Salvation as Communion

Mark Heim has a fine piece on salvation as communion in the October 2004 issue of Theology Today . He begins by distinguishing various sorts of relations that human beings have with one another. It is possible for two persons to have an impersonal relationship (a man falls off a roof and hits someone on the ground); it is also possible to encounter another person as an agent, and this is a personal encounter, whether face to face or in writing. In a third dimension, “we not only encounter and relate to another as a person, but in some measure we share in that person’s own life. Empathy and familiarity with the way someone else responds eventually gives rise to a vicarious capacity to experience the same responses in ourselves, a kind of second nature. These empathic responses arise in us not instead of our reactions but alongside them, though in some cases the line may blur. A student musician develops technique and interpretation not only from the external instruction of a great teacher, but much more by having caught the physical habits and the responsive feel for the music that animate the teacher. When couples complete each other’s sentences, this behavior may reflect only the monotony of having heard the same stories too many times. But when the sentences they complete are new ones, they are demonstrating the extent to which the inner life of one partner has become an active part of the inner life of the other. Relations of love or intimate fellowship are ordinarily marked by this empathic quality, which we can call communion .”

Ultimately, this notion of communion reflects the reality of the interpersonal relations within the Trinity. Heim suggests that the Triune persons relate in all three of the ways that human beings do. Thus, “there is a nonpersonal dimension of connection among the persons, meaning to indicate by this both the withdrawal or emptying by which each person makes way for the others to dwell in them and the immanence or outgoing by which each indwells the others.” There is also a personal dimension, “in which each of the divine persons has an asymmetrical encounter with the others. Theology traditionally recognizes the asymmetry of relations, for example, in the difference between the relation of the Spirit to the Word and of the Word to the Spirit.” Finally, the three persons are in eternal communion with one another, such that “all of the persons are present in each person, two others as sorts of ‘second nature’ in each one.” Communion in the Triune fellowship is an essential aspect of salvation: “Communion is a mutual indwelling, in which the distinct persons are neither confused nor identified but are enriched by their participation in each other’s inner life.” Paul says that “I no longer live but Christ lives in me,” and this means “a communion so close and full that a person can rightly say of certain aspects of her [GAG!] own willing, longing, or loving that they seem to arise more from the indwelling of the other person ?Ean inner sharing in that person’s life ?Ethan from any purely isolated individuality of her own.”

Salvation is a participation in God in this third sense, as communion, and Heim relates this interestingly to ecclesiology: “Salvation is a complex state, for, in it, a person is open to each dimension of the divine life we have described. That is why it requires sharing with others: It depends crucially on intersecting communions. No one can realise, within the self-contained dyad of a single individual and God, the complete fullness of relation with God in all its dimensions. But each does approach the fullness of relation with the divine through communion with other persons and creatures, each of whom, in their own relations with God and others, fills out aspects of others’ relations to the divine that otherwise would be lacking for any one individual. Salvation is actually much more than the sum of individual perfection ?Eit necessarily involves trinitarian communion beyond the dyad of self and God.” Even if two people know a third fully, they don’t know him identically, for “The nature of the relation and the knowing for each person is, in significant measure, constituted by the two unique individuals involved.” Heim says that the notion that other people “bring out” certain qualities in us points to the fact that “the person known in each relationship is different, partly as a result of the relation itself, partly because of the peculiar pattern of their existing and developing qualities evoked by that encounter.”

He compares the church to a radio telescope or a sonar system: “In these arrays, each unit simply contributes its small bit of data to a much later picture ‘consumed’ or enjoyed elsewhere. But, in this body, each part enjoys the benefits of the whole.” Further, “Human communion with each other is also an instrument of fuller communion with God. Our finite receptions of the triune self-giving multiply in and through each other in a kind of spiritual calculus that deepens each one’s participation in the communion of the triune life itself.” The church is “a body called to live out this communion. It is a community of people whose relations with each other are shaped by their common participation in relation with God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. For individuals to be ‘in Christ’ is inextricably to be part of the universal church that is Christ’s body.”

In short, extra ecclesiam nulla salus est .

As in his book, Depth of the Riches , Heim takes this in unfortunate directions in relation to religious dialogue. Communion can take place in various “frequencies,” even outside the church, and “Christians have a charter in their confession of God as Trinity for finding this kind of truth and validity in other religions.” This is an odd turn in the argument; I for one cannot see how “in Christ” can come to be used so expansively. But this serious problem in Heim’s article doesn’t undermine the interest and value of Heim’s genuine insights.