The Seven Religious Forces:

Hierarchy

Monasticism

Sectarianism

The Lay Movements

The Great Individuals

The Popular Superstitions

The Experience of the Demonic

All this happens within the Church. We must therefore, now, discuss the interpretation of the Church. It is interesting that in the systems of the great classical theologians of the Middle Ages, there is no special place for the doctrine of the Church This indicates, besides other things, the fact that the Church was, so to speak, self-understood; it was the foundation of all life and was not a matter of a special doctrine. But of course, in the discussions about hierarchy, about the sacraments, about the relationship to the state, a doctrine of the Church was implicitly developed.

The first consideration is: What was the Church in relationship to the Kingdom of God, according to medieval thinking?

On the answer to this question everything depends for the answer to all other questions about the relationship of the Church to the secular powers, to culture, etc. The background of it is what I said about Augustine's interpretation of history; to this we must look back in order to understand the situation.

In the Augustinian interpretation of history we have a partial identification and partial non-identification of the Church with the Kingdom of God. They are never fully identified because Augustine knew very well that the Church is a mixed body, that it is full of people who formally belong to it but who in reality do not belong to it. On the other hand he identified the Church with the Kingdom of God from the point of view of the sacramental graces which are present in the hierarchy. This identification could be the point of emphasis or the non-identification could be the point of emphasis. This was always the problem of the Middle Ages. The Church of course tried to identify itself with the Kingdom of God, in terms of the hierarchical graces. You never should think that any medieval representative of the Church, neither a theologian nor a pope nor a bishop, identified his own goodness or holiness with the Kingdom of God, but always his sacramental holiness, his objective sacramental power. And the objectivity of this sacramental reality is decisive for all understanding of medieval thought. On the other hand, the actual Church was a mixed body and the representatives of the sacramental graces were distorted. So from this point of view it was possible to attach the Church. Between these two poles the discussion of the Middle Ages went on, in continuous oscillation.

But Augustine had another identification, namely the partial identification and partial non-identification of the state with the 'kingdom of earth, which is also designated as the kingdom of Satan. The partial identification was based on the fact that in Augustine's interpretation of history, states are the result of compulsory power, "robber-states," as he called it, states produced by groups of gangsters, so to speak, who are not considered criminals only because they are powerful enough to take the state into their hands. This whole consideration, which reminds one of the Marxist analysis of the state, is, however, contrasted by the natural-law idea that the state is necessary in order to repress the sinful powers which, if unrepressed, would produce chaos.

This was the Augustinian situation, and here again the emphasis could be on the identity of the state with the kingdom of Satan, or at least the kingdom of earth, i.e., the kingdom of sinful earth; and on the other hand, the non-identification, the possibility that the state has a Divine function to restrict chaos. All this is understandable only in a period in which Augustine lived, and in which the Roman Empire and later the Germanic-Romanic kingdoms were matters of non-Christian power. Even in a period in which already Constantine had accepted the Christian doctrine, the power-play was still going on and the substance of the ancient culture was still in existence and was not replaced by the religious substance of the Church. Now the situation changed. After the great migration, the Church became the cultural substance of life – that power which determines all the individual relations, all the different expressions of art, knowledge, ethics, social relations, relation to nature, and all other forms of human life. The ancient substance was partly received by Augustine and partly removed, and what was left in it was subjected to the theonomous principles of the Church. '

Now in such a situation one couldn't say any more that the state is the kingdom of Satan because the substance of the state is the Church. So a new situation arose which had consequences not only for the consideration of the Church with respect to the state, but also for the state itself. How was the Germanic system related to the Church? The Germanic tribes, before they were Christianized, had a religious system in which the princes, the leaders of the tribes, represented not only the earthly but also the sacred power. So they were automatically representing both realms. This was continued in the Germanic states in the form that the clergy belonged to the feudal order of these tribes. A man like the great bishop of Rheims, in France, Hincmar, represented the feudal protest of a sacred political power; – political and sacred at the same time – against the universality of the Church. The German kings, who had to give political power to the higher feudal lords, had to give power to the bishops who were higher feudal lords also, – the Church called this simony, (from the story of Simon, who wanted to buy the Divine power.) This was connected with the fact that these feudal lords had to give something for what they received. All this was necessarily connected with the territorial system of the Germanic-Romanic tribes and was of course something in opposition to the universal Church.

Against the feudal bishops and the local kings or princes, opposition came from three sides: 1) from the lower clergy. 2) from the popes, especially Gregory VII, 3) from the proletarian masses; which were anti-feudal, especially in northern Italy. The pope used them and let them alone again. The pope used the lower bishops who were very much nearer to the lower clergy than the pope, so in the name of the pope they could resist the feudal clergy of their own countries. This was the situation which finally led to the great fight between Gregory VII and Henry IV, the struggle which is usually called the struggle between Church and State, but this is very misleading, you shouldn't call it thus. It was a quite different thing. First of all, "state" in our sense is a concept of the 18th century and didn't exist before, and when we speak of "the state" in Greece, in Rome, in the Middle Ages, we should always put it in quotation marks, using the word from the18th century situation, which didn't exist in former centuries. What did exist were the legal authorities, with military and political power,

But what was the point of conflict? It was not, as it was often later, that the states encroached upon the rights of the Church – this of course was their right – but it was a much more fundamental thing. Since the Church was the representative of the spiritual substance of the daily life of everyone, of every function, craft, business, professi6n – it was all ecclesiastical in some way – there was no separation of realms as we had it after the Reformation, but there was one reality, with different sides. But now the question arose: Who shall head this one reality? There must be a head, and it is dangerous if there are two heads. So from both sides, the clergy and the princes, the feudal lords, each claimed to be the head of this one reality. The state represented by the feudal order was conscious of also representing the Christian body as a whole, and the Church represented by the pope was also conscious of representing the Christian body as a whole, This was the fight. The same position was claimed by both sides, a position which embraces the secular as well as the religious.

The king aspired – and especially when he became the German emperor and as such the continuation of the Holy Roman Empire – and claimed to represent as protector all Christendom, Christendom as a whole, the secular as well as the religious. On the other hand, Pope Gregory VII claimed the same thing from the hierarchical side. He made claims transcending everything which was done before, and of which even he could reach only a limited amount. He identified himself with all bishops; he is the universal bishop. All episcopal grace comes from the pope, who is Peter and in whom Peter is present, and in Peter, Christ is present, So there is no bishop who is not dependent on the pope in his episcopal sacramental power" This is the universal monarchy of the pope in the Church. But he goes beyond this: the Church is the soul of the body; the body is the secular life. Those who represent the secular life are related to him who represents the life of the -- soul, as the limbs of the body are to the inner self which is the soul. And so, as the soul shall govern the limbs of the body, so the pope shall govern the kingdoms and all feudal orders.

Now this was expressed --a fter compromises had to be made and became unavoidable – by the famous doctrine of the two swords. There are two swords, the earthly and the spiritual. As the bodily existence is subjected to the spiritual existence, so the earthly sword, that of the king and of the feudal groups, is subjected to the spiritual sword: the pope. Therefore every being on earth has to be subject to the pope at Rome. This was the doctrine of Pope Boniface VIII, in which the papal aspirations are expressed radically.

The emperors fought against it, compromises were made, but generally speaking the popes prevailed – up to a certain moment. They prevailed as long as there was this one reality about which they – emperor and pope – were fighting: namely, the one Christianity. But this was not the final answer. New forces arose in the Middle Ages. The first and main force was the national states. The national states claimed something which neither suited the pope nor the emperor, namely independence from both of them. And since the national feeling is behind them – this is partly the importance of Joan of Arc because, in her, French nationalism first arose and came of course immediately into conflict with the pope. But others followed, and at the end of the Middle Ages the national states had taken over much of the papal power. Again France was leading; Phillip the so-called handsome" took the pope to Avignon in France, and the schism between the two popes undercut the pop's authority most radically. But these princes and kings who slowly became independent and created the national states – the same thing was going on in England and Spain – were at the same time religious lords, and they put themselves also in the place of what the emperor wanted to do: in the place of the religious lords. So we have in England theories about the king of England being Christ for the Church of England, as the pope is the vicar of Christ. Here you see the new forces slowly developing, both against the emperor and against the pope. On this basis another theory arose, especially against the pope. The bishops of these developing national states were not simply subjects of the pope, but they wanted to get the position the bishops had in the period, let us say, of the Council of Nicaea. They developed the idea called conciliarism (from curia, the papal court): the papal court is the monarchic power over Church and state; conciliarism (i. e. , the council of the bishops, which is practically the majority of the bishops) is the ultimate authority of the Church. And in alliance with the national reaction against state and Church at the same time, this was a very radical movement, and the pope was in great danger for a certain time, but not in the long run because the national separations and the splits of all kinds, the desire of the later Middle Ages to have a unity in spite of all this, gave the pope the power finally to destroy the reform councils in Basle and Constance, where conciliarism triumphed; but the pope took away the triumph from them after, and finally ecclesiasticism and monarchism prevailed in the Roman church, and prevails up to now – even the cardinals have no power whatsoever against the monarchy of the pope.

But there was another movement of importance for this situation, namely the movement of criticism of the Church. These movements are present in the sectarian movements and are present in the lay movements at the end of the Middle Ages. The greatest of the critics of the Church is, theoretically, Occam, who fought for the German national state against the universal monarchy of the pope. But the most effective is Wyclif of England. Wyclif radically criticized the Church as it existed, from the point of view of the lay movement; from the point of view of the lay movement, from the point of view of the lex evangelica, the evangelical law, which is in the Bible; he translated it; and he fought against the hierarchies with the support of the national king. There already the relationship between the king of England and the pope became very precarious. The pope did not succeed in inducing the king to persecute Wyclif and his followers.

Finally the hierarchy came to an end in the revolutionary movement of the Reformation. The territorial Church which was prepared long ago under the prince, or in society, became the form of the Protestant churches, Territorialism was prepared in the Middle Ages, but now the pope and the whole hierarchy disappeared, and now the situation was this: The Church had no backbone any more, it was mere spiritual groups, and it needed a backbone. So the prince became, not only as in England the Christ for the people – (the king), for instance, up to today, is the one who decides (cf. the Book of Common Prayer) – but in the German churches the prince received the title of "highest bishop," which simply means that he replaces the hierarchical sacramental bishops, and becomes the highest administrator within the church, as a lay member at the same time; he is the predominant lay member who can keep the church in order. So the Protestant churches became subjected to the earthly powers, and are in this problem even today. In Lutheranism it was the relationship to the princes and their cabinets and authoritarian governments. In the Calvinist countries, e.g., and in this country, it is the socially ruling groups which are decisive for the church and give it its administrative backbone.

This is again a sweeping run through the Middle Ages. You must keep this development in mind and understand it. And don't use the phrase "the fight between Church and State", etc – this is very misleading.

I come to the last sweeping statement about medieval Church history perhaps the most important of all, from the point of view of the actual religious life – namely,

the sacraments. Now if we come to the discussion of the sacraments, we must forget (as Protestants) everything we have in our immediate experience of the sacraments. In the Middle Ages, sacraments were not things which happened at certain times a year, and to which one went and one didn't know what to do with it; and which one regarded as a comparatively solemn act, but one was not very clear why. – In the Middle Ages the sacraments are important. The preached word need not necessarily accompany it. So people like Troeltsch called the Catholic church the greatest sacramental institution in all world history, and have understood all sides of the life of the Middle Ages, and even the present-day Catholic church, from the point of view of the sacramental basis. So I don't speak now about something which just happens to be in the picture and therefore must be mentioned along with the rest, but I speak of the foundations of the whole medieval thinking,

You remember that I said, in contrast to some other great periods in Western history, the medieval has one problem only, and this one problem is the basis for all other problems, namely, to have a society which is guided by a present reality of a transcendent Divine character, This is different from the period in which the New Testament was written, where the salvation of the individual soul was the problem. It is different from the period of Byzantium (let us call it ca. 4:50- 950 or so) where mysteries interpret all reality in terms of the Divine ground, but not much is changed. It is different from the period since the Renaissance – which ended in the 19th century – namely, a world which is directed by human reason, by man as the center of reality, and by his rational activities. It is different also from the: early Greek period in which the mind was looking for the eternal immovable. All these periods have their special problem. The problem of the Middle Ages – which you should keep in mind all the time – is the problem of the world (society & nature) in which the Divine is present in sacramental forms. Now this is the basis for this consideration, then we can say: What does sacramental mean? It means all kinds of things, in the history of the Church. It means the deeds of Christ, the sufferings of Christ (His stations of the Cross), it means the Gospels (which you can call sacraments), it means problematic symbols (in the Bible), it means the symbolic meaning of the church buildings, all the activities going on in the church, everything in which the Holy was present.

And this was the problem of the Middle Ages: to have the Holy present. The sacraments represent the objectivity of the grace of Christ as present in the objective power of the hierarchy. All graces – or, another way of translating "grace" substantial powers of the New Being – are present in and through the hierarchy. The sacraments are the continuation of the basic sacramental reality, namely the manifestation of God in Christ. In every sacrament is present a substance of a transcendental sacramental character. A thing -- i.e. , water, bread, wine, oil, a word, the laying on of hands -- all this becomes sacramental if a transcendent substance is poured into it. It is like a fluid which heals. One of the definitions is: "Against the wounds produced by original and actual sin, God has established the sacraments as remedies." Here, with medical symbolism, you have very clearly what is meant: it is the healing power which is poured into the substances.

The question, often raised in Protestantism, is: How many sacraments.? Up to the 12th century there were many sacramental activities. Which of them were most important was partly always clear, namely, baptism and the Lord's Supper, and partly very much open to changes. Therefore it took more than a thousand years of Church history to discover that seven sacraments are the most important. After this was discovered, these seven often draw upon themselves the name "sacrament" in a special sense. This is very unfortunate for the understanding of what sacrament is. We must always distinguish the universal concept of the sacrament: the presence of the holy. Therefore sacramentalia are going on in churches all the time, namely activities in which the presence of the Divine is experienced in a special way. The fact that there are seven, has traditional, practical, Church-political, psychological, and many other reasons (behind it). But there are seven in the Roman church. There were five for a long time. In the Protestant churches

there are two. There are at least in some groups of the Anglican church, actually and even theoretically three. But that doesn't matter. The problem is : "What does sacramental thinking mean?" not "How many sacraments?" And this is what Protestants must learn; they have forgotten it.

In the Roman church there are still the main sacraments: baptism and the Eucharist. But there is also penance as the center of personal piety. There is ordination which is the presupposition for the administration of all the other sacraments. There is marriage, as the control of the natural life. There are confirmation and extreme unction, as supporting sacraments, In the development of the life of the individual, (we see the raison d'etre), the biographical reasons, for some of the sacraments; and other sacraments stem from the establishment of the Church. In any case, there they are, and now they are de fide; but it was not always the case.

Now what i a sacrament? Sacraments are visible or sensuous signs instituted by God, so to speak ,as medicaments, in which under the cover of visible things, Divine powers are hiddenly working. There we have the ideas: Divine institution, visible signs, medicaments (the medical symbol is very important), the hidden powers of the Divine under the cover of the sensuous realities. A sacrament is valid if it has a material substance, a form (the words by which it is instituted), and the intention of the minister to do what the Church does. These three elements are necessary. The sign (we would say symbol) contains the matter. Therefore the sacrament has causality: it causes something in the inner part of the soul, something Divine. But it has not ultimate causality. It is dependent on the ultimate causality, namely, on God. The sacraments give the grace. You always should translate "grace" as Divine power of being, or power of New Being, which justifies or sanctifies – these two words are identical in Catholicism while in Protestantism they are far removed from each other. Grace, i.e., the Divine power of the New Being, is poured by the sacraments into the essence of the soul. into its very innermost center. And there is no other way to receive grace, justifying and sanctifying, than through the sacraments. From the substance which pours through the center of the soul, it has effects on the different functions of the soul ; or mind, as we would say. The intellect is driven towards faith, by the sacramental grace; the will is driven towards hope; and the whole being is driven towards love.

And now the decisive statement: the sacrament is effective in us ex opere operato by its mere performance, not by any human virtue. There is only one subjective presupposition, namely the faith that the sacraments are sacraments, but not faith in God, not a special relationship to God. It is a "minimum" theory: those who do not resist the Divine grace can receive it even if they are not worthy, if they only do not resist by denying that the sacrament is the medium of the Divine grace. I. e., the theory of ex opere operata (by its very performance) makes the sacrament an objective event of a quasi-magical character. This was the point where the Reformers were most radical. The whole life stood under the effects of the sacrament. Baptism removes original sin; the Eucharist removes venial sins; penance removes mortal sins; extreme unction, what is still left over of one's sins before death; confirmation makes a man a fighter for the Church; ordination introduces him into the clergy; marriage, into the natural vocation of man and wife. But beyond them all is one sacrament which is a part of the Eucharist but which has become independent of it, namely the sacrament of the Mass. The sacrifice of Christ repeated every day in every church of Christianity, in terms of the transubstantiation of bread and wine into body and blood, is the foundation of the presence of the Divine and the foundation of the sacramental and hierarchical power of the Church. Therefore this was, so to speak, the sacrament of sacraments. Officially it was a part of the Lord's Supper, but objectively it was and is the foundation of all sacraments, namely the power the priest has to produce God, facere deum – making God out of the bread and wine is the fundamental power of the Church in the Middle Ages.

Let me add one last word: There was one sacrament which was in a kind of tension with all the others, namely penance. Penance was the sacrament of personal piety and there was much discussion about it: What are the conditions of the forgiveness of sins in the sacrament of penance? Some made it very easy, some more heavy. All believed that a personal repentance is necessary – light or heavy and, on the other hand, that a sacrament is necessary. But how the sacrament and the personal element were related to each other, to this no Scholastic gave an answer; and this was the point in which the medieval Church exploded, by the intensification of the subjective side in the sacrament of penance. This was the experience of Luther, and therefore he became the reformer of the Church.

After the general discussion of the Middle Ages, we now come to two men in the 12th century, in that period which I have described as the beginning of the new developments, namely Anselm of Canterbury and Abelard of Paris.

Anselm's basis for his theological work is like that of all Scholastics, the assertion that in the Holy Scriptures and its interpretation by the Fathers, all truth is directly or indirectly enclosed. It is that concept of faith or tradition which is not a special act of individuals but is, so to speak, the spiritual substance of the reality in which we are. Therefore the phrase credo ut intellegam --. "I believe in order to understand," not "I understand in order to believe." Belief, which is not belief but which is participation in the living tradition, is the foundation; and the interpretation1, the theology, is built on this basis.

The content of eternal truth, of principles of truth, is grasped by subjection of our will to the Christian message, and the consequent experience out of this subjection. This experience is given by grace; it is not produced by human activities. Here the term "experience" becomes important. Experience, again, must be distinguished from what we mean today by "experience," if we mean anything at all - -which is very questionable, since the word has such a large use that it almost has become meaningless. In any case at that time experience means not religious experience, generally speaking – such a thing " didn't exist at that time -- but experience meant participation in the objective truth which is implied in the Bible and which is authoritatively explained by the Church Fathers.

In this experience every theologian must participate. Then this experience can become knowledge. But this is not necessarily so. Faith is independent of knowledge, but knowledge is dependent on faith. We can again use the analogy I have used last time, when we say: Natural science presupposes participation in nature, but participation in nature does not necessarily lead to natural science. On this bass, reason can act entirely freely in order to transform experience into knowledge. Anselm was the great speculative thinker, in a period when the word "speculation" had not yet the meaning of looking into the clouds, but of analyzing the basic structures of reality – which meaning you should always have.

Knowledge based on experience leads to a system. Here we come to one of the features of all medieval thinking. The medieval thinkers knew that in order to think consistently, you must think systematically. In the term "systematic theology," with which we are dealing in this institution, there is still the remnant of this insight, that knowledge, in order to be consistent, must have the character of a system. Today if somebody uses the word "system" ,except in this old fashioned phrase "systematic theology," he is attacked, just because he thinks systematically and not sporadically and fragmentarily. But the Church cannot afford -- what every individual thinker can -- to have here an insight and there an insight which have nothing to do with each other, and usually contradict each other. But the Church needs something which is consistent, where everything has some connection with every other thing. The bad element in systematic theology is if you derive from principles, consequences which have no foundation in experience to which the Devine is present in sacramental terms. But this is not the meaning of "system." The meaning of system is, to order experiences cognitively in such a way that they do not contradict each other, and that they give a whole of truth; for, as Hegel has rightly said, the truth is the whole.

Reason in this way can elaborate all religious experiences in rational terms. Even the doctrine of the Trinity can be dealt with rationally by reason, on the basis of experience. In other words, autonomous reason and the doctrine of the Church are identical. It is again to be compared with our relationship to nature, where we say: mathematical structure and natural reality belong to each other. The mathematical reason is able to grasp nature, to order and to make understandable natural movements and structures. In the same way theological reason is able to make understandable and to connect with each other the different religious experiences, which are not religious in the general sense, but experiences on the basis of the Christian tradition.

Now this is the courageous way in which Anselm attacked the problems of theology. If he says that even the Trinity can be understood in rational terms, then this is an Augustinian heritage; he did it also. We can call it dialectical monotheism, a monotheism in which movement is seen in God Himself. God is a living God and therefore there is a yes and a no in Himself – this is dialectical monotheism. It is not a dead identity of God with Himself, but it is a living separation and reunion of His Life with Himself. In other words, the mystery of the Trinity is understandable for dialectical thought. The mystery of Trinity is included in reason itself and is not against reason. How could it be, according to classical theology, since God has reason in Himself as His Son, the Logos.? Reason, therefore, is valid as far as God and world are essentially considered. Autonomy

is not destroyed by the mystery. On the other hand, autonomy is not empty and not formalistic. It doesn't empty the mysteries of the Divine Life, but only points to it in dialectical terms. The content, the substance and the depth of reason, is a mystery which has appeared in revelation.

Now this means that Anselm was neither autonomous in a formalistic empty sense, nor was he heteronomous in subjecting his reason to an un-understood tradition, to a tradition which is almost a magic mystery. but his attitude is what I would call Theonomy. You will encounter this concept often in my writings and in discussions. And whenever you are asked, "What do you mean with theonomy?" then you say: "The way of philosophizing of Anselm of Canterbury," or "The way of philosophizing of Augustine," or "The way of philosophizing" – now I hesitate to say it -- "Hegel", in spite of my criticism of him; namely, acknowledging the mystery of being, but not believing that this mystery is an authoritarian transcendent element which is put upon us, and against us, which breaks our reason to pieces – which would mean that God breaks His Logos to pieces – but that which gives the depth to all Logos. Reason and mystery belong together, like substance and form.

But now there is one point – and that was the point where I deviate from Hegel and go further with Anselm – which is more than a point, namely a total turn of the whole consideration: the Logos becoming flesh, and what this means, is not a matter of dialectical reason. This is not only dialectical, not only mystery, but this is paradoxical. Here we come to the sphere of existence, and existence is rooted in the freedom of God and man, in sin and grace. Here reason can only acknowledge and not understand. The existential sphere, existence itself, is ruled by will and decision, not by rational necessity. Therefore it can become anti-reason, anti-structure, anti-Divine, anti-human.

This means that the limitation of rational necessity is not mystery and revelation. If somebody with whom you talk puts you into a corner, dialectically, don't say "That is a mystery," and then you'd escape the corner; but he would not acknowledge that you really have escaped. He will further believe that you are in the corner and that he has caught you. What you must do is to show that you are dialectically superior to him, and that the mystery of being is preserved by good dialectics, and destroyed by bad dialectics – That's what you have to do. But then there is one thing in which he and you have to acknowledge that there is something which is not mystery and not dialectical, but which is paradoxical, namely that man has contradicted himself and always contradicts himself, and those people who corner you have to acknowledge that also if they are honest with themselves – and they will. And that at the same time there is a possibility of overcoming this situation, because there is a New Reality under the conditions of existence, conquering existence: this is the Christian paradox. It is of serious concern that we do not make a gap between the Divine mystery and the Divine Logos. The Church again and again has affirmed that they belong to each other and are the same Divinity. If you deny that the structure of reason is adequate to the Divine mystery, then you are completely dualistic in your thinking; then God is split in Himself.

Now I come to more special problems in Anselm, in which this general theonomous character is obvious. I come first to his famous arguments, or as I like to say, so-called "arguments," for the so-called "existence of God, because I want to show you that they are neither arguments nor do they prove the "existence" of God. But they do something which is much better than this. There are two arguments, the cosmological and the ontological, the cosmological given in his Monologion and the ontological in his Proslogion. My task is to show that these arguments are not arguments for the existence of an unknown or doubtful piece of reality, even if it is called "God,"' but that they are quite a different thing from this.

The Cosmological argument says: We have ideas of the good, of the great, of the beautiful, of the true. These ideas are realized in all things. We find beauty, goodness, and truth everywhere, but of course in different measures and degrees. But if you want to say that something has a higher or lower degree in which it participates in the idea of the good or the true, then the idea itself must be presupposed. Since it is the criterion by which you measure, it itself is not a matter of measure and degree. The good itself, or the unconditionally good – being, beauty – is the idea which is always presupposed. This means that in every finite or relative is implied the relation to an unconditioned, an absolute. Conditionedness, relativity, presuppose and imply something absolute and unconditional. I. e., the meaning of the conditioned and of the unconditioned are inseparable.

If you analyze reality, especially your own reality, you discover in yourselves, continuously, elem ents which are finite and which are inseparably related to something finite. This is a matter of conclusion, from the conditional to the unconditional, but it is a matter of analysis, in which both elements are found as corresponding. Reality by its very nature is finite, pointing to the infinite to which the finite belongs and from which it is separated.

Now this is the first part of the cosmological argument, As far as this goes, it is an existential analysis of finitude and as far as it does this, it is good and true, and the necessary condition for all philosophy of religion. It is the philosophy of religion, actually. But this idea is mixed with the philosophical – or better, metaphysical – realism which identifies universals with the degrees of being. Medieval realism, as you remember we spoke very much about it, gives power of being to the universals. In this way a hierarchy of concepts is constructed in which the unconditionally good and great, and being, is not only an ontological quality, but becomes an ontic reality, a being besides others. The highest being is that which is most universal. It must be one, otherwise another one. could be found; it must be all-embracing. In other words, the meaning or quality of the infinite suddenly becomes a higher infinite being, a highest or unconditionally good and great being.

So the argument is right as long as it is a description of the way in which man encounters reality, namely as finite, implying and being excluded from infinity. The argument is doubtful, is a conclusion which can be attacked, if it is supposed to lead to the existence of a highest being. That is what I wanted to say. Therefore I speak of the "so-called" argument – it is not an argument but an analysis – of the "so-called" existence of God; God is not a being in itself, not even the highest.

In the Proslogion Anselm himself criticizes this argument because it starts with the conditional and makes it the basis of the unconditional, Anselm is right in his criticism if we consider the second part of his argument. but he is not right with respect to the first part, namely there he doesn't base the infinite on the finite but analyzes the infinite within the finite.

But Anselm wanted more. He wanted a direct argument which doesn't need the world in order to find God. He wanted to find it in thought itself, Before thought goes outside itself to the world, it should be certain of God. Now this is really what I mean with theonomous thinking. Now how does he do this? I give you now the argument, very slowly, and you should follow it and try to understand it – probably with very little success, because it is extremely Scholastic and extremely far from our modes of thought, I give you then, later, an attempted commentary to it.

He says: "Even the fool is convinced that there is something in the intellect of which nothing greater can be thought, because as soon as he (the fool) hears this, he understands it; and whatever is understood is in the understanding. And certainly, that of which nothing greater can be thought cannot be only in .the intellect, If, namely, it were in the intellect alone, it could be thought to be in reality also, which is more. If, therefore, that of which nothing greater can be thought is in the intellect alone, that of which nothing greater can be thought is something of which something greater can be thought. But this certainly is impossible, Therefore, beyond doubt, something of which nothing greater can be thought, exists in intellect as well as in reality, And this art Thou, our Lord." Now this last sentence is remarkable because I haven't read such a sentence in any of our logical treatises in the last few hundred years, that after they have gone through the most sophisticated logical arguing, the end is "and this art Thou, our Lord." Here again is what I call "theonomy," It is not a thinking which remains autonomous in itself, but a thinking which goes theonomously into the relationship of the mind and its Divine Ground.

What does this arguing mean? I will give you a point by point analysis:

1) Even the fool – the fool of the Psalms, who says in his heart, "There is no God, understands the meaning of the term "God." He understands that in the term "God" the highest, the unconditional, is thought. So he has an idea in his mind of something unconditional.

2) Secondly, if you understand the meaning of God as something unconditional, then this understanding has the character that it is, so to speak, in the human mind.

3) But there is a higher form of being, namely not being only in the human mind, but being in the real world, outside of the human mind.

4) Since this kind of being, outside of the human mind, is higher than the mere being (thought) in the intellect, it must be attributed to the unconditional. These are the four steps in the argument. Each step in this conclusion is such that each of you can easily refute it. and the refutations were given in Anselm's time already, and then again later. For instance he refutation is: It would be adequate for every highest thing – for instance, a perfect island – since it is more perfect to exist in reality than only in mind. Secondly, the term "being in the mind" is an ambiguous phrase which means actually being thought, being intended, being an object of man's intentionality. But "in" is metaphorical and should not be taken literally.

Now this criticism is so obvious that each of you can make it. (!) But to the first, Anselm answered that a perfect island is not a necessary thought, but the highest being, or the unconditioned, is a necessary thought. Now we come back to the question: "Is God a necessary thought?" To the second argument he could answer that the unconditional must overcome the cleavage between subjectivity and objectivity. It cannot be only in mind; the power of the meaning of the unconditional overcomes subject and object, embraces them. But now if he had answered this way, then the fallacious form of the argument is abandoned. Then the argument is not an argument for a highest being, but is an analysis of human thought. And as such the argument says: there must be a point in which the unconditional necessity of thinking and being must be identical, otherwise there could not be certainty at all, not even that amount of certainty which every skeptic always presupposes.

Now this is the Augustinian argument that God is truth, and truth is the presupposition which even he who is the skeptic acknowledges. God is identical, then, with the experience of the unconditional as true and good and beautiful. What the ontological argument really does is to analyze in human thought something unconditional which transcends subjectivity and objectivity. This is necessary because otherwise truth is impossible. Truth presupposes that the subject which knows truth and the object which is known are in some way on one and the same place.

But it is impossible – here I come to the second part of the argument – to conclude from that a separate existence. In this we cannot follow medieval realism. The so-called ontological argument is a phenomenological description of the human mind, insofar as the human mind, by necessity, points to something beyond subjectivity and objectivity, points to experience of truth. But you cannot go beyond this, and in the moment in which you do so, you are open to a devastating criticism. This is proved through the whole history of the ontological argument. The history of this argument is dependent on the attitude towards form or content. If the content of the argument is emphasized, as all great Augustinians and Franciscans until Hegel have done, they all have accepted the ontological argument. If the argumental form is emphasized, as equally great men – namely, Thomas and Kant - -have done, then the argument must fall down. It is very interesting that this argument is going on all the time, even today, since Plato's period. And its most classical formulation in Christianity is that of Anselm. But it is much older and much younger; it is always there. Now how is that possible? You would say: If some of the greatest are completely split about this argument, and you hardly can say that Thomas was much cleverer than Augustine, and Kant much cleverer than Hegel, or vice versa – they all are supreme minds and nevertheless they contradict each other – what about this situation? How can it be explained? What I here try to give is an explanation of this phenomenon, which no one can deny. It is historically evident – read the history of philosophy – that this argument is passionately accepted and passionately rejected by the greatest men. How is this possible? The reason only can be that they look at something different. Those who accept the argument look at the fact that in the human mind, in spite of all its finitude, something unconditional is present. And the description of this something unconditional is not an argument, but it is a right description. That is what actually is behind all those who affirm the ontological argument. (I myself am of their number). On the other hand, people like Thomas, Duns Scotus, Kant, reject the argument because they say it is not an argument, the conclusion is not valid. And certainly they are right. So I try to find a way out of this world-historical conflict – it has much more consequences than the seeming Scholastic form shows – by saying that these people do different things: those who are for it are for the insight that the human mind, even before it goes (outside) to its world, has in itself an experience of the unconditional. And secondly, those are right who say the second part of this argument cannot be done because this never leads to the highest being, which exists. Kant's argument that existence cannot be derived from the concept is absolutely valid against this. So one can say: Anselm's intention never has been defeated, namely, to make the certainty of God independent of any encounter with our world, and to link it entirely to our self-consciousness.

Now I would say that here the two ways that the philosophies of religion part from each other. The one looks at culture, nature and history theonomously, i.e., on the basis of an awareness of the unconditional -- and I believe this is the only possible philosophy of religion.

The other one looks at all this -- nature and history and the self – in terms of something which is given outside, from which through progressive analysis one might come finally to the existence of a highest being called God. This is the form which I deny and think it is hopeless and ultimately ruinous for religion. And I can state that .in a religious statement, that where God is not the prius of everything, you never can reach Him. If God is not the prius of everything, you never can reach Him. If you don't start with Him, you never can reach Him. And that is what Anselm himself felt when he saw the incompleteness of the cosmological argument.

Anselm is famous in theology for the application of his principles also to the doctrine of atonement. In his book Cur Deus-homo (why did God become man?), he tries to understand the rational adequacy for the substitute suffering of Christ for the work of salvation. The steps are the following. Again they are difficult and not so easy as the popular distortion of this doctrine tells you.

1) The honor of God is violated by human sin. It is necessary that out of His honor, God react in a negative way.

2) There are two possibilities of His reaction: either punishment, which would mean eternal separation from God; or satisfaction, giving God satisfaction so that He can overlook the sins, This is the way in which His mercy has decided to solve the problem.

3) Man is unable to fulfill this satisfaction because he has to do what he can

anyhow – he cannot do more -- and his guilt is infinite, which makes it impossible, by its very nature, for man to solve it. Only God is able to give satisfaction to Himself.

4) Not God, but man has to give the satisfaction, because man is the sinner. Therefore somebody must do it who is both God and man, who as God can do it and who as man must do it. The God-man alone is able to do it.

5) But he doesn't reach it through what he did, because he had to do that anyhow; he had to give full obedience to God; but he did it by what he suffered, because he did not have to suffer, since he was innocent. So voluntary suffering is the work through which the Christ gives satisfaction to God.

6) Although our sin is infinite, this sacrifice - -since it is given by God Himself – is an infinite sacrifice, and it makes it possible for God to give Christ what he has deserved by this sacrifice, namely, the possession of man. He himself doesn't need anything, but what he needs and will have is man, so God gives him man.

Now this idea, in these 6 steps, is legalistic, of course, is quantitative, but it has behind it a very profound meaning, namely, that sin has produced a tension in God Himself. And this tension one feels. Anselms theory became so popular because everybody felt that it is not simple for God to forgive sins, as it is not simple for us to accept ourselves – it is the most difficult thing -- and only in the act of suffering, of self-negation, is it possible at all. And that was the power of this doctrine and still is; in every Lenten service, in our Week of Passion this week, we hear of the "atoning work" of Christ. The Church never has dogmatized Anselm; cleverly it restricted itself from doing so, because there is no absolute theory of atonement. As we shall see, Abelard had another one, and others did also, e. g., Origen. The Church has not decided.

But the Church obviously liked Anselm's theory most, probably because it felt it has the deepest psychological roots, namely the feeling that a price must be paid if one has become guilty; that we cannot pay it, but that God must pay it. But now the question was: How can man participate? And to this the juristic mind of Anselm had no answer. Here Thomas came in and said: It is the mystical union between head and members, between Christ and the Church, which makes us participate in all the steps which have been (made) by Jesus himself.

Now this is Anselm. Tomorrow, the last hour before Easter, we deal with Abelard -- and two others -- Abelard being Anselm's great counterpart.

We discussed Anselm of Canterbury as a typically theonomous thinker, theonomous in the sense that he does not crush reason by heteronomous authority, that he does not leave it empty, unproductive, but filled with the Divine substance as it is given with revelation, tradition and authority. We can say Anselm represents, so to speak, the more objective pole in the thinking of the Middle Ages, objective in the sense that the tradition. is the given foundation, which does not exclude a very personal kind of thinking and searching. On the other hand, we have a man who represents the opposite, namely the subjective side, if subjective does not mean willful but means taking into the personal life, as subjective reality. It is a very bad thing that the words "objective" vs. "subjective" have become so undefined and distorted in all respects. This shouldn't be. And if you hear about them, don't react (so as to regard) objective as something which is true and real, and subjective something willful. This is often the reaction, but it is entirely wrong. "Objective" here means the reality of the given substance of Bible, tradition and authority. "Subjective" here means taking into the personal life, as something which is discussed and experienced.

Now when I come to Abelard, the philosopher and theologian of Paris, in the 12th century, who lived in the shadow of the Cathedral of Notre Dame. . .. When we look at him we can say the subjectivity is visible in the following points which characterize his spiritual attitude and character:

1) He was enthusiastic about dialectical thinking, dialectics meaning showing the "yes" and "no" in everything. He was full of contempt for those who accept the mysteries of the faith without understanding what the words mean in which these mysteries are expressed. He, as all medieval people, did not want to derive the mysteries from reason; certainly not. But he wanted to make them understandable for reason. Of course, there is always the danger that the mystery is emptied, that the situation is turned around, but this danger is the danger of every kind of thinking: thinking destroys the immediacy of life, wherever it starts, and this cannot be helped. The question is whether a higher immediacy can be reestablished. This is also true of these theological lectures which you hear here. To hear them means being endangered, and this is the reason why some of the more fundamentalistic people would be very much afraid if their future theologians would be educated in a place like Union Seminary, which likes – as Abelard did – dialectical thinking, and shows everywhere the "yes" and "no." But if you don't risk this danger, then your faith never can be a real power.

2) Abelard represents the type of jurisprudential thinking which was introduced into the occidental Christian world by Tertullian. He was, so to speak, the lawyer who defends the right of the tradition in showing that the contradictions in the traditional material – which no one can deny – can be solved. In doing so he supported the Church, but of course dialectics which have the power to defend have also the power to attack. And this was the danger in dialectics which some of the traditional theologians sensed, even before the danger became actual. This is again a reason why some more or less orthodox theology doesn't like apologetics, because the same means with which you defend Christianity can be used to attack it.

3) He was a person of strong self-reflection, and this was almost a new event in this period which had a very objective character, in the sense of being related to the contents and not to oneself. In Abelard it is not a mere commitment to truth or good, but it was at the same time a reflection about his being committed. Now you know all this; you have a feeling of repentance; and you reflect about having this feeling. You have an experience of faith, and you reflect about this experience. This is something modern, which first appears in Abelard. From this we understand the famous book he wrote, "Historia galamilatum" ("History of my Misfortunes"). This is autobiography. The title is, of course, in the line of Augustine and his Confessions, but the importance is that the self-analysis is not made in the face of. God – as in Augustine - -and always related to God; rather, the self-analysis is done in relation to himself, in relation to what he has experienced. Here the title itself reveals the danger, a danger in which we all live, as modern men. When Augustine speaks of confessions, then he relates himself to God, in looking at himself. If you speak of "misfortunes," of "calamities," then there s a resentful feeling left, and resentment is always a sign of subjectivity.

This is supported by his tremendous ambition; by his lack of acknowledgment of others, for instance his teachers; by his continuous attacks on authorities; and by his personal ambition. All this was a very strong subjective character.

4) The subjectivity is visible in the realm of feeling. We can even say that he belongs to those who have discovered that realm as a special realm. This is expressed in his romance with Heloise, which has all the tragedy and all the greatness of an event, which opens up all romantic forms of romantic love, but which is much earlier than its development in the romantic period. It is the discovery of eros against two things which prevailed before: on the one side, paternalistic authority, and on the other, simple sexuality, which has nothing to do with the personal relationship but which is allowed and limited by the Church and is used as an element in the paternalistic family. Instead of this, we have in the romance of Abelard and Heloise a relationship in which the sexual and the spiritual are united. But again, this was something new and dangerous in a period in which all these things stood under the principle of education and stratification of barbaric tribes which had just received the Christian Gospel. It was, so to speak, too early, as was so much in Abelard.

All this is present in his book with the characteristic title, "Sic et non" ("Yes and No"). I said already in my survey that this is also older than Abelard. It comes from the canonistic literature (the sacred law literature) from ecclesiastical jurisprudence, in which the papal law scholars tried to harmonize the decrees of the different popes and synods. There was a practical yes-and-no problem because the pope and his advisors had to make decisions. They wanted to make these decisions on the basis of tradition, in this case, the law tradition. So the law had to be harmonized. But a part of the canones is the dogmatic decisions of the popes and synods, and so the dogmatic decisions had the same problem in it, sic et non, yes and no. When Abelard wrote this book and tried to harmonize the doctrines, he didn't do it in order to show some dogmatic differences, in order to provoke doubt or skepticism. On the contrary, he wanted to show that in the tradition a unity is maintained which can be proved by methods of harmonization. This was also accepted by the Church authorities because they needed it. And so all Scholasticism accepted the yes-and-no method of Abelard. They asked questions, they put opposing views against the answers, and discussed the opposing views, finally coming to a decision. The whole Scholastic theology is a sic et non theology, first expressed by Abelard. Let us look a little to see how this was applied.

The first step is the attempt to deal with the texts of the Fathers, the synods, the decrees, and the Bible, historically. One must ask the question whether these texts are authentic. Further, one must show in which historical situation and under which psychological conditions these texts were written. Changes have to be examined. The sphere and the configuration in which these changes take place in the same author, must be inquired into and stated. Of all this has been done, then something happens which you yourselves can control easily, namely, what seemed to be contradictions are not contradictions at all, but are only different forms in which the same idea is expressed. Very often in the history of thought – this is something which you should take with you – it happens that contradictory statements are only contradictory if you take them as isolated statements out of the gestalt, the structure to which they belong, and in which, seemingly contradictory, they may actually say one and the same thing. It is one of the miserable things in so many discussions that we don't follow this method of Abelard, first to show the whole structure in which a statement appears. I often am asked: Dr. Niebuhr says this in one book, and you say this. – This may be -- Very often when I inquire into it, I find it is only the contextual difference which makes it seem to be a contradiction at all.

2) The second step is the elaboration of the literal meaning of a word, the – philological task, after the historical task. This may lead to the discovery of different senses of a word, even in the same writer. It is as if he lived in 1953, where in all my lectures I continuously discover that the semantic problem is predominant in our situation, that if we use a word like "faith" or "Son of God" or any word in theology, it has at least half a dozen meanings and probably as many meanings as people who sit in this room, and each. of them has a little bit of nuance in terms of a different meaning. And then one fights with each other, each in a different concept. So it is actually not a real fight, but a talking beside each other. This is what Abelard wanted to avoid – a very reasonable demand.

Now when we come to the semantics which he suggests, and ask ourselves: Is there a danger in this method? or, more largely speaking, to what degree can logical calculus, semantic purification and reduction, be applied to contents such as that of the Christian message? -- then I would say there is no absolute possibility of applying it because if we come to the important things of life, to the things which are existential, every word has an edge which makes it what it is, which gives it its color and power, and which, if you take it away, leaves a bone, but not a bone with flesh and skin – it leaves a conceptual bone. And that is why I am not so convinced of criticisms by logical positivists, in spite of my great semantic interest, because I believe that if they have their complete way, all words in a realm like theology or philosophical metaphysics or ontology or art theory or history, would lose their full meaning and would be reduced to mathematical signs through which everything escapes, which is the real power and meaning of such words. So be very careful to use every word in the same sense in your discussions, but don't be horrified or afraid or shaken if logical positivism shows you that you don't use a word in terms of a mathematical sign.

3) The application of the authority of the Bible as the ultimate criterion is the next step. This sounds very Protestant, as so much biblicism in the Middle Ages sounds very Protestant, but it is not very Protestant. It was not a new experience with the Bible, out of which Abelard spoke – as it was with Luther. It was the application of the Bible as a law, so to speak as the ultimate legal judge. This is something quite different from the Protestant interpretation of the Bible as the place where the message of justification can be found.

The legal relationship to the tradition is different from the creative traditionalism of Anselm. Anselm, although he was less dialectical than Abelard, was more creative and even more courageous, and nevertheless keener (about) the substance of the tradition.

Some of Abelard's special doctrines: He shows subjectivity in all his doctrines, ethical and theological. Connected with the subjective reason is his doctrine of ethical autonomy. He is a predecessor of Kant, in spite of the tremendous difference in time and situation. He first teaches that it is not an act in itself that is good or bad, but the intention makes it good or bad. As Kant expressed the same idea, nothing is good except a good will. And this man of the 12th century expresses the same idea. The work itself is indifferent; only the intention is decisive."In the intention consists the merit." Therefore not nature itself, not even the desire itself makes us sinful, but the intention, the will. Not the contents of a moral system are important, but the conscience which follows or does not follow these contents. The contents of the moral system are always questionable in their application to a concrete thing. You never can take them absolute. But your conscience must guide you. The perfect good, of course, is if the objective norm and the subjective intention correspond; if our conscience shows us what is actually right. But this is very often not the case. And if it is not the case, it is better that we follow our conscience, even if it is objectively wrong. He says: "There is no sin except against conscience." Now in one way even Thomas Aquinas accepted this idea. Aquinas said: "If a superior in my order, to whom I have sworn obedience, asks me to do something which is against my conscience, I shall not do it, although I am obliged to keep obedience to him". -- The conscience was regarded as ultimate judge, even if it is objectively erroneous. The Protestants ,and Kant, were preceded in these formulas, which, at that time, couldn't work because the educational element is neglected by Abelard. If you tell these uneducated masses that they should follow their conscience, and you don't give them objective norms with sufficient strictness, you let them loose, and they may go astray. This means that in this respect, as in so many others, Abelard was an anticipation of something which later became actual. He had much of 18th century thinking in France.

In the same way he discussed the theological problems.

1) He denies the idea that in Adam all have sinned. Not sensuality is sin, but acts of will. Without an agreement of the will, no sin; and since we didn't agree with our will when Adam sinned, it is not sin for us. Here you see how. the subjectivity, exactly as in the 18th century, dissolves first of all from the very beginning the doctrine of original sin, because this doctrine shows the tragic side of sin, the objective and not the personal, subjective side, the agreement of will.

2) In Christology, he emphasizes the human activity in Christ, and denies radically that Christ is, so to speak, a transformed God or Logos or higher Divine being. For him the personal activity of Christ is decisive, and not His ontological coming from God.

3) In the idea of salvation, he is best known to Protestants and very often quoted. In the doctrine of atonement, as we have seen yesterday, Anselm makes a deal between God and Christ, out of the situation which is produced by human sin. He describes atonement in quantitative terms of satisfaction. This is not the idea of Abelard. But it is the love of God which is visible in the cross of Christ, which produces our love. It is not an objective mechanism between transcendent powers which enables God to forgive, as it is in Anselm, but it is the subjective act of Divine love which provokes our subjective act of loving Him. Salvation is man's ethical response to the forgiving act of the Divine love -- ethical in the sense of personal. Now this has produced a whole type of the doctrine of atonement, which is always called the Abelardian type, the type in which God forgives because He loves; the mechanism of atonement through the substitute suffering, the problems of satisfaction, etc., are simply ruled out. It is a doctrine of atonement in the personal center, while in Anselm it is a doctrine of atonement in a mythological realm in which God and Christ trade with each other -- Christ sacrifices something and gets back something from God in return, namely the human individuals, with whom He is united. In all these things Abelard is a pre -Protestant and pre-autonomous type. It is subjectivity in the sense of reason and centered personality. But Kant could not have appeared in the 12th century; he could only appear in the 18th century and become the all-decisive philosophical turning point. Therefore many things of Abelard were rejected. He was too early for the educational situation in which the Church

found itself. For instance, when you tell somebody whom you want to educate that the act of confession is only act of confession (and that means repentance) if it comes from love towards God and not from fear, then the whole educational effect of the preaching of the law is taken away. Abelard is just the opposite of an educational theologian. He doesn't think in terms of what is good for the people, but in terms of what is ultimately true, and what is good for those who are autonomous. For this reason some of his doctrines were rejected, and he was not received completely, in his time. But nevertheless he became one of the most influential people in the development towards Scholasticism, because of the cleverness and greatness of the method he produced, the method of sic et non.

I said he was rejected. Who were the people who rejected him? This brings me to another great man of the same century:

Bernard of Clairvaux

Anselm was fighting with Bernard about the possibility of applying dialectics to Christian contents. Bernard is the most representative of a Christianized, or "baptized," mysticism. He was, as I said, the foe of Abelard, but he was not only the foe; he brought Abelard to a council which rejected him. But when we call him the adversary of Abelard, this is only half true because he also was fighting for the subjective side, namely subjectivity in terms of mystical experience. He belonged to those who wanted to make the objective Christian doctrines, the decisions of the Fathers and the council; a matter of personal adaptation. But the difference was that while Abelard did this in terms of reason, Bernard did it in terms of mystical experience. This experience is based on faith – of course, every medieval theologian would say this -- and faith is described as an anticipation of will. This is Augustinian voluntarism which becomes visible here in Bernard as well as in the whole Franciscan school later on. Faith is something daring, is something free. You anticipate something which can become real for you only by full experience. Certainty is not given in the act of faith; it is a daring anticipation of a state to which you may come. Faith is created by the Divine Spirit, and the following experience confirms it.

But more important and more effective than these ideas which foreshadow the Franciscan school and much of medieval thinking about faith, is the mysticism of Bernard of Clairvaux. Here I come to a problem which is important and has been dealt with directly in this room two years ago when we had a seminar on Christian mysticism, and put it under the question, "Can mysticism be baptized?" I. e., can it be Christian? is that possible? Mysticism is much older than Christianity, it is much more universal than Christianity. What about the relation of Christianity to mysticism? Now in this seminar we came to the final answer that it can be baptized if it is made a concrete

Christ-mysticism – in a very similar way as it is in Paul -- a participation in Christ as Spirit. And now this is just what Bernard of Clairvaux did. He is really the baptizing father in the development of Christian mysticism. This is his importance. And whenever you are attacked, and some Barthians tell you that Christianity and mysticism are two different things; you are either a Christian or a mystic, and the attempt of almost 2000 years to baptize mysticism is wrong – then you must answer that perhaps the most important figure in whom mysticism is expressed is Bernard, and this is the mysticism of love, and only if you have a mysticism of love can you have Christian mysticism.

Mysticism has two contents in Bernard: first, the picture of Jesus as it is given in the Biblical report, and in which the Divine is transparent. It is the participation in the humility and not an ethical command, although this follows out of it. It is the reality of God in Jesus, in which we participate. The mystical following of Jesus is participating in Him. And you never should forget, when you read about Francis of Assisi and Thomas a Kempis, that when they tried to follow Jesus, this was not the way in which a Jew follows Moses; it was not another law, but it was meant as a participation in the meaning of what Jesus is. In this way the mystics of the Middle Ages overcame a legal interpretation of the obedience to Christ. We cannot really follow Him except we participate in Him mystically. But this participation is not static, it's dynamic. It's not legal, but it is participation. This concrete, active mysticism of love to Christ is the presupposition of the second part of mysticism in Bernard of Clairvaux, the abstract mysticism, "abstract" meaning abstracting from anything concrete, the mysticism of the abyss of the Divine. This side of the mystical experience is that which Christian mysticism has in common with all other forms of mysticism. There are three steps, according to Bernard:

1) Consideration (you look at things from outside; they remain objects for your subjectivity.)

2) Contemplation (participating in the "temple,"( going into the holiness of the holy..)

3) Excelsum (going outside of oneself, an attitude which exceeds the normal existence, in which man is driven beyond himself without losing himself. It is also described as raptus, being grasped.

In the third stage, man goes over into the Divinity, like a drop of wine which falls into a glass of wine. The substance remains, but the form of the individual drop is dissolved into the all-embracing Divine form. You don't lose your identity, but your identity is a part of the Divine reality into which you fall.

Now here we have two forms of mysticism which must always be distinguished: concrete mysticism, which is mysticism of love and participating in the Savior-God; abstract mysticism, or transcending mysticism, which goes beyond everything finite to the ultimate ground of everything that is.

When we look at these two forms, then we can say that at least for this life, Bernard's mysticism is in the Christian (tradition). When we ask about the second type, you can say: Now this makes an eternity love impossible. – But we must also add that Paul said something similar when he said that God will be all in all. This means that when we come to the ultimate we cannot simply think in terms of separated individuals, although we still must think in terms of love, and this is not an easy task. In any case the decisive thing is that we now have one man in which more is involved than in Pseudo-Dionysius, namely, it is concrete mysticism, Christ mysticism, love mysticism. But it is still mysticism, because it is participation, and participation always means partly participation

and partly identification.

Now I come to the end of this lecture on the early Middle Ages, to another man, Hugh of St. Victor. He was the most influential theologian of the 12th century. He was already the fulfiller of systematic thinking, to an extent in which neither Anselm nor Bernard nor Abelard were fulfillers. This man wrote a book, "On the Sacraments of the Christian Faith." This brings us back to what I said about the sacramental character of the medieval Church. The term " sacrament" in his book is used in the broadest sense – everything in which the Divine becomes visible; I. e. all works of God are sacraments. If this is the case, he can distinguish two groups of the works of God. He calls them the opera conditionis, the works of condition, and the opera reparationis, the works of reparation. This gives you a deep insight into medieval life. All things are visible embodiments of the invisible ground behind them. Nevertheless this does not lead to – what you are also much afraid of – a pantheistic form of theology, because although all works of God are sacraments, they are concentrated into seven sacraments. And if not only bodily realities, but also activities of God are called sacraments, then you see the full dynamism of this idea of sacrament.

So we have here an interpretation of the world in a dynamic sacramental form, centered around the seven sacraments of the Church, and there again centered around Mass and penance. This is the medieval situation which in people like Hugh of St. Victor already found a rather consistent and sharp expression. Now I see you after Easter again. I wish you a good Easter.