Catholic Theology of The Sacraments

Interesting quote from Edmund Clowney in this book:

If the Spirit dwells in the church, is he confined to the church?

Hans Kung has reminded Roman Catholic theologians that the church does not already exist as an organized, hierarchical institution that the Spirit enters and empowers. Rather, the church is created by the Spirit, th author of life, who grants the gift of faith. Yet, as Kung also says, the Spirit is free to bind himself to the word and sacrament. Does the Spirit, then, bing himself to the church, where the means of grace are offered and dispensed? Kng answer that the spirit's binding of himself to the word and sacrament puts an obligation on us, not on him. He demands of us our unconditional faith. 'Neither word or sacrament work automatically; where there is no faith, they are not operative.' At this point, Kung has called into question the ex opere operato view of the sacraments, so central for the sacramental theology of the Roman Catholic Church. Certainly to tie saving grace to the sacramental administration of an organized and authorized priesthood is to create a dispensary in which grace becomes a commodity, rather than the sovereign working of the Lord.