In The Sacrament of Language Agamben investigates the phenomenon of the oath, arguing that it points toward a fundamental experience of language that lies at the root of religion and law alike.

Theology after Heidegger must take into account history and language as constitutive elements in the pursuit of meaning. Quite often, this prompts a hurried flight from metaphysics to an embrace of an absence at the center of Christian narrativity. In this book, Conor Sweeney explores the "postmodern" critique of presence in the context of sacramental theology, engaging the thought of Louis-Marie Chauvet and Lieven Boeve. Chauvet is an influential postmodern theologian whose critique of the perceived onto-theological constitution of presence in (...) traditional sacramental theology has made big waves, while Boeve is part of a more recent generation of theologians who even more wholeheartedly embrace postmodern consequences for theology. Sweeney considers the extent to which postmodernism a la Heidegger upsets the hermeneutics of sacramentality, asking whether this requires us to renounce the search for a presence that by definition transcends us. Against both the fetishization of presence and absence, Sweeney argues that metaphysics has a properly sacramental basis, and that it is only through this reality that the dialectic of presence and absence can be transcended. The case is made for the full but restless signification of the mother's smile as the paradigm for genuine sacramental presence. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacramental Character and the Pattern of Theological Life:Medieval Context and Early Modern ReceptionReginald M. Lynch O.P.In question 63 of the tertia pars, Thomas Aquinas defines the so-called character that is conferred by certain sacraments (namely baptism, confirmation, and holy orders), as a secondary effect caused by the sacraments, with grace itself identified as the primary effect. As separated instruments of the humanity of Christ, in his mature work in (...) the Summa theologiae Aquinas argues that all Christian sacraments are perfective instrumental causes of the effect of the Incarnation in the human persons who receive them.1 As instrumental means by which these effects are conferred, therefore, for Aquinas the sapiential intelligibility of the sacraments is found in the larger sweep of sacra doctrina and the Incarnation, wherein the ratio and necessity of these larger theological themes contextualize Aquinas's understanding of the necessity of the sacraments themselves as instrumental extensions of the same.2 Taken in itself, aspects of what would later become the question of sacramental character for Scholastics first emerged as a doctrinal topic in the context of patristic debates over the permanence of the sacrament of baptism.3 In the Latin West, the influence of Augustine's distinction between the permanence of the sacramentum received in baptism and its use in charity proved to be a ubiquitous influence [End Page 1337] for later Latin theology.4 Concerning the metaphysical nature of this character, however, in both his Sentences commentary and Summa theologiae, Aquinas joins an ongoing conversation among thirteenth-century Scholastics about the utility of the Aristotelian categories for describing sacramental character. What is sacramental character specifically, and how should this be understood in relation to the wider speculative complexities of grace, the infused virtues and gifts, and beatitude? Because of continued controversy over the role of Aristotelianism in theology during the second half of the thirteenth century, many Scholastics of Aquinas's generation analyzed the quiddity of sacramental character from an Aristotelian perspective, working to describe the doctrine inherited from the Church's tradition using Aristotelian terminology. As will be shown, although some argued that sacramental character should be understood as a habitus, Aquinas argues that character is better understood as a power.The second and third sections of this article will explore the development of Scholastic accounts of the quiddity of sacramental character during the medieval and early modern periods, and the wider theological implications of these conversations. In the final analysis, it is my aim to show not only that Aquinas's account of sacramental character is intrinsically fitting on theological grounds, but that Aquinas's account of sacramental character as a qualitative power conveys and preserves the received theological tradition more effectively than the options proposed by some of his contemporaries. With these larger objectives in mind, the first section of this article serves as a necessary historical prelude—what, precisely, is at stake from the wider perspective of the Church's theological tradition in these medieval and early modern Scholastic debates? Accordingly, the first section will provide an overview of the historical development of the doctrine of sacramental character, focusing specifically on the way in which certain Augustinian doctrinal concepts and linguistic usages developed in later medieval usage and ultimately came to be incorporated into the framework of Peter Lombard's Sentences—the text that would serve as the common backdrop for the Scholastic conversations about the "quiddity" of this same doctrine.In the following, therefore, this article will begin by examining the origins of the doctrine of sacramental character in Latin theology in Augustine's baptismal theology. Building on this foundation, our attention will turn to Peter Lombard's reception of Augustine's as the context in which [End Page 1338] thirteenth-century Scholastic debates about sacramental character would develop. Although the specific metaphysical questions that Scholastics like Aquinas and Bonaventure would entertain do not form part of Augustine's approach to this issue, Lombard's particular articulation of Augustine's sacramental theology would provide the textual and conceptual backdrop against which these later Scholastic conversations would develop. Accordingly, the second section of this article will build on the first, beginning with a consideration of Aquinas... (shrink)

_ Source: _Volume 25, Issue 1, pp 131 - 161 Martin Buber denied consistently that he was a theologian because he repudiated abstract discourse about God. However, he did affirm that intersubjective events in the world express theological truth, even if that truth cannot be possessed or professed thereafter as noetic content. In this paper I introduce a concept of “embodied theology” to elucidate this nuance in Buber’s religious thought, and I show how his Ḥasidic writings shed unique light on (...) these matters. Through hermeneutical investigations of his Ḥasidic tales vis-à-vis the original sources, I illuminate Buber’s conviction that genuine sages convey theological meaning through the very spiritual-corporeal dynamics of their lives—or what Buber calls their “sacramental existence.”. (shrink)

Arguably, the religious use of hallucinogenic drugs stems from a human search of metaphysical insight rather than from a direct need for cognitive, emotional, social, physical, or sexual improvement. Therefore, the sacramental and spiritual intake of hallucinogenic drugs goes so far beyond other biopsychosocial functions that it deserves its own category in the drug instrumentalization list.

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Sacramental Wisdom:Humilitatio, Eruditio, Exercitatio in the Scholastics and TodaySr. Albert Marie Surmanski O.P.IntroductionThe relationship between human nature and the sacraments is often characterized in a way that takes away from the beauty and power of the sacraments. Sacraments are sometimes viewed today as something basically irrelevant to human life, an interesting spiritual "option" for those who find comfort in ritual. This view leads to a sacramental practice that is (...) occasional, irregular, or nonexistent. Many young people who fail to grasp religion as important to their reality implicitly embrace this perspective. The difficulty parishes have had in the past few years in convincing parishioners to return to liturgical prayer after each wave of the coronavirus pandemic demonstrates this viewpoint.In another perspective, the sacraments might be viewed precisely as expressions of what it means to be human, or one might say, to be human in a world in which God reveals himself at all times.1 In this view, the sacraments [End Page 1391] are our own graced self-expression as a community. They merely make thematic what already happens each moment. Alternatively, they celebrate who we are, and perhaps can be radically updated to reflect changing categories of social identity. 2Both of these viewpoints overlook the fallen state of human nature that cries out for healing from God. The first view does not preclude knowledge of human violence and fragility, but fails to recognize the sacraments as a medicine needed for the remedy of human ills. The second viewpoint, while professing a need for Christ, looks to the human person or community for healing rituals. This approach risks being enmeshed with human nature in a disordered state in such a way that it celebrates human disorder instead of healing it. Alternatively, the viewpoint may lead to the abandonment eschatological hope and wither into inanity.There are profound metaphysical and anthropological issues that play out in these two opposite but strangely united viewpoints. Rather than directly analyze these errors, this paper would like to propose the recovery of a medieval viewpoint that offers another perspective. This is Hugh of St. Victor's explanation that the sacraments fit and heal human nature through offering humanity humility, instruction, and exercise. 3 This paper will briefly survey Hugh's contribution, analyze its reception by several of the thirteenth-century Scholastics, shows its deep rootedness in biblical wisdom, and then show how it fruitfully opposes current-day challenges.Hugh of St. VictorHugh of St. Victor was a twelfth-century canon of the Parisian Abbey of St. Victor. The most influential writer of the Victorine school, his work is characterized by an Augustinian concern for the re-formation of the image of God in man, a sense of the wise ordering of salvation history, and an emphasis on both virtue and liturgical practice. In his masterwork, De Sacramentis Christianae Fidei, Hugh of St. Victor divides the works of God into two main periods: the work of creation and the work of restoration. Within the [End Page 1392] work of restoration, there are three periods: the period of the natural law, that of the Mosaic or written law, and that of grace, inaugurated by Christ.4 His book's division into two parts cuts across these distinctions: Part 1 of Hugh's text covers creation, the restoration in general, faith, sacraments in general, as well as particulars of the sacraments of the periods of the natural and written law. Part 2 includes the Incarnation, the Church, various Christian rituals, and the final restoration of Christ's return.Hugh is writing around the time when theologians began to list the number of the sacraments of the Church as seven. Emerging from the wider use of the term, Hugh uses the word "sacrament" in a wide sense, but distinguishes several categories of sacraments. Following Dominique Poirel, scholars recognize that Hugh uses the word sacramentum in five main ways.5 The first is a general definition: (1) any sign of anything sacred. The second through fourth are more specific usages, to which we do not commonly give the term "sacrament" today: (2) Scripture, which signifies sacred realities both through its text and the... (shrink)

The basic thesis of this essay is that several of our great modern novelists–Proust, Joyce and Woolf–epitomize a singularly sacramental imagination which celebrates the bread and wine of the everyday. The author suggests that a specific phenomenology of incarnation, adumbrated by Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Julia Kristeva, may help us discern the grammar of transubstantiation operating in these sacramental accounts of the sensible universe. The paper begins with a brief sketch of such a phenomenology before moving on to consider in more (...) detail certain eucharistic epiphanies in these three modernist novels. The author examines his findings in the light of a new hermeneutics of the religious imaginary, advanced by Paul Ricoeur and others, will proposes the paradigm of ana-theism as a way of returning the sacred to the profane. (shrink)

The notion of givenness (Gegebenheit/donation) serves a key role in the phenomenological paradigms of Edmund Husserl, Martin Heidegger and Jean-Luc Marion, yet can this notion be applied directly or analogously within the context of sacramental theology? This essay demonstrates how the respective understandings of givenness, in the works of Husserl, Heidegger and Marion, can be employed as hermeneutical centers for exploring the paradoxical phenomenon of the sacrament, whereby the phenomenalities of the visible and the invisible coincide. The Eucharist is (...) called upon as sacrament par excellence for examining the dynamic of givenness within the phenomenality of the sacrament. Tracing the notion of givenness as employed in the thinking of Husserl, Heidegger and Marion, respectively, the essay concludes with a consideration of the Eucharist as event, or ‘happening.’ In such manner does the concept of givenness shed new light on traditional metaphysical understandings of sacramentality. (shrink)

The paper explicates Bonhoeffer's dense statement, made in a 1932 lecture, that `Reality is the sacrament of [the ethical] command'. It begins with a summary of William T. Cavanaugh's rich description of the Eucharist as that act which makes the Church Christ's body, thereby constituting the true res publica. A comparison is drawn with Bonhoeffer's account of the sacramental foundation of the Church's public proclamation of God's ethical command. Bonhoeffer differs from Cavanaugh, I suggest, not only in his conviction (...) that the Church speaks God's command penultimately and with humility, but in regarding the state as one of the means by which God acts within the penultimate to preserve creation. (shrink)

This essay traces the intellectualist position of Pierre Rousselot (1878–1915) as he developed it in reaction to neo‐Thomist scholasticism, and argues that at the heart of Rousselot's approach lay a sacramental ontology. Rousselot's 1908 dissertations on St. Thomas's intellectualism and on love in the Middle Ages are best understood in the context of the 1907 condemnations of Modernism. Rousselot questioned the firmly entrenched rationalist approach of the neo‐Thomist revival. While continuing in the Thomist intellectualist tradition, he argued for a chastened (...) epistemology in which the intellect aimed beyond discursive knowledge at union with God. The implication, for Rousselot, was that in its current condition, the human intellect could arrive at knowledge only in an indirect fashion. Accepting Thomas's view of the unity between love of desire and love of friendship, Rousselot emphasized the continuity between nature and the supernatural. Furthermore, his insistence that rational judgements of credibility were powerless without corresponding ‘eyes of faith’ implied a sacramental view of the natural order as pointing to the supernatural end of the beatific vision. His moderated intellectualism, with its implied sacramental ontology, would prove an attractive paradigm for the later movement of nouvelle théologie. (shrink)

Resumen: En el presente artículo se busca describir el rol fundamental que juega la experiencia estética en los procesos de significación de lo que se suele denominar “religión popular”. Para esta labor, tomamos como objeto de estudio la fiesta religiosa que, junto con hacer referencia a una determinada realidad empírica, nos provee de dos mediaciones conceptuales para el desarrollo de nuestro análisis: la fiesta y la imagen. De este modo, después de contextualizar nuestra reflexión en el marco de los estudios (...) culturales y la estética, procedemos a definir la lógica estético-sacramental de la fiesta religiosa a partir de los conceptos de “fiesta” e “imagen”, abordados desde el enfoque de la New Material Culture.: The aim of this article is to describe the fundamental role of the aesthetic experience in the processes of signification of what is usually called “popular religion”. In order to achieve this, we define as the object of our study the religious feast, which, apart from referring to a concrete empirical reality, provides us with two conceptual mediations for our analysis: feast and image. Thus, following a contextualization of our reflection on the field of cultural studies and aesthetics, we proceed to define the aesthetic-sacramental logic of the religious feast on the basis of the concepts “feast” and “image”, from the perspective of the New Material Culture approach. (shrink)

An examination of Rahner’s theology and cognitive linguistics shows that the two are basically in accord concerning sacramental efficacy. This article also puts cognitive linguistics into conversation with Rahner’s theologies of expression. In Rahner’s theology of the symbol, he argues that all beings express themselves in that which is not themselves. Furthermore, Rahner noted the existence of uniquely powerful “primordial words” , which mediate the reality to which they point. Cognitive linguistics sees all human knowing as mediated by the “embodied (...) mind,” and characterized by concept integration, wherein a given thing comes to be known in terms of another. This understanding of embodied mind, poses a significant challenge to the Christian tradition. This challenge is answered, though, by Rahner’s distinctive anthropology and christology. (shrink)

The Mexican Reforma is often considered a classic example of the power struggles that occurred between church and state throughout the nineteenth century. However, since in this case both sides claimed to be Catholic, the most important battles in Mexico were actually intra ecclesiam. Ultimately, it was a fight over access to the sacraments that drove Mexico into civil war, transforming both the Church and society in the process. The current debate in the United States over allowing public figures who (...) violate Church teaching to receive Holy Communion should be considered within the context of the Mexican experience. (shrink)

Roland Allen emerged as an independent missionary and theologian within the Anglican Mission to North China from 1895 to 1903. For the rest of his life, he continued as a freelance missiological writer, debater and priest for some time connected to the interdenominational World Dominion Press. As a theologian and churchman, with a genuine incarnational ecclesiology as his foundation, he combined a Catholic view of Anglicanism with a deliberate concern for local Christian initiatives and the spontaneous expansion of local Christian (...) communities within their own environment. Basic in his ecclesiology was his view of the Church as a sacramental body, a network of local fellowships celebrating the Sacraments. Therefore, these nurtured local Christian ‘Churches’ are to be regarded and treated as the proper agents of Evangelization. In order to implement this understanding of mission he encouraged experiments with ordination of local voluntary clergy to open up the access to a sacramental life, and, thereby, promoting growth and expansion in mission. (shrink)

We live in a world in which God is made known in and through God’s material works, which are other than himself. That is, they are signs of God’s presence whether in the natural world or the world we structure, as God’s image bearers, in our practices, rituals, and the stuff we make. The Christian tradition holds that the created order and human creativity witness to God, because creation is suffused with God’s presence. A sacramental understanding of sports aims to (...) give an alternative stance to how Christian traditions conceive of sports. A sacramental understanding intimates how this worldview helps us reckon that sports can be an acceptable form of divine worship, because of how sports can participate in and point to God. I argue that, when sport is understood as a material mode of worship, sport can serve as an iconic indicator which reflects and imparts something of divine presence. If we inhabit such a world in which God is close to the lived experience of this strenuous and sensual mode of existence, this re-sacralizes sports as contexts in which humans can actually celebrate with gratitude goods such as autotelicity and experience God’s presence in this cultural liturgy. (shrink)

This article seeks to overcome some of the greatest difficulties in generating a feminist-friendly approach to sacraments by proposing a new paradigm: sacraments as forms of energy. Several factors have hindered feminist theologians in revisioning sacramentality. For the most part sacraments were ‘done to’ women, never ‘done by’ women. A too-literal reading of the Christian scriptures blurs the fact that early Christians developed ritual patterns for Baptism and Eucharist first, and only later wrote them down. To speak of sacraments as (...) mediations may re-inscribe dualism. The static model of reality which explained sacraments in Aristotelian categories of matter and form has given way to dynamic models of matter and energy. A sacramentality of energy can be articulated from three different angles: first, in terms of the action of the Holy Spirit; second, from scientific advances in quantum thinking, and the third from new spirituality. This paradigm applies to both Baptism and Eucharist. (shrink)

This paper contributes to our understanding of participation in the Eucharist by examining the swallow. The paper begins with a thick description of the swallow as act, as phenomenon, and as symbol. This description reveals the swallow’s interstitial nature, which is then examined for its implications on the meaning of participation in the sacrament. The paper then recommends approaches to the Eucharist for Catholics for whom swallowing is difficult or impossible. The paper finally incorporates these findings with the ex (...) opere operato doctrine, demonstrating participation as efficacious interaction. National Catholic Bioethics Quarterly 13.2 (Summer 2013): 253–262. (shrink)

This book is a continuation of Giorgio Agamben's investigation of political theory, which began with the highly influential volume _Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life_. Having already traced the roots of the idea of sovereignty, sacredness, and economy, he now turns to a perhaps unlikely topic: the concept of the oath. Following the Italian scholar Paolo Prodi, Agamben sees the oath as foundational for Western politics and undertakes an exploration of the roots of the phenomenon of the oath in (...) human experience. He rejects the common idea that the oath finds its origin in religion, arguing instead that the oath points toward a particular response to the experience of language, a response that gave birth to both religion and law as we now know them. This book is important not only for readers of Agamben or of continental philosophy more broadly, but for anyone interested in questions relating to the relationships among religion, law, and language. (shrink)

En el presente artículo se busca describir el rol fundamental que juega la experiencia estética en los procesos de significación de lo que se suele denominar “religión popular”. Para esta labor, tomamos como objeto de estudio la fiesta religiosa que, junto con hacer referencia a una determinada realidad empírica, nos provee de dos mediaciones conceptuales para el desarrollo de nuestro análisis: la fiesta y la imagen. De este modo, después de contextualizar nuestra reflexión en el marco de los estudios culturales (...) y la estética, procedemos a definir la lógica estético-sacramental de la fiesta religiosa a partir de los conceptos de “fiesta” e “imagen”, abordados desde el enfoque de la New Material Culture. (shrink)

This article contends that Hans Urs von Balthasar's theological focus on seeing the form of God's glory in creation constitutes a critical resource for elaborating a contemporary Christian theology responsive to the crisis of environmental degradation. In particular, in this article Martin Heidegger's reflections on the environmental dangers present in modern technology provide the framework for analyzing the ecological significance of Balthasar's retrieval of a Christian sacramental ontology.

Drawing from our interdisciplinary qualitative study of LGBTI conservative Christians and their allies, we name an especially toxic form of shame—what we call sacramental shame—that affects the lives of LGBTI and other conservative Christians. Sacramental shame results from conservative Christianity's allegiance to the doctrine of gender complementarity, which elevates heteronormativity to the level of the sacred and renders those who violate it as not persons, but monsters. In dispensing shame as a sacrament, nonaffirming Christians require constant displays of shame (...) as proof that LGBTI church members love God and belong in the community. Part of what makes this shame so harmful is that parents and pastors often dispense it with sincere expressions of care and affection, compounding the sense that one's capacity to give and receive love is damaged. We foreground LGBTI Christian movements to overcome sacramental shame by cultivating nonhubristic pride, and conclude by discussing briefly their new understandings of love and justice that could have far‐reaching benefits. (shrink)

From the Christian perspective, creation exists through the Word of God. The Word of God does not create God again but brings forth the absolute “otherness” of God: creation. The nature of God is to exist. God is existence as unity in the diversity of God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. The gift of created existence reflects the triune nature of the Word of God. It is synthesis of diversity into unity that creates. Nature brings forth new (...) existence by unifying what it already brought forth previously. Therefore, the creative process of nature is self‐similar and nonlinear: self‐similar because at all levels it is synthesis that brings forth novelty; nonlinear because the properties of the new unities are not present in their (isolated) elements. The new properties of the wholes, however, do not destroy the properties of the parts. Rather, the elements integrated into new wholes become creatively transformed. This is because the parts become carriers of the whole, which transforms the parts through its presence. The parts become and express the qualities of the whole, qualities that the parts do not possess in isolation. Synthesis, therefore, transforms the parts creatively, because synthesis is creative. The qualities of the parts become “elevated” because the whole becomes present in and through the parts. The understanding of creation as the result of sequential, creative transformations offers a glance into the mystery of the Word of God present in the Eucharist. Here, too, the elements of bread and wine are not destroyed but elevated, creatively transformed into the Word of God. The elements (bread and wine) become the carrier of a transcendent “quality,” the Word of God. From this perspective, creation and the sacrament of the Eucharist illuminate each other. This is because the Word of God that creates the otherness of creation and the Word of God present in the Eucharist is the same. (shrink)

PREFACE. THE Author of this very practical treatise on Scotch Loch - Fishing desires clearly that it may be of use to all who had it. He does not pretend to have written anything new, but to have attempted to put what he has to say in as readable a form as possible. Everything in the way of the history and habits of fish has been studiously avoided, and technicalities have been used as sparingly as possible. The writing of this (...) book has afforded him pleasure in his leisure moments, and that pleasure would be much increased if he knew that the perusal of it would create any bond of sympathy between himself and the angling community in general. This section is interleaved with blank shects for the readers notes. The Author need hardly say that any suggestions addressed to the case of the publishers, will meet with consideration in a future edition. We do not pretend to write or enlarge upon a new subject. Much has been said and written-and well said and written too on the art of fishing but loch-fishing has been rather looked upon as a second-rate performance, and to dispel this idea is one of the objects for which this present treatise has been written. Far be it from us to say anything against fishing, lawfully practised in any form but many pent up in our large towns will bear us out when me say that, on the whole, a days loch-fishing is the most convenient. One great matter is, that the loch-fisher is depend- ent on nothing but enough wind to curl the water, -and on a large loch it is very seldom that a dead calm prevails all day, -and can make his arrangements for a day, weeks beforehand whereas the stream- fisher is dependent for a good take on the state of the water and however pleasant and easy it may be for one living near the banks of a good trout stream or river, it is quite another matter to arrange for a days river-fishing, if one is looking forward to a holiday at a date some weeks ahead. Providence may favour the expectant angler with a good day, and the water in order but experience has taught most of us that the good days are in the minority, and that, as is the case with our rapid running streams, -such as many of our northern streams are, -the water is either too large or too small, unless, as previously remarked, you live near at hand, and can catch it at its best. A common belief in regard to loch-fishing is, that the tyro and the experienced angler have nearly the same chance in fishing, -the one from the stern and the other from the bow of the same boat. Of all the absurd beliefs as to loch-fishing, this is one of the most absurd. Try it. Give the tyro either end of the boat he likes give him a cast of ally flies he may fancy, or even a cast similar to those which a crack may be using and if he catches one for every three the other has, he may consider himself very lucky. Of course there are lochs where the fish are not abundant, and a beginner may come across as many as an older fisher but we speak of lochs where there are fish to be caught, and where each has a fair chance. Again, it is said that the boatman has as much to do with catching trout in a loch as the angler. Well, we dont deny that. In an untried loch it is necessary to have the guidance of a good boatman but the same argument holds good as to stream-fishing... (shrink)