HOME SOME THEMES IN ENGLISH THEOLOGICAL THEMES SYMBOLS OF LOVE
SYMBOLS
OF LOVE
Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.
iii.
Experiences of God through symbols
b.
Symbol of faith- Gratia ex opere operantis
3. Sacrament- symbols of grace
b.
Efficacious symbol of grace
i.
Jesus Christ- symbol of God
ii.
Church- symbol of total Christ
Through creatures human beings discover God exists.
Through human love human beings recognize that God is love. Love is necessary
for human beings to develop. Love is present in all phases of human life. God’s
love for human beings is so great that He wants to share His eternal life with
them. God’s love is continually concretized in grace as gift of love, visible
and invisible.
Grace is the gift of God’s love. Symbol is necessary for human beings to
acknowledge God’s love and grace. Symbol is also a way human beings express
their reponse to God.
This paper presents, first, the relation between grace and symbol, then
symbols as means by which believers of all religions encounter the Absolute and
receive God’s grace. Finally Christian sacraments are considered as symbols to
bestow grace efficaciously to Christians.
This paper uses a method of correlation and presupposes Christian faith.
Structure of human beings requires using symbol to understand, because
the constitution of human being is symbolic. This section will present the
structure of human beings as symbolic. Then I will discuss the relation between
grace and symbol.
Human being is corporeal and
spiritual. Human knowledge has its starting point in material objects known
through the senses. We will consider human sense knowledge, then the
material-spiritual structure of human being, and then human knowledge of God
through symbols.
Plato’s theory of knowledge supposes human soul remembers what was known
in the world of ideas. Aristotle countered this view. If someone is color
blind, he cannot know the color that his eyes cannot see. Aristotle did not
look for answers in an other world but in this world. For Aristotle and later Thomas
Aquinas, the idea is formed by the human intellect when human senses contact
material things. In this life no one can know without the senses.
In the area of knowledge of God’s existence and other attributes, the
human person has to transcend creatures to recognize God and his attributes. By
human love human beings recognize God’s love, by human generosity human beings
recognize God’s generosity, etc. But there is an infinite distance between God
and human beings, so the human knowledge of God does not correspond completetly
with God, therefore its expression is analogical and symbolical.
The human person is not only a material but also a spiritual being which
is constituted with both body and soul. Soul refers to human life or the entire
person, but also to the innermost aspect of a person, and signifies the
spiritual principle in the human being. The human body is animated by a
spiritual soul, but body and spiritual soul make one reality.
In human life, signs and symbols occupy an important place. As a being
at once body and spirit, the human person perceives and expresses spiritual
realities through physical signs and symbols. As a social being, we need signs
and symbols to communicate with others, through language, gestures, and
actions. The same holds true for our relationship with God.
In Karl Rahner’s language, human being is spirit incarnate. That is, in
transcending material objects human being becomes spirit. In this status of
life it is impossible to separate body and spirit.
Human beings understand through visible signs or
symbols. So for God to be revealed to them, God uses visible creatures. The
material cosmos, trees, mountains, fire, light, darkness, and beauty of
creatures, all reflect and speak of God to human beings.
History can be regarded as a series of signs revealing the presence of
God in human history. In fact, Christian faith recognizes that God has
intervened in history to save Israel, to escort Israel to Egypt, to deliver
Israel from Egypt by Moses, to save Israel from various people in times of the
judges, to lead Israel through Saul, David and other kings, to guide Israel
from slavery in Babylon. Israel’s history was the arena in which God expressed
his love to them through election, intervention, love and grace. God’s love and
grace to Israel have been expressed in Israel’s history.
In Karl Rahner’s view, if God wants
to reveal God’s self to human beings, then God must enable human beings to
receive God. Human being is spirit incarnate. This means that through material
objects he understands and become spirit. Thus God must reveal God’s self
through material objects through which human beings can transcend the world and
meet God as transcendence. So, through creatures human beings transcend and
recognize God as Creator. Through Israel’s history human beings recognize God
who intervened in the history to realize God’s plan of saving human beings. And
with Jesus died and risen, human beings recognize him as God incarnate. Jesus
is God incarnate, meaning that God, the second person of divinity, assumed
human nature in Jesus. Therefore, in Jesus there are two natures, one divine
and one human.
A symbol is something that mediates something other
than itself. A sign designates something else and has no intrinsic connection
with its referent, for example, the red or green light in traffic system. A
symbol has the intrinsic connection with what it refers to, for example, the
figure of a heart is a symbol of love, because when someone loves his heart is
affected under the emotion of love. Someone can distinguish concrete and
conceptual symbols. A concrete symbol is a being that mediates a real presence
within itself of something other than itself. A conceptual symbol is a concept,
word, metaphor or parable that reveals something else and makes it present to
the imagination and mind.
Creatures are symbols of God;
through them God is present to human beings who receive grace to recognize Him.
Moreover, prophets are God’s persons who are representatives of God and speak
in the name of God. Jesus is symbol of God and grace itself from God to human
beings.
Grace is love concretized. In the human- divine relation, grace is God’s
love expressed in a concrete way, for example, in material and invisible gifts.
Grace may be considered God’s own self as personal gift to us. When a human
being loves someone, he or she gives him or her some gift. At the top of love,
they give themselves to others. God loves human beings and symbols are
necessary to communicate this love. The symbol is necessary for human beings to
recognize God or God’s grace, because in the process of perception and
knowledge human intellects need material objects. As a result, these symbols
become sacraments or religious symbols.
This section, first develops the idea that God creates all, so that
everyone is child of God. God therefore loves everyone, and God wants to share
eternal life with all human beings. Secondly it will talk about the symbols of
world religions.
God can be recognized by everyone, in any part of the world. Creatures
reflect the beauty of God, and become signs for human beings to recognize God.
Through creatures, human beings can recognize that God exists, God is creator,
God is beautiful and generous. Because human beings are gifted with
intelligence, freedom and love, they can recognize God as person, lovable, and
merciful.
Religion begins with some personal encounter between some human beings
and God. A particular founder of a given religion encounters God, and
communicates his or her experience of God to others. The group develops into a
social organization, with cult and ritual for the worship of the Absolute.
These rites often consist of symbolic signs which represent the religious
event. For example, in Judaism there was Abraham’s experience, Isaac’s and
Jacob’s experiences, Moses’ experience, etc. In Buddhism, there was Buddha’s
experience to liberate him and his disciples. Every religion has its own
symbols to help its believers to encounter the Absolute.
Experiences of the Absolute are communicated through words, through
symbols. If it is true to say that body-spirit structure of human being is
God’s will, then symbols are also what God uses to bestow grace of knowledge to
human beings, both in Christianity and in all world religions.
Grace is God’s love. God’s love to human beings is prior to symbol, and
is expressed concretely in symbol as a concrete gift. God is always present.
God desires to be present in particular human situations, since God is not
merely an incomprehensible, transcendent reality, but also the present. God has
already entered concretely into humanity in God’s Word made human and in the
Holy Spirit. God has already given tangible expression, in the community of
believers, to God’s presence within humanity.
Grace is God’s gift of existence
when God creates creatures and human beings. Grace is the gift of knowledge
when human beings recognize God who is the present and loving One. Grace is
salvation when God’s self is gift and final grace for human beings.
There is free knowledge. The sentence “2 plus 2 equals 4” is accepted by
everyone, but “God exists” is not accepted by all. This is free knowledge
because human beings are free to accept it. Standing before a created symbol,
acceptance of its meaning depends upon the human being who receives grace and
chooses his or her position. Through a symbol human beings can encounter the
Absolute. Symbol is symbol of faith, for believers. Recognizing the Absolute,
believing in Him, hoping in Him, are all grace which is prior to and conditions
the very encountering of the Absolute and the receiving of grace.
In Christianity there are symbols which are similar with those of other
religions, but there are also some special symbols which are called sacraments
and have special efficacy.
In this section I will present the notion of
Christian sacraments, then Christian sacraments as effective symbols of grace.
Sacrament means mystery when it is used to translate the Greek word mysterion
from ancient texts. In Roman pagan religion, the word ‘sacramentum’ was
connected to the Latin word ‘sacrare’ and ‘sacrum’, so sacrament
meant what made someone or something ‘holy’. For Augustine, sacraments were
visible signs that represented an invisible reality. Another described
sacrament as a sign designated by God to point to a divine reality and
containing that reality within itself.
Sacraments are defined by the Church as “efficacious signs of grace,
instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, by which divine life is
dispensed to us” (Catechism of Catholic Church, #1131).
Christian sacraments have two dimensions, the sign
which is visible and grace which is invisible. The relation between sign and
grace in the sacrament is similar with that of the Church and Holy Spirit. The
sign in the sacraments can be words or actions. The sacrament is religious sign
which has a history in Church tradition, and which bears an intrinsic
connection with the signified reality which is the grace bestowed. Therefore a
sacrament can also be named a symbol.
The special characteristic of Christian sacraments is efficacy: they
cause what they represent.
Christian sacraments surpass the symbols of other religions, because
Christians believe sacraments offer grace “ex opere operato”, that is, by the
intrinsic merit of their being performed. Therefore some people today may
misunderstand sacraments as magic actions. Of course the Christian sacraments
always suppose the faith of believers in relation to the religious symbols.
However what is the warranty that the grace of the sacrament is efficacious?
Without such warranty or pledge, human beings will still live in anxiety. The
efficacy of the sacraments has its foundation in Jesus Christ and his Church.
Jesus is the man who reveals God totally,
because Jesus is united so closely to God. He is the Word of God incarnate, the
Son of God, and his connection with God has been called a hypostatic union.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God incarnate; therefore
Jesus is the pledge to warrant that human beings are really loved by God. God
so loves human beings that He spares nothing to human beings, because He
already gave His beloved Son to human beings. Jesus Christ is the warranty, the
pledge, the symbol which shows God’s love to humankind. Thus Jesus Christ is
the original sacrament of God’s love for human beings.
Why does God become incarnate? Because human beings
need something concrete to understand God’s love for them. God loves human
beings, but human beings can refuse it. How does God convince them? By the
incarnation and by the death of Jesus on the cross human beings can recognize
and become persuaded that God loves them.
Jesus Christ is the primordial symbol of God in the
sense that Jesus is God-man, and he reflects God’s love perfectly, and he is
God’s pledge of love, especially through his death on the cross. In another words, Jesus is truly man but
more than a man, a prophet but more than a prophet, or at least as the
eschatological prophet, through and with whom God is present to human beings.
By his life and his activities God is present and acts through him. He is
symbol of God, God incarnate, so that those who saw him, saw the Father (Jo.14:
6). To those who pray in his name, God the Father will listen.
By and through Jesus Christ, Christians
recognize God’s love for them, because God gave his beloved Son and his Holy
Spirit to human beings. Jesus Christ is really symbol of God for human beings.
By the warranty of God’s love through Jesus Christ, the efficacy of the
Christian sacraments is revealed.
If Jesus celebrated the sacraments, surely they would
be efficacious actions. However, Jesus is in heaven, so how can these symbols
be efficacious?
Jesus Christ acts through the Church, and concretely
through ministers of his Church. Indeed, Jesus in his lifetime had disciples
who became the kernel of the Church in future. The Church in the history
becomes the sacrament of Jesus Christ, because Christ is the head of the
Church, which has in turn been called the total Christ. After his resurrection,
the gospels portray Jesus Christ saying to his disciples: “Receive the Holy
Spirit, if you forgive sin of someone then his sin is forgiven”. “Who hears
you, hears me”. The Church is the representative of Jesus Christ in the world,
and so, the symbol of Jesus Christ in the world today. In the name of Jesus
Christ and united with Christ as head, the Church continues Jesus’ mission and
activities to become a salvific symbol for human beings today. In this sense the
Christian sacraments can be understood as acts of Christ through his Church.
Moreover, the Holy Spirit is active in the Church as
guide, as dynamic principle. Nobody can understand the Church without Jesus
Christ and Holy Spirit. The Church is the total Christ in the world. In another
figure, the Church with its members is the body of Christ and the Holy Spirit
is its animating principle. The Church is the sacrament of the world’s
salvation, since it proclaims and makes present, as eschatologically victorious
in the world, that grace which will never disappear from this world and that
invincibly is moving this world towards the fulfillment of the kingdom of God.
A sacrament is firstly a memorial symbol, a narrative
recall of a past that becomes present; secondly, a sign of grace at work in the
present through the divine Spirit; thirdly an effective anticipation of the
future. It points to the accomplishment of God’s purpose, the perfection of
creation, the universally realized reign of God and, included in that, the
perfection of the individual life in death and in eternal blessedness.
The efficacy of Christian sacraments has its foundation in Jesus Christ
because He is efficacious symbol of God and God’s love for human beings. The
Church as total Christ, with his presence and activities, in the Holy Spirit,
is fundamental and efficacious symbol of grace for human beings today.
God is love. God loves human beings. The first grace is creation. Human
beings are created as spirit incarnate, and human beings can recognize God’s
love through creation as a vast symbol of God.
There are so many symbols in Christianity as in world religions, and
these symbols are means to help respective believers to recognize God and
receive God’s grace in many different situations. However, in Christianity
there are some special symbols called sacraments which are symbols willed by
Christ through his Church. These symbols are efficacious words which transmit
grace according to Christ’s will; they are celebrated by the Church through its
ministers.
Of course God can bestow grace to human beings without signs, but by the
present economy of human existence God uses signs or symbols to grant grace to
human beings. Creatures can be symbols for all human beings. Religious symbols
of their respective religions can be means to recognize and receive God and his
grace. Christian sacraments are symbols of love, warranty of God’s love for
human beings, because Jesus Christ is symbol and warranty of God’s love for
human beings. The Christian sacraments are not only means God uses to bestow
grace to human beings, but also the pledge and the warranty that show God’s
love through the Church of Jesus Christ.
Haight,
R. Jesus- Symbol of God. New York: Orbis books, 1999.
Rahner,
K. Foundations of Christian Faith. An Introduction to the Idea of
Christianity. New York: Crossroad, 1995.
Vorgrimler,
H. Sacramental Theology. Minnesota: The Liturgical Press, 1992.
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Giuse Phạm Thanh Liêm, S.J.