Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One [1 ed.] 0192844601, 9780192844606

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OXFORD STUDIES IN ANALYTIC THEOLOGY Series Editors Michael C. Rea

Oliver D. Crisp

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OXFORD STUDIES IN ANALYTIC THEOLOGY Analytic Theology utilizes the tools and methods of contemporary analytic philosophy for the purposes of constructive Christian theology, paying attention to the Christian tradition and development of doctrine. This innovative series of studies showcases high quality, cutting-edge research in this area, in monographs and symposia.   : Atonement Eleonore Stump Humility, Pride, and Christian Virtue Theory Kent Dunnington In Defense of Extended Conciliar Christology A Philosophical Essay Timothy Pawl Love Divine A Systematic Account of God’s Love for Humanity Jordan Wessling The Principles of Judaism Samuel Lebens Voices from the Edge Centring Marginalized Perspectives in Analytic Theology Edited by Michelle Panchuk and Michael C. Rea Essays in Analytic Theology Volume 1 & 2 Michael C. Rea The Contradictory Christ Jc Beall Analytic Theology and the Academic Study of Religion William Wood Divine Holiness and Divine Action Mark C. Murphy

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Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology That They May be One JOSHUA COCKAYNE

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Great Clarendon Street, Oxford, OX2 6DP, United Kingdom Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and in certain other countries © Joshua Cockayne 2022 The moral rights of the author have been asserted First Edition published in 2022 Impression: 1 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by licence or under terms agreed with the appropriate reprographics rights organization. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Data available Library of Congress Control Number: 2022935030 ISBN 978–0–19–284460–6 DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.001.0001 Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY Links to third party websites are provided by Oxford in good faith and for information only. Oxford disclaims any responsibility for the materials contained in any third party website referenced in this work.

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For Eleanor

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Preface 1. Analytic Theology and Ecclesiology While analytic theology is still a young and emerging discipline, the lack of work on ecclesiology within this field is striking.¹ Despite path-breaking work on many of the core doctrines of the Christian faith, work on ecclesiology has not received the same share of attention. Analytic theology, as I approach it, is committed to explicating the core claims of the Christian tradition, using the tools of contemporary analytic philosophy.² Since belief in the ‘one holy, catholic, and apostolic Church’ is a core doctrine of this tradition,³ it seems obvious that analytic theologians should pay attention to this important area of theology. There have been numerous calls to address the lack of ecclesiology in analytic theology. In Tom McCall’s An Invitation to Analytic Theology, which is seen by many as the go-to introduction to analytic theology, he writes, consider the underdeveloped areas of inquiry in ecclesiology. What is the church? Is it best understood as a four-dimensional entity? What is the relation of the “one” to the “many” in ecclesiology? What happens in the liturgy? What do we learn from the liturgy about God, Christ, sin and salvation? How should we understand the sacraments? What is the mission of the church? What happens in acts of ministry? These questions, and many more, largely await further exploration and analysis.⁴

McCall is right that these questions have largely gone unasked by analytic theologians. This book aims to begin this task of exploration into the nature and life of the Church by addressing the issue of the Church’s unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit. One area that has seen some growth since McCall wrote these words is the discussion of Christian liturgy by analytic thinkers. In his address to the 40th

¹ A few exceptions include the contributions to the special issue of TheoLogica on Analytic Ecclesiology (see Cockayne and Efird, 2020), a chapter of Abraham (2018), and a chapter in Crisp (2022). ² See chapter 1 of Crisp, 2019. ³ Taken from the Nicene Creed. ⁴ McCall, 2015: 151–2.

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Anniversary of the Society of Christian Philosophy, the leading figure in the analytic discussion of liturgy, Nicholas Wolterstorff, reflected on the need for more work in this area. In Wolterstorff ’s words: ‘I would love to see a flowering of discussion about liturgy in the next decade or two, perhaps that flowering is beginning . . . . I have come myself to think that liturgy is in fact one of the most challenging and fascinating fields for philosophical inquiry.’⁵ The ‘flowering’ to which he refers is exemplified by the three recent books and a number of articles penned by Wolterstorff and Terence Cuneo. Here, they explore the philosophical significance of Christian liturgy.⁶ But as Wolterstorff ’s comments make clear, there is still to more to be done. As I have argued elsewhere,⁷ the discussion of liturgy in analytic theology would be enriched by gaining clarity on the nature of the Church. In Wolterstorff ’s words, ‘The church enacts the liturgy not to satisfy the needs and desires of individual congregants but to worship God . . . . It’s not the individual members who do these things simultaneously; it’s the assembled body that does these things.’⁸ This seems right to me. And yet, the discussion of liturgy in the analytic tradition has really only scratched the surface on the relation between the Church and its worship. Thus, the present volume aims to address the lack of ecclesiology in analytic theology, whilst also seeking to expand the discussion of liturgy.

2. The Scope of the Discussion Before we can proceed, some clarifications about the scope of the present volume are required. First, it is not within the scope of this book to offer a comprehensive ecclesiology which presents a far-ranging account of the nature and life of the Church. Rather, as the subtitle of the book alludes to— that they may be one—the focus of the discussion is on the issue of the unity, or oneness, of the Church. That is, the volume seeks to offer an account of what it means for the Church to be one, and to consider the implications of this accounts for the liturgical and sacramental life of the Church. As such, there are many issues on which I will remain silent. My hope is that this is not the end of the discussion of ecclesiology in the analytic tradition and that flowering of liturgical theology in the analytic tradition, of which Wolterstorff describes, will also extend to the study of the Church.

⁵ Wolterstorff, 2018. ⁷ See Cockayne, 2021b.

⁶ I summarize this literature in Cockayne (2018a, 2018b). ⁸ Wolterstorff, 2015b: 11.

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Secondly, a brief word on methodology. Throughout the book, I seek to draw from work in contemporary analytic philosophy in order to explore the nature of the Church’s unity. That is to say, the book belongs in the tradition of analytic theology. In certain respects, it follows the approach advocated by the late David Efird, of offering ‘philosophical explanations’ to issues in theology.⁹ As Robert Nozick describes it, a philosophical explanation offers one possible explanation of how X might be so, given that Z is the case.¹⁰ In the context of ecclesiology, the assumptions or limitations of the discussion (Z) are provided by our theological reflections from Scripture and tradition. So, for example, Chapter 2 offers a discussion of the theological claim that the Church is one through the work of the Holy Spirit and then turns to recent work in analytic philosophy to provide one explanation of how this might be so, within the parameters specified in our theological exploration. However, where I differ from Efird is that I think of such work as part of the theological task, whereas Efird maintained it was only really a kind of applied philosophy. In the work of Oliver Crisp, we can see the kind of philosophical explanation advocated by Efird pressed into the service of theological model building. As Crisp describes it, By a “model” . . . I mean a theoretical construction that only approximates to verisimilitude, offering a simplified account of a particular data set or (in this case) cluster of theological doctrines . . . . This also comports with an intellectual humility on the part of the theologian: it may be that we are unable to capture the truth [of the matter] . . . because we are incapable of understanding it as finite creatures or do not have the epistemic access to comprehend the doctrine, which is part of the mystery of the divine nature. Similarly, in contemporary physics Newtonian classical mechanics can still be used to generate accurate results when applied to large-scale macroscopic objects that are not traveling at very high velocities, though it is understood that classical mechanics is, strictly speaking, an approximation to the truth of the matter rather than the truth simpliciter.¹¹

Thus, in the spirit of Efird and Crisp, this project offers a model of ecclesiology which serves to make clear what it means to think of the Church as one in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, but one which never pretends to get to the full truth of the matter. ⁹ See Cockayne and Worsley (2021) for a discussion on Efird’s approach to analytic theology. ¹⁰ Nozick, 1981. ¹¹ Crisp, 2019: 54–5.

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Such an approach is not without precedent in ecclesiology, and by no means is it limited to analytic theology. For instance, as Avery Dulles describes in the introduction to his book Models of the Church, by offering ‘models’, ‘aspects’, or ‘dimensions’ of the Church, we never describe the Church ‘directly’, since the Church is ultimately mysterious.¹² Instead, these indirect descriptions of the Church can allow us to grow in understanding, so long as these descriptions remain indirect. Similarly, by providing a philosophical explanation of one possible way in which the Church may be united yet divided, the same might be said. The explanations which I explore in the chapters of this book are models, intended to expand our understanding of the Church, but without seeking to give an ultimate account of the Church’s mysterious life. Thirdly, whilst drawing from the concepts and ideas found in analytic literature on the nature of social groups can prove illuminating in offering models of the Church, we cannot apply these discussions without qualification. Any attempt to reduce the Church to the level of the human institutions which social metaphysicians and epistemologists have as their subject-matter will lead us to making the Church in our own image. And so, our aims must remain modest. Lastly, whilst I hope there is much in this book which will interest those from a range of traditions, this project is intended neither to be entirely ecumenical, but nor is it constrained to one particular theological tradition. I do not pretend to offer an account of the Church with which all will agree. I am sceptical about the possibility of offering a truly inclusive ecumenical ecclesiology without distorting important theological claims. For instance, Protestants and non-Protestants will think very differently about issues of who has authority to speak on behalf of the one Church. Trying to force these views together is not a promising approach. Moreover, while I am an ordained Anglican, I do not attempt to provide an Anglican ecclesiology which is applicable only to those in my own tradition. The theological voices I draw from throughout the book are varied—as well seeking to ground the discussion in the witness of Scripture, each chapter considers a theological figure from the tradition. The book draws insights from Lutheran, Reformed, Methodist, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican traditions. The insights gleaned from figures in these traditions provide the starting points, or correctives, to the models developed in each chapter. ¹² Dulles, 1978: 14.

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3. One Church: A Summary Before embarking on our exploration of the unity of the Church, it is worth beginning with a big picture summary of the book’s argument, such that we might see how the pieces of the discussion fit together as a whole. The central thesis of the book is that the Church is a social body, composed of many individual members, united through the work of the Holy Spirit to be the body of Christ. Call this the unity thesis. This thesis is then expanded in two directions: first, conceptual and second, practical. We begin with the conceptual. Chapters 1–3 provide a model of the Church which seeks to offer a philosophical explanation of how the unity thesis might be so. Chapter 1 is really a piece of conceptual groundwork, which must be laid before this task of model-building can begin. More specifically, I seek to clarify the relationship between individualism and collectivism in the Church. Focusing on Jesus’ prayer in John 17, that his disciples may be one, I argue that to speak of the oneness of the Church is not a call to enforce humanly imposed unity on the Church, but rather, it is to claim that the Church is one in virtue of its relation to the one God. The reason conceptual groundwork is in order is that such claims about social oneness in the Church are sometimes treated with suspicion, as if they entail that individual responsibility is at risk by talking of social wholes. It is therefore important to make clear just what the commitments advanced by my ecclesiological model are. This discussion of individualism and collectivism is advanced in two directions, one theological and one philosophical. First, I consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s assessment of Hegelian anthropology in his doctoral thesis, Sanctorum Communio. Bonhoeffer emphasizes that while the Hegelians may be right to emphasize the importance of community for the Christian life, they downplay the significance of the individual before God. Thus, Bonhoeffer thinks, both the individual and the Church must respond to God in faith. Secondly, I argue that recent philosophical developments can help clarify Bonhoeffer’s theological claim. Here, I unpack Philip Pettit’s discussion of individualism in contemporary political philosophy. Pettit contends that individualism commits one to the view that social realities never override or undermine individual agency, but it does not preclude a commitment to holism, according to which human thought must be realized in community. Thus, drawing from Pettit and Bonhoeffer, I argue that the apparent disagreement on individualism is terminological, rather than substantial. We can endorse the thesis that individuals must relate to God, and yet stress that their doing so is bound up in the life of community. Individualism does not

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undermine a commitment to the reality of social groups, nor the importance of these groups for human thought. And so, we can proceed to offer a model of the social ontology of the Church without downplaying the importance of individual autonomy or responsibility. With this presupposition outlined, Chapters 2 and 3 offer a constructive model of the nature of the Church in order to expound the unity thesis. Chapter 2 begins by identifying what Paul Avis has described as the ‘unbearable paradox’ of ecclesiology;¹³ that is, I ask how it could be that the Church is one in Christ, united by the work of the Holy Spirit, despite the overwhelming division and discord it displays. I argue that unity in the body of the Church must be located not in human organization or structure, but only in the work of the ‘one Spirit’ in whom ‘we were all are baptised’ (1 Cor. 12:13). Thus, a social ontology of the Church must emphasize the Spirit as the primary agent at work within it. By outlining recent work on the ontology of social groups, I argue that functionalist accounts of group agency can help us to see how the Church as a social reality might be united by its decision-making procedures.¹⁴ Unlike the other social bodies discussed in this literature, however, the Church does not derive its decision-making from the group aggregation of its members, but instead, from the work of the Spirit within the community. Applying Richard Hooker’s work on Anglican Church polity, I argue that one means of discerning the Spirit’s work might be through the structures of the institutional church, so long as these structures don’t seek to replace the Spirit’s work in the Church. Building on this functionalist ontology of the Church, Chapter 3 seeks to offer a model for understanding the claim that the Church is the body of Christ. After considering Gregory of Nyssa’s reflections on the Church as the body of Christ, I seek to offer a philosophical model which can help to elucidate his claims. I argue that recent work on the nature of extended cognition in the philosophy of mind can help to shed light on the relation between the one Church and the one body of Christ.¹⁵ As both Richard Cross and James Arcadi have shown, this philosophical literature (which seeks to show that cognition can be extended beyond the human brain into external artefacts) can help provide models for understanding both the incarnation and the Eucharist.¹⁶ Here, I develop both Cross’s and Arcadi’s incarnational metaphysics to explain how the Church might be thought of as the body of Christ. However, unlike the

¹³ Avis, 2018: 24. ¹⁴ See e.g. List and Pettit, 2011; Tollefsen, 2015; Collins, 2019. ¹⁵ See e.g. Clark, 2010; Clark and Chalmers, 2010; Tollefsen, 2015. ¹⁶ Arcadi, 2018; Cross, 2011.

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Eucharist and the incarnation, the doctrine of the Church does not think of Christ as extended into some artefact or tangible object, but into a social body. To give a metaphysics of the Church as the body of Christ, then, I build on work in socially extended cognition, which seeks to show the ways in which minds are extended into other minds. This can provide one model for thinking about how the Church as a group agent might participate in the body of Christ. We then move from conceptual to practical. If Chapters 1–3 ask the question: ‘What is the Church?’, then Chapters 4–7 ask the question: ‘What does the Church do?’. The unity thesis and the theological model offered in Chapters 1–3 are then used to help us examine the study of the sacraments (specifically, baptism and Eucharist) and liturgy (both inside and outside of formal church worship). Moreover, this discussion of what the Church does focuses on the question of how the activities of the Church serve the unity of the Church. Thus, we are able to see how the model offered in Chapter 1–3 might inform the practices that are performed by the members of the one Church. In Chapter 4, I consider the role of baptism in the one Church. The chapter focuses on the role of a baptismal liturgy as an instance of initiation into the community of the Church, reflecting on the implications of this initiation for how a new member relates to the group. First, I consider recent philosophical work on the nature of promises. I argue that the promises made in baptism might be understood as instances of what Margaret Gilbert has called ‘joint commitments’.¹⁷ As Gilbert shows, promising, understood as an instance of joint commitment, always entails certain obligations of both promisor and promisee, and the same is clearly true in the promises of baptism. However, whilst Gilbert’s account captures important features of baptismal obligations in local communities, it fares poorly when extending this to consider the relationship to the Church as a whole. We must understand these promises as a response to work of the persons of the Trinity, who determine the grounds of membership in the Church, rather than effecting the membership by itself. Here, I unpack John Calvin’s notion of baptism as a sign and seal of the work already achieved through Christ. Finally, I consider how this position can be extended to think about the case of the infant baptism. Understanding baptism not as an instance of personal testimony, but as an initiation into the family of the Church allows us to see that making commitments on behalf of a child can be made sense of within our understanding of the Church’s ontology. ¹⁷ Gilbert, 2011.

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xiv  Whereas baptism is a once in a lifetime sign of our membership in the one Church, the Eucharist stands as a perpetual sign of our membership into the body. The New Testament makes it clear that sharing in the one bread somehow allows us to share more fully in the body of Christ (1 Cor. 10). In Chapter 5, I argue that the Eucharist is central to our understanding of how we participate in the one body of the Church by sharing the body of Christ in the one bread. First, drawing from recent work in social psychology, I reflect on the significance of shared experiences and ritualized movement for community cohesion, arguing that this might play a role in the outward forms of unity in the Church. While these accounts can explain the psychological mechanisms behind the Eucharist as a human ritual, and thereby provide some explanation of how the Spirit enacts unity through the sacraments of the Church, an account which is solely psychological risks locating unity in the wrong place. Secondly, then, I offer an account of the Eucharist as unitive through the real presence of Christ. Here, I develop a discussion from the American Reformed theologian, John Williamson Nevin, as he seeks to emphasize the importance of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist for uniting the Church. The final two chapters consider the implications of our discussion of unity for the practice of liturgy. First, in Chapter 6, I offer an account of participation in the life of the Church through the liturgies of gathered worship. The discussion is framed around Evelyn Underhill’s three modes of liturgical participation: joint action, representative action, and corporate silence.¹⁸ Expanding these three accounts of liturgical action, I draw from recent work in analytic philosophy. On joint action, I consider how discussions of shared agency can help explain what is to act jointly with another person in liturgy, say, in reading a liturgical script at the same time. One limitation of such accounts, I argue, is that they cannot offer inclusive accounts of Church action which explain how all the Church’s members (including those with cognitive impairments and young children) contribute to the actions of the Church as a wider body. I then consider how the application of the literature on group agency (see Chapter 2) can explain the notion of representative action. In the practice of ordination, for instance, one individual is authorized to perform liturgical actions on behalf of the whole community. I argue that this should be understood in a similar manner to the way in which we authorize politicians to act on our behalf through voting. This can also be extended, I think, to show how non-paradigm participants in the liturgy can be brought into the group’s ¹⁸ Underhill, 1936.

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liturgy, even if they lack the capacity to engage in joint action. Finally, I consider the nature of corporate silence in liturgy. Drawing from work in the philosophy of perception, I argue that liturgical silence is not the same as absolute silence but, instead, stands as a contrast to the other aspects of the liturgy. In the space which silence allows, our individual actions are united by the work of the Holy Spirit to form group actions, thus emphasizing the need for both liturgical action and leaving space for the uniting work of the Spirit in worship. I conclude, in the final chapter, by considering how the liturgy of the Church extends beyond acts of gathered worship. Even if we recognize that the Church is one in the Spirit, we must lament when the outwards of the Church commit acts of abhorrence in the world. Reflecting on the discussion of worship and justice in the minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible (see Amos 5:21–4, for instance), I show that there is a close connection between worship and ethics. Bringing Augustine’s discussion of social justice to bear on the ethics of worship, I show that we should look to an account of group injustice to best understand cases of abuse and injustice in the Church. Then, I turn to recent analytic work to help expand this claim. First, drawing from work by Miranda Fricker, I consider how responsibilities might be shared by two or more agents. However, I argue, such accounts are limited. Just as shared agency accounts of liturgical action are insufficiently inclusive, collective virtue accounts do not explain how non-paradigm participants in a community can contribute to its virtue or vice. Thus, building on the discussions of functionalist social ontology, I apply an account of group virtue to the context of worship. I argue that we should think of group injustice in roughly the same way that we think of individual injustice; as the community’s failing to do what it ought to do, namely, to love. Finally, I conclude by considering a number of questions for thinking about how we should respond to issues of group injustice within our communities: When should an individual submit to a church community and when should they protest? When does an action done on behalf of the Church become disassociated with the Church as a whole? Building on Stephanie Collins’ discussion of group responsibility, I argue that, as a member of the Church, one has a responsibility to protest actions within the Church which one takes to diverge from the Church’s purpose in Christ through the Spirit. One form this might take, I argue, is the corporate act of lament in liturgy. Whilst the model expounded in this book has many facets, the core thesis remains the same throughout the chapters: the Church is only one in virtue of

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xvi  the work of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit at work in the midst of those who are members of the one Church. In understanding the life of the body of Christ, we must see that in all the Church does—whether in sacraments, in corporate liturgy, or in acting in the world—unity can only arise in and through the work of God.

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Acknowledgements This book marks the culmination of four years of research at the Logos Institute for Analytic and Exegetical Theology at the University of St Andrews. The colleagues, students, and visiting scholars who have shaped this project are too numerous to mention. I initially joined the institute in 2017 to work on analytic theology and liturgy, but it soon became apparent that the project I wanted to write needed to take a much broader approach. If we want to understand what it is to participate in the worship of the Church, then we must first understand the nature and life of the Church. Andrew Torrance has been a constant source of encouragement, challenge, and friendship over the past four years. Within my first month at the Logos Institute, Andrew had suggested I read his grandfather’s book, Worship, Community and The Triune God of Grace. Its contents shaped not only my academic interests, but also my approach to ministry and liturgy in the Church. I am grateful for the support of Alan Torrance and Oliver Crisp as directors of the Logos Institute, both of whom have been relentless in their support and friendship. I could not have wished for a better way to spend four years, nor for better colleagues to work alongside. Jonathan Rutledge and Koert Verhagen have proved to be invaluable sources of theological correction and philosophical challenge, but most importantly, they have been fellow connoisseurs of coffee and whisky over the past four years. This book would not exist without their influence, support, and friendship. During the 2020–1 academic year, a group of colleagues in the institute convened to provide feedback on one another’s work, building on a mutual interest on the theme of participation. The group not only provided feedback on many of the chapters from this book, but also proved to be a melting pot of ideas which inspired many of the directions this book ended up taking. Thank you to Oliver Crisp, Joanna Leidenhag, Jonathan Rutledge, and Andrew Torrance for participating in this group. Alongside the writing of this book, I have also embarked on two collaborative projects. First, together with my good friends Scott Harrower and Preston Hill, I have written a book exploring how the Church might respond to issues

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xviii  of trauma. These gentlemen (there are none to whom this title is more suited) have been a source of support, friendship, and mutual care over the past couple of years, opening my eyes to the reality of the damage the Church has sometimes inflicted on survivors of trauma. I am thankful to God for their companionship and look forward to many more joint ventures in the future. Secondly, I have been grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with Gideon Salter, a psychologist at the University of St Andrews on a number of grant projects and articles, exploring how psychology can help us to understand the nature of corporate worship. Some of this material has made its way into the present monograph, but our conversations have inspired much more than is on the page. In Gideon, I have found a fellow long-suffering follower of the English football team, and a likeminded co-author. One of the most wonderful parts of being employed by a university is being able to teach some of the brightest theological minds in the world. My doctoral students: D.T. Everhart, Preston Hill, Madeline Jackson, Daniel Spencer, and Jason Stigall have each been peers and friends in very different ways. Many of them have given their time to grappling with the contents of this book and discussing ideas late into the night over a glass of scotch. I am thankful for the ways each of them have helped shape this project and I am excited to see how their own careers and projects will develop. I am also blessed to have taught outstanding MLitt candidates, many of whom have been inflicted with the chapters of this book as compulsory reading and have provided many important insights. A number of people have been kind enough to give feedback on draft chapters of the book. I am grateful to Harvey Cawdron, Andrew Esnouf, Derek King, Sarah Shin, and Chris Whyte for their insightful feedback, which has transformed my own thinking on many issues. The two anonymous referees from Oxford University Press provided timely direction to the project in its infancy and raised many important points for clarification as it was nearing completion. I am grateful to them both. Before his untimely death, the late David Efird provided extensive comments on many of the chapters. I am thankful to have known him and he continues to shape my sense of vocation to this day. The research group started by David at York—the St Benedict Society for Philosophy of Religion and Philosophical Theology—kindly agreed to reunite to provide feedback on a final draft of the manuscript. Our Friday morning Zoom meetings spanned three countries (Chile, England, and Scotland) and I am very thankful to Daniel Molto, Jack Warman, and David Worsley for their attention to detail and probing questions, not to mention their continued friendship.

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The completion of this manuscript also coincides with the end of my time at the Logos Institute and a move into full time ministry in the Church. As such, this book is not a mere academic study, but a reflection on the Church I have committed to love and serve. The congregations of G2, York and Saint Andrew’s Episcopal Church, St Andrews have shaped my faith and sense of vocation in very different ways. In Christian Selvaratnam and Trevor Hart, I have found like-minded colleagues in ministry and exemplary role models of ordained ministry. Although he may not always have realized it, my weekly coffee meetings with Trevor have also proved to be an excellent testing ground for exploring many of the ideas in this book. Finally, as I embark on a new ministry at Holy Trinity Church and St George’s Church in Leeds, I am thankful to their openness and hospitality in welcoming us into their community and I am excited to get started in serving the one Church of Christ together with them. Finally, thanks are due to my wife, Eleanor and wonderful children Judah, Emmeline, and Zachary. As well as providing a source of laughter, challenge and love, Eleanor daily sharpens my faith in Christ and deepens my devotion to serving his Church. I am looking forward to many more years serving the Church alongside you.

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Contents

1. That They May Be One: The Individual and the Community of the Church 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

That They May Be One Individualism vs Collectivism Bonhoeffer’s Philosophically Informed Ecclesiology Individualism and Its Implications Clarifying the Debate Conclusion

2. One Spirit: The Church as a Group Agent 1. 2. 3. 4.

The Unbearable Paradox of Ecclesiology The Church as the Body of Christ through the Agency of the Spirit Group Realism Expanded Group Realism and the Church 4.1 Redundant Group Realism and the Social Ontology of Dictatorships 4.2 The Benevolent Dictator: Group Agency in the One Spirit 4.3 Polity and Discernment in the Life of the One Church 4.4 Rogue Agency and the Sin of the Church 5. Conclusion

3. One Lord Jesus Christ: The Church as the Socially Extended Body of Christ 1. The Church as the Body of Christ 1.1 Participation in the One Body of Christ 1.2 Identifying the Church as the Body of Christ 2. Functionalism and Extended Minds 2.1 Bodily Extension and the Parity Principle Revised 3. Arcadi and Cross on Theological Applications of Active Externalism 4. The Church as the Extended Body of Christ 4.1 Social Extension 4.2 The Church as the Socially Extended Body of Christ 5. Conclusion

1 1 4 8 12 16 18

20 20 21 24 30 35 38 40 44 46

48 48 49 54 55 59 63 66 68 71 74

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1. Social Ontology and Initiation 2. Promising and Group Membership 2.1 On the Relationship between Promising and Membership 3. Membership and Authorization 3.1 Baptism and Speech Act Theory 3.2 Two Models of Baptismal Speech Acts 3.3 The Calvinian Model 3.4 Group Membership and Baptism 4. Infant Baptism and Group Membership 5. Conclusion

75 77 82 84 86 87 91 95 97 104

5. One Bread, One Cup: The Eucharist as a Sacrament of Unity 1. More than Metaphysics: Analytic Theology and Eucharistic Unity 2. Human-to-Human Unity through the Eucharistic Ritual 2.1 Social Cohesion and Eucharistic Ritual 2.2 Remembrance and Unity with the Past 3. Eucharistic Unity in Christ 3.1 Unity in the Eucharistic Body and the Ecclesial Body 3.2 The Difference between the Eucharistic Body and the Ecclesial Body 3.3 You Are What You Eat: The Eucharist as a Source of Unity 4. Conclusion

6. Acting as One: Liturgy and Group Action 1. The Gathered Church 1.1 Liturgical Participation 2. Underhill’s Principles of Corporate Worship 2.1 Corporate Silence 2.2 Representative Action 2.3 Joint Action 3. An Analytic Account of Group Liturgical Action 3.1 Joint Action 3.2 Shared Agency and Liturgical Action 3.3 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Joint Action 4. Representative Action 4.1 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Representative Action 4.2 Authorization and Discernment 5. Corporate Silence 5.1 The Nature of Silence 5.2 Group Action and Corporate Silence 5.3 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Corporate Silence 6. Conclusion

105 105 107 107 110 117 118 122 124 130

132 132 134 136 137 138 138 139 140 141 145 147 151 153 154 155 157 159 160

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7. One Purpose: Extensive Liturgy and Protest

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1. Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord 2. Systemic Abuse in the Life of the Church 3. Injustice and the People of God 3.1 Social Justice and the People of God 4. Social Justice as Joint Commitment 4.1 Social Justice and Collective Duties 5. Liturgical Protest 6. Conclusion

161 163 169 173 175 179 183 185

Epilogue

187

References Index

191 201

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1 That They May Be One The Individual and the Community of the Church

1. That They May Be One After Jesus had spoken these words, he looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son so that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all people, to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. . . . I am asking on their behalf; I am not asking on behalf of the world, but on behalf of those whom you gave me, because they are yours. All mine are yours, and yours are mine; and I have been glorified in them. And now I am no longer in the world, but they are in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one, as we are one . . . I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. (John 17:1–11, 20–3)¹

‘That they may be one’. Jesus’ departing prayer for unity in the Gospel according to John is seen by many to offer one of the clearest articulations of ecclesiology in the gospel texts.² It is not difficult to see why this is the case. Chapter 17 concludes a pivotal narrative in John’s text, preceding the accounts of Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion. The so-called ‘farewell discourse’ (John 14–17)

¹ All biblical references from New Revised Standard Version.

² See e.g. Byers, 2017.

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0001

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emphasizes the oneness of Christ with the Father (14:1–14), the promise of the coming Holy Spirit (14:15–31; 16:4–15), and a vision of the life of Christ’s disciples after his impending departure. A life grounded in the Father and the Son must lead, Jesus tells his followers, to a life characterized by love (15:12–13), but a rejection by the world (15:18–19). John draws these discourses to a close with the striking words that Christ’s disciples will be one just as the Father and the Son are one.³ This book takes as its starting point this notion of oneness in Christ. Not only is this notion key to understanding Johannine ecclesiology,⁴ but it is also the key to understanding ecclesiology tout court. Any account of the Church’s oneness must not depart from this foundation in the oneness of the persons of the Trinity.⁵ But how precisely we are to characterize such oneness is where things get more complex. We might think, for instance, that the oneness of Christ’s followers described by John implies that the Church is called to overcome their disagreements and to unite as one body across traditions. In his sermon on John 17, the Lutheran theologian Johan Blumhardt exemplifies this way of thinking, writing, ‘Do we as Jesus’ disciples really want to become one? . . . We must find a way where what you believe I believe and what I believe you believe. For the Lord says in his prayer, “I have given them glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.”ʼ⁶ Blumhardt’s assumption here is that oneness entails a uniformity of belief. The Church’s oneness means that I must believe what you believe and vice versa.⁷ The problem with such readings of the text, which stress ideal social harmony above all else, is that they fail to recognize what is at the foundation of John’s narrative. Jesus’ prayer in John 17 must be read in light of John’s use of oneness language throughout the gospel. As Andrew Byers puts it, ‘approaches that understand “one” as signifying a unity of social harmony or a unity of function or mission do not sufficiently take this prior narrative development into interpretative account.’⁸ Expanding this narrative development further, Richard Bauckham notes that ‘The very ordinary little word “one” was a theologically very potent word for the Jews of the Second Temple period because of its occurrence in the Shema.’⁹ It would not have escaped a Jewish audience’s attention that John is repeatedly making reference to a ³ Note, as will become clear shortly, the position I articulate in this book emphasizes the oneness of the Church as grounded in the oneness of Trinitarian persons, not only the Father and the Son. ⁴ Bauckham, 2015: 40. ⁵ See McCall (2021: chapter 5) for a discussion of the Trinitarian implications of John 17. ⁶ Blumhardt, 2019: 86. ⁷ For a critique of ecumenical readings of John, see Minear (1978: 5–13). ⁸ Byers, 2017: 144. ⁹ Bauckham, 2015: 23.

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crucial liturgical and doctrinal text. The Shema is perhaps the closest analogue to the Christian use of the Lord’s Prayer, the twice daily recitation of the lines: ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one’ (Deut. 6:4) would mean that John’s oneness language was immediately recognizable. Just as mentioning the two words, ‘Our Father’ has the power to connote the meaning and words of the whole of the Lord’s Prayer, the seemingly innocuous word, ‘one’ is theologically loaded and thus has important implications for understanding John’s usage of the term. As Byers argues, ‘In Jesus’ prayer, the multi-layered strands of ecclesial, Christological, and theological oneness interfuse in an abbreviated but complex polyphony.’¹⁰ Throughout the gospel, John uses oneness language in direct reference to the Shema (‘we have one Father’ (8:41)), but also in application to Christ (‘the Father and I are one’ (10:30)), and Christ’s flock (‘one flock, one Shepherd’ (10:16)). John is pulling from a variety of sources. For instance, as well as alluding to the Shema, John draws from the messianic texts of Ezekiel 34 and 37 and its reference to the ‘one Shepherd’ and the ‘one king’ who will unite the divided nations of Israel. Thus, John’s use of ‘one’ in the gospel is both intentional and cumulative; he aims at a careful weaving together of the oneness theology of the Shema with the messianic and national emphases on the one Shepherd who has come to regather God’s one people. As Byers summarizes, ‘To be “one” in Johannine perspective is to be (re)gathered into the divine community of the Father (Israel’s “one” God) and Jesus (the “one” messianic king).’¹¹ Yet, it is notable that whilst John is emphasizing a new social reality in Christ, that the use of oneness language to refer to God’s people is not entirely novel. Oneness language is not uncommon in Hebrew Scripture in referring to God’s people and their places of worship.¹² Consider Bauckham’s discussion of the one temple, for example: A pagan might well ask why the Jews did not have many temples. The answer given by Josephus is that the one God should be worshipped in one temple where his one people worship him. This may not immediately seem to make logical sense. Why should not the one God be worshipped in many temples?

¹⁰ Byers, 2017: 144. ¹¹ Byers, 2017: 146. ¹² More specifically, Bauckham writes: ‘There are a series of passages in the biblical prophets that are key texts for understanding John’s usage of the word “one”: Ezek. 34:23; 37:15–24; Mic. 2:12; Hosea 1:11a; Isa. 45:20a . . . These passages reflect the biblical narrative that tells how, following the glorious days of Solomon’s united kingdom, Israel was tragically divided into the two kingdoms of Israel or Judah, the northern and the southern tribes . . . . the hope for the future of God’s people in the prophets includes the expectations that God will regather his people, whom he has scattered among the nations, returning them to the land of Israel’ (Bauckham, 2015: 24).

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    But the correlation of one God, one temple, one law, one people makes much more sense when we realize that at work in these passages is the idea that God’s people are unified by their allegiance to one God.¹³

The emphasis in John’s use of such language in chapter 17, then, stresses not social harmony, but rather, ‘social identity construction around Israel’s God’.¹⁴ In other words, the foundation of ecclesial oneness can be found only in the work of the one God, and not by enforcing organizational structures and ecumenical initiatives onto the Church from outside. Yet, we must see that John does not merely extend the oneness language of Ezekiel to Christ and Christ’s flock, he also presses these familiar theological contexts to develop new conclusions. John’s words in 17:26 (‘they may be one, as we are one, I in them and you in me’), ‘express participation within the divine reality of the Father–Son interrelation’.¹⁵ That is, these words speak not only of one people in a way that powerfully reflects God’s identity—as in the use of oneness language in Hebrew Scripture—but also, the oneness of these people is a metaphysical reality in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit. Put differently, ‘Jesus does not just pray that the disciples will share in his mission; beyond a task-orientated or functional unity, Jesus prays that this new social entity will actually share in his preexistent divine glory.’¹⁶ The Church is a social entity in which God’s people share in the life of Christ. And it is this entity the present book seeks to explore. While there are many important issues in the study of ecclesiology, my focus is squarely on the issue of the Church’s oneness in Christ through the work of the Holy Spirit, and subsequently, the implications of this for the practice and work of the Church.

2. Individualism vs Collectivism However, before offering a model of the Church’s social unity in Christ (in Chapters 2–3), this chapter will pause to consider an important precursor to this discussion, namely, the relationship between individual members of the Church and the community as a whole. For whilst John 17 presents a distinctive vision of the Church’s social unity in Christ, it is sometimes thought that John’s view of humanity is distinctively individualistic. Repeatedly, we see characters emerge from John’s narrative who encounter ¹³ Bauckham, 2015: 29. ¹⁶ Byers, 2017: 152.

¹⁴ Byers, 2017: 106.

¹⁵ Byers, 2017: 152.

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Christ in their particularity—whether that be Nicodemus, a member of the religious elite who seeks Christ out alone in the middle of the night (3:1–21), an anonymous Samaritan woman drawing water by herself at the hottest point in the day (4:1–42), or his friend Lazarus raised from the grave (11:1–44)—for John, it is clear that individuals are changed by their encounters, leading them to testify to the astounding transformation that they have received. Indeed, we find such interpretations of John’s gospel in the secondary literature. Bauckham, for example, thinks that John’s anthropology is distinctly individualistic. Whilst John did not endorse a kind of ‘modern’ individualism, according to which each person ‘takes his or her own chosen path in complete independence of anyone else, free from all commitments to others’,¹⁷ Bauckham argues that the evangelist does prioritize the individual above the community in a way that differs from the collectivist culture of his time. He continues by noting that, ‘readers or hearers are simply not allowed to forget that response to Jesus has to be individual to be real.’¹⁸ Thus, Bauckham thinks, whilst John provides a vision of a new social reality in Christ, this never erases the priority of individuals. As he puts it, ‘The life of the community, the disciples’ mutual love, stems from the relationship between each individual and Jesus. The latter entails the former, but individual relationship to Jesus has priority.’¹⁹ Contrastingly, Byers appears to endorse the opposite view of John. He writes, the evangelist is invested in a social vision that is explicitly communal, not individualistic. He certainly depicts interrelations between Jesus and specific disciples or would-be disciples; these interactions demonstrate that Johannine ecclesiology is personal, but they are certainly not part of an agenda promoting individualism. The Shepherd knows his individual sheep by name, but he leads them in and out as a flock.²⁰

For Byers, participation language and oneness language in John denotes an anthropology which is personal but not individualistic. That is, individuals might be called by Christ, but they are always called into a new life which is inherently communal; we cannot be one in Christ and remain distinct from the community of the Church. At least on the surface, then, it appears that ¹⁷ Bauckham, 2015: 9. ¹⁸ Bauckham, 2015: 7. ¹⁹ Bauckham, 2015: 9. ²⁰ Byers, 2017: 7. It’s not clear how Byers sees his thesis in relation to Bauckham’s; he describes Bauckham’s individualist reading of John as ‘carefully nuanced’ but offers no explanation of its relation to his own collectivist reading.

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there is some disagreement on the issue of individualism and collectivism, even if we restrict our scope to one New Testament text. This tension between individualism and collectivism is not unique to the interpretation of John, either. Indeed, in discussing the arguments of this book with colleagues, I have encountered opposing kinds of scepticism to its central thesis. First, that it is not individualistic enough, and second, that it is too individualistic. From the one flank, for instance, we find those who wish to stress, with Bauckham, that Christianity focuses on the salvation of individuals; there is no salvation en masse.²¹ Søren Kierkegaard appears to be an exemplar of this tradition, describing his authorship as aiming to ‘shake off “the crowd” in order to get hold of “the single individual”’.²² Indeed, Kierkegaard elsewhere writes that ‘“The single individual” is the qualification of the spirit; the collective is the animal qualification which make life easier, provides a comparative criterion, procures earthly benefits, hides one in the crowd.’²³ Similarly, Pope John Paul II expresses his scepticism concerning an overly collectivist vision of humanity, which, he thinks, will lead more or less unconsciously to the watering down and almost the abolition of personal sin, with the recognition only of social guilt and responsibilities . . . a situation—or likewise an institution, a structure, society itself—is not in itself the subject of moral acts. Hence a situation cannot in itself be good or bad. At the heart of every situation of sin are always to be found sinful people.²⁴

As I was told recently by a leading scholar in asking a question concerning St. Paul’s vision of sociality: ‘Paul is a rampant individualist.’²⁵ There is clearly a vast amount of scholarship which simply assumes that Christianity is a world view which prioritizes the single individual, perhaps making space for some minimal ecclesiological claims about the importance of individuals meeting together because it is ‘good for them’. Second, from the opposing flank, many theologians have been at pains to stress that Christianity is a religion that shuns individualism. Indeed, I was ²¹ As the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus puts it, ‘presumably we can be baptized en masse but can never be reborn en masse’ (Kierkegaard, 1985: 19). ²² Kirkegaard, 2000: 9. ²³ Kirkegaard, 1967: 2:2044. ²⁴ John Paul II, 1984: 16. Thanks to D.T. Everhart for bringing this to my attention. Everhart’s (forthcoming) discussion of individualism draws out many important features of the discussion of individualism and collectivism and its application to theology. ²⁵ There is a live debate concerning Pauline notions of individualism in the field. Simeon Zahl (2021) helpfully summarizes much of this debate and suggests some ways forwards.

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once scolded for using the term ‘individuals’ and told instead to use the term ‘persons’; since ‘there are no such things as individuals, but only persons.’ I have been pressed to see that passages in the New Testament typically used to refer to individuals, ‘your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit’ (1 Cor. 6:19) actually use the plural second-person pronoun in Greek, which is left ambiguous by the English ‘your’ (perhaps a good case can be made for the inclusion of a Texan ‘y’all’ here).²⁶ Indeed, the emphasis on the one temple, which Bauckham attributes to Josephus, would appear to reinforce this idea. Often, it seems this collectivist argument is a reaction to the prominence of individualism in Western evangelicalism, in which the doctrines of the Church have been distorted into claims only about individual salvation and personal relationship with God, ignoring the obviously communal emphases of the New Testament.²⁷ The final nail in the coffin for the individualist, according to some, is that contemporary psychology proves that human persons are inherently social creatures; our ideas and minds are shaped collectively by those we come into contact with, and so the idol of modernist individualism has come crashing down through the empirical discoveries of the past century.²⁸ The problem, or so I will argue in this chapter, is that both ‘individualism’ and ‘collectivism’ are too loosely defined to be instructive in this context. For instance, a rejection of individualism sometimes appears to be an assertion that social wholes are important to take seriously. At other times those attacking individualism appear to be claiming that social wholes are somehow more real than individuals or deserve to have explanatory priority. Some people simply seem to mean that human thought is developed in community. These different senses of individualism are clearly not equivalent. More precision is needed if we are to make progress in thinking about the Church as a social reality in Christ. The remainder of this chapter is devoted to this issue of specifying the relationship between individual persons and social wholes. It is my contention that the opposing camps depicted above are not really disagreeing substantially, but rather, disagreeing about what individualism means. I expand this discussion in two directions. First, I consider Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s discussion of anthropology and ecclesiology in Sanctorum Communio as he seeks to offer a middle way between philosophical

²⁶ A note on ‘y’all’. I have it on good authority from a Texan colleague that this term originates from Texas, despite its widespread use in other states. For those who disagree, you can take up the issue with him. ²⁷ Again, see Zahl’s (2021) discussion of individualism and soteriology for a helpful explication of this argument and a response to it. ²⁸ For a fuller discussion of this claim in relation to the Church, see Strawn and Brown (2020).

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atomism and Hegelian collectivism. Secondly, I discuss a parallel account, dubbed ‘individualist holism’, in contemporary social-political philosophy and show its application to help navigate this thorny theological issue.

3. Bonhoeffer’s Philosophically Informed Ecclesiology Bonhoeffer’s early work on the nature of the Church provides a helpful dialogue point for the current discussion for several reasons. First, Bonhoeffer’s methodology proves instructive for doing analytic ecclesiology. As he describes on the first page of the book, ‘social philosophy and sociology are employed in the service of theology. Only through such an approach, it appears, can we gain a systematic understanding of the community-structure of the Christian church. This work belongs not to the discipline of sociology of religion, but to theology.’²⁹ Whilst Bonhoeffer does not engage analytic philosophy, he does see the value of bringing philosophical insights from outside of theology to clarify theological issues. However, after considering the many similarities between sociological concepts of community and the Church, Bonhoeffer concludes that the Church must be a ‘form of community sui generis’.³⁰ Put simply, in making use of the tools and methods of philosophical and sociological thought, Bonhoeffer is clear that theology cannot be reduced to such modes of discourse; these disciplines must ultimately serve theology. Thus, as well as helping us to navigate a middle way between the extremes of collectivism and individualism (as we have so far conceived them), Bonhoeffer also provides us with a model of philosophical theology from which analytic theologians have much to learn.³¹ Secondly, Bonhoeffer’s discussion of anthropology can help us to move beyond the caricatures of individualism and collectivism. In the opening section of Santorum Communio, Bonhoffer attempts to locate ‘the Christian concept of person’,³² by contrasting it with prominent philosophical positions, before considering the import of this discussion to explore the nature of community in Christian theology. The instructive insight, at least for our purposes, lies in Bonhoeffer’s engagement with Hegelian metaphysics. Bonhoeffer wishes to affirm, with the Hegelian, that human beings are structurally ‘open’, that is, that human persons cannot be considered in isolation ²⁹ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 21. ³⁰ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 266. ³¹ Indeed, I think Bonhoeffer’s methodology is consonant with many of the existing reflections on the task of analytic theology. For a detailed account, see Wood (2021). ³² Bonhoeffer, 1998: 34.

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since ‘human beings . . . are necessarily created in a community . . . human spirit in general is woven into the web of sociality’.³³ As Bonhoeffer goes on to describe, to think of human beings as structurally open, is to affirm ‘there would be no self-consciousness without community—or better, that self-consciousness arises concurrently with the consciousness of existing in community.’³⁴ Quoting directly from the nineteenth-century Austrian sociologist Othmar Spann, Bonhoeffer summarizes: ‘Only in interaction with one another is the spirit of human beings ever revealed; this is the essence of spirit, to be oneself through being in the other.’ Put simply, for Bonhoeffer, human thought is dependent on community and cannot be known outside of community. The elusive Hegelian notion of ‘objective spirit’ (or Geist) looms large in Bonhoeffer’s thought; in Michael Mawson’s words, for Bonhoeffer, ‘personal identity is dependent upon a prior stream or system of spirit, it can only be conceived of as inherently social. All discrete individual persons and acts are possible and meaningful only due to a prior sociality, which means only in terms of a broader social network or framework of relationships.’³⁵ However, despite affirming the importance of objective social realities, and insisting that human thought is dependent on community, Bonhoeffer is not willing to adopt the idealist anthropology without revision. He asks, ‘does it still make sense to speak of I and You, if all seem to become one? Does not everything that appears individual merely participate in the one, supraindividual working of spirit?’³⁶ The problem with idealism is that it gives the wrong answers to these questions, Bonhoeffer thinks. He writes, The tragedy of all idealist philosophy was that it never ultimately broke through to personal spirit. However, its monumental perception, especially in Hegel, was that the principle of spirit is something objective, extending beyond everything individual—that there is an objective spirit, the spirit of sociality, which is distinct in itself from all individual spirit. One task is to affirm the latter without denying the former, to retain the perception without committing the error.³⁷

The Hegelian does not affirm the importance of the individual in the community to a sufficient degree, according to Bonhoeffer, thereby leading to an absorption of the I into the thou, in which individuals are no longer separable as individuals. In contrast, Christian thought, Bonhoeffer contends, affirms ³³ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 65. ³⁶ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 73.

³⁴ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 70. ³⁷ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 74.

³⁵ Mawson, 2018: 82.

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the emphasis on the communal without losing the individual in the crowd. In fact, to even make sense of the emphasis on sociality, we need a distinctive notion of the individual, Bonhoeffer thinks; ‘social intention is inconceivable without structural “closedness”, because no intimate act is conceivable without corresponding openness.’³⁸ For Bonhoeffer, the human person is both structurally open and structurally closed. As Clifford Green summarizes this tension in Bonhoeffer’s account of the person, ‘If the premise of theological anthropology is that the human person exists in relation to God, then the human counterpart of this is person in relation to person. This is the I–You relation: persons are independent, willing subjects who exist in relation to others.’³⁹ Recall that, for Bonhoeffer, the purpose of developing this anthropology is to inform our understanding of the community of the Church, a community constituted by many such persons. Thus, he moves from discussing the nature of the person to considering questions which concern the relationship between individual persons and communities, more generally. Bonhoeffer asks: Does the social unity then involve more than personal interactions, and if so, how should we conceive it? Or does the social unity consist solely of these interactions? In theological terms, does God intend by community something that absorbs the individual human being into itself, or does God intend only the individual? Or are community and individual both intended by God in their distinctive significance?⁴⁰

In answer to these questions, Bonhoeffer posits that, ‘community can be interpreted as a collective person with the same structure as an individual person.’⁴¹ That is, just as the individual person can be regarded as both structurally open and closed, as well as being subject to moral responsibility, Bonhoeffer claims that we can say the same about a community, whether that be a family, a nation, or a Church. Since nations, as communities composed of individual persons, can have the same kind of structural unity as each individual person, we should regard the collective community as a person too. And hence, Bonhoeffer thinks, collective persons can be morally responsible. The kind of responsibility which Bonhoeffer is alluding to here can be helpfully illustrated with an example:

³⁸ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 74. ⁴¹ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 77.

³⁹ Green, 1999: 115.

⁴⁰ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 76.

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In the Civil Rights movement in the United States led by Dr Martin Luther King, Jr, the community of African-Americans encountered the white community with an urgent ethical claim for justice and freedom. Just as in ethical encounters between individual people, the black community resisted the injustices perpetuated by the white community, and challenged the white community to make a responsible answer in legislation, economic policy and social behaviour and customs.⁴²

It is important to stress that such an account of the collective personhood and collective responsibility must not collapse the concept of an individual person into the collective person. For Bonhoeffer, human persons and communal persons are distinct and non-reducible. Not only does this account of collective personhood apply to nations, families, and other social groups, it also has an important theological relevance. And, crucially for our discussion here, he also maintains that these observations can inform our understanding of the nature of the Church: The universal person of God does not think of people as isolated individual beings, but in a natural state of communication with other human beings . . . . God created man and woman directed to one another. God does not desire a history of individual human beings, but the history of the human community . . . . In God’s eyes, community and individual exist in the same moment and rest in one another. The collective unit and the individual unit have the same structure in God’s eyes. On these basic-relations rest the concepts of the religious community and the church.⁴³

What is the metaphysical status of such persons? And what is the relation between individual and communal persons for Bonhoeffer? As Mawson clarifies, the relationship is complex: ‘while collective persons “transcend all individuals” and achieve independence from them, collective persons in turn are themselves “incomprehensible without the correlate of personal, individual being”. In the primal state, a community as a collective person both emerges from and requires persons as self-conscious willing individuals.’⁴⁴ According to Koert Verhagen, while Bonhoeffer thinks that the individual and the community have a mutually constitutive relationship, it is important to see that God’s relational presence to individuals is logically prior to God’s

⁴² Green, 1999: 118.

⁴³ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 79–80.

⁴⁴ Mawson, 2018: 86.

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relationship with community.⁴⁵ So, while there is never a moment when the individual and community are not enmeshed, God’s relational presence to individuals must come first. There are important implications from Bonhoeffer’s discussion for the present discussion, even if some of the metaphysical claims are difficult to render in precise analytic terms. For instance, in Bonhoeffer’s qualification of the idealist position he puts his finger on an important issue, namely, that structural openness, or a relational view of human persons, does not entail a downplaying of individuals. Moreover, it is possible, Bonhoeffer thinks, to claim that God values communities and holds communities responsible, without thereby diminishing the importance of individuals and their responsibility before God. Thus, if Bonhoeffer is right, we can affirm the psychological insights that highlight the importance of interaction for human thought without claiming that communities are amorphous, and that salvation is en masse. For Bonhoeffer, communities are dependent on individuals in an important sense: without individuals there are no communities. And thus, we can already see that the individualism vs collectivism debate is founded on illegitimate premises and ill-defined terms. However, there is clearly work to be done in specifying these arguments to explain just where the tension may or may not lie between the individualist and the collectivist. Here, contemporary analytic philosophical work can be of service to the theological task in much the same way that Bonhoeffer sees Hegelian metaphysics offering insight.

4. Individualism and Its Implications In his influential book The Common Mind, Philip Pettit explicitly addresses the issue this chapter seeks to explore, namely, the relationship between individualism and collectivism. The context of Pettit’s discussion is that of political philosophy, and thus, just as Bonhoeffer approaches the social philosophy of his time, we too must be careful in importing the conclusions of Pettit’s thesis wholesale into theology. Pettit argues that much of the discussion surrounding individualism and its implications conflates two important but distinct issues in social ontology, namely, ‘the vertical issue’ and the ‘horizontal issue’. He summarizes the two issues as follows. ⁴⁵ Verhagen, 2021: 114.

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The vertical issue: The first issue has to do whether individual agents are compromised in their agency by aggregate social regularities, whether a knowledge of how these regularities work would undermine our view of those agents as intentional and thinking subjects . . . the issue . . . is vertical in character. It bears on how far individual agents are affected, as it were, from above; in part-whole terms the issue is whether the whole is more than the sum of its parts.⁴⁶

The horizontal issue: The other issue in social ontology is of a horizontal character rather than a vertical, for it bears on how far individual agents are affected by one another, not affected from above; in part-whole terms it might be represented as the issue of whether the parts are transformed through being jointly belonging to a single whole. The issue is whether individual agents non-causally depend on their social relations with one another for the possession of their distinctive capacities: say, for the possession of the capacity to think.⁴⁷

Pettit argues that many discussions of individualism in political philosophy and sociology are guilty of assuming that a certain kind of answer to the vertical issue entails a certain answer to the horizontal issue. More specifically, he notes, those who deny that individual agency is compromised by aggregate social regularities also tend to deny that human thought is dependent on social relations. Expanding Petitt’s use of terminology will help clarify these claims. First, in answer to the vertical issue, as he defines it, ‘Individualists deny and collectivists maintain the status ascribed to individual agents in our intentional psychology is compromised by aggregate social regularities.’⁴⁸ Put simply, the defence of individualism concerning social explanations denies that ‘psychologically mysterious forces’ play any role in social explanations . . . ‘the status ascribed to individual agents in our intentional psychology is not compromised by aggregate social regularities.’⁴⁹ In other words, in explaining, say, the rise in unemployment in twenty-first-century Britain, we do not need to appeal to the Geist, or spirit, of society to provide a social explanation; we have all of the components we need by examining the intentions and ⁴⁶ Pettit, 1996: 117. ⁴⁹ Pettit, 1996: 118.

⁴⁷ Pettit, 1996: 118.

⁴⁸ Pettit, 1996: 118.

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behaviour of the individual constituent members of this social group. The issue at the heart of this debate is thus, ‘whether the intentional subject, as the individualists hold, enjoys the control over herself, the capacity to have thought or done otherwise, which intentional psychology imputes to normal human beings; or whether that autarchy is compromised, as collectivists allege, by the presence of structural regularities of an overriding or outflanking character.’⁵⁰ Secondly, in answer to the horizontal issue, ‘Atomists deny and holists maintain that individual agents non-causally depend on their social relations with one another for some of their distinctive capacities.’⁵¹ We have already seen one example of holism in Bonhoeffer’s defence of Hegelian anthropology. Pettit outlines a similar account in his own defence of holism: Thinking is not the purely private enterprise it seems at least sometimes to be: it never involves a total renunciation of the public forum, a complete seclusion in the cloisters of the inner self. The thinker may withdraw from social life but she will still carry the voice of society within her into her place of retreat. If that voice were absent, if there were no others to whom the individual thinker was answerable, then scrutable human thought would be impossible.⁵²

The crucial issue at stake for our purposes is to note the ways in which these issues are conflated in discussions of individualism. For instance, it is sometimes held that a defence of the interdependence of human thought on social relations (i.e. a defence of holism) entails a rejection of individualism. But really what is being claimed is that atomism is false. As Pettit goes on to argue, one’s answer to the vertical issue does not entail that one must give a specific answer to the horizontal question. There is no reason, he argues, to think that individualism entails atomism, even if these theses have often been defended together. Indeed, his own position is that individualism and holism are the correct positions to hold. It is this clarification, I think, which can help shed light on the seeming impasse between the opposing sides in the theological debate. Pettit’s argument for individualist holism depends on the philosophical notion of supervenience.⁵³ Put simply, ‘A set of properties A supervenes upon another set B just in case no two things can differ with respect to A-properties without also differing with respect to their B-properties. In slogan

⁵⁰ Pettit, 1996: 137. ⁵¹ Pettit, 1996: 118. ⁵² Pettit, 1996: 191. ⁵³ The issue concerning whether supervenience is sufficient for reduction is contested in the philosophical literature. I will follow Pettit in assuming that is not.

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form, “there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference”.’⁵⁴ It is sometimes held (and Pettit defends such a claim) that supervenience is not sufficient for reduction. That is, while A properties supervene on B properties, they are not identical to one another. An example will help illustrate. In seeking to explain the relationship between the mind and the body, we might ask: Can mental behaviour be explained by appealing only to material substances?⁵⁵ According to the materialist, yes. But there might be competing explanations of how this is the case. For instance, reductivists claim that all mental properties are reducible to physical properties; the mental state, pain, for example, can be reduced to the firing of c-fibres in the brain. But not all materialists think this is the case. Some materialists defend a version of the supervenience thesis, according to which mental properties depend on physical properties but cannot be reduced to them. Both the reductivist and the non-reductive physicalist are monists about mental substances (i.e. neither of them endorses the existence of thinking substances) but differ on claims about the relation between minds and bodies. Contrastingly, the substance dualist thinks that mental properties can only be explained by positing a further substance, namely, some kind of non-material substance. And so, we have at least three approaches to the question of the relation between mental and physical states: supervenient-monism, reductive-monism, and substance-dualism. A parallel set of responses might be offered in discussing social realities. For instance, individualism, analogously to materialism, claims that social explanations require no appeal to additional substances or forces to make sense. But this does not entail reductivism about social realities, either. For if we endorse a supervenience thesis, then we need not think that social realities and individual realties are in conflict. In other words, for the non-reductivist: no social realities without individual realties. If the relationship between social realities and individual persons is one of supervenience, then we would be mistaken, thinks Pettit, if we were to focus our discussion on the question of which of these enjoys causal priority. If social regularities supervene on individual intentionality in a non-reductive way, then the question of causal competition is eliminated. Thus, while individualism of this variety does claim that individual persons are the most basic building block of social reality, it does not follow, as some have supposed, that social realities reduce to claims about individuals. A more robust account of this thesis will be developed in the next chapter.

⁵⁴ McLaughlin and Bennett, 2018.

⁵⁵ This is List and Pettit’s analogy (2011: 3–5).

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Before considering an individualist account of social wholes, we should quickly note that individualism does not entail the defence of atomism. That is, if one keeps the vertical issue and the horizontal issue apart, then one can affirm that human thinking is dependent on thinking in community and supervenes on relations with others. But this need not entail that a person is committed to thinking that ‘the aggregate regularities that characterise social life leave the individual uncompromised in her autarchical status.’⁵⁶ In other words, ‘The endorsement of holism is entirely consistent with accepting the intentional-psychological picture of human beings.’⁵⁷

5. Clarifying the Debate The most valuable insight afforded by Pettit’s discussion, I think, is the helpful pulling apart of individualism and atomism. Much of the prior discussion can be sharpened by interpreting it through this lens. For instance, to return to our initial discussion of John, we can see that one interpretation of the apparent disagreement between Byers and Bauckham is to note that Baukcham endorses individualism and Byers endorses holism, along with a realist ontology of communities. If Pettit is right, then these positions are not in conflict at all. That is, one can claim, with Bauckham, that individuals are the most basic building block of social reality and take precedence over communities, but also agree with Byers that human beings are irreducibly communal and that talk of communities is not reducible to individual explanations. Similarly, we can claim that Kierkegaard was right in aiming to draw the individual from the crowd (which is precisely Bonhoeffer’s worry in insisting that the human person is structurally closed), but still argue that the human capacity to think is dependent on social relationships.⁵⁸ Defending individualism and holism allows the theologian to have their cake and eat it, so to speak. That is, it allows us to affirm the priority and importance of individuals without losing the emphasis on the community. Similarly, Bonhoeffer’s resistance to the Hegelian notion of structural openness shows that individuals enjoy a kind of priority in our thinking which means that we should reject the notion that individuals and collectives can come apart. But this does not mean that we must think of collectives as some metaphysically spooky entity to add to our

⁵⁶ Pettit, 1996: 173. ⁵⁷ Pettit, 1996: 173. ⁵⁸ In fact, I think this is Kierkegaard’s thesis. See his discussion of the self ’s relatedness in The Sickness Unto Death, for instance.

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ontology.⁵⁹ Rather, all social realities supervene on individuals without being reducible to them. However, we must ensure we proceed with caution in applying these arguments to theology. Given the definition of individualism above, there might be concerns that it rules out too much.⁶⁰ More specifically, the definition may seem to rule out the possibility of appealing to divine action in social explanations, especially if we stress the importance of excluding ‘psychologically mysterious social forces’, to use List and Pettit’s phrasing. Pettit also claims that ‘evil demon complications’⁶¹ would undermine his defence of individualism. This seems worrying, especially if we think that that divine agency could, in principle, override or outflank individual agency. One way to respond to this worry is to endorse the thesis of libertarianism about freedom of the will. In her Thomistic account of love, for instance, Eleonore Stump thinks that for God to be united with a person, Paula, there must be two operative wills: God’s and Paula’s. She writes, no one else can fix Paula’s will for her either, not even God. To the extent to which God fixes Paula’s will, he wills for Paula a certain state of Paula’s will. But, then, to that extent, what is in Paula is God’s will, not Paula’s . . . . if God determines Paula’s will, then the only will operative in Paula is God’s will. In that case, there will not be two wills to bring into union with each other . . . . Union between Paula’s will and God’s will is not established by such means; it is obviated or destroyed.⁶²

On Stump’s account of soteriology, Paula must come to a point of quiescence, in which her will ceases to resist God, such that God can bring about the condition of faith in Paula. This is a much-contested aspect of Stump’s account.⁶³ The point for our purposes is not to defend Stump’s account of libertarian free will, but to note that if one were to defend this view, one could easily endorse Pettit’s account of individualism. For on Stump’s account, while God influences the will of an individual, God never overrides or outflanks their will. And thus, we can retain the integrity of human agency, even if God is omnipotent. Or, one might endorse William Alston’s ‘interpersonal mode’ of the Holy Spirit’s indwelling, in which, God relates ‘to the human person as a ⁵⁹ In a recent article, Simeon Zahl (2021) has argued that the debate between ‘individualism’ and ‘communalism’ in Pauline studies rests on an oversimplification of both positions. ⁶⁰ Thanks to Derek King for this objection. See King (2021) and Crisp (2022) for a development of this objection. ⁶¹ Pettit, 1996: 155. ⁶² Stump, 2010: 158–9. ⁶³ See Kittle, 2015.

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person, influencing the human being as one person influences another (albeit making use of some of His extraordinary powers in doing so), seeking to evoke responses, voluntary and otherwise from the other person, somewhat as each of us seeks to evoke responses from others.’⁶⁴ On both accounts, individual agency is influenced by divine agency, but never overridden. However, adopting such an account of libertarianism will strike many as problematic. We might think, for instance, that Paul’s dramatic conversion on the road to Damascus (Acts 9:1–19) is clearly a case in which Paul’s will is overridden by God. For some, the admittance that God can’t bring about faith in Paul is too high a price to pay in order to retain the autonomy of the individual. Luckily, there is a more straightforward approach, which I think can ensure that the central thrust of Pettit’s distinction is retained without wedding our view to libertarianism and quiescence. That is, we might claim that individualism rules out the overriding or outflanking of a person’s will by social aggregate forces but remains agnostic on whether an individual’s will is ever overridden or outflanked by divine agency. It is important to see that what Pettit’s individualism seeks to rule out is the kind of emergent or dualistic social theory that dominates nineteenth- and twentieth-century social theory. But whatever the causal power of divine agents in social explanations is, it seems strange to think of their status as akin to aggregate social regularities. The agency of the Holy Spirit is not akin to the agency of an impersonal and elusive social Geist. The persons of the Trinity are persons and agents, capable of acting within social groups and causally affecting individuals. A social ontology that refers to the persons of the Trinity but excludes appealing to the social Geist is broadly within the spirit of individualism, I think, even if many of its proponents may be sceptical of allowing divine agency to feature in such explanations. In other words, the thesis defended in this book is that there is nothing more to the community of the Church than the agents that comprise it. This claim is true so long as ‘the agents that comprise it’ include both divine persons and human persons.

6. Conclusion In this chapter, I have argued that the apparent conflict in thinking about the relationship between the individual and the community is superficial. Many of ⁶⁴ Alston, 1989: 236.

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the objections of those who reject individualism can be levelled at atomism, but do not seem to undermine the thesis of individualism. Indeed, we have seen several reasons for adopting an individualist thesis; Christ encounters individuals, transforms individuals, and brings them in new social relations in the community of the Church. As Bonhoeffer maintains, without a notion of the ‘I’, it is hard to make sense of the Christian view of the God-relationship or the community of the Church. But this individualist thesis does not mean that human thought and action is not enmeshed and intertwined in sociality, nor does it follow that social groups are not real. To some, this might seem like an incidental or peripheral thesis to the central argument of the book. However, it is crucial to see that if the assumptions outlined in this chapter are false then we cannot make much progress with the task of analytic ecclesiology, at least as I conceive it. Thus, in what follows, I offer a model of the Church and its oneness which assumes the truth of both holism and individualism. And as we will see in the next chapter, an individualist starting assumption in no way undermines the possibility of offering an account which takes seriously the oneness of the Church in Christ. It is to this task we now turn.

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2 One Spirit The Church as a Group Agent

1. The Unbearable Paradox of Ecclesiology Given the presuppositions outlined in Chapter 1, we are now in a position to consider what kind of social reality the Church is and to begin the task of offering a model of the one Church. This chapter aims to explore the role of the Holy Spirit in uniting the Church as one body.¹ The oneness of the Church is an article of faith. In reciting the words of the Nicene- Constantinopolitan Creed, we confess to believing in ‘one holy catholic and apostolic Church’. As T.F. Torrance’s observes, ‘the clauses on the Church . . . follow from belief in the Holy Spirit, for the holy church is the fruit of the Holy Spirit . . . If we believe in the Holy Spirit, we also believe in the existence of one Church in the one Spirit.’² Put another way—the Church is not an organization instituted and maintained by human beings striving to act as one body (even if the majority of its members are human beings). Rather, the Church is a body instituted and directed by the one Spirit, through whom all its members are united. But in confessing this oneness of the Church through the work of the Spirit, we may be struck by the fact that the one Church doesn’t appear to be one at all. In the words of the Anglican theologian Paul Avis, Ecclesiology wrestles with the truth that the church is at one and at the same time both united and divided. It knows itself to be united in Christ; its unity is part of its confession; but it also knows itself to be lamentably divided . . . the fact of the fragmentation of the one church is the almost unbearable paradox that confronts ecclesiology.³

¹ This chapter adapts some material from previously published work (see Cockayne 2019a, 2020a). It is reused with permission. ² Torrance, 2016: 252. ³ Avis, 2018: 24.

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0002

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It is this paradox that this chapter seeks to address, and in doing so, it begins to offer a model of the one Church. Put simply, the paradox that confronts us is this: How can we hold that the Church is a single, united body, while acknowledging that its outward forms suggest otherwise?⁴ Even if we know that the answer is by the one Spirit, the precise relationship between these seemingly disparate members and the purportedly united social whole seems unclear. However, in many respects, questions concerning social ontology and the relationship between members and social groups are not unique to the Church. There are many groups which we describe as united in diversity, and capable of acting together, despite being fragmented. We talk of governments, nations, and corporations as united agents, capable of acting, holding beliefs, and being held responsible. We also sometimes talk of social wholes as acting together despite disagreement and diversity—indeed, the very task of ruling as a democratically elected government is surely to remain united in spite of disagreement. Analytic philosophers have sought provide explanations of this kind of group-talk. While we must proceed with caution in applying these explanations to the Church (or else risking thinking of the Church as a wholly human institution), there is great promise in the task of analytic ecclesiology. The model defended in the next two chapters seek to shed light on what it means to think of the Church as one body united through the power of the Spirit. This chapter will focus specifically on the issue of unity through the Spirit, and the next on being united as the body of Christ. Drawing on work in contemporary analytic social ontology, I offer a model of ecclesiology which serves to make clear what it means to think of the Church as one in Christ through the power of the Spirit and how those who are members of the body might go about the task of discerning this Spirit. Before we turn to these issues, we first begin by considering the New Testament witness to the unity of the Church through the Spirit.

2. The Church as the Body of Christ through the Agency of the Spirit There are a number of places where something like a social ontology is offered in the New Testament in explaining the nature of the Church and the relation ⁴ Note that it is clearly possible that not all of these self-identified members of the Church actually belong to the Church, and there are some ecclesial traditions which will simply deny that there is any substantial schism in the true Church. The unbearable paradox of ecclesiology which Avis describes here will not arise if one thinks that the Church is undivided. In this case, one’s ontology of the Church will be relatively straightforward. Yet, any ecclesiology which recognizes these diverse groups as belonging to the Church in some way, must wrestle with the issue of how to reconcile such division with an account of unity.

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between members and its whole. Typically, these explanations proceed by way of images—the Church is described as a temple of the Holy Spirit built of many individual bricks,⁵ a household constructed of many stones,⁶ as a nation or city of which there are many citizens,⁷ and as the body of Christ, in which its members are body parts.⁸ This chapter and the next focus on the last of these images, and particularly how Paul’s use of the image of the Church as Christ’s body is outworked in 1 Corinthians. As I will show, Paul is borrowing from socio-political discussions of unity, while pressing beyond these accounts to make substantial theological claims concerning the Church’s unity in Christ. First, note that in providing an account of social unity, throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul borrows from political philosophical arguments and terminology to make theological points. The term ‘ekklēsia’, translated in English as ‘church’, has political resonances. The term was commonly used in Greek to refer to an ‘assembly of the free-men of a city who were entitled to vote. In a more general sense, it describes any public assembly.’⁹ Thus, when Paul uses the term ‘church of God’, ‘ekklēsia’ tou theou’ in 1:2, he is already employing an overtly political term to refer to the Church. As both Margaret M. Mitchell and Dale Martin have argued in detail, throughout 1 Corinthians Paul is drawing from the political philosophical thought of ancient Greek literature.¹⁰ In chapter 1 verse 10, for instance, there is evidence that the language of unity and diversity, and the command to be of the ‘same mind’ and ‘same purpose’ can be found put to similar rhetorical uses in contexts of political disagreement. The pairing of ‘same mind’ and ‘same purpose’ is sometimes paired in political texts; in fact, this verse ‘is filled with terms which have a long history in speeches, political treatises and historical works dealing with political unity and factionalism’.¹¹ Thus, in reaching the image of the body of Christ in chapter 12, where Paul’s account of unity is filled out in most detail, the readers have already become familiar with thinking of the Church through this political lens. The metaphor of society as a body was common in political and philosophical literature; particularly in the Greco-Roman homonoia discourses (speeches used at times of political strife to urge the city or state to remain unified and that all members of the polis remained in their proper place). Mitchell writes ⁵ ⁶ ⁷ ⁸ ⁹

1 Corinthians 3:10–17; 1 Corinthians 6:18–20; 2 Corinthians 6:14–18. Ephesians 2:11–20; 1 Timothy 3:14–15; 1 Peter 2:3–8. Hebrews 11:8–16; Hebrews 13:7–16; 1 Peter 2:9–10; Revelation 21:9–27. Romans 12:3–8; 1 Corinthians 12:12–31; Colossians 1:18–20; Colossians 3:12–17. Schnabel, 2012: 105. ¹⁰ Mitchell, 1993; Martin, 1999. ¹¹ Mitchell, 1993: 79.

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that there can be ‘no doubt that 1 Cor. 12 employs the most common topos in ancient literature for unity’.¹² The well-known fable of Menenius Agrippa (which may have its origins in Aesop’s fables), for instance, ‘tells of a revolt of the hands, mouth and teeth against the belly, thus weakening the whole body’.¹³ As Mitchell notes, Paul’s use of the metaphor of the body is not just similar in form, but also in detail; many of the homonoia discourses employing this metaphor use the same body parts as Paul (hands, feet, eyes, ears), and employ a similar rhetorical strategy of personification.¹⁴ Paul evidently borrows from political philosophy to emphasize the unity of the Church in terms very similar to the unity of any other social body. Yet, he is also keen to stress that in other respects, the social ontology of the Church is unlike that advocated by political texts. In addition to borrowing from these texts, Paul also subverts the expectations of those familiar with this genre of writing. Whereas the body metaphor was typically used to keep lower-class citizens in their places, Paul uses the metaphor to reverse the worldly ‘attribution of honor and status’.¹⁵ Paul repeatedly emphasizes that the seemingly lesser parts of the body ought actually to be held in higher esteem (12:23–4)— thus arguing that the perceived hierarchy of political status is only surface level.¹⁶ We can see this contrast between political and ecclesial social ontology starkly in verse 12; the expectation, especially given the use of the political metaphor, might be that this verse should finish, ‘just as the body is one and has many members . . . so it is with the church’.¹⁷ Instead, Paul finishes this sentence: ‘so it is with Christ’. Paul is here borrowing from the metaphor of the body but also pressing us to move beyond metaphor—this is an ontological statement about the relationship between the members of the Church and Christ. Importantly for our purposes, as we see in verse 13, the oneness of the community comes not from any human organization or structure, but rather from the work of the Holy Spirit, whose activity brings about a unity in Christ. As we will explore in Chapter 4, the work of the Spirit is in some ways similar to that of bestowing citizenship on the members of the Church, such that they can be thought of as belonging to the one body. Thus, we can be confident in asserting that ‘unity does not come through human organisational structures’, ¹² Mitchell, 1993: 161. ¹³ Mitchell, 1993: 157–8. ¹⁴ Mitchell, 1993: 159. Those familiar with Plato’s Republic will see the obvious points of connection—Plato thinks of the structure of polis as analogous to the structure of the individual, and of discord in each as the source of injustice. ¹⁵ Martin, 1999: 96. ¹⁶ Martin, 1999: 94. ¹⁷ Hays, 2011: 213.

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   

we cannot force our own ‘brand of “spiritual unity” on the church as simply another human machination’.¹⁸ Instead, the unity found in the Church can only be understood as arising from the work of the Spirit in the community. As Paul’s discussion of Spiritual gifts earlier in 1 Corinthians 12 suggests, the Spirit’s work is not confined to admitting members into the Church; the Spirit is describing as giving ‘varieties of gifts’ (12:4) to the members of the Church, such that they can function as one body. Put simply, the Church’s unity is rooted in the work of God, not in human structures. The emphasis on unity through the work of the persons of the Trinity is seen plainly in Paul’s application not of Greco-Roman texts, but of Jewish texts. Just as John employs oneness language to emphasize the grounding of the Church on the work of God, Paul alludes to the Shema throughout 1 Corinthians.¹⁹ There is ‘one God’ and ‘one Lord, Jesus Christ’, Paul tells us in 8:6 and we eat of ‘one bread’ (10:16) in our celebration of the Eucharist. Chapter 12 repeats this emphasis on oneness—the ‘one church’ is the work of the ‘one Spirit’ (12:12–13), as we constitute the body of the [one] Christ (12:27). As Byers puts it, Paul is affirming ‘the emergence of a new social construct’, which, unlike the Greco-Roman polis, is founded on and united in ‘the singularity of the one God and Christ (and their one Spirit)’.²⁰ In other words, while there are clear similarities between the community of the Church and other kinds of social community, it is important to see that the Church’s unity comes not from human structures and the externally imposed ideologies of politicians, but only through the work of the one Spirit, who unites the one Church with Christ, the one Lord.²¹ How, then, might we think about the nature of the Church as a human community that is united in and through the lordship of the Holy Spirit? Just as Paul uses the socio-political thought of his time to outline his ecclesiology, we now turn to consider the application of contemporary analytic work on the nature of social groups.

3. Group Realism Expanded It is commonplace for us to talk about social groups as if they are capable of acting, holding beliefs, and being held responsible. We talk as if organizations ¹⁸ Fee, 1987: 607. ¹⁹ Byers, 2016: 517. ²⁰ Byers, 2016: 532. ²¹ Tom Greggs puts the point succinctly: ‘Although the church shares in many—if not all—of the characteristics of other organizations, its primary existence is ultimately distinct from every other expression of human sociality. The church comes into being as an event of the act of the lordship of the Holy Spirit of God who gives the church life’ (Greggs, 2019: 2).

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are responsible for causing oil spills in oceans, as if political parties can hold to racist viewpoints, and we find ways of holding both of these kinds of groups to account in our legal systems. But why think that these ways of talking track reality in any way? Anthony Quinton pushes this point forcefully: We do, of course, speak freely of the mental properties and acts of a group in the way we do of individual people. Groups are said to have beliefs, emotions and attitudes, and to take decisions and make promises. But these ways of speaking are plainly metaphorical. To ascribe mental predicates to a group is always an indirect way of ascribing such predicates to its members . . . To say that the industrial working class is determined to resist anti-trade union laws is to say that all or most industrial workers are so minded.²²

The kind of group reductionism endorsed here by Quinton misses something important about the social world in reducing group talk to individual talk. As the ethicist Peter French argues, this reductive approach is problematic. He writes that “The Democratic party nominated George McGovern” is not reducible to a series of statements about the votes cast by each member of the party. Each delegate at the national convention casting a vote for McGovern was, we assume, behaving in a standard and acceptable fashion; that is, each voted for the candidate he favoured and that is precisely what delegates are expected to do. The fact that McGovern was nominated . . . was the result of the way the Democratic Party was then organized.²³

French’s point is simply this: to reduce group talk to individual talk is to miss something vital about the way in which these individuals are structured in relation to the group, without which, we cannot understand the actions described by group talk. If group reductionism is true, then we cannot hold corporations responsible for their actions, or place ethical demands on political parties, but we can only dictate what individual members of these groups can or should do. The challenge, then, is to specify what a non-reductive group realism might consist in.

²² Quinton, 1975: 16.

²³ French, 1984: 14–15.

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   

First, we must get clear on precisely what kind of group we are talking about, before we can think more carefully about the ontology of that group. Consider the following taxonomy of social groups: Coalition: A group with a shared goal, but without a joint decisionmaking procedure. For example, ‘environmentalists’, ‘the oil lobby’, ‘democracy-promoting states’, ‘conservatives’.²⁴ Combination: a group ‘constituted by agents who do not together constitute a coalition or a collective. Examples of combinations include “men” (since common advantage does not suffice for a common goal), “humanity”, “the international community”, “the people in this pub”, and “me, you, and Shakespeare”’.²⁵ Collective: a group ‘constituted by agents that are united under a rationally operated group-level decision-making procedure that can attend to moral considerations’.²⁶ For example, the British government is constituted by the ministers of the cabinet, who, through a series of group decision-making procedure, deliberate on the ‘best’ course of action for the country.²⁷ While we talk of all of these kinds of groups as if they are capable of acting and/or holding beliefs, we cannot give the same kind of explanation for each. For when we talk of the beliefs of coalitions and combinations, it is difficult not to agree with the reductive assessment that these groups merely have certain attitudes in virtue of their members’ attitudes. To say that ‘the people in this pub believe in cask ale’, is not to pick out any entity in particular; it is merely a shorthand way of summarizing the beliefs of a combination of people who are coalesced in the same space.²⁸ But the reason the example of ‘The Democratic Party’ stands as a counterexample to the reductivist is precisely because the Democratic Party is a collective, rather than a coalition or a combination. More specifically, the Democratic Party is capable of acting in certain ways (such as by electing a presidential candidate) by means of its decision-making procedure (by voting in primaries, in this example). Moreover, it is capable of holding to certain beliefs and values, say, by adopting a charter or constitution. One important

²⁴ Collins, 2019: 16. ²⁵ Collins, 2019: 20. ²⁶ Collins, 2019: 12. ²⁷ Note: this taxonomy is not intended to be exhaustive. ²⁸ Collins argues that it only makes sense to think of collectives as responsible agents for this very reason—for only collectives can be said to be capable of acting as a whole, rather than as summations of individual actions.

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feature of collectives to notice is that group attitudes do not easily reduce to individual attitudes. For instance, a government can hold that some course of action is preferable, even if its members don’t unanimously agree, such as the British government’s commitment to ‘get Brexit done’, despite the divergent commitments of individual cabinet ministers. A committee can recommend a policy, even if its votes are split 90/10. More positively, an organization can act as a single body even if its employees take on vastly different roles; indeed, it might sometimes aim to compensate for too much of one kind of employee by employing someone with vastly different values, to better reflect the diversity of the organization as a whole. This point will be especially pertinent when we come to consider the ontology of the Church, in which a variety of roles and giftings can contribute to the work of the one Church. We can think of collectives in non-reductive terms (unlike combinations and coalitions) because they have decision-making structures which enable them to perform actions (such as ‘getting Brexit done’) or hold to certain attitudes (such as the government’s stance on which kind of Brexit is preferable for the public), which are not the mere summation of the members’ actions and beliefs. That is, collectives can, in some circumstances, meet the conditions for agency. Agency, on such an account is thought of in functionalist terms; endorsing a functionalist account of group agency does not commit one to saying that groups have conscious states; as Deborah Tollefsen puts it, ‘[i]f you are a person who thinks that propositional attitudes are states only of phenomenally conscious beings, then group mental states are going to be a particularly difficult thing for you to swallow.’²⁹ Nor is the ascription of agency to a group an ascription of personhood.³⁰ However, it does commit one to saying that groups are the kind of things which can hold propositional attitudes such as beliefs. Let us consider a functionalist account of agency in more detail.³¹ According to List and Pettit, who outline one of the most influential accounts of group agency, for something to count as an agent it must meet the following criteria:

²⁹ Tollefsen, 2015: 53. ³⁰ However, there are accounts of group agency that also include claims about group personhood. On List and Pettit’s account, for instance, a person is a morally responsible agent. If group agents can meet some minimal conditions for moral responsibility (e.g. having the ability to do otherwise and attend to moral reasons) then that group can be thought of as a person. The issue of whether the Church ought to be considered a person is not something I explore in this book, although there is an important theological tradition which thinks of the Church as a person. For instance, Bonhoeffer describes the Church as a collective person. Even if we were to agree with Bonhoeffer, it seems clear that a collective person is vastly different from a human person. One particular distinction is that human persons are generally phenomenally conscious and collective persons are not. ³¹ By functionalism, I refer to the view ‘that mental states are to be defined in terms of what they do rather than in terms of their physical make-up’ (Tollefsen, 2015: 69).

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    (1) ‘It has representational states that depict how things are in the environment.’³² (2) ‘It has motivational states that specify how it requires things to be in the environment.’³³ (3) ‘It has the capacity to process its representational and motivational states, leading it to intervene suitably in the environment whenever that environment fails to match a motivating specification.’³⁴ (4) ‘It displays at least a modicum of rationality’.³⁵

In the most straightforward case, we can see that you or I meet these conditions if we can form representational states about the world (e.g. I believe that there is beer in the fridge), if we have motivational states about our environment (e.g. I desire the consumption of delicious cold beer), I can act on these states (e.g. I am able to stand up, walk to the fridge, open said beer and drink), and I can do this with a minimum level of rationality such that it is clearly true that I am the agent of beer drinking (e.g. I am not acting by means of random muscle spasms).³⁶ Let’s consider another example. Since agency is thought of in functionalist terms, anything that can meet the criteria above should be thought of in agential terms. Consider the difference between my robot vacuum cleaner, Roomba, and a standard vacuum cleaner. Roomba, unlike the standard vacuum cleaner, has representational states concerning its environment (e.g., that Roomba is 1cm from the edge of the room), motivational states (e.g., it is programmed that if it comes 1cm from the edge of the room it should turn around), and it can act on these with a minimal level of rationality (e.g., it can use its motor to move away from the wall). If the regular vacuum cleaner happens to stop at the edge of the room because its cord runs out of length, we don’t think that the vacuum cleaner is the cause of this action in the same manner as Roomba’s programming. The reason for this, List and Pettit think, is that Roomba is an agent and my vacuum cleaner isn’t. Since functionalism does not specify the ‘precise physical nature of intentional states’, but only ‘the appropriate functional role’,³⁷ this functional role could be fulfilled by a human being, a goldfish, a robot, or even a group of individuals. ³² List and Pettit, 2011: 20. ³³ List and Pettit, 2011: 20. ³⁴ List and Pettit, 2011: 20. ³⁵ List and Pettit, 2011: 36. ³⁶ Similarly, French stipulates that agents must display the capacities for intentionality (i.e. they must do something for a reason or purpose), rationality (i.e. they must be responsive to arguments that concern these reasons), and they must be able to respond to criticism (i.e. they must be capable of adjusting their actions accordingly) (French, 1984: 10–12). ³⁷ List and Pettit, 2011: 21.

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Given this account of agency, we can now consider how a group can be considered an agent.³⁸ Just as Roomba can form motivational and representational states through its software and hardware, a collective can be considered an agent if its group decision-making structures combine to meet the conditions for agency. Typically (although as we will see shortly, not always), collectives meet these conditions through the intentional group action of its members. In such cases, a group of individuals ‘intend that they together act so as to form and enact a single system of belief and desire, at least within a clearly defined scope; they each intend to do their own part in a salient plan for ensuring group-agency within that scope, believing that others will do their part too.’³⁹ For instance, when a government holds a vote on whether or not to adopt a certain strategy, it adopts a decision-making procedure which determines the motivational and representational states of the government. If a group of shareholders decide that a company must adopt a more inclusive stance to certain minorities, the company forms motivational and representational states on the basis of these shareholder decisions. Note that this will not require that each individual is an ‘equal and willing partner’ in the composition and actions of the group.⁴⁰ In fact, members of collectives usually have different roles, depending on their status within that group. Members of collectives typically take two kinds of roles: namely, authorizing and acting. If an individual takes an active role, then they act with ‘full awareness for the pursuit of the group’s ends’.⁴¹ That is, they act wholly or partly on behalf of a group when they act. However, the individual might also take an authorizing role; that is, they might simply accept the group as an agent and allow the group to speak on behalf of its members, such as in the case of being a member of a trade union.⁴² In such a case, someone is the member of a group, yet their own actions and intentions play no direct role in the actions of that group. As List and Pettit summarize,

³⁸ List and Pettit situate their functionalist account in between two extremes, which they label authorization accounts and animation accounts. Authorization accounts can typically be found in discussions of early modern political philosophy such as Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, and JeanJacques Rousseau. For instance, the citizens of a state authorize an individual (such as a monarch), or a small group (such as an aristocracy) to speak on behalf of the state. On such accounts, group agency arises due to a group of individuals collectively authorizing some individual (or group of individuals) to act on their behalf. Animation theorists such as Otto von Gierke, J.N. Figgis, and F.W. Maitland, do not defend non-redundant group realism, but they do reject individualism. Such theories claim that grouplevel agency emerges from a collection of individuals through some mysterious force or spirit. List and Pettit think their functionalist account is a middle position which is non-redundant (unlike authorization accounts) but individualist (unlike animation accounts). ³⁹ List and Pettit, 2011: 34. ⁴⁰ List and Pettit, 2011: 34. ⁴¹ List and Pettit, 2011: 35. ⁴² List and Pettit, 2011: 35.

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    In a jointly intentional group agent, the two types of members are typically present and often overlap. In a participatory group like a voluntary association, members have the same status within the group agent; they equally authorize the group agent and take roughly equal parts in acting on its behalf. In a hierarchical organization, such as a commercial corporation or a church, there may be differences in the members’ roles, for example through holding different offices or through belonging to subgroups with different tasks.⁴³

For List and Pettit, the question of a group’s forming motivational and representational states and acting on the basis of these states is fairly straightforward. Any system of voting or management structure will allow these conditions to be met by collectives. The more difficult criterion to satisfy, they think, is that of group-level rationality. Many groups fail to meet this criterion because they run into problems of group aggregation, or so List and Pettit argue.⁴⁴ As we will see shortly, problems of group aggregation don’t appear to be worrisome in a social group like the Church. For if the Church is to be considered a united group it certainly isn’t through the aggregation of its members’ voting.

4. Group Realism and the Church Having outlined the key points of functionalist social ontology, let us turn to consider how this might apply to the ontology of the Church. First, it is important to recognize that if we are to think of the Church on the taxonomy identified previously (coalitions, combinations, and collectives), we should think of the Church as a collective. Recall Blumhardt’s remarks from Chapter 1, namely, that the Church’s oneness only arises when what you believe I believe and what I believe you believe. With more precise terminology on the nature of social groups we can see that on this position, the Church is united only when its members share a commitment to a certain set of beliefs, say, the beliefs of Christian orthodoxy; in other words, the Church is thought of as a coalition, in which unity comes through a commitment to a shared goal ⁴³ List and Pettit, 2011: 36. ⁴⁴ In general, List notes, the way to overcome group aggregation problems is to think more carefully about institutional design in group decision-making (List, 2011: 239). That is, to give an account of consistent group decision-making, we need to give a clearer account of the nature and systems involved in group agents.

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or set of values. But we can also now see why this way of thinking about the Church is problematic; for in Tom Greggs’ words: ‘The being of the church is not held in the particular contingent phenomena of the church’s forms; the being of the church is held in the constancy of the Holy Spirit.’⁴⁵ A social ontology of the Church must give primacy to the Spirit’s agency and only an account of the Church as a collective can make sense of this. For collectives, unlike combinations and coalitions, are united by their organizational structure and decision-making procedures, rather than by any shared goals, commitments, or accidental properties of their members. Note that this doesn’t mean that there aren’t any obligations for members to believe and act in certain ways, but that the unity of the group is not dependent on these individual actions. Another important thing to notice about collectives is that they allow us to distinguish between the beliefs of the group and the beliefs of a group’s members. However, even if it is clear that the Church should be considered as a collective, the application of functionalist ontology to the Church is not straightforward. List and Pettit, for instance, spend a considerable amount of time offering an account of the deliberative processes by which corporations and organizations can meet the conditions for agency with violating the group-rationality criterion. While some of this may be relevant to thinking about the work of gathered church communities, it looks like a poor fit for explaining the agency of the Church as a whole.⁴⁶ For while committees and hierarchies undoubtedly play a role in the decision-making processes of individual churches and denominations, it would be strange to suggest that such processes have much to do with the actions of the one Church. If we are members of the Church as a collective, then clearly none of us has a particularly active role to play in the Church’s agency. This is a point Evelyn Underhill makes vividly: This total liturgical life of the Corpus Christi is not merely a collective of services, offices, and sacraments. Deeply considered, it is the sacrificial life of Christ Himself; the Word indwelling in His Church, gathering in His eternal priestly action the small Godward movements, sacrifices, and aspirations of

⁴⁵ Greggs, 2019: 19. ⁴⁶ I think List and Pettit’s account actually is relatively well suited to thinking about agency in the gathered Church, a point we’ll return to in Chapter 6. Indeed, List and Pettit even suggest that such an application may be appropriate in writing: ‘In a hierarchical organization, such as a commercial corporation or a church, there may be differences in the members’ roles, for example through holding different offices or through belonging to subgroups with different tasks’ (List and Pettit, 2011: 36).

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    ‘all the broken and the meek,’ and acting through those ordered signs and sacraments by means of these His members on earth . . . . Hence the corporate worship of the Church is not simply that of an assembly of individuals who believe the same things, and therefore unite in doing the same things. It is real in its own right; an action transcending and embracing all the separate souls taking part in it. The individual as such dies to his separate selfhood— even his spiritual selfhood—on entering the Divine Society: is ‘buried in baptism’ and reborn as a living cell of the Mystical Body of Christ.⁴⁷

Put simply, the worship of the Church is not some summation of the deliberating processes of the gathered churches and individuals who belong to it. And so, a functionalist ontology that emphasizes the aggregation of the Church’s members will be severely limited in its application to ecclesiology. Instead, Underhill claims, Christ acts through those ordered signs and sacraments by means of these His members on earth. This notion can provide a helpful point for thinking about what participation in the Church consists in, in such a way that does not reduce to authorization, but which does not depend too heavily on human agency either. For even if the decision-making procedures of the Church are not aggregative, it does not follow that the Church cannot meet the conditions for agency in some other way. We can reflect on this point indirectly by reflecting on some examples which display some important similarities to the Church. First, consider the case of the nest finding rituals of honeybee colonies in early spring: It is a long-standing empirical fact that, in late spring or early summer, a colony of honey bees that has reached a certain size tends to divide itself: the queen leaves with roughly two thirds of the worker bees, and a daughter queen stays behind in the parental nest with the rest of the worker bees. How does the swarm that has left the colony find a new home? Empirical work . . . has revealed a mechanism involving a “search committee” of several hundred bees—the scouts—[who] fly out to inspect potential nest sites and then come back and perform waggle dances to advertise any good sites they have discovered. Initially, the scouts visit and inspect sites randomly, but once the dancing activity has built up, they are more likely to visit and inspect the sites advertised by others. Back at the swarm, each bee dances for the site she has inspected, with the duration of the dance depending on her perception of the ⁴⁷ Underhill, 1936: 86.

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site’s quality: the better the site, the longer the dance. Thus high-quality sites receive more advertisement and are visited by more scout bees, which in turn generate even more dance activity for these sites. The process eventually leads to a “consensus”: The dancing and visiting concentrates on one popular site, and the swarm moves there. . . . The striking empirical fact is that, when different possible nest sites vary in quality, the bees usually choose the best one.⁴⁸

What is striking about this case is that the colony of bees appears to meet the conditions for agency in virtue of these strange rituals and primitive forms of communication.⁴⁹ In fact, in this case the colony as a whole appears to have a more complex decision-making procedure than any of its constituent members. Thus, even though little or no joint intentionality is taking place in the bee colony, the bees display evidence of agency at a group level. Could such a possibility help to explain the agency of the Church? In List and Pettit’s words, ‘It is harder to imagine, though not conceptually impossible, that nature or culture could work to a similar effect on human beings, eliciting coalescent agents.’⁵⁰ A second example may press the point in terms more familiar. Consider the ever-powerful bastion of all things tasteful in contemporary cinema, namely, the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU). For those readers who are blissfully unaware (may it remain so) of this global takeover of cinema in the past decade, Marvel has constructed a ‘shared universe’ consisting of as many as twenty-four films to date, along with countless television series. The release of a new addition to this ever-expanding world is shrouded by mystery, even to some of its key players: Gwyneth Paltrow was allegedly unaware that she’d appeared in one of these movies. Key plot-points are often hidden from actors, because of the fear that these representatives of the MCU will prematurely release details ahead of time. The MCU functions as a collective; it has a group-level decision-making procedure, to which its constituent members contribute with varying levels of awareness. Indeed, many of those acting on behalf of the MCU do so in obedience to their superiors, with little awareness of how their actions contribute to the group. The overarching decision-making is not made by the actors and film crew, even if these are the outward facing cogs by which the universe operates. Thus, there is a unity of action, despite a ground-level ignorance of how this unity is achieved. For unity to be possible, ⁴⁸ List, Elsholtz, and Seeley, 2009: 755–6. ⁴⁹ To consider this example in more detail, see Seeley (2001).

⁵⁰ List and Pettit, 2011: 33.

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   

the members need to act in accordance with some plan. Moreover, there are times in which these ignorant constituent members of MCU act in defiance of the masterplan, inadvertently releasing key plot-points ahead of time, as in Mark Ruffalo’s slip that ‘everybody dies’ in the next movie. In such cases, Ruffalo acts as a member of and on behalf of the MCU, but he does so in such a way that diverges from the will of the primary decision-making procedure of the group.⁵¹ Whenever the group acts in a uniting manner, it does so by the rational decision-making procedure of its top-level decision makers, yet whenever the organization acts in a disuniting manner it does so in virtue of its disobedient members, who ignore the orders of their superiors. Yet, even when actions are rogue in this way, they contribute to the actions of the group as a whole.⁵² Note that unlike the case of the honeybee colony, in the case of the MCU there may be some basic level of joint intentionality between agents at a group level. However, it is still the case in this example that the decision-making processes of those in positions of power is what allows the group as a whole to function as an agent. The coordinators of the group’s action provide instructions and guidance to those on the ground level, but those who participate at the ground level act with no awareness of just how their actions contribute to the actions of the group. It is only through the contribution of all the members that the necessary intentional states arise—both the coordinators and the enactors are necessary for allowing the group as a whole to act with the relevant motivational and representational states. The above models have some potential to help us understand the agency of the Church as a collective. Like overpaid actors from the MCU enacting the agency of the group through obedience to a set of instructions, one way we might think of the Church as a united agent is in virtue of our obedience to the instructions of the Holy Spirit. In participating in the actions of the Church, members do not always act in full awareness of how their actions contribute to the actions of the Church as a whole. As Underhill stresses, Christ acts by means of the actions of the Church’s members (something we will consider more closely in Chapter 3). Just as it is the job of the directors and producers of the MCU to unite the actions of the members into a coherent group action, and to shape and instruct those on the ground level, the Holy Spirit might be thought of as providing an analogous kind of unity in the Church. When

⁵¹ With thanks to Jonathan Rutledge for suggesting this example. ⁵² This example is an adapted version of List and Pettit’s terrorist cell example (List and Pettit, 2011: 33).

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things go well, the Spirit, by guiding and shaping our actions unites them in line with the will of Christ, the head of the Church. Thus, we can affirm that the primary agents in the Church’s worship are divine agents, while still affirming that our contribution in participating in this worship requires more than authorizing Christ to act on our behalf.

4.1 Redundant Group Realism and the Social Ontology of Dictatorships Before turning to consider some more practical issues concerning how the members of the Church can discern the work of the Spirit, it will be important to consider one clarification that comes in applying functionalist social ontology to the Church. One limitation of the above models for thinking about the Church is that they emphasize the actions of individuals (i.e., in submitting to the Spirit or responding to the Spirit’s promptings), rather than focusing on the actions of the Holy Spirit as the source of the Church’s oneness. Thus, thinking only in these terms risks obscuring an important theological point about the role of the Spirit in the Church. Succinctly put, in Greggs’ words, ‘Although the church shares in many—if not all—of the characteristics of other organizations, its primary existence is ultimately distinct from every other expression of human sociality. The church comes into being as an event of the act of the lordship of the Holy Spirit of God who gives the church life.’⁵³ More clarity on the role of pneumatology in the Church is needed if we are to think carefully about its unity. Returning to the discussion of social ontology will help us to say something more constructive about just how a single person (i.e. the Spirit who unites our actions in Christ), might be thought of as the primary agent in a social whole (i.e. the Church). However, as soon as we begin to specify the role of the co-opting agent in the previous examples, we are met with the difficulty of explaining how the whole derives its unity from one individual while retaining a truly social ontology. Consider List and Pettit’s remarks on the nature of dictatorships, for instance: Although some group agents may exist by virtue of the authorization of an individual spokesperson, this case is degenerate, since everything the ⁵³ Greggs, 2019: 2.

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    recognition of such a group agent entails is already expressible in an individual-level language . . . . The realism appropriate in relation to this kind of group agent is a thin and relatively redundant one, compared to the nonredundant realism we defend more generally.⁵⁴

The problem, as List and Pettit see it, is that group agency which is rooted in individual agency is metaphysically redundant in important ways. If decisionmaking is the result of one individual in a group (such as a dictator), then it becomes difficult to distinguish between the actions of the group and the action of the dictator. In other words, the actions of the dictator just are the actions of the group. This worry looks more severe when applied to the context of the Church. For if we affirm that the unity of the Church comes through the agency of the Spirit, and that members act akin to script-following actors or impulsefollowing honeybees, then we are forced to admit that rather than talking about the mystical unity of the whole body, we might as well speak of a corporately empowered individual (to borrow List and Pettit’s phrase), namely, the Holy Spirit. Thus, the examples used previously risk collapsing the Church’s ontology into the ontology of the Spirit. Instead, I think, we need a social ontology of the Church which takes seriously the primacy of the Spirit’s agency, but which doesn’t collapse into a metaphysically redundant account of the Church’s social reality. Putting the point theologically, we need to make some distinction between the work of the Holy Spirit and the being of the Church; in Greggs’ words, ‘while the Spirit is the sine qua non of the church, the church is not the sine qua non of the Spirit’.⁵⁵ One way of meeting this challenge is to think more broadly about what counts as a group agent for the functionalist. While List and Pettit admit that some groups meet the conditions for agency without group-level aggregation, it is clear that their primary concern is to discuss those groups which employ a rational decision-making procedure, involving a number of individual agents. What they fail to attend to is that even in metaphysically thin group agents such as dictatorships and tyrannies, there are clear differences between grouplevel decisions and individual-level decisions. Consider an example from Stephanie Collins which can help illustrate this: Collective Rescue. There are six strangers at the beach. One is drowning and the others are sunbathing. Each sunbather has the goal that the swimmer be ⁵⁴ List and Pettit, 2011: 7–8.

⁵⁵ Greggs, 2019: 15.

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rescued, each believes that every sunbather has this goal (and each therefore believes each has prudential reason to do what they can towards this), and each is disposed to act responsively to the others (insofar as they encounter one another) to realize the goal. All of this happens via their exchange of concerned expressions. They are a coalition. The swimmer can be reached only with a motorboat. It will take two people to drag the boat to the water and hold it while a third starts it. The boat will take off straight away, so the fourth and fifth, who will pull the swimmer into the boat, must already be in the boat . . . . Each sunbather is wholly unknowledgeable about rescuing swimmers—except Laura. All see the drowning, but only Laura knows what any of the required individual actions are. Thankfully, Laura knows what all the required actions are. Laura asks if any of the others know what to do and receives puzzled looks in response. So she starts instructing one to drag the boat, one to pull the starter cord, and so on. At each instruction, Laura checks that the relevant beachgoer is willing and able to follow the instruction. Each commits (if only tacitly) to follow her instructions and each supposes the others have too. Laura’s instructions divide the necessary actions among the sunbathers. Each performs the action that Laura instructs him or her to perform, because Laura has instructed it. The swimmer ceases drowning.⁵⁶

According to Collins, the reason that this account does not imply the kind of metaphysical redundancy which List and Pettit describe is that the ‘the decision-procedure is group-level (and not merely Laura-level) in that the beliefs and desires that Laura takes as inputs when she is deciding for the group are different from the beliefs and desires that she would take as inputs if she were deciding for herself.’⁵⁷ In other words, the decisions that Laura makes as the leader of the group are different from those she would make if she were acting as an individual. She acts on behalf of the group in structuring the actions of individuals to bring about the rescue. In particular, when acting on behalf of the group, she takes the desires of others into consideration, she makes decisions which are properly sensitive to the capacities and situations to all of the group’s members and she uses the others of the group to achieve the group’s ends. Put simply, while ‘[t]he group’s attitudes . . . fully track Laura’s attitudes . . . this is only true of Laura’s attitudes qua leader’.⁵⁸ So while it’s true that the group-level decision-making is entirely in Laura’s head, it is not true

⁵⁶ Collins, 2019: 108–9.

⁵⁷ Collins, 2019: 167–9.

⁵⁸ Collins, 2019: 167–9.

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   

that the decision of the group collapses into Laura’s decisions, since even in this case Laura must take a role within the group. On Collins’ more permissive account of functionalism, tyrannies and dictatorships can be collectives and they can do this in a non-redundant way. As she describes, ‘a group can have a distinctive decision procedure even if the group has a leader who instructs all the others such that the decision-making procedure is housed in the leader’s head.’⁵⁹ On her account, all that is needed to give a non-redundant group ontology of a dictatorship is that, ‘Nondecision making members (i) are committed to the procedure and (ii) have inputs into the procedure, at last [sic] in the minimal sense that they could leave if they wanted to.’⁶⁰ While Collins admits that many actual dictatorships fail to meet (i) and (ii) (e.g. because agency is enforced rather than opted-into), this is not because the ontology of dictatorships must lead to metaphysical redundancy. The difference between List and Pettit’s ontology and Collins’, then, is that for Collins, we can distinguish between individual attitudes to beliefs/actions and group attitudes to beliefs/actions, even if these are entirely in the head of one individual. The reason this is non-redundant is because we can distinguish between Laura qua individual and Laura qua leader.

4.2 The Benevolent Dictator: Group Agency in the One Spirit Collins’ picture of collective ontology in which decision-making is rooted in the decision-making of one individual helps to focus our ontology of the Church away from the members of the Church and onto the agency of the Holy Spirit, but contrary to List and Pettit’s concerns, it does so in a way which allows us to distinguish between the agency of the Spirit in the Church and the agency of the Spirit more generally. The example of Laura and the collective rescue has some promise, I think, for thinking about the kind of agency the Spirit employs within the Church. Unlike the previous examples we have considered, in Collins’ example, agency is rooted not in organizational structures, but in relationship. The reason the beach rescuers can act as a collective is because of Laura’s interaction with each individual and her coordination in bringing the preferences of all together into group-level actions. And although the decision-making procedure which unites the group is located in Laura’s head, the inputs and outputs of the group’s

⁵⁹ Collins, 2019: 166.

⁶⁰ Collins, 2019: 166.

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actions and decisions lie beyond Laura. This example speaks more specifically into the how of pneumatological ecclesiology. Whereas previous examples left unsaid just how the Spirit acted as the primary uniting agent of the Church, an ecclesiology drawn from the Collective Rescue example stresses that the Spirit, attentive to the particularity of the Church’s members (including the needs and desires of every individual), seeks to guide the members of the Church to act as the one body of Christ and to direct their actions through the Spirit’s indwelling. Yet, as in the collective rescue case, the Spirit’s agency is not exhausted by fulfilling the desires and needs of the individual members, but the Spirit also pursues the good of the collective; the Church must act as one body of Christ in unity with the will of Christ and not merely for the good of its members. It follows on this picture that the human acts of the Church cannot be synonymous with the divine actions in the Church. While the Spirit employs and uses the outward manifestations of the Church, it is the Spirit’s agency and not these human manifestations which are the locus of unity. Put in philosophical terms—the attitudes of the collective are not identical to the attitudes of the sum of its members’ attitudes. A collective ontology rooted in the will of a single decision-making person, the Holy Spirit, emphasizes that unity is not equivalent with shared beliefs or shared actions, but only arises through the agency of the Spirit. Drawing the insights of ecclesiology and social ontology together, here is a picture which, perhaps optimistically, considers what a true unity in the Church might consist of: Collective Rescue 2. There are millions of individuals who belong to the one Church. Some worship in formalised, institutional churches, others in nondenominational contexts. Each member of the Church has the goal that God’s kingdom come (broadly construed), each believes that every other member has this goal (and each therefore believes each has prudential reason to do what they can towards this), and each is disposed to act responsively to the others (insofar as they encounter one another) to realize this goal. But no one of them can fully realize this goal or see how to achieve it. Each Church member is unknowledgeable about how to bring about the ends of God’s kingdom. All see some of the problems the Church faces, but only the Holy Spirit knows what any of the required individual actions are. Thankfully, the Holy Spirit knows what all the required actions are. Moreover, the Spirit works in the lives of individual members and communities to orientate them towards these required actions. The Spirit starts guiding one to serve the

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    needs of local community estate, one to write profound and beautiful liturgies, and so on. The Spirit also indwells each member of the Church, shaping their desires and aligning their will with that of Christ’s. Each member commits (if only tacitly) to follow the will of the Spirit and each supposes the others have too. The Spirit’s guiding and shaping divides the necessary actions among the members of the Church. Each performs the action that the Spirit guides him or her to perform, because the Spirit has instructed it. The kingdom of God comes.⁶¹

This picture paints an image of how true unity in the Church might come about, namely, by discerning the will of the one Spirit and acting in accordance with the will of the Spirit in union with Christ. Here the analogy with honeybees becomes helpful in expanding the account. In faithfully responding to the will of the Spirit, it might be possible for us to move from merely following the instructions of the Spirit, to instinctively coordinate with other Spirit-filled Christians. Unlike the MCU, however, this may not require any immediate awareness of the work of the Spirit, but, rather, in responding obediently to God, we might, like honeybees, unite in ways more profoundly than we are capable of reflecting upon. Thus, the work of the Spirit is twofold: (i) the Spirit takes a guiding role by revealing the will of Christ through prayer, Scripture, and by relating to the other members of the Church (i.e. in a similar way to the communication of the MCU group coordinators), and (ii) the Spirit takes a shaping role, by means of the Spirit’s indwelling the individual believer, the Spirit shapes the actions of individuals in ways they may be unaware of, to conform to the will of Christ (i.e. in a similar way to the biological impulses and primitive communication of honeybees). These models can help us to see how human participants in the Church might contribute to the agency of the Church as a whole.

4.3 Polity and Discernment in the Life of the One Church On the model of the Church as a collective grounded in the agency of the Spirit, the primary means of manifesting the unity of the Church is to submit to the will of the Spirit. As Paul stresses in 1 Corinthians 12, this means that the whole body is needed, including the weaker and inferior parts (12:14–20)

⁶¹ My adaptation of Collins’ example (Collins, 2019: 108–9).

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in order to be the body of Christ through the ministry of the Spirit. It appears to follow from this, as Brian Brock and Bernd Wannenwesch have argued, that Because the apostolic ministry belongs to the church as a whole, its particularity and uniqueness ensures that no other ecclesial role or office can claim to be such a complete representative of the body. It is on the basis of this claim that Paul, as an apostle can definitively state that any structure of governance built around the idea of agents who completely represent the respective bodies for which they are responsible must be called worldly.⁶²

If this is right, then it might be assumed that a pneumatological ecclesiology entails a kind of congregationalist view of polity, according to which every member of the Church has an equal say in the discernment of the work of the Holy Spirit. There is some truth in this notion, even if it cannot provide the full picture. As I will argue in Chapter 7, individual members need to discern the work of the Spirit to hold the Church to account when things go wrong, and to thereby protest unjust forms of governance within the Church. Each member of the Church has a responsibility to discern the work of the Spirit and to ensure that the Church acts accordingly. However, none of the above need imply that all hierarchical structure and governance in the Church is thereby ruled out. Nor does it apply that every member of the Church has the same role in participating in the life of the Church. I have already admitted to being an ordained Anglican who has made an oath to be obedient to a bishop. How is this compatible with the emphasis on the Spirit as the primary locus of unity? We can answer this question by considering the Anglican theologian Richard Hooker’s work on Church polity. Whilst Hooker defends the ecclesiastical polity and governance of the Church of England, he is clear that we cannot confuse such structures with the Church of Christ. As Hooker describes it, the Church of Christ which we properly term his body mystical, can be but one, neither can that one be sensibly discerned by any man, inasmuch as the parts thereof are some in heaven already with Christ, and the rest that are on earth (albeit their natural persons be visible) we do not discern under this property, whereby they are truly and infallibly that body. Only our mind by intellectual conceit are able to apprehend, that such a real body there is, a ⁶² Brock and Wannenwesch, 2018: 100.

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    body collective, because it contains an huge multitude; a body mystical, because the mystery of their conjunction is removed altogether from sense.⁶³

Hooker makes clear that there is only one Church and that the limits of this Church are determined and known only to God. In the one mystical body of Christ, Hooker thinks, there is no need of external polity: ‘That very part of the law divine which teaches faith and works of righteousness is itself alone sufficient for the Church of God in that respect.’⁶⁴ But this does not mean that some structure of governance is not required in the outward manifestations of the one Church. Given our fallible and limited understanding, we are in need of structures of governance, through which God can work, Hooker thinks. We need some means by which the Church can assemble and have fellowship, and in which the sacraments can be practised. Hooker argues that it is vital that such polity has a grounding in Scripture and theological tradition, but he resists that claim that there is one system of governance which represents the one Church. He writes that, ‘Just as speech is necessary but not all must speak the same language’, ‘the necessity of polity and regiment in all Churches may be held, without holding any one certain form to be necessary in them all.’⁶⁵ Or, to put the same point differently, ‘Just as multiple, valid secondary moral principles can be derived from primary moral axioms, the same is true for church government.’⁶⁶ The point is merely that some form of governance is needed in the imperfect structures of the Church, even if no one of us can claim to have infallible authority concerning which structures. In fact, for Hooker, these visible forms are the limit to what we can know of the mystical Church before the eschaton, since the members of the mystical Church are known only to God.⁶⁷ Thus, as Christopher Insole has argued, it seems implied by Hooker’s ecclesiology that ‘the entire historical visible Church may actually be smaller than the invisible; or at least, that in its glory and consummation in Christ, the invisible Church may be more universal and inclusive than we dare to hope.’⁶⁸ Paul Anthony Dominiak has recently offered a compelling analysis of the centrality of the theology of participation in Hooker’s account of church polity in Laws. As Dominiak argues, participation is crucial for seeing the relationship between the polity and structure of the visible Church and the one Church of Christ; ‘there is an asymmetrical “inherent copulation” and

⁶³ Hooker, 2013: vol. 1, book III.1, 138. ⁶⁴ Hooker, 2013: vol. 1, book III.11, 184. ⁶⁵ Hooker, 2013: vol. 1, book III.2, 146. ⁶⁶ Dominiak, 2019: 158. ⁶⁷ Dominiak, 2019: 162. ⁶⁸ Insole, 2004: 56.

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“mystical conjunction” between the two such that the saved are raised into the glory of the exalted Christ as far as their human nature permits.’⁶⁹ Thus, the contingent and mediatory structures of the visible Church must still emphasize that Christ is the head of the Church and these structural forms must remain ‘disposed towards the end of sacramental union with Christ through sanctification’.⁷⁰ Yet, these structures themselves, even the sum of them, cannot be identified with the mystical Church; ‘the sole and immediate political principle of the mystical Church is Christ, rather than a mediatory and contingent temporal polity such as in the visible Church.’⁷¹ This need not mean that the visible Church is only a work of human agency, however. For Hooker, as Dominiak summarizes, ‘human reason (inspired by the Holy Spirit) leads the visible Church; . . . the utility, benefit and popularity of a custom testifies to its provisional truth and, through a communication of idioms, lends to it divine authority as the mediation through which eternal law reads itself into the world. The laws of the Church are then said to be authored by God, where the life of the Church demonstrably conforms to the activity of the Holy Spirit.’⁷² Take the case of the ordination of priests, for example (which we shall return to in Chapter 6). Hooker writes that when we take ordination we also receive the presence of the holy Ghost partly to guide direct and strengthen us in all our ways, and partly to assume to itself for the more authority those actions that appertain to our place and calling . . . Whether we preach, pray, baptize, communicate, condemn, give absolution, or whatsoever, as disposers of God’s mysteries, our words, judgements, acts and deeds, are not ours but the holy Ghost’s.⁷³

Hooker thinks there is a need for the Church to discern those whom God is calling to ordained ministry, and that through the ministry of the sacraments, God will work through the ministers of the visible Church to bring about his purposes. Some caution is needed not to overstate the point. As Dominiak is keen to press, Hooker’s view of authority does not eliminate the need for divine agency in the Church, whereby we reduce ‘it or its bishops merely into being a locus of repressive temporal, authority’. Instead he writes, for Hooker,

⁶⁹ Dominiak, 2019: 157, quoting from Hooker, 2013: vol. 2, book V.56.1; V.56.7. ⁷⁰ Dominiak, 2019: 158. ⁷¹ Dominiak, 2019: 158. ⁷² Dominiak, 2019: 165–6. ⁷³ Hooker, 2013: vol. 2, book V.77, 288–9.

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    the political character of the visible Church ennobles it and its orders as a creative co-participant in the unfolding of the eternal law in the world and the contiguous desire to participate in God . . . The visible Church is a mediatory, penultimate and historically contingent institution open to creative variety and change. It is also a participant in the providential and ultimate ratio of God, the end of which is heavenly union and the present of which is temporal authority.⁷⁴

This brief reflection on Hooker’s account of polity is not intended to be a defence of Anglican hierarchical structures. Rather, the point is to emphasize that even for a hierarchical account of Church governance, it is still the case that the Holy Spirit is the primary agent and the locus of unity in the one Church. Hooker’s emphasis on the visible Church shows that this attempt to discern the work of the Spirit in the outward forms of Church structure may take many forms and shapes. But some kind of polity has to be in place in order for a community to make decisions, authorize ministers, and gather to worship, even if this is a minimal voting procedure amongst members. The emphasis on pneumatology expressed in this chapter seeks to stress, as Hooker is keen to point out, that these structures of polity cannot be confused with the one Church, even if they help to facilitate its life and our participation in the one Church.

4.4 Rogue Agency and the Sin of the Church Finally, we conclude by acknowledging that the very structures which were designed to discern and enact the will of the Spirit in the outward forms of the Church have become malignant, serving to advance sinful human aims, rather than perfect divine aims. In Bonhoeffer’s words, ‘Among human beings there is no such thing as a pure, organic community life. The peccatorum communio [community of sin] continues to coexist within the sanctorum communio.’⁷⁵ While we will address the problem of injustice in the worship of the Church in more detail in Chapter 7, it is worth briefly considering the implications of sin for our account of social ontology here. Stressing the important role of the Holy Spirit’s communicating the will of Christ becomes important. Like members of the MCU, who can respond faithfully or unfaithfully to the instructions of their coordinators (recall ⁷⁴ Dominiak, 2019: 172.

⁷⁵ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 213.

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Ruffalo’s spoilers), we can respond faithfully or unfaithfully to the instructions of the Holy Spirit, whether we are authorized ministers in a hierarchical system or non-ordained members of the Church. Disobedient members of the Church act like rogue agents in the case of a terrorist cell or intelligence agency. Rogue agents act on behalf of a group, yet they depart from the will of the group’s decision-making procedures. It might be possible for rogue agents occasionally to act accidentally in line with the will of their coordinators. For instance, the producers might feed Ruffalo false information knowing that he is liable to inadvertently let red herrings slip on Twitter. But more often, rogue agents act in defiance of a group’s will and against a group’s good. Rogue agents act from a sense of feeling more important than they actually are, and as considering themselves more informed about the will of the organization than they actually are. What could be a better picture of the defiance of individuals within the Church? Instead of submitting to the will of the Spirit, who unites our actions in ways unfathomable to us, all too often we assume that we have grasped the will of Christ sufficiently to act in our own strength. While these rogue actions might still be regarded as broadly under the umbrella of the Church as a group agent, they are contrary to the will of Christ, manifested by the instruction of the Spirit.⁷⁶ And thus, since it is plainly the case that the Church often diverges from the will of the Christ, despite his desire for unity, we can regard the Church as sinful, as well as united. Moreover, we must see that the concept of rogue agency doesn’t apply only to individuals. Indeed, the comparison with script-leaking actors understates the seriousness of the situation. To lament of the Church’s sinfulness is not merely to point to a handful of rebellious individuals; the abuse and damage caused by those who supposedly represent the Church is often systemic, rotting entire congregations and denominations. These are rogue group agents, that rather than submitting their communities to the will of the Spirit for the good of the Church, seek instead to inflict unimaginable pain and suffering on those they were called to protect. To describe the Church as sinful is to acknowledge that many of the agents (both group and individual) that constitute the Church have defied the goodness of God. There are difficult questions that arise from reflecting on such points. As William J. Abraham asks, ‘What should we do when the church fails, when ⁷⁶ It is important to not overstate the case on rogue agency. As stated previously, the above examples serve as models to help us to see the role of the Spirit in uniting the Church. They are not intended as explanations of the Church, nor do they capture all aspects of the mysterious life of the Church. Instead, they intend to shed light, albeit indirectly, on the reality of the Church and the work of the persons of the Trinity within it.

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   

savage wolves show up and ravage the flock? Put more dramatically, what does God do when the church fails?’⁷⁷ Recognizing that there is no simple answer to these questions, Abraham reflects, Surely we must sympathize with those who love and even worship Jesus Christ but who have been beaten, scourged, rejected, and even killed by the church? Surely, we can identify with and hear even now the legitimate complains of those who are glad followers of Christ but reject the church because of her disobedience and failure? Once we grant this dysfunction, then we cannot construe the church as an extension of the incarnation, simplicter; nor can we see the church as doing what Jesus Christ has done uniquely for the salvation of the world. If we do not acknowledge this distinction, we shall be tempted to glamourize and idolize the Church.⁷⁸

The distinction Abraham makes here is important—to recognize that the persons of the Trinity are the primary agents at work in the Church does not mean that the Church is identical with the persons of the Trinity. Indeed, we must acknowledge that many who act on behalf of the Church act in defiance of the perfect goodness willed by Christ through the Holy Spirit. And as we will explore in some detail in the final chapter of this book, there are times that the reality of the Church’s sin calls for its members to protest at the acts performed on their behalf.

5. Conclusion While the Church has many similarities with other social collectives—it is constituted by diverse groups of people, with diverse beliefs and backgrounds, and is united together to act as one—it is a form of community which is importantly different from any social or political body. For the Church’s unity comes not from any human social endeavour but from the work of the one Spirit. I’ve argued that contemporary social ontology can help give precise language to some of these distinctions and to affirm the doctrine of the Church found in the New Testament. Thus, the task of ecclesiology, on the ground, so to speak, is that of discernment. That is, the Church must discern the will and instructions of the Spirit as they relate to the will of Christ and seek to live faithfully in light of this discernment. This must ultimately be done in the ⁷⁷ Abraham, 2018: 201.

⁷⁸ Abraham, 2018: 203.

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community and for the community. As we proceed to expand an analytic ecclesiology, this point will become increasingly important. However, the model as I have presented it so far is not yet complete. For, as we shall see in the next chapter, the Holy Spirit does not unite the members of the Church to act as a social reality akin to any organization or group; rather, this social reality is united to act as the body of Christ in the world.

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3 One Lord Jesus Christ The Church as the Socially Extended Body of Christ

1. The Church as the Body of Christ The social ontology of the Church, as I have presented it so far, provides an account of how the work of the Holy Spirit might allow the Church to be one, despite the apparent diversity of its outward forms, thereby offering a model of the Church’s oneness. According to this model, the Church is a social body which, like many other social bodies, derives its unity from its ontology. But it is also unlike many other social bodies in that its ontology is not best explained by appealing to a series of human hierarchies and structures, but rather, it is a work of divine agency. The Holy Spirit indwells the members of the Church, uniting them as one body by directing and shaping their actions. But it is not only the work of the Spirit which distinguishes the Church from any other social body; the Church is a social whole which is, in some sense, identified with the body of Christ. What this sense of identification amounts to is the focus of the present chapter. The thesis of this chapter is that the Holy Spirit’s work in uniting the Church as a group agent somehow makes it the case that the Church is the body of Christ. Or, to put the point differently: in participating in the Church, an individual thereby participates in the body of Christ. These are curious claims, metaphysically speaking. For how can a group of human beings participate in the body of another human being? To complicate things further, this is a body that, assumingly, we cannot see, hear, or touch, even if we think it is corporeal in some way. Analytic theologians have devoted considerable time to exploring how contemporary analytic philosophy can help provide models for thinking about various metaphysically mysterious claims found in Christian doctrine, such as the hypostatic union, or the relations between the persons of the Trinity, and the notion that the consecrated elements of the Eucharist are the body and blood of Christ. These doctrinal claims appear to be no more puzzling than the metaphysical claim that the Church is the body of Christ. Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0003

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And yet, this claim has gone almost entirely ignored in the analytic tradition.¹ As I will show in this chapter, despite a lack of focus on the question of the relation between Christ and Church in analytic theology, thankfully we are not starting from scratch in exploring this doctrine philosophically. Indeed, much of the metaphysical work which has been written on the aforementioned doctrines of Trinity, Incarnation, and Eucharist can be of service to ecclesiology. In particular, I will argue, recent work which seeks to explain the metaphysics of the Eucharist and the Incarnation by drawing from the philosophical literature on extended cognition provides a helpful starting point for thinking about the relation between Christ and the Church. In a nutshell, the claim of this chapter is that the Church is a social extension of Christ’s body, in an analogous way to the extension that some theologians have thought obtains between Christ’s body and the consecrated elements of bread and wine.² Through the work of the Spirit (as described in Chapter 2), the Church, at least partly, constitutes the body of the risen and ascended Christ.

1.1 Participation in the One Body of Christ As we have seen (see Chapter 2), the Pauline images of the Church as Christ’s body employ political and rhetorical literature for a theological purpose. But as we have also seen, Paul’s use of the body analogy subverts many of the expectations of his readers and he goes on to make substantive ontological claims about the relationship between the Church and Christ’s body. This is made most evident in 1 Corinthians 12:12, in which the image of the body is put to use making substantive theological claims about the relationship between Christ and the Church. As Richard Hays describes it, Exegetes have long debated whether the designation of the church as “the body of Christ” is for Paul a mere metaphor or a mystical reality. The truth is that this is a false dichotomy; Paul would probably not understand the terms ¹ One exception is Alejandro Zafeiropoulos’s (2020) discussion of constitution accounts of the Trinity in application to the Church. However, Zafeiropoulos does not explore the relation of the Church to Christ. In his recent book, Oliver Crisp (2019) has also offered a model of participation which shares some features with the model presented in this chapter. I explore Crisp’s claims at various points in this chapter, but his concern is not primarily with ecclesiology. More recently, Crisp (2022) has offered an analytic account of the Church in conversation with my earlier writings on the topic. ² As with the social ontology advanced in Chapter 2, this account is not intended to function as a final or complete explanation of the Church’s metaphysics. It is, rather, an attempt to provide something like a just so story for how it might be the case that the Church as a group agent can be identified as the body of the risen and ascended Christ.

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    in which the problem is posed. Certainly “body of Christ” is a metaphor; just as certainly, Paul believes that this metaphor illumines the truth about the church’s union with and participation with Christ. The church is not merely a human organization; rather, it is brought into being by the activity of the Holy Spirit, which binds believers into a living union with the crucified and risen lord.³

The identification of Christ’s body with the Church (‘you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (1 Cor. 12:27)) is a metaphysical claim about the relationship between the crucified, risen, and ascended Christ and the community of the Church, who are made one by the Spirit. Moreover, while Christ’s body is identified with the Church, the image describes Christ as retaining oversight or control of his body. The Christ Hymn of Colossians depicts the Church as Christ’s body, but makes clear that Christ is the head of the body (Col. 1:18); the source of wisdom in the body of the Church comes through participating in the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 2:16). The claim that the Church is the body of Christ has been significant not only for the study of the Church but also in discussions of soteriology and Christology.⁴ It will be helpful to consider one such discussion in Gregory of Nyssa’s ecclesiology.⁵ For Gregory, the identity of the Church with Christ’s body is no mere metaphor; rather, it is an ontological claim concerning the reality of our unity with Christ through the Spirit; ‘by participation we are joined to the one body of Christ, we all become one body’.⁶ As José R. Villar describes, for Gregory, ‘The Catholic nature of the one Church of Christ distinguishes it from all the groups of heretics. It is a single Church, part of which lives on earth, while another part has already attained perfection in Christ.’⁷ Gregory’s short treatise, On Perfection, reflects on the relationship between the Church as the body of Christ and its relationship to Christ as the head of the body (Col. 1:18). It is crucial for understanding our participation by the Spirit in the Church, Gregory thinks, that the Church as the body derives its life from Christ, the head. He writes,

³ Hays, 2011: 113–14. ⁴ See Emile Mersch’s (2018) The Whole Christ for a comprehensive historical overview of different traditions that have discussed this claim. ⁵ With thanks to Derek King for several illuminating conversations on Gregory’s ecclesiology. ⁶ De Trinitate, 8:8 P. L, 87 (quoted in Mersch, 2018: 318). ⁷ Villar, 2016: 216.

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learning that Christ is the “head of the Church,” let this be considered before all else, that every head is of the same nature and the same essence as the body subordinate to it, and there is a unity of the individual parts with the whole, accomplishing by their common respiration a complete sympathy of all the parts. Therefore, if any part is divorced from the body, it is also altogether alienated from the head. Reason tells us through these words that whatever the head is by nature, this the individual parts become, in order to be in communion with the head. But we are the parts who make up the body of Christ . . . . In order for the body, therefore, to remain whole in its nature, it is fitting for the separate parts to be in communion with the head.⁸

For Gregory, the implications of this reflection are twofold: the parts of the body must be united to one another (if any part is divorced from the body, it is also altogether alienated from the head) and that these parts of the body must remain in communion with the head (in order for the body, therefore, to remain whole in its nature, it is fitting for the separate parts to be in communion with the head). The point of the emphasis on the head is not merely that Christ is the original source of the Church, but also that Christ is ‘its enduring source of life and unity; each member lives because it is connected to the head and partakes of the same life as the other members.’⁹ Moreover, as we see in the reflection above, the reason such unity is possible is because the head and its parts are of the same nature and the same essence as the body. For Gregory, it is through the humanity of the incarnate Christ that we are brought into unity with God.¹⁰ In his Catechetical Discourse, Gregory maintains that God’s descent to human nature was necessary because of our ‘pitiful’ and ‘wretched’ state.¹¹ Responding to the claim that God might have brought about our healing through divine fiat, Gregory emphasizes the need for salvation to come from within our nature, rather than externally.¹² As Athanasius put it, ‘the healer and Savior had to come among those who had already been created, to heal what existed. He became a human being for this, and used his body as a human instrument.’¹³ Our union with Christ’s common humanity means that the relationship between the head and parts is more intimate than union between two things of a different substance and nature.

⁸ Gregory of Nyssa, 1967, 111–12. ⁹ Villar, 2016: 221. ¹⁰ Similarly, in chapter 2 of Contemporary with Christ (Cockayne, 2020b), I explore the significance of the Incarnation for union with God. My contention is that the Incarnation brings about a kind of union in mutual empathy which would not be possible without Christ’s becoming human. ¹¹ Gregory of Nyssa, 2019: 15.3, 96–7. ¹² See Gregory of Nyssa, 2019: 14–17, pp. 96–103. ¹³ Athanasius, 2011: 44, p. 147.

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The identification with the Church and Christ’s body also has important implications for a person’s sanctification, for Gregory. As he goes on to claim in On Perfection, our participation in the Church through our sharing in Christ’s humanity by the Spirit brings about an ever-increasing transformation and unity. He writes, The apostle says that One is “the Head,” but “from Him the whole body (being closely joined and knit together through every joint of the system according to their functioning in due measure of each single part) derives its increase.” And it is fitting for this to be taught through the word “head,” for just as in the case of animals, the impulse towards action is given to the body from the head. The movement of the feet and the action of the hands control each act through sight and hearing and, if the eye is not directing or the ear not receiving guidance, it is not possible for any of the necessary actions to come about. Thus, it is necessary for us, also, to move our bodies in accordance with the true Head towards every action and undertaking . . . since the Head looks “to the things above,” it is entirely necessary for the members being in harmony with Him to follow His lead and to be inclined to the things above.¹⁴

Gregory emphasizes that the ontological reality of our union with Christ as Christ’s body means that we are being changed into the likeness of Christ.¹⁵ As Villar put it, ‘Every member has to be transformed into what the head is, so that the characteristics of the head can be seen in the members. Christ himself is formed in his members and reflected in his bride, which he has transformed by his power of making things divine.’¹⁶ Thus, as Gregory puts it in De Trinitate, our submission to Christ is crucial for our growing in likeness as the Church: The submission of his body is called the submission of the Son Himself, since He is united with His body, which is the Church . . . . Since He is in all, He takes into Himself all who are united with Him by the participation of His body; He makes them all members of His body, in such wise that the many members are but one body. Having thus united us with Himself and Himself

¹⁴ Gregory of Nyssa, 1967: 113. ¹⁵ The importance of imitation in our relationship with Christ is explored in chapter 5 of my book Contemporary with Christ (Cockayne, 2020b). Here I do not put the point in ecclesiological terms, but I think many of the conclusions are applicable to ecclesiology. ¹⁶ Villar, 2016: 221.

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with us, and having become one with us in all things, He makes His own all that is ours. But the greatest of all our goods is submission to God, which brings all creation into harmony. Then every knee shall bend in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord (Phil. 2:10). Thus all creation becomes one body, all are grafted one upon the other, and Christ speaks of the submission of His body to the Father as His own submission.¹⁷

Gregory’s use of the language of submission suggests that the ontological reality of our unity with Christ can be made manifest to greater or lesser extent in the outward workings of the Church. A distinction from Kathryn Tanner helps make sense of this. Tanner maintains that we can understand participation in two very different senses. In a weak sense, all human beings participate in God’s nature in virtue of being created beings who bear God’s likeness.¹⁸ But there is also a stronger notion of participation in which we are made like God through the humanity of Christ. This stronger notion of participation is exemplified in the Incarnation, Tanner thinks; ‘through unity with what is not human—the second person of the trinity—the human being, Jesus, is the perfect human image of God.’¹⁹ Therefore, Tanner argues, the implications for ordinary human beings are that rather than ‘trying to image the divine image in a created fashion’, we should instead aim to be ‘drawing near to the divine image, so near as to become one with it’.²⁰ Or, as Gregory puts it: ‘Now, how can you see a beautiful image in a mirror unless it has received the appearance of a beautiful form? So it is with the mirror of human nature: it cannot become beautiful until it draws near to the beautiful.’²¹ The identity of the Church as Christ’s body is both an ontological reality (weak participation) and a transformative process (strong participation); we are one with Christ and we are becoming like Christ in virtue of participating in Christ’s life. Thus, through Gregory’s exposition of the image of the body of Christ we are able to identify some important theological claims about the Church’s identity in Christ. For Gregory, it is through the ministry of the Holy Spirit that the Church is made to act in harmony with Christ, the head of the Church.²² Thus, ‘Christ and his Spirit act together to transform the whole of

¹⁷ De Trinitate, 8:8 P. L, 87 (quoted in Mersch, 2018: 318). ¹⁸ Tanner, 2010: 8–9. ¹⁹ Tanner, 2010: 13. ²⁰ Tanner, 2010: 13. ²¹ Gregory of Nyssa, 1995: 186. ²² Gregory of Nyssa, 2012: 15, pp. 295–7; Villar, 2016: 220.

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humanity and each individual in the body of Christ and thus restore God’s image in them.’²³

1.2 Identifying the Church as the Body of Christ We might ask, at this point, just what kind of relation is being described in claiming that Christ’s body is to be identified with the Church. Straightforwardly, this cannot be a numerical identity claim. The body of Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father, but the Church is not. As Bonhoeffer puts this point: ‘A complete identification between Christ and the church-community cannot be made, since Christ has ascended into heaven and is now with God, and we still await Christ’s coming.’²⁴ Just as the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church is not identical with the work of the Spirit simpliciter, we must ensure that an account of the Church’s metaphysics can recognize that Christ exists independently of the work and ministry of the Church, even if the Church participates in Christ in some important way. In other words, the relation between Christ’s body and the Church is asymmetrical. Yet, we must also avoid the opposite extreme, that of thinking of the Church and the body of Christ as entirely distinct. While it might be tempting to think of such claims as mere metaphor, to do so risks placing the emphasis on the Church’s existence as a human institution, devoid of any divine agency. Just as our metaphysics of the Incarnation must walk the narrow path in which both Christ’s human nature and divine nature are upheld in hypostatic union, our ecclesiology must uphold the tension between the Church as a creaturely community and the Church as a community that is identified with the body of Christ. Too strong an emphasis on either of these two extremes will result in a picture the Church which is at best incomplete. Stephen Pickard highlights the risk of these two extremes. Too close an identification between Christ and the Church results in a kind of ‘sacred inflation’ in which ‘the Church’s actions are overly identified with the acts of God’; thus, Pickard thinks, we are at risk of ‘falling into idolatry with respect to institutional structure, authority and actions’.²⁵ Contrastingly, the risks of constructing our ‘ecclesiology from below’ are that we end up with a kind of deism in

²³ Villar, 2016: 220.

²⁴ Bonhoeffer, 1998: 140.

²⁵ Pickard, 2012: 61–2.

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which ‘the Church is left to its own devices to figure out how to act and order its life’, independently of divine agency.²⁶ As we have seen from Gregory, the relationship between the Church and Christ is one of intimate union, yet one in which we can clearly make a distinction between Christ and the Church. In the model defended in the remainder of this chapter, I will argue that the Church is partially constitutive of the body of Christ, such that we can point to the Church and sensibly say: ‘There’s Christ’s body’, without picking out the whole of Christ’s body. In other words, whilst Christ’s body is not numerically identical with the Church, we can identify the Church as the body of Christ since the Church is united to Christ’s body. To provide a philosophical explanation of how this might be so, we will turn to the discussion of extension in the philosophy of mind.

2. Functionalism and Extended Minds In Chapter 2, in describing groups as agents capable of holding certain kinds of motivational and representational states, I endorsed a kind of functionalism about agential states. Such a view holds that these ‘states are to be defined in terms of what they do rather than in terms of their physical make-up’.²⁷ Representational states, thought of in functional terms, are realizable by a human brain, a self-righting robot, or a social group. In all these examples, a certain kind of state plays a broadly similar role in the overall system, namely, that of representing how things are in the world. Appealing to some version of functionalism raises a further possibility, namely, that human mental states are not always easily identifiable by looking only at the contents of a human skull. If mental states can be multiply realized, then we are not confined to thinking of function in restrictive terms. For example, we use devices external to the brain to perform cognitive processes all the time; smartphones, notebooks, and wristwatches form parts of processes which, at least functionally, appear similar to those we perform internally. Thus, the thought goes, if it is possible to replace some part of the internal mechanisms on which cognition supervenes with external artefacts and still perform the same cognitive functions, then it is difficult to see what grounds we can have for thinking that external objects cannot be thought of as part of the same cognitive system. This is intuition behind the thesis Andy Clark and David Chalmers have dubbed ‘active externalism’. In their words, in some cases, ²⁶ Pickard, 2012: 73.

²⁷ Tollefsen, 2015: 69.

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    the human organism is linked with an external entity in a two-way interaction, creating a coupled system that can be seen as a cognitive system in its own right. All the components in the system play an active causal role, and they jointly govern behaviour in the same sort of way that cognition usually does. If we remove the external component the system’s behavioural competence will drop, just as it would if we removed part of its brain. Our thesis is that this sort of coupled process counts equally well as a cognitive process, whether or not it is wholly in the head.²⁸

To flesh the thesis out more explicitly, consider the following examples Clark and Chalmers have us consider: (1) Inga hears from a friend that there is an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art [MOMA], and decides to go see it. She thinks for a moment and recalls that the museum is on 53rd Street, so she walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum. It seems clear that Inga believes that the museum is on 53rd Street, and that she believed this even before she consulted her memory. It was not previously an occurrent belief, but then neither are most of our beliefs. The belief was somewhere in memory, waiting to be accessed.²⁹ (2) Otto suffers from Alzheimer’s disease, and like many Alzheimer’s patients, he relies on information in the environment to help structure his life. Otto carries a notebook around with him everywhere he goes. When he learns new information, he writes it down. When he needs some old information, he looks it up. For Otto, his notebook plays the role usually played by a biological memory. Today, Otto hears about the exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art, and decides to go see it. He consults the notebook, which says that the museum is on 53rd Street, so he walks to 53rd Street and goes into the museum. Clearly, Otto walked to 53rd Street because he wanted to go to the museum and he believed the museum was on 53rd Street. And just as Inga had her belief even before she consulted her memory, it seems reasonable to say that Otto believed the museum was on 53rd Street even before consulting his notebook. For in relevant respects the cases are entirely analogous: the notebook plays for Otto the same role that memory plays for Inga. The information in the notebook functions just like the

²⁸ Clark and Chalmers, 2010: 9.

²⁹ Clark and Chalmers, 2010: 12–13.

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information constituting an ordinary non-occurrent belief; it just happens that this information lies beyond the skin.³⁰ The examples allegedly illustrate that external artefacts can play a role in cognitive processes (such as memory) in a way that it is, at least functionally, equivalent to cognitive processes performed without these artefacts. We are supposed to have the intuition that Otto’s notebook plays a functionally similar role to that of Inga’s brain in the process of remembering. If the task achieved by referring to the notebook occurred internally, we would have no hesitation saying that Otto remembered where MOMA was located. Thus, the thought goes, there is no functional difference between Otto’s and Inga’s memories. While there are clearly some differences between the mechanisms underlying Inga’s and Otto’s memories, Clark and Chalmers think, these differences are ‘superficial’; if we use the notion of belief in a broad functional sense, then we should agree that both Inga and Otto believe that MOMA is on 53rd Street. These observations lead them to formulate the following principle, which seeks to specify how we should think about the limits of cognitive systems: PARITY PRINCPLE [PP]: If, as we confront some task, a part of the world functions as a process which, were it to go on in the head, we would have no hesitation in accepting as part of the cognitive process, then that part of the world is (for that time) part of the cognitive process.³¹

PP attempts to capture the notion that while there are differences in how certain states are instantiated, so long as there is functional equivalence between certain tasks performed using external artefacts and performing these tasks using only the brain, then we should think of the mind as extended into these objects. While the thesis may seem far-fetched to some, we have already admitted in this book that social groups can coalesce to form an agent with representational and motivational states which are not identical to the states of their constituent members. If the group agency account is at all plausible, it does not seem much of a stretch to think that these states could also be instantiated by artefacts which are instrumentally united to an agent. At this point it may be possible to read too much into the active externalism thesis. Does the thesis admit that every use of external artefact counts as an extension of the limits of my mind? Not necessarily. To see why, consider the ³⁰ Clark and Chalmers, 2010: 12–13.

³¹ Clark, 2010: 44.

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difference between extension into an artefact (as in Otto’s case) and the mere use of an artefact (as in my use of the computer keyboard in writing this sentence). It is important to see that to count as a genuine case of cognitive extension, the connection between an extending entity and an external artefact must be sufficiently close such that it can play a functionally equivalent role in the cognitive system. Clark and Chalmers admit that there are not ‘categorical answers’ to all the questions about the limits of cognitive extension, and thus, it may be difficult to determine where exactly the limits of the mind are.³² However, they do think we can point to four features of the relevant examples which help show why these count as instances of extension, and why using an internet browser doesn’t entail that I believe the contents of the Internet. Tollefsen helpfully summarizes these features as follows: 1. The information must be readily available and typically relied on. Otto always uses his notebook and carries it with him. He appeals to it on a regular basis when asked questions such as ‘Do you know . . . ?’ 2. Information that is retrieved must be more or less automatically endorsed. Otto doesn’t constantly question whether his notebook is correct. 3. Accessibility. The information must be easily accessed. Otto’s notebook is with him at all times and easily accessed. 4. Finally, to avoid some obvious objections involving readily available books and internet search engines, the information contained in the resource must have been previously endorsed by the subject. It is Otto who places the information in his notebook. If it just appeared there we would probably not grant it the same status as that of a belief.³³ These features are intended to restrict the scope of the active externalism thesis to avoid the counter-intuitive consequence that any object we use becomes a part of our cognitive system. Put simply, the enabling entity must be integrated into the cognitive system such that the connection between the agent and artefact is sufficiently intimate.

³² Clark and Chalmers, 2010: 38. ³³ Tollefsen, 2015: 73 summarizing Clark and Chalmers, 2010: 38. Note, Clark and Chalmers think the fourth feature is the most contentious, but the other three clearly ‘play a crucial role’ in cases of cognitive extension (2010: 38).

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2.1 Bodily Extension and the Parity Principle Revised Thus far the discussion has focused primarily on the extension of minds. But the claim to be explored in this chapter concerns Christ’s body, rather than Christ’s mind (even if we want to say something about the mind of Christ eventually). While Clark and Chalmers focus primarily on the notion of extended minds, we might frame this discussion more broadly to think about extended bodies.³⁴ Consider the following case, for example: (3) After recovering from a debilitating car crash, Otto uses a prosthetic limb to enable him to walk. Apart from a few exceptions (sleeping, bathing, etc.), Otto’s prosthesis is in constant use; without it he cannot easily get around. Eventually, Otto starts to refer to the prosthesis as ‘my leg’. In this case, it seems plausible to think that just as Otto’s mind is extended into various artefacts, Otto’s body is here extended beyond its biological limits to include an artefact. The prosthesis is Otto’s leg precisely because it functions as his leg. Indeed, we would make no mistake if, on pointing to Otto’s prosthesis (assuming it is in use) we remark, ‘look there’s Otto!’ Borrowing from James Arcadi’s discussion of externalism, we might amend the PP to include this broader set of cases as follows: PARITY PRINCIPLE 2: If an activity were done by an extended entity alone, we would accept that this activity to be an extended entity process. If the activity were done utilizing an enabling entity, then that enabling entity is part of the extended entity process, and, for that time, the enabling entity is part of the extended entity.³⁵

Assuming PP2 is plausible, we can now see that some version of active externalism can be applied to extended bodies as well as extended minds. Employing PP2 to explain the above example, we might state: if walking were

³⁴ Note that while we might think of all activities as cognitive in some way, the move to broaden the parity principle here allows us to remain neutral on the question of which activities get to count as cognitive. The broader principle is perfectly compatible with thinking of all activities as cognitive, and also with the opposite view that some activities are cognitive, while others are not. ³⁵ Arcadi, 2018: 183. Here Arcadi is developing Susan Hurley’s terminology of ‘enabling entity’ and ‘extending entity’ (see Hurley, 2010).

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done by Otto’s body alone, we would accept walking to be a bodily process. If walking was done utilizing a prosthetic limb, then that prosthesis is part of the bodily process, and, for that time, the prosthesis is part of the extended entity.³⁶ The scope of PP2 is broad enough to include both bodily processes and cognitive processes. In all the examples cited thus far, the extended entities (Otto’s body and Otto’s mind, respectively) are able to perform various activities—walking (in the prosthetic leg example) and remembering (in the notebook example)—by the use of various enabling entities (Otto’s prosthesis and Otto’s notebook). Note, however, that unlike the discussion of cognitive extension, the limits of bodily extension may be more difficult to demarcate and so it may also be difficult to draw a hard and fast distinction between mere use and bodily extension. This much seems intuitive, however: extension appears to come in degrees. The relationship between Otto and his prosthesis is more intimate than the relationship between me and my bicycle. Not least because Otto cannot walk without his prosthesis, whereas I can get along just fine when my bicycle has a punctured tyre, or I decide to take the slower route to work by walking. Can we say anything more concrete about this difference? Arcadi attempts to make this distinction with appeal to Thomas Aquinas’ account of private ownership. As Aquinas puts it, ‘An axe is not the soul’s very own instrument, as its hand, for by an axe many can operate, but one’s hand is deputy to one’s soul in its very own operation.’³⁷ As Arcadi summarizes: ‘axes are common instruments of souls in the act of chopping, hands are private instruments of souls in embodiment.’³⁸ What this distinction amounts to in Aquinas, Arcadi thinks, depends on who is able to use the instrument; ‘private instruments are owned by agents in some robust sense, while common instruments are such that they are not owned by one specific agent.’³⁹ This notion of private ownership (albeit, a more sophisticated version) allows Arcadi to think about extension in relation to the Incarnation and the Eucharist.⁴⁰ But it’s not clear, at least to me, how generalizable the distinction is. How might the distinction between common and private ownership help us to distinguish between Otto’s prosthesis and my bicycle? For plausibly, the prosthetic leg may be a common instrument (i.e. if it is needed by more than one member of Otto’s household) and my bicycle a private instrument (i.e. if ³⁶ Arcadi, 2018: 183. ³⁷ Aquinas [Summa Contra Gentiles (SCG)], 1975: IV.41.11. ³⁸ Arcadi, 2018: 177. ³⁹ Arcadi, 2018: 177. ⁴⁰ In fact, Arcadi wishes to defend a stronger thesis than this in relation to the Incarnation. If the Word were to take private ownership of my human nature, Arcadi thinks, I would cease to be the private owner of my own human nature, and thereby cease to exist (Arcadi, 2018: 187–8).

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I happen to be the only person who rides it). But distinguishing between common and private ownership doesn’t appear to get to the heart of the intuition that extension and use can be distinguished in some way. Indeed, as Tollefsen’s summary of the features of cognitive extension shows, the important feature of extension is not the exclusivity of the enabling entity, but rather, the significance and integration of that entity into the broader cognitive system. Otto’s notebook might be used by different people in his household; Inga, his wife, may choose to refer to Otto’s book to find out where his favourite restaurant is, for example. This doesn’t appear to undermine the intimacy of the relation between Otto and his notebook. So long as the information in the notebook is (i) readily available and reliable to Otto, (ii) automatically endorsed by Otto, (iii) easily accessed by Otto, and (iv) previously endorsed by Otto, then we should recognize that it plays a role in his cognitive system akin to short-term memory. The intuition that Otto’s prosthesis is an extension of his body, while my bicycle is not, can be better captured by examining the principles underlying the features of cognitive extension. The general point (even if we have yet to specify how) is this: Otto’s prosthesis is more intimately integrated into his bodily system than my bike is to my bodily system. This seems true regardless of how private the ownership relation is in either case. Otto’s prosthesis is readily available, accessible, and can be relied on for walking, whereas my bike is typically locked in the shed or against the bike racks. I do not need to access my bicycle to cross the road to buy a cup of coffee. All these things may be true, even if Inga uses Otto’s prosthesis for her night shift while Otto sleeps, and if my bicycle remains used only by me. While cognitive systems may require something like endorsement of mental states (as in features 2 and 4 of Tollefsen’s summary), the same is not obviously applicable to bodily systems. But some kind of identification with an artefact appears to play a role in extension, in a way that differs this relation from mere use. The fact that Otto identifies his prosthesis as his leg (regardless of how many people he shares it with), is surely one of the reasons for the intuition that the relation is one of extension rather than mere use. Moreover, the intuition is not rooted in the fact that human beings cannot extend into artefacts such as bicycles. We can make sense, I think, of the case of an Olympic cyclist who trains for hours a day and has an intimate relationship to their bike, such that it functions as an extension of their biological body. The cyclist may relate to their vehicle in an extending manner, even if I do not. But the reason for this is that their bicycle is more closely integrated into their bodily system than my bicycle is to mine.

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Perhaps, then, we can merely amend the features for cognitive extension in application to bodily extension, in the following way: (i) The enabling entity must be readily available and typically relied on by the extending entity. (ii) The enabling entity must be easily accessed by the extending entity. (iii) The enabling entity must be identified by the enabling entity as part of their bodily system. Problematically, however, it is not difficult to think of counterexamples to these features, especially in the case of bodily extension. Suppose, after having a heart attack, I am given a heart transplant whilst unconscious in the hospital. Since I am not conscious, and therefore not aware of the enabling entity of the foreign heart, it seems difficult to think I can meet feature 3.⁴¹ Yet, the relationship between a heart transplant and my body seems sufficiently intimate that we wouldn’t call this an instance of mere use. Finding necessary and sufficient conditions to distinguish between extension and use is difficult and it seems unlikely I will resolve this controversial issue here. But this doesn’t mean the distinction is nonsensical to us. I propose instead that we think of the features above not as necessary and sufficient conditions, but rather, as indicative features.⁴² That is, cases which share these three features are typically instances of extension, even if we can think of counterexamples. Rather than specifying all and only instances of extension, then, we should think of these as indications that the relationship is sufficiently intimate to warrant the description of instrumental union. Indeed, we might adopt a similar strategy concerning Arcadi’s emphasis on private ownership. For it does seem that instances of private ownership are more likely to have all of the features described in (i)–(iii), since it is more probable that the enabling entity will be readily available and identifiable to the extending entity. But for the reasons suggested above, I think we should resist tying an account of extension too closely to the issue of ownership. This will become important as we consider the relation between Christ and the community of the Church. The key point is this: if Christ’s agency overwrites or undermines the agency of human participants in his body, then we are unable to avoid the charge of sacred inflation in our ecclesiology, and so we must

⁴¹ With thanks to Jonathan Rutledge for this counterexample. ⁴² Many thanks to Aaron Cotnoir for help in formulating this response.

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reject the notion of private ownership while emphasizing the intimacy of the relationship between Christ and the Church. It is my contention that Christ does stand in a relationship of metaphysical extension to the Church, but not one of private ownership.

3. Arcadi and Cross on Theological Applications of Active Externalism The insights gleaned from the discussion of active externalism have been applied ingeniously in recent analytic theology to propose models for thinking about the metaphysics of the incarnation and Christ’s presence in the Eucharistic elements. These discussions pave the way for my own account of the Church as the socially extended body of Christ and so we will consider these accounts briefly, before thinking about the application to the identity of the Church. First, Richard Cross, in explaining Duns Scotus’ view on the incarnation, has argued that some version of active externalism can help us to understand the instrumental union between the human nature of Christ and the second person of the Trinity. Consider Duns Scotus’ example of the body’s use the knife (note the striking similarities with Clark and Chalmers’s thesis): the motive power in a hand can use a knife to cut up a body, in so far as [the knife] is sharp. If this sharpness were in the hand as its substance, then the hand could use it for the same operation, and nevertheless it would be accidental to the hand (in so far as the motive power is in it) that sharpness is in it, and vice versa, because the sharpness gives the hand no perfection pertaining to [motive] power. This is apparent, because the motive power is equally perfect without such sharpness, and it uses [the sharpness] in the same way when it is in some other thing joined to the hand—such as a knife—as it would use it if it were in the hand.⁴³

Expanding Scotus’ example, Cross suggests that the knife and body here form a ‘unity’ in a manner not unlike the Johnny Depp’s character Edward Scissorhands in the movie Edward Scissorhands. Cross writes, ‘The knife and the body become one subsisting thing. Presumably, the only significant

⁴³ Cross, 2011: 189–90.

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difference is that the knife is easier to detach than (say) scissorhands would be.’⁴⁴ ‘The application to the incarnation’, Cross argues, is obvious. By being an instrument of the Word, the human nature and the Word become one subsisting thing. Furthermore, the human nature and the Word become the subsisting thing that is the Word—just as the knife becomes (in effect) a part of the body. The body extends itself to include the knife; the Word extends himself to include the human substance.⁴⁵

Applying PP2, we can see that, on Cross’ account, if the incarnation is the activity, then the human nature of Christ is the enabling entity and the extended entity is the Word. But it also seems intuitive that the relation between the Word and the human nature is more intimate than the relation between Scotus’ knife and Scotus’ hand. As Arcadi notes, ‘Edward has a greater level of intimacy with the scissors of his hands [than Scotus to his knife] because there is a greater level of ownership of that object.’⁴⁶ Similarly, he thinks, the Word has a private ownership relationship to his human nature and a common ownership relationship to every other human nature.⁴⁷ Given my reluctance to adopt Arcadi’s distinction between private and common ownership as a distinguishing feature between extension and use, more might be said about this difference (even if it is true that the claims about ownership are true). Instead, I think we should say that in the case of Edward Scissorhands the relation is one of extension, since the role it plays in Edward’s bodily system is more intimate (as outlined in indicative features (i)–(iii)) than Scotus’ use of a knife, which I describe as an instance of mere use. Plausibly, there may be a case in which Scotus extends his body into a knife, but we would need to have more detail about the example to make this claim. Similarly, while the Word may exist in a private ownership relationship to the human nature of Christ, if this relationship is one of extension it is because of the role the human nature plays in Christ’s bodily system, rather than the exclusivity of the Word’s use of that human nature.⁴⁸ We don’t need to endorse Cross’ or Scotus’ particular vision of the Incarnation to import their insights into the discussion of ecclesiology. And so, I will spend no further time exploring this account.

⁴⁴ Cross, 2011: 190. ⁴⁵ Cross, 2011: 190. ⁴⁶ Arcadi, 2018: 185. ⁴⁷ Arcadi, 2018: 185. ⁴⁸ This need not rule out the fact that the Word privately owns the human nature of Christ.

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Secondly, let us now consider Arcadi’s own account and the application of active externalism to the Eucharist. Put simply, just as we might identify Otto’s notebook as a part of Otto’s mind or Otto’s prosthesis as part of Otto’s body, Arcadi thinks we might point to the consecrated bread and wine on the table during the celebration of the Eucharist and rightly say, ‘that is the body of Christ’. The Eucharistic elements are not numerically identical to Christ’s body on Arcadi’s account; rather, they function as extensions of Christ’s body. This view is dubbed by Arcadi as a kind of ‘Sacramental Impanation’ account, according to which, in the Eucharist, a union, the sacramental union, obtains between the consecrated elements and the natural human body in Christ . . . . the sacramental union of the same kind of union as the hypostatic union—which itself is of the same kind of union as the natural union between body and soul.⁴⁹

Just as the human nature of Christ is hypostatically united to the divine Word, the consecrated elements in the Eucharist are hypostatically united to the body of Christ. As he puts it, ‘the entirety of the human body in Christ does not become bread . . . Rather, the body is extended to include the bread as a part.’⁵⁰ This position he argues, ‘is much more like the incorporation of the bread into the body. The bread participates in the body, and, as St. Paul states, is a participation in the body of Christ.’⁵¹ Thus, we can point to the bread and wine on the table and maintain that they remain bread and wine, and yet still state quite literally ‘that is the body and blood of Christ’. Applying PP2, Arcadi argues that the activity is ‘the Word’s bodily presence’, the extended entity is ‘the natural human body in Christ’, and the enabling entity is ‘the consecrated elements’.⁵² Filling his account out, he writes, Because of the private instrumental union that is formed between the natural human body in Christ and, say, the bread—to focus for convenience on just one of the elements—the body and the bread form one subsisting thing, they form a relation of identity. Clearly then if the bread is identical with the body, the predication, “This is the body of Christ,” is apt. The liturgical utterance has been underwritten by the metaphysics of a body extending itself to ⁴⁹ Arcadi, 2018: 241–2. ⁵⁰ Arcadi, 2018: 251; emphasis added. ⁵¹ Arcadi, 2018: 251; emphasis added. ⁵² Arcadi, 2018: 243.

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As with the previous discussion, ownership plays a crucial role for Arcadi’s account; it is in virtue of Christ’s private ownership of the consecrated elements that they are able to stand in the intimate relationship required for us to recognize them as Christ’s body and blood. We might also note (independently of the private ownership claim) that the relation should be considered an instance of extension (under the features I defended previously), since as the consecrated elements are readily available and typically relied on by Christ, they are easily accessed by Christ and Christ identifies them as part of his body.

4. The Church as the Extended Body of Christ Regardless of whether or not we accept Arcadi’s and Cross’ respective metaphysics of Christ’s body, the application to ecclesiology should be clear by now. If we are to think of the Church as the body of Christ, then the discussion of externalism seems ripe for exploration. For, straightforwardly, we might think that the extending entity is the body of Christ, the enabling entity is the Church, and the activity is Christ’s continued bodily presence in the world. Just as the elements are united to the body of Christ, we might think that the Church as a social body serves as an extension of Christ’s body.⁵⁴ As Oliver Crisp has highlighted, the discussion of extension has helpful analogues with the doctrine of participation. He writes, Given our assumption that God desires union with his human creatures, one way of bringing that about might be to have Christ act as an interface between divinity and humanity in order that human beings can be united to God via the Holy Spirit. However, unlike the examples of the smartphone and the knife, in “extending” himself to unite himself with human beings, God does not reduce humans to mere instruments . . . Nevertheless there may be a sense in which the unitive relation brought about by the Holy Spirit in the life of the redeemed individual does extend God’s action into the life of

⁵³ Arcadi, 2018: 244. ⁵⁴ In Chapter 5, I will explore more explicitly the relationship between the kind of extension at work in the Eucharist and the extension in the Church.

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that individual, bringing about a mutual awareness and reciprocity . . . as well as a unitive relation that is asymmetrical in important respects as the relation between the agent and the artifact (knife, smartphone) is asymmetrical. For here in the theological context, it is God that takes the initiative, God who secures the means by which we may be united to him in Christ by the Spirit, and God who sustains and nourishes the relationship of participation as it develops.⁵⁵

Thus, it seems that there are some good reasons for extending Arcadi’s view of extension to the Church as well as the Eucharist. Moreover, as I will explore more explicitly in Chapter 5, it is important for my account that the body we consume in the Eucharist is identifiable as the same body that we become as we participate in the Church.⁵⁶ In Alexander Schmemann’s words, ‘in the Eucharist it is he [the Holy Spirit] who transforms the Church into the body of Christ and—therefore—manifests the elements of our offering as communion in the Holy Spirit. This is the consecration.’⁵⁷ As I examine in detail later, being able to make this kind of parallel between the socially extended body of Christ (the Church) and the physically extended body of Christ (the Eucharist) is key for understanding the role of the Eucharist in the Church.⁵⁸ The body of the Church and the body of the Eucharist are not distinct bodies for my account, but rather, they are parts of the very same body. The broad details of the account of extension are straightforward enough from what has been said already: through the uniting work of the Spirit, those who are joined to the Church in baptism (more on this in Chapter 4) are instrumentally united to the body of Christ in a relation which is sufficiently intimate to be described as a relation of extension. Just as we can point to the elements, consecrated on the table, and rightly say, ‘There’s Christ’, we can point to one another as members of the body of the Church and say in a very real (but not numerically identical) sense that here is Christ. Quite literally, ‘you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (1 Cor. 12:27). However, to merely lift Arcadi’s metaphysics from the Eucharist to the Church is not so straightforward. For unlike the inanimate objects of bread ⁵⁵ Crisp, 2019: 208–9. ⁵⁶ This is one instance of where I depart from Crisp’s view of the Eucharist as defended in chapter 8 of Crisp (2021). For Crisp, the Eucharistic elements are hypostatically united to the divine nature such that Christ effectively has two bodies: his human body and bread body. ⁵⁷ Schmemann, 1982: 56. ⁵⁸ Note that while there is some difference here between social and bodily extension, I don’t mean to suggest that either of these modes of extension is more or less intimate.

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and wine, the Church is an agent constituted by many individual agents. Each of these agents has their own will, desire, and agency. If, as Arcadi assumes, the closest kind of extension depends on private ownership, this much seems ruled out. For as Arcadi notes, my body cannot be privately owned by the second person of the Trinity without thereby extinguishing my private ownership of my body.⁵⁹ Any instrumental union that occurs between Christ and the Church must be one of common instrumentality, such that this union ‘preserves my ownership of my human nature, while allowing the Word to use me as a common instrument’.⁶⁰ I think Arcadi is right. And thus, his metaphysics of Eucharistic extension cannot be directly analogous to ecclesial extension. But as I have noted already, the notion of ownership, while having some use in the discussion of theological metaphysics, is made to do too much work in Arcadi’s account, at least in my opinion. Put another way: there is a correlation between private ownership and genuine extension, but the two are not intrinsically related. If this is right, then we can stress that the instrumental union between Christ and the Church is no less intimate than the union between Christ and the elements, while recognizing that the two are not analogous with respect to ownership. But in order to explore such a position, we must first consider how best to understand the notion of socially enabled extension (as opposed to artefact-enabled extension).

4.1 Social Extension Let us start with the notion of socially extended cognition, for the claim that our minds extend not only to artefacts but also to other persons, has received some attention in the philosophy of mind.⁶¹ Another example will help make the case: 4. Consider, Olaf, who has been married to Inga for thirty years. Olaf doesn’t suffer from Alzheimer’s disease. He is, however, a philosopher. ⁵⁹ Arcadi, 2018: 188. ⁶⁰ Arcadi, 2018: 188. ⁶¹ Clark and Chalmers briefly consider this at the end of their discussion of extended minds. They ask: Could my mental states be partly constituted by the states of other thinkers? We see no reason why not, in principle. In an unusually interdependent couple, it is entirely possible that one partner’s beliefs will play the same sort of role for the other as the notebook plays for Otto. What is central is a high degree of trust, reliance, and accessibility. In other social relationships these criteria may not be so clearly fulfilled, but they might nevertheless be fulfilled in specific domains. (Clark and Chalmers 2010: 17)

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He often gets lost in his work and has difficulty remembering his appointments, phone numbers, addresses, and so on. But Inga has a sharp mind, and because they spend a great deal of time together Inga provides Olaf with all of the information that he needs in order to get through his day. Indeed, Inga seems to serve exactly the same purpose as Otto’s notebook does for him. She is his external memory.⁶² If Otto’s mind can be extended into a notebook and meet the conditions outlined in PP2, then there seems to be no reason to suppose Olaf ’s mind cannot be extended into Inga in some way. As Tollefsen highlights, the extended mind hypothesis ‘rests substantially on the notion of functional equivalence. Otto’s notebook forms a coupled system with Otto because it is said to be functionally equivalent to his short-term memory. Likewise, Inga and Olaf form a coupled system because the interaction between them is functionally equivalent to that found in biological memory (or some part of it).’⁶³ Moreover, she thinks, this example can clearly fulfil the features outlined previously: (1) ‘Inga is readily available to Olaf and Olaf typically invokes Inga on a variety of daily details . . .’, (2) ‘The information that Inga provides Olaf is more or less automatically endorsed. In fact, Olaf has come to rely on Inga so much that he does not even trust his biological memory’, (3) ‘Because I have stipulated that Inga is always with Olaf, the information contained in Inga is easy for Olaf to access . . .’ and (4) ‘the information that is contained in Inga is information that Olaf previously endorsed at some time or another.’⁶⁴ And thus, Tollefsen thinks, extension is clearly possible not only from agents to artefacts but also from agents to agents. This example of social extension is significant for the thesis advanced in this chapter, but more still needs to be said. Given that the theological claim being examined here concerns an extended body rather than an extended mind, it seems pertinent to ask whether bodies can be socially extended in a similar way. As many parents of young children will know, the scenes of Pixar movies are the source of much theological inspiration. Consider the case adapted from the movie, Ratatouille (spoilers ahead . . .): Consider Alfredo Linguini, who finds himself landing a job in a restaurant in Paris specializing in haute cuisine. Linguini is a hopeless chef. One day he meets Remy, the highly intelligent and gastronomically sophisticated rat.

⁶² Tollefsen, 2015: 74.

⁶³ Tollefsen, 2015: 75.

⁶⁴ Tollefsen, 2015: 75.

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Wanting to utilize Remy’s talents, but scared of bringing a rodent into the kitchen, Linguini hides Remy under his hat, developing a system by which Remy can move Linguini’s body by pulling the relevant strand of hair in a specific direction. By manipulating Linguini’s body, Remy produces beautiful and original dishes, impressing the critics of Paris along the way. According to PP2, if there is some functional equivalence between an activity performed by an extended entity with or without an enabling entity, then we should think of the enabling entity as part of the extended entity, as forming a coupled system. In the case of Remy and Linguini, it seems clear that Remy’s instrumental use of Linguini allows him to extend his body into Linguini’s body, forming a coupled system between the two. Whether or not the case displays evidence of the three indicative features of extension will depend on how the details of the example are specified. But it doesn’t look difficult to ensure the example fits the features: (a) Linguini is readily available and typically relied on by Remy’s body, since Linguini takes to leaving Remy in his hat at all times he is awake. At any point, Remy can manipulate Linguini’s hair follicles to ensure he can use Linguini’s body as his own when necessary. (b) Given the most recent arrangement between Remy and Linguini, Linguini is easily accessed by Remy. (c) After forming such a successful and long-lasting partnership, receiving the plaudits of the Paris culinary scene, Remy begins to identify Linguini’s body and his as co-extensive. Their achievements are bound together and are so regularly coupled that he sees Linguini’s body as his own (while not removing Linguini’s own sense of agency). Note that in this case, the relation between Linguini and Remy is not one of private ownership. Remy does not overwrite or erase Linguini’s own bodily agency, even when the connection is so close that he recognizes Linguini’s body as his own. We can make a clear distinction between the two bodies: When Linguini sneezes, he does so independently of Remy’s causal influence. When Remy scratches his rat nose, he does so without using Linguini’s body. And so, while their union is intimate, it is not private. Both exist independently as agents in their own right.

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4.2 The Church as the Socially Extended Body of Christ The above cases move us closer to saying something concrete about the relation between Christ and the Church in presenting a model of ecclesiology.⁶⁵ It is worth stressing again at this point that the examples are not intended to explain the relation between the Church and the body of Christ but to help flesh out a model which allows us to speak indirectly about these theological claims. But this need not mean that the similarities between cases cannot be illuminating in some way. First, I think we can make some sense of thinking of participation in the language of social extension.⁶⁶ For instance, we might say, Linguini participates in Remy. That is, Linguini allows Remy to have agency over his body in ways that are not directly within his control, but whilst not erasing Linguini’s own agency either. Similarly, in participating in the Church by submitting to the agency of the Holy Spirit, the members of the Church are able to participate in Christ as parts of his body. Sure, the Church is not moved by the simple manipulation of hair follicles, but this doesn’t mean that Christ cannot act through the Church in a bodily manner. The causal mechanisms are not obviously physical in our participation in the Church. Instead, on this picture, Christ’s acting in and through the Church occurs by means of the Spirit working through the members of the Church in the ways outlined in Chapter 2. The Spirit instructs and guides the members of the Church to act in conformity with the will of Christ through the guiding and shaping of their will and desires in conformity with Christ’s will. This leads us nicely to the next point of analogy/disanalogy. Secondly, this model helps us to think about the language of sharing in the mind of someone, or of having one agent as the head of another. Indeed, we might think, Linguini has the mind of Remy. When concocting elaborate ⁶⁵ In a recent book, Brad D. Strawn and Warren S. Brown (2020) argue that Clark and Chalmers’ extension account can help to explain the social nature of the Church and provide a model for thinking of the Church as Christ’s body. They argue that ‘Ideally, church congregations involve individuals who are regularly soft coupled to one another in reciprocal extension within the various contexts of church life, resulting in reciprocal cognitive and spiritual enhancements that make Christian life richer, both individually and collectively’ (Strawn and Brown, 2020: 94.) For Strawn and Brown, work on social extension helps to shed light on the complex social nature of the Church’s practices and the ways in which participants in the Church might be thought of as members of one body. Their work is ingenious and helpfully illustrates that social extension can occur across large communities, rather than merely in person-to-person engagement. However, their claims stop short of providing a theological expectation of Christ’s instrumental union with the Church, focusing instead on the psychological discussion of extension between church members. ⁶⁶ As noted above, Crisp makes this suggestion in Analyzing Doctrine (2019). Here, I spell out the position more directly in relation to ecclesiology.

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delicious meals, it is only by participating in Remy; in particular, by allowing his body to be shaped by Remy’s culinarily proficient mind, that Linguini can be said to produce these dishes. Remy is the primary agent at work, at least in the moment of cooking, even if Linguini’s agency is not replaced. Thus, we might think, Linguini has the mind of Remy, or Remy is the head of Linguini. Similarly, in participating in the work of Christ in the Church, we do not contribute to the work of Christ, even if we participate in it. Consider J.B. Torrance’s words, which sketch a similar view of Christ’s agency in the Church: A twofold relationship is thus established between the triune God and ourselves, through the Spirit. It is a relationship between God and humanity realized vicariously for us in Christ, and at the same time a relationship between Christ and the Church, that we might participate by the Spirit in Jesus’ communion with the Father in a life of intimate communion. In both, there is a bond of mutual love and mutual self-giving—of mutual “indwelling”.⁶⁷

Thirdly, we can see that participating in Christ’s body, thought of in the language of social extension, does not entail that Christ is responsible for everything that is done in the Church or on behalf of the Church. Recalling the discussion of rogue agency in Chapter 2, we need a metaphysics of the Church that differentiates Christ from the Church. The social extension model allows for this. Returning to our example, we can see that Remy is not responsible for all that Linguini does. Linguini still retains some autonomy. If Linguini misreads Remy’s hair-pulling, or if Linguini sneezes and inadvertently pours too much salt in the ratatouille then Remy can’t be held in any way responsible for the dish departing from his perfect culinary intentions. In these respects, the relation between Remy and Linguini has some similarities with the way in which the Church participates in Christ’s body. Similarly, on my model of the Church as the body of Christ, the agency of Christ through the work of the Spirit does not undermine the agency of the members of the Church. As I explored in some detail previously, the members of the Church (both individuals and congregations) sometimes act in violation of Christ’s perfect will. Put differently, the agency of Christ does not overwrite or extinguish the agency of the members of the Church. The relation between Christ and the Church is not one of private ownership, but one of common ownership. ⁶⁷ Torrance, 1996: 20.

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Lastly, this way of thinking about the Church’s participation in the body of Christ can help us to see that participating in Christ allows those who are members of the Church to be shaped by Christ’s will, insofar as they allow Christ to work in and through them, which was a central concern of Gregory’s. Returning to Crisp’s discussion of participation, he notes that ‘By being united to Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, redeemed human beings begin to exemplify the qualities of the human nature of Christ and grow in their likeness to Christ (in exemplifying the requisite qualities Christ’s human nature instantiates).’⁶⁸ Analogously, Linguini’s culinary abilities seem very likely to be transformed by allowing Remy to cook in and through him. By allowing Remy to move his limbs, Linguini learns how to cook. In attending to the movements of Remy through his own body, Linguini is given the opportunity to build a kind of culinary muscle memory, to reflect on what good cooking looks like (e.g. a kind of know-how that onions should be chopped finely for soup and coarsely for ratatouille). On the model of ecclesiology presented in this chapter, it would seem that an analogous claim might be made concerning our participation in Christ. That is, in participating in the Church we should strive to reflect on ways in which the Spirit guides and shapes us as the body of Christ, such that we might build a kind of discipleship muscle memory, and that we might reflect on what following Christ looks like.⁶⁹ Note that unlike Arcadi’s model of the Eucharist, we must admit that the relation between the Church and Christ is one of common ownership. More specifically, Christ’s extension to the body of the Church does not erase the agency of those who participate in the Church. Yet, this need not mean that the relation between Christ and the Church is one of mere use. In fact, in line with the earlier indicative features of extension, I think we should note that: (i) The Church is readily available and typically relied on by Christ, since the Holy Spirit moves in and through the Church such that the Church is the body of Christ. (ii) Through the work of the Spirit, the Church is easily accessed by Christ. (iii) Christ identifies with the Church as his body.

⁶⁸ Crisp, 2021: 216. ⁶⁹ In some respects, this overlaps with the claims made in my account of imitating Christ in my earlier work, Contemporary with Christ (Cockayne, 2020b).

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If this is the case, then we can still maintain that the instrumental union between Christ and the Church is sufficiently intimate.⁷⁰

5. Conclusion The previous two chapters have advanced a model for thinking about the social ontology of the Church which has attempted to make some sense of the theological claims concerning the work of the Holy Spirit in uniting the Church as Christ’s body. The Church, on this model, is a group agent, through which the agency of Spirit guides and shapes those who are joined to the body such that they can be formed as the body of Christ. We have now seen one way of filling out this Christological claim; namely, that the Church is a social extension of Christ’s body. While the aims of this model must remain modest so as not to overstate the case, the picture painted is one in which the Spirit’s agency creates an intimate instrumental union with Christ’s body. The relation of extension is such that we can make some identification between the Church and Christ’s body, even if this is a not a numerical identity claim. But the purpose of these opening chapters is not merely to engage in a game of metaphysical puzzle-solving. Understanding the Church’s relationship to the agency of the Spirit and the body of Christ will prove to be an important foundation which will help to ground the discussion of the practices of the Church in the coming chapters. How we conceive of the Church’s ontology will significantly change how we conceive of the practice of liturgy, along with the sacraments of the Eucharist and baptism. It is to expanding these issues that we turn in the following chapters.

⁷⁰ As Crisp highlights, it is important that our theology ‘takes seriously the need to provide an account of participation that is more intimate than the most intimate human relationships (as per Eph. 5), that is unitive in nature, but that falls short of a loss of the human individual in the divine life’ (2019: 216).

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4 One Baptism Group Membership and Rites of Initiation

1. Social Ontology and Initiation Thus far, we have considered a model of the social ontology of the Church, according to which the Holy Spirit unites members of the Church, such that they act together as the one body of Christ. However, we cannot think seriously about social ontology without attending to the relationship between a group and its members. For example, to say that the prime minister acts on my behalf in acts of international trade negotiation is to say, amongst other things, that I am a member of the United Kingdom. Similarly, if I claim that I act as a representative of the university in speaking at an international conference, then I am making a claim which has some implications for all of those who are members of the university, whom I represent. An account of membership specifies who counts as belonging to a group, and what one must do in order to be counted as part of the group. In offering an account of the social ontology of the Church, then, we need to make clear just what it is to be a member of the Church and how one goes about becoming a member. An obvious place to start is with baptism. We have now explored the notion that the Church is one through the ministry of the Holy Spirit which unites us together to act as the body of the one Christ in the world. But who gets to count as belonging to the social reality of Christ’s body? And how do they come to do so? In 1 Corinthians 12, where Paul depicts the Church as the body of Christ through the one Spirit, baptism is explicitly mentioned as the point of entrance into the Church; ‘we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit’ (1 Cor. 12:13). Elsewhere, Paul writes of those ‘baptized into Christ’ as those who are ‘clothed’ with Christ and therefore standing as heirs of Abraham

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0004

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(Gal. 3:27–9). Thus, whatever else the rite of baptism affects,¹ it seems clear that baptism signifies membership into the social reality of the one Church. The chapter seeks to clarify precisely what social change takes place in the rite of baptism. We will enter this discussion by exploring the liturgy of baptism. As Scot McKnight describes, one of best ways to understand what a community believes about baptism is to see how baptism is practised in the context of worship.² Throughout the chapter I will refer to various points of the baptism liturgy in the Church of England’s, Common Worship.³ While there are clearly other liturgical texts which will place emphases in different places, the theology of baptism found in the Anglican tradition is consonant with the model of the Church presented in this book. In doing so, we will be able to make some general comments about the nature of baptism, which I think are clearly applicable beyond the Anglican tradition. To begin, we can note that baptism is seen as a ritual of initiation in this context. After making various promises and commitments, followed by the rite of sprinkling or immersion in water, it is typical for baptism to end with the act of welcome, in which the newly baptized are recognized as fellow members of Christ’s body. Consider the following, for instance: There is one Lord, one faith, one baptism: N and N, by one Spirit we are all baptized into one body. All We welcome you into the fellowship of faith; we are children of the same heavenly Father; we welcome you. We are all one in Christ Jesus. We belong to him through faith, heirs of the promise of the Spirit of peace. The peace of the Lord be always with you All and also with you.⁴

This act of welcome stresses that baptism marks not only an entrance into the Church of England, or into a particular church community, but also an

¹ There are many other issues pertaining to baptism which we must leave aside in the present chapter. The notion of baptismal regeneration, for instance, has received some attention in the literature, but there is not space here to add to this discussion. See Cuneo’s (2016) essay, in Chapter 9 of Ritualized Faith on an eastern orthodox doctrine of regeneration, and Nathaniel Gray Sutanto’s (2021) essay, in the T&T Clark Handbook of Analytic Theology, for a Reformed take on regeneration. ² McKnight, 2018: 22. ³ Church of England, 2006. ⁴ Church of England, 2006.

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entrance into the one body in Christ Jesus. Baptism, which is described here as a baptism by the Spirit marks the entrance into the one Church of Jesus Christ. Thus, whilst the minister and congregation have a vital role to play in the rite of initiation, the liturgy makes clear that it is the ministry of the persons of the Trinity which bring about entrance into the body of Christ. Thus, as the opening collect of the liturgy puts it, being ‘born again of water and the Spirit’ is crucial for understanding membership in the body of Christ.⁵ Baptism is described in the same collect as ‘the sign and seal of this new birth’.⁶ The account of baptism presented in this chapter will unpack this notion of baptism as a sign and seal of membership through the authority of the Spirit. The discussion proceeds as follows: first, I consider the role of promising in the rite of baptism, exploring the possibility that the promises of the baptism liturgy may serve as a means of what philosophers have called ‘joint commitment’ to the Church. However, while there are helpful insights from the philosophical literature on promising, I argue that there are limits to the extension of this literature for thinking about membership. Secondly, I consider the application of work on speech act theory to thinking about the meaning of the baptismal words: ‘N, I baptize you . . . ’. This helps us to explore whether baptism itself effects a change, or whether it merely reflects an existing change that has taken place. Here, I explore John Calvin’s notion of baptism as a ‘sign and seal’ of salvation, in contrast with two other views. I argue that instead of thinking of baptism as a means of membership, we should instead think of baptism as a formal confirmation of membership, confirming our identity as children of God and members of the one Church, rather than bringing this change about. However, I argue, while baptism might not always be a necessary means of entrance into the one Church (that is, the Spirit might incorporate individuals into the Church without baptism) it is clearly a means of belonging to the visible forms of Christ’s Church and so it is important that all who belong to the body are baptized. Finally, I conclude by considering how infants may be thought of as members of the Church. Outlining Calvin’s defence of infant baptism, I show how infant baptism is consistent with the thesis advanced in this chapter.

2. Promising and Group Membership A promising place to start in attempting to offer an account of membership to the Church is to examine the declarations and commitments made in the ⁵ Church of England, 2006 (a reference to John 3:5).

⁶ Church of England, 2006.

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baptismal liturgy. Baptism is typically accompanied by a profession of faith in which the candidate (or those promising on behalf of the candidate) confirms that they are committed to the beliefs and mission of the Church. This is not unique to the Anglican tradition, either. Promising plays a role in the baptism liturgies of most Western denominations of the Church.⁷ In the Common Worship baptism liturgy, promises feature at various points in the service. First, prior to the baptism rite itself, the Church community promise to support those who are about to be baptized. The minister says: Faith is the gift of God to his people. In baptism the Lord is adding to our number those whom he is calling. People of God, will you welcome these children/candidates and uphold them in their new life in Christ?

To which the people reply: All

With the help of God, we will.⁸

Secondly, immediately prior to the baptismal rite, the congregation, together with the candidate, are asked to profess ‘the faith of the Church’ by reciting the lines of the Apostle’s Creed (using the first-person singular, ‘I believe’). This provides an opportunity not only for the candidate to profess the faith of the Church but for all those who are baptized members of the Church to reaffirm their commitment to these claims.⁹ Thirdly, after the rite itself, the candidate (or those making promises on behalf of the candidate) promises to uphold a certain way of life as a member of the Church: Those who are baptized are called to worship and serve God. Will you continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers? With the help of God, I will.

⁷ The traditions I surveyed to substantiate this claim include: Lutheran, Reformed, and Roman Catholic. Although the liturgies surveyed differed on who of the following made promises: candidate, parents, godparents, and congregation. ⁸ Church of England, 2006. ⁹ I explore this in more detail in Cockayne (2021a).

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The promises and commitments threaded throughout the liturgy appear to be a helpful starting point for reflecting on the social change that takes place in the sacrament, for making promises clearly has social implications. As Stephen Darwall describes, ‘In promising, a promiser gives a promissee an ensemble of rights and, therefore, the standing to make certain demands of him and to hold him answerable in certain ways.’¹⁰ After the event of promising to uphold a certain set of commitments, whether to a group or to an individual, one then stands in a new social relation to that individual or group. This may be formalized in a contract, such as when I promise to carry out a set of duties in return for financial incentive by signing a contract with my employer. Or, it may be in the form of a verbal commitment, such as when a group of friends jointly commit to meet every Friday afternoon to discuss a book, thereby forming a book group. The promises of the baptismal candidate (or parents), while typically not formally recorded (as in a contract), are public acts of declaration and submission to the beliefs and values of a community. Moreover, the community also promises to uphold and support the faith of those being baptized. If Darwall is right, this act of promising makes both the candidate and the community accountable for upholding their respective promises and binds them into a new relation to one another.¹¹ But note that whilst baptismal promises give rise to obligations, these are not contractual obligations, as in the case of employment. As James B. Torrance notes, whereas contracts can be broken if certain conditions are not met, a ‘covenant is a promise binding two people or two parties to love one another unconditionally’.¹² Yet, because a covenant cannot be broken, it does not follow that there are no obligations or expectations for the members of a covenantal promise. A marriage covenant, which Torrance thinks of as a ‘bi-lateral’ covenant, is contingent on both parties consenting to the covenant and requires a ‘mutual-response’ from both.¹³ However, Torrance argues that ‘this is not the nature of the New Covenant in Christ’.¹⁴ Instead, he says, this

¹⁰ Darwall, 2011: 260. ¹¹ Who are the respective parties accountable to? It seems clear that both the community and the candidate are accountable to God, but they are also in some way accountable to one another. The candidate is accountable to uphold their baptismal promises and the community to uphold the candidate in their life of faith. In the case of infant baptism (see Section 4) it seems like we might sometimes hold a community responsible for failing to take seriously their obligations to disciple children in faith. With thanks to Andrew Torrance for a helpful discussion of these issues. Torrance (2021) has offered an excellent account of the role of accountability in the sacrament of baptism. ¹² Torrance, 1970: 54. ¹³ Torrance, 1970: 55. ¹⁴ Torrance, 1970: 55.

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covenant is a unilateral covenant in which God makes a covenant for us in Christ as a gift of grace. In a contractual relationship, ‘imperatives are made prior to the indicatives’; that is, such relationships depend on conditional statements such as, ‘If you keep the sabbath, the Kingdom of God will Come.’¹⁵ In a covenantal relationship, ‘indicatives of grace are always prior to the imperatives of law and human obligation’; thus, obligations arise from the relationship, rather than being dependent upon it. This does not mean that covenantal relationships are free of obligation, however. As Torrance describes, ‘Love always brings its obligations. But the obligations of love are not the conditions of love. If this is true of human love, how much more of divine love?’¹⁶ Thus, in failing to live and work for the kingdom of God, one does not cease to belong to the Church or to be united to Christ, even if one fails to meet some obligation. Indeed, the act of confession signifies precisely this: that we have failed to live up to the promises made in baptism, but yet, we are forgiven in Christ. The confession from the Book of Common Prayer’s Morning Prayer liturgy makes this point plainly: ‘we have left undone those things which we ought to have done, And we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’ In using the words of confession, we recognize that we have failed to live up to the obligations of love, while recognizing that in Christ our covenant with God rests secure. Now we have seen that baptism may give rise to certain obligations derived from the promises made, let us examine the change that occurs through the act of promising more closely. First, consider Margaret Gilbert’s account of promising as an instance of what she calls ‘joint commitment’. An example of a commitment will help elucidate: ‘if Pam, say, decides to go shopping today, she is committed to doing so. In the case of a personal decision, the commitment is personal . . . once committed, Pam has sufficient reason to go shopping today, unless and until she changes her mind.’¹⁷ Thus, in a very minimal sense, a commitment is a decision to act in a certain manner, giving rise to reasons to act in this way. Moving from commitment to joint commitment, Gilbert writes, joint commitment is a commitment of ‘two or more people’ to some way of acting, which is ‘rescindable only with the concurrence of all’.¹⁸ She explains that the joint commitment to X as a body is a joint commitment to bring it about that, as far as is possible, the parties emulate a single body that Xs, and to do ¹⁵ Torrance, 1970: 56. ¹⁸ Gilbert, 2013: 174.

¹⁶ Torrance, 1970: 56; emphasis added.

¹⁷ Gilbert, 2013: 173–4.

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so in light of the joint commitment in question . . . The guiding idea of a single body that Xs includes nothing about the intrinsic nature of the single body in question. In particular, it does not imply that it is in some way made up of two or more distinct bodies that are capable of X-ing on their own.¹⁹

Thus, by committing to another person (or group of persons) to uphold a way of acting or believing, one is subject to certain obligations. As Gilbert describes: ‘when I am subject to a joint commitment requiring me to do certain things, all of the parties to the commitment have a right to the relevant actions from me. Correlatively, I am under an obligation to all of them to perform these actions.’²⁰ Note, however, that a joint commitment to p, ‘does not require each participant to believe that p’.²¹ For example, whilst Theresa May (prime minister of the United Kingdom between 2016 and 2019) may not have personally believed in the merits of the United Kingdom leaving the European Union (she publicly campaigned against it), in her role as the leader of the British government she was committed to implementing and upholding the value of Brexit, in virtue of her role as the prime minister. May was committed to the government’s holding the proposition that Brexit was valuable and committed to implementing Brexit, qua prime minister, even if, qua May, she believed otherwise. The obligations that arise from joint commitment help us to understand the nature of promising. Gilbert argues that, ‘By promising, one binds oneself in a particularly intractable way: one who promises another he (or she) will do something cannot unilaterally unbind himself but awaits release from the person to whom he has promised, his “promise”.’²² In other words, ‘promissory obligation is relational or directed obligation’²³ in which one stands in a normative relationship to another agent. On Gilbert’s account, making a promise is simply an act of joint commitment: for one person to make a promise to another is for them jointly to commit themselves, by an appropriate, explicit process, to the decision that one of them (“the promisor”) is to perform one or more specified actions . . . in the paradigm case, one person makes a promise to another, and both are active in the process of constructing the promise. More precisely, the promisee must do something of an accepting rather than a rejecting nature.²⁴

¹⁹ Gilbert, 2013: 174–5. ²² Gilbert, 2011: 80.

²⁰ Gilbert, 2013: 175. ²³ Gilbert, 2011: 88.

²¹ Gilbert, 2013: 176. ²⁴ Gilbert, 2011: 99.

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Extending this discussion to think about the nature of baptismal promises, we can see that Gilbert’s position is particularly well suited. When the baptismal candidates promise to ‘continue in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship’, they perform a kind of joint commitment with God in which they are now accountable for living up to their baptismal vows. This second-personal structure of promising (as Darwall would describe it) is particularly evident in the responsive nature of baptismal promising. In making various commitments in baptism, one is not in a position to rescind these promises at will; as an act of joint commitment to God, the candidate is bound by the obligations which arise from her joint commitments, unless both parties (namely, her and God) agree to release one another from this normative bind.²⁵ Not only does one make a joint commitment with God in the baptism liturgy, but one also makes a joint commitment with the other members of the Church. That is, one promises to enact a set of actions and beliefs not only as an individual but also as a group. It is the ‘faith of the Church’ one professes. In virtue of her very public commitment as well as the joint commitment of all those present in the baptism service, one is obligated not only to God as promisee but also to the other members of the Church as a kind of corporate promisee. Put simply, the commitments involved in baptism stand one in a new relation to the community of the Church. Thus, it seems clear that at least one social change that occurs in baptism is that those who have promised stand in a new normative relationship to one another, in which they are committed to jointly upholding their faith within the life of the community.

2.1 On the Relationship between Promising and Membership In light of the above discussion, it might appear that reflecting on the nature of promising provides a helpful focal point for examining the social relationship between members of the Church and the Church as a collective. Indeed, Gilbert thinks that joint commitment of a certain kind is foundational for many of the social realities we wish to describe. While joint commitments might vary in complexity (e.g. compare the commitments made by a group of friends to have dinner next week with the commitments made in employment contracts in large organizations), they are present in most, if not all, social

²⁵ Gilbert, 2011: 100.

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groups. And so, it is not a stretch to think that such commitments form the building blocks of many social entities. However, whilst Gilbert’s account clearly captures something intuitive about the relationship between group initiation and group membership, it is surely not sufficient for giving an account of membership in the one Church. As critics of Gilbert’s work have noted, joint-commitment accounts of social ontology provide an intuitive explanation of how small groups may be constituted with little organizational structure. Yet, such accounts have difficulty explaining what it is for a larger group to believe certain things and to be committed to acting in certain ways. For in larger groups, not every individual member contributes to the decision-making processes of the group, and this is not always done by means of transparent decision-making procedures. Moreover, in such groups, it seems unreasonable to think that one could make one’s commitment common knowledge to the other members of the group, thereby ruling out the possibility of jointly committing to some course of action with them, at least straightforwardly.²⁶ While we could try to amend Gilbert’s account to overcome this worry, the more general point is this: joint commitment sets too high a bar for claiming that large groups are committed to certain ways of acting or believing. For groups in which beliefs remain constant but members often leave (such as global organizations and corporations), Gilbert’s conditions are too demanding.²⁷ In larger, more dispersed groups with frequent changes of membership, Gilbert’s account is particularly poorly suited, since the personal identity of the group ‘rises and falls with the specific joint commitment that defines it’.²⁸ Instead, in such contexts, it is more intuitive to think that the group persists, despite changes in commitments from its members. Joint commitment is clearly important in social groups, but when it is said to provide a sufficient account of the group’s ontology then things get more problematic. The above points seem especially important in the context of the Church— for whilst the commitments involved in baptism clearly do result in certain expectations or responsibilities for the members of the Church, the beliefs of the Church are not constituted by these commitments, as in Gilbert’s account. Instead, individuals commit to a set of beliefs which are already the beliefs of the Church, regardless of the waning commitments of its members. Simply ²⁶ This worry is raised by Ulrich Baltzer (2002). Gilbert has responded to Baltzar’s objections, noting that one can jointly commit to a course of action with someone that one has never met. She claims all that is strictly necessary for making a joint commitment with someone is that you know of that person and that you know they have a certain intention (Gilbert, 2013: 52). ²⁷ Tollefsen, 2015: 22. ²⁸ Collins, 2019: 57.

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put, the Church is not the result of the joint commitments of its members, but the work of the Holy Spirit. So, whilst Gilbert’s account captures something intuitive about the commitments of individuals and tells us something important about the obligations of those who have been baptized, it falls short of providing us with an account of group membership in baptism. Consider a more mundane instance of group membership to help illuminate the relationship between commitment and membership more closely. Suppose I want to become a member of CAMRA, the society campaigning for the promotion of real ale. According to its website, in order to become a member, I am expected to provide my contact details, to adhere to the community guidelines, and to pay the small sum of £26.50 each year. Upon meeting these conditions, I will receive a membership card which provides proof that I am a member of CAMRA. The commitment to upholding the promotion of real ale may be an expectation of members of CAMRA but it seems to be neither necessary nor sufficient for membership in the society. The CAMRA society might, for instance, simply decide to bestow membership on me, even if I haven’t filled in an application form, made any promises, or paid my membership fees. Similarly, I might fill in all the necessary paperwork, pay my membership fees, and the committee might still decide not to offer me membership in CAMRA. While promises clearly have social implications (i.e. if I promise to do X to group G, I am now obliged to perform X to G), they do not always provide necessary and sufficient conditions for membership in a group. Likewise, promissory commitments form an important part of the baptism liturgy since they tell us something about the expectations of new life in the community of the Church, but they tell us very little about what it is to be a member of the Church. They may even tell us something about the suitability of candidates to become members, but by themselves, commitments are insufficient for membership. We need to look beyond the notion of commitment, then, to reflect on the nature of membership of the Church.

3. Membership and Authorization Our reflection on the promises in the liturgy helps to highlight that some form of joint commitment is present in the rite of baptism. Candidates make a public promise to commit to a new way of life in the presence of a community reciprocating this commitment by promising to support them to live up to these promises. These promises make clear what a commitment to the

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community of the Church entails for the baptized as they belong to a covenant community. However, problems emerge when we try think of promising itself as the means of membership uniting the community. The Church is not a social group which is constituted by many individuals jointly committing to a certain way of living, nor is it a group of those who are committed to complex and high-level theological claims. In fact, as McKnight highlights, ‘many of us utter things aloud that we do not mean and may not carry through on, so we ask everyone in the room to pray to God for those who are being baptized that God’s grace will create a stable faith . . . this emphasizes baptism as something God is doing in our midst.’²⁹ The one Church must be understood as grounded in the work of God, as we are drawn into the mysterious body of Christ. Returning briefly to the discussion of functionalist group ontologies promises to offer a better way forward for thinking about membership. As we saw in Chapter 2, a member of a group agent (such as a corporation or nation/state) may either be an authorizing member, an acting member, or both an authorizing and active member. For example, if one is an authorizing member of a trade union, this means accepting that the union representatives have a right to speak on my behalf. If I am an active member of a trade union, this means that the authorizing members permit me to represent them through striking or by lobbying employers. According to List and Pettit, standing in at least one of these two roles provides necessary and sufficient conditions for being a member of a group agent.³⁰ That is, if one is in a position to authorize others to act on behalf of the group (even if only implicitly), or if one is authorized to act on behalf of a group then one is a member of that group. Consider, for example, Paul’s use of military language in Philippians 2:25, in which he talks of sending Epaphroditus, his ‘fellow soldier’ and ‘messenger’. We might describe this as a kind of authorization of Epaphroditus to act on behalf of the one Church in Philippi.³¹ Importantly, one cannot simply decide to authorize a group to speak on one’s behalf or to decide to speak on behalf of a group. As List and Pettit explain, We do not authorize a group agent, having it speak and act for us, just by our say-so. We must be licensed by the group as being fit to do this, for example by belonging to a suitable category or meeting a criterion such as having paid ²⁹ McKnight, 2018: 43. ³⁰ List and Pettit, 2011: 35. ³¹ With thanks to David Worsley for suggesting this example.

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    a fee or being accepted by other members. The license may be given explicitly by the group’s charter or a contract of affiliation, or implicitly through the informal acceptance by others. The same goes for activity. We do not act for a group agent just by virtue of trying to help; we must be licensed by the group, formally or informally, as being fit to act on its behalf.³²

Thus, if we want to know what it is to be a member of the Church (whether in an active or authorizing capacity), then we need to provide conditions for what it is to be licensed by the Church as being fit to be a member of the Church. It is to this issue we turn in the next section.

3.1 Baptism and Speech Act Theory An indirect way to answer the question of how one is licensed to be a member of the Church can be found in reflecting on the meaning of the words used at the centre of the baptism liturgy: N, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. All Amen.³³

What do these words mean in the context of baptism? One way to answer this question is to analyse the meaning of the baptismal rite through the lens of speech act theory. Key to understanding speech act theory (at least for our purposes here), is to see that our speech aims at more than the transference of propositional content between speakers and hearers; our speech aims also at performing certain actions. More specifically, consider a distinction made by J.L. Austin, between three different kinds of speech acts: locutionary, illocutionary, and perlocutionary.³⁴ The differences are best explained by way of an example. Say I send a text message to my wife with following words: ‘I’ll be home in time for tea.’ Here, I perform a locutionary act in typing the words on my phone: ‘I’ll be home in time for tea.’ The simple act of locution consists in communicating a proposition through language. However, this is not the only

³² List and Pettit, 2011: 35.

³³ Church of England, 2006.

³⁴ Austin, 1961: 133–252.

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act my words aim at; by using these words I promise to my wife that I will return home before the time we usually eat our evening meal.³⁵ This is the illocutionary act I perform. Finally, my act is also perlocutionary; that is, it aims to create some effect on the recipient, for instance, that my wife will be pleased to see me and relieved that I won’t be working late again this evening. Let’s examine the baptismal words through the lens of speech act theory.

3.2 Two Models of Baptismal Speech Acts In this section, I’ll analyse two ways of thinking about baptism through the lens of speech act theory. These will primarily function as points of contrast to the model I propose in the following section. First, following William Alston, consider the different kinds of illocutionary speech acts one might perform: 1. Assertives: merely asserting, acknowledging, concluding, remarking, insisting. 2. Directives: ordering, requesting, suggesting, imploring. 3. Commissives: promising, contracting, betting, etc. 4. Exercitives: adjourning, appointing, nominating, pardoning, etc. 5. Expressives: thanking, congratulating, expressing contempt, relief, enthusiasm, delight, etc.³⁶ Pertinent for our purposes is the difference between assertive and exercitive speech acts. Simply put, exercitive speech acts bring about some change in the world; in Alston’s words, ‘it is the bringing into being of a certain state of affairs, rather than the “recording” of a pre-existing state of affairs.’³⁷ Exercitive speech acts make something so. In contrast, assertive illocutionary speech acts aim to describe (or, report, acknowledge, present, etc.) something that is already true of the world. Consider an example from James Arcadi: Suppose a person with relevant authority shatters a champagne bottle on the prow of a newly constructed ship and says, ‘This is the Flying Dutchman.’ This is a case of making so; the ship has at that point become the Flying Dutchman. However, suppose Tom and Matt board the ship a few minutes ³⁵ Note the correct (North of England) usage of the term ‘tea’, to refer to an evening meal. ³⁶ Alston, 2000: 3. ³⁷ Alston, 2000: 86.

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    later, and Matt asks Tom (no doubt with trepidation), ‘What is this ship?’ to which Tom replies, ‘This is the Flying Dutchman.’ This latter story includes an illocutionary act performed by Tom that records a description of a preexisting state of affairs – namely that the ship is the Flying Dutchman. Consequently, on the former case the utterance brought it about that the ship’s name was the Flying Dutchman, the latter . . . did not bring this into being.³⁸

In the former case, the person utters an exercitive utterance; the ship is named ‘The Flying Dutchman’ because the person with the requisite authority utters the relevant words. In the latter case, Tom does not bring about a new state of affairs; rather, Tom recognizes something which is already true of the world; that is, his speech act is assertive. Arcadi goes on to argue that this distinction helps to make sense of the theological notion of consecration, in which objects are set apart for holy use. As Arcadi defines it, consecration is a kind of exercitive speech act, according to which the consecrator has the authority to bring about a change of name for a certain object to be set apart for holy use.³⁹ For instance, in the case of Christ’s consecrating the bread by using the dominical words, ‘This is my Body’, Christ asserts that ‘bread’ is an apt name for the object in Christ’s hands, in a way analogous to the renaming of a ship by one who has been given authority to do so. With all of this by way of introduction, we can ask whether the illocutionary speech acts in baptism are exercitive or assertive: Do the baptismal words bring about a change of some sort (i.e. are they an instance of exercitive utterance)? Or do they merely report a change that has already taken place (i.e. are they merely assertive)? More specifically, do these words themselves bring about a change such that the baptized is now a member of the Church? Or do they seek to recognize that the one being baptized is already a member of the Church? Our answers to these questions are revealing on the issue of who stands in a position to license members of the Church. In his book Children of Promise, Geoffrey W. Bromiley situates his own position on baptism between what he thinks of as two extreme views. We will examine the speech acts present in the baptism liturgy through these two views. First, let us examine what I will call the ‘Roman Model’. As Bromiley describes this view, ‘there have been those who invest the sacrament with an almost magical quality. For them, the rite was divinely instituted as a means of ³⁸ Arcadi, 2018: 66–7.

³⁹ Arcadi, 2018: 75.

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entry both into the church and also into salvation.’⁴⁰ On the Roman Model, baptism itself brings about a change in one’s relation the Church—the baptismal words are therefore best thought of as exercitive utterances that make it the case that the newly baptized enters into the body of Christ through the rite. Bromiley’s pejorative use of the term ‘magical’ shows his scepticism with such a proposal, but one need not think that it is the water itself that is imbued with special powers to make sense of such a notion. Thomas Aquinas makes precisely this point in his discussion of baptism and its causal power: It is not because of the natural power of the water that any spiritual effect is caused in Baptism, but because of the power of the Spirit which is in the water . . . . But what the power of the Spirit is to the water of Baptism, that the very body of Christ is to the appearances of bread and wine. They are operative only because of the very body of Christ that they contain. A sacrament is so called because it contains something sacred. A thing can be sacred in two ways; in itself absolutely, and in relation to something else. The difference between the Eucharist and other sacraments having a material element is this: whereas the Eucharist contains something that is sacred in itself absolutely, namely, Christ, the water of Baptism contains something that is sacred in relation to something else, that is, it contains the power of sanctifying us.⁴¹

It is because the water has been consecrated, thinks Aquinas, that the rite is able to have this exercitive function in making it so that the newly baptized stand in a new relation to the Church. For Aquinas, sacraments have causal power to change something in the world because they are given an ‘instrumental spiritual power’ because they have been blessed by an authorized minister.⁴² Thus, the water itself is not magical, but it is set apart to be used by God, such that when the minister utters the words, we can rightly think of her as uttering an exercitive act. In other words, on this view, baptism brings about a new relation between the individual and Christ (i.e. they are now clothed with Christ) and with the community of the Church (i.e. they are grafted into the body of Christ). The Roman Model holds that the utterer of the speech act (the priest or minister authorized to act on behalf of God) brings the baptizand into a new relationship to the Church through the rite;

⁴⁰ Bromiley, 1970: 28. ⁴² Aquinas, ST: 3a, 78, 1.

⁴¹ Aquinas [Summa Theologiae (ST)], 1975: 3a, 73, 2.

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this is the perlocutionary act which is performed. Thus, we might give the following analysis of the baptismal words:⁴³ Roman Model Utterer: God (via the words of the minister/priest) Hearer: Baptizand Sentence: ‘N, I baptize you . . .’ Illocutionary Act: Exercitive (i.e. appointed as standing in a new relation to the Church) Perlocutionary Act: Being made part of the body of Christ. Let us consider the second view of baptism, call it the ‘Decision-Profession Model’. In Bromiley’s words, this model thinks of baptism as a ‘public act, in which we openly express our repentance from sin and profess our faith in Jesus Christ, [and] we signify the turning away from the old life of sin and the entry into the new life in Christ in whom we believe’.⁴⁴ Unlike the emphasis on baptism as something passive which is done to us, this view thinks that baptism is ultimately something we choose. Thus, rather than thinking of the sacrament as in some way causing a change in the candidate’s relation to the Church, this view thinks of baptism as a decision made by the candidate to publicly profess their faith in Jesus Christ. Since their faith, and their salvation is something chosen (or at least something they have chosen to respond to), nothing ‘magical’ happens in the rite of baptism. Instead, the baptismal words reflect a change that has already taken place, namely a decision to follow Jesus. Thus, the illocutionary act present in baptism is assertive in nature rather than exercitive; the change that has taken place is already present in the candidate’s decision to join the Church by accepting Jesus in faith, and the act of baptism is merely a public recognition of this change. As such, we might think that the focus of the liturgy is not really on the minister’s words at all, but on the baptizand’s confession, promises, and testimony. And so, we might ask, what function do the baptismal words themselves play? It seems that in this context, the words ‘I baptize you . . .’ function as a recognition that the candidate has made a confession that has been publicly accepted and recognized by others in the Church. In other words, the minister publicly acknowledges the faith of the candidate who has professed. This is not insignificant for

⁴³ With thanks to an anonymous referee for suggesting these helpful summaries of the three positions in the chapter. ⁴⁴ Bromiley, 1970: 30.

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the Decision-Profession Model, but neither does it bring about any real change in the candidate’s relationship to the Church. Returning to our previous formula we can offer the following analysis of the speech acts present in the baptismal liturgy: Decision-Profession Model Utterer: minister/priest Hearer: Those present (the baptizand, the congregation, God) Sentence: ‘N, I baptize you . . .’ Illocutionary Act: Assertive (i.e. a recognition of the baptizand’s faith decision) Perlocutionary Act: The hearers come to know that the baptizand’s faith is endorsed and recognized by the Church. Just as Bromiley is sceptical of the Roman view, he thinks that the DecisionProfession Model is problematic, since ‘It substitutes an anthropocentric meaning for the theocentric meaning. It puts the “I” and its decision in the place of God and his decision. It gives primacy and honor to man and his work and not as it should to God and his work . . . It finds the critical point in our turning to God rather than his turning to us and his turning us to himself.’⁴⁵ What we need, he thinks, is a middle way between these two accounts. This is what the Calvinian Model provides.

3.3 The Calvinian Model Let’s consider this middle way between the Roman and Decision-Profession models outlined in the last section. Put simply, the Calvinian Model contrasts with the Decision-Profession Model in its claim that baptism is not about marking a decision I have made, but about marking something that God has done. And the Calvinian Model contrasts with the Roman Model in that it claims baptism itself does not bring about a change in the individual’s relationship to the Church, but rather, baptism ‘declares, signifies, and seals not what I do but what God has done, does, and will do for me’.⁴⁶ Put differently, we might say, for the Calvinian the speech act in the baptismal words are assertive not exercitive; they recognize and acknowledge something that God has done, rather than bringing about a change of affairs. ⁴⁵ Bromiley, 1970: 36–7.

⁴⁶ Bromiley, 1970: 35.

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Since this is model preferred here, it will be helpful to offer a deeper analysis of the claims advanced. As the name suggests, the Calvinian Model takes its lead from John Calvin’s discussion of baptism. In the Institutes, Calvin writes that ‘a sacrament is never without a preceding promise but is joined to it as a sort of appendix, with the purpose of confirming and sealing the promise itself, and of making it more evident to us and in a sense ratifying it.’⁴⁷ Unlike the views which think of the sacrament itself as bringing about some change (such as the Roman Model outlined above), Calvin is clear that the sacrament’s purpose is to make clear something that is already true, in virtue of God’s work. Analogously, Calvin writes, ‘the seals which are attached to government documents and other public acts are nothing taken by themselves, for they would be attached in vain if the parchment had nothing written on it. Yet, when added to the writing, they do not on that account fail to confirm and seal what is written.’⁴⁸ In other words, for Calvin, baptism is not sufficient for membership in the Church. In fact, without the work of the Spirit drawing us into the community of the Church it is entirely redundant. Thus, in the context of baptism, Calvin argues, ‘Baptism is the sign of the initiation by which we are received into the society of the church, in order that, engrafted in Christ we may be reckoned among God’s children.’⁴⁹ Note that this does not mean that baptism is a mere ‘mark by which we confess our religion before men’ (i.e. the Decision-Profession Model cannot be true),⁵⁰ yet, nor does it mean ‘our cleansing and salvation are accomplished by water, or that water contains in itself the power to cleanse, regenerate, and renew; nor that here is the cause of salvation but only that in this sacrament are received the knowledge and certainty of such gifts’ (i.e. nor is the Roman Model defended).⁵¹ To return to our previous terminology: while baptism is not an exercitive act, for Calvin, neither is it an assertive act by which we acknowledge a prior confession we have made. Instead, baptism is an assertive illocutionary act in which the work of God in initiating us into the society of the Church is attested to and proclaimed. But none of this is to say that baptism is an ordinary act of initiation, in which God is silent. It is important to stress that, for Calvin, while it is the minister who speaks the baptismal words and performs the baptismal rite, it is God who is said to be the origin of the sign and the agent of the speech act.

⁴⁷ Calvin, 1960: 1278, XIV, 3. ⁴⁹ Calvin, 1960: 1303, XV, 1. ⁵¹ Calvin, 1960: 1304, XV, 2.

⁴⁸ Calvin, 1960: 1280, XIX, 5. ⁵⁰ Calvin, 1960: 1306, XV, 3.

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Nicholas Wolterstorff has suggested that seeing Calvin through speech act theory can help clarify this claim. He writes, When we are introduced to the distinction between locutionary and illocutionary acts, it is natural to have in mind the situation in which a given person performs an illocutionary act by performing a locutionary act—asserts something by speaking, makes a promise by writing something on a sheet of paper, and so forth. But in fact the agent of the two acts need not be the same. The President may come down with an attack of laryngitis just before he is slated to give his State of the Union address. Someone else may then read his speech for him; if so, then by that person’s uttering the words, the President makes his proposals. That is how we must think of the sacramental case before us. By the appointed minister of the Church uttering the words and performing the actions of the sacrament, God presents the promise made in Jesus Christ and assures us that the promise remain in effect. The minister does not do it, God does it. God is the agent. With hammering insistence the Reformed confessions assert that God is the one who signifies and seals the promises.⁵²

Thus, the seal of baptism is bestowed not by a minister or congregation but by God. The Holy Spirit works through the rite of baptism to signify the candidate’s identity to Christ’s body. If we are to follow Calvin, we must stress that the primary authorizing members of the Church are not the congregation members who make promises in baptism, the baptism candidate themselves, or the minister speaking the baptismal words over the candidate. Only the persons of the Trinity are authorized or licensed to admit members into the body of the Church. Our role as those who administer the sacraments can only be understood as a secondary kind of agency. Moreover, if we are to apply the distinctions made in speech act theory onto Calvin’s account of baptism, it is notable that Calvin’s main emphasis in the Institutes is not on the illocutionary acts at all, but rather on the perlocutionary purpose of baptism. Thus, while the sacrament is not exercitive, for Calvin, it is intended to have some effect on us, namely, to seal ‘on our consciences the promises of his good will toward us in order to sustain the weakness of our faith’.⁵³ The sacrament’s perlocutionary effect is really where the force of baptism is found, for Calvin.

⁵² Wolterstorff, 1996: 114.

⁵³ Calvin, 1960: 1277, XIV, 1.

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Wolterstorff, in applying speech act theory to Calvin’s theology of sacraments, unpacks this claim compellingly. Wolterstorff writes, ‘In the sacrament God does not so much tell us of those promises made in Christ as here and now assure us that they remain in effect. He here and now assures us that the promise remains in effect, rather than merely telling us about a promise once made.’⁵⁴ Expanding this position, he writes, In short, the perlocutionary effect of the sacrament, if we may call it that, is not produced simply by the uttering of the sacramental words and the performance of the sacramental actions—any more than the perlocutionary effect in speech is produced simply by the sound or the look of the words. It occurs only when the recipients discern the illocutionary acts performed— only when they discern that God is assuring them that the promise made in Jesus Christ remains in effect for them. If your anxiety is calmed by the note I leave on the kitchen table, that is because you do not merely see the words but discern what I was saying with those words.⁵⁵

In other words, baptism provides us with the confidence in our identity in Christ and our belonging to the one Church through the work of the Spirit. Here, an analogue with that of a passport may prove helpful.⁵⁶ While having a passport is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a citizen, it does provide one with the rights of a citizen; without a passport one cannot fully participate as a citizen, say, by travelling internationally, or by being employed as a national of that country. A passport provides us with confidence and a visible sign of the reality of our citizenship. Analogously, while baptism is not sufficient for membership in the Church (and perhaps not necessary), it provides us with a firm grounding for our confidence of our belonging to the body of Christ. This confidence in our identity as the body of Christ which baptism makes clear is also important for thinking about how we relate to the Church as a group. As List and Pettit describe, Successful group agents . . . typically . . . self-identify as a group, employing the language of ‘we’ just as the individual, self-identifying agent employs the language of ‘I’. This facilitates the performance of a group as a person among persons, just as individual self-identification facilitates the ⁵⁴ Wolterstorff, 1996: 112. ⁵⁵ Wolterstorff, 1996: 117–18. ⁵⁶ See Sutanto (2021) for further discussion of this analogy.

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performance of the individual as a person among persons. It enables those who speak for the group to pick out that group as one personal agent among others: we, the town; we, the university; we, the church. And it enables them at the same time to pick it out as an agent to which they have a special, authoritative relationship, one that allows them to use the indexical ‘we’. This is a group that they recognize as one among many – as a group enmeshed in reciprocal obligations – but it is also a group in which they are implicated, a group for which they are entitled to speak, and a group that is moved by certain collectively endorsed intentional attitudes.⁵⁷

One way of thinking about the sense of self-identity that List and Pettit refer to here is with Calvin’s language of being sealed as a member of the group. In discerning the assurance of the promises of God in Jesus Christ we are promised not only individual salvation but entrance into the mysterious community of the Church. Thus, the perlocutionary force of baptism comes in its pressing home our self-identity as those who belong to the Church and act on its behalf by being authorized to do by the Holy Spirit. When we come to examine the nature of liturgy in Chapters 6 and 7 this sense of selfidentification becomes increasingly important for how we consider our ongoing relationship to the Church. And thus, we might examine the speech acts present in baptism as follows: Calvinian Model Utterer: God (via the words of the minister/priest) Hearer: Baptizand Sentence: ‘N, I baptize you . . .’ Illocutionary Act: Assertive (i.e. a recognition of God’s saving work) Perlocutionary Act: The faith of the baptizand is sealed.

3.4 Group Membership and Baptism What, then, from the perspective of the Calvinian model, should we say about the relationship between baptism and membership of the Church? If one recognizes that the primary function of baptism is to assert what God has done, then it remains possible that there are those who’s faith has gone

⁵⁷ List and Pettit, 2011: 193–4.

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unrecognized by the Church. Thus, it appears that baptism may not be a necessary criterion for belonging to the one Church. Consider two examples to see why. First, suppose Jill grew up in the Church but was never baptized, since she belonged to a congregation that didn’t practise baptism. She is now an active member of a local church, participating in the Eucharist and plays an active role in the life of the community. She quite evidently has faith in Christ and the Holy Spirit is clearly at work in her life. Now, while it seems obvious to me that Jill should get baptized, it is not so obvious that she lies outside of the one body of Christ. Her membership has not been sealed in baptism, but plausibly, she belongs to the Church through the authorization of the Spirit. If this is right, then we might think, strictly speaking, baptism is not necessary for membership in the one Church. Second, according to Bart D. Ehrman, at the time of Constantine it was common to delay baptism until one’s deathbed, such that it might achieve maximal efficacy in providing forgiveness of as many sins as possible, such that one would not die without sins forgiven through baptism.⁵⁸ Clearly, we can question the theological reasons for delaying baptism until one’s deathbed while still asking its implications for ecclesiology. But if Ehrman is right and deathbed baptism was widespread, then should we conclude that during this period of history the one Church was sparsely populated? This seems like a puzzling conclusion to arrive at. Instead, I think, while maintaining that baptism is normative for those who are being drawn into the community of the Church, we should refrain from drawing too firm a line on membership into the Church, determined only by baptism. These examples suggest that there may be members of the one Church who have not been baptized. Of course, much of this is dependent on one’s particular view of soteriology and the relationship between soteriology and ecclesiology. These issues are too substantial to deal with here. The important point is to stress, at least from the perspective of the Calvinian Model endorsed here, that baptism itself is not the means of determining who is a member of the one Church. To return to the passport analogue: I am a member of the United Kingdom. I did not decide to join the United Kingdom by means of swearing an oath and paying a small membership each year (although some people become members of the UK by this means, i.e. through paying to go through the naturalization process). I am a member of the United Kingdom in

⁵⁸ Ehrman, 2018: 35. With thanks to Scott Harrower for suggesting this example.

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virtue of my birth.⁵⁹ I also have a passport which proves that I am member of the United Kingdom. But my passport is not a condition for my membership, nor is acquiring a passport a means of my being admitted in the United Kingdom. For instance, my passport might be damaged in a fire, but this does not affect my status as a member of the United Kingdom.⁶⁰ Similarly, Jill may lack the seal and assurance that Calvin thinks comes through baptism but it doesn’t follow from this that Jill lies outside of the society of the Church.

4. Infant Baptism and Group Membership Finally, it is difficult to discuss the relationship between baptism and membership in the one Church without addressing the issue of infant baptism. Clearly, this chapter will not resolve what is sometimes a contentious and highly charged debate, but at the very least my aim is to show that baptizing infants is consistent with the view of ecclesiology I have been advancing in this book. First, note that if one thinks that baptism brings about an exercitive change, such that baptism is necessary and sufficient for membership in the Church, then there is no good reason to exclude children. The more the merrier, so to speak. If baptism provides the necessary and sufficient conditions for belonging to the one Church, then it is difficult to see why we would withhold this benefit from anyone, unless they actively resisted it. Alternatively, if one thinks that baptism is merely assertive, recognizing a decision that individuals have made to follow Jesus and join the Church, then infants cannot be included unless they can decide for themselves. Thus, baptism as an act of profession can surely only be available to those who have the cognitive capacities to choose for themselves. But note (as we will explore in detail in Chapter 6), one cannot hold to this view consistently and also admit that young infants and those who lack the cognitive capacities to decide for themselves are members of the Church. The Calvinian account may appear to have a less obvious answer to the question of whom we should baptize. For what is acknowledged in baptism is the saving work of Christ and the Spirit’s drawing us into the community of ⁵⁹ This is not to imply that people can enter into the Church by birth, but only to say that some people enter into the Church before they are old enough to consciously attend to this, such as in the case of children of believing parents. ⁶⁰ Nathaniel Gray Sutanto makes a similar comparison in his recent chapter on baptism (Sutanto, 2021: 455).

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the Church. This way of thinking about baptism takes the emphasis away from the individual. As N.T. Wright summarizes what he takes to be Paul’s theology of baptism: Baptism is a community-marking symbol, which the individual then receives, not first and foremost as a statement about him- or herself, but as a statement which says, ‘This is who we are.’ . . . Baptism marks out this community, the messianic-monotheist, new-exodus, crucified-and-risen community, which like Israel of old then requires a commensurate way of life of its members . . . The true statement that baptism makes is a statement about the baptized community in Christ, with the truth of the dying and rising of the particular individual who is baptized on this or that occasion being a function of that larger reality. The challenge to particular individuals is always then to make real for themselves that which their membership in this community would indicate.⁶¹

If baptism serves to mark out those who are members of the community of the Church, and to seal this identity on their hearts, then there is no in principle reason to exclude the young from the life of the community. Indeed, as Calvin argues, thinking of baptism as a seal of God’s covenant community is really to say that baptism plays a similar role to the Church that circumcision plays for the people of Israel.⁶² Calvin notes that ‘The promise . . . is the same in both, namely, that of the fatherly favor, of forgiveness of sins, and of eternal life.’⁶³ And, secondly, ‘the thing represented is the same, namely, regeneration.’⁶⁴ Thus, he thinks, ‘what dissimilarity remains lies in the outward ceremony, which is a very slight factor, since the most weighty part depends on the promise and the thing signified.’⁶⁵ Thus, if infants are thought to be participants of the people of Israel and marked as such by the rite of circumcision, then it would be strange to think that the mark of the new covenant would be more restrictive. As McKnight puts it, ‘If God entered Abraham into the covenant by circumcision and demanded Abraham enter his son through circumcision, then it is clear that God thinks the best way to form children into the covenant faith is by birthright entrance into the covenant . . . if it was God’s pattern then it is at least reasonable and theologically consistent to think that God’s pattern in the new covenant would be the same.’⁶⁶

⁶¹ Wright, 2013: 421–3. ⁶² Calvin, 1960: 1327, XVI, 4. ⁶⁴ Calvin, 1960: 1327, XVI, 4. ⁶⁵ Calvin, 1960: 1327, XVI, 4.

⁶³ Calvin, 1960: 1327, XVI, 4. ⁶⁶ McKnight, 2018: 72–3.

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Moreover, Calvin argues that withdrawing baptism from children threatens to withhold the benefits of belonging to the community of the Church. He writes, children receive some benefit from their baptism: being engrafted into the body of the church, they are somewhat more commended to the other members. Then, when they have grown up, they are greatly spurred to an earnest zeal for worshipping God, by whom they were received as children through a solemn symbol of adoption before they were old enough to recognize him as Father.⁶⁷

Calvin here is remarkably pragmatic—if we wish children to grow in faith, then we would be foolish to withhold them from that which provides the greatest means of knowing the grace of God. The life of the community can benefit the discipleship of children. Empirical research has shown that children’s perception of their identity in a social group has a significant effect on their development. For instance, research in developmental psychology has shown that children respond differently towards those whom they perceive to be part of the same social group (an ‘in-group’), than to those who belong to an ‘out-group’. From a very young age, children engage in ‘cultural learning’, in which they imitate ‘in-group members more faithfully than out-group members’.⁶⁸ Thus, whether or not we treat children as fellow members of the Church has implications for how they develop a sense of belonging to the group and how they learn from other members of the Church. Recognizing children as fellow baptized members of the Church means that children are not merely accommodated into the Church’s life until their noise disrupts adults who are ‘trying to worship God’. Rather, as we will explore in detail in Chapter 6, all the members of the Church participate in its worship. As Louis Weil puts it, ‘all the baptized are equal and integral participants in its [the Church’s] common life, bearing witness week after week to the God whom they acclaim as the Creator, the Incarnate Lord, and the Holy Spirit.’⁶⁹ Only an ecclesiology in which children are thought of as fellow members of the Church, rather than second-class members, or children of members, can see children incorporated fully into the Church’s life. Clearly, then, how one thinks of children as members has implications for how children relate to the life of the Church. But why think that children should be included in the life of the Church? Calvin provides two reasons. ⁶⁷ Calvin, 1960: 1332, IV, 10.

⁶⁸ Buttelmann et al., 2013.

⁶⁹ Weil, 2001: 19.

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First, he thinks, children are not exempt from having some kind of relationship with God. Secondly, he argues that the sign and seal of baptism can look forward to a future time in which children come to personal faith. Let’s consider these two points in turn. Calvin argues that even very young infants demonstrate signs of relating to God. We’re told in the Gospel according to Luke, for example, that John the Baptist leapt in the womb of his Mother, Elizabeth, when she was greeted by Mary (1:41). On this passage, Calvin writes, ‘Let us not attempt, then, to impose a law upon God to keep him from sanctifying whom he pleased, just as he sanctified this child, inasmuch as his power is not lessened.’⁷⁰ Similarly, referring to Jesus’ encounter with children in the Gospel according to Matthew (19:13–15), Calvin suggests, the Lord Jesus, wishing to give an example by which the world would understand that he came to enlarge rather than to limit the Father’s mercy, tenderly embraces the infants offered to him, chiding his disciples for trying to deny them access to him, because they were leading away from him those to whom the Kingdom of heaven belonged.⁷¹

Children are not merely included by Christ into the kingdom of heaven, but they are also held up as exemplars of members of such a community. Consider an example I borrow from N.T. Wright: I asked two children to each blow up a balloon. I allowed the first child to only put two or three little puffs into the balloon. The second child went on puffing and puffing and puffing and blew up this enormous balloon. Then I held them up and asked the children, Which of these balloons is fuller? Of course they all said “the big one.” And I replied, “Are you sure? Both of these balloons are full. One is bigger because it has more air, but they are both full—all the space in them is used up.”⁷²

As Wright goes on to suggest, ‘A very little person can be totally full of the love of God. Even though, of course, when she grows up and becomes a bigger person, she needs to be filled with more and more of the love of God. But that little person is not half full just because she’s a little person.’⁷³ If a child can form close personal bonds with its caregivers from the very earliest moments of its life, then why suppose that children will not form such attachments with ⁷⁰ Calvin, 1960: 1341, IV, 17. ⁷³ Wright, 2008.

⁷¹ Calvin, 1960: 1329, IV, 7.

⁷² Wright, 2008.

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their heavenly Father and creator?⁷⁴ Thus, if children are capable of having a faith-according-to-kind, then it seems strange that we would exempt them from the life of the community of faith. However, these claims may look problematic if we think that very basic to faith is a certain kind of understanding or belief, which young children are clearly not capable of having. Consider Alvin Plantinga’s discussion of the nature of faith, for instance: Belief in God means trusting God, accepting God, accepting his purposes, committing one’s life to him and living in his presence . . . . So, believing in God is indeed more than accepting the proposition that God exists . . . But, if it is more than that it is also at least that. One cannot sensibly believe in God and thank him for the mountains without believing that there is such a person to be thanked and that he is in some way responsible for the mountains. Nor can one trust in God and commit oneself to him without believing that he exists; as the author of Hebrews says, “He who would come to God must believe that he is and that he is a rewarder of those who seek him”. (Hebrews 11:6)⁷⁵

Plantinga claims that although belief that God exists is clearly not sufficient for faith, it is necessary; one cannot have faith in God if one lacks belief that God exists. If Plantinga is right, it would seem strange to think that John, in the womb of Elizabeth, could exemplify faith of any kind. Until one is able to form the right kind of beliefs about God, it is difficult to see how one could trust God or commit one’s life to God. Thus, it is hard to see how Calvin can be right about the attitudes of children. Recent work in both biblical studies and philosophy has called into question this relationship between belief and faith. In her extensive study of pistis (translated as both ‘faith’ and ‘belief ’) lexicon in the New Testament, Teresa Morgan writes that, in the early Christian context, pistis is ‘first and foremost, neither a body of beliefs nor a function of the heart or mind, but a relationship which creates community’.⁷⁶ Morgan thinks that ‘the concept which stands at the heart of the pistis/fides lexica . . . [is] trust.’⁷⁷ Similarly, New Testament scholar Matthew Bates has argued that, rather than thinking of faith primarily as a kind of interior belief, in the New Testament texts ‘Faith (pistis) is predominantly fidelity or loyalty which is outwardly expressed via ⁷⁴ This example is used by Wright (2008). ⁷⁵ Plantinga, 1983: 18. ⁷⁶ Morgan, 2015: 14. ⁷⁷ Morgan, 2015: 15.

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relationship to others. This does not deny that it contains an interiority (such as mental “trust” or “belief”), but to contend that its interiority was not nearly as important as its exteriority in the Graeco-Roman world of the New Testament.’⁷⁸ Work by Jonathan Kvanvig, Daniel Howard-Snyder, Daniel McKaughan, and Jason Stigall has tried to make sense of this shift away from interior- or belief-focused conceptions of faith to accommodate this broader, externalist conception of faith. Howard-Snyder, for instance, argues that For you to have (put, maintain) faith in a person, as an x, is for you to have a positive cognitive attitude toward their being an x, for you to have a positive conative orientation toward their being an x, for you to (intend to) rely on them, as an x, for you to be disposed to live in light of that attitude, orientation, and reliance, and for you to be resilient in the face of challenges to living in that way.⁷⁹

These non-doxastic accounts of faith differ on their details but are unified in claiming that belief is neither necessary nor sufficient for faith, instead emphasizing faith as an orientation or disposition towards a certain kind of relationship characterized by reliance, or trust. We do not need to examine the details of such accounts in detail to see their relevance here, for this work opens up the possibility of thinking that those who lack the kind of complex interior life Plantinga describes might still be thought of as having a kind of faith. If faith is thought of in these functional terms, then very young children might be thought of as being disposed to rely on God, or to relate to God in appropriate ways, regardless of their beliefs. This may not rise to the level of faith found in neurotypical adults, but we might think of such dispositions as a seed which, if rooted in the right environments, God can nourish and grow.⁸⁰ Moreover, in focusing on faith in functional terms, we are also able to think of communities as well as individuals as having a kind of faith. Consider the much-discussed story of Paul and Silas’ jailer in Acts 16, who is converted after seeing God miraculously release his prisoners: “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They answered, “Believe [Pisteuson] on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household.” They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. At the same ⁷⁸ Bates, 2020: 199. ⁷⁹ Howard-Snyder, 2017: 56. ⁸⁰ Crisp (forthcoming) makes a similar point regarding infant baptism.

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hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. (Acts 16:29–33)

Paul and Silas tell this man that he must have faith in Jesus Christ, but also that his household must have faith. Interpreted through Howard-Snyder’s nondoxastic account of faith, we might think that the household as a collective is to be disposed to relying on God and to be resilient in the face of challenges. It is not a stretch to think of households in these terms. It would seem that a household with the disposition of reliance on God is precisely the environment one would want a child to be brought into. This dispositional way of thinking about faith and communities of faith also provides us with another reason to echo Calvin’s claims about the importance of the benefits of children’s full membership into the Church. By being brought into the community, which is disposed towards God, one creates an environment in which personal faith can flourish. It is for these reasons, I think, that Calvin is insistent that baptism is for children of believing parents; for in such households, the seeds of faith which God implants in even the very young can be exposed to the benefits of grace God reveals through the Church. He argues that the children of Christians are considered holy; and even though born with only one believing parent, by the apostle’s testimony they differ from the unclear seed of idolators [1 Cor. 7:14]. Now seeing that the Lord, immediately after making the covenant with Abraham, commended it to be sealed in infants by an outward sacrament [Gen. 17:12], what excuse will Christians give for not testifying and sealing it in their children today?⁸¹

To Calvin’s second reason for inclusion of children, namely, that baptism can serve as a sign and seal of a future faith. It is important to stress here that to claim that households or the very young can be positively disposed to rely on God is not to say that infants or households can repent and be saved by this orientation. Calvin is clear about this. In fact, even though he thinks that John may display signs of relating to God in the womb, and even if Christ holds up children as members of God’s kingdom, none of this circumvents the need for those who belong to this community to find personal faith and repentance. Rather, Calvin thinks, baptism points to a future repentance and faith; ‘infants are baptized into future repentance and faith, and even though these have not ⁸¹ Calvin, 1960: 1329, IV, 6.

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yet been formed in them, the seed of both lies hidden within them by the secret working of the Spirit.’⁸² Thus, baptism is no guarantee that children will find personal faith, nor does it entail that all the baptized will be united to Christ eternally. To assume this would be to endorse the ‘magical’ view Bromiley is so dismissive of. Rather, baptism is a mark of belonging to the community of Christ and the seal of God’s salvific work in Christ.

5. Conclusion Let us return to List and Pettit’s comments on group membership, which we considered earlier in the chapter: We do not authorize a group agent, having it speak and act for us, just by our say-so. We must be licensed by the group as being fit to do this . . . We do not act for a group agent just by virtue of trying to help; we must be licensed by the group, formally or informally, as being fit to act on its behalf.⁸³

These comments are illuminating for our reflections on belonging to the one Church. If the Church is thought of as a community grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit, which unites us to function as Christ’s body, then it should be abundantly clear where the authority to license members of the Church lies. The only necessary condition for membership in the Church is that one is licensed to belong to the Church, in Christ, by the Spirit, according to the will of the Father. The model defended in this chapter claims that neither the baptism rite nor the promises made in the baptism liturgy are the means of membership in the Church. Rather, baptism functions as a sign and seal of what God has already done, in which we assert the reality of God’s one Church and mark the life of the individual who is identified with this community.

⁸² Calvin, 1960: 1343, IV, 20.

⁸³ List and Pettit, 2011: 35.

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5 One Bread, One Cup The Eucharist as a Sacrament of Unity

1. More than Metaphysics: Analytic Theology and Eucharistic Unity Whereas the sacrament of baptism plays a unique role in identifying one as a member of the social body of Christ, the Eucharist occurs far more frequently within the life of the Church. One might think of it like this: baptism marks one’s entrance into the one Church; the Eucharist stands as a constant reminder of one’s identity and unity to this body. One might think, however, that there is little left for analytic theologians to say on the issue. Of all the topics which come under the umbrella of ecclesiology, the Eucharist has been one of the most widely discussed in the analytic tradition so far.¹ And yet, the conversation thus far has been relatively narrow in focus, concerning itself primarily with the question of how it could be that bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ after they are consecrated. This chapter seeks to address a different question altogether—that of the role or purpose of the Eucharist. And, in particular, its role in uniting the community of the Church.² To know that Christ is present in the elements is surely only part of the story; a metaphysics of Christ’s temporal-physical locatedness in the Eucharist is insufficient if what we are after is an explanation of the role and purpose of the Eucharist. This is not to say that metaphysics won’t inform our understanding of the Eucharist’s role. Indeed, the account proposed in this chapter

¹ For an excellent overview of this discussion, see Arcadi (2016). ² This focus on unity and the Eucharist has been a theme picked up across a range of traditions within Christian theology. For instance, according to Thomas Aquinas, the Eucharist is a source of unity both with Christ and with the members of the Church (ST: 3, 73, 3). Its source of unity comes from being a sacrament which, in George Hunsinger’s summary of Aquinas, ‘looked to the past, the present, and the future’ (Hunsinger, 2008: 27). Looking back to the past, it commemorated Christ’s passion, and so was called a sacrifice. Looking forward to the future, it prefigured ‘that enjoyment of God which will be ours in heaven’ (ST: 3, 73, 4). In the present, the Eucharist ‘established what it signified, and signified what it established, namely, the unity of the church’ (Hunsinger, 2008: 27).

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0005

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depends on having a corporeal understanding of the relationship between Christ’s body and blood, and the consecrated elements. But to stop here is akin to giving an explanation of how a bride and groom might be co-located in a church building, and an account of how rings can be indwelt by fingers, without seeking to ask the purpose and meaning of this co-located metalcylinder exchange. This is not to undermine the excellent work that has been done on the metaphysics of the Eucharist in the analytic tradition, but rather, to say that this work is incomplete if it only tells us how Christ is in the room but not why Christ is there. For the purposes of our broader discussion concerning the oneness of the Church, the most pertinent question to ask seems to be this: What role does the Eucharist play in the unity of the Church?³ My answer to this question will consider two kinds of unity in the Church. First, I consider the human-tohuman unity of those gathered to share the Eucharistic meal together. I begin by considering the notion that the Eucharist is a practice of social cohesion, drawing from accounts of social bonding in the psychology of ritual participation. Then, I explore the role of remembrance as a form of social unity, building on discussions from the philosophy of memory and accounts of family narrative identity. I argue that the Eucharist functions much like the practice of family reminiscence, in which we retell events from the past in order to develop a group narrative identity. Note that the account of social unity offered in this first half of chapter is not different in kind to other instances of social unity; if my chess club ate Battenberg cake every Thursday afternoon and reminisced about past classical games, this model would apply to their unity, too.⁴ Thus, this purely social unity does not require one to commit to a particular metaphysics of the Eucharist. Secondly, I consider the kind of social unity that is distinct in the celebration of the Eucharist, namely, the unity that arises from the Church’s unity in Christ through the Holy Spirit, which is manifest through the sacrament. This notion of unity does require that one adapt a corporeal view of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, or so I claim.⁵ Here, I develop an account of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist found in the nineteenth-century Reformed

³ A qualification: the focus of this chapter is not that of explaining the role of the Eucharist as an ecumenical tool, in which I trace the similarities in Christian traditions, showing the points of unity across a diversity of groups. There are existent works that do superb job of this task (see e.g. Hunsinger, 2008; Salkeld, 2019). ⁴ Thanks to David Worsley for the clarification and the example. ⁵ I follow Arcadi’s definition here, namely that ‘at the consecration of the elements, the substance of Christ’s body and blood become present in some fashion related to the consecrated elements’ (Arcadi, 2018: 14).

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theologian John Williamson Nevin.⁶ Nevin provides a helpful corrective to the human-to-human account in the first half of the chapter, stressing that unity cannot be found only in the Eucharist as a human ritual. Put simply, the unity of the Church manifested in the Eucharist is a divine gift, not a human work. The Eucharist points to the fact that the Church is one. This reality serves to highlight the deep inconsistency of those who attempt to divide or schism the Church through the Eucharist. The final section develops a claim made by Nevin, that in eating Christ’s body we are more united to that body. The position advanced here stresses that there is an important parallel between the consecrated elements and the consecrated congregation. Just as bread and wine are offered to God, praying that the Holy Spirit will transform to be the body and blood of Christ, those gathered are offered to be transformed into the body of Christ in the world.

2. Human-to-Human Unity through the Eucharistic Ritual Outside of the institution narratives in the gospels (Matt. 26; Mark 14; Luke 22), the most extensive discussion of the Eucharist in the New Testament comes from 1 Corinthians. As we saw in Chapter 2, 1 Corinthians is also one of the most significant ecclesiological texts we find in Scripture, especially on the theme of unity. And so, it seems like a good place to begin our consideration of Eucharist unity. The chapters preceding the memorable image of the body in chapter 12 focus on two important issues of disunity in the Corinthian Church: the eating of food sacrificed to idols (chapters 8–10), and divisions arising from social class and segregation (chapter 11). In response to these issues, Paul urges the Church to celebrate the Eucharist and to do so properly, thereby bringing them together as one in Christ.

2.1 Social Cohesion and Eucharistic Ritual First, let’s consider Paul’s response to the issue of participating in idolatrous rituals in 1 Corinthians 8–10. As Gordon Fee notes, the emphasis Paul places on the Eucharist as a source of social cohesion in chapter 10 is a conclusion ‘to the long argument with the Corinthians that began in 8:1 and that concerned ⁶ With many thanks to D.T. Everhart for alerting me to Nevin’s work and for many helpful conversations on the topic.

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their going to the temple feasts’.⁷ The command to ‘flee from idolatry’ (10.14) is followed by the corrective that the Eucharist should be the Church’s uniting liturgical practice, rather than the divisive practices of pagan culture. Bringing this argument to its conclusion, Paul writes, ‘The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor. 10:16–17). The point of this passage is one of ritual uniqueness. While there are divergent views on precisely what Paul has in mind in these two verses,⁸ it seems clear that at least part of Paul’s concern is to stress that those united in Christ are united to one another by their practice in the same rituals. As Margaret Mitchell summarizes, Paul ‘urges the Corinthians to be united because their cultic participation in the same rites stresses their fundamental κοινωνία [koinonia] with the same deity and thus with one another as co-worshipers of that deity’.⁹ Similarly, as Fee puts it, ‘there can be little doubt that Paul intends to emphasize the kind of bonding relationship of the worshipers with one another that this meal expresses . . . . Paul has chosen to interpret the bread in light of the present argument, an interpretation that emphasizes the solidarity of the fellowship of believers created by their all sharing “the one loaf”.’¹⁰ As these interpreters stress, Paul’s emphasis on the Eucharist is importantly practical; in a platitude: a community that eats together stays together. But what precisely about common ritual participation leads to the kind of unity that Paul envisages in 1 Corinthians 10? Why is the proper response to a community divided by cultural and religious conflict to urge them to participate in a common and unique ritual? One plausible answer to these questions can be found in recent discussions in the psychological study of ritual. In his influential book, Moving Together in Time, William McNeill explores the role of synchronous movement in the rituals of dancing and military drill. McNeill argues that rituals which include moving together result in a kind of ‘boundary loss’, a ‘blurring of self-awareness and the heightening of fellowfeeling with all who share in the dance’.¹¹ These effects occur as those dancing together strive to synchronize their movements with their fellow dancers, attempting to move from a sense of individual agency to a kind of shared agency, in which the movement of the group arises almost effortlessly (more on this in Chapter 6). Repeated exposure to such practices, McNeill thinks, has

⁷ Fee, 1987: 463. ⁸ See e.g. Fee, 1987; Schweizer, 1967; Marxsen, 1970; Marshall, 1980; Kilpatrick, 1982. ⁹ Mitchell, 1993: 142. ¹⁰ Fee, 1987: 466. ¹¹ McNeill, 1995: 8.

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an important effect on the sense of unity with those people. Writing on the synchronous movement involved in military marching, McNeill argues that such practices ‘create and sustain group cohesion; and the creation and maintenance of social groups’.¹² This sense of cohesion can lead to an increase in efficiency, furthering the group’s aims and purposes. The very act of moving at the same time as someone else has a profound effect on our perceived unity with that person.¹³ Let’s consider an example. Recounting his own experiences in military boot camp, the theologian Dru Johnson colourfully depicts the kind of shift in perspective McNeill describes. Through a rigorous and repetitive practice of military drills and rituals, Johnson maintains that ‘boot camp changed the way I see myself, my community, and the world. It was the closest thing I’d known to a religious experience at that point in my life.’¹⁴ These rituals were not arbitrarily chosen, but rather, they each ‘had an invisible arrow running through them that pointed toward a goal. Although we didn’t know it at the time, every ritual at boot camp aimed at a greater purpose. Our drill sergeants were trying to teach us many things in a compressed amount of time.’¹⁵ In other words, these military rituals had a telos, including that of uniting its participants such that they would be prepared to die for one another. Many of McNeill’s claims have been demonstrated by empirical studies on the social effects of synchronous movement and group ritual.¹⁶ For instance, in a recent study, Sarah Charles et al. claim that participation in religious rituals increases ‘social bonding among the participants’ and induces ‘an increase in β-endorphin and positive affect, and a decrease in negative affect’.¹⁷ These studies show that not only do participants in religious rituals attest to the effects of these rituals for their bonding with others, but also, there is neurological evidence that the brain positively responds to these rituals. More generally, sharing experiences with others (particularly those of pleasure and pain) has been shown to foster a sense of closeness and social cohesion.¹⁸ A recent psychological study by Robin Dunbar on the psychological effects of communal eating is particularly noteworthy for our purposes. Dunbar demonstrates that eating with others has a significant effect on feelings of closeness to that community. Summarizing the study, he writes: ¹² McNeill, 1995: 10. ¹³ I’ve extended McNeill’s discussion to the practice of group prayer in Cockayne and Salter (2019). ¹⁴ Johnson, 2019: 5. ¹⁵ Johnson, 2019: 5. ¹⁶ Empirical studies of McNeill’s claims (or similar) can be found in Codrons et al. (2014); Hove and Risen (2009); Reddish, Fischer, and Bulbulia (2013). ¹⁷ Charles et al., 2020. ¹⁸ Boothby, Clark, and Bargh, 2014; Boothby et al., 2016; Bastian, Jetten, and Ferris, 2014.

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people who eat socially are more likely to feel better about themselves and to have a wider social network capable of providing social and emotional support, . . . meals at which laughter and reminiscences occur and alcohol is drunk are especially likely to enhance feelings of closeness.¹⁹

It is notable that, from a psychological perspective, there is great value to be had from the simple acts of joint movement (a fuller account of which will be explored in Chapter 6) and corporate eating. It is not a stretch to claim, then, that the ritual acts involved in the celebration of the Eucharist—eating together, reciting liturgy together, moving together synchronously by sitting, standing, kneeling, and drinking alcohol together—play a significant role in the sense of closeness with those we participate alongside. Whatever else we might say about the Eucharist, it seems clear that the ritual movement involved in its practice has potential to significantly increase the sense of unity and social cohesion within a group. It also seems plausible to think that, over time, those gathered in these rituals will begin to identify themselves as a common group. Moreover, we might also gesture towards an account of ritual uniqueness here. That is, we might have plausible reasons for thinking that participating in the Eucharist alone (rather than the Eucharist and pagan ritual eating) is important for social cohesion. Participating in ritual activity alongside those who are divisive to the unity of the Church serves to create the social cohesion with the wrong group. The problem, from the psychological perspective, may not lie in the rituals themselves, but rather in whom the rituals are practised with. Put simply, if we recognize the psychological power of ritual movement and ritual eating, we should be careful who we extend the invitation towards.

2.2 Remembrance and Unity with the Past Turning to 1 Corinthians 11, Paul stresses once more that the Eucharist is supposed to unite the Church, rather than serving as a source of division.²⁰ In chapter 11, the source of division is not the practice of pagan rituals, but the misuse of the Eucharistic meal itself. Evidently, some members of the Corinthian Church were using the meal as an opportunity to gorge and satisfy their hunger, leaving little for those arriving at different times (1 Cor. 11:33–4).

¹⁹ Dunbar, 2017: 206. ²⁰ This section summarizes and revises parts of Cockayne and Salter (2021). The material is reused with permission.

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This situation is an example of what Lauren Winner calls ‘deformation’ of the Eucharist, that is, an instance in which a practice is damaged in a way that deforms something intrinsic to its telos. For instance, Winner writes, ‘One of things meals do is define and bind communities—but that binding and defining can slip easily toward exclusion, the reification of boundaries, of exploitation.’²¹ Expanding this deformation of the Eucharist in Corinth, Panayotis Coutsoumpos explains, The church at Corinth was composed of people from different social strata, the wealthy and the poor, as well as slaves and former slaves. It was customary for participants in the Lord’s meal to bring from home their own food and drink. The wealthy brought so much food and drink that they could indulge in gluttony and drunkenness [in conformity with existing social customs]. The poor who came later, however, had little or nothing to bring, with the result that some went hungry . . . The Corinthians’ meal . . . had become a social problem for the Christian community: (1) The meal made beforehand was apparently different in quantity and quality. (2) Some members [the wealthier] began eating before the others arrived and before the Lord’s supper took place. (3) . . . The ones who arrived late [i.e. slaves, former slaves, and the poor] found no room in the triclinium, which was the dining room [a privileged place] where regularly only twelve could recline for the meal.²²

In response to this social division and deformation of the Eucharist, Paul urges the Church to remember. This emphasis on remembrance is not incidental. As well as echoing the words of institution, Paul is evoking an important thread which is weaved throughout Scripture. Remembering the suffering of the past and God’s faithfulness to his people is one of the primary sources of unity in Jewish ritual. Indeed, one of the roles of the Seder meal, in which the community gathers to re-enact the events of the Passover, is to reaffirm their identity as God’s people, the very same people who God rescued from Egypt. As N.T. Wright puts this point, ‘Eating the Passover said: it happened, once for all, and we are part of the people to whom it happened.’²³ The command to remember in the Eucharistic ritual is importantly related to the remembrance of the Passover. As Wright explains, ‘Jesus’ words over the bread transformed this, so that it now said: the new Passover is to happen, and those who share ²¹ Winner, 2018: 15. ²³ Wright, 2016: 185–6.

²² Coutsoumpos, 2005: 105. Quoted in Hunsinger, 2008: 254.

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this meal thereafter will be constituted as the people for whom it had happened and through whom it will happen in the wider world.’²⁴ There are many important connections between Passover and Eucharist which might be explored, but we must stay on topic. Importantly for our purposes, the Eucharistic emphasis on remembrance (or anamnesis), like the remembrance rituals of the Passover, has a unitive function. By connecting the community brought together by the social cohesiveness of a ritual meal in the present with the events of the past, the Eucharist serves to connect a single isolated act with many acts of many people gathered over centuries; simply, to borrow from Wright, we are the people for whom it happened. This sense of remembrance as a source of unity in the Church can be enriched further by a more precise analysis of the notion of remembrance. In particular, I will suggest that bringing recent philosophical and psychological literature on memory into conversation with discussions of memory in the Hebrew Bible can help us to see just why remembrance is such a powerful component of Eucharistic unity. In philosophical and psychological work on memory, it is common to distinguish between different aspects of memory. A typical taxonomy includes ‘episodic’, ‘semantic’, and ‘procedural’ memory.²⁵ Episodic memory refers to a memory of an event at which the individual was present and includes a phenomenal sense of ‘re-living’ that subjective experience. For example, we might say, ‘I can still see his face’, or, ‘I spent all night reliving the traumatic interview experience.’ Semantic memory, broadly speaking, refers to memory of facts or concepts. This includes categories like general knowledge and knowledge of word meanings.²⁶ One can also have semantic memories of past events, though they need not include either the phenomenological component of episodic memory or the requirement that the event actually be experienced. For instance, one might recall that Sheffield Wednesday won the FA Cup in 1935, even if this occurred before one’s birth. Semantic and episodic memory are both ‘declarative’, that is, ‘their contents can in principle be articulated’²⁷—these kinds of memory loosely correlate to the distinctions often made by philosophers between phenomenal knowledge (i.e. knowledge of what something is like) and propositional knowledge (i.e. knowledge-that). Procedural memory, in contrast, is not declarative and aligns closely to what philosophers have called ‘practical knowledge’ (i.e. knowledge-how). For example, one may remember how to drive a manual car, even if the ²⁴ Wright, 2016: 185–6. ²⁷ Michaelian, 2016: 141.

²⁵ Michaelian, 2016.

²⁶ Jones et al., 2015.

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summation of what this amounts to cannot, in principle, be articulated.²⁸ This taxonomy can help to make some connections between the ways in which memory is described in some biblical texts.²⁹ The notion of remembrance we find in accounts of remembrance in Hebrew Scripture arguably involves all three senses of remembrance articulated above. For example, the command: ‘Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the L your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm’ (Deut. 5:15) intuitively involves, at the least, a kind of semantic recollection of Israel’s past: Israel remembers that they were slaves in Egypt. However, semantic memory alone is also not sufficient for preserving the memory of Israel. Consider the repeated admonishment to remember the commandments (Num. 15:40, for instance). As Brevard S. Childs argues, the commandments are not expressions of abstract law, but are events, a part of God’s redemptive history toward Israel . . . . Memory serves to link the present commandments as events with the covenant history of the past . . . . The commandments given to a former generation continue to lay claim anew on each generation. Yet one cannot separate instruction in the law from covenant history . . . historical memory establishes the continuity of the new generation with the decisive events of the past. God’s plan for Israel unfolds in her history.³⁰

There is something much richer communicated in the command to remember than the mere recollection of facts. Remembrance serves to create a connection between the past events and present events, by locating our present story within the stories of the past. Such descriptions are invoking ways of remembering that appear to be more akin to episodic memory. What is preserved from past generations is not simply a knowledge that some event happened, but also the phenomenal feel of this event as reliving the past in some way.³¹ The term used for this phenomenal experience in many of the discussions of memory in Hebrew Bible scholarship is ‘actualization’. As Childs puts it, ‘The ²⁸ Of course, this will depend on the ongoing discussion of intellectualism and anti-intellectualism about practical knowledge. ²⁹ It is important to note that this taxonomy of memory may not fit neatly onto the biblical texts, but this does not mean that we cannot draw some helpful comparisons between the ways in which memory is described in Scripture and the ways in which contemporary philosophy and psychology describe memory. In the Hebrew Bible, the verb zakhar (to remember) in its various forms appears 221 times, and the noun zikkaron (memorial sign), twenty-two times (Childs, 1962: 9). It is this term ‘zikkaron’ that the Greek Septuagint translates as anamnesis, the term we find used in the Eucharistic passage from 1 Corinthians. ³⁰ Childs, 1962: 51. ³¹ Spiegel, 2002.

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act of remembering serves to actualize the past for a generation removed in time from those former events in order that they themselves can have an intimate encounter with the great acts of redemption. Remembrance equals participation.’³² Returning to the discussion of Deuteronomy 5, Childs writes that ‘Memory does not serve to arouse a psychological reaction of sympathy for slaves. Rather, quite the reverse is true. Israel observes the Sabbath in order to remember her slavery and deliverance . . . . Memory functions as an actualization of the decisive event in her tradition.’³³ This process of actualization is made possible through the retelling and ritualizing of the past events. In tasting the bitter herbs in the Seder meal, for example, the aim is not merely to recall the bitterness of Israel’s oppression, but to experience some of this bitterness for oneself; to participate in the bitterness as a member of the same community who experienced these past events first-hand. Remembrance, as understood in the Hebrew Scriptures, is an action that is often situated in this communal act of retelling. This can help us to see the role of procedural memory in this context. As Ryan O’Dowd has argued in some detail, the retelling of past events through the rituals of remembrance aims at teaching the present community to discern the ongoing work of God. O’Dowd puts it as such: the actualization of the past ‘is not just a story, but the place where, in present obedience to the Torah, God’s redemptive history in Egypt and at Sinai become fully and powerfully realized’.³⁴ Acts of remembrance provide something like a procedural memory of how to relate to God and to relate to the world, something that the community passes through generations by the retelling of the past. One of the primary ways in which this ongoing remembrance of the past is made possible is through the rituals of the community. In agreement with O’Dowd, Johnson argues that the rituals of Hebrew Scripture have an epistemological goal, but one which is not aptly summarized by the learning of some propositional fact; the rituals of the Jewish faith train the community to understand the world and to discern God’s work within it.³⁵ Notably, these rituals are inclusive of a variety of different roles. Johnson notes that one’s participation in ritual depends, in part, on the role one plays in that community. There is not an egalitarian structure to these rituals; children have a vastly different role to play in Hebrew ritual than their parents, but both are important in disposing Israel ³² Childs, 1962: 56. ³³ Childs, 1962: 53. Note that Childs doesn’t mean here that memory could not serve to arouse psychological reaction through a semantic remembrance of the past, but that this is not the only (or primary) sense of memory at work in the Hebrew bible. ³⁴ O’Dowd, 2007: 7. ³⁵ Johnson, 2016: 168.

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to know God.³⁶ Thus, remembering together is necessarily a communal practice. Whilst the community remembers the events of the Passover through the Seder, this need not mean that everyone contributes equally, or, indeed, remembers equally. It may be the case that the young infant develops a kind of basic procedural memory of how to participate in the ritual, or some episodic memory of the ritual itself, and will not find the language to explain such memory until much later. This observation nicely reaffirms much of the discussion of the benefits of infant baptism, as outlined in Chapter 4. Put simply, the sense of remembrance involved in the Eucharist is not to be confused with mere fact recollection. Rather, memory is rich, involving our bodies and our imaginations in important ways. In participating in the events of the past, we are united with those with whom we are remembering. An analogous practice can be seen in the use of reminiscing in family groups through the telling of stories and sharing of memories, particularly in groups that have gathered after long periods of time. Families often have folknarratives that depict eventful times in the life of the family (remember that time Dad got the car stuck in the ditch on holiday), or in which difficulties are highlighted as significant (remember how it felt to visit Grandpa for the final time that Christmas). Sometimes the sense of group memory can incorporate those who were not even there; consider how the stories that are told about one’s young childhood, or before one’s birth, play a role in the family narrative.³⁷ There are even occasions where people report having a sense of memory about an event at which they were not present, because of the centrality of this reminiscing in the life of the family. This seems especially pertinent for thinking about the Church’s gathering each week to remember the events of the Passion. Indeed, recent psychological studies have shown that humans’ ability to effectively form narratives about the self emerges out of dynamic, reciprocal social relationships throughout ontogeny.³⁸ This view naturally complements theological discussions of actualization, which emphasize both the communal dimension of such acts of remembrance as well as the necessary role in community identity formation. Formation of a clear family narrative has been shown to be connected to children and adolescents’ psychosocial wellbeing.³⁹ Both childhood and adolescence are key stages in the formation of self-narratives; childhood as the time of emergence and adolescence as a time

³⁶ Johnson, 2016: 238–9. ³⁷ With thanks to Beth White for this insight. ³⁸ Bolis and Schilbach, 2018; McLean and Syed, 2015. ³⁹ Waters and Fivush, 2015.

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of forming overarching life-narratives.⁴⁰ The role of the family is of relevance throughout, and the way families remember is significant. Families that tell stories of the past that provide more emotional detail and have a clearer understanding of how emotional conflicts were resolved typically have adolescents that are more socially and academically competent.⁴¹ The evidence suggests that family reminiscing has important though varied effects, depending on the manner in which the family shares memories together. The Seder and the Eucharist are conducted in a manner that bears strong similarity to a family reminiscing together and is to be told not just as a story but as our story. By what a group chooses to share about the past, they can form a communal identity around these collective memories. As the same stories are repeatedly revisited in a process of ‘shaping and reshaping’,⁴² groups go beyond mere factual recall and begin to ascribe meaning to past experiences. A group might leave out their own failings in order to fashion a story that emphasizes past successes, or they might find a way to process a traumatic experience that emphasizes the opportunities for growth rather than the sufferings experienced. Consider how one might remember the Exodus as a story of suffering and pain, or as one of redemption and freedom. By what and how a group chooses to remember, they make a choice about the identity they will forge. Given the effects of reminiscing on social cohesiveness, and the richness of remembrance in the Hebrew tradition, it is not surprising that Paul chooses to focus on remembrance in a context which is divided around the celebration of the Eucharist. It is also notable that while those who defend memorialist views of the Eucharist are often deemed to have ‘low views’, a memorialist view which is rooted in a Hebrew understanding of remembrance has an important sense of the unity of the community over time. The caricature of such views as focusing on mere fact recall fails to take seriously how complex reminiscing within a community can be and how significant such an act is to the sense of unity over time. J.B. Torrance summarizes aptly this ‘rich’ memorialist view: [A]t the Lord’s Table we do not merely remember the passion of our Lord as an isolated date from nineteen hundred years ago. Rather, we remember it in such a way that we know by the grace of God we are the people for whom our Saviour died and rose again, we are the people whose sins Jesus confessed on the cross, we are the people with whom God has made a new covenant in the ⁴⁰ Habermas and Bluck, 2000. ⁴² Fivush and Merrill, 2016.

⁴¹ Marin, Bohanek, and Fivush, 2008.

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blood of Christ, we are the Israel of God to whom God has said ‘I will be your God and you shall be my people’. We today are the people whose sorrows and cries Jesus bears in his kingly heart as he intercedes for us and constitutes himself the eternal Memorial for all his creatures before God. We are what we are today by the grace of God, because of what God did for us then.⁴³

Remembering together through acts of group ritual plays a crucial role not only in our sense of social cohesiveness but in our connectedness to the wider body of the Church over time, and our relation to God as a community.⁴⁴

3. Eucharistic Unity in Christ We have now seen how Paul’s discussion of the Eucharist stresses the role of remembrance and encourages rituals of social cohesion in the midst of division. However, as Andrew Byers has argued, the emphasis on ritual as the means of unity in 1 Corinthians is not the full story. This discussion, Byers thinks, ‘would be enriched by an acknowledgment of the Shema’s overtones in the phrases “one bread” and “one body” that indicate a call to social distinctiveness premised on Jewish theology’.⁴⁵ He continues by noting that for the Christians in idolatrous Corinth – members of the ‘one body’ of the ‘one Lord’ – they can only be partakers of ‘one bread’. The versatility of the Shema’s oneness language is here deployed, signalling an association between the oneness of God and Jesus and the distinctiveness of the Eucharist and of the social body that performs it as a ritual meal. Social harmony is undeniably an implicit ramification of Paul’s argument here; but again, the dominating connotation of oneness in 10.17 is uniqueness expressed in exclusivity of worship more than unity expressed in a collectively harmonious rapport . . . . For Paul, this social uniqueness is sourced in the divine identity shared by the one God and the one Lord, Jesus Christ,

⁴³ Torrance, 1996: 75. ⁴⁴ It is important to stress, in agreement with Nicholas Wolterstorff, that actualization is not the same as re-enactment; ‘the celebrant actually blesses; he does not play the role of Christ blessing. We actually give thanks; we do not play the role of the disciples giving thanks’ (Wolterstorff, 1990: 146). As Cuneo (2016: 82) explains, this does not mean that one plays the role of a character, but one enters inside the narrative as oneself, allows oneself to become emotionally engaged with the characters and environment. ⁴⁵ Byers, 2017: 525.

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who is embodied in the church’s derivative group identity (‘one body’) and corresponding cultic eating practices (‘one bread’).⁴⁶

Put succinctly, what the discussion of social cohesiveness and group reminiscing lacks is an emphasis on the work of the Trinity as the locus of unity; Paul stresses that it is Christ who is the source of unity, not the ritual themselves. We can now unpack this second, more fundamental, sense of unity more fully. An account of Eucharistic unity which takes these concerns seriously must be grounded not in the rituals themselves, but in the person of Christ in whom we participate. I will unpack this claim in the remainder of the chapter and suggest that we should stress a parallel relationship between Christ’s body as the community of the Church and Christ’s body as the consecrated bread and wine. I will argue that by comparing these two instances of Christ’s body, we can see similarities, but also differences. Notably, bread and wine cannot resist Christ’s unifying presence, but the community can. And it is this resistance of unity which the Eucharist can help us to overcome, or so I argue. But just how the acts of eating and drinking can help erode our resistance is the puzzle I seek to address in the latter half of the chapter.

3.1 Unity in the Eucharistic Body and the Ecclesial Body First, let us begin by noting the important parallels between the Eucharist and the Church as Christ’s body in the world. This is a point particularly important for Nevin’s argument. In The Mystical Presence, Nevin aims at correcting what he saw as a pervasive trend in nineteenth-century American Reformed theology; namely, a move away from the emphasis the reformers and the Church Fathers placed on the sacraments, towards a view of the Eucharist as an ordinance which provided an occasion to recollect God’s grace and nothing more. In Nevin’s words, for his opponent, the ‘sacred Supper forms an occasion, by which the graces of the pious communicant are called into favourable exercise; and his faith in particular is assisted in apprehending and appropriating the precious contents of the Christian salvation, as wrought out by the Redeemer’s life and death!’⁴⁷ Nevin thought that the lack of sacramental theology in his contemporaries (including, in particular, Nevin’s

⁴⁶ Byers, 2016: 526.

⁴⁷ Nevin, 2012: 144.

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former teacher Charles Hodge),⁴⁸ eviscerated ‘the institution of all objective force’, making it a mere occasion for recollection or remembrance. The psychological account we have considered in this chapter so far presents the limits of what can be said about the Eucharist if one is to deny Christ’s real presence in the meal. More worryingly, abandoning an objective view of Christ’s presence in the sacrament (which, Nevin thinks, means abandoning the accepted view of the majority in the reformed tradition (especially Calvin), as well as the Church Fathers and the writers of the New Testament), risks something far greater, namely, the abandoning of the doctrine of Christ’s mystical presence in the Church. For Nevin, our understanding of the Eucharist is bound up with our understanding of the mystical union between the Church and Christ. We cannot separate the two doctrines; any ‘theory of the eucharist will be found to accord closely with the view that is taken, at the same time, of the nature of the union generally between Christ and his people’.⁴⁹ Preserving this symmetry between Christ’s relation to the Church and Christ’s relation to the Eucharist is crucial, according to Nevin. Expanding this relationship, he writes, The Lord’s Supper can never be understood, except as viewed in its relation to the whole system of truth, which has been brought to light by the bible. The view we have already taken then, of the new creation in Christ Jesus, and his mystical relation to the Church, has all served only to open the way for placing the ordinance in its true and proper light. The great difficulty here is, in rising to a full, abiding sense of the truth and reality of Christianity itself, as a supernatural constitution permanently established under this character in the world. We are too prone to restrict the idea of supernatural interposition in this case to the single historical person of Jesus Christ himself; an error that tends directly to throw a certain magical, docetic character, over the whole fact of the incarnation, and to sink Christianity at the same time to form a mere abstract spiritualism in the sphere of the flesh. For it is one thing to be spiritualistic in the flesh, and quite another thing to be divinely real in the Spirit. We must not sunder the supernatural in Christ from the life of his body which is the Church.⁵⁰

⁴⁸ Jonathan G. Bonomo provides an erudite and succinct account of Nevin and Hodge’s disagreement (see Bonomo, 2010). ⁴⁹ Nevin, 2012: 57. ⁵⁰ Nevin, 2012: 301.

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Nevin’s worry here is not so much the fear of throwing the baby out with the bath water, so to speak, but of detaching the Church from supernatural work of Christ, such that only the material and immediate are of relevance. A Church with no Eucharistic presence is a Church in which our unity in Christ is believed but is something which has no physical implications for the present. In a revealing passage, Nevin argues that his contemporaries’ ‘theory of the Lord’s Supper’ thought of Christianity as a ‘divine doctrine’ instead of a ‘supernatural life’; this approach proceeds ‘on the same false abstraction, by which soul and body, outward and inward, are made to be absolutely different, and in some sense really antagonistic, spheres of existence’.⁵¹ In other words, it seeks to contain Christ’s ministry to the past, failing to recognize his activity in the present. The result, Nevin thinks, is an account of the Eucharist which shows an ‘utter disregard to the authority of all previous history, and affect to construct the whole theory of the Church, doctrine, sacraments, and all, in the way of independent private judgment, from the Bible and common sense’.⁵² We need not endorse Nevin’s obviously polemical claims wholesale to see the force of his overarching argument. In a slogan: ecclesiology and Eucharist go hand in hand. While it may seem a stretch to say that a commitment to the Incarnation and the Church as the mystical body of Christ entails a high view of the sacrament, this much seems true: a view which upholds the reality Christ’s relation to all three (i.e. his human nature, the Church, and the sacrament) can affirm the role of the Eucharist as a means of Christ’s affected unity in the Church much more straightforwardly.⁵³ If Christ is actually present in the Church and in the sacrament, then we need not think of the Eucharistic meal as a mere human ritual that produces psychological harmony in the community. While it may produce these unitive psychological effects, the Eucharist is primarily an encounter with the only source of unity which will be efficacious: the body of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. This is precisely what Nevin has in mind, I think, in noting that, in the Eucharist, That which is made present to the believer, is the very life of Christ himself in its true power and substance. The doctrine proceeds on the assumption that ⁵¹ Nevin, 2012: 184–5. ⁵² Nevin, 2012: 185. ⁵³ Indeed, there are surely ways of ensuring that a memorialist view that holds that Christ is no more present in the Eucharist than anywhere else, can avoid the charge of misplaced unity. The important point is that the emphasis is placed on the unity found in Christ by the power of the Spirit and not in the rituals themselves. The memorialist might even stress that the ritual could be thought to be a special occasion on which the spirit of Christ is especially present. With thanks to Jonathan Rutledge for raising this objection.

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the Christian salvation stands in an actual union between Christ and his people, mystical but in the highest sense real, in virtue of which they are as closely joined to him, as the limbs are to the head in the natural body. They are in Him, and He is in them, not figuratively but truly . . . The power of this fact is mysteriously concentrated in the Holy Supper. Here Christ communicates himself to his Church; not simply a right to the grace that resides in his person, or an interest by outward grant in the benefits of his life and death; but his person itself, as the ground and fountain, from which all these other blessings may be expected to flow.⁵⁴

In participating in the body of Christ in the sacrament, there is a very real sense that we are what we eat (more on this shortly); in encountering the reality of participating in Christ’s body in the sacrament we are forced to see the reality of participating in Christ’s body in the Church. The Eucharist allows us to participate fully in the life of the Church through the power of the Holy Spirit. As we saw in Chapter 3, it is my contention that there is a parallel relationship between Christ’s instrumental union with the elements and Christ’s instrumental union with the Church. We can see this parallel relationship made clear in the prayer of epiclesis, in which the celebrant prays that the Holy Spirit would set apart what has been offered for holy use as the body of Christ. Indeed, in some traditions the epiclesis is prayed not only over the bread and wine but also over those who are gathered to celebrate the feast. Consider the prayer of epiclesis in 1982 Scottish Liturgy for instance: Hear us, most merciful Father, and send your Holy Spirit upon us and upon this bread and this wine, that, overshadowed by his life-giving power, they may be the Body and Blood of your Son, and we may be kindled with the fire of your love and renewed for the service of your Kingdom.⁵⁵

This prayer of epiclesis is a prayer that the Holy Spirit would use the elements and those gathered as the body and blood of Christ for the service of the kingdom. Recall Alexander Schmemann’s remarks: ‘in the Eucharist it is he [the Holy Spirit] who transforms the Church into the body of Christ and— therefore—manifests the elements of our offering as communion in the Holy Spirit. This is the consecration.’⁵⁶ The Eucharist is a locus of unity in the ⁵⁴ Nevin, 2012: 142–3. ⁵⁵ Scottish Episcopal Church, 1982: 11; emphasis added. ⁵⁶ Scottish Episcopal Church, 1982: 56.

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Church because it is here that we pray for the Holy Spirit to unite us as the Church in ways we cannot achieve through human ritual, or careful organization. The community, united by the Holy Spirit through the epiclesis, then consumes the elements which the Spirit has transformed to be the body and blood of Christ for us. The bread and wine, as well as those gathered in the Church, are instrumentally united with Christ’s body such that Christ is corporeally present in (or extended into) both the community and the consecrated elements.

3.2 The Difference between the Eucharistic Body and the Ecclesial Body However, despite the comparison between the Church and the elements offered above, there are crucial points at which Christ’s relationship to the Church and the Eucharistic elements differs. For instance, unlike the inert objects of bread and wine, those gathered at the table are not always willing participants in the work of the Spirit. So even though the prayer of epiclesis might stress the parallel relationship between the Church and the Eucharistic elements, those gathered to celebrate can deform and resist this reality in ways that inanimate objects cannot. Return to the images of the previous chapters: Remy can only act through Linguini insofar as Linguini is responsive and nonresistant to their instrumental union. Inga can only act as an extension of Olaf ’s memory insofar as Olaf endorses Inga’s memories as his own. While these analogies fall short in various ways, what they capture for our purposes here is that the members of the Church often seek to thwart the purposes of the Spirit at which the prayer of epiclesis aims. Thus, as we saw highlighted powerfully in 1 Corinthians 10–11, while the Eucharist is the locus of unity, this unity is sometimes resisted by those who participate. Put differently: if the locus of unity is the ministry of the Holy Spirit who unites us as Christ’s body, then the locus of contradiction or deformation is human sin, the resistance of all that aligns with the will of God. Therefore, if the Eucharist is aimed at the unity of the Church, our account must have something to say about its role in dealing with human sin. The problem that arises from human sin is not that we approach the table asking for God’s forgiveness. In almost every liturgical tradition in the Church, the Eucharist is preceded by a liturgy of confession. And so, we come to the table as those who have acknowledged our shortcomings, resting assured that our sins have been forgiven in Christ. But this does not mean that sin ceases to

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have a corrosive effect on the Church. We can see this by considering a contrast Kierkegaard draws between justice and love in one of his Discourses at Communion: Justice sets strict boundaries and says: “No further, this is the limit; for you there is no forgiveness,” but with that it also stands. Love says: “Everything is forgiven you—if you are only forgiven little, then it is because you only love little.” So then there comes a new sin, a new guilt that of becoming guilty of only being forgiven little, becoming guilty not by those past sins but by the lack of love. If you want to learn to fear, then learn to fear not the severity of justice but the leniency of love!⁵⁷

Kierkegaard maintains that the difficulty of approaching the Eucharistic table is not that we encounter the presence of a just God who holds us guilty for our sin. This much has been dealt with in Christ’s atoning work, which we have acknowledged and accepted in the preceding liturgy of confession. The challenge Kierkegaard speaks of is that we encounter the love of the one who says that we are forgiven, a reality we cannot accept. What keeps us from participating in Christ is not God’s unforgiveness, Kierkegaard thinks, but our inability to eradicate the guilt in encountering the radical love and forgiveness of God in Christ. Analogously, we might think, in encountering the one body of Christ in the Eucharist, the unity of the Church in Christ is made apparent to us. But this does not mean that we can always live in light of this reality. We need not only forgiveness, then, but also remission from our sin. Consider Terence Cuneo’s discussion of this distinction between forgiveness and remission.⁵⁸ To be forgiven for some wrongdoing, we might think, involves something like no longer holding that wrongdoing against a person.⁵⁹ In contrast to forgiveness, Cuneo claims, remission ‘is best rendered as something along the lines of being released or liberated from the grip of sin’.⁶⁰ This is close to Kierkegaard’s notion of encountering the conviction of love, I think. Whilst our forgiveness in Christ addresses something about our past, what keeps us from participating in Christ is something about our present.⁶¹ We are unable to forgive ourselves; sin continues to have a hold on our future actions. We need remission. An analogy from Eleonore Stump is illuminating here. While David, an alcoholic, can be forgiven for committing ⁵⁷ Kierkegaard, 2011: 129–30. ⁵⁸ Cuneo, 2016: 188–9. ⁵⁹ See e.g. Wolterstorff, 2015a. ⁶⁰ Cuneo, 2016: 189. ⁶¹ This is adapted from Eleonore Stump’s discussion of the problem of past sin and the problem of future sin (Stump, 2009).

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an atrocious act which harms a friend, Susan, while inebriated, this is not all that must happen for David and Susan to be reconciled. David must deal with his alcoholism. Until David’s alcohol is in remission, he will not be able to be reconciled to Susan.⁶² Thus, one of the reasons those gathered to celebrate the Eucharist display disunity instead of unity, is because of their sin. And so, it will be pertinent to ask how participating in the Eucharist can help the community to overcome the sin of resisting the Spirit’s work of unity.

3.3 You Are What You Eat: The Eucharist as a Source of Unity We have now seen that (a) the body we consume in the Eucharist is part of the very same body we constitute as the Church, and (b) that, unlike bread and wine, human beings do not always live in light of their identity as those united to Christ’s body. We can now consider an important question: How is it that consuming Christ’s body in the Eucharist helps us to live in light of unity as members of the Church? And how does participating in the Eucharist help overcome the resistance of the unifying work of the Spirit? One promising response to these questions can be found in applying Cuneo’s account of sin remission and the Eucharist. Cuneo argues that there is something significant about the acts of eating and drinking gifts set apart for holy use that plays a role in our ongoing recovery from the effects of sin. What he has in mind is not a process by which we become convinced that we should refrain from sinning, but rather, a shift in our perception of the world which slowly corrects our propensity to sin. Analogously, as research on the treatment of eating disorders shows, ‘rational persuasion, therapy and . . . pharmaceuticals tend not to help, at least not on their own . . . the road to recovery lies in getting them to eat’.⁶³ The power of eating for the sufferer of an eating disorder is sub-doxastic, Cuneo notes. That is, eating re-orientates the individual to see herself in a new light and to see her food differently. Similarly, Cuneo thinks, in the eating and drinking of the consecrated bread and wine, we are able to see ourselves and our sin in a new light. He argues that the important elements that contribute to the loosening of the grip of the disorder do not consist in the presentation or acceptance of propositions about God or God’s activity or experiences that aim to evoke beliefs about ⁶² Stump, 2009.

⁶³ Cuneo, 2016: 194.

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God or God’s activity . . . instead . . . there are important elements that contribute to the loosening of the grip of the sin-disorder that operate—at least in large measure—at a sub-doxastic level, below the level of understanding or belief.⁶⁴

In congruence with Arcadi, Cuneo thinks that consecration might be thought of, at least partly, in functional terms; consecration brings about a change of use. Bread and wine are no longer merely a source of nutrition and sustenance (although they may remain at least this), but also, they become spiritual food as we are given ‘a point of contact . . . with God’.⁶⁵ This point of contact provides the Eucharist with medicinal qualities, Cuneo thinks. Just as eating and drinking food changes our relationship to food, eating and drinking spiritual food has a sub-doxastic effect on our relation to our sin. In consuming the elements, we are slowly healed through the process of remission, allowing us to participate more fully in the life of Christ. Cuneo’s proposal stresses something important about the physicality of the Eucharist; we are not persuaded to forgive ourselves by a well-crafted sermon or a piece of theological rhetoric. Rather, God uses the consecrated elements for the purpose of eroding our resistance to the unity offered to us in Christ. This process is best thought of as a shift in perception. Slowly, and often in a sub-doxastic way, we are able to see who we truly are in Christ. This account is compelling, I think, but more can be said, especially if we wish to emphasize the importance of a corporeal view of the Eucharist for uniting the Church. In particular, while the relationship between eating and drinking food seems evidentially connected to the recovery from eating disorders, it seems less clear what the relationship between eating Christ’s body and the blood and the recovery from sin is. The same effect might be had from eating ordinary bread and wine, or perhaps even some other food with a particular significance to the participants. So why does eating and drinking Christ help us to overcome resistance to God’s will and thereby participate more fully in the body? Returning to Nevin’s discussion of the Eucharist will help at this point. In agreement with the account of remembrance considered previously, Nevin maintains that there is a close relationship between the Passover Seder and the Eucharist. But he is also keen to stress that mere remembrance views are lacking in important respects; the Eucharist is ‘more than a mere Fourth of July commemoration’, he contends.⁶⁶ More specifically, Nevin stresses, it is an ⁶⁴ Cuneo, 2016: 195.

⁶⁵ Cuneo, 2016: 202.

⁶⁶ Nevin, 2012: 310.

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important part of the Passover ordinance ‘that the sacrifice should be eaten’.⁶⁷ Expanding this observation, he writes, In this case at least, more was intended by this than an act of general communion with God. It represented the necessity of a true, living conjunction with the sacrifice itself. The lamb whose life was poured out as an offering for sin, must be itself incorporated as it were with the life of the worshippers, to give him a fair and full claim on the value of its vicarious death. It became to him an atonement, by entering really into his person.⁶⁸

Perhaps Nevin is too strong here. It is not obvious that consumption can be strictly necessary for unity with a sacrifice. Or, at the very least, we are given no reason to suppose such a strong claim is true. Yet, there is something intuitive about the claim Nevin makes here. This is captured well by the Feuerbachian idiom, ‘you are what you eat’. While Feuerbach’s intention was to establish the coherency of materialism and the relationship between mind and body, the idiom has been enthusiastically adopted by contemporary nutritionists seeking to wean gluttonous, non-self-reflective Westerners from their fatty and sugary eating habits. This idiom is a helpful way into reflecting on the nature of the relationship between sacrifice and eating in Scripture. But it is important to note that Nevin’s comments cannot apply generally to sacrifices without qualification, for most sacrifices are not eaten in Hebrew Scriptures. Sin offerings, for instance, are burnt up by the priest, after the blood of the animal has been sprinkled in front of the sanctuary curtain and at the base of the altar (Lev. 4). But there are some sacrifices which are eaten.⁶⁹ For instance, ‘peace offerings’, or ‘communion sacrifices’ (Lev. 3:1–17; 7:11–21), aim at, ‘the restoration or strengthening of relations between God and the community, or between the members of the community themselves’.⁷⁰ Unlike sin offerings, part of the animal offered in peace offering to God is consumed by those who are gathered. Michael Maher lists ‘the thanksgiving ⁶⁷ Nevin, 2012: 306. ⁶⁸ Nevin, 2012: 306. ⁶⁹ See also Ellen F. Davis’ comparison between Levitical meat-eating sacrifices and the Eucharist. In some sense, Davis contends, the offering of animals for sacrifice is not merely about ownership, but rather, ‘the sacrificial animal represents the human “before YHWH” (1:3), and “the animal offering connotes acceptance of the human offerer, as the prophet Malachi attests (Malachi 1:8)” (Davis, 2017: 12). Similarly in the Eucharist, as Thomas Cranmer puts it in The Book of Common Prayer: ‘We offer and present unto thee, O Lord, ourselves, our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.’ In both cases, the act of sacrifice represents an offering of ourselves in some way; in being united to Christ we are represented by Christ in his sacrifice and consume. ⁷⁰ Maher, 1969: 7. Many thanks to Justin Duff for suggesting this comparison be made explicit and for his helpful discussion of Hebrew sacrifice.

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offering’, ‘the votive offering’, and the ‘freewill offering’ as three instances of this kind of sacrifice, in which the animal is eaten in a festive meal after the offering (Lev. 7:11–21; 22:21ff., 29f.).⁷¹ In these contexts, Maher writes, ‘the communion sacrifice can be distinguished by the fact that only the fat or richest parts of the flesh of the victim were “offered to the Lord by fire”, while the remainder was eaten by the offerer in the company of his friends and guests.’⁷² There are some clear parallels with the Christian practice of the Lord’s Supper, Maher argues. A few points are worth noting from Maher’s comparison between the Eucharist and the communion sacrifice. First, Maher notes, like the Eucharist, the communion sacrifice is not an atoning sacrifice; it occurs in the context in which sin has already been atoned for. Its function appears instead to be unitive; in eating the animal they have sacrificed; the community are united to God and united to one another. J. Pedersen, writing on this unitive function of communion sacrifices, says that ‘Nothing was so well suited to unite souls and strengthen the covenant as a meal which gathered relatives and friends around the common food in a communal spirit. The meal of such a fellowship confirmed and strengthened the peace, the harmony, on which all joint life must depend.’⁷³ Secondly, Maher argues, communion sacrifices are often used to inaugurate or ratify a covenant, such as in Exodus 24, in which the covenant is ratified, the blood of the animal is sprinkled on the altar, and then the elders of Israel share in a meal together (Exod. 24:11).⁷⁴ Similarly, the new covenant is inaugurated by the shedding of blood (1 Cor. 11:25) and the consumption of the sacrifice by the people. As Maher argues, In the context of the paschal meal Jesus’ ‘giving’ of himself for his followers (cf. Luke 22:19) and his ‘shedding’ of his blood (Matt. 26:28; Mark 14, 24) can be seen as introducing a new sacrifice. The eating of the meal offered by him is a participation in a new communion-sacrifice . . . In the Christian community too the renewal of the covenant takes place at a rite that is not simply a communion-meal but above all a communion-sacrifice. The Mass not only recalls the covenant and its meaning for a given congregation, but is in fact the sacrifice by which the Christian covenant was sealed . . . . For the New Testament writers therefore the body that was given in the Eucharist was the Body that had been crucified and glorified. The meal which ⁷¹ Maher, 1969: 8. ⁷⁴ Maher, 1969: 10.

⁷² Maher, 1969: 8.

⁷³ Pedersen, 1947: 334.

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symbolized and brought about fraternal union was founded on, and re-enacted the sacrificial death of Jesus.⁷⁵

To move beyond Maher’s analysis, we must also stress that the union between the sacrifice and the congregation is disanalogous in many ways to the communion sacrifice of the Old Testament; we are not feasting now on something, or someone, who we were once close to and has now died. Relating to Christ in the Eucharist is a communication and communion with one still living. The living union between those who gather around the table and Christ is strengthened by this intimate act of feeding on Christ’s body and blood.⁷⁶ As David M. Moffitt has argued in some depth, the image of sacrifice we are presented with in the Epistle to the Hebrews is one in which Christ is both High Priest and sacrifice; Christ suffers and dies ‘outside the city’ (Heb. 13:13), but then is resurrected and ascended, offering himself as a sacrifice on the heavenly tabernacle.⁷⁷ Moffit summarizes: ‘For the author of Hebrews, Jesus’ presentation of himself in his perfected, resurrected human body— including his now immortal blood and flesh—is the consummation of the high-priestly sacrifice that he offers to the Father and that effects sacrificial atonement (i.e. effects forgiveness of sins and purification for the people for whom he perpetually intercedes).’⁷⁸ Put simply, if Christ is our sacrifice, then he is a sacrifice who is living not dead, one whom we can be in communion with in the present. Similarly, Nevin thinks, contrary to those attempting to defend a memorialist view of the Eucharist, we must stress that the Eucharist does not merely point to the past and to Christ’s work on the cross. The Eucharist also involves participating in communion with Christ in the present. As he puts it, This is the Lord’s Passover in its last and most true sense—not the sacrifice of a typical lamb simply, but my body, my blood—not the pledge of and seal of blessings to come, but the new covenant itself, the pledge and seal of blessings already come, and now comprehended in this sacramental transaction, as ordained for use of the Church, to the end of time. All of course however in the way of a living connection with the sacrifice itself . . . . the Lord’s Supper involves for the worthy participant a true, personal, central communication and [commu]nnion with Christ’s actual life.⁷⁹ ⁷⁵ Maher, 1969: 10, 12. ⁷⁶ I explore the Eucharist as a means of receiving the presence of the living Christ in Cockayne et al. (2017). ⁷⁷ Moffitt, 2011. ⁷⁸ Moffitt, 2017: 47. ⁷⁹ Nevin, 2012: 310–11.

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All of these insights help us to expand Cuneo’s discussion of the Eucharist as medicine in important ways. For what Cuneo’s account is silent on is the relationship between the medicine and the physician. On Nevin’s account, and on the account defended here, ‘the helper is the help’, to borrow a phrase from Kierkegaard.⁸⁰ It is not just an inanimate medicine that we consume in participating in the Eucharist, but the body of the one who is sacrificed for us and continues to intercede for us at the right hand of the Father. Thus, added to Cuneo’s image of the Eucharist as medicinal, we can add a further image, that of being in bodily intimacy with Christ, who is at the same time both our sacrifice and high priest. Taking part in the Eucharist is both a bodily and interpersonal encounter. And we know that embodied, physical interaction with another person is qualitatively different to interaction lacking such features. I write these words more than a year into a global pandemic, in which our interactions with others have largely been mediated by a computer screen. It is not difficult to see that we have lost something vital from our relationships with others in being robbed of their physical contact and presence. The insight for our understanding of the Eucharist is to see that the communion with Christ we are invited into through the celebration of the Eucharist is not akin to a Zoom call; it is an encounter with a living, present person, involving our whole selves, including our bodies.⁸¹ Moreover, we do not merely touch the body of Christ; we consume it and bring into our own bodies. As Paul stresses in 1 Corinthians 6, for those who are members of the body of Christ, what we do with our bodies matters; being joined with prostitutes, for instance (1 Cor. 6:15) is not fitting because it brings Christ’s body into contact with impurity and sin. Contrastingly, the body of the Church is a temple of the Holy Spirit (6:19) and is one flesh with Christ. Indeed, as numerous psychological studies have shown, touch plays a crucial role in relationships of intimacy, both infant development and romantic relationships.⁸² The boundary-blurring effect between self and other that McNeill described as resulting from synchronous movement has been shown to be more prevalent in movement where touch plays a role.⁸³ Other studies have shown that ‘the elderly, the ill and the disabled suffer from a deprivation of touch and derive benefits both psychological and physiological from ⁸⁰ Kierkegaard, 2013: 15; emphasis added. ⁸¹ A contrasting perspective can be found in the work of John Jefferson Davis, who argues that the presence of Christ in the sacrament is akin to that of cyberspace presence. He writes, Christ ‘is not on the table but at the table; the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, is the “hologram” or “avatar” of the presence of Christ . . . .We see him by the “night vision goggles of the eyes of faith” ’ (Davis, 2010: 164). ⁸² Tsakiris and Shinskey, 2020; Maister and Tsakiris, 2016. ⁸³ Maister and Tsakiris, 2016: 112.

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touching and being touched.’⁸⁴ Building on these psychological studies, Kym Maclaren proposes that ‘in touching and being touched, because of the intercorporeity of touch, we are drawn into our bodies, and through a new organization of our bodies made newly incarnate while also being differentiated from the other.’⁸⁵ In other words, touching others brings about a kind of union (however minimally we might construe this), in which our bodies are joined together. We cannot detach the body from our understanding of intimacy in relationships; touch is an important mediator of intimacy. As with the role of eating and drinking in cases of eating disorders, the role of touch in intimate relationships is often sub-doxastic, shaping our perceptions of those we are in physical contact with in ways that go beyond what is attended to consciously. In the Eucharist, then, we are invited not only to allow the consuming of consecrated elements to heal our propensity from sin but to relate to Christ intimately and bodily. While the unity the Eucharist aims at is communal, one of the primary means in which this unity is achieved focuses on the individual. That is, as the individual encounters Christ’s body, she receives remission from her sin through encounter with the living presence of Christ in and through her. In encountering Christ’s body through our own bodies, we allow Christ to transform our minds, our bodies, and our wills. Just as in the aftermath of a disagreement or argument, the loving touch of a friend might bring about greater reconciliation than any words were capable of; in taking Christ’s body into our own (as strange as this may seem), we are united to him in ways that we may not always comprehend. Yet, while this clearly has an individual focus, in being more fully united to Christ in the Eucharist, this must ultimately lead to community with one another. For, as Torrance puts it, ‘we are never more truly human than at the Lord’s Table, when Christ draws us into his life of communion with the Father and into communion with one another.’⁸⁶ The breaking down of our resistance to Christ’s will leads ultimately to our closer unity with one another as Christ’s body.

4. Conclusion We have been considering how the Eucharist might affect unity in those who celebrate it. The account presented is a multi-layered one. First, psychologically speaking, participating in shared ritual actions with others, including acts ⁸⁴ Maclaren, 2014: 96.

⁸⁵ Maclaren, 2014: 101.

⁸⁶ Torrance, 1996: 39.

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of joint reminiscing, can create a sense of unity not only with those who are gathered but with all who have celebrated the Lord’s meal throughout history. Secondly, however, to make a psychological explanation the locus of our understanding of Eucharistic unity risks placing the emphasis in the wrong place. For the oneness of the Church is found primarily in the oneness of the persons of the Trinity; ‘we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread’ (1 Cor. 10:17). The Eucharist is a means of unity insofar as it allows us to participate in Christ through the Spirit. What, then, is the connection between this fundamental unity in Christ and the ritual that is achieved through the practice of the Eucharist? As George Hunsinger argues, it is important to see that the Church’s unity in Christ is an ‘article of faith’, which cannot be undone by acts of deformation.⁸⁷ As I have argued, the practices of the Church can reflect or manifest this unity to greater or lesser degrees; instances of deformation should be thought of as a ‘contradiction’ of the Church’s nature, not as having the potential to destroy it.⁸⁸ None of this implies social unity is unimportant, only that social unity is vital in the Church because it reflects and manifests the reality of the Church’s unity, rather than contradicting it. Without locating ritual unity in Christ, we risk untethering the Church’s unity from the work of the Trinity. But this unity in Christ must have an outworking in the life of the Church in ways that seek to avoid deformation and contradiction.

⁸⁷ Hunsinger, 2008: 261–3.

⁸⁸ Hunsinger, 2008: 263.

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6 Acting as One Liturgy and Group Action

1. The Gathered Church While the sacraments—especially baptism and the Eucharist—clearly play a crucial role in the unity at work in the one Church, we would be mistaken for thinking that this is the only important focus of an account of belonging to the one Church. We turn now (in this chapter and the next) to consider the role of liturgy in uniting the members of the one Church.¹ In the Anglican tradition (to which I belong), one of the most important moments of the liturgy often goes by unnoticed; the prayers of the collect. We each arrive to worship as individuals, with our own thoughts and worries, we prepare ourselves in prayer and confession using the opening lines of the liturgy, and then, after hearing the prayer of the absolution and recognizing God’s forgiveness of our sin, we are brought together as one body. The words of the collect (a short prayer which changes weekly) are often unceremonious, but the change that it signifies is profound.² Consider the following prayer, for example: Almighty God, you have broken the tyranny of sin and have sent the Spirit of your Son into our hearts ¹ This is a heavily re-worked version of my discussion of liturgical action in Cockayne (2019b). It is reused with permission. ² As Paul Bradshaw notes in the companion to the Church of England’s Common Worship, in using the collect, ‘the ministry of the president serves to unify the liturgy and draw the community into a worshipping community’ (Bradshaw, 2001: 114). Note that this does not apply to all contexts of the Anglican tradition. The following exceptions may apply: in the 1662 structure of the Eucharist, confession and absolution are found directly before the Great Thanksgiving, and the collect of the week is between the recitation of the Ten Commandments and the reading of the Scriptures; in the traditional Daily Offices, the collect of the day is used after the confession/absolution and the ministry of the Word, and in many ‘low church’ Anglican traditions, collects are not used at all. Where the collect is placed later in the service, it functions as a collection of the prayers of the people as ‘the priest or leader gather[s] up the inarticulate supplications of the faithful and present[s] them to God’ (Underhill, 1936: 94). Thanks to Andrew Esnouf for highlighting this important clarification.

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0006

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whereby we call you Father: give us grace to dedicate our freedom to your service, that we and all creation may be brought to the glorious liberty of the children of God; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who is alive and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.³

The words of the collect, like Christ’s prayer that we may be one, call individuals to unite as a community capable of worshipping God as one by drawing together their individual prayers. As the closing lines (which are typically the same each week) of this collect highlight, our unity is primarily located in the persons of the Trinity—we are made one by the one God: through Christ, in the unity of the Holy Spirit. And whilst not all traditions use prayers of collect, it is not unique to the Anglican tradition to think that our participation in liturgy allows us to participate in the worshipping community of the Church. Indeed, the very act of gathering as a community to worship has important theological significance; as Stanley Hauerwas describes it, the act of gathering ‘indicates that Christians are called from the world, from their homes, from their families, to be constituted into a community capable of praising God’.⁴ Now that we have a clearer account of what the Church is and how we are related to the Church, in these final two chapters we turn to consider how it is that we participate in the Church through its outward forms. The final chapter provides an account of the Church’s acting in the world, considering how liturgical action is bound up with ethics and what to do when those in the Church diverge from the perfect will of the persons of the Trinity. Before doing so, this chapter focuses on the liturgical forms used in gathered worship. Building on Evelyn Underhill’s discussion of three modes of liturgical participation (silence, representative action, and joint action), I offer a model of liturgical participation in the one body of Christ, drawing from recent philosophical work on joint intentionality and group action.

³ The collect for the third Sunday after Trinity Sunday in the Church of England’s Common Worship. ⁴ Hauerwas, 1997: 157.

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1.1 Liturgical Participation First, before giving an account of group liturgical action, we should consider what is meant by ‘liturgy’. While ‘liturgy’ is sometimes used as a broad concept to refer to many different kinds of ritualized action, the discussion here will focus only the liturgies of the Church.⁵ Note, though, that this need not mean that liturgy is only about what the Church does for two hours on a Sunday.⁶ As we have seen, as members of the Church, our actions inside and outside of gathered worship are brought into the body of Christ through the agency of the Holy Spirit, thereby allowing us to participate in Christ’s ministry. When we situate liturgy in its context as an act of the people participating in the body and work of Christ, then we must see that there can be no such thing as private or individual acts of liturgy. The hermit who devotes herself to a life of prayer in solitude participates in the corporate life of the Church. So too does the survivor of religious trauma who worships alone while he battles to recover from the PTSD which can often be triggered by acts of corporate liturgy. So, while this chapter focuses on acts of liturgical action in gathered worship, these must be understood in their wider context; the corporate life of the Church is not to be identified with a particular mode or tradition of liturgy; rather, it is grounded in the work of the Holy Spirit, who draws us into the body of Christ. In Underhill’s words, even our ‘most lonely contemplations are not merely a private matter; but always to be regarded in their relation to the purposes and action of God. Who incites them, and to the total life of the Church.’⁷ Yet, none of the above negates the fact that gathering to worship is vital for the life of the Church. As Hauerwas’ comments on gathering make clear, there

⁵ As Bruce Ellis Benson argues, ‘although “liturgy” is used almost exclusively today in connection with church services, it originally referred to how people lived . . . Liturgy was never intended to be something merely done on a Sunday’ (Benson, 2013: 24). Indeed, the etymology of the word indicates this; the Greek, λειτουργία (leitourgia) might be literally translated ‘work of the people’. The term has strongly political resonances, typically used in Ancient Greece to describe the financial offerings or official acts of public service the people would offer to the polis. As we saw in Chapter 2, Paul is not afraid to appropriate political terminology for theological purposes, particularly in explaining the new social order instituted through the Church. The same is true of λειτουργία. Paul talks of the ‘ministry of service’ (διακονία τῆς λειτουργίας [diakonia tēs leitourgias]) (2 Cor. 9:12) to meet the needs of the community and as an offering of thanksgiving to God. Derivatives of the term are used variously in the New Testament to refer to ministry or ministering (Acts 13:2), or service (Phil. 2:17). ⁶ For some, liturgy is a term reserved only for traditional forms of worship that largely include reading lines of a script in unison. For those more familiar with ‘unstructured’ or ‘spontaneous’ forms of worship with no obvious script, the term liturgy might seem foreign. It is important to see that all corporate worship is liturgical. While many contemporary forms of liturgy have no written script, there is still an implicit script there to be followed; how else do we know to sing when the music starts and to be seated for the sermon? ⁷ Underhill, 1936: 83.

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is an important theological significance to the embodied, corporate gatherings of the community of the Church. Failing to stress the importance of gathered worship leads to a significantly diminished understanding of liturgy. For if the Church is a social group united through the Holy Spirit to act as the body of Christ, then in acts of gathered worship this communal dimension of the Church finds its most tangible visible embodiment. We can recognize that there may be cases in which corporate liturgy is not the best form of participation in the Church for some individual (such as the person recovering from religious trauma⁸) while still stressing that gathered corporate liturgy should be the norm. In Underhill’s words, as individuals called into participation into the mystical body of Christ, we are ‘required to incarnate something of this supernatural charity in the visible world’.⁹ Or, to put it another way, there is a symmetry between the outward forms of the Church and its deeper reality made known in the persons of the Trinity. In stressing that liturgy must be understood in relation to the corporate body of the Church, it is also important to see that worship is not something we do (or at least, not something that we are the primary agents of), but something we participate in (that is, we are agents in some secondary sense). As James B. Torrance argues at length in his Didsbury lectures, it is often assumed that in gathering together to worship God, we respond to what God has done through the liturgical acts of singing, blessing, petitioning, and so on. But such a view of liturgy is, Torrance thinks, Unitarian, at least in practice.¹⁰ Such a view of worship is Unitarian, Torrance thinks, since it has ‘no doctrine of the Meditator or sole priesthood of Christ, is human-centred, has no proper doctrine of the Holy Spirit, is too often non-sacramental’.¹¹ Contrastingly, Torrance thinks, ‘fundamental to . . . trinitarian forms of worship is the recognition that worship is the gift of grace. The Father has given to us the Son and the Spirit to draw us into a life of shared communion—of participating through the Spirit in the Son’s communion with the Father—that we might be drawn in love into the very trinitarian life of God himself.’¹² The discussion of Christ’s ministry in the Church in Chapter 3 made clear that we participate in Christ’s ministry through our membership in the Church by the Spirit. Thus, while liturgical participation requires us to respond to God in some respect, ‘Our response in faith and obedience is a response to the Response

⁸ See Panchuk’s (2018) discussion of religious trauma for a fuller account and Harrower’s (2018) Trinitarian response to trauma. ⁹ Underhill, 1936: 83. ¹⁰ Torrance, 1996: 7. ¹¹ Torrance, 1996: 7. ¹² Torrance, 1996: 25.

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already made for us by Christ to the Father’s holy love, a response we are summoned to make in union with Christ.’¹³ Put simply, our understanding of liturgy cannot become detached from ecclesiology, understood in properly Trinitarian terms. As the metaphysics of the Church outlined in Chapter 3 make clear, participating in the Church means participating by the Spirit in the body of Christ. This point helps to frame the central question of this chapter: How does participating in the liturgies of gathered worship allow for participation in the Church as the body of Christ?

2. Underhill’s Principles of Corporate Worship In Underhill’s discussion of the principles of corporate worship, we find a helpful framework for developing an answer to the question of how liturgy allows us to participate in the body of the Church: It is plain that the living experience of this whole Church, visible and invisible, past and present, stretched out in history and yet poised on God, must set the scene for Christian worship; not the poor little scrap of which any one soul, or any sectional group, is capable. Thus there must be a traditional worshipping act of the Church, a great liturgical life, of which the sectional worship of its various groups and branches will form a part, and to which the many-levelled action of its isolated members with all their varying moods and insights contributes; an act which includes and harmonizes all apparent differences, looking ever more and more towards that perfectly heavenly life of adoration where these differences vanish in the single movement of all loving souls towards “the Abiding, the Prevenient, the Beginning and the End and Crown of light and life of love”. This total liturgical life of the Corpus Christi is not merely a collection of services, offices, and sacraments. Deeply considered, it is the sacrificial life of Christ Himself; the Word indwelling His Church, gathering in his eternal and priestly action the small Godward movements, and sacrifices, and aspirations of “all the broken and the meek”, and acting through those ordered signs and sacraments by means of these His members on earth.¹⁴

¹³ Torrance, 1996: 43.

¹⁴ Underhill, 1936: 85.

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It is clear that Underhill wishes to stress, in agreement with Torrance, that the worshipping life of the Church is not to be confused with the actions that we perform in liturgy. For Underhill, the worship of the Church must be understood in reference to the agency of the persons of the Trinity; our acts of gathered worship are offerings through which Christ can act in the world. Acts of liturgical participation are a means by which Christ performs his eternal and priestly work through his members on earth. Thus, even if liturgy is something we participate in, rather than something we do, it does not mean that we cannot offer a concrete account of the different kinds of embodied acts in which participation consists. Indeed, Underhill turns from this ‘majestic scene’ of the work of the persons of the Trinity in the Church to consider ‘the practical conditions under which men and women can transcend the apparent isolation of the soul and unite in a common act of worship’.¹⁵ In what follows, she offers three different modes of liturgical participation which will provide the starting point for my own model of liturgical participation.

2.1 Corporate Silence First, Underhill stresses that we participate through the liturgical use of ‘silence, which covers and unites all the individual acts of devotion, all the levels of fervour and enlightenment’.¹⁶ Of the three modes of participation, this is arguably the most individualistic in focus. In the moments of response after a reading from Scripture, or in the short period of stillness after the last hymn has concluded, space is often left for the individual to reflect and respond to what they have heard. This act is a corporate liturgical act, Underhill thinks; ‘Here the secret response of each soul to the one Spirit forms as it were a separate thread in the woven garment of the Bride.’¹⁷ Whilst the garment of gathered worship cannot be outwardly perceived by those gathered, it is no less corporate than the other two forms of worship. Underhill explicitly connects corporate silence with the use of the collect, which signifies this movement from individual to corporate as ‘the priest or leader gather[s] up the inarticulate supplications of the faithful and present[s] them to God’.¹⁸ Whilst corporate silence has its uses, Underhill is sceptical about its ability to fully express the life of the Church in worship: ‘first because it is only ¹⁵ Underhill, 1936: 93. ¹⁸ Underhill, 1936: 94.

¹⁶ Underhill, 1936: 93.

¹⁷ Underhill, 1936: 95.

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appropriate to the spiritually mature, and secondly because—though it lifts the mind and heart to God—it leaves too much of our human nature behind . . . thus the individual soul loses the education which it should receive by and through the common vocal worship of the Church.’¹⁹ In other words, while the act of liturgical silence allows for participation in the one body, it is not the most complete form of liturgical participation since it lacks the embodiment of the Church’s social reality.

2.2 Representative Action The second form of group liturgical action takes the form of representative action, whereby one person, or a group, acts on behalf of the wider group; ‘Here action and speech are delegated to a person or group; the congregation uniting itself by intention to that which is done. Thus a focus is provided, and a certain unity of direction is ensured; and the liturgical action covers and unites the devotion of simple and learned.’²⁰ The three examples given by Underhill shed further light on what this kind of action consists of—the daily offices of the Anglican tradition (in which prayer is offered daily on behalf of the whole Church), the practice of Mass sine populo in Roman traditions (in which the priest offers the Eucharist on behalf of the people), and the use extempore prayers in Free Church traditions (whereby the minister prays on behalf of the people in public worship). In all of these cases, the people are represented by one person (or a small group) authorized to act on their behalf. This kind of liturgical participation is thereby indirect; while the priest’s actions in saying compline represent me as a fellow member of the Church, I do not play an active role in liturgical participation. However, this form of group liturgical action is more visible and tangible than corporate silence since we can perceive the actions of those acting on behalf of the Church.

2.3 Joint Action In Underhill’s words, ‘the third type of corporate service—the concrete action in which all take a real part—is a more complete act of adoration, more genial to the Christian spirit, and also more efficacious for the common life, than the silent Meeting, the splendid ceremony in which all is done by a few ¹⁹ Underhill, 1936: 95–6.

²⁰ Underhill, 1936: 96.

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professionals.’²¹ Joint action is the most familiar form of group liturgical participation—it occurs wherever gathered worship involves performing some act together: singing, listening, speaking, and so on.²² Underhill writes that joint action provides ‘an opportunity for the whole Body, sinking differences of understanding and feeling, to join Angels and Archangels, saints and elders, and all the creatures of earth and sea in praising and glorifying the Holy Name’.²³ Thus, she thinks, this form of participation provides the most tangible manifestation of the mystical Church; joint action is visible (unlike corporate silence) and also involves a broader and more direct form of participation (unlike representative action). Because joint action is visibly corporate in this way, this form of liturgical participation requires some kind of pattern or script, such that we are able participate in some action together; ‘such joint action is impossible without an agreed pattern, a liturgy; even though this pattern be of the simplest kind.’²⁴

3. An Analytic Account of Group Liturgical Action Underhill’s three modes of liturgical action provide a helpful starting point for considering what it is to participate in the worship of the Church. In what follows, I unpack these three accounts in more detail, drawing on contemporary analytic philosophy to clarify precisely what such actions might amount to. One issue that will frame the discussion throughout is that of inclusivity; an account of group liturgical action must help us to see how all who are members of the Church are able to participate in the worship of the Church. In T.F. Torrance’s words, participation in the Body of the Church ‘involves a membering in the ministry in which every member has a special function to perform, according to the measure of grace given to him, in the life and growth of the Body and its mission in the Evangel’.²⁵ If an account of liturgical participation takes seriously this claim that every member has a function in the Church, then offering an account which only explains how, say, neurotypical adults, might participate will not suffice. We need to understand how

²¹ Underhill, 1936: 97. ²² Why can’t silence count as a joint action? As I address in more detail in the penultimate section, there are many instances of silence that do count as joint actions, such as the minute’s silence on Remembrance Sunday, but corporate silence of the kind Underhill describes involves no joint intention to be silent as a group. Rather, it provides space for individual acts of devotion, which the Spirit unites into the actions of the group. Thanks to Derek King for raising this clarification. ²³ Underhill, 1936: 98. ²⁴ Underhill, 1936: 99. ²⁵ Torrance, 1993: 103; emphasis added.

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liturgy is inclusive of all who are included in the community of Christ’s body, and can be a place of belonging for all of the Church’s members.²⁶ The discussion proceeds inversely. That is, we begin by fleshing out the concept of joint action and work backwards to corporate silence. The reason for doing so is that recent discussions of liturgy in analytic theology have focused largely on joint action and have typically overlooked the role of representative action and corporate silence. This does not mean that one of these three accounts is more important; in unpacking these accounts in more detail, we will see that we must stress the need for all three modes of liturgical participation in worship if we wish to think ecclesiologically about liturgy.

3.1 Joint Action Terence Cuneo and Nicholas Wolterstorff, two pioneering figures in analytic discussions of liturgy, have both have reflected at length on the nature of liturgical action, offering philosophical accounts that fall broadly into Underhill’s third category, ‘joint action’. But before understanding what it is to act jointly in liturgy, let us consider the nature of liturgical action more generally. Cuneo argues that the seemingly random collection of bodily actions from his own Eastern Orthodox tradition are a collection of scripted activities which are ‘constituents of an identifiable pattern’,²⁷ that of ‘blessing, petitioning, and offering thanks to God’.²⁸ It is not the case, according to Cuneo, that these bodily actions merely accompany the linguistic acts of petitioning or blessing, but, rather, he argues, in the context of liturgy, these bodily actions ‘count as cases of engaging God by blessing, petitioning and thanking God’.²⁹ Wolterstorff provides a similar account of liturgical action, using the analogy of a piece of music to explain the relationship between the script, our bodily actions, and the non-bodily actions involved in worship. A musician follows a score to guide her to perform a certain sequence of sounds, in such a way that ‘the musical work is the sound sequence type that is instantiated when the correctness-rules that the composer has instantiated are faithfully followed.’³⁰ Similarly, a liturgical script ‘specifies a set of rules for a correct liturgical enactment’, which, in turn, allows for the performance of certain acts of worship.³¹ On both accounts, ²⁶ As John Swinton (2012) argues, merely including those with disability is not enough; we need to see how such individuals can find belonging in communities like the Church. ²⁷ Cuneo, 2016: 155. ²⁸ Cuneo, 2016: 156. ²⁹ Cuneo, 2016: 156. ³⁰ Wolterstorff, 2015b: 6. ³¹ Wolterstorff, 2015b: 7.

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participating in certain liturgical actions allows us to engage with God in various respects.³² Let us consider a specific example from Wolterstorff. How might the mundane acts of listening and speaking count, in the context of liturgy, as instances of addressing God and hearing from God? Wolterstorff highlights the fact that many liturgical scripts use the second-personal pronoun (e.g. ‘Eternal God, heavenly Father, you have graciously accepted us as living members of your Son our Savior Jesus Christ’),³³ thereby allowing a person to address God with the ‘expectation or hope that [God] . . . will realize that . . . [God is] being addressed’.³⁴ In listening to lines of the liturgy from the priest or the other congregants, Wolterstorff thinks that an individual might also listen to God. The assumption in much of the American Episcopal liturgy, for example, is that ‘people have been listening not just to the speaker but to what God said or says’.³⁵ Thus, on Wolterstorff ’s account, these mundane acts of listening and speaking, in the context of worship, can count as acts of engaging in mutual address with God.

3.2 Shared Agency and Liturgical Action Whilst Cuneo’s and Wolterstorff ’s accounts of acting liturgically are helpful, we are yet to see how acting liturgically might be considered as an instance of joint action. So how are we to think about the connection between individual liturgical acts (e.g. engaging with God in mutual address) and group liturgical acts? In many respects, this is a question which is not unique to the actions of a church; in everyday speech, we ascribe actions to groups—we speak of the government’s investment in public services, a football team’s excellent passing movement, and a rock band’s engaging performance. All of these actions involve some kind of individual action which somehow comprises a group’s acting. Helpfully, there is a vast philosophical literature devoted to thinking about how individuals can act together as groups. By paying attention to this

³² One issue which I do not reflect on here is the epistemological role of liturgy. Engaging with God is something we learn how to do in liturgy, which is one of its purposes (see Cuneo’s 2016 discussion of liturgical know-how in Ritualized Faith, chapter 8). As I have explored in detail elsewhere, liturgical epistemology should be thought of in group terms; we learn how to engage God by participating in the Church’s engagement with God (see Cockayne, 2021b, 2018a, 2018b). ³³ From The Book of Common Prayer of the American Episcopal Church, quoted in Wolterstorff (2015a: 56). ³⁴ Wolterstorff, 2015a: 58. ³⁵ Wolterstorff, 2015a: 64.

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literature, we can gain a better grasp on the communal nature of liturgical action. There are many cases of group action which are instances of what is sometimes called ‘shared agency’.³⁶ Acts which require shared agency are those in which two or more individuals join their individual actions to perform some action together. Consider an example from John Searle which helps elucidate the concept: Imagine that a group of people are sitting on the grass in various places in a park. Imagine that it suddenly starts to rain and they all get up and run to a common, centrally located, shelter. Each person has the intention expressed by the sentence “I am running to the shelter.” But for each person, we may suppose that his or her intention is entirely independent of the intentions and behavior of others. In this case, there is no collective behavior; there is just a sequence of individual acts that happen to converge on a common goal. Now imagine a case where a group of people in a park converge on a common point as a piece of collective behavior. Imagine that they are part of an outdoor ballet where the choreography calls for the entire corps de ballet to converge on a common point. We can even imagine that the external bodily movements are indistinguishable in the two cases; the people running for shelter make the same types of bodily movements as the ballet dancers. Externally observed the two cases are indistinguishable, but they are clearly different internally.³⁷

Searle maintains that even if these cases are behaviourally indistinguishable, the first is a case in which all the agents act in the same way, each with a similar intention, and the second requires the individuals to have what he calls ‘weintentions’. By ‘we-intention’, Searle means that the individuals have a collective intention which is not reducible to the intentions of each individual agent. In other words, in the first case, the group all happen to do the same action at the same time, and, in the second case, the group cooperate to perform an action together.³⁸ On Searle’s account, collective intention is not reducible to individual intention. To take an example which Searle uses, that of a piano/violin duet, it is not that I-intend that I play the piano whilst believing that you play the violin.³⁹ But, rather, according to Searle, the structure and ³⁶ Tollefsen, 2015: 3. ³⁷ Searle, 1990: 403–4. ³⁸ The literature on collective intention is vast and a survey of the positions one could hold would be much longer than the intended length of this chapter. For an excellent summary of the above literature, see Tollefsen (2015: 27–50). ³⁹ Searle, 2010: 52.

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content of my intention is different when I act cooperatively than when I act individually—we intend to act collectively: We are performing a duet where I play the piano part and you play the violin part. Here our playing does not cause the duet to be performed. My playing and your playing simply constitute the performance of the duet. So from my point of view, I have a collective intention-in-action that we play the duet by way of me playing the piano, in a context where I take it for granted that you are playing the violin.⁴⁰

Returning to liturgical group action, we can see that Searle’s account has some promise in explaining the nature of certain group liturgical acts. For example, as Cuneo argues, to engage in the group act of singing (which plays an important role in Orthodox liturgy), we must pay attention to what the other individuals are doing, and one’s own actions do not stand on their own, but, rather, they are part of a larger act which is performed by the congregation. Just like the piano and violin players who cooperate to perform the duet, the congregation need to employ some kind of cooperation or responsiveness to collectively sing the lines of the liturgy. Thus, on Cuneo’s analysis, it is not the case that congregants intend individually to sing, but, rather, they we-intend that the liturgical script is sung by means of their individual performances.⁴¹ Similarly, in the congregational action of addressing God, there are many individual actions which constitute the action, namely, each individual’s reading of the liturgical script. Although as an individual participant, I must form the intention to read their part of the liturgical script (just as the duet-playing pianist forms the intention to perform the piano part), this singular intention is a constituent part of the intention that we address God. If addressing God in corporate worship is something that we do, then it must be part of our intentions that we perform the action, and not just that I perform the action. The individual intends to play their part in worship whilst intending to worship God as a congregation. This extension of Searle’s analysis of collective intention to liturgical worship gives us a clear model of how individual actions can be related to the actions of a gathered church. Indeed, in cooperating with the other members of a congregation, our intentions can somehow combine to form a collective intention, and thus a collective action. This account helps to articulate in more precise detail what is involved in the kind of liturgical joint action Underhill ⁴⁰ Searle, 2010: 52; original emphasis.

⁴¹ Cuneo, 2016: 138.

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describes as so vital to the liturgical life of the Church. By joining our actions with those we gather alongside, we are able to provide a tangible embodiment of the corporate body of the Church, in which many are joined together to act as one. But it is also important to note that acting as one community through joint action is not the same as participating in the body of Christ, even if it can be a means of participation. Acts of shared agency allow us to engage with God as a community, but it is also easy for such acts to become stale and lifeless repetition, with no attention paid to the work of the Holy Spirit. As we have seen throughout the ecclesiology developed in this book, it is only through the work of the Holy Spirit that we participate in the ministry of Christ as members of his body. Underhill puts the point succinctly in noting that joint action in liturgy must always strive to seek the balance between attention and habit, that is, between providing familiar liturgical forms which can enable a diverse community to participate in worship and creating space in which the Holy Spirit can guide these acts of worship. This balance is one of avoiding contrasting extremes; in Underhill’s words, Attention alone means, in the end, intolerable strain. Each partner has his weak point. Habit tends to routine and spiritual red-tape; the vice of the institutionalist. Attention is apt to care for nothing but the experience of the moment, and ignore the need of a stable practice, independent of personal fluctuations; the vice of the individualist. Habit is a ritualist. Attention is a pietist. But it is the beautiful combination of order and spontaneity, docility and freedom, living humbly—and therefore fully and freely—within the agreed pattern of the cultus and not in defiance of it, which is the mark of a genuine spiritual maturity and indeed the fine flower of a worshipping life.⁴²

The balance between attention and ritual that Underhill speaks of is vital if the joint liturgical of gathered worship are to be truly participatory. Even in the most formal and scripted forms of liturgical action, attention must be paid to the work of the Holy Spirit. Consider Bruce Ellis Benson’s example of St Gregory’s Episcopal Church in San Francisco. St Gregory’s uses a formal liturgical script, but also places strong emphasis on responding to the promptings of the Spirit in discerning how to follow this script.⁴³ Benson notes that ‘one remarkable thing about the worship service at Saint Gregory’s is that it ⁴² Underhill, 1936: 27–8.

⁴³ Benson, 2013: 140.

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feels so spontaneous. And yet it is actually highly scripted. In other words, it achieves what less liturgical churches often hope to achieve—a sense of openness, spontaneity, and lack of formality, and the sense that the Holy Spirit is alive and guiding the worship.’⁴⁴ If we are to see joint action as a response to the response that has already been made on our behalf (to return to Torrance’s phrasing), then joint action must be responsive to leading of the Holy Spirit. Thus, we need shared agency not only with our fellow congregants but also with the Holy Spirit. If we are to stress that the Holy Spirit is the primary agent at work in the life of the Church, then we must emphasize the need for those gathered to attend to the work of the Spirit and coordinate their actions with the Spirit’s. As Joanna Leidenhag has argued, work on collective intentionality provides a helpful way of conceptualizing the role of the Holy Spirit in the life of the community.⁴⁵ Leidenhag suggests this literature might make sense of the kind of responsivity involved in charismatic acts of liturgy such as interpreting tongues or providing words of knowledge. In such cases, she writes, the congregation ‘have a number of sub-intentions, each of which is an act of shared agency between the individual and the Holy Spirit, that is performed in a coordinated fashion to bring about a shared action between multiple members of the congregation, in this case a word of knowledge or prophecy’.⁴⁶

3.3 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Joint Action As Underhill’s comments make clear, joint action made possible through the various liturgies of the Christian traditions is crucial for the worshipping life of the Church. But it is also important to see that it is not the only means of group action in the Church. Exploring some of the limitations of such accounts will highlight this point. More specifically, if the only mode of liturgical participation is through joint action, made possible through a certain kind of shared agency, then we are forced to admit that not all present in worship can participate in liturgy. There are members of most, if not all, congregations who are simply unable to engage in the kind of complex coordinated joint action that share-agency accounts require. Young children, some elderly individuals, and some neuro-atypical individuals would surely find it difficult, if not impossible, to participate in shared agency in the way described previously. Joint action through shared agency requires a level of competency and ⁴⁴ Benson, 2013: 140.

⁴⁵ Leidenhag, 2020.

⁴⁶ Leidenhag, 2020: 79.

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social attentiveness which appears to exclude many individuals from contributing to the actions of a church’s worship. Consider, for instance, the case of individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). As psychological research has shown, some individuals with ASD have difficulty, or cannot, form ‘we-intentions’.⁴⁷ As Colombi et al. note, ‘an impairment in imitation and joint attention alters developmental trajectories involving cooperative development and prevents children with autism from fully participating in cooperative tasks.’⁴⁸ Whilst the precise neurological mechanisms which underpin collective intentionality are up for debate, what seems uncontroversial from the psychological literature is that many children with ASD struggle to engage in cooperative activities in the same way as neurotypical individuals. It also seems clear that this developmental difference in some autistic individuals can have a significant impact on their ability to engage in cooperative tasks later in life. There are at least some individuals who would simply be unable to participate in worship as a collective action in the way described previously, or, at the very least, they would find such engagement profoundly difficult. For instance, consider Ann Memmott’s description of what it is like for a person with autism trying to follow a Eucharistic service. She writes, Just when my ability to cope is at its lowest ebb, I have to try to understand what I do for Communion. People know when to stand up, when to move forwards (apparently they know to do this just by looking at where someone is standing and noticing the slightest nod of the head. I don’t notice this). I have to work out which bit of kneeling-cushion to aim for, or where to stand, how long to wait before going up there. What to do with my hands when I get the bread and wine and what to say and when. The rest of the people know when to stand up again, when to go back, when to say something like AMEN when you’re up there.⁴⁹

The lack of inclusivity in the shared-agency model points to a crucial difference between a church community and other forms of social group—the actions of a church in worship cannot be limited to only those who are able ⁴⁷ Tomasello et al., 2005. ⁴⁸ Colombi et al., 2009: 158–9. ⁴⁹ Memmott, 2015. Similarly, Barabra Newman also notes that knowing when to say ‘amen’, what to do during offerings, how to engage in communion, how loudly and when to sing, can all be challenging to individuals with ASD if insufficiently explained. As Newman notes, ASD indicates a ‘range of behaviors and needs’ (Newman, 2011: 23); she highlights the need for churches to understand the particular needs of individuals, rather than applying blanket rules across the board (Newman, 2011: 23).

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to engage in high-level coordinated action. It is important to find ways of adapting our liturgies such that inclusion and belonging is possible for those who are able to participate, even if they are restricted by the current strictures of the Church. As Benjamin Conner argues, ‘accommodating people with developmental disabilities so they can be present in a nondisruptive way is not enough; we must challenge church structures. We must be realistic about the structural changes that must attend becoming an inclusive church.’⁵⁰ An account of a church’s acting in worship should be one that not only integrates those with neurological and physical differences into the work of a church but also includes them as a constitutive part of a church’s actions in worship. But we must also recognize that there are some members of the Church who will not be able to participate in joint action, regardless of how attentive we are to their particular needs. For instance, if we admit that infants are permitted to enter into the Church through baptism (which I have argued for in Chapter 4), then it is difficult to see how all the members of the Church might participate through joint action. Regardless of our views on infant spirituality, a baptized six-month-old baby cannot jointly recite a liturgical script. Does this mean that they cannot participate as a member of the Church? Making matters even more complicated, there are also those who cannot gather for corporate worship: the house-bound, religious hermits, and sufferers of PTSD who may find corporate worship triggering. Indeed, the recent events surrounding the coronavirus lockdown across the world speak to the fact that joint action in gathered worship is not always a possibility for members of the Church, at least not in embodied forms. This need not mean that joint action is not important, but only that it is incomplete on its own.

4. Representative Action Underhill’s second mode of group liturgical action focuses on actions performed on behalf of the community by a small number of representative individuals. To see how there might be instances of representative actions in liturgy, we must think of church communities not as mere summations of acts of shared agency, but rather, as group agents in their own right. Just as we have seen that the Church as a whole can meet the conditions for agency in Chapter 2, we might think that church communities and congregations are capable of acting as group agents. This should not be surprising. If our church ⁵⁰ Conner, 2012: 92.

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communities aim to reflect the deeper reality of the mystical body of the Church, then it makes sense that the ontology of the Church articulated in Chapters 2 and 3 will have some application to the local church. As we saw in the discussion of functionalist accounts of group agency, there are at least two ways in which an individual who is a member of a group might contribute to a group action, through representative (or authorized) action on behalf of a group or through authorizing others to play this role on one’s behalf. Let’s consider some examples. In the daily briefings during the coronavirus pandemic, UK government ministers took turns to take the podium and announce some new economic or health policy to the public on behalf of the government. When the chancellor, Rishi Sunak, announced the furlough scheme to support those out of work in the UK, he spoke on behalf of the whole government, because he was authorized to do so by the prime minister and the cabinet. Similarly, in voting for a local member of parliament, we authorize that person to speak on our behalf in the houses of parliament. Even though I have never spoken at prime minister’s question time, my constituency of North East Fife has been represented by our MP, who was authorized to speak on our behalf through a system of voting in the general election. Returning to liturgy, we might suppose that those performing representative acts (such as Underhill’s examples of saying the daily office or praying on behalf of the congregation) seem to hold a similar role to an MP or a cabinet minister. That is, there are actions which only he or she performs but which are authorized to count as the actions of the group in some important way. Cases of representative action might include some form of shared agency from those participating in the spoken liturgy, such as a small gathering of individuals saying morning prayers on behalf of the Church having to coordinate their reading of the liturgical script. Yet, by situating this action within an account of group agency, we can see how all of those who are considered members of a church can in some way be a part of these liturgical acts, even if they are not directly acting, or perhaps not even present, during the liturgical acts. The representative actions each member of a church community is permitted to perform will depend, in part, on one’s authorizing structures. The most obvious example (although, as we will see, not the only one) is that of ordination. In my own tradition, only those ordained as presbyters (or priests) are authorized to preside at the Eucharist, for instance. This is not because priests have magic powers which can summon the presence of the Holy Spirit onto the elements, but rather, it is a recognition that some aspects of the Church’s ministry should be done with order and care, and we should

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authorize those who feel called by God to fulfil this role in the community. Thus, through a process of discernment, those who feel called to ordained ministry ask the Church to discern this call through various aspects of training and reflection, eventually culminating in the service of ordination. A closer look at the language used in this service of authorization will help to show what authorization might consist in. In the Church of England’s ordinal, used in the ordination of presbyters, the bishop asks both the candidate and the gathered congregation to confirm this sense of calling to serve the Church. She then prays the following prayer over the candidate:

Send down the Holy Spirit on your servant N for the office and work of a priest in your Church . . . . Through your Spirit, heavenly Father, give these your servants grace and power to proclaim the gospel of your salvation and minister the sacraments of the new covenant. Renew them in holiness, and give them wisdom and discipline to work faithfully with those committed to their charge. In union with their fellow servants in Christ, may they reconcile what is divided, heal what is wounded and restore what is lost. May they declare your blessings to your people; may they proclaim Christ’s victory over the powers of darkness, and absolve in Christ’s name those who turn to him in faith; so shall a people made whole in Christ offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to you, our God and Father, to whom, with the Son and the Holy Spirit, belong glory and honour, worship and praise, now and for ever. All Amen.⁵¹

This is a clear example in which the church community authorizes one individual to serve the Church and represent the Church in a specific role. Thus, in a similar way to the UK chancellor’s authorization to announce the ⁵¹ Church of England, 2007.

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furlough scheme during the pandemic, the Roman priest is authorized to act on behalf of the Church when presiding at the Eucharist, even if he is the only member of the Church present.⁵² This is a representative action done by one individual that should be seen as an instance of group liturgical action. As we will see shortly, being authorized to act on behalf of a community is not the same as being authorized by God to act on behalf of a community. This distinction is crucial. However, ordination is not the only example of representative action worth considering. Indeed, an overemphasis on the ordained as those called to do the ministry of the Church is troubling for many reasons. The role of presbyter is one of many roles that individuals in the Church are authorized to perform. We know, from Paul’s discussion of the body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12, that unity does not arise through a uniformity from the Church’s members. Instead, a diversity of roles and functions is required as the many are made one in Christ by the work of the Spirit. In T.F. Torrance’s words, ‘This diversity in mutual dependence knits the membership together. It preserves and enriches the unity of the Church in the manifold grace of God.’⁵³ As Torrance goes on to explain, the threefold ministry we find in the New Testament, of deacon, presbyter, and episcopos, is vital for the flourishing of the community of the Church.⁵⁴ This is not to diminish the fact that every member has a function, but simply to recognize that not all functions are equivalent. As Paul makes clear, each part of the body is important, and difference is required for acting as one body. Consider a different kind of liturgical act, that of welcoming people into the community. In being the first face, or handshake, we encounter in entering a place of worship, the welcomer acts on behalf of the whole community. We confirm this anecdotally when we describe a certain church as ‘warm’ or ‘cold’; what we often mean is that the person who represented the community to us left a good or bad impression on us.⁵⁵ Representative action in liturgy occurs whenever one person is authorized by the community to act on their behalf. ⁵² Note that in the Anglican tradition, there must be at least one communicant present for a priest to celebrate the Eucharist. ⁵³ Torrance, 1993: 101. ⁵⁴ The roles of presbyter (or, priest), and episcopos (or, bishop) are roles that often require individuals to act on behalf of the community. As Torrance describes it, the prestbyter is ‘ordained specifically for the ministry of Word and Sacrament and pastoral oversight of the flock of Christ’ (Torrance, 1993: 103). Some of those called to serve the Church as presbyter or priest are also called to serve episcopos or bishop, in which there is a specific role of oversight, serving ‘the sign of unity and continuity of the whole presbyterate and the whole Church’ (Torrance, 1993: 104). ⁵⁵ In List and Pettit’s example, they note that representative action might be performed by ‘the members of a church in participating in religious ceremonies or in proselytizing among non-believers’ (List and Pettit, 2011: 35).

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4.1 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Representative Action Assuming we adopt a diverse understanding of church membership, we can see straightforwardly how an account of representative action has potential to include individuals into the worship of the Church who are not able to actively engage in those practices which require some kind of shared agency. By belonging to a church as a member, an individual can be represented in worship by those who take an active role, even if it is not possible for such an individual to take an active role herself because of a lack of capacity or access. This seems particularly relevant in the case of those with severe neurological differences and very young infants. Wolterstorff makes a similar point in a political context of the importance of authorized action.⁵⁶ He writes that ‘one form of governance of others takes is governance of those who are incapable of forming and carrying out a rational plan of action for themselves, small children and the “feeble-minded” being the best examples. Someone has to govern them in their stead, on their behalf.’⁵⁷ This is precisely what representative liturgical action allows us to do, namely, to act on behalf of the whole community, including those who may participate in ways differently to the majority. However, note that one’s view on representative liturgical action will depend largely on one’s membership conditions. As I argued in Chapter 4, baptism is the primary means of recognizing group membership into the body of the Church, and thus, the primary means of being recognized as an authorizing member of the Church as a group. But if a specific church community or denomination has stringent conditions on who can be baptized, or some other stringent conditions on church membership (such as advocation of a complex doctrinal statement), then it will not be possible to think inclusively about representative action. For a church to allow for a diverse group of individuals to count as being represented by the actions of the wider church community, it must have a diverse understanding of membership. If ⁵⁶ Note that unlike most cases of authorization, those churches which allow for infant baptism, or baptism of those with severe neurological impairment, involve a complex kind of authorized action. In the case of infant baptism, just as the parent makes promises on behalf of the child which relate to her faith in Christ, the parent can also be seen as making a kind of representative authorization action— that is, the parent authorizes the relevant authorities in a church structure to speak on behalf of the child in worship. ⁵⁷ Wolterstorff, 2012: 54. Additionally, he writes, governance and authorized action is sometimes on behalf of those who are capable of ‘forming and carrying out a rational plan of action. Governance in this case consists of the combination of someone issuing directives to another person and the recipient complying with these directives . . . to bring about what is judged to be some good’ (Wolterstorff, 2012: 54).

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membership is restricted to only the neurotypical or only to adults, then the actions of a church in worship will not be inclusive of anyone other than neurotypical adults. As Conner puts it, writing about his friend Trey, who has learning difficulties, ‘Only the community that denies Trey baptism can claim that the learning impairment is his alone not the community’s responsibility.’⁵⁸ Whilst this view might technically include non-paradigm participants to be involved in group liturgical actions, it seems to stop short of fully inclusive participation and shorter still of providing an account of belonging. But to overcome these difficulties, consider another application of the discussion of group agency. Rather than thinking of non-paradigm participants being represented by typical participants, instead, in certain contexts, non-paradigm participants might be said to be those who act in a representative manner. Just as organizations need both sub-committees and expert individuals to contribute to the actions of the group, the individual actions of non-paradigm individuals could rightly be considered as playing an active role in the actions of the group, providing insights and acting in ways that many other individuals could not. Indeed, as Paul puts it, ‘God has so arranged the “body” such that those who are seen as “inferior” by society are given “the greater honour . . . that there may be no dissension within the body”’ (1 Cor. 12:24–5).⁵⁹ Thus, instead of thinking of non-paradigm participants as represented by those more qualified, we might instead think that such participants can be authorized to act on behalf of the many. Just as an expert reporting to a government department or think tank might change the direction and beliefs of the government as a whole in making its members aware of something about their environment, certain neuro-atypical individuals, for example, might contribute to the worship of a church in ways which change the collective direction of a church’s actions in worship. Amos Yong, in writing on how our ecclesiology can be renewed by considering the role of neuroatypical individuals, writes that profoundly disabled individuals are able to ‘become mentors who are inspired by the Spirit to reshape the gestures of the body of Christ’.⁶⁰ Yong argues that if the Church is to be shaped by a Spirit of hospitality, then profoundly disabled individuals, who are constituent parts of the Church, have an important role to play in shaping the actions and beliefs of the wider body. The Church’s ministry is not merely ‘to’ such individuals, Yong notes, but, rather, the Church must minister ‘with’ these individuals as

⁵⁸ Conner, 2012: 91. ⁶⁰ Yong, 2007: 224.

⁵⁹ This is a point that Grant Macaskill (2019) reflects on at length.

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constituent parts of the same whole.⁶¹ For example, as Conner argues in reference to those with non-verbal ASD, ‘When we recognize that limitations in some capacities like verbal communication skills open up other avenues of discerning God’s presence, then we might be more eager to engage other capacities for communing with God and others and for theological insight.’⁶² Through the application of the concept of representative action, it seems entirely possible that individuals who are often excluded from group action in liturgy can and do contribute to worship if a community authorizes them appropriately. We might think that the case of very young infants or those with severe ASD would appear to be more difficult to account for as representative action. Some individuals might not intend or be aware that their actions contribute to the group’s acting, so we might wonder how such cases could count as a part of the Church’s worship. It is important to return to the question of the group’s structure and authorization conditions. Just as in the case of a ground-level terrorist organization or the MCU, the individuals might not be aware how their actions contribute to something wider, or even that they play a contributing role at all; churches can be structured in such a way as to authorize the actions of all of those who participate in the Church’s worship. The decisionmaking structures (hierarchical bodies, church councils, etc.) have a vital role to play in recognizing and licensing the actions of those who are neuroatypical as contributing to the worship of the Church as a group. If these structures or decision-making bodies do authorize individuals to act on behalf of the group, then there is no reason why even those who are not able to intentionally contribute, cannot be included as part of a church’s group action.

4.2 Authorization and Discernment One important point of clarification before considering the final kind of group liturgical action. Representative action in a church community can be more or less participatory in the one body of the Church. As we have seen throughout, the unity of the Church derives not from its outward forms but from the agency of the persons of the Trinity. As Torrance puts it, ‘Jesus Christ alone is Head of the Church, and preside[s] over it in all things’, ministry within the Church (ordained or otherwise), ‘is essentially sub-ministration which by its very place and nature must not seek to dominate or lord it over the Body . . . As ⁶¹ Yong, 2007: 224.

⁶² Conner, 2012: 83.

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placed within the Body the ministry is essentially corporate, and must manifest a unity in the Body corresponding to its One Head.’⁶³ Thus, it seems clear that a person might be authorized to act on behalf of a community without attention being paid to discerning what God is calling this person to do, thereby attempting to usurp the place of Christ as the Head of the Church. Noting this is crucial if we are to retain any sense of protest against the horrendous harms caused by those in positions of representation in the Church; a community’s authorization of a person is not the same as God’s authorization of that person. Thus, discernment is crucial for the task of representative action. As William J. Abraham argues, this need not mean the removal of authorized ministry; instead, we must ‘wrestle with the issues of call and discernment . . . What we need is a deeper vision of all the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the mission of the church; a more precise vision of the particular ministries of those who are set apart to be deacons, presbyters, and bishops; and a steady resolution to let the Holy Spirit truly rule in our midst and create the fullness of the body of Christ.’⁶⁴ Abraham’s point appears to apply not only to the ministry of the ordained but to all who are called as members of the Church to act on behalf of the Church. Issues of discernment are thorny and complex, but the first step is to recognize that what we most need most is to discern the will of the Spirit for a particular community and to act accordingly. The role of liturgical silence is one important way in which this process might proceed, and it therefore seems appropriate to conclude our discussion of group liturgical action by considering this issue.

5. Corporate Silence Before reflecting on the role of silence in group liturgical action, note that the kind of corporate silence to which Underhill refers is not best thought of as an instance of joint action. While there may be some instances of silent joint action (such as acts of silent remembrance or lament), corporate silence of the kind I focus on in this section does not require shared agency from a church’s participants. Instead, corporate silence provides a space in the liturgy for individual reflection, through which the Holy Spirit works in uniting these individual acts of devotion to constitute a group action. Whilst Underhill is keen to stress that corporate silence cannot provide the fullest explanation of what it is for us to participate in the corporate life of the Church, it seems ⁶³ Torrance, 1993: 88.

⁶⁴ Abraham, 2018: 210.

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equally possible to suggest that an account of liturgical participation without an element of corporate silence could eventually resort to the Unitarian account of liturgy Torrance warns against. To extend Underhill’s metaphor, as I have stressed repeatedly, without the work of the Spirit weaving our joint actions and representative actions into the magnificent garment of the Church, we do not participate in the Church or the ongoing ministry of Christ. Thus, the act of corporate silence, in which we realize, in a very real sense, that we do nothing without the Spirit’s work through us and amidst us, is vital to the corporate life of the Church. Liturgy without silence risks becoming a mere act of human devotion divorced from the agency of the Triune God. However, the problem is that corporate silence is often left unexplained. Sometimes silence is merely the absence of spoken liturgy, allowing the minister to turn the page, or gather their thoughts. At other times, silence functions like a punctuation mark, giving emphasis to a powerful moment of the liturgy, such as the reading of the Gospel, but with no real function of its own.⁶⁵ In part, I think, this is because we don’t understand silence all that well. A brief reflection on the nature of silence will help.

5.1 The Nature of Silence In his philosophical account of perceiving absences, Roy Sorensen argues that ‘[w]e hear silence, which is the absence of sounds. Silence cannot be seen, tasted, smelled, or felt—only heard.’⁶⁶ Sorensen’s account is a realist one— there are objective absences of sound that can be subjectively experienced by our capacity to hear. This is shown by the possibility of silence hallucinations, Sorensen thinks. He writes, Consider a man who experiences auditory hallucinations as he drifts off to sleep. He “hears” his mother call out his name, then wait for a response, and then call again. The cycle of calls and silence repeats eerily. As it turns out, his mother has unexpectedly paid a late-night visit and is indeed calling out in a manner that coincidentally matches the spooky hallucination. The hallucinator is not hearing the call and silence of his mother.⁶⁷

⁶⁵ Irvine (2001) gives a more detailed breakdown of the occasions in which silence should be used in liturgy. ⁶⁶ Sorenson, 2011: 268. ⁶⁷ Sorenson, 2011: 269.

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According to Sorensen, examples such as these show that silence can be heard (or, indeed, misheard), highlighting that there is a difference between the absence of hearing and the hearing of silence. In fact, he thinks, experiencing silence is only possible for those who can hear; the experience of deafness may be phenomenologically similar to silence, but it is objectively distinct. Others think the notion of silence explored by Sorensen is in fact an impossibility. Consider the composition 40 3300 , by the experimental composer John Cage (originally performed in 1952). During its four minutes and thirtythree-second duration, the score instructs the musicians not to perform their instruments at all, and the composer turns pages and pages of empty staves. What follows is a prolonged period of corporate silence, or so it seems. Reflecting on his own composition, Cage notes that There’s no such thing as silence. What they [the audience] thought was silence, because they didn’t know how to listen, was full of accidental sounds. You could hear the wind stirring outside during the first movement. During the second, raindrops began pattering the roof, and during the third the people themselves made all kinds of interesting sounds as they talked or walked out.⁶⁸

40 3300 supposedly demonstrates the impossibility of absolute silence. Those who have experienced liturgical silence will know all too well that Cage is right that corporate silence is never soundless. The pauses between lines of liturgy are filled with noises: the sound of birds outside, of children running around and parents desperately attempting to quieten them, of shuffling bums on uncomfortable seats, and the various coughs, sighs, and nose whistles of the gathered congregation. Corporate silence is rarely silent, at least in the absolute sense. Sorensen thinks the impossibility of silence cannot be demonstrated from Cage’s symphony; in his words, ‘silence is hard to achieve—as is flatness, straightness, and cleanliness. But there is no reason to privilege high standards.’⁶⁹ However, even if Sorensen is right that 40 3300 is an instance of absence of sound (even if not in an absolute sense), this way of depicting silence seems particularly ill-fitted for the context of liturgy. For it seems strange to suggest that it is the absence of sound which allows the Holy Spirit to work, or else a church building on a noisy street could never use corporate silence effectively.

⁶⁸ Quoted in Kostelanetz, 1988: 65.

⁶⁹ Sorenson, 2011: 289.

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A more helpful way of thinking about silence, at least for our purposes, is through the lens of what has been the ‘contrast view’ of silence. As Ian Phillips defines it, According to the contrast view, pauses and gaps are heard in virtue of hearing temporally separated sounds. Other silences may be heard just in virtue of hearing a single sound cease, as when we enjoy the silence at the end of an orchestral performance. If we think of pauses as auditory “holes,” we can think of such phenomena as auditory “edges” or “cliffs.”⁷⁰

On the contrast view, silence is not directly perceived, as Sorensen supposes, but rather, it is perceived indirectly as the contrast between two or more auditory bookends. We might, on this view, argue that we do in fact experience silence when listening to a performance of 40 3300 , or in a long period of quiet after the reading of the Gospel (even if many cars go by), for these pauses or gaps in our auditory experience are contrasted sharply with the experience of sound, such that we hear the absence of the spoken liturgy in the pauses allowed by the priest or minister.⁷¹ Similarly, in the charismatic tradition, when space is left to ‘wait on the Spirit’, this can be thought of as corporate silence even in a very noisy environment. If this period of waiting is contrasted by the bookends of singing and speaking, for example, then the contrast provides an auditory hole in the liturgy. The contrast view has helpful insight, I think, to help explain the use of silence in group action.

5.2 Group Action and Corporate Silence Even if liturgical silence is not silence in its strictest sense, it does provide a hole or pause which draws sharp contrast to the acts of speaking, singing, and ⁷⁰ Phillips, 2013: 341. ⁷¹ On the contrast view we can also affirm Sorensen’s intuition that silence can be hallucinated (as in the man drifting off to sleep) but attribute this experience of silence to a contrast between separated sounds. In Phillips’ words, According to the contrast view, we can legitimately attribute hallucinations of silence to a subject in cases where the subject also has hallucinations (or normal perceptual experiences) of separated sounds. To distinguish hallucinating silence from the mere absence of experience, the view appeals to the experience of surrounding sounds. In virtue of these sounds, we can hear or hallucinate the interleaved silence. The contrast view does not provide room for hearing or hallucinating silence over long periods or for simply experiencing silence. (Phillips, 2013: 343)

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so on. Though we hear the noises of children chattering or cars passing, corporate silence provides a sharp contrast with what has come either side. This liturgical hole offers space in which we can become aware that we are participating in something more transcendent than we might have first appreciated. But how might the auditory contrast of silence provide a means of group liturgical action? For Underhill, the answer is that this space allows for individual acts of devotion which are drawn together by the work of the Spirit. In other words, in the moments before a service starts, or in short times of reflection after a reading, there is space for an individual to pray silently and individually. If these acts constitute a group action, then it is not because we intend them to do so; the corporate use of silence makes space for the Holy Spirit to unite our actions in ways far surpassing the inclusivity we can engineer through our own schemes, however important these may be. As well as providing an instance for the Spirit to unite our actions in imperceptible ways, we might also think that silence provides an opportunity to respond to the promptings of the Spirit in worship. One important role silence plays is that it makes space for us to listen more attentively. As the Danish theologian Søren Kierkegaard describes, ‘to pray is not to listen to oneself speak but is to become silent and to remain silent, to wait until the one praying hears God.’⁷² The point is made vividly in Sarah Coakley’s reflection on her first forays into silent prayer. She recounts, What I realised I suppose after some period of attempting day by day to practice silence before God was there was something that was happening in that practice that wasn’t being done by me. It was being done, if you like, as I perceived it, by the divine within me. That there was some kind of conversation going on between, what Jews and Christians call, the Father and between, what Jews and Christians call, the Spirit, into which I was being mysteriously drawn.⁷³

The act of corporate liturgical silence is the pause into which we can become aware of the broader conversation into which we are being drawn. This brings a new meaning to Cage’s remarks that the audience only experienced silence because they didn’t know how to listen. While this space may not come easily to some, silence provides the space to listen and to realize that we are not the sole, or even the primary, agents at work in the worship of the Church. It allows us ⁷² Kierkegaard, 2009: 11–12.

⁷³ Coakley, n.d.

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to appreciate that the Holy Spirit draws our liturgical actions together in ways we cannot always fathom or perceive and to recognize that Christ works on our behalf, even if we can contribute nothing to the worship of the Church. In silence the Holy Spirit breaks through our individual perceptions of who God is, fraught as they are with misconceptions, and draws our attention corporately to the living person of Christ who is present in our midst. A church community led by the Spirit is a community that creates space for silence and listens. Our communities of gathered worship participate most faithfully in the life of the one Church, when they are responsive to the work of the Spirit. Thus, corporate silence provides a space for individual acts of devotion which are united by the Spirit, and it also creates space for us to attend more carefully to Christ, who by the power and work of Spirit leads our worship. In both of these roles, the use of silence emphasizes that worship does not depend on what we do, but is something we are called to participate in.

5.3 Inclusivity, Belonging, and Corporate Silence Just as a robust account of representative action may provide a framework for the inclusion of non-paradigm individuals in the Church’s liturgical joint action, so too may a robust account of corporate silence allow for inclusion of the ‘speechlessness’ experienced by survivors of trauma in liturgical shared agency. The psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk observes that ‘all trauma is preverbal . . . trauma victims themselves become literally speechless—when the language area of the brain shuts down.’⁷⁴ van der Kolk is describing the phenomenon that during traumatic events the Broca area of the brain—the part of the neocortex responsible for regulating language—is severely compromised for trauma survivors, such that PTSD has debilitating effects similar to the speech impairments of strokes.⁷⁵ This is why survivors frequently find it exceedingly difficult to find adequate language for speaking about the atrocities they have endured. In the search for inclusivity in corporate practice and self-understanding, the liturgy of the Church may draw on powerful resources such as corporate silence to signal that the impairments of neuro-atypical individuals such as survivors of trauma with PTSD do not exclude them from participating in the work of the Triune God in the shared agency of the Church’s liturgy.⁷⁶ ⁷⁴ van der Kolk, 2014: 43, 244. ⁷⁵ van der Kolk, 2014: 43. ⁷⁶ Thanks to Preston Hill for his helpful discussion of this issue.

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Thus, on the issue of inclusive liturgical action, corporate silence recognizes that true inclusivity and true unity is found in the agency of Trinity. Silence speaks powerfully of the truth that we are secondary agents in the liturgy of the Church, thereby allowing the Spirit to do the work of drawing together the diversity of participants that have gathered to worship God together. Continuing the musical metaphor of liturgy, we can affirm that a worshipping community is composed of ‘multiple voices’⁷⁷ which do not always provide polyphony and which often remain ‘distinct and sometimes dissonant’.⁷⁸ In the act of corporate silence, we make space for dissonance and polyphony in a way that can be difficult to achieve in joint action or representative action, and in a way that can still be thought of in properly corporate terms.

6. Conclusion The model of group liturgical participation offered in this chapter seeks to emphasize the need for three kinds of liturgical action in worship—group action made possible by shared agency, representative action in which a small group act on behalf of the wider body, and corporate silence in which we make space for the Holy Spirit to guide our worship and to lead our response to God. This is crucial for understanding how the regular worshipping life of church congregations relates to the life of the one Church. Navigating the different uses of these three modes of liturgical participation will be highly context dependent. Liturgy must strive to find ways offering inclusive means for a community to participate, whilst trying simultaneously to respond faithfully to the Spirit’s guiding of the community. To return to Underhill’s depiction of the balance between ritual and spontaneity, we might also think of this as a balance between the activity made possible through joint action and representative action and the passivity afforded by corporate silence. While these actions all provide important ways of contributing to the life of the Church, we must also acknowledge that such actions are not exhaustive. In fact, as we will see in the concluding chapter, what the members of the Church do outside of gathered worship is as significant as what is done inside the four walls of a church building.

⁷⁷ Benson, 2013: 94.

⁷⁸ Benson, 2013: 94.

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7 One Purpose Extensive Liturgy and Protest

The stones cry out for justice because when you were confronted with abuse you pursed your lips.¹

1. Go in Peace to Love and Serve the Lord The previous chapter began by reflecting on the act of liturgical gathering, in which individuals are drawn together to participate in worship that is performed as part of a group. But those who are gathered will also eventually be dispersed from this act of group liturgy. In the Anglican tradition, the Eucharistic worship which began with gathering ends with words of dismissal: ‘Go in peace to love and serve the Lord’, to which the congregation replies: ‘In the name of Christ. Amen.’ Just as the act of gathering reflects something theologically significant, the act of dismissal denotes something important, namely, that those who have been drawn together to worship as one community are now sent into the world to act in the name of Christ. A central concern of this final chapter is to reflect on how the Church’s worship is not confined only to the acts of gathered liturgy. As Charles P. Price and Louis Weil suggest, it is not the case that liturgy belongs only to acts of scripted worship. Rather, as they put it, ‘liturgy is what we do with our lives.’² Price and Weil suggest that we can make a distinction between ‘extensive liturgy’, that is, our participation in the worship of the Church outside of the liturgies of gathered congregations, and ‘intensive liturgy’, namely, the worship done within these practices. Thus, they think, ‘to engage in either intensive or extensive liturgy drives one to seek out the other. From the extensive liturgy of a Christian’s life in the world, one comes to the intensive ¹ Thearose, 2019: 11.

² Price and Weil, 1979: 15.

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0007

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liturgy for assurance, pardon, and renewal. From the intensive liturgy, one “goes forth into the world to love and serve the Lord.”’³ For as we have seen, whilst the gathering of the Church in worship may provide a visible manifestation of the Church’s unity in Christ through the Spirit, it is not the source of this unity. In fact, as members of the one Church we do not cease to represent the Church or to participate in its life when the worship leader dismisses the congregation. Instead, we move from a kind of intensive liturgical action to an extensive liturgical action in which we are sent into the world to act as members of Christ’s body. However, in acknowledging the place of extensive liturgy, we are very quickly confronted with the horrors that are performed in the name of the Church. Those who speak on behalf of Christ are sometimes those who inflict the most damage in the world, rather than those who testify to the love of Christ. There is undoubtedly much good done in the name of Christ on behalf of the Church, but it is difficult to shake the sense that this is not the image of the Church most people have today. For instance, Rachel Denhollender, an American lawyer and former gymnast who spoke up against the abuse perpetrated by the US gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, puts it like this: Church is one of the least safe places to acknowledge abuse . . . if the organization I was speaking out against was [a church] . . . I would be actively vilified and lied about by every single evangelical leader out there . . . I would not only not have their support, I would be massively shunned. That’s the reality.⁴

We cannot take seriously an account of the oneness of the Church without acknowledging the reality of its sinfulness and the systematic injustice which is so prevalent. Our reflection on the Church’s oneness must conclude, then, on a sombre note, in which we acknowledge that the unity of the Church often means being united to those who seek to undermine the goodness and unity brought about through the work of the Holy Spirit. The chapter proceeds as follows: I begin by considering the issue of systemic abuse more closely and examine the complex layers of corporate responsibility involved in such cases. Then, I consider an example from Scripture which mirrors these contemporary examples of systemic injustice and helps shed light on the relationship between injustice and worship. As the writer of the book of Amos depicts, worship and injustice are bound up together: God will ³ Price and Weil, 1979: 15.

⁴ Lee, 2018, quoted in Panchuk, ms.

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not accept the worship of his people while they continue to ignore the plight of the vulnerable. I then offer an Augustinian account of justice to help flesh out this account. A puzzle emerges from such cases: How can a group—whether that be the people of God in Amos, or a congregation whose pastor has abused someone in the name of Church—be held responsible when there are seemingly many innocent individuals within such groups? A first attempt at answering such a question thinks of collective injustice as an instance of joint action, in which two or more people jointly cause some act of injustice. However, this account doesn’t capture many cases of systemic abuse or group injustice because it fails to see the group as the agent of such acts. Instead, I argue that a collective model of group injustice is a better fit, helping us to see the complex relationship between individual and group. Finally, I argue that this account leads us to see that protest in worship may be one of the most effective forms of remaining faithful to the unity of the Church while acknowledging the extent of injustice within it.

2. Systemic Abuse in the Life of the Church We cannot divorce the life of the Church gathered from the life of the Church sent. Members of the Church are united into the body of Christ, but unity is not an end in itself. Returning to John 17, the passage which began our exploration of oneness, helps press the point: Christ prays that his disciples may be one ‘so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me’ (John 17:23). As those sent into the world, we represent Christ and Christ’s body that the world may know the one in whom we have been united. Often, rather than pointing to the love we have been revealed in Christ, the agents of the Church can be agents of destruction and harm. Consider an example from Michelle Panchuk’s work on religious trauma: A young boy is raped by a clergy member in his church and sworn to secrecy in the name of God. The clergy member tells him that disclosing the abuse to anyone will hurt the reputation of the church and undermine the work of God in the world. Whatever this child may come to believe about the church, the sight of a priest or even a church building continues to make him physically ill.⁵ ⁵ Panchuk, 2018: 514.

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Examples like these are far more common than is often convenient for us to admit. Barely a week goes by in which another Christian minister or member of the clergy is embroiled in a scandal. The last few years have seen seemingly untouchable spiritual heroes from all traditions accused of heinous acts of destruction and violence against the very flock they were supposed to be guarding.⁶ Those who spoke out for justice and seemingly devoted years to serving the marginalized turned out to be those who preyed on the vulnerable. Those who brought so many into the Church with powerful ministries of evangelism turned out to be those who abused their power to satisfy their own desires. And those who were thought to be trusted men of integrity were discovered to be those hiding in darkness and undermining the truth and love they were called to preach. How are we to respond to what has been called a ‘crisis of horrors’ in the Church?⁷ It can be overwhelming to know where to start. Sometimes, the response of those in the Church is simply to ignore the issues until they are forced to do otherwise. The atomist paradigm of human action outlined in Chapter 1 seems to be assumed in many of the conversations around abuse in the Church. That is, while many acknowledge the badness of abuse and the severity of the actions of abusers, they also claim that perpetrators don’t really represent the Church, at least not in their abuse. Our instinctive response is to create shade between ourselves and those who are agents of destruction. And it is surely right, at the very least, to remove those who commit such acts from the life of the community, at least until there is genuine repentance and reconciliation, as well as a commitment to safeguarding against similar abuses in future. As Paul urges the Corinthian Church, casting out those who are destructive is important for safeguarding the unity of the community. For instance, he tells the Corinthians not to ‘associate with anyone who bears the name of brother or sister who is sexually immoral or greedy, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or robber’ (1 Cor. 5:9). Such people should be dispelled from the life of the community: ‘Do not even eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging those outside? Is it not those who are inside that you are to judge? God will judge those outside. “Drive out the wicked person from among you”’ (1 Cor. 5:12–13). Paul’s concern here is to safeguard the life of the community,

⁶ Two recent books attempt to offer responses to trauma in Christian theology: Harrower (2018); Cockayne, Harrower, and Hill 2022. ⁷ See Cockayne, Harrower, and Hill, 2022.

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such that the horror of abuse and injustice does not contaminate the wider Church. The implication is that there must be a break in membership, such that this individual no longer acts as a representative of the community in the world.⁸ Like all social or political bodies, the Church is ‘formed from a delicate mix of individuals’.⁹ As we have seen previously, Paul is clear that the body of Christ is formed by those who are from different backgrounds and traditions, and yet, ‘Paul must define the proper boundaries of the new “mix” . . . [the] wicked are not included (1 Cor. 5:11–13). He does this to ensure the stability of the whole community.’¹⁰ In other words, those who seek to deform the unity of the Church should be put outside its structures.¹¹ While expulsion from the community may often be necessary to safeguard the stability and unity of those who remain, it does not mean that the community is thereby free of the causes of injustice. This is to assume an atomist paradigm of human action, according to which we can neatly isolate individual action from its social context. As more cases of abuse are brought to life in our time, we are forced to reckon not only with the wrongdoing of the perpetrator but also with the communities in which such abuse took place. Consider a recent example. In the aftermath of the tragic events of the murder of Sarah Everard by a police officer in London in early 2021, the hashtag #notallmen was trending on Twitter for some time. Through the complex and morally nuanced medium of Twitter,¹² many were keen to point out that the police officer charged with Everard’s murder didn’t represent the police and he didn’t represent all men. While this response may say something trivially true about the basic importance of individual responsibility, it is often used as an

⁸ As Mitchell notes, the term translated as ‘association’ in verse 9, ‘shows that what is at issue is political association and membership. The verb with its double prepositional compound meaning literally to “mix up together” and its cognates are used of people “associating.” ’ Mitchell goes on to state that such terminology is not uncommon in political literature from the Greco-Roman tradition (Mitchell, 1993: 113). ⁹ Mitchell, 1993: 115. ¹⁰ Mitchell, 1993: 116. ¹¹ Note that this does not mean that expulsion from the community of the Church must always be permanent. Paul’s social ethic in 1 Corinthians is clearly restorative. Earlier, in 1 Corinthians 2, for instance, Paul urges the Church to forgive and comfort an offender who has been sufficiently punished for their wrongdoing (1 Cor. 2:5–8). As Douglas Campbell summarizes Paul’s restorative ethic: an appropriate restorative process brings the devastating consequences of an action home with full force . . . . Those who have committed an offense are generally deeply affected and transformed by this process. They learn to be ashamed of their criminal activities in an appropriate instance of shaming. And they invariably want to respond to their victims in ways that demonstrate their good faith in the future, making restitution. (Campbell, 2020: 335) ¹² Reader, please note the tone of sarcasm present.

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excuse to neglect attending to the larger context of group responsibility.¹³ In this example, it was plain to many that such a response did not reckon with the complexities of gendered violence in our society. Practically speaking, the sentiment #notallmen is clearly not an effective solace for a woman walking home late at night in fear of a strange man walking behind her. Nor is this rhetorical strategy of comfort for men when they themselves are the objects of brutality. A parallel response can often be found in the Church. The hashtag #notallchurches summarizes well the response many instinctively offer to the crisis of abuse. This response says that reviled leaders should be removed from the Church, but they do not represent us, and nor do we have anything to answer for, nor apologize for. But the #notallchurches response to issues of abuse is not a response that takes seriously enough the reality of the Church’s social identity. It supposes that individual acts of injustice should be condemned but takes no time to acknowledge that these acts did not and could not have arisen in isolation. The reality of abuse in the Church is that no such isolation is possible. It is worth acknowledging the complexity of these acts in their larger social context which in one way or another made them possible. The communities in which wrongdoing occurs may not have directly caused acts of abuse, but they often create the contexts in which such abuse can occur. For instance, consider another recent example. In 2021, an American evangelical young man shot and murdered eight women who were employees of massage parlours in Atlanta, Georgia, including six Asian American women. The young man denied a racial motivation for the killings, citing instead a motive of struggling with sex addiction, and attempting to eradicate a source of temptation. Writing shortly after these horrific events, Michael Rea reflected on the cultural background which the attacker allegedly came from: Conservative American evangelicalism is steeped in the male-supremacist ideology of complementarianism—a worldview that, among other things, asserts male privilege, valorizes male aggression and identifies males as the ones most fit for leadership and authoritative teaching . . . . speaking as a Christian myself, and as one who loves the Bible as God’s Word and still often comfortably occupies evangelical spaces—it is both historically and ¹³ Note that an account of group responsibility does not undermine the priority or importance of individual responsibility and the problems seem to arise when these forms of responsibility are seen to operate competitively as mutually exclusive alternate explanations for moral action. The account I propose in the final section of this chapter sees the two as combined in important ways.

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philosophically naïve to ignore the conceptual links between the white male supremacist ideologies that have long permeated the evangelical tradition and a wide range of atrocities committed against women and people of color. Semper reformanda, as they say—the church must always be reforming—and here would be a good place to start.¹⁴

Rea’s comments provide a helpful articulation of the social complexity of harm and abuse in the context of the Church. Rea also expresses concisely why excommunication of perpetrators from the Church may be necessary, but it is rarely sufficient for redressing issues of injustice and abuse that remain entrenched in the broader communal ethos of the Church. Since acts of violence are culturally located in a larger social fabric, such acts of violence should lead those who belong to such communities to reflect deeply on how and why such actions could have taken place. This is not to say that conservative American evangelicalism entails sexualized violence or abuse of a certain kind.¹⁵ Rather, it is to acknowledge that when acts of injustice occur, we cannot be content with the #notallchurches response, or the #notallevangelicals response. Understanding the culture and context in which abuse occurs is vital for confronting the sin that is perpetrated in the name of the Church and by those who act on behalf of the Church in the world. The problem is not that #notallchurches or #notallevangelicals is not true. It might be the case that not all churches are blameworthy for perpetuating systemic abuse. The problem comes instead when such an approach is deemed to end the conversation on systemic abuse, refusing to admit that we have contributed to the problem, even if only indirectly, thereby eschewing any responsibility for the harm committed. To add a further layer of complexity to the social causes of abuse, many of those who speak up against the heinous acts of violence committed by those who represent the Church are silenced and ignored by the community at large. Teresa Tobin talks of the abuse that is suffered by silencing victims of abuse in the Church as ‘equally if not more spiritually damaging’ than the original acts of abuse themselves.¹⁶ Many cases of abuse will not be brought to light this side of final judgement.¹⁷ Often, this is because survivors perceive a lack of trust in

¹⁴ Rea, 2021. ¹⁵ It should be noted that, unlike Rea, I am not an insider to American evangelical culture. ¹⁶ Tobin, 2019: 11. ¹⁷ Contrastingly, as I have argued with Scott Harrower and Preston Hill in our discussion of creating ‘trauma safe church’, ‘a compassionate witness does not only listen to [a] survivor’ but takes their testimony seriously. A community where victims of abuse are trusted and believed cannot happen

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a community—why would they speak out against a spiritual hero, upheld as a great man of integrity if they felt that they would be silenced, rather than believed? Thus, those who are part of the community of the Church must ask whether they aim to truly create a space where survivors are listened to and taken seriously. Finally, it is also clear that those suffering the effects of trauma as a result of abuse cannot easily isolate their perpetrators from the community as we often assume. As Tobin shows, many victims who suffered abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy never returned to Catholicism of any variety, even decades later.¹⁸ The sense of alienation and shame that many survivors of trauma experience means that survivors cannot always easily differentiate the allegedly ‘good’ members of a community from abusers. Suffering abuse at the hands of those who represent the Church can create lifelong distrust of the community itself. As I have argued with David Efird and Jack Warman, this sense of alienation from the community can also extend to God. Like the example of a woman confronting a stranger at night, we cannot expect victims of abuse to instinctively know who to trust.¹⁹ The reality is that perpetrators of religious abuse often claim to represent the Church and to represent God, and they are therefore perceived to represent the Church and to represent God. The response which states this is simply false does not reckon with our responsibility as the Church to overcome harm within our community. It should be clear that while removing a perpetrator of abuse from future contamination of the community serves to safeguard the future integrity of the community, it shouldn’t be seen as getting to the heart of the issue. If we are content to acknowledge that our acts of worship can be beautifully bound together in love through the gathering of the Church in liturgy, we must also lament in acknowledging that we cannot so easily separate the acts of disunity and evil done by members of the same community. Our lives are bound up together both in love and sin. What is needed is an acknowledgement of the ways in which our responsibility is bound up together. The poet Marie Thearose puts the point

instantly—such a culture takes time to cultivate; as with any trusting relationship, there must be sustained evidence of care and openness. Thus, we write, Trauma safe churches do no harm and are open to hearing the stories of survivors and meeting these stories with compassion and kindness. They believe survivors. Trauma safe churches are not threatened to witness violence but are bold and eager to hear the real stories of its members and to act to protect the vulnerable. Our stories need to be told and heard in safety and love. (Cockayne, Harrower, and Hill, 2022: 167) ¹⁸ Tobin, 2019: 11.

¹⁹ Cockayne, Efird, and Warman, 2020.

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succinctly in a social media post reflecting on the Church’s response to issues of abuse. The appropriate response to such abuse, Thearose states, is: I’m sorry my community hurt you and any way I may have been complicit by being silently neutral or enabling abuse. My religion claims to speak for God and thus its adherents are appropriately held to a higher standard. I am listening and will be working to prevent pain like this from occurring again. I will be speaking out against my fellow Christians rather than trying to distance myself from them by saying “not all Christians.” That is not helpful to the community I want to improve, nor to you, my friend, who is hurting.²⁰

Thearose’s post neatly summarizes the key points this chapter seeks to expand. First, acts of abuse are often bound up in complex social contexts. Secondly, many acts of abuse are committed on behalf of the group. Therefore, thirdly, as members of the group we have responsibilities for making amends on behalf of the group, rather than merely expelling perpetrators of harm from communities. But statements like these seem puzzling to many: How could I apologize for the acts of heinous abuse by members or leaders of my church? Surely, even in communities in which abuse has occurred, there are many individuals who are godly, sincere, and empathetic, and who would have believed and rectified the situation, if only they had known. Can such individuals be complicit in acts of communal injustice? The puzzle these questions pose, put simply, is this: What is the relationship between a church congregation’s or denomination’s acts of injustice and the individual member’s responsibilities? These are the questions the remainder of the chapter seek to address.

3. Injustice and the People of God There is little new about the notion that responsibility and sin are bound up in the life of the community.²¹ As I will show in the next two sections, there is precedence both in Scripture and tradition for making such claims.

²⁰ Thearose, 2017. ²¹ It is important to note that certain conceptions of responsibility risk alienating those in positions of powerlessness. As Kate Cannon notes, certain Western notions of responsibility which emphasize the importance of free will and emphasize the need for courage in the face of oppression are problematic in the context of racial injustice. She writes: ‘Locked in systems of subjugation and exploitation from which they can seldom extricate themselves, Black people live with severely limited ethical choices . . . For Black people the moral element of courage is annexed with the will to live and the

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First, let’s consider the issue of injustice and worship presented in the minor prophets of the Hebrew Bible. In Amos 5, for instance, the prophet records God expressing condemnation at a variety of rituals, ‘burnt offerings’, ‘noisy songs’, and acts of worship. The reason for this, Amos records, is that God demands that ‘justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream’.²²

I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. (Amos 5:21–4)

How ought we to receive such words of condemnation of the rituals of sacrifice and the feasts days of God’s people? Perhaps, it might be claimed, the problem here is with sacrifice and insufficiency of the sacrificial system for right relationship with God. Sacrifice on its own is clearly insufficient as is evidenced by God’s rejection of such sacrifice. But it doesn’t seem at all obvious that doing away with sacrifice more generally is God’s concern here. Verse 23 puts pressure on such an interpretation. We are told that God will not hear the music of his people, yet it would be strange to think that this means that all music is thereby condemned by God.²³ Moreover, the presence of relational language throughout (YHWH does not reject sacrifice, but your sacrifice; he

dread of greater perpetrations of evil acts against them’ (Cannon, 2006: 144–5). While the position espoused in this chapter emphasizes the responsibility of communities, from which individuals derive responsibility, it does not assume that such responsibility has an egalitarian structure. Thus, those in positions of ecclesial authority have a different kind of responsibility to oppose injustice than those who are trapped in oppressive systems of subjugation. With thanks to Sarah Shin for helpful discussion of the womanist literature. ²² See also Isaiah 1:11–17 and Isaiah 58:3b–7 for a similar indictment of the worship of the people because of their injustice. ²³ Eidevall, 2017: 168.

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doesn’t reject festivals, but your festivals) shows that the problem is contextual; there is a problem with these specific sacrifices, rather than sacrifices more generally.²⁴ Thus, it seems clear that the prophet is not advocating a sharp division between ethics and liturgy, nor even that ethics is more important than liturgy. Instead, there seems to be a close connection between justice and worship—God does not reject all of the liturgical actions described in Amos 5, but rather, he rejects those which are offered by people who lack justice. In other words, as I have suggested above, the worship of the gathered congregation cannot be easily separated from the worship of those sent into the world. Wolterstorff puts the point succinctly: ‘the prophetic insistence is not that liturgy be abolished, nor even that sacrifice be abolished, but that liturgy practiced in the absence of justice is so seriously malformed that God finds it disgusting.’²⁵ But how should we conceive of justice in this context? We find a plausible answer, I think, in St Augustine’s discussion of justice.²⁶ The task of justice, Augustine writes in City of God, ‘is to see that to each is given what belongs to each’.²⁷ In other words, for Augustine, justice requires treating others as they have a right to be treated. Clearly, Augustine thinks, this involves fulfilling the second greatest commandment, namely, to love one’s neighbour as oneself. In fact, a failure to love one’s neighbour is ‘criminal’, thinks Augustine.²⁸ Thus, the reason the Israelites acted unjustly to their neighbours in Amos 5 is because they do not give them what they are due, namely, love. This failure to love is manifest both in acts of omission as well as acts of commission; ‘. . . a man may sin against another in two ways, either by injuring him or by not helping him when it is in his power.’²⁹ Acting justly towards one’s neighbour, Augustine thinks, begins with our aiming to ‘be benevolent, cherishing no malice nor evil design against another’.³⁰ Yet, this is not the full picture of justice for Augustine. For as he explores in detail in book XIX of City of God, human beings cannot act justly unless they are properly related to God. He writes,

²⁴ As Eidevall puts it, ‘these formulations indicate that the words of rejection are directed against a specific historical situation’ (Eidevall, 2017: 168). ²⁵ Wolterstorff, 2011: 46. ²⁶ Augustine’s view closely resembles that of the Roman jurist, Ulpian (see Wolterstorff, 2010: 22). Wolterstorff (2010) gives a detailed argument in support of the claim that this conception of justice is the view espoused by the writers of Scripture in chapters 3–5 of Justice: Rights and Wrongs. ²⁷ Augustine [City of God (CG)], 1958: XIX, 4: 439. ²⁸ Augustine [Of the Morals of the Catholic Church (OMCC)], 1887: I, 33, 73. B. A. I. ²⁹ Augustine, OMCC: I, 26, 50. ³⁰ Augustine, OMCC: I, 26, 50.

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it is just for the soul to be subordinate to God, and the body to the soul, and thus for body and soul taken together to be subject to God. Is there not abundant evidence that this virtue is unremittingly struggling to effect this internal order—and is far from finished? For, the less a man has God in his thoughts, the less is his soul subject to God; the more the flesh lusts counter to the spirit, the less the flesh is subject to the soul. So, long, then, as such weakness, such moral sickliness remains within us, how can we dare to say that we are out of danger; and, if not yet out of danger, how can we say that our happiness is complete?³¹

For Augustine, justice in a human being concerns right order; the one who pursues justice is the one who is rightly related to God, and in so doing, relates rightly to one’s neighbour.³² This relationship appears to be bi-conditional. That is, one will act justly to one’s neighbour if and only if one first loves God. In his discussion of 1 John 3, Augustine writes, Your brother is hungry, in want; maybe he is in trouble, hard pressed by some creditor. He has not what he needs, you have. He is your bother, he and you were purchased together, one price was paid for you both of you, both were redeemed by the blood of Christ. Is there pity in you for him, if you have this world’s goods? Do you ask, What concern is it of mine? Am I to give money to save him inconvenience? If that is the answer your heart gives you, the love of the Father dwells not in you; and if the love of the Father dwells not in you, you are not born of God. How can you boast being a Christian?³³

Augustine helpfully connects the worship of God with justice towards one’s neighbour. The Israelites in the book of Amos display their lack of true worship to God in acting unjustly; by continuing to ‘trample on the poor’ (Amos 5:11), whilst bringing sacrifices to God and praising him in song, the Israelites display a kind of doublemindedness. God will not receive the worship contained in their intensive liturgy because they do not love him as they ought to; their extensive liturgy is in conflict what they do when they gather. If

³¹ Augustine, CG: XIX, 4: 439–40. ³² To return to Cannon’s discussion of moral agency amongst those trapped in systems of subjugation: the primacy of right relation to God means that justice will look vastly different for the oppressed and the oppressor, thereby avoiding Canon’s worries with certain notions of agency and courage. Again, thanks to Sarah Shin for raising this point. ³³ Augustine [Later Works (LW)], 1955: 301–2.

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the love of the Father truly dwelt in the people, then they would act justly towards their neighbours by relating to them in love. Succinctly put, ‘lack of charity to a neighbour is considered by him to be an assault against God.’³⁴ Worship and justice, for Augustine, are bound up together.

3.1 Social Justice and the People of God While the above discussion is helpful, it does not yet get us to the importantly social dimension this chapter is concerned with addressing. It is notable, for instance, that in the context of Amos, the subject of God’s condemnation is plural, not singular. Chapter 5:1 makes this clear: ‘Hear this word that I take up over you in lamentation, O house of Israel.’ Israel is the agent who is described as performing noisy music and failing to act justly before God. Similarly, the focus of this chapter is how to locate the sins of the Church in the extensive worship of local church communities. To understand the connection between worship and injustice, we need, then, to understand the essentially corporate nature of God’s condemnation of worship; it is Israel as a whole, and not some individual person who is declared as unjust, and consequently the worship of the nation is deemed unacceptable. Similarly, as I will argue in the concluding sections, the abuse that has been committed in the name of the Church is a collective problem, not merely an individual failure. According to Joel S. Kaminsky, the Bible has a very nuanced theology of the relationship between the individual and the community. Rather than playing off the more individualistic passages within the Bible against those that espouse a more corporate view, one can see the way in which these elements qualify and complement each other. Inasmuch as the biblical view of the relationship between the individual and the community takes both poles, but places more emphasis upon the community and the individual’s responsibility to that community, it can provide a much needed corrective to current ethical thinking that seems to treat society as nothing more than a collection of unrelated individuals who just happen to live together.³⁵ Kaminsky’s thesis resonates with much of the literature we have been considering throughout this book. Indeed, Pettit’s insistence that individualism need ³⁴ Clark, 2015: 5.

³⁵ Kaminsky, 1995: 188.

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not entail atomism (see Chapter 1) is a good way of holding in tension the poles of ethical thinking Kaminsky finds in the pages of the Hebrew Bible.³⁶ We find similar emphases on corporate responsibility in the New Testament. Indeed, the examples of the abuse of the Eucharist we considered previously (Chapter 5) seem clearly to be cases in which acts of eating and drinking unworthily (1 Cor. 11:22–3) are said to contaminate the body as a whole. Similarly, in the Gospel according to Matthew, Jesus makes it clear that faction amongst the community of God’s people is incompatible with authentic worship to God (Matt. 5:23–5). Augustine too sees the need to move from justice to social justice. Indeed, he claims that the basic structure of justice (namely, that of each being given what belongs to each) applies to states and societies just as it does to individuals. The truly just state, Augustine thinks, would be rooted in a love of God and obedience to God’s commands, just as would be the case in the just individual.³⁷ Writing on the great civilizations of history, Augustine argues, The fact is that any civil community made up of pagans who are disobedient to God’s command that He alone receive sacrifices and who, therefore, are devoid of the rational and religious control of soul over body and of reason over sinful appetite must be lacking in true justice.³⁸

The point is simple enough to grasp. If justice is found in giving what belongs to each and must be grounded, ultimately, in right relation to God, then justice cannot be achieved independently from God, even in a pagan state. As Rowan Williams summarizes, for Augustine while a state ‘may be empirically an intelligibly unified body, it is constantly undermining its own communal character, since its common goals are not and cannot be those abiding values which answer to the truest human needs’.³⁹ And thus on this account, the state which does not pursue God cannot be just.

³⁶ It seems plausible to think that such injustice is not summative in nature, either. For in the liturgies we find in the pages of Scripture, men, women, children, and priests all had different roles to play in the practice of rituals in Hebrew Scripture, but could all be said to participate in these rituals. The reason for this, Johnson argues, is that it is the community that engages in these practices, and not just the individual. Thus, he thinks, ‘because different roles in Israelite society will necessarily dispose persons to be variously discerning, they must rely upon each other in order to know well’ (Johnson, 2016: 246). ³⁷ Augustine, CG: XIX, 24, 479. ³⁸ Augustine, CG: XIX, 24, 479. ³⁹ Williams, 2016: 113.

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It is not my intention to defend Augustine’s contentious political claim that states cannot achieve justice independently of the worship of God.⁴⁰ Nor is it my aim to defend Augustine’s social ontology of states, either.⁴¹ My aim here is more modest. That is, in the following sections, I offer an account of injustice in the Church and its social origins. The following points are drawn from the discussion of Augustine and the injustice of the Israelites in Amos: (i) a failure to love our neighbours (including victims of abuse) ought to be seen as an act of injustice and a failure to worship God, and, (ii) there is important structural similarity between justice/injustice in an individual and within a group.⁴² Tying the threads together of Augustine’s account of social justice, Williams writes, ‘the entire pedagogy of the church’s preaching and liturgy, the focal significance of Christ as the source of justice, because he is the embodiment of truth, of true relation to the Father and of self-forgetting compassion and humble acceptance of the constrains of fleshly life, all come together in the vision of fully reconciled social existence.’⁴³

4. Social Justice as Joint Commitment With these claims in place, we can move to considering how recent work in group ethics can help us to expand on such claims and shed light on the issues of systemic abuse posed previously. There are two kinds of approach to group responsibility in the existing literature which can be applied to the issue of ⁴⁰ In a recent article, Katherine Chambers (2018) has argued against the reading offered by Williams (referring to book 19 of Augustine’s CG) suggesting that Augustine argues that pagan states cannot act justly. ⁴¹ In particular, Augustine argues that we should think of states as a ‘multitude of reasonable beings voluntarily associated in the pursuit of common interests’ (CG: XIX, 24, 478). On the taxonomy we have been adopting in this book, the Augustinian state would come under Collins’ label of ‘coalition’ rather than ‘collective’. That is, Augustine seems to think of the state as a group with a shared value system, but no shared decision-making procedure. Reflecting on Augustine’s remarks, Clark notes that ‘Few of us would agree that Augustine’s . . . definition of a commonwealth which allows decadent Rome to be called one, namely, an association of rational beings united by a common love, aptly specifies a State’ (Clark, 2015: 6). ⁴² We find a similar claim in Bonhoeffer’s discussion of group responsibility. Bonhoeffer thinks that we must stress the importance of responsibility for injustice occurs at both the individual and corporate level: God is concerned not only with the nations, but has a purpose for every community no matter how small, every friendship, every marriage, every family. And in this sense God also has a purpose for the church. There is not only the culpability of individual Germans and individual Christians, but also the culpability of Germany and of the church. It is not enough for individuals to repent and be justified; Germany and the church must likewise repent and be justified. (Bonhoeffer, 1998: 119) ⁴³ Williams, 2016: 129.

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justice and injustice. The first account thinks of group injustice in terms of joint or shared action. The second account (outlined in the next section) thinks of group responsibility as a collective act of justice or injustice. Broadly speaking, the first account is a bottom-up approach (i.e. it starts with individual actions and works up to the group-level actions in light of these individual actions) and the second is top-down (i.e. it starts with the actions of the collective and works back to the relationship the individual stands in to these group actions). In Chapter 6, we considered the application of the literature on group action and joint intentionality in explaining what it is for two or more people to jointly participate in liturgy. A joint-action approach to moral responsibility adds to this account that there are instances in which two or more people acting together perform actions which violate some moral obligation. To take a trivial example: if Billy and Tim are jointly playing a playground game of chase and intentionally decide to leave out Sally (who they know loves playing chase), then Billy and Tim jointly act unjustly towards Sally by failing to give her what she is owed—their love. Billy and Tim are jointly responsible for not loving Sally as they ought to, or so it might be supposed. We might think of such cases in simple summative terms. For instance, consider the following example: Imagine a dozen people, with murder on their minds, each delivering one stab to the body of some victim. Let us suppose that each of the stabs is causally necessary for the death to ensue. I submit that, given certain other conditions (full freedom, intent, and so forth), each of the assailants is fully morally responsible for the death. The fact that others are responsible for the death does nothing to diminish the responsibility of any of the assailants . . . If it takes twelve people to kill someone by stabbing him, then, if a thirteenth person stabs the victim, there is no diminution of the responsibility of the original twelve . . . And the thirteenth bears as much responsibility as any of the rest.⁴⁴

On Zimmerman’s account, each individual contributes equally to causing the state of affairs for which they are all blameworthy. But there is something artificial about such cases. Group actions rarely have equal contributions from all participants. For instance, the triangle player in an orchestra participates in the joint action of the orchestra, but his participation is clearly not equivalent to that of the conductor. Similarly, in the case of injustice in church ⁴⁴ Zimmerman, 1985: 117–20.

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congregations; direct perpetrators of acts of abuse clearly have more responsibility to answer for than silent enablers, but if there is some sense of their jointly being causally responsible (even if not equally so) for the act of injustice, then perhaps we can make sense of the notion that a church community acted unjustly. An approach like Zimmerman’s seeks only to hold individuals responsible for events jointly occurring in an atomistic way. Thus, it doesn’t get to the heart of the group nature of acts of injustice in many religious communities. A more promising account of joint injustice can be found in Miranda Fricker’s work in institutional virtues. Drawing from Gilbert’s notion of joint commitment (which we considered in Chapter 4), Fricker thinks that the best way to account for examples of group-level injustice is to describe these as instances of joint commitment. Fricker writes: If, under conditions of common knowledge, a number of individuals commit to a virtuous moral or epistemic motive, they thereby constitute themselves as the plural subject of that collective motive. Joint commitment to a motive should be understood here as shorthand for a joint commitment to achieving the good end of the motive because it is good. Or, as we might put it, a joint commitment to a virtuous motive is a matter of jointly committing to the virtuous end for the right reason. Note that group members need not possess the motive as individuals. Rather, in jointly committing to it, they each come to possess it qua member of the group.⁴⁵

For Fricker, like Augustine, groups of people can be said to act unjustly in a way that is not straightforwardly summative. On this account, acts of injustice (or justice) come about by ‘the pooling of wills’ under conditions of common knowledge. That is, in such cases, two agents decide that they will act together and do so by coordinating their accounts to produce outcomes for which they are jointly responsible. Thus, such accounts have the benefit, she argues, of not relying on ‘metaphysically spooky’ claims about group action.⁴⁶ Fricker’s position gives a helpful account of the different levels of ways in which individuals can contribute to the actions of the group. For we know that ‘the orchestra played terribly tonight’ is consistent with the claim ‘and the violinist was sublime’. The joint commitment which comes about in playing a piece of music means that we can morally appraise both the group and the individuals. Thus, the account helpfully captures the notion that the kind of responsibility ⁴⁵ Fricker, 2010: 241–2.

⁴⁶ Fricker, 2010: 242.

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a congregation member shoulders in a case of systemic abuse is not equivalent to that performed by the perpetrator of the abusive act. However, as we have seen in Chapter 4, there are some shortcomings of Gilbert’s approach when scaled to larger groups. The same shortcomings appear to apply to Fricker’s account too. That is, whilst the notion of joint commitment may helpfully explain cases of injustice in small-scale acts in which some course of action is common knowledge amongst its members, it looks poorly suited for thinking about the injustice committed by large corporations, in which many members are not aware of how their actions contribute to the wider injustice of the group. Fricker appears to be committed to a view such that one can opt-out of a group action (and thereby be exempt from its moral evaluation) by withdrawing one’s commitment to a specific action. She takes this to be a strength of her account. For instance, she writes: It is an ethical achievement to refuse to go along with a joint commitment to a racist ‘canteen culture’ (of superficially friendly racist nicknames and jokes, for instance) in a working environment heavy with peer pressure, in which many of the white majority do at least ‘go along with’ that racist culture and ostracize those who don’t. This pressure to go along with the racist culture is a pressure that makes itself felt not only on the white majority but also on black members of the group. Hence being a stowaway can sometimes be the best a decent person can do in a bad social environment, and even that may require some significant courage and sacrifice. Further, for someone who had been jointly committed to the racist canteen culture but who wants now to withdraw, the appropriateness of rebuke from other parties to the commitment reminds one of the internally generated coercive power that such group phenomena possess.⁴⁷

Practically, Fricker may be right at a social level that sometimes silence is the only available option in a bad scenario. A powerful example of the importance of silence as a response to injustice can be seen in Terrence Malick’s depiction of the life of Franz Jägerstäter, an Austrian farmer who was eventually executed for refusing to fight for Nazi Germany in the Second World War, in the movie A Hidden Life. In a powerful scene, Jägerstäter stands in a line of young men conscripted into the army, the camera pans along the line as each man performs the Nazi salute, shouting ‘Heil Hitler’. Jägerstäter remains stoic, refusing to participate in the actions of the group. His refusal to participate in ⁴⁷ Fricker, 2010: 248.

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the actions of the group is a powerful act of protest, leading to his arrest and eventual death. Thus, silence clearly can serve as an act of protest against injustice. However, thinking of silence as the primary means of responding to injustice will not suffice for the present discussion. The reason Jägerstäter’s silence counted as an act of protest was because certain kinds of action were expected of him. However, in many cases of systemic abuse, silence and inaction is precisely what is expected from members of oppressive communities. It is hardly an act of protest to look the other way in such contexts. Rather, in many of the examples we have considered above, both from contemporary cases of systemic abuse and also of examples from Scripture, it doesn’t appear that there is such an easy get-out for the stowaway in the community. While it may be the case that the individual who does not participate in institutional abuse is not directly responsible for wrongdoing, it remains the case that she is a member of a group in which abuse was committed in her name. It seems plausible that there were individual stowaways in the injustice of Israel as Amos depicts it. But God does not make his condemnation of their worship conditional on something like a joint account being true. As I will suggest in the concluding section, knowingly belonging to a group which enforces harm calls for more than passivity; rather, it requires one to protest the injustice as far as is possible. And so, we need some way of moving towards a constructive way forwards for the community attempting to address injustice in its midst.

4.1 Social Justice and Collective Duties A more promising approach for thinking about systemic abuse in the life of the Church lies in a discussion of collectives.⁴⁸ Rather than seeking to ask how individual actions can combine to produce actions for which they are jointly responsible, this approach begins with thinking about the actions of collectives and then works backwards to consider how individual actions might combine to cause group-level actions. Note that this is not to say that collective responsibility is primary or more important than individual responsibility. In fact, the collective account described here is arguably more demanding for the individual than an individual only or joint responsibility account. Rather,

⁴⁸ See Everhart (forthcoming) for a compelling discussion of corporate responsibility in Scripture in conversation with Collins’ discussion of group duties. Everhart’s own account draws from many similar sources to my own discussion.

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it is to say that in many cases of injustice, pointing to each individual act of injustice is insufficient for understanding the cause of injustice. Consider an example. In virtue of its structure, a large international coffeeroasting organization is able to deliberate over whether wide-scale tax evasion is a morally appropriate action. If its management decides that siphoning all of the profits to the Bahamas is the best course of action, then the organization as a collective can be held responsible for deciding to perform this action and not some other (such as supporting the citizens in the countries it makes profit in). Clearly, a barista who works at the local branch café is not jointly responsible for causing tax evasion, but she is a member of a group which violates a moral obligation to support the citizens of the country in which it operates. The first step to giving an account of collective responsibility is to see that in such cases we can distinguish between what the members of a collective decide to do and what the group decides to do. ‘The members’ decisions were to assent to the collective’s doing such-and-such’,⁴⁹ such as the barista’s decision to keep working for the organization, or the CEO’s decision to ask the accountant to siphon profits into another country. In both cases, the members assent to the collective’s refusal to pay corporation tax. Contrastingly, ‘the collective’s decision was ‘to do such-and-such’, namely, not to pay corporation tax.⁵⁰ Simply: ‘The collective’s decision was determined by the members’ decisions, but it is not to be identified with the mere conjunction of them.’⁵¹ Note how this differs from the joint account: on Fricker’s account, I can opt out of the act merely by becoming a stowaway or a silent protestor. This seems plausible for the case of avoiding canteen racism, but the barista cannot opt out of the collective act to commit tax evasion. Sure, she can resign from her post and no longer belong to the collective, but if she wishes to remain a member of the collective, she cannot opt out of its collective-level actions. As we have seen throughout the book, joint-action accounts stand and fall with the actions of those jointly committed, but collective actions persist. From collective action to collective responsibility. Collins argues that if a ‘collective fails to do a duty’, say, pay corporation tax, then this ‘implies that a member has failed to do a duty’.⁵² This seems to follow from the account of group–individual supervenience we have considered elsewhere. If group actions supervene on individual actions in a non-reductive manner, then group actions do not exist without individual actions, and the same goes for praise and blame, thinks Collins. However, as she clarifies, ⁴⁹ Collins, 2019: 169. ⁵² Collins, 2019: 184.

⁵⁰ Collins, 2019: 169.

⁵¹ Collins, 2019: 169.

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I am not asserting that members are blameworthy for their failure (where that failure is implied by the collective’s failure) . . . . members can have good reasons for failing to do their membership duties: for example, they might have another duty that has nothing to do with the collective (say, they made a promise to a friend), which outweighs their membership duty. But this is no roadblock to the claim that the collective’s failure to do its duty entails a member’s failure to do a duty that they hold. It’s instead a roadblock to the claim that collective failure implies member blameworthiness or lack of excuse.

In other words, if a collective is blameworthy for failing to meet its duty (to act justly, for example), then it follows that at least one member of the collective has failed, but not all members will be blameworthy. A worker who unknowingly joins a corporation which violates its duties to the community appears to be a case in which an individual can be a member of a blameworthy group without being blameworthy. This collective account helpfully shows how a single act of wrongdoing by an individual might be understood as representing the group. For if a member of a group acts on behalf of a group in some action (such as a pastor’s abuse of a congregation member), then the group as a whole is responsible for the wrongdoing in virtue of at least one member failing in their duties. But often in cases of collective wrongdoing the failures to fulfil duty are complex, as in the many cases we have considered previously. There are cases in which many small-scale acts of membership negligence (consider the single act of not immediately trusting the allegations of abuse against a friend who is a member of the church) can give rise to horrendous failures of duty at the group-level (such as suppression of testimony, in such as the cases considered by Tobin). Indeed, Rea’s discussion helpfully highlights how seemingly innocent failures of individual duty to challenge malesupremacist ideology might create a context of group permissibility, such that horrendous acts can be committed in the name of a community. Individual blameworthiness is often difficult to unpick from the complexities of group dynamics. Thus, the position can account well for the fact that acts of abuse are often bound up in complex social contexts and also help to show that many acts of abuse are committed on behalf of the group. The more puzzling claim seems to be that a member of a group who is not blameworthy can be said to have responsibilities for making amends on behalf of the group, such as apologizing on behalf of the community.

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Here, moving from the discussion of collective blame to collective responsibility is helpful. Assuming that the perpetrator of an act of severe disunity has been exiled from the community, how ought the community to meet its duties to act justly to God and to its neighbour? The collective account helpfully shows that being a member of a group entails that one has membership duties derived from the group’s duties. According to Collins, if a collective has a duty to see to it that X, then 1. Each member has a duty to use their role, if possible and as appropriate, to put inputs into the collective’s decision-making procedure with a view to the procedure’s distributing roles to members in a way that: if enough members used their roles with a view to seeing it that X, then that would be sufficient for X in a high proportion of likely futures. These are ‘X-sufficient’ roles. 2. If X-sufficient roles are distributed, then each member has a duty to use their role, if possible and as appropriate, with a view to seeing to it that X.⁵³ Thus, if a church has the duty to hear the voices of survivors of abuse (which I would argue follows from Augustine’s claims concerning justice), then it follows that each member of that church has a duty to use their role, if possible and as appropriate, with a view to seeing to it that victims of abuse are heard. Not all roles will be identical in a church community; those who decide on the content of a church’s sermons will have a different kind of role to those who welcome people who gather to worship; but both derive their duty to pursue justice in relation to the church’s duty. This helps to see how if injustice is committed by a representative of a group (or perhaps even a perceived representative), then it is also appropriate that an individual can act on behalf of the group in apologizing for wrongdoing. This does not mean that the representative is themselves responsible for causing injustice. Consider how a spokesman for a government speaks out on behalf of a government when a minister has been shown to have caused harm; even if the minister has played no direct role in the cause of harm, we can make sense of the notion of representative apology. If a group commits an act of injustice against someone, then the members of that group have responsibility for righting the injustice, even if they are not individually blameworthy for the initial act of injustice.

⁵³ Collins, 2019: 198.

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Thus, as Collins describes, ‘once the roles have been distributed, a member’s obligation is not just a duty to perform their role, that is, to perform a specific action. It is rather an obligation to use their role to see to it that X.’⁵⁴ This might require challenging the expectations of one’s role or questioning the contribution of others (as in the role of political protest, for instance). Put simply, on this model there is an important role for protest and the addressing of future sources of injustice. We conclude in the next section by considering the application of this insight for thinking about liturgy.

5. Liturgical Protest If one’s duties are defined in reference to the Church’s duties, then one must also take one’s role seriously to challenge and confront those who diverge from the task of the Church. In Thearose’s words: ‘I am listening and will be working to prevent pain like this from occurring again. I will be speaking out against my fellow Christians rather than trying to distance myself from them by saying “not all Christians.”’ Put simply, this is a recognition that belonging to a group that has duties to act in certain ways entails that as a member of that group I have member-duties for ensuring the group can meet its duties to overcome injustice. Two recent accounts of liturgical protest provide helpful resources for unpacking what it might mean to fulfil one’s responsibilities for justice within the Church. Writing on the role of liturgical protest in response to religious trauma, Michelle Panchuk suggests that ‘Protest liturgy could provide space for survivors who are ready, and who desire to engage in religious practices, to exercise their agency in the face of the very symbols and discourses that contributed to their traumatization.’⁵⁵ This might involve using liturgies which specifically acknowledge the suffering of survivors of abuse, including choosing to bring these voices to fore from the pages of Scripture, or including stories of injustice in intercessory prayer and preaching, such that these voices are not absent from our worship. For they are not absent from our communities. Similarly, Michael Rea writes that, in response to trauma, Often enough, lament and protest will remain accessible ways of continuing one’s relationship with God and deliberately or not, promoting its ⁵⁴ Collins, 2019: 199.

⁵⁵ Panchuk, ms.: 10.

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improvement. They are behaviors that one can engage in just by trying to do so, assuming one has the concept of God, regardless of the state of one’s confidence in God’s existence, character, or dispositions toward oneself. They are, furthermore, ways of drawing near to God despite one’s own pain and despite the conflict that mars one’s relationship with God. They are alternatives to abject submission to suffering, silence, and an unintelligible divine value scheme.⁵⁶

For both Panchuk and Rea, the intensive liturgies of the Church provide a helpful context in which the voices of the marginalized might be centred in worship and make space for responses of anger and revolt in the face of injustice, whether that is perceived to come from those in the Church, outside the Church, or sometimes even from God. I think Rea and Panchuk are right: making space for protest in acts of intensive liturgy creates a space where survivors of abuse can find agency, and the community is able to bring the voices of survivors into the corporate life of the Church in a visible manner that reflects the reality of their identity as members of the one body.⁵⁷ Moreover, given the argument made in this chapter, I think we can put the point more strongly than Panchuk. Not only is protest against the suffering and abuse of Church members permissible in a community which has failed to act justly towards those who have suffered abuse: it is also be our duty as members of this community to protest. If it is the case that our community has the duty to act justly to God and to all human beings we are confronted by, then as members of that community we have the duty insofar as we can ensure that the Church acts justly. If one recognizes that as a member of a community in which abuse has been done in my name, then one recognizes that they also have a duty to ensure that justice is enacted. Protesting against unjust structures and narratives which deny healing and care for the abused is a form of ensuring the group meets its duties of justice. Protest might not be conceived as merely acknowledging injustice, either. In fact, we can think of protest liturgies as moving in the direction of constructive reconciliation and rooting out the causes of injustice, even if these run deep within the life of a community. In other words, there are proactive things one can do to overcome issues of systemic injustice within a community which are not concerned only with rejecting harm but can move towards creating space for healing and reconciliation. In a recent paper on racial segregation in the

⁵⁶ Rea, 2018: 154. ⁵⁷ See Travis (2021) and Cockayne, Harrower, and Hill (2022) for in-depth discussion of centring voices of survivors in worship.

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Church, Sarah Shin highlights the way in which feasting can play an important role in reconciliation between segregated communities: the Church, which is beholden to the command to love one’s neighbor and love one’s enemy, could serve as a space of mutual beholding gazes (recollection of story included), with programs and initiatives informed by science and anti-racism work that help lead to reconciliation across differences. Bias can be overcome through repeat exposure to the other, which confronts a false notion of self and the other. Instead of assuming that directives to avoid bias and racism will change behavior, feasting through table fellowship could serve as a necessary and important place of transfiguring gazes so that members of the Church can better resist evil . . . . It is not always clear that a ritualized worship setting leads to those stories being heard. The intentionality of joint-fellowship at the table meal could serve as a way to better ensure that those stories are heard so that the worshipper’s gaze may be transfigured . . . . Incorrect facts and distorted versions of history are confronted in the sharing of story and the sharing of gaze between persons whose representative communities may have conflicting accounts of facts and past events.⁵⁸

Shin’s proposal is that the simple act of eating together, making space to share attention with one another and to hear one another is one of the most powerful ways of healing communities which are segregated by difference. This is not because it merely acknowledges and protests the harm that has occurred, but because it leads the community to a place in which they can acknowledge the reality of their unity in Christ through the Spirit, and in which this unity can be made manifest through acts of reconciliation. As we saw in Chapter 5, there is great unity to be had in ritualized action and in sharing food together. Finding ways to bring those who have been hurt by the Church into the community to share in the life of the community offers a way of addressing the injustices that have been committed in the name of Christ.

6. Conclusion What it means to participate in the life and work of the Church cannot be equated only with participating in the acts of liturgy which aim at worshipping God. When those gathered have been sent out into the world, they do not ⁵⁸ Shin, 2020: 44–5.

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cease to be part of the congregations and denominations to which they belong, and they do not cease to belong to the one Church of Christ through the power of the Spirit. As those sent into the world to love and serve God, we are called to a life of justice in which our love for God leads to acts of justice and service, especially to those in need. These actions are no less acts of worship than singing a hymn together or reading a line of liturgy. Thus, there is a great responsibility for the Church to take seriously the ways in which those who represent the Church have caused great injustice in the world. This means recognizing that acts of harm cannot emerge atomistically from ‘bad people’ but are often rooted in complex relationships within a community. But just as representatives can cause harm on behalf of collectives, so too can representatives make amends. Recognizing that our communities as part of the one Church have a responsibility for love and justice means that as members, we are responsible for ensuring that we do all we can to allow the group to act lovingly and justly.

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Epilogue That they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. John 17:23

We began our exploration into the nature of the one Church with these words from the Gospel according to John: that they may be one. In many ways, we have done little more than unpack and reflect on the meaning of these words for our understanding of the life and work of the Church. It is worth pausing to consider the claims that have been advanced here and to suggest some areas that might prove fruitful for future work in this area. First, as we saw, Jesus’ prayer that his people may be one does not entail an erasing of individual identity, nor does it lead to a ‘watering down . . . of personal sin’. Properly construed, the model of ecclesiology presented in the pages of this book recognizes that the individual and the Church are not in competition. To speak of the life and actions of the Church is not to reject the importance of the individual’s relationship with God, and to speak of the life of the individual and the importance of her relationship with God is not to deny the reality of the Church. Put more technically, one can endorse individualism concerning the priority of human autonomy without denying the existence of social entities. The thesis of this book assumes both individualism and group realism. Next, we saw that the reality of the one Church, which Jesus points to in his high-priestly prayer, is brought into being and sustained by the work of the one Spirit. The Holy Spirit draws all members of the Church to act as one social whole: the body of Christ. Chapter 2 attempted to make sense of this theological claim by offering a model of social ontology that described the Church as a collective; a social entity united through the decision-making procedures of those authorized to act on behalf of the whole. Like the evocative examples of the honeybee colony and the MCU, the Church is not united through democratic decision-making or hierarchical structure. Indeed, like the

Explorations in Analytic Ecclesiology: That They May be One. Joshua Cockayne, Oxford University Press. © Joshua Cockayne 2022. DOI: 10.1093/oso/9780192844606.003.0008

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examples, most of the Church’s members show little awareness of how their individual actions contribution to the actions of the group. Yet, as the discussion of social ontology has helped to show, this need not preclude our thinking of the Church as a unified collective; rather, it helped to press the important theological point that if there is any unity to be found between the diverse and disparate members of the Church it is only through the ministry of the one Spirit. This model of the social ontology of the Church was then expanded further in Chapter 3 as we examined the claim that the Church is the body of Christ. Here, the philosophical notion of bodily extension provided a helpful way of thinking about the relationship between the social whole of the Church and the body of Christ. I argued that while we might make some kind of identification claim regarding the Church as the body of Christ (e.g. ‘you are the body of Christ and individually members of it’ (1 Cor. 12:27)), these claims cannot be numerical identity claims since the Church is not at the right hand of the Father. Rather, the Church is an extension of Christ’s body and a part of it, such that we can rightly point to the Church and say: ‘There’s Christ’. Just as in the movie Ratatouille, Linguini the chef ’s body is an extension of Remy the rat’s body, Christ’s body is extended into the Church through the ministry of the Spirit such that Christ can act in the world through the body of the Church. This model of the Church as the socially extended body of Christ, united through the ministry of the Holy Spirit was then pressed into service of sacramentology. Examining the role of the Eucharist and baptism in the unity of the Church, I argued that both sacraments are crucial for examining how the members of the Church relate to the one body. First, I argued, baptism plays an important role in signifying membership into the one Church: (i) baptism stands one in a new relation to the members of the Church through the act of baptismal promising; and (ii) baptism provides a sign and seal of the work of God in grafting members into the body of Christ. More technically, I argued, the words used in baptism serve as an assertive illocutionary speech act (i.e. they declare something that God has done in drawing members into the one Church) and as a perlocutionary speech act in sealing this membership into the hearts of the baptized. Secondly, expanding this vision of sacramentology in the one Church, I examined the Eucharist as a means of unity. I argued that the unitive function of the Eucharist might be thought of as occurring in two ways: (i) through the psychological unity that is affected in members through corporate acts of reminiscence and ritual eating, and (ii) through the theological unity that is affected between individuals and Christ

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by the intimate act of eating and drinking Christ’s body and blood. The Eucharist, it was argued, provides a sense of unity in the Church by overcoming the resistance to Christ’s will (i.e. by providing remission from sin) in individual members, thereby lowering their resistance to the social unity brought about by the Holy Spirit. Finally, I considered the role of liturgy in belonging to the one Church. This discussion also spanned two chapters. In Chapter 6, we considered the role of group action in the liturgies of gathered worship. I argued that Evelyn Underhill’s three modes of liturgical participation: joint action, representative action, and silence, all provide means of participating in the worship of the one Church. However, it was suggested that perhaps silence is the most important of the three modes of liturgical action since in silence the role of the Holy Spirit is most pronounced. As with the model of the Church proposed in Chapters 1–3, in silence unity comes not from human action but from the work of the Spirit working through human beings. Secondly, I considered how liturgy (literally: the work of the people) might expand beyond acts of gathered worship and argued that what the members of the Church do (individually and collectively) outside of gathered worship is just as significant for belonging to the one Church as the acts performed in gathered worship. Because of the collective nature of the Church, our responsibility for overcoming injustice is bound up together; we are jointly responsible for enacting Christ’s justice in the world and jointly responsible for making amends when the Church has acted contrary to Christ’s perfect will. I clarified that this does not mean that every member of the Church is responsible in the same way. Rather, one’s relation to the body will determine one’s role in overcoming injustice. Very minimally, however, in being a member of the Church, we have an obligation to ensure that we use our roles in the body as far as possible to ensure that the Church pursues justice. That they may be one. No doubt, there is much more that could be said about these evocative words. This is by no means intended to be the final word on ecclesiology, analytic or otherwise. In fact, if this book’s only achievement is to initiate a conversation about the rich dialogue that is to be had when analytic philosophical concepts are pressed into the service of ecclesiology, then it will have succeeded. More specifically, I think there is much potential in the application of contemporary philosophical study of social groups to the task of ecclesiology for future research. Many more questions might be asked: What is the relation between ecclesiology and soteriology and how does one’s doctrine of salvation impact on the question of who belongs to the one Church? How does our anthropology relate to our understanding of

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the Church and what it means to participate in Christ, particularly work on so-called ‘relational anthropology’? How might work on social responsibility and group duties in the Church impact on our understanding of Christian ethics more widely? These and many more questions are beyond the scope of the present study but have much promise to continue this fruitful task of analytic ecclesiology.

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Index For the benefit of digital users, indexed terms that span two pages (e.g., 52–53) may, on occasion, appear on only one of those pages. agency (agent) conditions for agency 27–36, 147–8 divine agency 17–18, 43–4, 48, 54–5 group agency 27–30, 36, 38, 44–6, 48, 57, 74, 85–6, 94–5, 104, 147–8, 152 rogue agency 33–4, 44–6, 72 shared agency 108–9, 141–8, 151, 154–5, 159–60 aggregation 13–14, 18, 30, 30n.44, 32, 36 analytic theology 8, 20, 48–9, 63, 140 Aquinas 60, 89–90, 105n.2 Arcadi, James 59–68, 73, 77–88, 106n.5, 125 atomism 7–8, 14, 16–19, 174 Augustine 174–5, 177–8 authorization 29n.38, 32, 35–6, 84–5, 96, 149–50, 151n.56, 153–4 ASD (autism spectrum disorder) 146, 152–3 baptism 31–2, 67, 74–105, 114–15, 132, 147, 151–2 Bauckham, Richard 2–7, 16–17 body 59–62, 64–67, 70–71, 129–130, 140, 142, 188 as temple 6–7, 129 of Christ 21–4, 31–2, 39–42, 46–77, 84–5, 88–90, 93–4, 96, 99, 104–8, 117–25, 127–31, 133–6, 138–40, 144, 150, 152–4, 161–5 human 14–15, 120–1, 126, 129–30, 172, 176 social 22–3, 26–7, 46–8, 80–1, 105, 107, 117, 150–2, 160, 173–6, 184 Bonhoeffer, Dietrich 8–12, 14, 16–19, 27n.30, 44, 54, 175n.42 Byers, Andrew 1–6, 16–17, 24, 117–18

Calvin, John 77, 91–101, 103–4, 119 Chalmers, David and Clark, Andy 56–9, 63, 68n.61 Christ 1–8, 18–24, 30–2, 34–5, 39–55, 59, 62–8, 71–7, 79–80, 84–5, 88–90, 92–8, 100, 103–8, 116–18, 128–37, 141, 144, 149–50, 152–5, 158–9, 161–5, 172, 175, 185–6 collectives 6, 10–11, 16–17, 26–7, 29–42, 46–7, 82–3, 103, 175–6, 179–83 collectivism 5–9, 12 Collins, Stephanie 26, 36–9, 83, 175n.41, 180–3 confession 80, 90–2, 122–3, 132 consecration 48–9, 65–7, 88–90, 105–7, 118, 121–2, 124–5, 130 creed 20, 78 Crisp, Oliver 49n.1, 66–7, 67n.56, 71n.66, 73, 102n.80 Cuneo, Terence 76n.1, 123–5, 129, 140–1, 143 Efird, David 168 epiclesis 121–2 eucharist 24, 48–9, 60–1, 63, 65, 67–8, 73–4, 89, 96, 105–8, 110–12, 115–32, 138, 146, 148–50, 161, 173–4 elements 48–9, 63, 65–8, 89, 105–7, 121–2, 124–5, 130, 148–9, 154–5 extension 55, 57–8, 64, 66–8, 73 bodily 59–63, 65–6, 73 cognitive 57–8, 122 social 48–9, 68–72, 74 Fricker, Miranda 177–80 Gilbert, Margaret 80–4, 177–8 Greggs, Tom 24n.21, 30–1, 35–6

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202  Gregory of Nyssa 50–1, 73 group attitudes 25–7, 37–9, 94–5, 101–2 membership 75–8, 82–5, 92, 94–8, 103–4, 135–6, 150–2, 164–5 duties 181–4 holism 7–8, 14–19 Holy Spirit 1–2, 4, 6–7, 17–18, 20–4, 30–1, 34–6, 38–41, 43–8, 53–4, 57, 66–7, 71, 73–6, 83–4, 93, 95–6, 99, 104, 106–7, 120–2, 129, 133–6, 144–5, 148–9, 154–6, 158–60, 162 honeybees 32, 34, 36, 40 Hooker, Richard 41–4 incarnation 46, 48–9, 53–5, 60–1, 63–4, 119–20 individualism 4–9, 12–19, 29n.38, 173–4 Johnson, Dru 108–9, 114–15, 174n.36 joint action 133, 138–41, 143–7, 154–5, 159–60, 162–3, 176–7, 180 joint attention 146 Kierkegaard, Søren 6, 16–17, 122–4, 129, 158 liturgy 74, 76–80, 82, 84–6, 88–91, 95, 104, 110, 121–3, 132–7, 139–41, 143–50, 152–7, 159–62, 168, 170–3, 175–6, 183–6 Martin, Dale 22–3 MCU (Marvel Cinematic Universe) 33–5, 40, 44–5, 153 memory 56–7, 60–1, 68–9, 73, 106, 112–15, 122 Nevin, John Williamson 106–7, 118–20, 125–9 ordination 38–9, 43, 148–50

Panchuk, Michelle 135n.8, 163, 183–4 participation 4–6, 32, 42–4, 49–53, 65–7, 71, 73, 106–9, 113–14, 133–40, 144–6, 152, 154–5, 160–2 prayer 80, 121–2, 132–4, 138, 148–9, 158, 183 high-priestly 1–3, 133 presence 11–14, 43, 63, 65–6, 84–5, 101, 106–7, 118–20, 123, 129–30, 148–9, 152–3 promises 1–2, 25, 76–87 protest 41, 46, 154, 162–3, 179–80, 183–5 Ratatouille (movie) 69–73, 122 remembrance 106, 110–20, 154–5 seder 111–16, 125–6 shema 2–3, 24, 117–18 silence 133, 137–8, 140, 154–60, 167–8, 178–9, 183–4 sin 6, 44–6, 90, 122–7, 129–30, 132–3, 167–9, 171 Stump, Eleonore 17, 123–4 Torrance, Andrew 79n.11 Torrance, James B. 79–80, 116–17, 130, 135–7, 155 Torrance, T.F. 20, 150, 153–4 trauma 134, 159, 163, 167n.17, 168, 183 Underhill, Evelyn 31–2, 34–5, 134–5, 137–40, 143–5, 154–5, 158 unity 1–5, 10, 20–4, 30–1, 33–6, 39–41, 44–8, 50–1, 53, 63–4, 105–12, 116–18, 120–6, 130–3, 138, 150, 153–4, 160–6, 185 Wolterstorff, Nicholas 94, 117n.44, 140–1, 151, 170–1 worship 3–4, 31–2, 34–5, 39–40, 44, 46, 76, 78–9, 99, 117–18, 132–41, 143–7, 149–53, 158–63, 168, 170–5, 179, 182–6 Wright, NT 97–8, 100–1, 111–12