Question about Transubstantiation

[O.S.Luke]

Some was tied to heresy, but more of it coincided with the advent of Scholasticism and when Aristotelian philosophy was in vogue. Before the 11th century, no one really needed an explanation of what happened at the epiclesis.

It is really interesting to see how Real Presence is viewed by the Eastern Church - they don’t have these conversations at all. More interesting is a study in Celtic sacramental theology; while in the West, doctrines and dogma from Rome was often many years established by the time it made it up to that area, and the liturgies and traditions of the Christian Celts show that. Celtic Christianity almost eschewed anything biting of Western rational thought. Faith was a mystery - as was Christ’s Presence at the Eucharist.

I was involved in our denomination’s recent statement on the Eucharist, and we went in the direction of the Eastern Church in regards to Real Presence.

It’s hard to explain the unexplainable. Why try?

 

[ralphinal]

Some was tied to heresy, but more of it coincided with the advent of Scholasticism and when Aristotelian philosophy was in vogue. Before the 11th century, no one really needed an explanation of what happened at the epiclesis.

It is really interesting to see how Real Presence is viewed by the Eastern Church - they don’t have these conversations at all. More interesting is a study in Celtic sacramental theology; while in the West, doctrines and dogma from Rome was often many years established by the time it made it up to that area, and the liturgies and traditions of the Christian Celts show that. Celtic Christianity almost eschewed anything biting of Western rational thought. Faith was a mystery - as was Christ’s Presence at the Eucharist.

I was involved in our denomination’s recent statement on the Eucharist, and we went in the direction of the Eastern Church in regards to Real Presence.

It’s hard to explain the unexplainable. Why try?

My modern answer is because the Baptists et al won’t accept that answer. Trust me, I;ve tried.

 

[O.S.Luke]

My modern answer is because the Baptists et al won’t accept that answer. Trust me, I;ve tried.

Baptists see Holy Communion as an ordinance. Catholics, Orthodox, and liturgical Protestants see it as a sacrament. Big difference when it comes to these conversations.

 

[ralphinal]

Baptists see Holy Communion as an ordinance. Catholics, Orthodox, and liturgical Protestants see it as a sacrament. Big difference when it comes to these conversations.

Oh, I know. And when you discuss it with them, assuming you can get past the Biblical need for sacraments, how you explain it to them? I have never met one that accepted “It is a mystery.”

 

[JimG]

It’s hard to explain the unexplainable. Why try?

Because when someone gives a wrong explanation, it has to be corrected. If it isn’t, enduring heresies arise.

 

[tee_eff_em]

Philosophy and metaphysics are simply the wrong disciplines to use with the supernatural

The Church in her catechism disagrees with you.

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: “Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.”

tee

 

[Verbum_Caro]

Because when someone gives a wrong explanation, it has to be corrected. If it isn’t, enduring heresies arise.

Exactly.

For instance, what happens when someone says: “Oh no, don’t break the host, because you would be breaking Christ’s body!”

Do you just shrug your shoulders and say “it’s a mystery” and let them persist in that mistaken idea? Or do you say, “no, that’s not what happens, Christ is not broken,” and when they inquire “why not?” do you shrug and say “it’s a mystery?”

Mysteries are things we can’t know everything about, but we can know *some *things about them. The Eucharist is a mystery, not a muddle.

VC

 

[East_and_West]

As a non-catholic, I’ve always wondered just what it meant to say that the bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist is transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Honestly, I’m not attempting to be disrespectful towards anyone’s believes, but the whole thing seems…um…really really trying to think of a word other than silly…lets go with inexplicable.
I mean, clearly the two mundane substance make no physical transformation, so what does it mean to say that it’s the body and blood of Christ while it is still clearly bread and wine?

I ask, because I’ve always been drawn to the Catholic Church, I love the pope, the history, the moral stances on everything from abortion to war. I’ve considered joining for decades; but I feel like I would have to shut off part of my brain each time I received communion. I’m honestly hoping to be convinced here. FYI-I’ve read the bible and every quote you’re going to use to attempt to “prove” the real presence could easily be interpreted in some other way. I want to understand what it means.
thanks!

First, I understand how you think that the idea of transubstanitation is a difficult concept to understand. I think that a litlle philosophy would be helpful right about now. We live in a world of things. Each thing is a substance, or an existing thing. The substance is what the thing is. The substance of an apple is its appleness. The Subtance of a bird is its birdness. Ect. Now every substance also has accidents that adhere in it it. The accidents are the outward behavior, colors, tastes, smells, shapes, and sizes that the subtances take on. The accidents are not as permanent as the subtance. Let’s take water as an example. Water can come in the form of solid (ice), liquid, or gas (water vapor). In each state the accidents, that is the bevior, feel, and look are different. However, the substance, water, remains unchanged.
Now in the Eucharist a miracle occurs that is opposite of the water of example. In the Eucharist, the outward appeance and behavior are what remain unchanged. The accidents stay the same. It is the actual substance, what the bread and wine actually are that is changed. It ceases to be bread and wine, sacramentally becoming the body and blood of Christ, but still under the accidents, or appearance of bread and wine. This does two things. It allows us to commune with Christ because it is really him we are recieving. But it also avoids canablism because we don’t recieve his body and blood in a natural way but in a supernatural one, under the appearance of bread and wine.

 

[Mickey]

First, I understand how you think that the idea of transubstanitation is a difficult concept to understand. I think that a litlle philosophy would be helpful right about now. We live in a world of things. Each thing is a substance, or an existing thing. The substance is what the thing is. The substance of an apple is its appleness. The Subtance of a bird is its birdness. Ect. Now every substance also has accidents that adhere in it it. The accidents are the outward behavior, colors, tastes, smells, shapes, and sizes that the subtances take on. The accidents are not as permanent as the subtance. Let’s take water as an example. Water can come in the form of solid (ice), liquid, or gas (water vapor). In each state the accidents, that is the bevior, feel, and look are different. However, the substance, water, remains unchanged.
Now in the Eucharist a miracle occurs that is opposite of the water of example. In the Eucharist, the outward appeance and behavior are what remain unchanged. The accidents stay the same. It is the actual substance, what the bread and wine actually are that is changed. It ceases to be bread and wine, sacramentally becoming the body and blood of Christ, but still under the accidents, or appearance of bread and wine. This does two things. It allows us to commune with Christ because it is really him we are recieving.

Scholastic philosophy at its finest.

 

[East_and_West]

Scholastic philosophy at its finest.

And the Eastern Orthodox believe the same thing whether they are willing to admitt it or not.
Do the Eastern Orthodox believe that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ?
Yes.
Do the Eastern Orthodox believe that the Eucharist is bread with Christ along side it like the Lutherans?
No.
Then they must believe that the bread and wine become the flesh and blood of Christ while appearing like bread and wine.
That is EXACTLY what the doctrine of transubstantiation teaches.
Thus you believe exactly as the Catholic Church does about the Eucharist, you just don’t like the word we use. However, I was reading the book, The Orthodox Church, By Metropolitan Ware, and he admitted that some Eastern Orthodox chatechisms have used the term “transubstantiation”. If it weren’t for the movement of anti-Catholicism that has prejudiced the Eastern Orthodox during the past two centuries, then there would be no prolem for you guys to admitt that you believe the same.

 

[Allnamesused]

Well…

We could use your argument to say…
“How can Jesus Christ be God?”

If God is invisible and infinite…then how can God become a mere human?

In the same mystery that the God of the Universe has the power to become a part of His creation…by that same power…He can become bread and wine.

So…God became a man…now…God becomes bread.

This is God’s greatest act of humility. He allows us, His creation, to chew him and eat him. What greater example of humility is there than that?

But why would we assume such a thing. God becomes bread…what does that mean and why without any evidence would anyone assume it to be true? I know Jesus said “This is my body, this is my blood”, but he spoke in metaphors and parables all the time. Why is this the one time Catholics take him literally? What benifits does an individual recieve when they consume the eucharist that they would not recieve by consuming ordinary bread and wine?

 

[Allnamesused]

How, I don’t have the slightest idea, any more than I know how God made a tree. He made the tree he took the bread and wine and said said this is my body this is my blood. it is as simply as that the terminology of transubstantiation came about to fight the heresy after the reformation that it was just mere symbols, this did not happen in the east that is why the Orthodox churches never had to define ot they just state that it is.

God did make that tree, you’re correct. I can see it, I can touch it and smell it. It exists without dispute. I’m not asking how God transforms bread and wine into body and blood…I’m asking why we would assume it to be true. What happens after the transformation? Does it taste different; does it cure cancer; does it allow you to see into the future with Godlike omniscience? I believe that you believe it turns into Jesus…I’m asking why you believe it.

 

[Tinajo]

But why would we assume such a thing. God becomes bread…what does that mean and why without any evidence would anyone assume it to be true? I know Jesus said “This is my body, this is my blood”, but he spoke in metaphors and parables all the time. Why is this the one time Catholics take him literally? What benifits does an individual recieve when they consume the eucharist that they would not recieve by consuming ordinary bread and wine?

I found this page very useful in explaining why we need to take him literally on this occasion.

 

[Pro_Domina]

As a non-catholic, I’ve always wondered just what it meant to say that the bread and wine used in the sacrament of the Eucharist is transformed into the body and blood of Christ. Honestly, I’m not attempting to be disrespectful towards anyone’s believes, but the whole thing seems…um…really really trying to think of a word other than silly…lets go with inexplicable.
I mean,** clearly the two mundane substance make no physical transformation**, so what does it mean to say that it’s the body and blood of Christ while it is still clearly bread and wine?

I ask, because I’ve always been drawn to the Catholic Church, I love the pope, the history, the moral stances on everything from abortion to war. I’ve considered joining for decades; but I feel like I would have to shut off part of my brain each time I received communion. I’m honestly hoping to be convinced here. FYI-I’ve read the bible and every quote you’re going to use to attempt to “prove” the real presence could easily be interpreted in some other way. I want to understand what it means.
thanks!

Transubstantiation does not equal transformation.
What it is changes without changing the physical properties.

Changing water into wine in every physical aspect like in the Wedding of Cana is transformation. Obviously in a situation like this transubstanciation takes place as well.

This is where science has to bend knee to Faith.
There is no imperical proof to this.
Theological tons. But a scientific test will tell you it is bread and wine.

But if you really love Him, I guarantee you won’t need it.
Just walk into a Perpetual Adoration Chapel one night.
And just look at Him and let Him look at you.

 

[Mickey]

And the Eastern Orthodox believe the same thing whether they are willing to admitt it or not.

We believe that the Holy Eucharist IS the Body and Blood of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ. Period. It is a glorious Mystery. We do not need explanations of substance and accidents.

 

[ralphinal]

Transubstantiation does not equal transformation.
What it is changes without changing the physical properties.

Changing water into wine in every physical aspect like in the Wedding of Cana is transformation. Obviously in a situation like this transubstanciation takes place as well.

This is where science has to bend knee to Faith.
There is no imperical proof to this.
Theological tons. But a scientific test will tell you it is bread and wine.

But if you really love Him, I guarantee you won’t need it.
Just walk into a Perpetual Adoration Chapel one night.
And just look at Him and let Him look at you.

Exactly. Any scientific test only shows more of the accedents, not the substance.

St. Thomas Aquinas wrote it best:

Word-made-Flesh, the bread of nature
by His word to Flesh He turns;
wine into His Blood He changes;
what though sense no change discerns?
Only be the heart in earnest,
faith her lesson quickly learns

The entire Pange Lingua is beautiful!! You can read it here

 

[SIA]

We must start with what is substance. We can understand substance as that which makes up an object. Matter is substance. However, when you look at matter in its most basic form, you end up with space and charged particles. So, for all intents and purposes, substance is empty space and charged particles. Doesn;t sound like much.

Now, what makes me different from any other man on earth? Our substance is identicle. If you blasted me into components, I am mostly water with a few solid particles, worth less than $10.00. If you blatsted two into components, you could not tell us apart. However, I am more than that. All of us are. There is more to a person than $10.00 worth of matter.

Transubstantiation says, basically, that even though we see, touch, and taste bread and wine, that quality that makes it bread and wine is no longer there. It has been replaced with Jesus’s body, blood, soul, and divinity. Just like I am more than water and solid matter, so is the Consecrated Bread and Wine.

I hope this helps.

Gosh, I just don’t see the necessity in all of this. Why can’t we just say that Jesus tells us that the bread and the wine are his flesh and blood and the Scriptures support this on several counts. The Bible never says anything about a metaphysical change in substance.

 

[ralphinal]

Gosh, I just don’t see the necessity in all of this. Why can’t we just say that Jesus tells us that the bread and the wine are his flesh and blood and the Scriptures support this on several counts. The Bible never says anything about a metaphysical change in substance.

Because there are people who deny the meaning of those passages and there are people who want to know “How Jesus is in the bread”

Personally, I love the answer “It is a mystery and God wanted it that way.” Many other people do not accept it.

though you are no longer Catholic, I think that you still accept the Real Presence. It is harder for us to understand why people do not accept it.

 

[SIA]

Because there are people who deny the meaning of those passages and there are people who want to know “How Jesus is in the bread”

Personally, I love the answer “It is a mystery and God wanted it that way.” Many other people do not accept it.

though you are no longer Catholic, I think that you still accept the Real Presence. It is harder for us to understand why people do not accept it.

You are spot on with this one.

 

[ralphinal]

You are spot on with this one.

there are Catholic/Protestant discussions that are easy and there are those that are hard. Transubstantiation should be easy between those that accept the Real Presence. To you, it is not needed, because you already accept it. In fact, it is that lack of need that causes the issues with it.

How do you discuss the Real Presence with those who deny it?