Tokens of Presence: Second-Personal Presence and Baptistic Accounts of the Eucharist

Pro Ecclesia ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 106385122110509
Author(s):  
Daniel L. Hill
Keyword(s):  
Union With Christ ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Middle Way

This paper attempts to provide a bridge between the two predominant Baptistic accounts of divine presence in Eucharist, with the help of Eleonore Stump’s account of second-personal presence and theories of emergence. Predominantly understood in either Zwinglian (memorialist) or Reformed (instrumentalist) categories, a dividing wall is erected with baptistic theology over the question of whether or not communion is strictly an act of human remembrance or involves divine presence in some form or fashion. After identifying three key problems with the memorialist account, this paper attempts to provide a middle way between the two views, arguing that the Spirit appropriates the bread and wine as tokens through which he communicates the thoughts, intentions, desires, and second-personal presence of Christ to the gathered body in order to strengthen the church's union with Christ.

scholarly journals Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper

Perichoresis ◽  
2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-163
Author(s):  
Wim Janse
Keyword(s):  
Middle Ages ◽  
Second Generation ◽  
Lord's Supper ◽  
Union With Christ ◽  
Eucharistic Theology ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Philipp Melanchthon ◽  
The Middle Ages

Calvin's Doctrine of the Lord's Supper In order to pinpoint its proprium, it is necessary to understand John Calvin’s Eucharistic theology within the wider context of the intra-Protestant debates of his time. As a second- generation Reformer, Calvin developed his ideas explicitly in reaction to and as a middle way between the Lutheran and Swiss Reformed discussions of the 1520’s. To that end this essay first focuses on the main developments from the Middle Ages onwards, and then presents Calvin from the perspective of the positions taken up by some of his contemporaries, in particular Philipp Melanchthon. Next, some representative texts written by Calvin himself are analysed. Although Calvin’s Eucharistic views were not from the beginning a coherent and unified doctrine but developed only gradually, they may be described in a systematic-synthetic way. With respect to the matter of closed, open, and frequent communion, it is observed that for Calvin a regular celebration is essential to the deepening of the believer’s union with Christ.

Skill-based engagement with a rich landscape of affordances as an alternative to thinking through other minds

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julian Kiverstein ◽  
Erik Rietveld
Keyword(s):  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Cultural Learning ◽  
Other Minds ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
Internalist Account

Abstract Veissière and colleagues make a valiant attempt at reconciling an internalist account of implicit cultural learning with an externalist account that understands social behaviour in terms of its environment-involving dynamics. However, unfortunately the author's attempt to forge a middle way between internalism and externalism fails. We argue their failure stems from the overly individualistic understanding of the perception of cultural affordances they propose.

Listening for the “Still Small Voice” of Mendelssohn’s Domestic Elijah

2015 ◽  
Vol 32 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-77
Author(s):  
Peter Mercer-Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Second Phase ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Final Phase ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Third ◽  
Interpretive Approach ◽  
Will To Live ◽  
Three Phases

The notion that there might be autobiographical, or personally confessional, registers at work in Mendelssohn’s 1846 Elijah has long been established, with three interpretive approaches prevailing: the first, famously advanced by Prince Albert, compares Mendelssohn’s own artistic achievements with Elijah’s prophetic ones; the second, in Eric Werner’s dramatic formulation, discerns in the aria “It is enough” a confession of Mendelssohn’s own “weakening will to live”; the third portrays Elijah as a testimonial on Mendelssohn’s relationship to the Judaism of his birth and/or to the Christianity of his youth and adulthood. This article explores a fourth, essentially untested, interpretive approach: the possibility that Mendelssohn crafts from Elijah’s story a heartfelt affirmation of domesticity, an expression of his growing fascination with retiring to a quiet existence in the bosom of his family. The argument unfolds in three phases. In the first, the focus is on that climactic passage in Elijah’s Second Part in which God is revealed to the prophet in the “still small voice.” The turn from divine absence to divine presence is articulated through two clear and powerful recollections of music that Elijah had sung in the oratorio’s First Part, a move that has the potential to reconfigure our evaluation of his role in the public and private spheres in those earlier passages. The second phase turns to Elijah’s own brief sojourn into the domestic realm, the widow’s scene, paying particular attention to the motivations that may have underlain the substantial revisions to the scene that took place between the Birmingham premiere and the London premiere the following year. The final phase explores the possibility that the widow and her son, the “surrogate family” in the oratorio, do not disappear after the widow’s scene, but linger on as “para-characters” with crucial roles in the unfolding drama.

Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, Song Thirteen: Ambiguity, Mysticism, and Cognitive Neuroscience

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Evans
Keyword(s):  
Religious Experience ◽  
Cognitive Neuroscience ◽  
Previous Article ◽  
Divine Presence

A striking characteristic of Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice is the lack of clarity as to when the participants are human and when angelic. Scholarly opinion has been divided on the question. Fletcher-Louis, for instance, argued for an “angelomorphic” theology in Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice. Scholars regard this text as an example of mysticism at Qumran, but the root of the term “mystic” (to conceal) warns of the difficulties inherent in any analysis of mystical texts because such texts arise from religious experience of a transcendent divine presence only accessible subjectively. In a previous article on ambiguity in the First Song it was argued in support of Fletcher-Louis that the text was deliberately constructed to create ambiguity between angelic agents and sectarian participants for rhetorical purposes. This article resorts to insights from cognitive neuroscience in order to reconsider current scholarly opinion on this matter.

The Divine Presence

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barend J. ter Haar
Keyword(s):  
Early Life ◽  
Spirit Possession ◽  
Real Life ◽  
Local People ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Dreams And Visions

Statues and other images were central in the worship of the anthropomorphic deities that became increasingly popular from the Song onwards. Stories would be attached to them, both more personal recent memories and collectively transmitted miracles from the more distant past. These images and stories structured how people imagined the deity and what he was capable of. They enabled them to identify the deity when he appeared to them in a dream, in a vision, or even in real life. This chapter follows the ways in which people encountered Lord Guan in temples and shrines, as well as in dreams and visions, and how they actively enacted him in ritual theatre and different forms of spirit possession. It closes by looking at some of the stories that local people in some regions told of the deity’s early life, again with the aim of making him more real and more imaginable.

Afterword

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Cefalu
Keyword(s):  
Reformed Theology ◽  
Divine Presence ◽  
Beatific Vision ◽  
The World

The Afterword reviews the ways in which the features of Johannine devotion described throughout the book help to legitimate the revisionist argument that Reformed theology did not contribute to a decline in sacramental metaphysics or the disenchantment of the world. The chapter underscores the ways in which Johannine theology paradoxically testifies to divine presence through the Incarnation, despite the fact that Johannine theology does not uphold the materiality of the Eucharist and comparable rites. In addition, the chapter emphasizes the importance of acknowledging the mediated or qualified mysticism of the Johannine writings as against an ecstatic vision-mysticism. Because John’s high Christology assumes that only the Son can capably witness the beatific vision, earthbound penitents dwell in God only through the route of Christ.

Aristotle on the Sources of the Ethical Life

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Berryman
Keyword(s):  
Virtue Ethics ◽  
Human Nature ◽  
Common Belief ◽  
Ethical Life ◽  
Metaphysical Grounding ◽  
Middle Way ◽  
The Common

This work challenges the common belief that Aristotle’s virtue ethics is founded on an appeal to human nature, an appeal that is thought to be intended to provide both substantive ethical advice and justification for the demands of ethics. It is argued that it is not Aristotle’s intent, but the view is resisted that Aristotle was blind to questions of the source or justification of his ethical views. Aristotle’s views are interpreted as a ‘middle way’ between the metaphysical grounding offered by Platonists and the scepticism or subjectivist alternatives articulated by others. The commitments implicit in the nature of action figure prominently in this account: Aristotle reinterprets Socrates’ famous paradox that no one does evil willingly, taking it to mean that a commitment to pursuing the good is implicit in the very nature of action. This approach is compared to constructivism in contemporary ethics.

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