Sacramental Sensibility and the ‘Embodiment of God’

Abstract

In this paper I follow the conference theme, by considering how ‘rituals and sacraments’ may function as ‘material expressions of a spiritual reality’ and even as ‘embodiments of God’. I begin by noting some of the ways in which human beings can be attuned in bodily terms to place-relative ‘existential meanings’. I then extend this case, and relate it to the religious domain, by examining the nature of sacred sites and the role of religious concepts in aesthetic experience. I also consider what sense we might make of the idea that transcendent ‘meanings’ may be not only imaged in the sensory appearances, but encountered in them. Overall, the paper seeks to identify some of the ways in which bodily demeanour and habits of perception, and in general sensitivity to materially embedded existential meanings, are integral to the religious life.