Nevin’s limitations

Much as I like the Nevin that’s emerging from Hart’s biography, he seems to be stuck in modern dualisms that need to be overcome. Hart quotes him as saying that if the Supper were only a sign it would “carry with it no virtue or force, more than might be put into it in every case by the spirit of the worshipper himself.” But that assumes that signs in themselves are inert and require “something more” to make the effective; and isn’t that the same assumption that Roman Catholic theology has historically made? Don’t we want to say instead that signs are themselves effective, that there is no such thing as a “mere sign”?

More broadly, his whole theology is organized around an understanding of the incarnation as the intrusion of supernatural life into the natural world. But this appears to assume some notion of a pure nature that is incompatible with a creationist viewpoint.

In short, Mercersburg needs a good dose of nouvelle theologie. Nevin + de Lubac – now there’s something we can work with.