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
Heresy is any belief or theory that is strongly at variance with established beliefs or customs, particularly the accepted beliefs or religious law of a religious organization. A heretic is a proponent of heresy.
Heresy in Heresy in Christian ...
by the
Roman Catholic Church
The Catholic Church (), also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the List of Christian denominations by number of members, largest Christian church, with 1.27 to 1.41 billion baptized Catholics Catholic Church by country, worldwid ...
. It was later championed by
Edward Pusey of the
Oxford Movement, and is therefore held by many
high church
A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...
Anglicans,
seemingly contrary to the
Black Rubric of the
Book of Common Prayer. The
Irvingian Churches (such as the
New Apostolic Church
The New Apostolic Church (NAC) is a Christian denomination, Christian church of the Catholic Apostolic Church, Irvingian tradition. Its origins are in 1863, in the split from the Catholic Apostolic Church during a schism in Hamburg, Ger ...
) adhere to consubstantiation as the explanation of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
Development
In
England
England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
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
A ''high church'' is a Christian Church whose beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, Christian liturgy, liturgy, and Christian theology, theology emphasize "ritual, priestly authority, ndsacraments," and a standard liturgy. Although ...
Anglican
Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...
s 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.
[ 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.][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
Impanation (Latin: ''impanatio'', "embodied in bread") is a high medieval theory of the real presence of the body of Jesus Christ in the consecrated bread of the Eucharist that does not imply a change in the substance of either the bread or the ...
* Real presence of Christ in the Eucharist
* Transignification
References
{{Authority control
Lutheran Eucharistic theology
Eucharist
Christian terminology