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Sacramental Causality in Aquinas and Rahner: Some Critical Thoughts
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 February 2009
Extract
The sacramental principle in its simplest form is the belief in the transmission of spiritual power through material means. If the sacramental principle is going to be upheld it is not enough to be content with a certain ‘congruity’ between the saving revelation of God in salvation history as it culminates in the incarnation and the use of material rites in the economy of realised redemption. The sacramental principle involves the crucial assertion that sacraments are ‘means’ in a ‘causal’ sense, for the transmission of spiritual power through material elements. This asserts ontological efficacy for the sacraments. It is this assertion of genuinely ‘causal’ efficacy for the sacraments, however it is explained, which ultimately divides all who are actually sacramentalists from all non-sacramentalists.
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References
page 243 note 1 Leeming, Bernard, Principles of Sacramental Theology (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1956), p. 284.Google Scholar
page 244 note 1 Leeming, Bernard, Principles of Sacramental Theology (Westminster: The Newman Press, 1956), pp. 286–287.Google Scholar
page 249 note 1 Thomas' attitude seems to be more the reverse of this assumption. He sharply distinguishes the body and the soul, giving precedence rather to the soul. In 3.62.3 objection 3, he seems to agree to this proposition: ‘a spiritual thing is not contained by a corporeal, even if it be therein; for the soul is not contained by the body; rather does it contain the body’.
page 250 note 1 Hugh of St. Victor spoke of this very example in the following words: ‘God is the doctor, man the patient, the priest the minister, grace the remedy, the sacrament is the vial … the vial carries the spiritual grace which heals the patient who receives it’. Quoted by Leeming, ibid., p. 293.
page 252 note 1 Leeming, referring to the view of those who hold to a ‘physical causality’ in the sacraments, represents their attitude thus: ‘The sacraments are both signs and causes, but the significance is concomitant, and not in any sense causative’. ibid., pp. 314–15.
page 252 note 2 Leeming, ibid., pp. 341–3.
page 253 note 1 Rahner, Karl, The Church and the Sacraments (New York: Herder and Herder, 1963). pp. 34–40.Google Scholar
page 253 note 2 Rahner, ibid., p. 37.
page 254 note 2 Rahner, ibid., p. 39.
page 255 note 1 Rahner, ibid., p. 34. ‘Opus operation, of course, does not mean that where a human being is capable of personal faith, this grace which is offered and unconditionally promised in the sacraments ignores the faith of the human being.’
page 255 note 2 Rahner, ibid., p. 40.
page 256 note 1 Leeming, ibid., pp. 380–1.