Funny how quickly groups devolve into heresy after heresy once they have left the Barque of Peter. Look at Luther. Originally he was focused on Faith Alone. Then, once he was outside the Church, he abandoned the Mass, the Real Presence, even Free Will. Now look at what Lutherans believe today. Old Martin must be spinning in his grave. I suppose the E. Orthodox are an exception to the rule, maybe because of valid orders, but the downfall is pretty striking in most other cases.
Luther abandoned the belief that the bread and wine truly become the Body and Blood of Christ, so yes he abandoned the Real Presence. Luther rejected giving the consecrated host the adoration due to God alone and the Sacrificial nature of the Mass, both because he rejected the Real Presence as historically understood. All of that is not to say that Luther believed only in a symbolic presence, he didn’t as your quote shows. In fact Luther and Calvin viciously quarreled with each other because Luther rejected Calvin’s symbolic interpretation. Luther taught that Christ is present along with the bread and wine but that the bread and wine are still just bread and wine, consubstantial not transubstantiation.Luther abandoned the real presence?
Jon
- Luther
No, he didn’t. He just chose not to express it as Transubstantiation. We believe the words of Christ, “This [bread] is my body”, etc. Eastern Orthodoxy also does not express the real presence as Transubstantiation.
No, he didn’t. Lutherans continue to practice adoration during the sacramental act. Luther himself did not oppose Eucharistic Adoration. We accept the mass as our sacrifice of thanks and praise, and recognize the all-availing sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
This is true.
Luther did not teach consubstantiation, on the same grounds he did not express the real presence as Transubstantiation. He rejected the metaphysical Aristotelian expression, of which both Transubstantiation, and consubstantiation are. Luther would never have said that the bread and wine were still just bread and wine. He said, it is the true body and blood of Christ.
I hope I have succeeded.
I think you are getting Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli all mixed up.
Calvin believed that Christ’s Body was confined to heaven, therefore Christ’s Body and Blood could not be everywhere at the same time on all alters where the Word is preached and Holy Communion is celebrated. When a Calvinist takes communion, they believe that it is a spiritual presence and that their souls ascends to heaven to have communion with Christ.
Too much human logic clouding the immense power of God. I’ve never understood the Calvinist doctrine. If God is God, why must can he not communicate his divine attributes to human flesh?
You are not describing the doctrine of the real presence here, but the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Only the Catholic Church, those in communion with the Bishop of Rome (and perhaps Old Catholics and some Anglicans) expresses the reality of the real presence this way. Orthodoxy does not, as Lutherans do not. But simply rejecting the Aristotelian construct is not a rejection of the real presence.
Transubstantiation is not the expression of the early Church. I’m not saying it isn’t a reasonable human expression, just that it was not the expression of the ECF’s.
I’m saying that Luther believed the real presence exactly as Christ proclaimed it. - “This is my body”, etc. And no, Lutherans do not accept the Catholic definition of sacrifice, in terms of the Mass.
prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_eucharist.html
Yeah I’ve heard that as well. They recently ordained a gay senior as a priest. The man had been wanting to be a catholic priest but after talking to his priest at his colleges Newman center, he was told to give up homosexuality. He refused, lobbied for the priest to be fired and became an old catholic church priest.
I am not sure about this analogy. I live in Italy and I notice that when I am in the US that ‘Italian’ food that descendents of immigrants cook, does not have much in common with food actually eaten in Italy today. So as to its being 5 star authentic… Also foods change to suit the sensiblities of the local population. Rabbit, hare, lambs brains hearts and lungs, thrushes, blackbirds, veal intestines, horse meat, various parts of the pig are all part of the food eaten locally to me - something which in US I would probably have difficulty in finding.
You seem fixated on terms, but what really matters is concepts. The early church had the same concept of the Real Presence as the Medieval church, although they expressed this in different terms. Luther used the same term, “Real Presence” or “Sacrifice of the Mass” to express a wholly different concept. This is similar to Mormon baptism. Mormons use the same terms as the Church in their baptismal formula, “Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” but the concepts expressed by those terms are entirely different, so different that Mormon baptism is not valid, i.e. no baptism takes place. Another example would be your use of the term “Catholic” under your religion. You are using the same term I am, but you are expressing an entirely different concept by that term. We can argue all day over whose use of that term is correct, but that doesn’t really move the debate forward.
I think that’s going too far. Mormons largely made up their reinvented idea of baptism while appropriating the word. Luther didn’t do that. Luther felt that he was reforming the church and removing corruptions and errors that had crept in. It’s logically consistent (if just as erroneous) for him to decide that the place where error had crept in was the definition of Transubstantiation and that the solution was to turn back the clock to the more vague definition of “Real Presence” that had previously been used and still was used in many EO circles.
