THE PROVENANCE OF JOHN CALVIN'S EMPHASIS ON THE ...

To make his point even more forthrightly, Calvin adopts the interrogative mood, laying
out an effusion of rhetorical questions that suggest that what transpires in this mystery is
not just beyond the grasp of reason, but even an affront to it:
For what is more repugnant to human reason than that souls immortal by
creation, should derive life from mortal flesh? This we assert. What is less
accordant with earthly wisdom, than that the flesh of Christ should infuse its
vivifying energy into us from heaven? What is more foreign to our sense, than
that corruptible and fading bread should be an undoubted pledge [pignus] of
spiritual life? What more remote from philosophy, than that the Son of God,
who in respect of human nature is in heaven, so dwells in us, that everything
which has been given him of the Father is common to us, and hence the
immortality with which his flesh has been endowed is ours? 20
For Calvin, that Christ can give us his body and blood as life-giving meat and
drink is as much a mystery as the way (modo) in which Christ does so. While one must
curb one's "pertness and curiosity" with respect to such mystery, it does not follow, says
Calvin, "that we are to shut our eyes in order to exclude the rays of the sun." So, while
the communion of the Lord's Supper itself, and all that it signifies, is a mystery, it is a
mystery "deserving of contemplation." It is fitting to consider, among other things, "in
what way (quomodo) Christ can give us his body and blood for meat and drink." 21
Indeed, that is the question that is at the fore in this particular treatise, 22 and, one
might well argue, at the fore of Calvin's whole doctrine of the Lord's Supper. For
20 Tracts and Treatises 2:512-13. "Quid enim rationi humanae magis repugnat, quam animas
creatione immortales vitam mutuari a carne mortali? Hoc asserimus. Quid terrenae prudentiae minus con
sen taneum, quam carnem Christi vim suam vivificam e coelo ad nos usque diffundere? Quid magis
alienum a nostro sensu, quam panem corruptibilem et caducum spiritualis vitae indubium esse pignus?
Quid magis a philosophia remotum, quam filium Dei, qui secundum humanam naturam in coelo est, sic
habitare in nobis, ut quidquid ei a patre datum est, nobis sit commune, adeoque ut immortalitas, qua
donata est eius caro, nostra sit?" (CO 9:474).
21 Tracts and Treatises 2:516. "Quin potius si consideratione dignum est mysterium, attendere
convenit quomodo corpus suum et sanguinem nobis det Christus in cibum et potum" (CO 9:476-77).
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