Christopher Elwood (The Body Broken, 75) claims that Calvin’s “instrumental” view of sacramental efficacy opens up a space for critical scrutiny:

“Rather than being regarded as either sacred or secular, political and social orders, by analogy with the sacramental elements, were likely seen by the attentive reader of Calvin’s writings as God’s instruments, possessing no inherent or abiding virtue and exercising power only as a result of the active determination of God. This shift in paradigms, it should be stressed, was no subtle change in emphasis. To the extent that the paradigm of instrumentality stressed a distinction between the physical medium and the power deployed through it, it facilitated a critical approach to representations of power. Just as the physical media of the eucharist were subject to critical scrutiny, regarded in the Calvinist scheme as merely ‘earthly and corruptible elements,’ so too were those temporal instrumentalities laying claim to authority over the body politic, especially when a particular exercise of power appeared to conflict with any given theological norm.”

Claudio Carvalhaes (Eucharist and Globalization) wants to exploit this gap: Because God’s presence and manifestation is not tied to the physical elements and actions of the eucharist, “the incarnation of Christ in our world is irreducible to any material manifestation” and thus opens up “endless possibilities of expression and experience in multiple cultural manifestations/spaces.” Because the Spirit acts freely, our participation in the eucharist encourages us to “figure out how God might have communicated with us and helps us structure ourselves for the next time we meet” (95). The Spirit is free to move where He wills, and this leaves us “to guess, through the complicated maps of the Bible, tradition, and our experience, not necessarily in this order, where God might be moving us” (135). We are on dangerous ground because “God might be here and there, or neither here nor there, or perhaps here and not here” (135). He argues that, based on Calvin’s eucharistic theology, “there is grace in keeping the word of God suspended, open, refusing certainties that close ourselves to others and tend to diminish the powerful un-limitations and expansive possibilities of God’s hospitality” (137).

At some point in this argument, Carvalhaes has taken leave of Calvin. Calvin stressed the freedom of God and the instrumental character of the sacraments, but Calvin can hardly be said to have “refused certainties.” Carvalhaes is aware of this, and deals with it by distinguishing “two Calvins,” one of whom is rigid in doctrine and practice and the other having “a pneumatology that avoids idolatry” by insisting that “there is nothing that is completely apprehended, nailed down, named, fenced, called, or fully understood.” A pneumatology that insists “no one can say that God is, or is not, ever fully there” (139). 

There are distinctions to be made here. As Van Til constantly said, the fact that we never “fully understand” anything doesn’t mean we cannot understand anything. Human knowledge, being human, is always partial, finite, revisable. And yet it is still knowledge. 

But the intriguing question here is whether a certain notion of divine freedom, especially in relation to the sacraments, loosens up the links between sign and reality, sign and power, as much as Carvalhaes suggests. To put it bluntly: Can Calvin’s sacramental theology form the basis for a theology that resists all fixity of doctrine or practice? Or more bluntly: Is Calvin’s sacramental theology a foundation for liberalism?

I don’t think that’s true of Calvin himself, but I suspect certain varieties of Calvinism do lend themselves to this loosening. The culprit is not “instrumentality” in sacramental theology; Thomas spoke of the sacraments as instruments and tools in God’s hands. The issue is essentially whether we can trust that God has committed Himself to make Himself available through these particular rites and in these particular words. Saying that God is free to be or not to be where He promises to be is as outrageous theologically as it is pastorally disastrous. 

All this suggests that resistance to liberalism requires a tightening of the bond of sacramental sign and divine action. This is not a matter of binding God; it’s a matter of God’s own self-binding. It’s a matter of trusting that Jesus is the place where God has tabernacled. It’s a matter of trusting that Jesus means what He says when He says, “Take, eat. This is My Body.”