By JEFF MINICK
Symbol Or Substance?: A Dialogue on the Eucharist With C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and J.R.R. Tolkien by Peter Kreeft (Ignatius Press : 2019) 232 pages. See Ignatius.com or call 1-800-651-1531 to order the book.
Let’s begin our look at Peter Kreeft’s latest book, Symbol Or Substance?, with remarks taken from two letters by Flannery O’Connor, both of which may be found in O’Connor’s The Habit of Being and in Joe Heschmeyer’s online article “Flannery O’Connor on the Eucharist and Church History.”
The first letter from December 1955 recounts a conversation between O’Connor and novelist Mary McCarthy (Mrs. Broadwater):
“Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, he being the ‘most portable’ person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, ‘Well, if it’s a symbol, to hell with it.’ That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest is expendable.”
In July 1959, O’Connor writes to a Protestant, Dr. T.R. Spivey:
“The Catholic finds it easier to understand the atheist than the Protestant, but easier to love the Protestant than the atheist. The fact is though now that the fundamental Protestants, as far as doctrine goes, are closer to their traditional enemy, the Church of Rome, than they are to the advanced elements of Protestantism. You can know where I stand, what I believe because I am a practicing Catholic, but I can’t know what you believe unless I ask you.
“You are right that enjoy is not exactly the right word for our talking about religion. As far as I know, it hurts like nothing else. We are at least together in the pain we share in this terrible division. It’s the Catholic Church who calls you ‘separated brethren,’ she who feels the awful loss.”
Though he uses neither of these quotations in Symbol Or Substance?: A Dialogue on the Eucharist With C.S. Lewis, Billy Graham, and J.R.R. Tolkien (Ignatius Press, 2019, 232 pages), Peter Kreeft, philosopher, teacher, and well-known Christian apologist, addresses some of the points raised by O’Connor.
In an invention made up of wit and verve, he brings together the Protestant Billy Graham, the Anglican C.S. Lewis, and the Catholic J.R.R. Tolkien to explore various Christian beliefs, with a particular focus on the Eucharist.
His dialogue is, of course, a fiction, yet Kreeft captures the ideas and the personalities of these men so well that through their imagined conversation we not only deepen our familiarity with Protestant and Catholic interpretations of the Eucharist, we also find ourselves, as O’Connor put it, “together in the pain we share in this terrible division.”
Symbol Or Substance? opens with the arrival of Graham and his driver, Guy, at the home of Tolkien. Graham is on an evangelical tour of England and has taken the opportunity to meet with two men, Tolkien and Lewis, whom he greatly admires. After greeting one another and expressing mutual admiration for their various gifts in defending and promoting Christianity, the three men along with Guy, a Southern Baptist who thinks “Billy a bit too wish-washy in his ecumenism and his welcoming attitude toward Catholics and Anglicans,” exchange a few remarks on Christianity, casual words that soon turn to a deep discussion of Christian doctrine and interpretation.
Topics that come up for examination among these men include such ideas as the primacy of the papacy, Scripture and Tradition as opposed to sola Scriptura, the power and nature of the sacraments, and justification by faith.
But it is the Eucharist on which they focus. Can a priest through the power of Christ transform bread and wine into the Real Body and Blood of Christ? Or, as Graham and Guy believe, are the bread and wine mere symbols? Are Anglican priests validly ordained and do they have the power to consecrate the Eucharist? What effects do these different interpretations of the Eucharist exert on the way Christians of various denominations approach God through works and prayer?
Throughout this exchange, Kreeft makes familiar to readers the beliefs of the Catholic Church, Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli regarding the Eucharist. He clarifies the differences not only between the Catholic Church and Protestants, but also among the Protestant denominations themselves.
One would consequently hope that both Protestants and Catholics would read Symbol Or Substance?, for Kreeft fairly lays out the case for beliefs about this core doctrine and practice of all Christians, and shows us how these differences have caused divisions among Christians for the last 500 years.
At one point in this debate, Kreeft introduces a beautiful take on the Eucharist from J.R.R. Tolkien. The creator of hobbits, goblins, and elves shares with Graham a passage from an actual letter Tolkien had written to his son Michael, who had asked his father about “human love and marriage and romance”:
“Out of the darkness of my life, so much frustrated, I put before you the one great thing to love on earth: the Blessed Sacrament. . . .
There you will find romance, glory, honour, fidelity, and the true way of all your loves on earth, and more than that: Death, by the divine paradox, that which ends life, and demands the surrender of all, and yet by the taste (or foretaste) of which alone can what you seek in your earthly relationship (love, faithfulness, joy) be maintained, or take on that complexion of reality, or eternal endurance, which every man’s heart desires.”
In addition to this Eucharistic debate, readers will find many other points worthy of their consideration in Symbol or Substance? Here are discussions of Gnosticism, the Old Testament, Kierkegaard, the meaning of science, philosophy, bits from the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and a dozen other topics.
Kreeft also employs sly humor in the book. He has Lewis say of the Blessed Sacrament: “But the reason I never wrote about it is very simple: I have nothing to say. I’m not a theologian.” His remark will make some readers laugh aloud, as for over a hundred pages Lewis has had plenty to say.
At another point, the three men wonder whether anyone might publish this debate. Tolkien mentions that there may be “some invisible fly on the wall.” Lewis rejoins:
“Who knows? He may be some twenty-first-century author who took a time machine into the past and who is writing all this down to send to a publisher to print and sell long after we die. Some traitor, some intellectual prostitute who peddles his mind for filthy lucre. He’s probably an American.”
Here, of course, Kreeft is speaking tongue in cheek, poking fun at himself.
One final lesson we might take from this these pages is the nature of the discussion itself. Absent are the acrimony, the outrage, the ad hominem attacks and smears that have replaced charity and rational discourse in today’s public square. Graham, Lewis, Tolkien, and Guy joust with one other, but always with good will and in search of real understanding. As Lewis says, “But of course a good debate is also a search for truth.”
In Symbol Or Substance?, Kreeft gives us that good debate. By means of his book we can deepen our knowledge and experience of the Eucharist as well as understand the beliefs of other denominations. We can also understand with sadness why Flannery O’Connor would write: “It’s the Catholic Church who calls you ‘separated brethren,’ she who feels the awful loss.”
Highly recommended.
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