Bosco Peters has posted an "essential" reading explanation of the meaning of "substance" in relation to "Transubstantiation", here.
Comments on his post should be made at his blog, not here. But I am glad to link to his post as clarity of thought on "substance" as well as on "real presence" can be lacking in discussion and debate on these matters in Anglican circles (and, as Bosco points out, Catholic circles also). The tendency is to fall prey to simplicity of thought in the face of a great mystery.
A few thoughts of my own:
- any account of the significance of the bread and wine of communion must account well for the "is" in "This is my body ... this is my blood" and do so with reference to the Synoptic and 1 Corinthians 11 accounts of the last supper, John 6 and the participatory language in 1 Corinthians 10. Broadly speaking "real presence" does this in a way which "memorialism" (all we are doing is remembering that Jesus died for us) or "representationism" (the bread represents the body of Christ etc) does not.
- there are "both/ands" involved in this mystery: Jesus is really present and (as Bosco notes) the bread and the wine are symbols - powerful symbols - and "representations" (in the sense of re-presenting to us the body and blood of Christ" and our participation matters (as those present at communion (with our bodies; together being "the body of Christ"), as those giving thanks in our hearts for what Jesus has done for us, as those eating the bread of communion and drinking the wine of communion by faith receiving these elements as the body and blood of Jesus).
Gosh you're right to focus on that "is" ("this *is* my body"), Peter. So much heavy theological traffic has crossed over that "is".
ReplyDeleteWhy do Christians literalize that "is" so much - even more so than the seven days of creation?
Jesus was a master of symbols and symbolic communication, often using parables and symbolic acts (e.g. casting money lenders out of the temple, riding into Jerusalem upon a donkey) to richly, imaginatively communicate his message. Why is the "is" not part of that world of rich, metaphorical symbolism?
In only one Gospel (Luke) is there an instruction to repeat this act - "do this to remember me" - and it is still far from certain that Jesus is referring to an actual ritual. Do what to remember him? Break bread? Share our lives with each other? Give our life and love so that others may live and come to love, too? Most of his teaching on religious practice eschews outer rituals and public displays and focusses on inner meaning and the quality of one's heart.
But the Church takes it even further to literally claim, in full throttled Catholic form, that one's salvation is dependent on participating in this outward act, and that only special church-authorized religious experts can say the necessary transformative prayers. If a well meaning lay person tries, the magic simply doesn't happen. Producing....a sort of salvation monopoly that puts the likes of Foodstuffs to shame. But this is reprehensible, theologically, surely.
If you're truly called to such a practice, sure. But Protestants have been right to expose its shaky foundations and literalizing claims to truth.
Corinthians 1: 11 begins with "the head of man is woman" etc., and that every women *must* cover her head, or "be shorn", when praying.
ReplyDeleteClearly, we have exercised our intelligence enough to discern these passages as offensive untruths, yet Paul's literalizing approach to Luke 22:19-20 and other Eucharistic advice has been adopted by many churches as core truth. Which they are entitled to do. But the beginning of Corinthians 1:11 surely shows us that truth isn't found in uncritically following this or that text, whether in regard to women and their heads or Christ's words/metaphor at the last supper.
Truth isn't found in following this or that scriptural passage, especially in a literal way, or this or that church tradition - whether of the Pauline church or Jewish church or gobostic church or Western church etc - but by thinking and discerning clearly in the present.
My husband knew an Anglican vicar in the Hutt Valley in the 1950’s who wisely said he didn’t believe in the Catholic doctrine but was certainly not going to say Christ is *not* present in the bread and wine. It’s Mystery!
ReplyDeleteAnd I believe Elizabeth I, as a young woman, saved her life in the religious disputes of the time, by a clever rhyme:
“He took the bread and brake it
And what he did and make it,
I believe and take it.”
Sorry, last line of rhyme should read:
Delete‘I do eat and take it’.
Not believing but acting…
(I don’t know how to edit.)
Yes, Christians were killed/persecuted/fined/jailed for not believing or taking part in transubstantiation. Our beliefs are soaked in blood and violence. They divide us from each other and make us go to war.
ReplyDelete