This has come up in several different ways in the past few weeks, be it conversations about denominational identity, philosophical discussions about the metaphysics behind iconography or the eucharist, or a debate about theological hermeneutics.
What I have been encountering lately is a particular kind of theological claim. That claim goes like this: action a results in divine response b. This rite of blessing over the elements results in the real presence of God in those elements. This reading of scripture results in the moving of the Holy Spirit within the life of the Christian. This sort of prayer results in my eternal salvation, and this prayer to a particular saint in heaven will most certainly be answered.
My first critique of such reasoning is that it implies a level of necessity embedded in those actions which we simply cannot know. This critique, however, doesn’t do much, because its the same critique I would offer about almost all metaphysical claims.
The second suspicion I have is a bit more meaty and is what makes it likely that I am a Zwinglian.
This critique starts with a particular belief of mine, which is that God is a person. I think most Christians will share this belief with me so I am not overly worried about that being a controversial claim…
From this starting point, I want to reassess the theological argument we just introduced: action a leads to divine response b. What I want to suggest is that in addition to the metaphysical question about necessity embedded in these claims, there is also a theological question about necessity.
That is because it seems to me that this claim implies that God must necessarily respond to the action in question in a particular way. God must be present when the rite is performed, the Holy Spirit must be present when the words are read, God must save me when I say this prayer, etc.
This implied necessity is concerning to me because of what it implies about the personhood of God. If God is bound by necessity to respond in a particular way to these human actions, then God is subject to being controlled by human beings. This, to me, sounds like a cosmic vending machine, not a genuine person. And for that reason, I am suspicious of any such theological argument which seems embedded with such a notion of necessity.
Now, there is an important clarification that I need to make to ensure that I don’t leave this post with an image of a very distant and cold God. That is to say that my concerns are about claims which make a necessary link between a particular action and a divine response to that action.
My belief is that God is loving and desires a loving relationship with humanity. God wants to be present to us in very real and tangible ways. But I get worried when we attach to any particular action a claim that it must result in a particular divine response.
Which is why I think the label Zwinglian may be appropriate: my concern is about preserving God’s choice to be present in the sacrament (broadly defined) and not assuming that the sacrament must contain God’s presence. In other words, I want to claim that there is nothing inherent in the sacrament itself that demands the presence of God, that when God is present it is because God has chosen to be.
So the 20th Century German theologian Karl Barth’s famous claim that God can be revealed in a dead dog on the street just as easily as in the eucharist or in the words of scripture seems to me to be right, and that implies, I think, that God doesn’t have to be present in any of those things unless God chooses to be. God is not bound by our actions, God relates to us in a loving relationship as God chooses to do.
Now, I write all this acknowledging that I still willingly worship in a fairly traditional episcopal church which at least outwardly expresses a fairly high sacramental theology.
Which raises a question that I think is worth pondering but won’t delve into here:
Are religious rituals and ceremonies, and the spiritual experiences they impart, more important to God or to us?
Related articles
- Sacramental and Prophetic Presence (doohan.id.au)
- The Catholic Church: Between the sublime and the ridiculous (rappler.com)
There And (Almost) Back Again 
Yep. I was right. I loved this. Can I be a Zwinglian too?
Yes, please!
Interested post Alex. From my perspective, God graciously offers Godself to us in the bread and the wine and has asked us to take, eat and drink. In the Eucharist, we don’t compel God to be there. Instead, we trust God’s promise that God will be there and that grace will be dispensed at the table. At least from a Lutheran perspective its a matter of believing that God is where God promises God is. God has the freedom and choice to be present where God chooses but we believe that when God promises to be in the bread and the wine, that is where God will choose to be.
Can you tell I am at Lutheran seminary right now??? Anyway, just my two cents. Thanks for your blog post and I hope you are doing well!
I can definitely tell you are at a Lutheran seminary right now! And thanks for your two cents worth! Hope you are well, when are we going to get to see you guys again out on the East Coast?
I meant interesting post, not interested–though I was very interested!
Is this just a special case of the general question, “Is God bound by God’s promises?”
So I think the question about divine promises (thanks to both beccaseelyb and gaudetetheology for raising it) is interesting, and I’m perfectly willing to admit that in theory God standing by God’s freely made promises doesn’t conflict with the metaphysical/theological concerns about God’s freedom that I have raised here. I think that this becomes an “exegetical” question: what has God promised to do and how do we know? As an example, I think God has promised to be with God’s people (where two or three are gathered…) but I don’t know that I would interpret the last supper narrative as a divine promise to be present in the elements themselves when communion is celebrated.
Let me frame my response in this way: I frequently refer to myself as being “90% Lutheran, 7% Armenian, 2% Calvinist, and that 1% Zwinglian prohibits me from being any of those other things.”
To your ending question, I think the answer is clearly that the rituals are more important to us than God. It hinges on a more fundamental question: does God exist for, with, or without God’s created? If God exists merely for creation, the theological equation that you established — prayer a resulting in response b — is a necessity for continued survival. (See also: the Law.) Failure to observe the requirements results in a direct, punishing action due to one’s inaction. If God exists without creation, then prayer a would never result in response b, promised or otherwise, because the relationship between Creator and created is irrelevant and moot.
Yet, from a Christian lens, God exists with God’s created through the dual nature of Jesus Christ. All of our signs and symbols are means of grace that point toward our source. They are tools used by humans to attempt to communicate what is, inherently, incommunicable. Equally, then, their parameters are of human origin, rooted in a particular social location (and then re-appropriated into differing locations constantly) and understanding. God’s grace is big enough for all of this, demonstrated by the Christ event. Is God present in the communion celebration? Yes. Is God absent in the communion celebration? Yes.