A Pneumatological Description of Sacrifice for Mitigating Idolatry

The nature of eucharistic sacrifice has been an ongoing point of contention between the Lutheran Church and the Roman Catholic Church. Drawing from the pneumatology and sacramental theology of Thomas Aquinas, this article provides a way of describing eucharistic sacrifice that is intended to help avoid the idolatrous notions of sacrifice often found lurking in eucharistic theology. The article concludes by using the linguistic concepts of metaphor and synecdoche to describe the way that the language of “sacrifice” can be strategically used to mitigate the concerns that continue to arise in Lutheran/Catholic dialogues.