrowly eluded death the day before. 

12 comments:

  1. If I'm not mistaken, Calvin held to a spiritual presence view of the Sacrament.

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  2. There is a Reformed tradition, stemming from Calvin at least in part, which says that in the "sursum corda" of the Communion liturgy, the faithful are spiritually transported up to heaven to feast--in whatever mysterious manner--on the actual, physical body and blood of Christ resident there.

    Calvin states the following in the Institutes:

    "For, in order that pious souls may duly apprehend Christ in the Supper, they must be raised up to heaven…It was established of old that before consecration the people should be told in a loud voice to lift up their hearts. Scripture itself also not only carefully recounts to us the ascension of Christ, by which he withdrew the presence of his body from our sight and company, to shake from us all carnal thinking of him, but also, whenever it recalls him, bids our minds be raised up, and seek him in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father."

    Catholics and Lutherans and Presbyterians all maintain that Christ remains physically located in heaven.

    For Catholics, he becomes in the Mass, sacramentally located here on earth, as well as in heaven. So he is, in essence, in two places at once.

    For Lutherans, Christ's physical body takes on the Father's attribute of omnipresence, what they call "ubiquity." In effect, the physical Jesus "stretches" down from heaven to be with us in the Supper.

    Conversely, (some) Calvinists go up to meet Jesus where he is.

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    1. What does "sacramentally present" mean?

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    2. Matthew 18:20 - Christ promised His presence in the midst of His people gathered to His Name. It doesn't appear to be necessarily connected with the Supper. Is, then, He present in the midst in a way different at the Supper than in an "ordinary" gathering?

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    3. Hank--

      Christ is in union with each believer. Thus he is clearly there with us as individuals at all times and in all places. Still, the Scripture you quoted states that "where two or three are gathered, there [he is] in the midst of them" So it must be a different kind of presence, right?

      I tend to think it's just various levels of intimacy. Everyday existence, prayer, corporate worship, and participation in the Eucharist.

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  3. Geoff--

    I can't tell you what "sacramentally present" means because I don't know. Catholics don't seem to know either.

    (Read the following online exchange on the matter and tell me if YOU know.)

    https://forums.catholic.com/t/eucharist-only-sacramentally-present/98479/15

    Here is what Pope Paul VI said in Mysterium Fidel:

    "Christ, whole and entire, in His physical “reality” is bodily present, although not in the same way that bodies are present in a given place."

    In other words, Christ is bodily present but not in the way that bodies are present.

    In my experience, this is the most common Catholic ploy on difficult tenets. They speak out of both sides of their mouth. And I honestly don't mean that uncharitably. They actually do maintain that A is both A and non-A at the same time and in the same way.

    I think they even realize the fact and ascribe the seeming incoherence to "mystery" or "paradox."

    To my way of thinking, the fact of the matter is that Catholic transubstantiation is "spiritually mediated" and thus has little practical distinction between it and other forms of the Real Presence (Anglican, Lutheran, Reformed)...except for the employment of adoration.

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  4. Geoff--

    I think Catholic incoherence on the matter is fully evident in the instance of Eucharistic miracles, where consecration of the host and cup has seemingly produced visible, physical flesh and blood.

    I cannot imagine someone breaking off a piece and consuming it. Surely they would be found guilty of a mortal sin of some kind. Catholicism eschews cannibalism in the strongest possible terms.

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  5. Speaking for myself, if I say that Christ is "sacramentally present," I mean something like this: God has chosen to make these physical elements to be means by which he communicates special spiritual grace/strength/sanctification to his people, which they would not obtain if they did not partake of these consecrated physical elements. By making them a means of spiritual "feeding," God has ordained that they will be vehicles of his special operation in the world. God is therefore in that sense "present" in them. They are made holy and specially sanctify the space in which they are found, as the Psalmist speaks of the tabernacle as the "house of the Lord."

    Again, this is a description of a spiritual real presence view, not of transubstantiation.

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    1. Sounds like Lydia should come over to the Reformed/Presbyterian tradition. The water is fine!

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  6. Lydia--

    Thanks for that.

    I was speaking of the Catholic view of "sacramental presence" and how it boils down to just another version of "spiritual real presence." A celiac priest who eats the wafer will get sick and a priest who partakes of too much concentrated wine will get drunk...because nothing changes in a "real world" manner. It's not a "physical" physical presence in any way we would ordinarily speak of physical presences. With each crumb...or with each drop of liquid...the adherent consumes the entire body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. It is clearly a spiritual occurrence and not (what we would normally describe as) a physical one. It is spiritually mediated, pure and simple.

    Your own description is of the benefits of the presence--that it is a means of grace--rather than of the presence itself. You appear to be making it purely spiritual, in which case you have a spiritual presence but not a corporeal one (which is what the "real" signifies). Catholics and Lutherans, along with most Anglicans and some Calvinists, believe that the presence of God Incarnate in the Eucharist must be, in some sense at least, incarnational.

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    1. What I mean by "real" is "objective." And the sense in which I would think of it as physical is simply that it is physically mediated. That piece of bread as opposed to the Wonder Bread on the shelf at the store has, in fact, been made the mediation of those benefits of Christ's presence. So it's special.

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  7. Lydia--

    I did mean to add that the Tabernacle was more than simply a space made Holy for worship: it was the designated dwelling place of God. God is a spirit, so he didn't walk into the building. But his presence WAS physically manifested. He was visibly seen entering the Tabernacle as a cloud in Exodus 40 and visibly seen exiting the Temple in Ezekiel 10 (and his future return is seen as visible in Ezekiel 43).

    The Temple was viewed as a juxtaposition of heaven and earth, with the earthly Temple being a copy of the heavenly one. Isaiah saw the Lord--inside the Sanctuary--enthroned high and lifted up, with the train of his robe, filling the Temple.

    I tend to think the Eucharist functions in a similar manner, as a juxtaposition of heaven and earth, as a meeting place between God and man.

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