Runlikethewind
Monk in Training
Grace, Salvation and the Sacraments
March 2007
The issue of the relationship between grace, faith and salvation is of central importance to all Christians. It can generally be established that the vast majority of Christians believe in several key points concerning this relationship. First, salvation cannot be earned, but it is a gift from God. Second, faith and grace are also gifts from God. Finally, grace and/or faith (or some combination of the two) is an essential factor in obtaining the gift of salvation. The Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments are established methods by which the Holy Spirit disseminates grace upon the body of Christ which is the Church. So within the Catholic Church the sacraments become essential pathways or tools for salvation. One key question that has troubled the author of this inquiry concerning this issue is, if salvation is a gift that requires grace and faith, and grace and faith are themselves gifts, then how is there any freedom of will or participation on the part of humans in the process of salvation? To put the question in another way, why does one need to work out salvation in fear and trembling, as it is written, if there is no work to be done, if everything is a gift? This inquiry will examine the relation and nature of grace, salvation, and the sacraments in relation to these questions.
It seems rather un-God-like to say the only way one can be saved is if I (God) give you the gift of faith and grace. And Ill give it to you, and you get it, and you get it, but not you and not you . . . The difficulty that seems to arise is almost like a divine catch-22. The only way that one is to be saved is if God chooses to save one, there is nothing one can do to get it. This also seems to lead right into predestination that God has already chosen who will be saved and who will not be. Yet we know that the Church teaches against predestination and that free-will is involved in whether or not one is saved. But how can this be if, in the end, God gives the gifts to some but not others? Jesus said, for human beings it [salvation] is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God. (Mark 10:27) So even if free-will is involved in the cooperation of Gods grace, God must still first give the gift in order for that cooperation to take place. One must therefore conclude that if Christ died for the salvation of all humankind, and God desires that all humans be saved, that God does not withhold the gifts of grace and faith from anyone. It must be the case that, in some form or another, all peoples are given the gifts of faith and grace by God in order that through free-will the opportunity for salvation is granted to all peoples. It seems that this is only in way in which God remains just to his own desire that all people be saved, without compromising free will.
Any gift that is given is worthless and without a purpose if it is not received. Imagine if a brother were to send a birthday gift to his sister across the country. Now imagine that the mail plane crashes (the pilot and copilot bailed out and are ok) and the gift is never received. The sister now thinks that her brother forgot her birthday and perhaps that her brother does not even love her! Is this not how many feel at times in their relation to God? There appear to be any number of reasons, given our fallen nature, as to why Gods gift doesnt reach everyone. Think about all of the circumstances which are beyond ones control. One cannot choose to whom or to where one is born. If ones parents are atheists then their lack of belief may very well block the reception of Gods gift to them. And the parents own lack of faith may have been blocked by some circumstance beyond their control as well. Does this mean that God stops trying to reach these people? If God is love and desires that they be saved, then by no means will He let something so small stand in His way. God may camouflage the gifts, for example, sending them in the form of rationalistic, humanistic ethics. The parents may not believe in God but they still believe in the golden rule in some form and teach their child to behave as such. And when the final judgment comes the child will rightly say to Jesus when did I see you naked, hungry, thirsty, sick, etc., and minister to you? I never even believed in you?!?! And Jesus will reply that by living the golden rule you did minister to my needs in the lowest of your brothers and sisters.
Now imagine the package does arrive from the brother to the sister. However the sister knows the brother and hates him, she rejects the package and sends it back with the message never contact me again (or worse)! Is this not the reaction of some people who blame God for bad things that have happened in their lives? Or for some other reason may intellectually accept the existence of God, or perhaps even has faith that He does exist, but for some reason cannot bring themselves to love Him? Will this stop God from trying to reach them with His gifts so that they too might be saved? By no means! God again may try to camouflage His gifts. And the person can receive the gifts without even knowing.
Then there are those who are lucky enough to not have any such blocks that prevent Gods gifts from being received directly, un-camouflaged. Perhaps one had religious parents or family members. Or perhaps one was influenced by the example of someone living the faith. In any such case, Gods gift is received un-camouflaged by those persons, although it may arrive in different packing. Using this analogy of gift giving one can see that God could very well get his gift into the hands of all people regardless of place, time, environment, or any other factor. The gifts may look differently, the recipients may not even know what they have, they may not even know who sent it, but God can get them into everyones hands. But this is only the beginning of the process.
It is not enough to just receive a gift. A gift is meaningless, useless, if it just ends up in the closet and is never opened, never looked at, never used. One must open the gift that is received, one must replace the parts that are broken, get new batteries when the old ones die, find parts that are missing (if any are missing). The gift, however it is received, however it is wrapped, must be taken out and used in order for it to be truly accepted. The use of Gods gifts of faith and grace, once they are received, results in good works. Faith and grace without good works amount to a gift that has been locked away in the closet, received but never opened. This idea makes sense when one considers all of the people who do not profess a belief in God yet live good lives. Those who never go to church but donate time and money to helping the poor, the orphaned and the widowed. Where did these people get the ability to do anything good apart from the grace of God? The Church teaches that, due to the fallen human nature, people are incapable of doing any good work apart from the grace of God. So the fact that these people live good lives, the fact that they are producing good fruit, must be that they have received the gifts of grace and faith from God, possibly camouflaged, which they have accepted and taken out to use. And consider all those people who attend church regularly but produce no fruit. They have received the gift of faith from their parents or from some other source but they have locked it away in the closet and only take it out around Christmas and Easter. Some have faith and produce no fruit, others have no faith and produce thirty, sixty and a hundred fold. The acceptance of Gods gifts must be done freely, God can get his gift out but the gift must be accepted and to be accepted one must freely choose to use them.
From these analogies I believe we can come to several conclusions. That God never stops trying to get his gifts of faith and grace to all peoples and He will do it by any means necessary. Free-will is the method by which one accepts those gifts whether one knows it or not. For as many forms as Gods gifts may take, there are as many ways with which to accept those gifts. If, then, grace and faith are gifts from God and those gifts can be given by God in many forms (camouflaged and un-camouflaged) then what need be there for any sacraments at all in order to be saved? If an atheist can receive Gods gifts without even knowing and can act on those gifts and possibly be saved for it, why go to church at all? Why not just live a good life and leave it at that? It seems that this view of God sending his gifts out to all peoples that all might be saved results in a sort of relativity. But that is not the case. Though the gifts of God can come in many forms and be received and used in many ways, some are better than others. The sacraments are the optimum way in which grace is received because the sacraments are more in keeping with our nature as human beings.
Often it is the view of many that there is a strict separation between body and soul. This view can trace its roots through Cartesian dualism in the 16th century all the way back to Plato in ancient Greece and many other forms of thought and philosophical traditions. Platonic thought has had a profound influence on western culture, including the work of St. Augustine. And so it is no surprise that a sort of dualism exists in modern American Christianity. Many place a great emphasis on spirituality and, in the process, reject physical structures such as church rituals and organized religion in general as unnecessary. Then there are those who, on the opposite end of the spectrum, are caught up in the forms and rituals to such an extent that the spiritual aspect is lost. An example of those is persons who are obsessed with the return of the Latin mass. At the root of these extreme views is a fundamental separation of the spiritual and physical
Often when one thinks of the body and the soul, one imagines a relationship in which the body is a sort of vessel that the soul somehow is connected to and exerts control over. The soul tells the body to move and electrical impulses in the brain begin and movement occurs in the body. How the body and soul are connected, and how they communicate, is a mystery that has troubled anyone who has put any serious consideration into the issue. The mind body problem, as this is sometimes referred to, is based on the assumption that there is a disconnect between body and soul; that they are two inseparable yet distinctly different entities. The Churches teachings on this are clear spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather, their union forms a single nature. Given that the human being is not a soul connected to a body but more of an ensouled body, one in nature, the distinction that is often placed between the two is based on a false assumption.
In the earlier example of the dualistic view of body and soul it was put forth that the soul tells the body to move and electrical impulses in the brain begin and movement occurs in the body; the soul acts and then the body acts. Sacraments are then often seen in a similar dualistic fashion; as physical things acting in the physical world that are signs of spiritual things happening in the spiritual world. There is often a separation between the two. If the view of the unity of soul and body is correct, as the Church teaches, then this dualistic view of the sacraments must also be seen differently. The sacraments cannot be seen a physical signs or symbol of spiritual realities, they must be seen as the actual realities themselves transcending the purely physical and entering into the spiritual. When the body moves it is the body and soul united as one that moves not the soul communicating to the body movement orders. In the same way it is not water being poured over ones body that causes a washing of the soul in baptism. The water of baptism wash the body and the soul together in one movement; the ensouled body of the person is made clean. Avoiding the dualistic view of the sacraments and embracing the unitarian nature of them will lead to a better understanding of what they are and how they exercise their grace in the body of Christ.
One aspect of the sacraments which often comes into question is the material form of them. Can one be baptized with something other than water? Can women be ordained priests? Can we use grape juice instead of wine for communion? These are but several of many questions about the physical aspects of the sacraments which come under scrutiny. In the same way that one cannot speak of the body as merely a vessel for the soul, the material form of the sacraments are not vessels of the spiritual realities which they are somehow carrying. The physical form of the sacrament does not carry the spiritual graces, they are the spiritual graces in physical form. The most clear proof of this is the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. When the words of consecration have been spoken the bread and wine on the alter go through a process of transubstantiation. They are no longer bread and wine but are the true body and blood of Christ. Clearly we see a case here where the physical and spiritual realities are not separate and connected, in a dualistic fashion, but are one nature. The Church teaches that the bread and wine after transubstantiation are not bread and wine at all but are the true body and blood of Christ. But if one where to sneak off with a piece of the sacred host and a cup of the sacred blood and where to take them down to a laboratory, any good scientist would say that they are nothing but bread and wine. In the same way, any good scientist that examines a human body will say that there is nothing there but a body. No soul would be found in man and no Christ would be found in the Eucharist, yet the Church knows by faith that both are present. The Eucharist is not a piece of bread with Christ along for the ride it is somehow more than just the spirit of Christ and more than just a piece of bread, it is a sacrament.
Clearly it becomes apparent that the physical form, being one with the spiritual graces that accompany them in the sacrament, cannot be taken lightly. It would seem that nothing but water is capable of becoming one with the grace of baptism in the same way that nothing but a human body can become one with a human soul. A dog cannot be a man and one cannot be baptized with lemonade, this is the nature of their realities or better yet, the reality of their natures. This implies that the sacraments are much more than simple wrappings for the gifts of God, just as the body is much more than a wrapping for the soul. When God sends his gift to us the optimum method for doing so would be in keeping with our nature as ensould bodies. As was said before, God will get his grace to everyone in whatever fashion he can. And if this means that he sends the spiritual grace without any accompanying physical form then so be it, the gift is received all the same. The sacraments exist as means of delivering grace because we are both physical and spiritual creatures, one in nature, and to receive the spiritual grace in a physical form just makes sense. God desires the salvation of all peoples, God wants to make it as easy as possible for us to understand. That is why Jesus took on human form to become physical in order to raise up the physical. That is why he delivers his grace to us in the form of the sacraments so that the physical is again elevated to a new level.
This inquiry has attempted to understand the nature of Gods gifts of grace and faith in relation to the human participation in the process of receiving, accepting and using these gifts to attain the gift of salvation. It has puzzled over the apparent good works of those who have no outward faith in any particular religion or religion in general. It has speculated that these good works are the fruits of Gods gifts received in a camouflaged form, accepted and used by persons who have no idea from whence their good works actually originate. This inquiry has also investigated the sacraments as methods of delivery for Gods gifts. In light of the fact that God can apparently send is gifts to peoples in camouflaged forms without their knowledge one might wonder why the sacraments are needed to deliver grace at all. This inquiry has shown that since human nature is that of the unification of body and soul into a single entity the optimum method of delivering spiritual graces to the soul would be having them attached to physical forms. Just as Humans are ensouled bodies, the sacraments are like inspirited objects. To wash one of sin, in-spirited water is used to wash both body and soul simultaneously in baptism; to feed the soul, in-spirited food is eaten in the Eucharist; and so it is with all the sacraments. There are many ways to receive Gods gifts and to attain salvation but there is an optimum way of doing so. As human beings, as ensouled bodies, the sacraments represent the optimal method for receiving Gods gifts. Knowing this, I give thanks and praise to God for creating these sacraments so that I may connect with him not only spiritually or intellectually, but physically as well.
March 2007
The issue of the relationship between grace, faith and salvation is of central importance to all Christians. It can generally be established that the vast majority of Christians believe in several key points concerning this relationship. First, salvation cannot be earned, but it is a gift from God. Second, faith and grace are also gifts from God. Finally, grace and/or faith (or some combination of the two) is an essential factor in obtaining the gift of salvation. The Catholic Church teaches that the sacraments are established methods by which the Holy Spirit disseminates grace upon the body of Christ which is the Church. So within the Catholic Church the sacraments become essential pathways or tools for salvation. One key question that has troubled the author of this inquiry concerning this issue is, if salvation is a gift that requires grace and faith, and grace and faith are themselves gifts, then how is there any freedom of will or participation on the part of humans in the process of salvation? To put the question in another way, why does one need to work out salvation in fear and trembling, as it is written, if there is no work to be done, if everything is a gift? This inquiry will examine the relation and nature of grace, salvation, and the sacraments in relation to these questions.
It seems rather un-God-like to say the only way one can be saved is if I (God) give you the gift of faith and grace. And Ill give it to you, and you get it, and you get it, but not you and not you . . . The difficulty that seems to arise is almost like a divine catch-22. The only way that one is to be saved is if God chooses to save one, there is nothing one can do to get it. This also seems to lead right into predestination that God has already chosen who will be saved and who will not be. Yet we know that the Church teaches against predestination and that free-will is involved in whether or not one is saved. But how can this be if, in the end, God gives the gifts to some but not others? Jesus said, for human beings it [salvation] is impossible, but not for God. All things are possible for God. (Mark 10:27) So even if free-will is involved in the cooperation of Gods grace, God must still first give the gift in order for that cooperation to take place. One must therefore conclude that if Christ died for the salvation of all humankind, and God desires that all humans be saved, that God does not withhold the gifts of grace and faith from anyone. It must be the case that, in some form or another, all peoples are given the gifts of faith and grace by God in order that through free-will the opportunity for salvation is granted to all peoples. It seems that this is only in way in which God remains just to his own desire that all people be saved, without compromising free will.
Any gift that is given is worthless and without a purpose if it is not received. Imagine if a brother were to send a birthday gift to his sister across the country. Now imagine that the mail plane crashes (the pilot and copilot bailed out and are ok) and the gift is never received. The sister now thinks that her brother forgot her birthday and perhaps that her brother does not even love her! Is this not how many feel at times in their relation to God? There appear to be any number of reasons, given our fallen nature, as to why Gods gift doesnt reach everyone. Think about all of the circumstances which are beyond ones control. One cannot choose to whom or to where one is born. If ones parents are atheists then their lack of belief may very well block the reception of Gods gift to them. And the parents own lack of faith may have been blocked by some circumstance beyond their control as well. Does this mean that God stops trying to reach these people? If God is love and desires that they be saved, then by no means will He let something so small stand in His way. God may camouflage the gifts, for example, sending them in the form of rationalistic, humanistic ethics. The parents may not believe in God but they still believe in the golden rule in some form and teach their child to behave as such. And when the final judgment comes the child will rightly say to Jesus when did I see you naked, hungry, thirsty, sick, etc., and minister to you? I never even believed in you?!?! And Jesus will reply that by living the golden rule you did minister to my needs in the lowest of your brothers and sisters.
Now imagine the package does arrive from the brother to the sister. However the sister knows the brother and hates him, she rejects the package and sends it back with the message never contact me again (or worse)! Is this not the reaction of some people who blame God for bad things that have happened in their lives? Or for some other reason may intellectually accept the existence of God, or perhaps even has faith that He does exist, but for some reason cannot bring themselves to love Him? Will this stop God from trying to reach them with His gifts so that they too might be saved? By no means! God again may try to camouflage His gifts. And the person can receive the gifts without even knowing.
Then there are those who are lucky enough to not have any such blocks that prevent Gods gifts from being received directly, un-camouflaged. Perhaps one had religious parents or family members. Or perhaps one was influenced by the example of someone living the faith. In any such case, Gods gift is received un-camouflaged by those persons, although it may arrive in different packing. Using this analogy of gift giving one can see that God could very well get his gift into the hands of all people regardless of place, time, environment, or any other factor. The gifts may look differently, the recipients may not even know what they have, they may not even know who sent it, but God can get them into everyones hands. But this is only the beginning of the process.
It is not enough to just receive a gift. A gift is meaningless, useless, if it just ends up in the closet and is never opened, never looked at, never used. One must open the gift that is received, one must replace the parts that are broken, get new batteries when the old ones die, find parts that are missing (if any are missing). The gift, however it is received, however it is wrapped, must be taken out and used in order for it to be truly accepted. The use of Gods gifts of faith and grace, once they are received, results in good works. Faith and grace without good works amount to a gift that has been locked away in the closet, received but never opened. This idea makes sense when one considers all of the people who do not profess a belief in God yet live good lives. Those who never go to church but donate time and money to helping the poor, the orphaned and the widowed. Where did these people get the ability to do anything good apart from the grace of God? The Church teaches that, due to the fallen human nature, people are incapable of doing any good work apart from the grace of God. So the fact that these people live good lives, the fact that they are producing good fruit, must be that they have received the gifts of grace and faith from God, possibly camouflaged, which they have accepted and taken out to use. And consider all those people who attend church regularly but produce no fruit. They have received the gift of faith from their parents or from some other source but they have locked it away in the closet and only take it out around Christmas and Easter. Some have faith and produce no fruit, others have no faith and produce thirty, sixty and a hundred fold. The acceptance of Gods gifts must be done freely, God can get his gift out but the gift must be accepted and to be accepted one must freely choose to use them.
From these analogies I believe we can come to several conclusions. That God never stops trying to get his gifts of faith and grace to all peoples and He will do it by any means necessary. Free-will is the method by which one accepts those gifts whether one knows it or not. For as many forms as Gods gifts may take, there are as many ways with which to accept those gifts. If, then, grace and faith are gifts from God and those gifts can be given by God in many forms (camouflaged and un-camouflaged) then what need be there for any sacraments at all in order to be saved? If an atheist can receive Gods gifts without even knowing and can act on those gifts and possibly be saved for it, why go to church at all? Why not just live a good life and leave it at that? It seems that this view of God sending his gifts out to all peoples that all might be saved results in a sort of relativity. But that is not the case. Though the gifts of God can come in many forms and be received and used in many ways, some are better than others. The sacraments are the optimum way in which grace is received because the sacraments are more in keeping with our nature as human beings.
Often it is the view of many that there is a strict separation between body and soul. This view can trace its roots through Cartesian dualism in the 16th century all the way back to Plato in ancient Greece and many other forms of thought and philosophical traditions. Platonic thought has had a profound influence on western culture, including the work of St. Augustine. And so it is no surprise that a sort of dualism exists in modern American Christianity. Many place a great emphasis on spirituality and, in the process, reject physical structures such as church rituals and organized religion in general as unnecessary. Then there are those who, on the opposite end of the spectrum, are caught up in the forms and rituals to such an extent that the spiritual aspect is lost. An example of those is persons who are obsessed with the return of the Latin mass. At the root of these extreme views is a fundamental separation of the spiritual and physical
Often when one thinks of the body and the soul, one imagines a relationship in which the body is a sort of vessel that the soul somehow is connected to and exerts control over. The soul tells the body to move and electrical impulses in the brain begin and movement occurs in the body. How the body and soul are connected, and how they communicate, is a mystery that has troubled anyone who has put any serious consideration into the issue. The mind body problem, as this is sometimes referred to, is based on the assumption that there is a disconnect between body and soul; that they are two inseparable yet distinctly different entities. The Churches teachings on this are clear spirit and matter, in man, are not two natures united, but rather, their union forms a single nature. Given that the human being is not a soul connected to a body but more of an ensouled body, one in nature, the distinction that is often placed between the two is based on a false assumption.
In the earlier example of the dualistic view of body and soul it was put forth that the soul tells the body to move and electrical impulses in the brain begin and movement occurs in the body; the soul acts and then the body acts. Sacraments are then often seen in a similar dualistic fashion; as physical things acting in the physical world that are signs of spiritual things happening in the spiritual world. There is often a separation between the two. If the view of the unity of soul and body is correct, as the Church teaches, then this dualistic view of the sacraments must also be seen differently. The sacraments cannot be seen a physical signs or symbol of spiritual realities, they must be seen as the actual realities themselves transcending the purely physical and entering into the spiritual. When the body moves it is the body and soul united as one that moves not the soul communicating to the body movement orders. In the same way it is not water being poured over ones body that causes a washing of the soul in baptism. The water of baptism wash the body and the soul together in one movement; the ensouled body of the person is made clean. Avoiding the dualistic view of the sacraments and embracing the unitarian nature of them will lead to a better understanding of what they are and how they exercise their grace in the body of Christ.
One aspect of the sacraments which often comes into question is the material form of them. Can one be baptized with something other than water? Can women be ordained priests? Can we use grape juice instead of wine for communion? These are but several of many questions about the physical aspects of the sacraments which come under scrutiny. In the same way that one cannot speak of the body as merely a vessel for the soul, the material form of the sacraments are not vessels of the spiritual realities which they are somehow carrying. The physical form of the sacrament does not carry the spiritual graces, they are the spiritual graces in physical form. The most clear proof of this is the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist. When the words of consecration have been spoken the bread and wine on the alter go through a process of transubstantiation. They are no longer bread and wine but are the true body and blood of Christ. Clearly we see a case here where the physical and spiritual realities are not separate and connected, in a dualistic fashion, but are one nature. The Church teaches that the bread and wine after transubstantiation are not bread and wine at all but are the true body and blood of Christ. But if one where to sneak off with a piece of the sacred host and a cup of the sacred blood and where to take them down to a laboratory, any good scientist would say that they are nothing but bread and wine. In the same way, any good scientist that examines a human body will say that there is nothing there but a body. No soul would be found in man and no Christ would be found in the Eucharist, yet the Church knows by faith that both are present. The Eucharist is not a piece of bread with Christ along for the ride it is somehow more than just the spirit of Christ and more than just a piece of bread, it is a sacrament.
Clearly it becomes apparent that the physical form, being one with the spiritual graces that accompany them in the sacrament, cannot be taken lightly. It would seem that nothing but water is capable of becoming one with the grace of baptism in the same way that nothing but a human body can become one with a human soul. A dog cannot be a man and one cannot be baptized with lemonade, this is the nature of their realities or better yet, the reality of their natures. This implies that the sacraments are much more than simple wrappings for the gifts of God, just as the body is much more than a wrapping for the soul. When God sends his gift to us the optimum method for doing so would be in keeping with our nature as ensould bodies. As was said before, God will get his grace to everyone in whatever fashion he can. And if this means that he sends the spiritual grace without any accompanying physical form then so be it, the gift is received all the same. The sacraments exist as means of delivering grace because we are both physical and spiritual creatures, one in nature, and to receive the spiritual grace in a physical form just makes sense. God desires the salvation of all peoples, God wants to make it as easy as possible for us to understand. That is why Jesus took on human form to become physical in order to raise up the physical. That is why he delivers his grace to us in the form of the sacraments so that the physical is again elevated to a new level.
This inquiry has attempted to understand the nature of Gods gifts of grace and faith in relation to the human participation in the process of receiving, accepting and using these gifts to attain the gift of salvation. It has puzzled over the apparent good works of those who have no outward faith in any particular religion or religion in general. It has speculated that these good works are the fruits of Gods gifts received in a camouflaged form, accepted and used by persons who have no idea from whence their good works actually originate. This inquiry has also investigated the sacraments as methods of delivery for Gods gifts. In light of the fact that God can apparently send is gifts to peoples in camouflaged forms without their knowledge one might wonder why the sacraments are needed to deliver grace at all. This inquiry has shown that since human nature is that of the unification of body and soul into a single entity the optimum method of delivering spiritual graces to the soul would be having them attached to physical forms. Just as Humans are ensouled bodies, the sacraments are like inspirited objects. To wash one of sin, in-spirited water is used to wash both body and soul simultaneously in baptism; to feed the soul, in-spirited food is eaten in the Eucharist; and so it is with all the sacraments. There are many ways to receive Gods gifts and to attain salvation but there is an optimum way of doing so. As human beings, as ensouled bodies, the sacraments represent the optimal method for receiving Gods gifts. Knowing this, I give thanks and praise to God for creating these sacraments so that I may connect with him not only spiritually or intellectually, but physically as well.