Catherine Pickstock has demonstrated that the aporia of learning, the proverbial gap between neumena and phenomena, is solved by Aquinas in the personal desire created by the tension between presence and absence of Christ in the Eucharist. If there is no anticipation of presence then desire would be turned to apathy. If there is no realization of absence there would be nothing to desire. Therefore faith in the presence of Christ in the sacramental signs bridges the gap between earth and heaven. Christ is in heaven, yet he says of the bread “this is my body” and of the wine “this is my blood.” The Holy Spirit brings the two together and actualizes it in the believer through faithful desire.
This last element of pneumatology must be added by Calvin, and as any conscientious reader of Calvin knows his was a pneumatological metaphysics. In his Institutes, Genevan Catechism, and in numerous other places he emphatically states that it is not the job of the Christian to pry into the hidden things of God. God has given us signs and commands us to trust in him – that the sign and the signified are not separate. This, however, proves too difficult for some. We want to know what God has decreed for us. We want to know who is eternally elect, who is part of the invisible church, how could Christ really be present in the Eucharist? I think Calvin and Aquinas would agree that faith in the immanent yet transcendent Lord of creation and faith in the signs of his presence is sufficient. Of course this is not a careless faith. It is a faith seeking to understand. The methods of understanding are where Calvin and Aquinas go their separate ways.
