Transubstantiation in the East?

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Do Eastern Catholic (Oriental and Byzantine) Philosophy and Theology talk about transubstantiation? I have understood that it is a Latin concept. I have always thought that Aristotle was Greek and that the Byzantine was Greek. One would think that Aristotle could have influence the Greek East but not so it seems. Is Aristotle not used in the East? The Byzantine Orthodox don’t seem to like Aristotle. They just wanna call everything a mystery and refuse to use their minds which souns like they are just lazy. But I am only a person from the West.
How do the Eastern churches explain it?
 
Aquinas borrowed Aristotle’s terminology to explain the mystery of the Eucharist, but he used the terms “substance” and “accident” in ways that Aristotle never intended.

In Aristotle’s philosophy, the “substance” of a thing is what doesn’t change while “accidents” can change without altering the substance. For instance, I can take a chair home from the furniture store, and it’s still a chair. Moving it from one place to another made no difference to its chairness, which is what Aristotle calls its “substance”. Or I can paint a white chair red, and it’s still a chair, and so on. I can even stand on it to change a lightbulb, and using it for a different purpose doesn’t mean the chair has turned into a ladder. It is still a chair. Its “substance,” in the Aristotelian sense, remains unchanged.

But in Aquinas’ explanation of the Eucharist, it’s the substance that changes while the accidents stay the same. I don’t think Aristotle ever envisaged anything of that kind. Aquinas has borrowed Aristotle’s terminology, but he is assigning new definitions to the Aristotelian terms “substance” and “accident”.

This explanation of the Eucharist comes from Aquinas, who was Italian, not from Aristotle, who was Greek.
 
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And really it’s one way to explain the mystery of the Eucharist, but I don’t think the Church says it’s the ONLY way… the Church still constantly refers to it as a “mystery” in Her liturgy.
 
jesusmademe said:
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How do the Eastern churches explain it?
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Mystery is emphasized in the Eastern faith traditions. St. Theodore the Studite wrote, “We confess that the faithful receive the very body and blood of Christ, according to the voice of God himself.”
 
The Eucharist contains Christ substantially, the other sacraments let only a ray, of his love pass into us. The EO believe the bread and wine to become the genuine Body and Blood of Christ through the operation of the Holy Spirit. The EO Church has never described exactly how this occurs (and may never), or gone into the detail that the Roman Catholic Church has with the doctrine of transubstantiation.
 
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Very good article. I would just pose this, though: what do Eastern Catholics (those in union with Rome) believe about when the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ? I know they might not use the term “transubstantiation”, and in that this is a Western concept, I wouldn’t expect them to. It is entirely sufficient to say that the change does take place, without trying to define “how”.

However, what do they see as the moment the species turn into the Body and Blood? Or is this a question that is just not asked?
 
jesusmademe said:
o Eastern Catholic (Oriental and Byzantine) Philosophy and Theology talk about transubstantiation?
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No, not really. We just don’t.

It’s not a dispute, nor a different answer. We just don’t have an interest in nailing things down that way.
HomeschoolDad said:
However, what do they see as the moment the species turn into the Body and Blood? Or is this a question that is just not asked?
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That question is actually one of the best ways to explain some of the differences between Eastern and Western thinking.

Western thinking reaches a conclusion as to exactly when it happens. Give the East a list of possibilities from which to choose, and we simply say, “yes.”’

The west wants specifics; we just don’t worry about it, being happy with mystery.

hawk
 
Actually, to me it just looks like the East is bad at Philosophy. To me the phrase "it is simply a mystery: sounds like “I am bad at Philosophy so let’s not think about it”.
As a person from the west this is how I hear it. What is actually going on? Cause I can’t imagine Eastern Theologians being bad at Philosophy.
 
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dochawk said:
The west wants specifics; we just don’t worry about it, being happy with mystery.
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So the Latin church has always been worried or anxious? I feel anxious so I like good solid definitions.
What is the reason for not going into definitions in the East? I am aware of some of the definitions in the West was needed due to some peoole preaching heresy but I don’t think Aquinas just wrote for heretical people. So maybe not my heresy in the East? I find it hard not being able to explain stuff.
Don’t Eastern Catholics crave for explanations as well?
 
That Dr. David J. Dunn quotes is just weird. I hope he was just joking. It is my understandibg that he was just trying to be funny.
 
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jesusmademe said:
Actually, to me it just looks like the East is bad at Philosophy. To me the phrase "it is simply a mystery: sounds like “I am bad at Philosophy so let’s not think about it”.
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I do not believe that is a proper summary of how Eastern Christians behave. We in the West do, I believe, tend to over think things. As I understand it the Latin Catholic Church does not say this is exactly how the Holy Spirit turns bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. It is a mystery and we do not know how it happens. I see nothing at all wrong with the Eastern perspective on this matter: “When I entered the church on Sunday morning for the Divine Liturgy there was bread and wine and by the time I received Communion from the priest that bread and wine had become the Body and Blood of Christ. I don’t when the change happened or how. All that matters is it did”.
 
jesusmademe said:
Actually, to me it just looks like the East is bad at Philosophy. To me the phrase "it is simply a mystery: sounds like “I am bad at Philosophy so let’s not think about it”.
As a person from the west this is how I hear it. What is actually going on? Cause I can’t imagine Eastern Theologians being bad at Philosophy.
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Sacrament is a Latin translation of the Greek word mysterion used in the NT. In affirming that a sacrament is a mystery, the East is holding to the original terminology in a way that some Catholics have not. The Eucharist is always a mystery, something hidden from our eyes. A Catholic who thinks philosophy has somehow resolved the mystery has made a grave error; transubstantiation is a paradox that expresses the mystery but does not overcome the truth.
 
BartholomewB said:
Aquinas borrowed Aristotle’s terminology to explain the mystery of the Eucharist, but he used the terms “substance” and “accident” in ways that Aristotle never intended.

In Aristotle’s philosophy, the “substance” of a thing is what doesn’t change while “accidents” can change without altering the substance. For instance, I can take a chair home from the furniture store, and it’s still a chair. Moving it from one place to another made no difference to its chairness, which is what Aristotle calls its “substance”. Or I can paint a white chair red, and it’s still a chair, and so on. I can even stand on it to change a lightbulb, and using it for a different purpose doesn’t mean the chair has turned into a ladder. It is still a chair. Its “substance,” in the Aristotelian sense, remains unchanged.

But in Aquinas’ explanation of the Eucharist, it’s the substance that changes while the accidents stay the same. I don’t think Aristotle ever envisaged anything of that kind. Aquinas has borrowed Aristotle’s terminology, but he is assigning new definitions to the Aristotelian terms “substance” and “accident”.

This explanation of the Eucharist comes from Aquinas, who was Italian, not from Aristotle, who was Greek.
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Aquinas used the terms substance and accident beyond the Eucharist, and he understood substance and accident much as you describe how Aristotle did. The Eucharist was a miraculous example, not the case in point on how Aquinas understood those terms naturally.

As to the OP and transubstantiation, the Church has since Aquinas often used Aristotlean-Thomist metaphysics to help explain it, and you’ll see the Orthodox and Lutherans and others simply reject the Aristotlean philosophy of Catholic dogma. However, the term transubstantiation was used prior to Aquinas, and without any Aristotlean metaphysics it is just Latin for “change in what it is.” Aristotlean metaphysics isn’t part of the dogma, even if theologians have defended the dogma in Aristotlean terms. The dogma is just that the bread and wine change (not added to, but change) into the body, blood, soul and divinity of Christ Jesus while retaining the appearances of bread and wine. How our what happens (beyond it being a divine miracle and the priestly consecration) is not necessary.

And my understanding is that the East agrees with that, but many shy from Aristotlean or Latin terms and theological explanations. There is actually a Greek term for it that some in the East are okay with: μετουσίωσις (metousiosis).
 
jesusmademe said:
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dochawk:
The west wants specifics; we just don’t worry about it, being happy with mystery.
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So the Latin church has always been worried or anxious? I feel anxious so I like good solid definitions.
What is the reason for not going into definitions in the East? I am aware of some of the definitions in the West was needed due to some peoole preaching heresy but I don’t think Aquinas just wrote for heretical people. So maybe not my heresy in the East? I find it hard not being able to explain stuff.
Don’t Eastern Catholics crave for explanations as well?
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I think some Greeks typically see Latins as trying to put God and the divine in a box, and God can’t be contained so.
 
Dovekin said:
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jesusmademe:
Actually, to me it just looks like the East is bad at Philosophy. To me the phrase "it is simply a mystery: sounds like “I am bad at Philosophy so let’s not think about it”.
As a person from the west this is how I hear it. What is actually going on? Cause I can’t imagine Eastern Theologians being bad at Philosophy.
Click to expand...
Sacrament is a Latin translation of the Greek word mysterion used in the NT. In affirming that a sacrament is a mystery, the East is holding to the original terminology in a way that some Catholics have not. The Eucharist is always a mystery, something hidden from our eyes. A Catholic who thinks philosophy has somehow resolved the mystery has made a grave error; transubstantiation is a paradox that expresses the mystery but does not overcome the truth.
Click to expand...
Yes, all the sacraments are, in a way, veiled, in that we see the physical action and the species (water, oil, bread, wine) but not the divine action at work. The species are a symbol of the graces conferred.
 
The Enlightenment period in the 17th and 18th centuries was very much a Western European intellectual movement that never really took place in the Eastern Europe area. Philosophers like Descartes, Locke, and Newton, Kant, Goethe, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Adam Smith lived and wrote during that time. It was a rejection to traditional, social and political ideas and emphasising the rational instead.

So it is totally understandable that the question "When and how does the bread and wine turn into the body and blood of Christ? is asked in the West and it is a non question in the East.

Does this help you a little bit in understanding the different traditions of Eastern and Western Christians? Studying the society and history is equally important.
 
I think that article summarizes things pretty well. When the Eastern Orthodox have had reason to articulate and defend the teaching of the Eucharist the term “transubstantiation” has been used readily and without controversy.

The debates about the Eucharist have historically taken place in the West for the most part, and the Latin tradition developed a fairly rigorous terminology to describe the teaching as a result. The Latin articulation of “transubstantiation” really doesn’t attempt to pull back the veil on the “how” of the miracle, but merely describes in rather precise terms the “what” of the Eucharist. The Catholic Church doesn’t insist that everyone use the Aristotilean language to describe the Sacrament.

The really fun debates happen when we try to decide if the consecration occurs at the Institution or the Epiclesis! 🤣

Peace and God bless!
 
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