As we begin this series on Sacramental Theology it would be good to know where we are going. Thus the following outline is offered:
Each of these topics will be the subject of a complete entry in the series. Thus we are looking at a 12-part series. Throughout the goal will be to offer as complete an understanding as is possible in this genre. It will not be possible to provide a full course in Sacramental Theology since that would take far more time than is available, and would require for more work than is necessary. At the completion of this series I would think that you will have more understanding of these sacraments than the average Catholic.
Theology is defined as faith seeking understanding. In the case of this series we will be looking at understanding the theology of the sacraments. Reference texts that will be used include the following:
The Baltimore Catechism tells us that "a sacrament is an outward sign instituted by Christ to give grace." While this is a nice definition it doesn't speak to the depth of our understanding of theology. Let's step back in time to see if we can derive a sense of how we arrived at out theological understanding.
St. Paul writes about the mysterion or mysteries that we eventually came to call the sacraments. The Eastern Churches and the Orthodox Churches still call them mysteries. In the early days these mysteries included what came to be called the seven sacraments but also included many more actions and things than we include today. By the start of the Patristic period (2nd through 6th centuries) the sacramental action of the Church had developed into a rich series of rituals.
The first time we see a list of sacraments that is identical to the current list is with Peter Lombard's Sentences. Prior to this work the sacraments of the Church looked different. For example, what is now called Confirmation was actually a part of baptism. Eventually, however, Confirmation would be separated from Baptism and we would arrive at a consistent understanding of seven sacraments.
But, we still haven't addressed the issue of this topic -- what is a Sacrament? The early Fathers of the Church experienced the power of the Sacraments in their daily lives, and they saw its effects on the people who received them. Those who were baptized joined the community and their lives were changed. Through the Eucharist members of the community were strengthened for whatever lay ahead. Each of the sacraments, especially the "sacrament" of the laying on of hands, revealed the reality of God working in the world and continuing His saving mission. This experience led to the development of an understanding of sacraments as those events which transformed the recipient.
By the time of the Scholastics (11th through 13th centuries) the daily observation of the changes were not so noticeable, and so these men developed another theory of Sacraments. They started the idea of the res sacramentum in which the sacramentum referred to the visible events and the res was the "real thing" that it pointed to. With the attack on the sacrament of the Eucharist by Berengar (also known as Berengarius) of Tours it became clear to the theologians that there had to be more to a sacrament than simply these two elements. They concluded that there was a three-fold reality to all sacraments. These are the sacramentum tantum or sacramental sign, the sacramentum et res or sacramental reality and the res tantum or the reality that the sacrament pointed to.
Having arrived at a systematic understanding of the nature of the sacraments the theologians then applied this understanding to all seven of the sacraments. Eventually, St. Thomas Aquinas summed up the reality of the sacraments by saying: "The sacraments add two things to the soul. One is a sacramental reality like the character or some other adornment of the soul; the other is a reality only, namely grace." (On Book IV of the Sentences, 1, 1, 4). But there was still more to understand.
The term sacramentum had first referred to that which was observable, that is, the rites and sacred objects. Augustine had argued that it also applied to the "baptismal seal." However during this period of the Scholastics it was extended to mean not only that which was visible, but that which was knowable. Thus, under this new thinking Augustine's arguments were accepted since it was possible to know that the seal was present even though it was not visible to the eye.
Yet this leads to another difficulty: viz. what is meant by "seal"? Aquinas extended the Aristotelian principles and concluded that the "seal" refers to an ontological change in the person. That is, the soul is "transformed" through the sacrament so that it is conformed to the self-sacrificing priesthood of Jesus himself! This, then, reflects the Thomistic thinking in regard to Aristotle's philosophical element called "power," only in this case the power was supernatural and could only be given by God.
Another important note is that the Scholastics applied the philosophy of Aristotle whose writings were virtually unknown to the Church Fathers who depended upon Plato to provide a basic philosophy. The person who was most influenced by Aristotle was Aquinas and we find elements of Aristotelian philosophy throughout the Thomistic corpus. It was from Aristotle that we acquired such terms as substance and accident, matter and form, power and activity. These terms became the basic building blocks upon which the theology of the sacraments was developed.
Because these terms are so important, we will take a moment now to define them. These definitions, then, will be used throughout the rest of the series. It is important that we do not attempt to apply the modern meanings to these terms as we shall simply be totally confused! Although every single one of these terms is derived from perfectly good English, the theological meanings are quite different from the profane.
Substance refers to the nature or ousia of a thing. In English terms if we are talking about, say, bread, the substance of the bread would be its breadness or that which makes it bread. Peter Kreeft in his Summa of the Summa defines it as: "a being that exists in itself rather than in another (as opposed to accident )." In other words, the substance of a thing does not require anything else to be that thing.
Accident refers to the sensate properties of a thing. Again, Kreeft defines it as "that mode of being which can exist only in another being, as a modification or attribute of a substance (thing); e.g., the redness of a rose." As used in sacramental theology it refers to the characteristics that can be physically perceived such as scent, weight, dimensionality, color and so on. Each of these attributes belong to a thing and cannot exist without that thing. For example, we cannot have the scent of someone's hair without having that hair. Scent does not stand alone (although it may be perceived at some distance from the object such as is the case with color or a strong perfume).
Matter is defined by Kreeft as "the principle in a thing's being by which it is able to be determined by form; potency as opposed to actuality. In modern parlance, the word refers to actual, visible, formed things (e.g., chemicals, molecules); but in Thomistic and Aristotelian parlance 'matter' is not of itself observable or even of itself actual. It is not a thing but a metaphysical principle or aspect of things, which together with form explains change, as the actualization (in-form-ing) of potency (matter)." This is a complex definition which, sadly, doesn't help us too much in determining what it means. Perhaps the best explanation is that "matter" has the potential for change.
Form is a little easier to understand. Form is that property which allows us to distinguish between one thing and another. Kreeft defines it as "the essential nature of a thing, that which specifies it to be this rather than that." So, form applies when we distinguish that a thing is a rock instead of a shoe. It tells us what the nature or substance of a thing is.
Power is simply the principle of change. This is also called "potency" in some textbooks. However, potency also implies the ability to be actualized or changed while power indicates a more active role.
Activity is that which happens as a result of change or power being applied. In the "first act" we talk about existence, being or actuality while in the "second act" we talk about operation, doing, and activity. That is, the "first act" refers to states of being while the "second act" refers to something in process.
Having developed a view into the historical aspects of sacraments, let's look at how they are viewed today. Perhaps the most common view is that developed by Edward Schillebeeckx (pronounced shill-a-becks), a Dutch theologian who wrote extensively on the sacraments during the 1950s and '60s. His writings linked that of the Scholastics with the experiential understanding of the Church Fathers. Schillebeeckx sees sacraments as outward signs that reveal a transcendent, divine reality. To put it in more secular terms, they make it possible to "fall in love" with God by opening us up to an experience of God. Thus, for Schillebeeckx, the sacraments are really an encounter with the divine, the Risen Lord! In each reception of the sacraments we are encountering the Risen Lord who calls us into a deeper relationship with Him.
It was this deeply personal understanding of the sacraments that the Church Fathers experienced and which the Scholastics seem to have isolated us from with their intellectual approach thy sacraments. Schillebeeckx restores that sense of awe and wonder that was present in the early Church while retaining the full understanding of the nature of the sacraments that flows from the Middle Ages and the theologians who labored so hard to rediscover the philosophy that allowed them to describe the "what" of sacraments.
By the time of Vatican II the ideas of Schillebeeckx had so permeated the Church that his ideas regarding the sacraments are as common in the documents of Vatican II as those of Aquinas were in the Documents of Trent. A side effect of Schillebeeckx's theology was the understanding that since the res tantum or sacramental reality had not changed even though the sacramentum tantum had changed then it was possible to change the rites associated with the sacraments without changing the reality of the sacrament.
Karl Rahner approached the understanding of the sacraments from a different perspective. In some ways he was also expressing the reality of an experience of God through the sacraments, but he looked at it from a perspective of phenomenology and existentialism. The phenomenalistic approach was an attempt to describe the human experience of the sacrament. One of the problems that many have with Rahner's approach is that he acknowledges that there is no biblical proof that Jesus personally instituted seven sacraments (marriage pre-dated the time of Jesus by several thousand years, Jesus himself was baptized so that ritual predates him as well, there is no evidence that Jesus ever confirmed anyone, etc.). However, Rahner's approach is that Jesus instituted a sacramental Church which in turn developed the sacraments based upon the needs of the people. For him the sacraments represent the graces which Jesus makes available through the Church in a specific way. Since these ritual actions symbolize this self-transcendent grace of Jesus, Rahner writes that , in this sense, Jesus did institute the sacraments by instituting what the sacraments signify and make available to us.
This seems to be enough material to approach the sacraments themselves. We shall, then conclude with this section and resume with a brief examination of the sacraments of initiation. Once we have that down we'll take a detailed look at each of the sacraments of initiation.