Select quotes from Paul D.

Molnar, “Karl Barth and the Theology of the Lord’s Supper: A

Systematic Investigation” (New York: Peter Lang Publishers, 1996):

p. 137: “Christ actually makes common cause with Christian as he ‘attests to the world the
reconciliation to God effected in Him ... He refreshes them by offering and giving Himself to
them and making them His own.’ This is the ‘ratio’ of the Lord’s Supper. It can be understood in
analogy “to the mystery and miracle of Christmas ... We are concerned with the fact that He as
the one Word of God takes up His abode in the called, that His life becomes their life as He gives
Himself to them. This is the mystery and miracle of His union with them.’ Correspondingly, it is
not through the human actions of eating and drinking or any ritual action, that creatures are
brought into communion with Jesus Christ.” (Molnar references CD IV.3, 541-3)
“...Hence in considering the union of Christians with Christ that takes place at the Lord’s Supper
Barth believed it was unwise to interpret Eucharistic New Testament references such as Jn. 6:53
to refer to ‘an extension of the incarnation in relation to the Christian’s unio cum Christo and
then in relation to the Lord’s Supper. We are concerned rather with the extended action in His
prophetic work of the one Son of God who became flesh once and for all and does not therefore
need any further incarnation.” (CD IV.3, 543)

p. 144: “Barth called the Church ‘the provisional representation of the new humanity in the midst
of the old’ (CD IV.2 p. 642). Humanity’s absolute future is this very God who is the same
yesterday, today and tomorrow. The key point in connection with the Lord’s Supper is that as
one is led by the Holy Spirit to this particular future as a member of the pilgrim community, ‘the
Holy Spirit feeds him with the body of Jesus Christ which was given for him, and strengthens
him with the blood of Jesus Christ which was shed for him’ (CD IV.4, 40). This understanding
could shed some light on the problem of the Eucharistic epiclesis and how to understand
correctly eucharistic real presence without making God’s active presence to us a static presence
absorbed by and identified with our own historical responses.” (Molnar references John H.
McKenna, “Eucharist and Holy Spirit: The Eucharistic Epiclesis in 20th century Theology,”
Alcuin Club Collections No. 57; Essex UK: Mayhew-McCrimmond Ltd., 1975.)

pp. 185 f: “Therefore the goal of the Church’s action does not lie in the administration of baptism
or the Lord’s Supper. These actions point to the action of the Holy Spirit by which the Church is
what it is as the provisional representation of Christ’s presence on earth....
The goal of the Lord’s Supper then is the act of reconciliation which took place in the history of
Christ and is recognized here and now as effective through the Holy Spirit.” (Molnar references
CD IV.4, 71-3)

p. 201: “After Pentecost the Lord’s Supper can be neither viewed simply as a fellowship meal
nor as an action which is initiated by people for their personal edification. It is a meal whose
basis and goal is the messiah and savior of the world.” (Molnar references CD IV.4, 84 ff.)

p. 223: “For Barth, the basis and goal of the human action is God himself in his action ad extra
in his Spirit. As God himself in his action ad intra and ad extra remains distinct from us as our
Lord, Reconciler, and Redeemer, the church’s action in the Lord’s Supper cannot be understood
except in subordination to Christ himself, very God and very man. The distinction between
Christ and the church disappears if and when it is thought that the meaning of the human action
of the Lord’s Supper as such is a divine action.... here Barth’s Christology applies to the Lord’s
Supper.” (Molnar references CD II.2, 26 ff, 100 ff; CD IV.1, 124, 128)

p. 230: “For Barth, then, it is the being and action of the triune God himself which prohibits
defining the Lord’s Supper as a mystery, i.e., a sacrament. It is included in the mystery in a
limited fashion—indirectly, but it is not itself the mystery. People have not invented this being
and action and therefore they cannot control it. This insight proscribes any notion that in the
Lord’s Supper God is the one who is acting in place of the creature....
...He equated the term sacrament with the being of God in Christ. Thus, only the history of Christ
is a sacramental event.”

p. 231: “The mystery of God is denied if it is thought that the human action can be more than an
act of faithfulness corresponding to God’s faithfulness.” (Molnar references CD IV.4, 107)

p. 234: “Accordingly, there is no identity or separation of sign and thing signified because of the
grace of God. When he eventually rejected the term sacrament he intended to express the same
idea. But there were problems. He made his distinction between Christ acting and our human
acting so sharp that instead of arguing, as he had previously done, that in the event of preaching
about God we actually hear God’s Word in faith, he later argued that what God promises and can
alone bring about in the sacrament ‘does not take place in and with the event as such.’ (CD IV.4,
134) It is always a promise to be grasped in hope. Indeed, it is this, but, if the church is the
historical form of Christ’s presence on earth, then God is also free to act in this particular sign so
that his real presence can actually be celebrated, at particular times and places.
...Earlier.... Barth even said ‘on its objective side the church is sacramental;’ (CD I.2. 232) this
church form of revelation was God’s objective presence in the world.”

p. 238: [On the term ‘sacrament’]: “While there is an ambiguity, which we began to note in
chapter six, [Barth’s] theological position could also support using the term with the proper
safeguards. Our human responses to God in worship are and remain fully human but God can use
them objectively to unite us to him through faith, grace, and revelation. The problem which
accompanied Barth’s rejection of the term sacrament was the tendency to separate the church’s
actions in baptism and the Lord’s Supper from the Holy Spirit. But as we have seen throughout
his work, he never really made any radical separation, since he constantly returned to Christ and
the Holy Spirit to see the factual unity which obtains between Christ and Christians in baptism
and the Lord’s Supper as human actions which became holy in the power of God.”

p. 256: “Consequently, as the Christian is not converted by the Holy Spirit to an idea of the
divine or an experience of the holy, but to God himself in his action ad extra, the meaning of the
Lord’s Supper is completely missed if it is thought to be comprehensible apart from faith.”
p. 256 “In recognizing God’s actual presence, the church realizes at once that the divine presence
to which it responds in the Lord’s Supper is not something different or more profound than the
divine presence encountered in scripture, preaching, or in its ethical behaviour. God is not more
present in the Eucharist than in baptism or in scripture. Everything depends upon the fact that the
object of faith which is the basis, origin, and goal of the eucharistic action is the God who is the
same ad intra and ad extra.”
p. 258: “..we creatures must live entirely by the promise that God will reveal himself again and
again in the power of the Holy Spirit.
“This is an event in which God precedes and we may follow. If we could render God present, we
would, in some way be superior to God and our sacramental action could no longer be defined as
pure obedience. Human action would then effect what it signifies. In that way divine and human
action would be confused and reversed. The only hope in such an instance is a return to faith.”
(Molnar references CD II.1, 12-31ff; CD II.2, 766-774; CD III.3, 250 ff; C.D IV.2, 657-660.)

p. 258: “This does not mean that for Barth God is present in some vague way. Barth clearly
would follow Calvin by arguing that the Holy Spirit actually unites Christians with Christ; ‘our
life before God flows from the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ’. (Molnar references Calvin here
but also notes CD I.2, 355f.) The objective bond, here, is the Holy Spirit. Therefore, Christ’s
presence in the Supper does not affix, enclose, or circumscribe him by the bread.”

p. 258: “He is really and fully present by the power of his Spirit, but we can only perceive this
indirectly as our views, concepts, and actions point beyond themselves to the object of faith. In
other words, the Lord’s Supper, like the act of knowing God, is an event enclosed in the mystery
of the Trinity. It cannot be understood except as an analogia fidei. This is what Barth meant
when in CD II.1, he spoke of symbolical, sacramental, and spiritual presence.” (cf. CD II.1, 490)

p. 262: “Thus, in the Lord’s Supper and in creation generally, we do not speak of the real event
of God’s presence except in Christ. This means that if our understanding of his real eucharistic
presence is merely psychological or sociological, then ‘The Holy Spirit has vanished in thin air.”
(CD III.2, 493)

pp. 263 f: “It is this distinct presence which the Eucharist attests but does not bring about or
guarantee. The church cannot confuse its history with Christ’s unique history which the Spirit
opens to humanity. It is the presence of the Triune God that is attested in the form of its human
action. That is why it cannot be conceived by directly associating it with bread or calling it a
symbolic presence. He himself is directly present and active in his Spirit. But because the mode
of that presence is the realm of secondary objectivity (i.e. the church in its obedient action) he is
not directly disclosed, even in the Eucharist. He remains veiled even in his real presence. His
actual presence therefore is not symbolic. It is directly the prophetic work of the One Mediator.”
(Molnar references CD IV.3, 348-59; I.1, 169-71; III.3, 131 ff.)

p. 264 “Only in the very restricted sense of pure obedience then can the meaning of the church’s
act be described as symbolic, sacramental, and spiritual. The reason for the distinction is that a
phenomenology which mixes the medium with the object mediated also mixes the church’s
action with the divine action of the One Mediator. Both are quite impossible in Barth’s
theology.”

p.265 “What symbolic logic cannot perceive is that, although God freely creates fellowship, as
symbolized by the Lord’s Supper, he never abandons his divine power (the power of the Spirit)
to the human action or to the elements. In other words, if the sign is indeed effective, it is not
because of any intrinsic capacity, but solely because God makes use of it. Thus, God’s real
presence can only be seen and explained in faith, i.e., through the object of faith, Jesus Christ.”
p. 265 “It must be remembered also that Christ was not just present in his divinity. His divine act
included a human and a corporeal presence. The corporeal or real presence of Christ cannot
simply be equated with the divine action which is its basis, sustenance, and goal. Yet on the basis
of grace, the corporeal presence of Christ cannot and must not be denied in any way at all.”
(Molnar references CD I.2, 140, 147 ff; CD IV.1, 663 ff.)

p. 265 “He is at the right hand of the Father properly and originally (i.e., in primary objectivity)
and he is present to Israel, the church, and the world ‘symbolically, sacramentally, and
spiritually.’ (CD II.1, 490) He is here no less than there. The whole Christ presents himself in
both places. That is why the human action of obedience to the promise can never be denied nor
underestimated in an encounter with the reality of Christ, very God and very man. We have been
given a definite share in God’s loving. But we have been given this indirectly, i.e., through
Christ and the Spirit as attested in Scripture and in church history.”

p. 266. Quotes Barth CD III.2 467f:

“It is Jesus who becomes and is their contemporary. As a result of this, His past life,
death and resurrection can and must and actually do have at all times the significance
and force of an event which has taken place in time but which is decisive for their
present existence ... if there is anything doubtful for Christians here, it is not His
presence but their own. And if there is anything axiomatically certain, it is not their
presence but His. There is obviously no baptism or Lord’s Supper without His real
presence as very God and very Man, both body and soul. But this presence cannot be
regarded as restricted to what were later called ‘sacraments’. For these are only a
symbolical representation of the fact that in its worship the community is gathered
directly around Jesus Christ Himself, who lives by and with Him, but that through faith
He rules over the hearts and lives of all even without worship ... the historical distance,
the past, in which Jesus confronts them is not abrogated by His presence. His yesterday
is not cancelled by his today ... even the presence of Jesus in the Spirit, for all its
fullness, can only be a pledge or first installment of what awaits the community as well
as the whole universe, His return in glory.”

p. 270: “We have now presented Barth’s view of Christ’s real presence showing how the Jesus
who lived and now lives at the right hand of the Father can be truly present through the power of
the Holy Spirit. We have seen how none of this is grounded in experience because Christ
actively makes himself present and can be recognized in faith. Concepts of local presence and
symbolic presence compromise this need for faith in the invisible action of the Holy Spirit.”

p. 286: “In and through the human acts of faith and obedience (not in admixture but together
with them) the Holy Spirit actually sets apart these men and women as a sign and witness of the
triune God himself. These persons constitute the historical form of God’s continued self-
attestation. It is in this respect that the church’s celebration of the Lord’s Supper in itself and as
such is epiclesis.”
p. 286: “Where God’s actual word and work in Christ are perceived, believed and confessed in
active obedience there, as a sign, signal, and witness of God’s purpose for all, the form of his
direct and continued self-attestation takes shape.”
P 286 “The church does not control what takes place in its eucharistic celebration. It can only
pray that this human action of faith and obedience will become an event in the freedom of God.
In light of the divine promise, the church can be confident that its action is both justified and
sanctified by God himself. This is how a human action can become holy as it is enclosed in the
mystery of the Trinity.”

p. 287 (On possible ecumenical discussions of the Eucharist based for a helpful change on
Christology rather than “real presence” in the elements...)
“In this context, the focus of the debate is not on whether or not we accept or reject terms such as
transubstantiation, transfiguration, or trans-finalization. This would amount to a repetition of the
Denzinger theology which Rahner properly rejected. Instead, the focus is on how Christians can
best express to themselves and to the world the mystery of Christ’s real presence. Seen in
connection with the doctrine of God (and particularly in light of the action of the Holy Spirit) it
will be necessary not t0o confuse God’s transcendence (positive and negative freedom) with the
historical realities of bread, wine, and human action either conceptually or really. In this way
God’s real direct presence in history will be seen without depriving the historical church of its
reality and true sacramental vitality.”

p. 306 “But in fact the power of his living Word can also reach us through our being taught and
through baptism and the celebration of the Lord’s Supper as the events in and through which
God includes us in his own knowledge and love. Barth could previously think of the ‘earthly-
historical life of the Church ... as an annexe to the human nature of Jesus Christ,’ (CD I.2, 348)
and of the Christian religion as ‘the sacramental area created by the Holy Spirit, in which the
God whose Word became flesh continues to speak through the sign of His revelation.’ (CD I.2,
359) This emphasis was shifted later on and led to the ambiguities noted by Torrance and
Heron.”

p. 306 on Molnar’s reconstruction of Barth’s eucharistic theology (this is the last sentence of
Molnar’s work): “I have made this more explicit and more detailed than it is in Barth’s theology
of baptism per se but I believe I have shown how his view of analogy was at work throughout,
determining his conception of the divine-human relations.”