By Maria Sermersheim
I was recently discussing a situation with a friend which has pretty significant moral consequences, so it felt like the stakes were quite high, but the right choice was clear. However, in the course of our conversation, it became evident that even though she thinks that God exists and she wants to choose the right thing, it was very unclear to her what the right thing was. She was not sure if there was a right choice, per se, or if it was more of a personal choice, and it did not seem that God’s existence actually made a specific difference in what she might choose. At first, I was confused by this lack of clarity. Then I realized that it is a very common modern symptom of equating the spiritual with the abstract, which therefore reduces the meaning of the Gospel and its moral demands.
In the modern world, it is quite easy to equate spiritual things with abstract things because both are invisible and incalculable. Following the tendency derived from the Enlightenment to abstract universal messages from particular texts and events, it becomes even easier to think about Christianity in abstract terms with a vague moral imperative but without too much specific content. In 1899, Adolf von Harnack claimed that the Gospel was reducible to “God and the soul, the soul and its god.” More than 100 years later, I would say that Harnack’s phrase still describes the default view of many Christians, even though it is a deeply flawed and incomplete view. The Gospel is actually very concrete — it is the news of the coming of God-made-flesh to live and to die with us and to lead us into the resurrected life — and it makes real moral demands of us because the fact that God became flesh and dwelt among us transforms reality and all that we thought was possible.
Spiritual things, though immaterial like abstract concepts, are not merely intellectual concepts with more or less logical value. The spiritual plane of reality is as real as the physical plane, and it involves senses and experiences, too, though it is sometimes hard for us to parse out the physical and spiritual aspects of our lives because we experience life as an integrated being, body, soul and spirit. But perhaps the example of baptism and its consequences can help shed some light on the issue.
The physical reality of baptism involves water, oil, a candle and some promises. Externally, it seems that such a rite is nice, and promises are helpful to keep good commitments … but it does not appear to fundamentally transform a person. However, on the spiritual level, baptism does accomplish a fundamental transformation: the person is irreversibly adopted into Christ, the Son of God, and therefore the person becomes a child of God who receives all the rights and responsibilities that accompany such a status. Even more deeply, the person receives the Holy Spirit, and sharing in God’s Spirit, one is given access to things of God, as the two are joined by that metaphysical link. It is through this spiritual reality of holding the Holy Spirit in common that God strengthens us to choose the good, that he enlightens us to hear his Word and the Truth more clearly.
Jesus commands his disciples after his Resurrection to go preach the Gospel to all creation (Mark 16:15). Let us pray for the grace and strength to preach it not only to the ends of the earth, but even to friends, and let us remember that the spiritual reality of the Gospel is still specific and makes concrete demands of us.