The Church, our Mother

In his book on the Motherhood of the church, Henri de Lubac notes that “Calvin attached such importance [to the notion of the church as mother] that some reproached him for setting up in that way a divine ‘quaternity.’” Yet, de Lubac is critical of Calvin: “In our own century, Karl Barth has gone even father [than Calvin]; he considers that Calvin did not really understand the full significance of the thesis expressed in his image of maternity. Why, he asks, does the author of the Christian Institute begin to speak of the Church only in the fourth book, as one of those extterna media vel adminicula -of the highest importance without doubt, but still ‘exterior’ – by which God invites us to and keeps us within the community of Christ?” It is a good question. Barth goes on to argue that an apostle would never “have dreamed of considering the community as a mere ‘external means’ serving the salvation of individual Christians.”