A response to grace: The sacramental theology of Balthasar Hubmaier

This study investigates the sacramental theology of Balthasar Hubmaier within the formative Anabaptist movement. It seeks to demonstrate that while all leading sixteenth century Anabaptists arguably came to their radical reformed beliefs based upon somewhat similar basic theological tenets, no other Anabaptist appropriates such beliefs demonstratively through a structured sacramental system as does Hubmaier. For Hubmaier, the rites of the church are forefront in the development of his theology, both during his early Catholic career and during his tenure as an Anabaptist pastor and teacher. His consciousness of worship, its proper practice, and its impact on congregational life and Christian ethics is pervasive throughout his works. To this end, this paper focuses on Hubmaier's sacramental theology to bring a clearer understanding of the Waldshut reformer's Christian thought and distinct influence on Anabaptism.;This work accomplishes such a comprehensive study by first analyzing Hubmaier's theological education and development from Catholicism to Anabaptism and pays particular attention to the maturation of his sacramental thought. Subsequently, the study analyzes the development of Hubmaier's doctrines of eucharist, baptism and other possible signs of sacrament individually in order to comprehend further Hubmaier's nonpareil view of sacrament. The work then concludes by reviewing Hubmaier's liturgical contributions to Anabaptist worship and measures the possibility of any influence of Hubmaier's sacramental thought on later Anabaptism, the Believers' Church tradition, and the Church universal.;The study describes the retention of not only the term but also the theology of "sacrament" within Hubmaier's Anabaptist writings. It maintains the Anabaptist Hubmaier never completely abandoned his previous Catholic self. In particular, Hubmaier continued to locate the power of the sacraments within the church, although the elements themselves no longer conveyed grace. Instead, the act of pledging oneself to others in the community of faith through the Supper and pledging oneself to God in baptism sustained this sacramental meaning. Thus, the sacraments, while now responses to God's salvation rather than conveyers of it, and while now assigned to the realm of subjective retroaction instead of objective and divine gifts, were nonetheless still centered in and administered by the church.