Actually, first, no Lutheran worth his salt would describe Lutheran belief as consubstantiation, on the same metaphysical grounds as our offical rejection of Transubstantiation. For Lutherans, the bread is His body, the wine is His blood, as Melanchthon says in the Apology: “…we confess that we believe, that in the Lord’s Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and substantially present, and are truly tendered, with those things which are seen, bread and wine, to those who receive the Sacrament.”The last stop I made before coming home to Rome was Lutheran. I have a basic understanding of both Consubstantiation and Transubstantiation. I have always wondered if the explanations are simply a matter of semantics (aside from the obvious necessity of a validly ordained priest to consecrate the elements). For instance, couldn’t one simply say that “In, with, and under” is just another way of saying that the accidents or properties remain?
prounione.urbe.it/dia-int/l-rc/doc/e_l-rc_eucharist.html
What Lutherans believe is that, at the words of institution, the bread and wine are the body and blood of Christ. We see, taste, smell bread and wine, but they are the body and blood of Christ, just as He told us.
Not according to the Vatican leaders who participated in the document. But in any event, it is the leaders of our respective communions that will decide this.
What do you mean by the substance changes?
Luther taught the doctrine of consubstantiation or impanation, according to which the bread remains together with the body of Christ in the Eucharist.
Evidently, therefore, any philosophy may be reconciled with the dogma of transubstantiation which safeguards the distinction between the “the appearances” of a things and the thing itself; and this is a distinction which any system of philosophy must safeguard if it is not to run counter to right thinking. It is a commonplace of experience that realities are either “things in themselves” or else modifications or qualities of things that exist in themselves. A man, a tree, copper, zinc, these are substances; they exist in themselves. On the other hand, thought, extension, color, physical and chemical actions and reactions, are called in philosophical language accidents, because they require a subject, or a substance, in which to “inhere.” Thought does not exisit except in a thinking subject; there is no extension, color, chemical activity, except in a corporeal substance. Substance and accidents, therefore, form a composite unity which is naturally indissoluble; yet, in reality as well as in thought, they are distinct from each other as that which exists in itself must be distinct from that which, in order to exist, requires a subject of inherence. Thus a bodily substance is not its size, its shape, its color, its chemical or physical properties, nor is it the sum of these; it is that which possess these properties, is located, acts and reacts by means of them, and through them manifests itself to the senses. The substance as such is impervious to the senses; if a body had no extension we could not touch it, if it had no color we could not see it. Hence we commonly give to the accidents of material substances the name of appearances, since it is through these accidents, perceived by the senses, that the mind arrives at the knowledge of the substance.
Do you believe that the substance of the bread remain?
I know at least one priest and one pastoral associate who would say its totally a matter of semantics. I’m not in total agreement with them, but I also don’t see these two views as incompatible.
What does the ‘with’ in the phrase ‘in, with and under’ mean?
Citation, please, where Luther claims to teach impanation or consubstantiation. Both have been historically and verbally, in our confessional documents, rejected. In fact, Sacramental Union, with the words 'in,with, and under" were intended to reject beliefs such as impanation.
I have no issue with this. To spreak of a “change”, or metabole is consistent with Lutheran teaching.
I believe Transub. is a reasonable human expression of the RP.
What I believe is what Christ said in the upper room. “Take and eat, this is my body.” I believe that when the pastor/priest says the words of institution, by the power of the Holy Spirit, there then is the true and substantial body of Christ. Just as He said.
This does not answer my question.
It doesn’t answer your question because Christ doesn’t answer your question. That is the essence of the mystery. Christ says it is His body and His blood. He made no comment about the bread and wine, other than to say “this is…”. And so, it is.
No. It is the body of Christ. He says it is. That is the mystery of the sacrament.
The heart of the matter is not found in the disposition of the substance and accidents bread and wine. The heart of the matter is in the words of Christ, and the power of the Holy Spirit to change mere bread and wine into the real and substantial body and blood of Christ, for us to eat and drink, for the forgiveness of sin.
Mandy, wait for a Catholic to answer your question, but if I were a betting man, the farm would be on NO!
Interesting! I thought that Lutherans believed the opposite. I stand corrected.
