The rational explanation of the Eucharist is at the centre of a revived debate in philosophical theology. After describing gunk-relational ontology, I show how it allows us to understand transubstantiation differently than other traditional and contemporary accounts, from which it draws a few points but combining them in a new way. In gunk-relational ontology every substance is its own relations, which constitute a gunky fundamental reality. The liturgical celebration of the Last Supper therefore creates a new relational situation for (...) the bread: the substance of the bread (its relations) profoundly changes its nature. (shrink)

This article focuses on the question of whether the doctrine of the real presence of Christ's body and blood, and likewise the doctrine of the real absence of bread and wine, can be defended philosophically. It argues for an affirmative answer, and does so by considering a variety of metaphysical models, including that of Aquinas. It will appear, thus, that transubstantiation is a philosophical possibility. If it is possible for two substances to be in the same place at the same (...) time, consubstantiation will be a philosophical possibility as well. Of course, the question of actuality is a theological one. (shrink)

Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox theologians claim that the unique event of Christ’s sacrifice on Calvary is present in Eucharistic liturgies. A popular explanatory strategy for this miraculous presence suggests that due to its supernatural character the Eucharist “conquers time,” transcends its boundaries, and allows for temporal coincidence of two chronologically distant events. I discuss the four main approaches within this strategy that can be discovered in contemporary theological writings. The first approach implies a time travel of the Calvary (...) event. The second suggests the time travel of Eucharistic participants. The third eliminates the chronological distance by relocating one of the events into a timeless reality. The fourth assumes multilocation of the event across time. I argue that each of these approaches is untenable on philosophical or theological grounds. (shrink)

ABSTRACTThe doctrine of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist presents a particular challenge to its defenders: how is it so much as intelligible? This paper explores Dummett’s response to this question, centred on the notion of deeming. Whilst instructive, Dummett’s position is unsustainable as it stands, since it fails to secure the meaningfulness of the doctrine. Once deeming is brought together with an account of bodiliness and an appreciation of the nature of the Eucharist as a (...) meal, however, the way is open to demonstrating the intelligibility of the doctrine. This is a prerequisite even for its rejection as false. (shrink)

Since Bonaventure never wrote a treatise dedicated to the Eucharist, his extensive treatment in the fourth book of his commentary on Peter Lombard's Sentences, which covers many of the topics that would have comprised such a work, stands as his most extensive discussion. In it the Seraphic Doctor considers, among other things, the symbolism of the Eucharist, its connection to the imagery of the Old Testament, the metaphysics of transubstantiation, and the efficacy of the sacrament in the heart (...) of the believer. The result is a treatment that in many ways parallels the doctrine of Thomas Aquinas, yet is distinctively Bonaventurean. This volume presents a translation of this discussion in its entirety, together with the Latin text of the Quaracchi edition. Professor Johnson's introduction situates this text in the larger development of medieval Eucharistic doctrine and comments extensively on the theology of this set of questions. In addition to explaining dense technical and linguistic issues in the text, the notes key the reader to Bonaventure's rich inheritance of material in the Fathers and in earlier medieval theologians. (shrink)

The Eucharist is at the heart of Christian worship and at the heart of the Eucharist are the curious phrases, 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'. James M. Arcadi offers a constructive proposal for understanding Christ's presence in the Eucharist that draws on contemporary conceptual resources and is faithful to the history of interpretation. He locates his proposal along a spectrum of Eucharistic theories. Arcadi explores the motif of God's presence related to divine omnipresence (...) and special presence in holy places, which undergirds a biblical-theological proposal concerning Christ's presence. Utilizing recent work in speech-act theory, Arcadi probes the acts of consecration and renaming in their biblical and liturgical contexts. A thorough examination of recent work in Christology leads to an action model of the Incarnation that borrows the notion of enabling externalism from philosophy of mind. These threads undergird a model of Christ's presence in the Eucharist. (shrink)

This contribution recommends a re-thinking of Christian traditions with regards to sacraments and use of technology in the context of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. It is a comparative study that employed field observations from two congregations with different traditions: one from Protestant Reformed tradition and another from Pentecostal Charismatic background to analyse how they conducted Holy Communion services. By highlighting positive aspects of COVID-19 disruptions on traditional practices, the study challenged traditional understanding of 'sacred space' and re-appropriates the virtual (...) role of a priest as symbolic embodiment of the presence of Christ extended through virtual, audio and tele-visual presence. The contribution also demonstrated how ontological questions help us discern what separates the sacred from the secular and concluded that the transformative nature of the sacrament of the Holy Communion has a uniquely power-levelling role in communities. CONTRIBUTION: This article contributes to conversations on the role of technology in sacraments within the Reformed Christian tradition and presents a systematic and practical reflection on the intersecting modes of sacramental practices within different Christian traditions. (shrink)

One cannot deny that the person of Christ is present in the Eucharist, on a Catholic interpretation, but the term ‘person’ is rarely, if ever, used in formulas or theology describing the Eucharist. Moreover, the understanding conveyed by Scriptural imagery of the Eucharist, such as the Passover Lamb or our spiritual food, is rather sub-personal. In this chapter, I argue instead that the role of the person of Christ is most clearly perceived in the sacrificial action within (...) which the Eucharist is embedded in every Mass. I argue that the Mass is related to Calvary in a specifically second-personal sense, in which we are equipped to love with God what God loves, and sacrifice with God what God sacrifices. On this account, the focus of the Eucharist is not on communicating the incommunicable person of Christ but being formed as an adopted divine person. Also on this account, salvation is not about becoming slightly better human beings but being formed as children of God. (shrink)

In chapters 9 and 10 of their book Roman but Not Catholic, Kenneth Collins and Jerry Walls criticize the Roman Catholic positions on the Eucharist as a sacrifice and on the ministerial priesthood. I reply to their historical and theological objections, and defend the belief that the Eucharistic sacrifice, the Mass, is a re-presentation, or making present, of Jesus’s redemptive sacrifice on Calvary, and a key component in God’s incarnational strategy for redeeming us.

This article aims to bring some work in contemporary analytic metaphysics to discussions of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I will show that some unusual claims of the Real Presence doctrine exactly parallel what would be happening in the world if objects were to time-travel in certain ways. Such time-travel would make ordinary objects multiply located, and in the relevantly analogous respects. If it is conceptually coherent that objects behave in this way, we have a model (...) for the behaviour of the Eucharist which shows the doctrine to be coherent, at least with respect to the issues discussed. (shrink)

The forms of bread and wine can be understood to be amogs a series of symbols representing the presence of the Lord. The object of the celebration is this presence, not the symbols. This can be observed in the history of the Christian tradition.

It may come as a surprise to readers familiar with the life and work of the Arts Master that he discusses the Eucharist at all. As he likes to remind us, theological topics are generally out of his wheelhouse. Even so, in his Questions on the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle (QM) 4.6, Buridan takes the sacrament of the Eucharist as a key data point in his discussion of Aristotle’s Categories. In the Eucharist, the accidents of the bread and (...) wine—their color, texture, and so on—remain intact, but the underlying substance is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. Accordingly, God can preserve accidents independent of their underlying substance. Therefore, for our part we can use accidental terms, like whiteness, without connoting any substances, like communion bread. Moreover, it follows that, contrary to Aristotle, substance and the accidental categories are not the most general genera. Instead, being (ens) is, as Buridan concludes. Here, I trace Buridan’s thought on the metaphysical and semantic matters of substance in light of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is for him not only a theological truth, but a metaphysical and semantic datum as well. I conclude by asking why Buridan did not take any and all questions about the Eucharist to be out of his ken. What does this tell us about his attitude toward theology? This paper also includes, as an appendix, the first ever English translation of the question under discussion (QM 4.6): “Does the term being (ens) signify substances and accidents by one single concept or notion?”. (shrink)

The Eucharist, as a pillar of Christian life and faith, stands at the center of the Mass. It bears multi-dimensional meanings and functions, each of which addresses a different aspect of Christian life and mindset. The study resonates dialectically between the Eucharist as a unique religious affirmation of faith and philosophical strategies that are developed to meet its challenges, particularly the rational frameworks by which the believer affirms that the consecrated bread and wine are Christ’s body and blood. (...) On the one hand, the philosophical examination offers new perspectives to understand the Eucharist and its influence on the faithful; on the other hand, the Eucharist and the unique challenges it poses allow us to examine man’s relation to reality within the colors of faith. It will be argued that Edward Schillebeeckx’s discussion of the Eucharist, particularly his attempt to bridge between reality and the symbolic sphere, accords with Heidegger’s reevaluation of the question of Being. The present reading limits itself to the encounter between the mind and the phenomenon and does not proceed to the meaning of the Eucharist as part of the Mass and the crucifixion of Christ. However, the focus of the article is not on the phenomenon but rather on the existential position of the subject and his orientation toward reality. (shrink)

This paper wishes to make a contribution to the study of how seventeenth-century scholasticism adapted to the new intellectual challenges presented by the Reformation. I focus in particular on the theory of accidents, which Reformed scholastic philosophers explored in search of a philosophical understanding of the rejection of the Catholic and Lutheran interpretations of the Eucharist. I argue that the Calvinist scholastics chose the view that actual inherence is part of the essence of accidents because it was coherent with (...) their theology. In this paper, I bring to attention the Reformed scholastic philosophy which was taught in the Scottish universities in the first half of the seventeenth century, an area so far neglected by scholars. In so doing, I compare Scottish scholasticism with coeval Calvinist sources, and highlight the differences from authoritative Catholic and Lutheran philosophers. The conclusion is that Calvinist scholasticism, both Scottish and Continental, brought about fundamental changes in seventeenth-century metaphysics, which are coherent with a humanist interpretation of Aristotle, and anticipate some themes of early modern philosophy. (shrink)

Within Descartes' philosophy, the problem of the Eucharist provides scholars the occasion to investigate a nexus of questions belonging to different domains of his thought. In taking up this problem, about which there has been much written in the past few decades , I hope first of all to discern some order in the texts themselves, as well also as in their various interpretations, and then, from there, to propose a new perspective.

Christian theology on the Eucharist, already since the Gospel of John refers to the scarcity and abundance of food, by linking this Sacrament to the hunger suffered by the Israelites in the desert and their further satiation with manna from heaven. Saint Albert the Great, in his reflection on the Eucharist, includes several ideas taken from his scientific knowledge, especially from Aristotle. These considerations build one of his personal contributions to theological understanding of the spiritualis manducatio that takes (...) place in the Holy Mass. These explanations will be explored in order to understand in which sense the Eucharist is true food and true drink. (shrink)

L'article est basé sur une conférence donnée au Victoria and Albert Muséum à Londres en Mai 2000. Il retrace l'enseignement sur l'eucharistie à travers les vingt et un conciles traditionnellement considérés oecuméniques par l'Eglise Catholique Romaine, de Nicée à Vatican II . Tous les conciles n'ont pas parlé de l'eucharistie; mais ceux qui l'ont fait ont apporté de profondes intuitions sur le sacrement central du Christianisme. L'auteur résume ces développements comme suit: …les premiers conciles se préoccupent en priorité des personnes (...) présentes à l'eucharistie; les conciles du Moyen-Age et celui de Trente tournent leur attention vers le prêtre, les objets employés pour faire l'eucharistie, et spécialement la présence du Christ. Vatican II renoue avec la préoccupation de l'ancienne Eglise pour les gens présents a l'eucharistie, mais avec des intérêts différents. (shrink)

Descartes divides his treatment of the theology of the Eucharist into two closely related questions: the problem of real accidents and the problem of real presence. Scholarly work has tended to focus on the first question. Its overrepresentation in the secondary literature is understandable in light of Descartes’s preoccupation with real accidents and his reluctance to take a position on the Eucharistic presence. Despite this imbalance, I take a closer look at Descartes’s views on the second question by collecting (...) some scattered evidence from his published and (in his lifetime) unpublished works. I argue for two related points. First, I show that, read against the theological requirements of his time, Descartes’s explanations of real presence were doomed to failure not because he was unable to cope with the miracle, but because his physics, hampered by necessitarian constraints, lacked the resources to deal with ordinary objects (such as bread and wine and human bodies). Second, Descartes’s sustained attempt to explain the problem of the Eucharist in the face of difficulties is indicative of an important facet of his philosophy. Rather than declaring, as many of his followers would cautiously do, that nothing is impossible for the Almighty, he endeavored to bridge the principles of his new physics with the ordinary perception of the world around us in our daily life. (shrink)

It may come as a surprise to readers familiar with the life and work of the Arts Master that he discusses the Eucharist at all. As he likes to remind us, theological topics are generally out of his wheelhouse. Even so, in his Questions on the “Metaphysics” of Aristotle (QM) 4.6, Buridan takes the sacrament of the Eucharist as a key data point in his discussion of Aristotle’s categories. In the Eucharist, the accidents of the bread and (...) wine—their color, texture, and so on—remain intact, but the underlying substance is transubstantiated into the body and blood of Christ. Accordingly, God can preserve accidents independent of their underlying substance. Therefore, for our part we can use abstract accidental terms, like whiteness, without connoting any substances, like communion bread. Moreover, it follows that, contrary to Aristotle, substance and the accidental categories are not the most general genera. Instead, being (ens) is, as Buridan concludes. Here, I trace Buridan’s thought on the metaphysical and semantic matters of substance in light of the Eucharist. The Eucharist is for him not only a theological truth, but a metaphysical and semantic datum as well. I conclude by asking why Buridan did not take any and all questions about the Eucharist to be out of his ken. What does this tell us about his attitude toward theology?This paper also includes, as an appendix, the first ever English translation of the question under discussion (QM 4.6): “Does the term being [ens] signify substances and accidents by one single concept or notion?”. (shrink)

Catholics normally approach the Eucharist with great love and devotion. The paper looks at how, through the character, Papa, the reality of this love and devotion to the Eucharist is captured by the Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Adichie, in her novel, Purple Hibiscus . The novel reveals that while Papa, in various ways, shows great love and devotion to Christ in the Eucharist, his devotion remains inauthentic: it does not lead him to a love of this same Christ (...) in his neighbour. The work, therefore, underscores not only the nexus between theology and creative literature, but also, in a special way, the social implications of the Eucharist. (shrink)

According to Thomas Aquinas, the Eucharist is meant to build up the unity of the church. This desired ecclesial unity is, however, not often given adequate treatment. In Speaking with Aquinas, David Farina Turnbloom seeks to describe the relationship between the celebration of the Eucharist and the unity of the church. By examining Aquinas's treatment of grace and virtues, this book allows the reader to understand Aquinas's eucharistic theology within the context of the spiritual life of the church. (...) In the end, Turnbloom retrieves a Thomistic theology of the Eucharist that arises from Aquinas's concern for the virtuous life of the church, rather than a eucharistic theology that too narrowly focuses on theories of transubstantiation. (shrink)

Common sense dictates that cannibalism—eating another person—is immoral whether because of the harm done to the other person or because of a violation of human sanctity. Some Christian traditions interpret the Eucharist as the actual flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. Hence, on its face, communion would involve a form of cannibalism. As human beings, is it morally permissible for us to eat the flesh of another in a sacred ritual? According to many Christian theologies, this is one of (...) the most important ways that human beings relate to the divine. This constitutes a conflict between what is ethical (to not commit cannibalism) and what is divine (to participate in a sacred ritual). Søren Kierkegaard’s _Discourses at the Communion on Friday_ illuminates the ethical tension between communion and cannibalism. For Kierkegaard, communion is an exception to the ethical, ‘a teleological suspension of the ethical.’ There is no resolution to the fact that Christianity calls its members to commit spiritual cannibalism, but the ethical is suspended by a higher power, a direct divine mandate. Furthermore, Kierkegaard’s understanding of the human-divine relation emphasizes that cannibalism is necessary in order to maintain a right relationship with God. It is through the act of communion that humans affirm their relationship with God, and to reject this relationship leads not only to despair but to auto-cannibalism. While other forms of cannibalism may be unethical, ritualistic cannibalism, in which the human and divine come into relation, supersedes any moral rule against cannibalism. (shrink)

The position and power of women in the early church has been much explored by scholars such as Karen Jo Torjesen and Virginia Burrus. Research has often indicated that women had little power, especially sacramental power, at this time. This article challenges such a perspective by examining and comparing three accounts of women’s experience of the Eucharist in the private sphere during the third century. Drawing on Gregory of Nyssa’s account of Macrina, his sister, and her making of the (...) eucharistic bread, Pseudo-Athanasius’ instructions to virgins celebrating their own eucharistic meals, and Gregory Nazianzus’ description of his sister, Gorgonia, anointing herself for healing with the Eucharist, this article demonstrates that, in the private setting, sacramental power was not the preserve of the male. The Eucharist, in far more varied forms than might be anticipated, is potent in the domestic setting of these women of the early Church. (shrink)

Moore, Gerard Review(s) of: It's the Eucharist, thank god, by Maurice Taylor, Suffolk: Decani Books, 2009, pp.103.

Jan-Heiner Tück presents a work that explores the sacramental theology, lived spirituality, and Eucharistic poetry of the Church’s doctor communis, St. Thomas Aquinas. Although Aquinas’ Eucharistic poetry has long occupied an important place in the Church’s liturgical prayer and her repertoire of sacred music, the depth of these poems remains hidden until one grasps the rich sacramental theology underlying it. Consequently, Tück first offers a detailed but approachable primer of Aquinas’ theology of the sacraments, before diving deeply into the Angelic (...) Doctor’s theology and poetry of the Eucharist. The Scriptural accounts stand at the heart of the systematic framework developed by Aquinas, and thus significant attention is devoted to showing the harmony between the accounts of Christ’s passion and the detailed exposition of the Summa theologiae. Moreover, the Eucharistic controversies of the ninth and eleventh centuries provide the contrapuntal context in which Aquinas did his thinking, praying, and writing. Not surprisingly, therefore, the response he crafts to these controversies draws upon both speculative powers and contemplative prayer, brought together in the unity of Aquinas’ theology and spirituality. The net result is a twofold treasure for the Church: a careful systematic presentation of Eucharistic theology and the lived devotional expression of the same in the carefully constructed—and now much beloved—stanzas of Pange lingua gloriosi, Lauda Sion, Adoro te devote, etc. By revealing the lively interplay of the saint’s powerful speculative intellect and a heart steeped in love for the Eucharistic Lord, Tück offers a sophisticated exposition of Aquinas’ Eucharistic poetry and the roots it sinks into a wider theological framework. Finally, the contemporary significance and power of Aquinas’ work is drawn out, not only in the rarefied realm of intellectual inquiry but also in the everyday expanse of ordinary life. (shrink)

This volume is about the most mind-boggling sacrament of the Christian faith, also referred to as the Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist: in its Roman Catholic interpretation, the conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ for Holy Communion. The challenge of providing a rational interpretation of this doctrine of faith proved to be one of the most contentious issues in the Western history of ideas, apparently going against self-evident metaphysical (...) principles (requiring accidents existing without a substance, and a body in several places at the same time, etc.), and dividing schools of thought, indeed, eventually, warring religious factions. The volume addresses both the metaphysical, theoretical issues involved in this challenge and the historical, theological developments of how meeting this challenge played out first in the schools and even later in religious schisms, leading to the paradigmatic shift from medieval to modern forms of thought. The essays of the volume derive from the lectures of an eponymous international conference held in Budapest, Hungary, which was also the occasion of founding the Society for the History of European Ideas (SEHI); accordingly, the book is the first volume of the annual Proceedings of the SEHI. This book is aimed just as much at laymen and religious scholars seeking a better understanding of their faith as at anyone seeking this understanding with a non-religious attitude. (shrink)