Kuyper, Seeing and Hearing God, The Fall and the Sacraments

Hans Boersma (Seeing God, p4) gives a fascinating (if not to my mind completely convincing) summary of Abraham Kuyper's reflection on sight and hearing in the sacraments (A Myrtle for a Brier = Hetgeen onze oogen gezien hebben, 1891).

Kuyper thought God had made the eye more beautiful and more prominently placed than the ear.

The eye had a pre-fall priority whereas after the Fall the ear became more prominent. It is by hearing we must be saved but in the world to come we will again see God.

Kuyper thought God does not speak to us in the sacraments but they give us a symbolic vision of God: "the ear moves into the background, and the spoken word merely provides assistance. Meanwhile, the eye - and through the eye also the soul itself - is active, and you discern something of a holier touch of the divine life than you can ever experience through the Word." (Kuyper, p17)

(This perhaps neglects the importance of touch and taste in the sacraments and downplays the hearing of the Word)