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Home , Eucharist, Eucharistic theology, Sacrament, Transubstantiation

DAVENANT DIGESTS

WHAT DIVIDES PROTESTANTS AND CATHOLICS ON THE ?

BRADFORD LITTLEJOHN

Contents

01 A Difference Worth Dying For Remembering a high-stakes .

04 What Is in the ? What do we mean by ‘’ and ‘’?

06 Substance and Accidents Understanding the philosophical foundations of doctrine.

08 A Reasonable Faith Protestants do not preach blind faith.

11 Why It Matters Recovering the meeting place between God and His people.

13 Showing a Better Way Engaging Roman Catholics today.

A Difference Worth Dying For

THEY ESCORTED TO THE

PULPIT OF ST. MARY’S UNIVERSITY

IN OXFORD FOR ONE LAST TIME BEFORE HIS

EXECUTION, TO READ OUT HIS RECANTATION OF

HIS PROTESTANT FAITH.

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 1 WHAT WERE

THE “PAPISTICAL

DOCTRINES”

THAT CRANMER

WAS CONVINCED

WOULD NOT STAND

BEFORE GOD’S

JUDGMENT SEAT?

THOMAS CRANMER Instead, the former Archbishop of Canterbury made this ringing declaration:

As for the , I believe as I have taught in my book against the of Winchester, which my book teacheth so true a doctrine of the sacrament, that it shall stand in the last day before the judgment of God, where the papistical contrary thereto shall be ashamed to show their face.1

Pandemonium ensued. Cranmer was hauled down and dragged to the stake to be burnt, one of hundreds of martyrs in Queen Mary’s Counter-Refor- mation.

What was this “true doctrine of the sacrament” worth dying (and killing) for? What were the “papistical doctrines” that Cranmer was convinced would not stand before God’s judgment seat?

It may be difficult for us now to appreciate how such a seemingly arcane dis- pute could have been a life-or-death issue. But it is important to remember that the debate over stood at the strategic intersection of many other high-stakes doctrinal issues. At stake was the Roman Catholic theory of as the progressive infusion of grace throughout the life of the believer to counteract the deadly effects of sin; the reception of ’s true flesh, and the of it by the on the , was necessary to keep the believer in a state of grace. The rejection of transubstantiation also struck at the roots of Catholic , which elevated the as the authorized dispensers of this grace and made dependent on their unique and mysterious power. Questions of were also involved, of course, as well as different conceptions of the authority of tradi- tion—which had long taught some form of transubstantiation.

We cannot tackle all of these here, but hopefully we can get a better handle on the heart of the debate, and address two common misconceptions.

1. From Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. Reprinted in Bradford Littlejohn and Jonathan Roberts, eds., Theology: A of Primary Sources with Introductions (Moscow, ID: Davenant Press, 2017), 588.

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 3 What Is in the Cup?

THE FIRST AND MOST IMPORTANT THING TO SAY

IS THAT THIS WAS NOT CHIEFLY A DEBATE OVER

THE PRESENCE OF CHRIST IN THE EUCHARIST.

This is almost certain to throw some for a loop given the popular representa- tion of the debate.

Most of us have heard that whereas the Roman staunchly maintained the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist, Protestants tended to spiritualize this presence, focusing on the inward with Christ by faith. However, the primary point of dispute in the sixteenth century between Protestants and Catholics was not over whether the was pres- ent in the Eucharist. Rather, it was over whether bread and wine were present in the Eucharist.

This was the straightforward meaning of the term “trans-substantiation.” By virtue of the priest’s words of , the “substance” or fundamental what-ness of the bread was transformed into the substance of Christ’s body, and the wine into the . This meant that after the transubstantiation, neither bread nor wine remained in the elements. As (1225– 1274) wrote in his influential treatment of the issue in the Summa, “Some have held that the substance of the bread and wine remains in this sacrament after the consecration. But this opinion cannot stand.”2 Indeed, the Council

2. Aquinas, Summa Theologiae III Q. 75 a. 2, resp. (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm)

4 | DAVENANT DIGESTS HOWEVER, THE PRIMARY

POINT OF DISPUTE IN THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY WAS

NOT OVER WHETHER THE

BODY OF CHRIST WAS

PRESENT IN THE EUCHARIST.

RATHER, IT WAS OVER

WHETHER BREAD AND WINE

WERE PRESENT IN THE

EUCHARIST. THOMAS AQUINAS of Trent went so far as to insist that anyone who affirmed that bread and wine remained, as Protestants consistently did, were to be condemned of heresy:

If any one saith, that, in the and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Christ, and denieth that wonderful and singular conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood — the species Only of the bread and wine remaining — which conversion indeed the Catholic Church most aptly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anath- ema.3

Now, obviously this did not mean the bread became actually fleshy and the wine became actually bloody — thank goodness! Aquinas wrote that divine providence has wisely chosen to hide the substance of the body and blood

3. Session XIII, 2. (http://www.thecounciloftrent.com/ch13.htm). See also Reformation Theology, 389–400.

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 5 under the “accidents” of bread and wine, since “it is not customary, but hor- rible, for men to eat human flesh” and the sacrament “might be derided by unbelievers if we were to eat our Lord under his own species.”4 Substance and Accidents

SO WHAT IS THIS DISTINCTION OF SUBSTANCE

AND ACCIDENTS? TO PUT IT IN LAYMAN’S TERMS,

THE “ACCIDENTS” ARE ALL OF THE OUTWARD

QUALITIES OF A THING, THE WAYS IN WHICH IT

MANIFESTS ITSELF TO US.

These can usually undergo a certain degree of change without the thing itself ceasing to be what it is (for example, the bread may become stale or moldy and still be, for a time at least, bread).

The “substance” is, as I called it above, the “fundamental what-ness,” that which essentially makes the thing what it is and which persists through changes. This distinction derives from Aristotle (384–322 B.C.), but we would be mistaken in thinking (as Protestants have often wrongly charged Catholics) that the doctrine of transubstantiation relied on Aristotelian phi- losophy — that it was, perhaps, an example of the unhealthy intrusion of philosophy into theology.

4. ST III Q. 75 a. 5, resp. (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm)

6 | DAVENANT DIGESTS WHATEVER ELSE WE

MIGHT THINK ABOUT

TRANSUBSTANTIATION, WE

SHOULD NOT FALL PREY TO

THE CLAIM THAT THIS IS WHAT

YOU HAVE TO BELIEVE IF

YOU WANT TO TAKE CHRIST’S

PRESENCE IN THE EUCHARIST

SERIOUSLY.

On the contrary, transubstantiation clearly inverts the Aristotelian categories that it draws on. For Aristotle, it made perfect sense to speak of a substance remaining the same while the accidents changed (within certain limits, at least), but no sense at all to speak of a substance changing while the accidents remained the same — as transubstantiation asserted.

Substance and accidents for Aristotle were not two separable variables, but two components of a thing that always went together. Indeed, it was precisely by observing the accidents of a thing that we formed our initial determina- tion of what kind of substance it was. Aquinas, at least, was well aware of his departure from Aristotle at this point, and insisted that the transformation in question was “entirely supernatural, and effected by God’s power alone.”5 Whatever else we might think about transubstantiation, we should not fall prey to the claim that this is what you have to believe if you want to take Christ’s presence in the Eucharist seriously.

5. ST III Q. 75 a. 4, resp. (http://www.newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm).

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 7 Indeed, the English theologian Richard Hooker insisted that the Reformed, the Lutherans, and indeed Roman Catholics were all agreed “concerning that which alone is material [i.e., important], namely a real participation of Christ and of life in his body and blood by means of this sacrament.” Indeed, all agreed that “the of man is the receptacle of Christ’s presence,” so that the only real debate concerned whether Christ makes himself present “within man only” (as the Reformed say) or is also somehow “externally seated in the very consecrated elements themselves”6—whether in some indefinable way (as the Lutherans say), or via transubstantiation (as the Catholics say). A Reasonable Faith

THE SECOND THING WE UNDERSTAND IS

THAT, CONTRARY TO MANY MODERN ACCOUNTS,

IT WAS THE CATHOLICS, NOT THE PROTESTANTS,

WHO PREACHED A PARTING OF NATURE AND

GRACE, FAITH AND REASON — AT LEAST ON THIS

KEY ISSUE.

It has become common today to assert that in the Reformation period, Ro- man Catholics insisted on the necessity of a reasonable faith (a collaboration

6. Hooker, Laws of V.67.2 (https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hooker-the-works-of-richard- hooker-vol-2).

8 | DAVENANT DIGESTS between philosophy and theology), while Protestants camped out on the mere literal words of Scripture. Similarly, it is asserted that Catholics taught the “sacramentality of the world,” asserting that mere material creatures served as vehicles and vessels of God’s grace, while the Reformers drove a wedge be- tween the material and the spiritual. PROTESTANTS On the contrary, the Reformers steadfastly preached that the humble RESISTED THE IDEA creatures of bread and wine could THAT REASON MUST become instruments of God’s grace to us, while still remaining what they BE SIMPLY CHECKED were. They did not first need to be turned into something else entire- AT THE DOOR ly. On this point, at least, they were WHEN IT CAME more faithful adherents of Aquinas’s principle, “grace does not destroy TO THEOLOGICAL nature, but perfects it” than Aquinas himself. Indeed, in their sacramen- QUESTIONS. tal theology and elsewhere, the Re- formers set themselves up as defenders of the integrity of creation against a theology that was using grace as a battering ram against nature.

Therefore, Protestants resisted the idea that reason must be simply checked at the door when it came to theological questions. Even if Luther sometimes spoke this way, his successors patiently explained the philosophical contradic- tions in the Catholic position, arguing that while faith sometimes transcends reason, there is no reason to fly in the face of common sense unless Scripture clearly requires it.

When it came to the Eucharist, it was the Roman Catholics who adopted the stance of fundamentalists and biblical literalists, accusing Protestants of evading the plain sense of Scripture—an ironic role reversal given the Re- formers’ usual insistence on recovering the literal reading of Scripture. But of course, the Reformers’ concept of the “literal” or “plain” sense was an appeal

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 9 “I WISH THAT MEN

WOULD MORE GIVE

THEMSELVES TO

MEDITATE WITH SILENCE

WHAT WE HAVE BY THE

SACRAMENT, AND LESS

TO DISPUTE OF THE

RICHARD HOOKER MANNER HOW.” to the normal usages of human speech, which include symbolism and meta- phor. The Reformed particularly argued that it was irresponsible to try to take the eucharistic in isolation from other Scriptures which teach that we receive the body and through the inward organ of faith, not the outward organ of the mouth. They also pointed out that the very context and narrative of the words of institution strongly suggests that the disciples understood (and we should as well) that Jesus was handing them real bread and real wine.7

This was not a rejection of mystery in favor of rationalism—on the contrary, Hooker lamented, against the false precision of transubstantiation, “I wish that men would more give themselves to meditate with silence what we have by the sacrament, and less to dispute of the manner how.”8 But there is a dif-

7. There is obviously not space here to go into the exegetical arguments, but you couldn’t do much better than consulting Peter Martyr Vermigli’s Oxford Treatise and on the Eucharist, recently reprinted by the Davenant Press in paperback. 8. Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.67.3 (https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hooker-the-works-of-richard- hooker-vol-2).

10 | DAVENANT DIGESTS ference between humbly accepting the mysteries that Scripture teaches, and needlessly multiplying irrationalities in order to boast of our superior “faith.” Why It Matters

WHY DID ALL THIS MATTER SO DEEPLY IN THE

SIXTEENTH CENTURY — AND WHY DOES IT STILL

MATTER TODAY?

The doctrine of transubstantiation, the Reformers charged, undermined the purpose of the sacrament as an actual meeting place between God and his people. When combined with the Catholic doctrine of eucharistic sacrifice (that Christ is, in a sense, sacrificially offered up again and again at every as a for our sins), it became something that took place outside of us.

If the body of Christ was statically present on the altar as a sacrifice for sins, rather than dynamically present to believers and in believers to sanctify us with the fruits of Christ’s once-for-all sacrifice, then the important action happened in the hands of the priest on the altar, not in the mouths of believ- ers — and definitely not in the inner person.

Indeed, the vast majority of masses on the eve of the Reformation were cel- ebrated privately, with no one but the consecrating priest present. When or- dinary believers did partake, they received the bread only and not the wine. Most of the time, they only engaged the eucharistic elements by adoring them and praying before them, where they were reserved in special boxes in the churches or paraded through the streets once a year at the .

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 11 CALVIN FAMOUSLY DECLARED,

“AS LONG AS CHRIST

REMAINS OUTSIDE OF US

AND SEPARATED FROM

US, WHATEVER HE HAS

SUFFERED AND DONE FOR THE

SALVATION OF THE HUMAN

RACE REMAINS USELESS AND

JOHN CALVIN OF NO VALUE FOR US.”

Against this emphasis, the Reformers, and especially the Reformed, insisted on the reception, not the consecration as the key thing, since the central purpose of the was to unite us to Christ. Calvin famously declared, “As long as Christ remains outside of us and separated from us, whatever he has suffered and done for the salvation of the human race remains useless and of no value for us.”9 It was simply no use at all to have bread and wine turned into the body and blood of Christ, sitting on an altar, uneaten and undrunk.

Indeed, as Italian Reformer Peter Martyr Vermigli pointed out, no one made such silly claims for other sacraments, “where everything consists in action. When that is done there is no longer a sacrament.”10 The act of baptizing was a sacrament, but the baptismal water did not remain a sacrament afterward in the way that, on the Catholic understanding, the bread and wine did. In short, the Reformers granted, with their Catholic opponents, that Christ is objec-

9. Calvin, Institutes (McNeill ed.) 1:537, my own translation. 10. Vermigli, Oxford Treatise and Disputation the Eucharist, trans. Joseph C. McClelland (Kirksville, MO: Tru- man State University, 2000), 44.

12 | DAVENANT DIGESTS tively offered in the sacrament, but this is not the priest’s offering himself up for us, but Christ’s offering himself to us.

Ultimately, then, the debate over transubstantiation is another battleground of the Reformation’s great war against the belief that Jesus works through the church outside of us, another place where we must contend for the ’s glorious teaching of Jesus at work within us. Showing a Better Way

ALTHOUGH VATICAN II (1962–1965) HAS REFORMED

CATHOLIC AND

PRACTICE IN WAYS RESPONSIVE TO MANY OF

THE REFORMATION’S CONCERNS, THE CATHOLIC

CHURCH STILL OFFICIALLY HOLDS TO TRENT AND

ITS DECREES OF “” AGAINST ANYONE

WHO WOULD DENY TRANSUBSTANTIATION.

Of course, you’re likely to find that many ordinary Roman Catholics, if they hold the doctrine at all, do so in a rather fuzzy way, and might actually be closer to the Reformers’ doctrine. And they are likely to think of Protestants

DAVENANT DIGESTS | 13 as rejecting any kind of meaningful presence of Christ in the sacrament. It’s important for us to be historically aware so we can point out these confusions, and challenge our Catholic friends and family to consider their own beliefs more carefully. We can show them that nowhere in the Bible are we called to embrace such an irrational doctrine as transubstantiation. Honest Catholics need to acknowledge that this doctrine comes from tradition, not Scripture, and that they can hardly expect Protestants to accept it without first accepting their bold claims for the magisterium.

But we must at the same time demonstrate that you do not need to em- brace transubstantiation in order to take the Eucharist seriously. As long as it looks like a choice between transubstantiation and no piety at all—’s Supper as snacktime accompanied by subjective reflections on Jesus—we can hardly complain if thoughtful Protestants seem drawn to this doctrine. The recovery of richer eucharistic and more frequent eucharistic practice in many Protestant churches today is an encouraging sign. To it we must add a commitment to retrieving the historic Reformational teaching regarding this sacrament, of which Hooker wrote:

“the very letter of the word of Christ giveth plain security that these mysteries do as nails fasten us to his very Cross, that by them we draw out, as touching efficacy, force, and virtue, even the blood of his gored side… they are things wonderful which he feeleth, great which he seeth and unheard of which he uttereth, whose soul is possessed of this Pas- chal and made joyful in the strength of this new wine.”11

11. Hooker, Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity V.67.12 (https://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/hooker-the-works-of-rich- ard-hooker-vol-2).

14 | DAVENANT DIGESTS

WHAT ARE “DAVENANT DIGESTS?”

Davenant Digests seek to bring the church’s past into clear focus for

Christians today, and use it to shed light on the challenges of the church’s present. Written in a clear, lively, and down-to-earth style, these short introductions aim to answer questions that ordinary

Christians have, in terms that ordinary Christians will want to read.

BRADFORD LITTLEJOHN (Ph.D, University of Edinburgh) is a scholar and writer in the fields of , Christian eth- ics, and Reformation history. He is the author and editor of several books in these fields, most recently The Peril and Promise of Christian Liberty: Richard Hooker, the , and Protestant Political Theology (Eerdmans, 2017).

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