the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

course Weigel does not rule out the possibility that one might be moved to faith by a
sermon or by the sacraments, he departs significantly from Luther in asserting that they
are only one amongst many ways that God calls sinners back to himself. Instead, Weigel
concludes that it is far better to fall silent and listen to God’s Word speaking within,
meaning that there is no need for church ministers whose job it is to preach, such that
each and every person is a layman and a listener.
Of course, the Zuhörer does speak, but he has taken on a way of using language
that blunts the knife the Preacher uses to recte secare. Putting back together what the
preacher had cut apart, the Zuhörer pieces God’s attributes back into union. The
Preacher’s way with words could be described either as a disputation (from the Latin “to
think asunder”) or as a polemic (“to make war by speaking”), both of which Weigel
explicitly rejects. The Zuhörer’s unitive way of speaking reverses the distinctions that are
introduced into God’s unity, making his speech an Irenik (to make peace by speaking),
concluding the Dionysian dynamic of procession, remaining and returning. The Zuhörer’s
undifferentiated speech—his apophatic theology—simply has no place in, and no need
for the confessional church. This laypeople’s church that Weigel describes so positively
in the Dialogus sadly did not come about in reality: the Dialogus concludes in the realm
of fantasy with the figure of Death conversing with the ghost of the Preacher to testify
that the Layman was right to forge his own independent spiritual course, rather than
obediently following the Preacher’s official doctrine. Perhaps it might serve as a mark of
Weigel’s pessimism about ecclesiastical institutions that he does not have the Layman
are only one amongst many ways that God calls sinners back to himself. Also, in keeping with Weigel’s
theory of knowledge (see Chapter 2), words only carry meaning because they refer back to the source of all
meaning that is indwelling inside each person.
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