Transubstantiation

Theology, History, and Christian Unity

Salkeld, Brett

• Editore: Baker Academic
• Anno: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781493418244
• Argomento: Theology & Religion
• Categoria: Christian Theology

This thoroughgoing study examines the doctrine of transubstantiation from historical, theological, and ecumenical vantage points. Brett Salkeld explores eucharistic presence in the theologies of Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, showing that Christians might have more in common on this topic than they have typically been led to believe. As Salkeld corrects false understandings of the theology of transubstantiation, he shows that Luther and Calvin were much closer to the medieval Catholic tradition than is often acknowledged. The book includes a foreword by Michael Root.

1
Introduction

Transubstantiation in Dispute and Dialogue

Rejection of Transubstantiation

Martin Luther

As noted in the preface, the first Reformation salvo against transubstantiation was launched by Martin Luther in 1520 in his landmark The Babylonian Captivity of the Church.1 In it he listed three “captivities” in which Rome held the Eucharist, but termed the “second captivity”—namely, the doctrine of transubstantiation—“less grievous”2 than the other two. Because it supported the doctrine of real presence, of which Luther was a fierce advocate, it did not get near the measure of Luther’s ire that the third and greatest captivity, the Mass understood as a sacrifice, did.3 Nevertheless, Luther found transubstantiation to be philosophically incoherent and resented its imposition by Church authority. In fact, by the late Middle Ages, several theologians were following the lead of William of Ockham, one of the founders of the nominalist school in which Luther was educated, who had concluded that the theory known as consubstantiation was more philosophically coherent than transubstantiation and would be preferable had the Church not officially endorsed transubstantiation at the Fourth Lateran Council (1215).4 Luther himself references “the learned Cardinal of Cambrai,”5 one Pierre d’Ailly (1350–1420), a student of Ockham’s, as convincing him that “to hold that real bread and real wine, and not merely their accidents, are present on the altar, would be much more probable and require fewer superfluous miracles—if only the church had not decreed otherwise.”6

Luther was willing to let transubstantiation stand as a theological opinion—though he made it clear that he found it a poor one—but not as required doctrine, arguing that the Church does not have the authority to impose such a human opinion as an article of faith. Of Thomas, whom many scholars believe Luther knew only secondhand,7 and his view of transubstantiation, Luther wrote,

But this opinion of Thomas hangs so completely in the air without support of Scripture or reason that it seems to me he knows neither his philosophy nor his logic. For Aristotle speaks of subject and accidents so differently from St. Thomas that it seems to me this great man is to be pitied not only for attempting to draw his opinions in matters of faith from Aristotle, but also for attempting to base them upon a man whom he did not understand, thus building an unfortunate superstructure upon an unfortunate foundation.8

Luther’s concerns about transubstantiation were twofold. First of all, Luther was convinced that, in the doctrine of transubstantiation, philosophy was allowed to override the biblical witness. The Bible does not speak of the accidents of bread, but of bread. Recourse to such Aristotelian categories is an unnecessary distraction from the witness of the Word of God. “Moreover,” Luther asserts,

the church kept the true faith for more than twelve hundred years, during which time the holy fathers never, at any time or place, mentioned this transubstantiation (a monstrous word and a monstrous idea), until the pseudo philosophy of Aristotle began to make its inroads into the church in these last three hundred years [i.e., since the Fourth Lateran Council officially established transubstantiation in 1215].9

Second, Luther was concerned that transubstantiation failed to respect the logic of the incarnation, on which the sacrament is based. He writes that

what is true in regard to Christ is also true in regard to the sacrament. In order for the divine nature to dwell in him bodily [Col. 2:9], it is not necessary for the human nature to be transubstantiated and the divine nature contained under the accidents of the human nature. Both natures are simply there in their entirety, and it is truly said: “This man is God; this God is man.” Even though philosophy cannot grasp this, faith grasps it nonetheless. And the authority of God’s word is greater than the capacity of our intellect to grasp it. In like manner, it is not necessary in the sacrament that the bread and wine be transubstantiated and tha t Christ be contained under their accidents in order that the real body and real blood may be present. But both remain there at the same time, and it is truly said: “This bread is my body; this wine is my blood,” and vice versa.10

For Luther, both the biblical witness and the logic of the incarnation demand the same thing, namely, that one affirm the continued reality of the bread and wine. Transubstantiation fails for him precisely because it denies their reality.

Because the medieval theory of consubstantiation, preferred by Ockham and others, affirms the continued substance of the bread and wine after the consecration (transubstantiation, alternatively, teaches that the substance of the bread and wine is precisely what has become the substance of the body and blood of Christ), many have referred to Luther’s own view as consubstantiation. However, despite the affinity between Luther’s own view and the theory of consubstantiation, Luther himself did not use the term, nor do the Lutheran confessions; and many contemporary Lutherans reject it as an accurate description of their eucharistic doctrine, preferring, for example, the term “sacramental union.”11 Luther’s concern that the Roman Church had abandoned the biblical witness for philosophy meant that he was not interested in replacing one philosophical explanation with another.12 Nevertheless, as we shall see in chapter 3, Luther was willing to have recourse to philosophy in his debate with the Swiss, led by Zwingli, who, in Luther’s view at least, reduced the Supper to a mere mnemonic device.

John Calvin

John Calvin, a second-generation Reformer, hoped to produce an articulation of eucharistic presence that would satisfy both the Lutherans and the Swiss, thereby preserving the unity of the Reformation communities.13 That this hope was disappointed is a matter of historical fact, but despite his failure in terms of unifying the Protestant movement, Calvin’s eucharistic doctrine remains immensely important. In fact, with Lutheran realists on the one hand, and Swiss symbolists on the other, Calvin’s attempt could be understood as an early work of ecumenism. (Indeed, he encountered that perennial bane of ecumenists: being rejected by both sides.) Unfortunately for us, Calvin’s ecumenical sympathies did not extend beyond the communities of the Reformation. And while he could write quite sensitively, seeking the truth in the affirmations of the two disputing parties,14 Roman Catholic articulations, especially about transubstantiation and sacrifice, were not generally subject to the same sympathetic treatment.15

Transubstantiation is, for Calvin, “this ingenious subtlety” through which “bread came to be taken for God.”16 Like Luther, Calvin denounces the fact that transubstantiation denies the presence of the bread and wine after the consecration. The Church Fathers certainly talk of a “conversion” of the elements, admits Calvin, “but they all everywhere clearly proclaim that the Sacred Supper consists of two parts, the earthly and the heavenly; and they interpret the earthly part to be indisputably bread and wine.”17 And, also like Luther, Calvin points out the relatively recent vintage of the term: “For transubstantiation was devised not so long ago; indeed not only was it unknown to those better ages when the purer doctrine of religion still flourished, but even when that purity already was somewhat corrupted.”18 Furthermore, asserts Calvin, to deprive the bread and wine of their reality is to deprive the Supper of its sacramental nature and to make of it a deception rather than a revelation:

Christ’s purpose was to witness by the outward symbol that his flesh is food; if he had put forward only the empty appearance of bread and not true bread, where would be the analogy or comparison needed to lead us from the visible thing to the invisible? For, if we are to be perfectly consistent, the signification extends no farther than that we are fed by the form of Christ’s flesh. For instance, if in baptism the figure of water were to deceive our eyes, we would have no sure...

Indice dei contenuti

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Foreword
• Preface
• Abbreviations
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Transubstantiation in the Catholic Tradition
• 3. Martin Luther
• 4. John Calvin
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Author Index
• Subject Index
• Back Cover