Transubstantiation/Real Presence (Jesus Christ, priest, ritual, gospel, mystic)

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by JamesthePersian

I'm not about to try and explain the doctrine of Transubstantiation because I don't get it myself, I find it completely unnecessary to explain how the Real Presence occurs in the first place and it's part of the Scholastic approach to RC theology that simply isn't shared by the Orthodox.

I was just trying to ascertain whether Becky was actually interested in the doctrine of the Real Presence or the RC explanation of it as Transubstantiation because I've come across a number of Christians who don't seem to understand that there is a distinction between the two.

Having had her reply, that she is indeed interested in Transubstantiation, I should back out of this thread and leave an RC to answer it, though if you have a question on the topic that I can answer then I'll happily do so.

Since James didn't want to hijack Becky's thread (imagine that!), I've taken this quote from his last post on her thread of Transbustantiation. James, please explain the doctrine of Real Presence to me. Thank you!

By the way, I put this in a debate forum, because I question the truthfulness of the doctrines of Real Presence, as I understand it, and will probably want to end up debating it. I just want to get my terminology straight before jumping in head first.

[michel]

This might help, Kathryn;

http://www.tldm.org/news6/transubstantiation.htm

The following is an article on Transubstantiation by Frank Sheed:
Besides the Real Presence which faith accepts and delights in, there is the doctrine of transubstantiation, from which we may at least get a glimpse of what happens when the priest consecrates bread and wine, so that they become Christ's body and Christ's blood.
At this stage, we must be content with only the simplest statement of the meaning of, and distinction between substance and accidents, without which we should make nothing at all of transubstantiation. We shall concentrate upon bread, reminding ourselves once again that what is said applies in principle to wine as well.
We look at the bread the priest uses in the Sacrament. It is white, round, soft. The whiteness is not the bread, it is simply a quality that the bread has; the same is true of the roundness and the softness. There is something there that has these and other properties, qualities, attributes--the philosophers call all of them accidents. Whiteness and roundness we see; softness brings in the sense of touch. We might smell bread, and the smell of new bread is wonderful, but once again the smell is not the bread, but simply a property. The something which has the whiteness, the softness, the roundness, has the smell; and if we try another sense, the sense of taste, the same something has that special effect upon our palate.
In other words, whatever the senses perceive--even with the aid of those instruments men are forever inventing to increase the reach of the senses--is always of this same sort, a quality, a property, an attribute; no sense perceives the something which has all these qualities, which is the thing itself. This something is what the philosophers call substance; the rest are accidents which it possesses. Our senses perceive accidents; only the mind knows the substance. This is true of bread, it is true of every created thing. Left to itself, the mind assumes that the substance is that which, in all its past experience, has been found to have that particular group of accidents. But in these two instances, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the mind is not left to itself. By the revelation of Christ it knows that the substance has been changed, in the one case into the substance of his body, in the other into the substance of his blood.
The senses can no more perceive the new substance resulting from the consecration than they could have perceived the substance there before. We cannot repeat too often that senses can perceive only accidents, and consecration changes only the substance. The accidents remain in their totality--for example, that which was wine and is now Christ's blood still has the smell of wine, the intoxicating power of wine. One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument. For all that instruments can do is to make contact with the accidents, and it is part of the doctrine of transubstantiation that the accidents undergo no change whatever. If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting.
The accidents, then, remain; but not, of course, as accidents of Christ's body. It is not his body which has the whiteness and the roundness and the softness. The accidents once held in existence by the substance of bread, and those others once held in existence by the substance of wine, are now held in existence solely by God's will to maintain them.
What of Christ's body, now sacramentally present? We must leave the philosophy of this for a later stage in our study. All we shall say here is that his body is wholly present, though not (so St. Thomas among others tells us) extended in space. One further element in the doctrine of the Real Presence needs to be stated: Christ's body remains in the communicant as long as the accidents remain themselves. Where, in the normal action of our bodily processes, they are so changed as to be no longer accidents of bread or accidents of wine, the Real Presence in us of Christ's own individual body ceases. But we live on in his Mystical Body.

[James the Persian]

The Real Presence simply states that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, that the bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and not just a symbol. There are three versions of this that I'm aware of, all of which agree as to the Real Presence but not as to the specifics. We (and the Oriental Orthodox) leave it as Mystery, just as we leave the details of the Incarnation as Mystery (and there is a distinct paralel here). The RCs go into this whole philosophical argument about substance and accident, which I've never got (Transubstantiation). Lutheran's and some others go along with the idea that Christ is spiritually present along with the bread and wine (Consubstantiation) but that the substance doesn't change. I don't know what else to say, really. It's a pretty easy doctrine to describe (particularly if you don't philosophise it) and basically just speaks of the reality rather than symbolic nature of the Eucharist. I would just add that Scripture, especially in the original Greek, leaves little doubt that the Real Presence is the correct and original doctrine as do the writings of the Fathers.

James

[James the Persian]

Further to my last post, and in an attempt to show the antiquity of the belief in the Real Presence, I thought that I should provide you with this quote from St. Justin Marty's first apology. I'm unsure how the LDS view St. Justin, but the text long predates Nicea (circa 150-160 AD) and therefore seems to me likely to be, even in your view, a pre-Apostasy source. As you can see, it's quite clear that the teaching of Christianity in St. Justin's era is precisely that taught by the Orthodox Church today with respect to the Eucharist, even down to the Incarnational paralels:

And this food is called among us Eukaristia [the Eucharist], of which no one is allowed to partake but the man who believes that the things which we teach are true, and who has been washed with the washing that is for the remission of sins, and unto regeneration, and who is so living as Christ has enjoined. For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these; but in like manner as Jesus Christ our Saviour, having been made flesh by the Word of God, had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so likewise have we been taught that the food which is blessed by the prayer of His word, and from which our blood and flesh by transmutation are nourished, is the flesh and blood of that Jesus who was made flesh. For the apostles, in the memoirs composed by them, which are called Gospels, have thus delivered unto us what was enjoined upon them; that Jesus took bread, and when He had given thanks, said, "This do ye in remembrance of Me, this is My body;" and that, after the same manner, having taken the cup and given thanks, He said, "This is My blood;" and gave it to them alone.

I hope this helps.

James

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by JamesThePersian

The Real Presence simply states that Christ is really present in the Eucharist, that the bread and wine are truly the Body and Blood of Christ and not just a symbol. There are three versions of this that I'm aware of, all of which agree as to the Real Presence but not as to the specifics. We (and the Oriental Orthodox) leave it as Mystery, just as we leave the details of the Incarnation as Mystery (and there is a distinct paralel here). The RCs go into this whole philosophical argument about substance and accident, which I've never got (Transubstantiation). Lutheran's and some others go along with the idea that Christ is spiritually present along with the bread and wine (Consubstantiation) but that the substance doesn't change. I don't know what else to say, really. It's a pretty easy doctrine to describe (particularly if you don't philosophise it) and basically just speaks of the reality rather than symbolic nature of the Eucharist. I would just add that Scripture, especially in the original Greek, leaves little doubt that the Real Presence is the correct and original doctrine as do the writings of the Fathers.

James

The Episcopalians kind of straddle the fence between the Orthodox and Lutheran viewpoints. They say that Christ is truly present under the physical form of bread and wine. (The nature of the bread and wine is changed because of Christ's presence, but the substance of bread and wine remains bread and wine.)

[James the Persian]

Originally Posted by sojourner

The Episcopalians kind of straddle the fence between the Orthodox and Lutheran viewpoints. They say that Christ is truly present under the physical form of bread and wine. (The nature of the bread and wine is changed because of Christ's presence, but the substance of bread and wine remains bread and wine.)

That sounds almost identical to the Lutheran position (though maybe edging a little towards the RC one). It's not really any closer to the Orthodox one, though, because we don't seek to explain the Real Presence in any way at all, just leaving it as Mystery.

James

[sojourner]

Originally Posted by JamesThePersian

That sounds almost identical to the Lutheran position (though maybe edging a little towards the RC one). It's not really any closer to the Orthodox one, though, because we don't seek to explain the Real Presence in any way at all, just leaving it as Mystery.

James

Really, the only "definitive" answer I ever heard was that the bread and wine do not actually, physically become flesh and blood. Other than that, no real attempt is made to explain it ... it just is, as you say.