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In Germany, all the Lutheran Churches have called their doctrine of the Lord's Supper "consubstantiation". It is even said that the term was first used by Melanchthon, a friend of Luther. I was raised a Lutheran and our family was Lutheran for more than 400 years. And I am a descendant of a family called Luther once living in Wittenberg. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.175.138.135 ( talk) 17:46, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Consubstantiation is contrary to Lutheran belief. I am a pastor of the ELCA for 16 years and hold a both a master and doctorial degree from two different ELCA seminaries. The central issue is that consubstantiation finds the locus of Christ along side the elements of bread and wine. Luther's teaching of the real presence is that Christ's body and blood is found "in, through and under" (a direct phase from the Luthean Catechism)the elements of bread and wine. Although I am not an expert in Calvinism, I have some understanding that their belief is in line with a theology of consubstantiation - in that there is a "eucharistic Calvinistic extra" where Christ is pressent in a "spiritual" way along side the individual receiving the eucherist. I believe that Calvin's concern was with Christ being on the right hand of the Father, and in the elements of Holy Communion, at the same time. Luther and Lutherans respond to the duplicity of Christ presence presented by Calvin's concern with God's ubiquity.
Your connection between Lutheranism and consubstantiation in Lutheran theology is inaccurate and should be removed. You are misleading readers and providing false information. This is most certianly true.
The following is copied directly from the ELCA website: elca.org
What Sacraments Do Lutherans Accept?
Lutherans accept two Sacraments as God-given means for penetrating the lives of people with his grace. Although they are not the only means of God's self-revelation, Baptism and Holy Communion are visible acts of God's love.
In Baptism, and it can be seen more clearly in infant Baptism, God freely offers his grace and lovingly establishes a new community. It is in Baptism that people become members of Christ's Body on earth, the Church. In Holy Communion -- often called the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist -- those who come to the table receive in bread and wine the body and blood of their Lord. This gift is itself the real presence of God's forgiveness and mercy, nourishing believers in union with their Lord and with each other
138.163.160.43 05:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC) The Rev. Dr. Brian J. Stamm
I reverted the removal of Lutheranism as an example for a denomination believing something. This denomination is based on Martin Luther's teachings. So read the Large Catechism section about the Sacrament of the Altar and you see that quite clearly. Awolf002 02:43, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
http://joelbrondos.worldmagblog.com/joelbrondos/archives/003188.html Lutherans Deny Consubstantiation
http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=C&word=CONSUBSTANTIATION Consubstantiation View, falsely charged to Lutheranism
These two links were added and I moved them here for discussion. It seems that we will need some input from a theological inclined person to explain the difference between "consubstantiation" and "sacramental" to figure out what Lutherans believe. Help, please!! Awolf002 20:46, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A cry for help is always good. Since we are in a discussion area here is my view, from the way I understand the difference: Consubstantiation is a "loaded" term, meaning that it can mean more than one thing and is commonly used to twist meanings on things. At one time, it was viewed that consubstantiation was the opposite of Transub. in a duopoly of the two arguments. If you were for transub. you were fore consub. At this time Transub. was used to describe the priest turning the elements into the real thing. Consub was any other differing teaching.
Later it became that consub. was an explanation of what the elements changed into. So instead of it describing when or how it happened it turned into Consub. being what the new substance was.
Even later, as a Roman Catholic Priest explained to me that the new definitions are that Transub is the belief/faith of the priest turning the bread and wine into the real thing and that Consub is the belief/faith of the taker turning it into the real thing.
How then can we clarify things? I agree that "Consubstantiation" is loaded. But how can we define it now? Awolf002 21:09, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Describing the various things I put in the discussion above in a more formalized way might be a good start, what do you think? Ill have to think of the best way.
Maybe we could contrast things in a clearer way, so that it is more obvious what the "sticking points" are. I like the first link, which seems to have some of that. Awolf002 21:39, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I edited the article, because it was too POV in its previous form. Clearly some Lutherans believe in consubstantiation (I do, for example), while others do not. I do not know which belief is more common, so I said that many present-day Lutherans reject this term. I would be curious to know what the status of "consubstantiation" is with each of the major Lutheran denominations: ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELCIC, Evangelical Church in Germany, the Churches of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc. I am fairly certain that consubstantiation was taught in my ELCIC confirmation class many years ago, essentially as a synonym for "in, with, and under".
BTW, I removed the link to the LCMS document about eucharistic theology simply because the document does not contain the word "consubstantiation" and did not appear to address the issue at all. That document would be better linked on one of the other pages on Eucharistic theology, such as Eucharistic theologies contrasted.-- Srleffler 05:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I'd like to affirm the article as it's written; Srleffler is correct, the confusion is that Luther's theology of the eucharist can be taken two ways; the first, which is commonly ascribed to the word 'consubstantiation,' is the iron and fire usage you have here, in which two things exist /as/ the same entity. The second is the "in, with, and under" terminology used elsewhere, which would present a seperation between element and divinity, but having both occupy the same physical space in time. The second definition is the most widely accepted within the Lutheran traditions, although many accept the second, yet believe that in the second, the first is implied. The overall point to make is that Luther himself spoke against defining it too specifically; he was much more interested in adhering to the ideal of Real Presence, being that there was a physical presence in the element (as opposed to merely a spiritual one -- he held that in the bread and wine one receives the full physical and spiritual being of Christ); how that physical presense was in the element was less of a concern in his theology. Peace to you all, User:Deleted_user_jj1 06:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC) (Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg)
Encyclopedias do not begin by describing exceptions to definitions or situations that have not yet been clearly defined. This just creates confusion. Tonedeafyodler ( talk) 17:35, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I added a "See also" and we need to make this article consistent with the Eucharist list of theologies. Awolf002 23:34, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"the change occurs only upon receipt of the communion by the believer." This line expresses the doctrine of the Wisconsin Synod, which is not shared by all lutherans.
http://members.aol.com/SemperRef/venerable.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1700-talet ( talk • contribs) 16:45, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
The Wisconsin Synod is a tiny minority church with a membership of 369,000 /info/en/?search=Wisconsin_Evangelical_Lutheran_Synod compared with 3.6 million members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America /info/en/?search=Evangelical_Lutheran_Church_in_America It is not what most outsiders think of when they say the words "Lutheran" and it's views should not be taken as representative — Preceding unsigned comment added by Father Edmund ( talk • contribs) 23:33, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Wasn't Wycliffe a believer in consubstantiation?
Everyone seems to think that Lutherans believe this, but apparently they don't. But if they don't, who does? It seems a bit disconcerting to have a term describing a theology which no one (apparently) believes in.... who invented this term? who popularised it? was it invented by someone who agreed with it, or was it invented by someone as a characterisation of their opponents (e.g. Catholic opponents of Lutheranism)? We need to answer these questions in this article. -- SJK 11:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Luther rejected transubstantiation (1) because he didn't think that aristotlean metaphysics were useful in helping Christians understand the work of God, and (2) he didn't think that there should be a required philosophical understanding of the mysteries of God.
Luther (personally) rejected transub., but allowed that others could still hold to transub. as a matter of conscience. The objection many Lutherans have to "consubstantiation" is that it implies a reliance on the aristotlean metaphysic (same basic prob. as transub.) and it implies that there is only one way for Lutherans to understand the presence of Christ.
Consubstantiation, historically, was a term applied by those outside of the Lutheran tradition to describe the sacramental theology of Lutherans. Some Lutherans adapted the term for of ease of use. The more traditional Lutheran description is to say that the body & blood of Christ are present "in, with, & under (or through)" the elements of bread and wine (leave the question of precisely how this occurs unanswered). I think the best treatment of this, in Luther's corpus, is his Treatise on the New Testament, which is the Mass. Pastordavid 08:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Martin Luther's mature eucharistic doctrine was not consubstantiation. To associate his doctrine with consubstantiation is a factual error. I have removed the section, which states this in the article. It is also erroneous to identify the eucharistic doctrine of Eastern Orthodoxy with this term. Consubstantiation was a eucharistic theory developed in medieval nominalism (the school of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Pierre d'Ailly), Luther, who was educated by nominalists may have been receptive to their doctrines before he formulated his own theology.-- Drboisclair 23:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The opening of this article says that the theory of consubstantiation was "advocated by medieval nominalists such as Duns Scotus", citing Bengt Hagglund's "History of Theology" as a source. This conflicts with the article on Duns Scotus, which says, "Duns Scotus was a scholastic realist (as opposed to a nominalist)" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duns_Scotus#Metaphysics).
So there is that contradiction. But moreso I think the claim that Duns Scotus advocated the theory of consubstantiation should be disputed. W. J. Torrance Kirby (citing James F. McCue, in "The Doctrine of Transubstantiation", page 105) in his book "Richard Hooker and the English Reformation", argues on page 156 that "Duns Scotus stated that transubstantiation was the only orthodox position. Scotus argued in the interest of defending the authority of the post-apostolic church even though no inherent or necessary connection to the doctrine of the real presence could be found in Scripture or developed through reason." (See
[1]|here.)
So what are we to do? Who do we trust? I think we should trust James McCue and Kirby, because if we go with Hagglund we must retain a contradiction. We should at least post a "disputed - discuss" thingy on the sentence in question.
76.1.4.142 (
talk)
21:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)Dmar198
I recently said that consubstantiation is used by Burke and it was reverted. The citation shows that consubstantiation is what was being used. It isn't a problem of disambiguation as the rhetorical move of religious consubstantiation is exactly what Burke was talking about, just generalized to rhetoric as a whole and not limited to religious rhetoric. I'm going to revert the reversion because it is relevant to the topic and properly cited. Reversion of well documented information should be spoken about here first.
Saylors ( talk) 03:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The aforementioned Church Fathers believed in consubstantiation?
I feel that the exposed material is original research, since the fathers of the Church doubt that they have approved this doctrine.-- Rafaelosornio ( talk) 11:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
This article could do more to contrast the doctrine of transubstantiation with the doctrine of consubstantiation, noting how the Roman Catholic Church favoured the former and Martin Luther the latter. It could also refer to how the doctrine of consubstantiation contrasts with the position of Ulrich Zwingli, who said that when Jesus said at the Last Supper "This is my blood" and "This is my body", He was talking symbolically, so we should interpret the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist in a symbolic way. Rollo August ( talk) 21:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)
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In Germany, all the Lutheran Churches have called their doctrine of the Lord's Supper "consubstantiation". It is even said that the term was first used by Melanchthon, a friend of Luther. I was raised a Lutheran and our family was Lutheran for more than 400 years. And I am a descendant of a family called Luther once living in Wittenberg. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.175.138.135 ( talk) 17:46, 2 February 2018 (UTC)
Consubstantiation is contrary to Lutheran belief. I am a pastor of the ELCA for 16 years and hold a both a master and doctorial degree from two different ELCA seminaries. The central issue is that consubstantiation finds the locus of Christ along side the elements of bread and wine. Luther's teaching of the real presence is that Christ's body and blood is found "in, through and under" (a direct phase from the Luthean Catechism)the elements of bread and wine. Although I am not an expert in Calvinism, I have some understanding that their belief is in line with a theology of consubstantiation - in that there is a "eucharistic Calvinistic extra" where Christ is pressent in a "spiritual" way along side the individual receiving the eucherist. I believe that Calvin's concern was with Christ being on the right hand of the Father, and in the elements of Holy Communion, at the same time. Luther and Lutherans respond to the duplicity of Christ presence presented by Calvin's concern with God's ubiquity.
Your connection between Lutheranism and consubstantiation in Lutheran theology is inaccurate and should be removed. You are misleading readers and providing false information. This is most certianly true.
The following is copied directly from the ELCA website: elca.org
What Sacraments Do Lutherans Accept?
Lutherans accept two Sacraments as God-given means for penetrating the lives of people with his grace. Although they are not the only means of God's self-revelation, Baptism and Holy Communion are visible acts of God's love.
In Baptism, and it can be seen more clearly in infant Baptism, God freely offers his grace and lovingly establishes a new community. It is in Baptism that people become members of Christ's Body on earth, the Church. In Holy Communion -- often called the Lord's Supper or the Eucharist -- those who come to the table receive in bread and wine the body and blood of their Lord. This gift is itself the real presence of God's forgiveness and mercy, nourishing believers in union with their Lord and with each other
138.163.160.43 05:03, 23 March 2007 (UTC) The Rev. Dr. Brian J. Stamm
I reverted the removal of Lutheranism as an example for a denomination believing something. This denomination is based on Martin Luther's teachings. So read the Large Catechism section about the Sacrament of the Altar and you see that quite clearly. Awolf002 02:43, 5 Jun 2004 (UTC)
http://joelbrondos.worldmagblog.com/joelbrondos/archives/003188.html Lutherans Deny Consubstantiation
http://www.lcms.org/ca/www/cyclopedia/02/display.asp?t1=C&word=CONSUBSTANTIATION Consubstantiation View, falsely charged to Lutheranism
These two links were added and I moved them here for discussion. It seems that we will need some input from a theological inclined person to explain the difference between "consubstantiation" and "sacramental" to figure out what Lutherans believe. Help, please!! Awolf002 20:46, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
A cry for help is always good. Since we are in a discussion area here is my view, from the way I understand the difference: Consubstantiation is a "loaded" term, meaning that it can mean more than one thing and is commonly used to twist meanings on things. At one time, it was viewed that consubstantiation was the opposite of Transub. in a duopoly of the two arguments. If you were for transub. you were fore consub. At this time Transub. was used to describe the priest turning the elements into the real thing. Consub was any other differing teaching.
Later it became that consub. was an explanation of what the elements changed into. So instead of it describing when or how it happened it turned into Consub. being what the new substance was.
Even later, as a Roman Catholic Priest explained to me that the new definitions are that Transub is the belief/faith of the priest turning the bread and wine into the real thing and that Consub is the belief/faith of the taker turning it into the real thing.
How then can we clarify things? I agree that "Consubstantiation" is loaded. But how can we define it now? Awolf002 21:09, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
Describing the various things I put in the discussion above in a more formalized way might be a good start, what do you think? Ill have to think of the best way.
Maybe we could contrast things in a clearer way, so that it is more obvious what the "sticking points" are. I like the first link, which seems to have some of that. Awolf002 21:39, 11 Dec 2004 (UTC)
I edited the article, because it was too POV in its previous form. Clearly some Lutherans believe in consubstantiation (I do, for example), while others do not. I do not know which belief is more common, so I said that many present-day Lutherans reject this term. I would be curious to know what the status of "consubstantiation" is with each of the major Lutheran denominations: ELCA, LCMS, WELS, ELCIC, Evangelical Church in Germany, the Churches of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, etc. I am fairly certain that consubstantiation was taught in my ELCIC confirmation class many years ago, essentially as a synonym for "in, with, and under".
BTW, I removed the link to the LCMS document about eucharistic theology simply because the document does not contain the word "consubstantiation" and did not appear to address the issue at all. That document would be better linked on one of the other pages on Eucharistic theology, such as Eucharistic theologies contrasted.-- Srleffler 05:40, 3 November 2005 (UTC)
For what it's worth, I'd like to affirm the article as it's written; Srleffler is correct, the confusion is that Luther's theology of the eucharist can be taken two ways; the first, which is commonly ascribed to the word 'consubstantiation,' is the iron and fire usage you have here, in which two things exist /as/ the same entity. The second is the "in, with, and under" terminology used elsewhere, which would present a seperation between element and divinity, but having both occupy the same physical space in time. The second definition is the most widely accepted within the Lutheran traditions, although many accept the second, yet believe that in the second, the first is implied. The overall point to make is that Luther himself spoke against defining it too specifically; he was much more interested in adhering to the ideal of Real Presence, being that there was a physical presence in the element (as opposed to merely a spiritual one -- he held that in the bread and wine one receives the full physical and spiritual being of Christ); how that physical presense was in the element was less of a concern in his theology. Peace to you all, User:Deleted_user_jj1 06:20, 12 February 2006 (UTC) (Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg)
Encyclopedias do not begin by describing exceptions to definitions or situations that have not yet been clearly defined. This just creates confusion. Tonedeafyodler ( talk) 17:35, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I added a "See also" and we need to make this article consistent with the Eucharist list of theologies. Awolf002 23:34, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
"the change occurs only upon receipt of the communion by the believer." This line expresses the doctrine of the Wisconsin Synod, which is not shared by all lutherans.
http://members.aol.com/SemperRef/venerable.html — Preceding unsigned comment added by 1700-talet ( talk • contribs) 16:45, 29 July 2005 (UTC)
The Wisconsin Synod is a tiny minority church with a membership of 369,000 /info/en/?search=Wisconsin_Evangelical_Lutheran_Synod compared with 3.6 million members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America /info/en/?search=Evangelical_Lutheran_Church_in_America It is not what most outsiders think of when they say the words "Lutheran" and it's views should not be taken as representative — Preceding unsigned comment added by Father Edmund ( talk • contribs) 23:33, 11 February 2018 (UTC)
Wasn't Wycliffe a believer in consubstantiation?
Everyone seems to think that Lutherans believe this, but apparently they don't. But if they don't, who does? It seems a bit disconcerting to have a term describing a theology which no one (apparently) believes in.... who invented this term? who popularised it? was it invented by someone who agreed with it, or was it invented by someone as a characterisation of their opponents (e.g. Catholic opponents of Lutheranism)? We need to answer these questions in this article. -- SJK 11:46, 25 March 2006 (UTC)
Luther rejected transubstantiation (1) because he didn't think that aristotlean metaphysics were useful in helping Christians understand the work of God, and (2) he didn't think that there should be a required philosophical understanding of the mysteries of God.
Luther (personally) rejected transub., but allowed that others could still hold to transub. as a matter of conscience. The objection many Lutherans have to "consubstantiation" is that it implies a reliance on the aristotlean metaphysic (same basic prob. as transub.) and it implies that there is only one way for Lutherans to understand the presence of Christ.
Consubstantiation, historically, was a term applied by those outside of the Lutheran tradition to describe the sacramental theology of Lutherans. Some Lutherans adapted the term for of ease of use. The more traditional Lutheran description is to say that the body & blood of Christ are present "in, with, & under (or through)" the elements of bread and wine (leave the question of precisely how this occurs unanswered). I think the best treatment of this, in Luther's corpus, is his Treatise on the New Testament, which is the Mass. Pastordavid 08:06, 15 December 2006 (UTC)
Martin Luther's mature eucharistic doctrine was not consubstantiation. To associate his doctrine with consubstantiation is a factual error. I have removed the section, which states this in the article. It is also erroneous to identify the eucharistic doctrine of Eastern Orthodoxy with this term. Consubstantiation was a eucharistic theory developed in medieval nominalism (the school of Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, and Pierre d'Ailly), Luther, who was educated by nominalists may have been receptive to their doctrines before he formulated his own theology.-- Drboisclair 23:13, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
The opening of this article says that the theory of consubstantiation was "advocated by medieval nominalists such as Duns Scotus", citing Bengt Hagglund's "History of Theology" as a source. This conflicts with the article on Duns Scotus, which says, "Duns Scotus was a scholastic realist (as opposed to a nominalist)" (see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duns_Scotus#Metaphysics).
So there is that contradiction. But moreso I think the claim that Duns Scotus advocated the theory of consubstantiation should be disputed. W. J. Torrance Kirby (citing James F. McCue, in "The Doctrine of Transubstantiation", page 105) in his book "Richard Hooker and the English Reformation", argues on page 156 that "Duns Scotus stated that transubstantiation was the only orthodox position. Scotus argued in the interest of defending the authority of the post-apostolic church even though no inherent or necessary connection to the doctrine of the real presence could be found in Scripture or developed through reason." (See
[1]|here.)
So what are we to do? Who do we trust? I think we should trust James McCue and Kirby, because if we go with Hagglund we must retain a contradiction. We should at least post a "disputed - discuss" thingy on the sentence in question.
76.1.4.142 (
talk)
21:45, 5 January 2008 (UTC)Dmar198
I recently said that consubstantiation is used by Burke and it was reverted. The citation shows that consubstantiation is what was being used. It isn't a problem of disambiguation as the rhetorical move of religious consubstantiation is exactly what Burke was talking about, just generalized to rhetoric as a whole and not limited to religious rhetoric. I'm going to revert the reversion because it is relevant to the topic and properly cited. Reversion of well documented information should be spoken about here first.
Saylors ( talk) 03:13, 1 November 2012 (UTC)
The aforementioned Church Fathers believed in consubstantiation?
I feel that the exposed material is original research, since the fathers of the Church doubt that they have approved this doctrine.-- Rafaelosornio ( talk) 11:10, 16 June 2020 (UTC)
This article could do more to contrast the doctrine of transubstantiation with the doctrine of consubstantiation, noting how the Roman Catholic Church favoured the former and Martin Luther the latter. It could also refer to how the doctrine of consubstantiation contrasts with the position of Ulrich Zwingli, who said that when Jesus said at the Last Supper "This is my blood" and "This is my body", He was talking symbolically, so we should interpret the presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist in a symbolic way. Rollo August ( talk) 21:24, 6 June 2021 (UTC)