Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, or what?

[nemo137]

Please forgive any awful misspellings, but what do you and/or the denomination you identify with believe?

[Babel_17]

1. Catholic

I subscribe to the minority belief that through communion one participates in an event that occurs outside of space and time.

When sharing the body and blood of Christ one is not just doing so with whoever is present at the moment. You are also sharing the sacrament with every Christian past, present and future who also partakes of it.

That being said, I should note I haven't received communion for a very long time.

Long story, don't ask. :)

[nemo137]

10. Very cool interpretation, I'd never thought of it that broadly.

n/t

[Babel_17]

14. Thanks. The inspiration/insight .....

came from reading some of Phil K. Dick's Valis Trilogy.

In those wonderful novels there are some very haunting and personal passages that will resonate with many spiritual people.

[Hardrada]

2. ELCA Lutheran is

My background (am currently demythologized) and teaches consubstantiation. Christ is "in, with, and under" the elements as a Real Presence. Luther himself always quoted "Hoc est corpus meum" but did not feel the the elements themselves were changed to another substance as in the doctrine of Transubstantiation, a Roman Catholic article of faith. This is, of course, putting it rather simply since whole books are devoted to this very subject. And the Calvinist view is neither of the above but treats the Eucharist as more of a memorial event.

[Azathoth]

3. As a Presbyterian

I was taught the doctrine of spiritual presence in confirmation class. Spirtual presence is sort of half-way between transubstantiation and symbolism. Basically, it holds that Jesus Christ is spiritually present at the time of communion, and that the bread and wine represent a symbolic act of faith through which the body of Christ is received spiritually. It differs from consubstantiation in the belief that the sacrament is received spiritually through faith, not through the physical bread and wine.

[Stunster]

4. Trans

The Eucharist is a mystery, and I admire Aquinas greatly for being able to come up with any explanation at all.

According to Aristotle, substance can be understood as the 'to ti en einai' of a thing--literally, 'the what it was to be' of the thing.

Having said that, Aristotle appears to give two somewhat different accounts of substance, one in the Categories, and another in the Metaphysics.

The substance of something, then, is the answer to the question, "What is it?" (as in, "It's a cat", or "It's a dog"). But in the Categories sense of substance, one can also answer this question by saying it's a particular individual, as in, "It's Socrates."

Hence, I take transubstantiation to mean that the 'correct answer' to the question "What is it?" before the Eucharistic consecration is "bread" (or "wine"), and that after the consecration, the correct answer is "Jesus Christ". In other words, the "what it is to be" of the Eucharistic species has changed.

Of course, empirically, nothing has changed. As Aquinas puts it, the 'accidents' remain the same---meaning the accidental properties of the Eucharistic species are unchanged. But what it essentially is has changed.

Normally, it's a thing's accidental properties that change, and what it essentially is does not change. A baby becomes over time an old man, but is still the same human person. With transubstantiation it's the other way round. I suppose that if we can grasp the fact that a baby becomes an old man but remains the same human person, then we ought to be able to grasp the fact that a piece of bread retains the same appearance but is no longer bread at all. But of course, the latter seems much more difficult to comprehend. And that's because we rely on appearances to judge what a thing is.

But perhaps the baby-old man example can come to the rescue again. If we were to rely only on appearances, we'd say they were different persons. But, allowing for saying things like "I'm not the person I was", we do intuitively grasp that, despite appearances, the baby in the photo is the same person as the old man sitting in front of us, or at least we understand the sense of what it means to say such a thing. So we know that appearances can be deceptive, even quite radically so.

Apparently St Ignatius of Loyola was shown in an 'intellectual vision' how it is that Christ is really present in the Eucharist. I haven't had such a vision myself, but I imagine that Christ's risen and glorified body has powers that unrisen, unglorified bodies do not. Einstein tells us that mass = energy. Catholicism tells us that Mass = the energy of Christ. Putting the two together, one can infer that if the energy of Christ is present at Mass, then the Body of Christ is present, since energy is equivalent to mass.

As we know from atomic physics, even a small amount of matter contains in itself an enormous quantity of energy. If one converted all of the mass of a small coin into energy, it would produce a prodigious amount of energy.

I think that the Resurrection of Jesus can be understood on an analogy with the transformation of mass into energy (which can enter and exit this universe perhaps through some kind of wormhole). The body is no longer in the tomb, but the energy is still available to do work, and it is made available to us in the Eucharist. And since Jesus is also God, the energy is infinite.

[papau]

6. interesting - never worried about this as Jesus said to "do this"

and that was all I required.

[nemo137]

11. Wow. I'd never looked at the Eucharist like that before.

That's alot to think about. Thank you.

[Az]

12. The matter in the baby shifts over time

The old man the baby has become is not comprised of the same matter the baby was. There is a real physical shift of matter in the baby. As it grows it exchanges molecules constantly. As this process goes on it constantly ebbs and changes. But the process that is its identity remains the contiguous.

We are not fixed static things. We are not blocks of flesh and bone. We are constantly changing processes.

There is a real change in the shift from baby to old man. Are you suggesting that there is a real shift in waiffer to body of Jesus? If it is symbolic then why the resistance of the Church to substitute nongluton containing waiffers for individuals who are allergic to gluton? If the matter of the waiffer has no impact on what it becomes then the waiffer matters not.

[Stunster]

15. Identity and change

The old man the baby has become is not comprised of the same matter the baby was. There is a real physical shift of matter in the baby. As it grows it exchanges molecules constantly. As this process goes on it constantly ebbs and changes.

All very true.

But the process that is its identity remains the contiguous.

I don't understand that sentence.

We are not fixed static things. We are not blocks of flesh and bone. We are constantly changing processes.

Are we persons? Who can inherit something from our dads many years after we were born, because we're the same person that was born? Or can somebody else challenge our dad's will, by saying, "All the molecules in your body now are different from the ones you had when you were born. You're not the same"? And if someone did say that, what would they mean by the words 'your', 'you', and 'you're', if in fact we do not remain the same person through the myriad physical changes they're referring to?

There is a real change in the shift from baby to old man.

Yes, very true. Did anyone on here deny that there was a real change? Of course there is. There's a real change when you get a haircut, never mind when you grow old.

What I was saying is that personal identity is something that can persist through material changes. And hence personal identity is not reducible to material changes. Or so most sane people think. But if that's so, then the personal identity of Jesus Christ is not dependent on the absence of material changes, and what Catholic theology of the Eucharist says is that that identity can become present in the absence of material changes, to the point where the correct answer to the question "What is it?", asked about the Eucharistic species, is no longer "bread and wine", but "Jesus Christ".

Personal identity and material change are different things. One can change without the other changing (baby-->old man). What Catholic Eucharistic theology says is that one can also not have (significant) material change, but a change in the identity of a thing.

Aristotle gave several arguments to do with change and identity which were designed to show that materialism is false. It is essentially those arguments Aquinas used to explain the Eucharist.

A very cogent, brief explication of Aristotle's arguments is given informally by Martha Nussbaum in THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS, edited by Bryan Magee. This came out some years ago, but I remember seeing it on BBC when I was a student at Oxford. (It was originally a television series of interviews with contemporary philosophers about the great ones of Western history. The reason I remember it so well is that I was absolutely bowled over by Nussbaum's extraordinary beauty and awesome intellect.) But anyway, the book is worth buying just for that section of it.

[Az]

16. Calling a waiffer a god does not make it so

Proclaiming the waiffer to be Jesus does not mean that if unfortunately the waiffer had to be regurgitated it would be flesh. It would still be waiffer. Goopy icky waiffer, but waiffer none the less.

And again the policy of the Catholic church lends problems to your claim. If the consumption of the waiffer caused a change in identity of the waiffer to the body of Jesus and not a substantive change then the material of the waiffer would make no difference. And yet the church denies access to alternate materials for the waiffers in the case of individuals with food allergies.

[Stunster]

17. Not calling the wafer "God" doesn't make it not God either

The reason why the Church has that policy has got nothing to do with what you're talking about. It's simply out of a desire to remain faithful to the liturgical tradition of using unleavened bread for the Eucharist.

[Az]

18. And for that

They will deny a person communion? Seems a bit draconian just for a tradition. Perhaps the tradition is all it is.

[Stunster]

20. As it happens

people can receive Holy Communion from either Eucharistic species. So they can take a sip from the Chalice, nor need it be a chalice in which any particle of the consecrated wafers have been placed.

So that's one solution.

Apparently a couple of nuns have manufactured communion wafers that contain very little gluten, and these have been approved for use in some places.

The point, however, is that the Church does not have absolute power to change the 'matter' of the sacraments. A 'eucharist' celebrated without true bread and true wine would not be a true eucharist because it would not be a sacramental sign of Jesus' actions at the Last Supper. We couldn't use Coke and fries for the Eucharist any more than we could use Merlot for Baptism.

This is of the essence of true sacramentality.

Similarly, one couldn't validly celebrate a sacrament using any old words (and spoken words are just as material as bread and wine or water and oil, they arise in bodies, and cause airwaves, and brain signals and so on). There have to be limits on the words used, and on the other sacramental signs used.

And by the way, my sister is a celiac, who takes Communion from the chalice only.

[Az]

21. Who initiates the transubstatiation?

Is it a power the preists recieve? Or is it the power of God? And if it is the power of God why is it he cannot transform Coke and fries?

[Stunster]

22. Why can't God transform Coke and fries?

Oh, God could.

But that's not what God wills.

And the Church has to go with God's will, as this was revealed through Christ. "He took bread....". Bread was chosen by God to be the sacramental sign, not fries.

God wanted sacramentality; and sacraments, to be sacraments, cannot be arbitrary or merely of human invention or choosing.

Bread and wine were part of the meal of Passover, and Passover expressed a memory of liberation and a journey to a Promised Land. Lamb was also part of that meal. But Jesus himself became the sacrificial Lamb that was killed and consumed. Which is why we don't use lamb in the Eucharist---sacramentality is not mimetic. The sign cannot be too explicitly associated with the signified. Sacraments are not mimicry. You take something from one realm, and it has to speak of a different realm, without too obviously resembling that other realm. Sacraments require a potential for liminality in their elements.

The sacramental symbolism is complex, but it's not arbitrary. It relates to historical memory of ancient Israel, the actions of Jesus, the apostolic tradition, and the experience of the ages. Bread and wine 'works' in telling this story effectively and communicating its deeper meaning. Coke and fries do not, and likely would not.

[Old Mouse]

5. Thank you for this fascinating thread!

And thank all of you who have shared your views.

[Lexingtonian]

7. R.S.o.F., and n.o.t.a.

Religious Society of Friends aka Quakers. FGC version ('liberal', 'universalist' as opposed to 'Christocentric').

Uh, none of the above. It is considered within the ability of each worshiper to experience the same and be sanctified or blessed in such a way without assistance of material guides.

The relevant passages from Freiday's edition/translation of Barclay's Apology (1674, Latin in the original):
(I spare you the footnotes, ~10x as long)

Proposition 13 (the Eucharist)
p. 334-5, Transubstantiation, Consubstantiation, and Virtualism
Christians are divided into three principal opinions on this matter. The first of these is transubstantiation, which means that the bread and wine become the very same substance as the body, flesh, and blood of Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary and crucified by the Jews. After what they call "words of consecration" it is no longer bread but the body of Christ.
The second opinion is that the substance of the bread remains, but that the body is also in, with, and under the bread. Thus both the substance of the bread, and of the body, flesh, and blood of Christ are there.
The third denies both of these, and states that the body of Christ is not there corporally or substantially, but nevertheless it is truly and sacramentally received by the faithful when they use the bread and wine. How or why it is there is unexplainable. Still we are to believe that it is there, even though, more properly, it is in heaven.
(footnotes that t./Catholicism, c./Lutheranism; Virtualism is the theory of John Calvin, and notice is taken of the Memorial interpretation of the Eucharist by Zwingli.)

p. 336 None Of These Interpretations Has Attained The Truth And Substance Of This Mystery
It is unnecessary to refute these several opinions since each of their authors has sufficiently refuted the others. Each of them is also as strong in using scripture and reason to refute contrary opinion as he is weak in using it to establish his own. No doubt others have noticed this too. It must be concluded that none of them has attained truth and substance of this mystery.
Calvin is a good example. <....>

p. 351 We Do Not Find The Ceremony Obligatory
Do we not have good reason to avoid this confusion since we do not find this practice any more obligatory for us than the ceremonies which they (other Christian groups- ed.) have set aside? This is particularly true because they will never agree to on the nature, efficacy, or manner of administrating it. And the reason for this is because they are not content to to follow what is plainly set forth in the scriptures, but insist on intermixing their own inventions. <....>

(this is the conclusion about the eucharist:)
p. 361 Those Who Practice This Ceremony In Good Conscience Should Be Indulged
X. Finally, if there are any in this day who practice this ceremony with a true tenderness of spirit, and with real conscience toward God, and in the manner of the primitive Christians, as recognized in scripture, that is another matter. I do not doubt but that they are indulged by that they may be indulged in it. The Lord may take these facts into consideration and appear to them for a time when they use these things. Many of us have known him to do this for us in our own times of ignorance. But there is always the provision that they must not try to force these things on others, or to be critical of those who have been delivered from these things and who do not cling to them with pertinacity.
For we are certain that the day has dawned in which God has risen and has dismissed all these ceremonies and rites. He is to be worshipped only in Spirit. He appears to those who wait upon him. To seek God in these things is, like Mary at the sepulchre, seeking the living among the dead. For we know that he has risen and has been revealed in Spirit. He is leading his children out of these rudiments, that they may walk with him in his light, to whom be glory forever. Amen.

That last bit is actually a pretty good gloss on all of Quaker practice- not that we meet its standard all the time, maybe not even much of the time.

Oh, looking at Barclay's Conclusion (to the whole work), there's some great stuff to put a sharp bone in the throat of the Christian Right true believer any and every day of the week. Sorry, I can't resist just putting up two plus paragraphs of it (p. 439), even if it's a little off topic...

When we hear them talk foolishly about heaven and hell and the last judgment, we urge them to depart from the hellish condition they are in. We ask them to come to the judgment of Christ in their hearts, to believe in the Light, and follow it, in order to be able to sit in the heavenly places that are in Christ Jesus. From this, they maliciously say that we deny any heaven or hell except that which is within us, and that we deny any general judgment.
The Lord knows what ugly slanders they cast upon us. For God has raised us for the purpose of confounding the wisdom of the wise, and bringing to naught the understanding of the prudent. He did it so that we might pull down the dead, dark, corrupt image and mere shadow and shell of Christianity with which Antichrist has deceived the nations. He did it in and by his own Spirit in a despised people so that no flesh could glory in his presence.
For this purpose he has called us to be the first fruits of those who serve him and who no longer worship him with the oldness of the letter, but in the newness of the Spirit. Although we are few in number, compared with others, and weak in the outward strength that we reject completely, and foolish when compared with the wise ones of the world, yet God has made us prosper. In spite of great opposition he will provide for us, so that neither the artful wisdom or violence of men or devils will be able to quench the little spark that has appeared. It will grow until it consumes what opposes it. <....>

[xchrom]

8. episcopal

all i know is -- i love the eucharist.
it just sweeps me away -- that's all i can tell you -- and all i need to know.
though i do revel in some aspects of the history.
i find great beauty in liturgical worship -- if not taken too seriously.

btw -- i am in no way a literalist or legalist when it comes to christianity or the bible.
fundamentalists are not christian -- and they are spreading a cancer in the faith that may kill it.

[Igel]

9. Judaizing Christian.

Eucharist is continuation of passover/last supper, once a year (although I've known one or two people that were forced to time it with the second passover).

Unleavened bread and wine stay unleavened bread and wine, and it's a symbolic acceptance of what those partaking have previously accepted: the spilling of Christ's blood and breaking of his body.

Sort of a ritualistic renewal of the covenant we entered.

[tjwmason]

13. Transubstantiation

Though I think that one can analyse to closely. Queen Elizabeth I is quoted as saying "'Twas God the word that spake it, He took the Bread and brake it; And what the word did make it; That I believe, and take it."

Whilst I may not be a great fan of the poetry thereof, nonetheless the simplicity of the Faith I find very good.

[kwassa]

19. sort of jack episcopal, among other things

I take communion every time I go to church, and the Eucharist to me is simply a physical ritual that symbolizes taking God within oneself. I like it as a ritual, and a form of renewal that gets me more in touch with the presence of God. It also gets my out of the pew, and into contact with the clergy and lay ministers.

I believe my church uses Tawny Port.