Intellectual Humility and the Community of the Sacraments

This chapter considers the role that the sacraments of baptism and Eucharist play in fostering a proper attitude of intellectual humility within Christian community. The sacraments dramatically enact the union with Christ that we have argued in previous chapters to define Christian intellectual humility, embodying the truth that our intellectual identities are not autonomous, but are dependent upon the constitutive identity of Jesus Christ and are located within the community of the church. Both baptism and Eucharist are understood within the New Testament to communicate the eschatological identity of the church, and therefore the distinctive character of our relationship to the reality of evil. The chapter will pay particular attention to the way that Paul directs his readers to think differently in response to the significance of the sacraments. It will also consider the close connection of the command to ‘love one another’ to the sacraments.