Mark Horne has posted some of Calvin’s Genevan Catechism, on sacraments. It contains some really good stuff, showing that sacraments are not in conflict with the Holy Spirit when it comes to the dispensation of God’s grace, but are instruments, powerfully used by the Spirit to communicate God’s blessings to us. But this paragraph, answering why God gives us sacraments, is terrible:
Scholar. – In this way he consults our weakness. If we were wholly spiritual, we might, like the angels, spiritually behold both him and his grace; but as we are surrounded with this body of clay, we need figures or mirrors to exhibit a view of spiritual and heavenly things in a kind of earthly manner; for we could not otherwise attain to them. At the same time, it is our interest to have all our senses exercised in the promises of God, that they may be the better confirmed to us.
It rests on the mistaken assumption that the real me is spiritual, and I am simply encased (I’m tempted to say imprisoned) in my body. It sounds as though it would be better for us to be like the angels, and be purely spiritual. But because we’re weak (corporeal), God uses physical means to aid us in our weakness. But this is all wrong. Being bodily is wonderful. It’s great. It’s how our good God created us. It is in no sense a weakness or privation. So, when God uses water poured over us in the Triune name, or when he feeds us with bread and wine, he’s not condescending to our weakness. Rather, he’s simply acting in a way that’s consistent with how we’ve been created. Because we’re bodily, sacraments are necessary (otherwise, salvation operates in a way that bypasses an important aspect of our being created; grace is somehow pitted against nature; salvation isn’t a restoration and glorification of creation). But they’re emphatically not a condescension to compensate for the weakness of the way God created us.
Could he not be alluding to the last verse of 1 Corinthians 13?
So, for “spiritual” read not “incorporeal” but “sinless / immortal / glorious”. I’m nowhere near an expert on Calvin, so just trying to suggest a charitable reading that may or may not be anywhere close to Calvin’s thought! But the idea is there in 1 Corinthians 13 that for the now we see God with an indirection that will one day be removed. Given which, could Calvin simply be suggesting that the sacraments are (amongst other things) such mirrors?
Some of his accommodation has similar problems. God accommodates to us because of our certain condition, and the sacraments are one of these means of accomodation. A better reality could be imagined though in which this wouldn’t have to be the case.
But apply that to the incarnation and what happens?
Bad stuff, that’s what.
Going along the same lines as James and reading Calvin charitably (rightly or wrongly – I’m no expert), my instinct would be to think about 1 Corinthians 15.42-49:
‘So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour; is is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body… The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven.’
Could not he also be alluding to 2 Corinthians 4.7 (‘But we have this treasure in jars of clay’) which then looks forward to 2 Corinthains 5.1-5 (‘For while we are still in this tent, we groan, being burdened – not that we would be unclothed, but that we would be further clothed [with out heavenly dwelling], so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.’)
Could we then say that God condescends to us as he uses things of this creation to minister to us in our weakness as those who are still in bodies that belong to this creation?
But the contrast Calvin explicitly draws is with angels – spiritual beings in the sense of being incorporeal. And notice the language: “we” (the true, real us – incorporeal souls) are “surrounded by bodies of clay”. Bodies are not part of us, as such; they surround us; they’re in some sense distinct from us. That’s just wrong. My hunch is it’s the influence of Plato/neo-platonism via Augustine. And I think Steven’s spot on: applied consistently it badly stuffs up your view of the incarnation.
The assumption also seems to be that human beings are (ontologically?) lower than the angels. Whereas I take it that Hebrews 1-2 tells me that the world to come (which now has come, legally and covenantally at least) is subjected not to angels but to redeemed humanity in their exalted and risen head. Whatever the bible says about humanity and angels must be understood in conjunction with this. I doubt Psalm 8’s ‘lower than the angels’ refers to something ontological, as if disembodied beings are higher than embodied ones. I take it to be a statement about position as rulers in God’s universe, which is dramatically modified by Jesus’ resurrection.
Which means, if only he hadn’t made the comparison with angels so prominent, then we could’ve4 accepted the definition of spiritual as ‘resurrected/glorified embodiment’ offered above by James and Daniel. Unfortunately it seems we’re left with a boo-boo from our older brother in Christ I’m sad to say.
Perhaps I’m just being a Calvin fanboy, but could we be reading too much into what he’s saying here, for example, about being ’surrounded in this body of clay’? After all, doesn’t Paul come close to using this language in 2 Corinthians 5.
Also, does the contrast with the angels have to be about corporeality or not? Could he not be saying something along the lines of, ‘The angels spiritually behold him and his grace now. While we’re still in this natural body (in contrast to the spiritual body we await) we’re not fully spiritual, and so we don’t. Therefore God gives us the sacraments.’
Daniel, it’d be nice to think that Calvin meant what you’re suggesting. However, I think it’s fairly common for the Augustinian tradition to regard my soul as the real me; with the body inferior to the soul, as the soul’s instrument. Of course, Augustine is a Christian Platonist, and so affirms the resurrection of the body etc, as obviously does Calvin. Nevertheless, I think I’d need a bit of persuading that the language of being surrounded by a body of clay isn’t as ominous as I’m making out.
I don’t know enough about Calvin to comment intelligently on the influence of Aquinas on his thought, but Thomas at least is quite explicit that angels are ontologically superior to humans, because they’re incorporeal, so that’s definitely knocking around in the tradition within which Calvin is operating. And Pete’s hit the nail on the head with the problems associated with that view. In short, I’d take quite a lot of persuading that Calvin’s capable of being read as charitably as you are.
In addition, as angels are incorporeal, their spiritual apprehension of God is going to be somewhat different to ours when we’re resurrected, so even then the comparison isn’t going to be simple. And precisely because we’re going to be embodied, I’m not convinced that sacramentality of some kind is going to cease in the new creation. After all, we’re heading for a marriage banquet.