Consubstantiation is a Christian theological doctrine that (like transubstantiation) describes the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. It holds that during the sacrament, the substance of the body and blood of Christ are present alongside the substance of the bread and wine, which remain present.
It was part of the doctrines of Lollardy, and considered a heresy by the Catholic Church. It was later championed by Edward Pusey of the Oxford Movement, and is therefore held by many high church Anglicans, seemingly contrary to the Black Rubric of the Book of Common Prayer. The Irvingian Churches (such as the New Apostolic Church) adhere to consubstantiation as the explanation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Lutherans affirm the physical presence of Christ's body and blood alongside the bread and wine, but typically reject the label of "consubstantiation" as an oversimplification.
Contrary to this, many modern Protestants, particularly within Baptist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Continental Reformed, and non-denominational traditions, view the Lord's Supper as a memorial or an "ordinance" rather than a sacrament that conveys the physical presence of Christ.
Development
In England in the late 14th century, there was a political and religious movement known as Lollardy. Among much broader goals, the Lollards affirmed a form of consubstantiation—that the Eucharist remained physically bread and wine, while becoming spiritually the body and blood of Christ. Lollardy survived up until the time of the English Reformation.
Whilst ultimately rejected by him on account of the authority of the Church of Rome, William of Ockham entertains a version of consubstantiation in his Fourth Quodlibet, Question 30, where he claims that "the substance of the bread and the substance of the wine remain there and that the substance of the body of Christ remains in the same place, together with the substance of the bread".
Literary critic Kenneth Burke's dramatism takes this concept and utilizes it in secular rhetorical theory to look at the dialectic of unity and difference within the context of logology.
The doctrine of consubstantiation is often held in contrast to the doctrine of transubstantiation.
To explain the manner of Christ's presence in Holy Communion, many high church Anglicans teach the philosophical explanation of consubstantiation. A major leader in the Anglo-Catholic Oxford Movement, Edward Pusey, championed the view of consubstantiation. Pusey's view is that:
The Irvingian Churches adhere to the doctrine of consubstantiation; for example, The Catechism of the New Apostolic Church states:
The term consubstantiation has been used to describe Martin Luther's Eucharistic doctrine, the sacramental union.F. L. Cross, ed., The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, second edition, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1974), 340 sub loco.Weimar Ausgabe 26, 442; Luther's Works 37, 299–300. Lutheran theologians reject the term because it refers to a philosophical construct that they believe differs from the Lutheran doctrine of the sacramental union, denotes a mixing of substances (bread and wine with body and blood), and suggests a "gross, Capernaitic, carnal" presence of the body and blood of Christ.J. T. Mueller, Christian Dogmatics: A Handbook of Doctrinal Theology (St. Louis: CPH, 1934), 519.Erwin L. Lueker, Christian Cyclopedia, (St. Louis: CPH, 1975), "consubstantiation".Formula of Concord, Epitome, VII.42 and Solid Declaration VII.127 in F. Bente, Triglot Concordia, (St Louis: CPH, 1921), 817, 1015.
See also
- Eucharistic theology
- Impanation
- Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
- Transignification