Comments on: John Calvin, Genevan Catechism, on sacraments, 1

By: Calvin, sacraments, bodies, grrrr « sed contra

Calvin, sacraments, bodies, grrrr « sed contra — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 16:14:29 +0000

[...] 12, 2007 by matthew 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 [...]

By: pduggie

pduggie — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 17:53:13 +0000

What for calvin, is the ‘entire’ power and efficacy of the preached word? Is it the Spirit? is this where Barth gets his stuffs?

I’m trying to recast this with just ‘the word’ as the sacraments, and it gets even stranger. Like, it would be great if the Spirit could, like with the angels, communicate wordlessly (oxymoron), but since we need words to convey information, apparently words have to be used.

By: matthew

matthew — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:09:19 +0000

My thoughts exactly. The rest of it is so good that I was taken aback, and reminded why I find Calvin so wonderful and yet, at times, so frustrating.

By: mark

mark — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:24:10 +0000

Yes.

It is weird really. We have here a confession that it is totally appropriate for God to institute sacraments for us and for us to be thankful to Him for doing so and to take advantage of them.

Yet somehow we are also made to feel dirty and unclean for needing them and to wish for a “better” way to apprehend God’s grace.

Of course, as sinners we are dirty and unclean, but being bodies is not inherently sinful nor should we look at it as a limitation on some other “real” self that is “inside.”

By: matthew

matthew — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 12:04:17 +0000

Mark, what do you make of the third answer? It seems problematic to me. Doesn’t it seem to imply that my body is somehow extrinsic to me (‘we are surrounded by this body of clay’), and that being corporeal is a weakness?