=QNDNNDQDCE;12087939]-]/-]My thesis is that the word consubstantiation fittingly and accurately describes the Lutheran doctrine of “sacramental union,” which is taught in the Formula of Concord.
Hi QN,
Our paths typically cross on this issue.
The Lutheran rejection of the term is a reaction to a misunderstanding of transubstantiation rather than any fault of the word “consubstantiation.” Or at least that is what I think is the case. At least, the doctrine of sacramental union is not any less a “rational understanding” than transubstantiation, since it is defined using the same terms and so it uses just as much human reason, and I certainly don’t think you are saying that the Lutheran position is an “irrational understanding!”
The Lutheran reaction to the term is not a misunderstanding of Transubstantiation, but rather an intention to not use the Aristotelian, metaphysical constructs of which both Tran- and Con- substantiation of a part.
I will agree though, that while not a metaphysical construct, SU does in a way use human reason.
But on the topic of consubstantiation, it needs to be clear that modern Lutherans believe, or should believe, the same doctrine, the Real Presence, that the entire Church Catholic has always taught, as pointed out by Melanchthon in the Apology of the Augsburg Confession: ***And we have ascertained that not only the Roman Church affirms the bodily presence of Christ, but the Greek Church also both now believes, and formerly believed, the same. For the canon of the Mass among them testifies to this, in which the priest clearly prays that the bread may be changed and become the very body of Christ. ***
And that we do
not, and never have, described His presence in terms of consubstantiation.
Hutter: When we use the particles ‘in, with, and under’, we understand no local inclusion whatever, not transubstantiation or consubstantiation.” “Hence is clear the odious falsity of those who charge our churches with teaching that ‘the bread of the Eucharist is literally and substantially the body of Christ’, that ‘bread and body constitute one substance…’
**Andrew Osiander: ** “Our theologians for years long have strenuously denied and powerfully confuted the doctrine of a local inclusion, or physical connection of the body and bread, or consubstantiation. We believe in no impanation, subpanation, companation, or consubstantiation of the body of Christ; no physical or local inclusion or conjoining of bread and body, as our adversaries, in manifest calumnies, allege against us.
Mentzer: There is no local concealment of Christ’s body, or inclusion of particles of matter under the bread. Far from us be it that any believer should regard Christ’s body as present in a physical or natural mode. The eating and drinking are not natural or capernaitish, but mystical and sacramental.”
John Gerhard: “On account of the calumnies of our adversaries, we would note that we do not believe in impanation, , nor in consubstantiation, nor in any physical or local presence.”
“We believe in no consubstantiative presence of the body and blood. Far from us be that figment. The heavenly thing and the Earthly thing in the Lord’s Supper are not present with each other physically and naturally."
Musaeus: On the question, by what mode (quo modo) that which we receive and eat and drink in the Holy Supper Christ’s body and blood, we freely confess our ignorance.
Carpsov: When this presence is called substantial and bodily, those words designate not the MODE of presence, but the OBJECT. When the words in, with, under, are used, our traducers know, as well as they know their own fingers, that they do NOT signify a CONSUBSTANTIATION, local co-existence, or impanation. The charge that we hold a local inclusion, or Consubstantiation, is a calumny. The eating and drinking are not physical, but mystical and sacramental. An action is not necessarily figurative because it is not physical.
Sasse: It is impossible to define Luther’s doctrine as consubstantiation. Even the words ‘in the bread’, ‘with the bread’, ‘under the bread’, or ‘in, with, and under the bread’, were never regarded by Luther as more than attempts to express in these old, popular terms inherited from the Middle Ages the great mystery that the bread is the body, the wine is the blood, as the Words of Institution say.
continued
It’s always surprised me that Lutherans and Orthodox have not held closer relations, at least as far as sacraments are concerned.
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