Boersma Outline Sacramental Tapestry

argument:  Until the late middle ages people looked at the world as a mystery (Boersma 21).  By mystery Boersma means a sacramental link between creation and God, that creation participates in God.  In other words, the connection, though not identical, is real.  Mystery, so Boersma reads the “Platonist-Christian synthesis” (hereafter PCs) refers to the “reality behind the appearances.”

Boersma structures his book around the (neo)Platonic movement of exitus and reditus (the departure from and return to), except exitus now refers to how the church lost the PCs and the reditus on possible steps for regaining it.

It is not Boersma’s goal to defend Platonism as such.  

Mystery

Created realities point beyond themselves (carry extra dimension to them)

Symbols just point to something else

Sacraments--the referents coinhere.

A Sacramental world not only points to God but participates in him.  

real connection, not just nominal.

The signum points to and participates in the res.

The end of created being lies beyond itself (30).

Creation and Goodness

Creation is hinged upon transcendence.

If unhooked, it loses its goodness (it has to rely on itself).

It must participate in a higher goodness.

The Platonic Heritage

• Rejecting Parts:  
• Creation is not automatic nor an emanation.
• argued for resurrection of body
• The Good

Weaving the tapestry

The Fathers’ Christological Anchor

Irenaeus

• God reveals himself publicly in Jesus Christ to all alike.
• The wisdom of the gospel pleads for a unity that doesn’t obliterate differences.

Athanasius:  Unity in the Incarnate Logos

• To be made in the image of God means to be rational--Christ must teach us.  The image is restored by means of teaching (Boersma 45).
• We are not disparate, fragmented individuals but participate in a common humanity.  
• The unity of humanity lies anchored in the Word.

Gregory of Nyssa: Universals and Particulars

• universals refer to what is common, particulars to what is individual.
• Universals anchor the particulars.
• The deity in which the Father/Son/Spirit share implies a common activity.  This is why the three men analogy--James, John, Peter--breaks down, for they all have different actions.

Theme:  Our particular humanity depends on the participation of humanity in Christ (51).

Unraveling the Tapestry: The Medieval Revolt Against Nature

• Juridicizing the Church
• Gregorian reform

• For earlier fathers, sacred actions are performed in the church, but everyone is subject to God. God was directly working in the sacred actions.
• earlier theology regarded sacramental power as within the life of the church.  Now it is causally top down.
• Discovery of Nature
• earlier sacramental thought held a link between heaven and earth. There was the unity of the church (res) and the sacrament to which it pointed.
• The Berengar Dialectic
• Berengar said we spiritually participate in the res.
• His opponents said we physically participate in the sacramentum.
• Both sides widened the gap between heaven and earth.
• Scripture, Church, Tradition
• The earlier fathers said church and Scripture coinhere. They are not two separate sources of authority.
• Dialectic of Wyclif: Catholics responded to him by pitting Church against Scripture.
• Nature and the Supernatural
• The Counter-Reformation introduced the notion of “pure nature,” which meant human nature before any prior movement of grace.  Human nature is walled-off.

Cutting the Tapestry: The Two Scissors of Modernity

Univocity of Being

• Scotus said being was used in a univocal way.   Being is now “unhooked” from God.  
• If being now applies to God and creatures in the same way, then it has become an overarching category in which both God and creation “share” (75).
• Sacramentum no longer receives res from God’s own being.  

Voluntas

• God no longer relates to creation by gift, but by will.
• The world can only relate in an “external” way.  
• The late medieval emphasis on divine decree cut the link between God’s will and God’s knowledge (79).

Younger Evangelicals

After Late Medievalism the Reformation struggled to reweave the tapestry.  This isn’t entirely its fault.  Most of the Reformers were philosophical realists, but it’s hard to keep together what has long since been sundered.  

The Great tradition had a Christological anchor: a vertical link between God and humanity where we receive our being by participation in the Logos (89).

REDITUS: RECONNECTING THE THREADS

Eucharist as Sacramental Meal

If our connection with God is an external or nominal one, then there is little room for sacramental participation.  

De Lubac and the Eucharist

There is a real transubstantiation, but it is when the congregation is changed into the body of Christ. This leads de Lubac to posit a threefold body: the bread, the congregation, Christ.

St Paul seems to operate off this as well.

“And is not this bread [Body¹] we break a participation in the body [Body..n..] of Christ?” (1 Cor. 10:16b).

“Because there is one loaf [Body¹], we, who are many, are one body [Body²], for we all partake of one loaf [Body¹]” (1 Cor. 10:17).  

The question is what does Body...n refer to in 1 Cor. 10:16b?   It could refer to Christ himself.  It could also refer to Body².  Or as de Lubac says, it is a three-fold body so there isn’t a hard and fast separation.  

sanctorum communio: can refer to either communion of saints or communion of holy things.  Communion of holy things was related to communion of saints (115).  

The Shifting Corpus

The word verum moved from the ecclesial body [Body²] to the eucharistic body [Body¹].   “Christ’s body in the Eucharist came to be seen as the true body” (de Lubac, quoted in Boersma 117).  

The Church began to focus more on the Eucharist and less on communion within the ecclesial body.  

Public Apology to R. Phillips

A few years ago Robin Phillips wrote an article arguing that Reformed liturgics is nominalistic.  What he meant by that was if something is beautiful and glorious in worship, then it takes away glory from God.  Practically speaking, for a church to be "glory to God," it needs to be ugly as sin.

I responded that is a false straw man.  And went back and forth for a while.  I think when you look at the Magisterial Protestants, Phillips' argument falls flat.  However, when you frame it towards RPW-advocates today, he is spot-on.

But it isn't just ugly church buildings.  It's what you say in the liturgy.  When the liturgy commands you to command angels to praise God, are you really commanding angels, or is it just "Mere words?"  If it is just words saying what angels already do, which seems to be the response I am getting, than it is nominalism, since the thing is just "mere words."

Bibliography: A Report from the Front

A friend of mine asked me for a bibliography of the philosophy works I've read over the past six months.  Part of the reason this might be relevant is that a lot of detractors of Evangelicalism, whether within the camp or the convertskiis without, have no clue about the philosophical issues involved in questions like hermeneutics, authority, and the like.  Here's what I've read from the most recent backwards:

Swinburne, Richard.  The Christian God. An overly analytical account of God's nature.  Some good points on Christology.  Vindicates Calvin.

Swinburne, Richard.  Evolution of the Soul.  Aside from his Darwinian assumptions, proves the soul is not reducible to brain states.

Martin, Malachi.  Hostage to the Devil.  Some papal presuppositions and conclusions, but a valuable study.

Locke, John.  Human Understanding.  One of the most important (if flawed) texts on epistemology ever written.

Smith, James K. A. Thinking in Tongues.  Alternatively brilliant and infuriating. Likens tongues to a phenomenological speech-act.

Wittgenstein, Ludwig.  Philosophical Investigations.  changed the game of 20th century philosophy.  Not an easy or fun read.

Russell, Bertrand.  Problems of Philosophy.  Russell unwittingly defended universals and opened the door for God.

Alston, William.  The Reliability of Sense Perception.  Proves that sense perception cannot be defended in a non-circular manner and rather "supervenes" upon our experience.

Alston, William.  Perceiving God.  Argues that religious experience functions as a legitimate, if minor source of knowledge.

Plantinga, Alvin.  The Nature of Necessity. Possible Worlds Semantics.  Nigh impossible to read.

Moreland, J. P. Universals.

Thornwell, James Henley.  Whatsoever Things are Truth.  Good presentation of "internalism" in epistemology.

Clark, Gordon.  God's Hammer.  All the pros and cons of a typical Clark book.

Kreeft, Peter.  Christianity for Modern Pagan.  All the pros and cons of a typical Kreeft book.

Moreland and Rae.  Body and Soul.  Best book ever written on anthropology.

Audi, Robert.  Epistemology.  The classic text on modern epistemology.

Alston, William.  Realist Conception of Truth.  Defends epistemological realism, but not necessarily in the clearest manner.

Hobbes, Thomas.  Leviathan.  Think Hillary 2016.

Lewis, C. S. Abolition of Man.  Again, Hillary 2016.

Augustine. On Christian Doctrine.  Signs and Things Signified.

Webster, John.  Holy Scripture.  Shows how modern convertskii attacks on the Bible are naive.  Dont' remember too much about it, though. I read it when I had the flu.

Aristotle.  Pocket Aristotle.  Is what it says it is.

Oberman, Heiko.  Harvest of Medieval Theology.  If you are naive enough to say Protestantism = nominalism, you are about 45 years behind the times.

Some notes on late nominalist theology

Yeah, it's a sexy title. I am almost finished with Heiko Oberman's The Harvest of Medieval Theology. Magnificent doesn't even begin to describe it. In politics and American culture if you call someone a "racist" you have effectively won the debate and destroyed his or her career. In theology if you call someone a nominalist it has the same effect.


Oberman's thesis is to say "not so fast" to that project. Not all nominalisms are alike, and you can't simply tag the Reformation with nominalism.

Narrowly speaking, this is a work on the theology of Gabriel Biel. As it is, one must be careful extrapolating Biel’s thought onto the canvas of late medieval theology. On the other hand, Oberman conclusively argues that Biel’s nominalism is not the stark break from an earlier Pristine Thomism that one often thinks.

Biel’s theology can be structured around a dialectic: ordained power and absolute power.

The potentia ordinata and absoluta should not be seen as two different ways of divine acting, since all of God's works ad extra are united (Oberman 37). God does things according to the laws he has established, potentia ordinata. However, he can do everything that does not imply a contradiction, potentia absoluta.

de potentia ordinata: necessity of the consequence; relates to the contingent order. Since this is not a logical absolute, this means humans cannot predict what predestination per the contingent order will do, since it is contingent (this is a huge point in later Reformed Scholastics).

de potentia absoluta: this does not mean that God can do anything he wants. It means he can do anything that doesn't imply a logical contradiction. This distinction allowed scholastics to speak of miracles in the created order without the later Humean charge of a violation of natural law.

These categories allow Oberman to move from prolegomena (natural knowledge of God) to epistemology proper to man’s created state to justification and beyond. What makes this book so exciting is that everything is interconnected.

Facere quod in se est, Deus non denegat gratiam

Do what is in you--this line summarizes Biel’s thought. It forces him to rework sacramental theology, justification, anthropology and even Mariology around it. And Biel knows all of this. Per creation and the Fall, original sin is simply an “outgrowth of natural difficulties” already present (129). Grace, therefore, “means the infusion by which man is made a friend of God and acceptable for final beatification” (136). This leads Oberman to conclude: “grace is not the root but the fruit of the preparatory good work” (141).  (Incidentally, this is identical to Eastern Orthodox soteriology).

Biel’s conclusions are not surprising. If his maxim holds, then whenever he comes across something that seems to imply divine power “closing the gap,” so to speak, then it needs to be refocused.

Habitus and Justification
The pre-act of Justification: “the dignitas of an act is its bonitas with respect to its heavenly reward...The habit of grace is the necessary bridge between bonitas and dignitas which gives the viator a de condigno claim on his eternal salvation” (161). And consistent with Biel’s de potentia ordinata God must grant the reward to once the conditions have been met (168).

habitus: disposition necessary before man is beatified. Parenthetically, Oberman notes Biel’s concern over a problem--another area where Biel paints himself into a corner: how can one talk about free will if one has a habit of grace? Aren’t people enslaved to their habits, whether good or bad?

Three stages of Justification

Acquire the habit of grace. “The sinner can reach the demarcation line” between the state of sin and the state of grace; he does what he is able to do (175).

meritum de congruo: semi-merit that is a spontaneous act and worthy of its reward. This creates an initial problem, since no human act is worthy of heaven. That’s okay, though, if we remember the above dialectic (absoluta/ordinata). God has committed himself de potentia ordinata to reward meritum de congruo.

Are There Reformed Antecedents?

It is commonly charged that the Reformation nominalized the pristine beauty of earlier theology. But can we really say that Reformed theology is nominalistic? Not really, or not without heavy argumentation. Oberman notes concerning justification, “Biel explicitly rejects the position which later was to be characterized as Protestant” (183).

Ordained and Absolute Power

From Oberman's Harvest of Medieval Theology

The potentia ordinata and absoluta should not be seen as two different ways of divine acting, since all of God's works ad extra are united (Oberman 37).  God does things according to the laws he has established, potentia ordinata.  However, he can do everything that does not imply a contradiction, potentia absoluta.

de potentia ordinata:  necessity of the consequence; relates to the contingent order.  Since this is not a logical absolute, this means humans cannot predict what predestination per the contingent order will do, since it is contingent (this is a huge point in later Reformed Scholastics).

de potentia absoluta:  this does not mean that God can do anything he wants.  It means he can do anything that doesn't imply a logical contradiction.  This distinction allowed scholastics to speak of miracles in the created order without the later Humean charge of a violation of natural law.

Is this the best way to speak?  Probably not, but it does allow for helpful distinctions.  Later on it would be abused.

Thoughts on the atonement debate

I think I got banned for the 3rd time from Orthodox Bridge.  You can decide the outcome for yourself.  I was called a shrill critic of Orthodoxy, yet I merely pointed to the gentlemen their own commitment to basic metaphysics.  It was the original poster that said my view was the heresy of heresies.  Who's shrill now?  In fact, I was rather reserved.

The behavior of the Orthodox commenters was rather amusing.  At least the original poster had the integrity to admit he couldn't answer my points (more below).  He asked his friend for help.  that fellow, a Mr. M., basically told me, "A lot of non-Reformed scholarship has refuted you."  He didn't give examples.  In internet debate that translates to, "I can't answer you but I know people who are smarter than you."  And so on.  He really translates to an admission of defeat.

The real crux of the debate is whether Christ's sacrifice atoned for guilt and sin in an objective sense  The Orthodox had problems saying that Christ assuaged the wrath of God, because they really don't believe God has wrath.  When pressed they will say, "You are reading Western categories into it" or it really means that we don't love God.  Of course, and as one commenter, a Prometheus, himself no friend to the Reformed faith, pointed out this is philosophical nominalism and ultimately meaningless.  Even more basic:  no one said a) how I was reading Western categories into this; b) what these categories exactly are, and c) how your categories aren't themselves derived from neo-Platonism.

Of course, this does raise a problem that even Reformed must face:  no one believes God changes in his essence.  So how can Christ's death placate the wrath of God?  Well, we predicate wrath, not of God's essence, but of the relationship between us and God. It is a relationship of wrath.  The original poster even admitted the force of this rejoinder and asked another Orthodox commenter, "What do you make of this?"  I don't remember an answer.