Transubstantiation, Scripture and Church Authority

Recently, I seem to be posting thoughts that must be considered controversial. This is the second time in a row I've had a lengthy discussion after writing an article on the Real Presence. What I've come to realize, is that some non-Catholic Christians are unable to reconcile their sola scriptura beliefs with the doctrine of the Real presence, most signficantly with the formulation known as "transubstantiation." Is such a word found in Scripture? No, but neither is the word "Trinity" or the word "homooúsios". But is the idea and the basis for the doctrine of transubstantiation found in the Scriptures? Yes. This is the point I tried to get across in my previous article:

"Still, I've seen some have difficulty understanding how the Real Presence relates to the idea of transubstantiation. One thing to note is that the Eastern Catholic Churches (and Eastern Orthodox) don't use the term "transubstantiation", but do believe in the Real Presence the same way as Latin Catholics do. Transubstantiation is a term which attempts to define how the Eucharistic species becomes the Body, Blood, Soul and, Divinity of our Lord. One seems to think just because the term was coined in the 13th century, the teaching of the Real Presence did not exist before then. It most certainly did, as we can see the evidence from Apostolic times. That's why I think it'd be better if we refer to what transubstantiation points to, that is, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist."

Now of course, we have to be able to be able to explain what exactly transubstantiation is and where the formulation comes from when the need arises, as I quickly found out. Some Protestants believe that proving the Real Presence does not prove transubstantiation, that a certain argument could prove, say, consubstantiation as well as a spiritual but "real presence". Or maybe, it's just better to leave the whole subject alone, since Christ does not explain the intricacies of how the Eucharist comes to be in Scripture. Here's why these ideas fall falt.

Consubstantiation does not fit that definition of the Real Presence, as we can see throughout the writings of the early Church Fathers, who all talk specifically about transubstantiation without calling it such. My previous arguments in earlier articles in no way can be construed as being a proof-text of a spiritual but "real presence". Receptionism, advocated by Calvin, is something completely different from either consubstantiation, and certainly transubstantiation. As for the claim that since something was not expounded upon by Christ in the Gospels, that we should leave it alone. First, that's ridiculous on it's face as St. Paul clarifies things that Christ said several times in Scripture. Second, this view can only be valid if one holds that Scripture is the sole rule of authority, and that the Tradition handed down from apostolic times, and the teaching authority of the Church, have no weight. One could just as easily ask why bother understanding the Trinity? As I mentioned, that word never appears in Scripture.

Or how about the fine details of Christology, in His human and divine natures? These were very important matters as many heresies denied the divinity (and humanity) of Christ. The term and notion of the Hypostatic Union didn't come onto the scene until the mid-5th century. All Christians today accept this teaching; should we reject it since it didn't appear in the Scriptures? Should we have never bothered to talk about it, despite that the various heresies that led to the formulation of the Hypostatic Union were leading souls astray from Christ, by calling His divinity into question?

Or how about, as I mentioned previously, the word homooúsios? This technical term didn't appear until the Arian heresy in the 4th century. It's another Christological term that is now a fundamental understanding of Christ's divinity across all denominations of Christianity. Christ was being called the first and greatest of God's creatures, but not God. Not one-in-being with God. Should we have never discussed such a dangerous attack on Christianity simply because it was never addressed in the Bible?

I could go on and on with more terms that appeared later. God gave us an intellect. We can certainly use our reason in tandem with our faith to explain things, especially if these things are Traditions passed down from the time of the Apostles who did not rely on the Bible alone. St John Paul II said that "faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth; and God has placed in the human heart a desire to know the truth—in a word, to know himself—so that, by knowing and loving God, men and women may also come to the fullness of truth about themselves."

Let's keep in mind though, all teachings must be traced back to Christ or be Apostolic in nature. Protestants and Catholics aike can agree on this. How we describe these teachings, however, is very different. For instance, look at how Protestants and Catholics (along with the Orthodox) refer to the LAst Supper. One as " a meal" the other as "the institution of the Holy Eucharist". I'll refer to the "lord's Supper" as it's called instead as the "Eucharist", as a "thanksgiving" as the earliest of Christians, including St. Paul, referred to it. He does not see it as merely a "supper" or "meal" as many non-Catholic Christians do today. See how he admonishes those bringing their own food to the Holy Sacrifice:

"Therefore when you meet together, it is not to eat the Lord’s Supper, for in your eating each one takes his own supper first; and one is hungry and another is drunk. What! Do you not have houses in which to eat and drink? Or do you despise the church of God and shame those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you? In this I will not praise you. For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus in the night in which He was betrayed took bread; and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, “This is My body, which is for you; do this in remembrance of Me.” In the same way He took the cup also after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in My blood; do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of Me.” (1 Cor. 11: 20-25).

I also agree with non-Catholic Christians that it's reasonable to require the Catholic Church to show it received a tradition from the apostles before the Church teaches it. Such a requirementis not unreasonable; Christ is our Lord, so of course the Church that He founded proclaims His doctrines and teachings! The Church indeed is infallible, and assuredly has no trouble providing convincing evidence for the doctrines it teaches. However, we have to be aware that some may ignore such evidence, and then these "ignorant and unstable twist [the Scriptures] to their own destruction..." (2 Pt. 3:16).

Now, let's get back to transubstantiation. Many non-Catholic Christians believe and affirm that the doctrine ofany of those words I posted above (i.e. Trinity, hypostatic union) are taught in Scripture, even though the term is not used. But when Catholics try to say the same thing with transubstantiation, or even just the Real Presence sometimes, that whole theory gets thrown out the window. I think it's pretty fair to assert that "the doctrine of transubstantiation is taught in Scripture, even though the term is not used."

Fleshing out the teaching of the Trinity as an example: Christ says that "He who has seen me as seen that Father". John says in the beginning of His Gospel that "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." So here we see the clear basis for the Trinity, without it being called as such. We see that God the Father and Christ are one. But this doesn't expound on the Trinity as completely as we see in later centuries. Why do people think there were so many Christological heresies? The Trinity, as a word, a term, had to be formulated. Definitions had to be made, as many people claimed that Christ was not God, that the Holy Spirit was not God, that Christ was two persons, that Christ was not human, etc. etc. The Trinity was indeed taught in the Gospels, but a term had to be formulated and a definition needed to be made, just as we see with transubstantiation.

Let's think about this logically. Christ's clear words in the Gospels are "This IS My Body"! He didn't say "this is My body and bread together". He didn't say "this is My body spiritually present with this bread. And He certainly didn't say "This is a symbol of My body." No, he clearly and emphatically made it known that what He was holding was His Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. The early Christians, Apostles included may have thought, "well, He said that what He was holding was His Body. It looks like bread, and it looks like wine... but it can't be, because Christ is God and He cannot deceive us. But if this is true, how is it possible? How does what was once called bread come to be called Christ's Body? What is this process that takes place to effect this change?"

Therefore, we see the early Church Fathers try to come up with a way to formulate a term for what has happened. Look at what St. Justin Martyr says in his First Apology, who makes it obvious that what is being eaten is not bread of any sort:

"Not as common bread or common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nourished, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus".

Keep in mind that St. Justin Martyr had direct contact with the disciples of St. John the Apostle, such as St. Ignatius of Antioch who was one of St. John's disciples. This is a second generation disciple of the author of the Gospels! Do we really expect for him to have gotten this teaching on the Real Presence wrong?! Already the foundation has been laid for a formulation of the term "transubstantiation", just as the foundation was laid for the formulation of the term "Holy Trinity" in other writings by such a first or second-generation disciple. We can also look at what St. Cyril of Jerusalem says in the year 350 regarding the substance of what was once bread completely changing during the Sacrifice of the Mass:

"Do not, therefore, regard the bread and wine as simply that, for they are, according to the Master’s declaration, the body and blood of Christ. Even though the senses suggest to you the other, let faith make you firm. Do not judge in this matter by taste, but be fully assured by faith".

Cyril, in his Mystagogic Catechesis later uses the word metaballo, which is Greek for "change" or "transform" when speaking of the "substantial change" in the elements of bread and wine during the Mass. When explaining the epiclesis, he writes

"When we have sanctified ourselves through these spiritual hymns, we beg God, the Lover of mankind, to send the Holy Spirit upon what has been sent forth, so that he may make the bread the Body of Chris and the wine the Blood of Christ; for whatever the Holy Spirit touches is sanctified and changed [Greek: metabebletai]".

And let's look at St. Ambrose of Milan in 397, who also gets technical with his terminology, well before the 11th century when the term "transubstantiation" was first used, with bolding for emphasis:

"Perhaps you will say, "I see something else, how is it that you assert that I receive the Body of Christ?" ... Let us prove that this is not what nature made, but what the blessing consecrated, and the power of blessing is greater than that of nature, because by blessing nature itself is changed. ... For that sacrament which you receive is made what it is by the word of Christ. But if the word of Elijah had such power as to bring down fire from heaven, shall not the word of Christ have power to change the nature of the elements? ... Why do you seek the order of nature in the Body of Christ, seeing that the Lord Jesus Himself was born of a Virgin, not according to nature? It is the true Flesh of Christ which was crucified and buried, this is then truly the Sacrament of His Body. The Lord Jesus Himself proclaims: "This Is My Body." before the blessing of the heavenly words another nature is spoken of, after the consecration the Body is signified. He Himself speaks of His Blood. Before the consecration it has another name, after it is called Blood."

Then we have St. Gregory of Nyssa who wrote this very technical formulation around the year 381 in his work The Great Catechism:

"...as the Word Himself said, 'This is my Body'...He shares himself with every believer through that Flesh whose material being comes from bread and wine... in order to bring it about that, by communion with the Immortal, man may share in incorruption. He gives these things through the power of the blessing by which he transelements [Greek- metastoikeiosas] the nature of the visible things."

"Transelements", he says. Does this ring a bell? Does one really think that such a thought process came out of a vacuum and not from the traditions of the Apostles and the clear teaching of Christ? Let's see just what this Greek word really means, as we find in James T. O'Connor's book on the Eucharist "The Hidden Manna":

"The Word's assimilation of the Eucharistic elements to himself- an assimilation by which his Body and Blood- is described by the forceful Greek word 'metastoikeiosas', transelementation. It actually means a restructuring of the elements, since the Greek 'stoikeia' means 'fundamental elements or principles'."

And then we see words like "transforming" used by St. John Chrysostym and "transposing" by St. Cyril of Alexandria to describe the change happening in the Eucharist. Again, the belief in the Real Presence, specifically formulated as transubstantiation, didn't come out of nowhere. It has its roots right out of the Bible and in apostolic Tradition... just as the Trinity does.

Still, many Protestants don't believe in the "three-legged stool" that Catholics can stand on: Scripture, Tradition, and the teaching authority (Magisterium) of the Church. Because of this, despite all the sources seen above, one might still say that the Church is fallible, and that she even has difficulties providing convincing evidence for the doctrines she teaches, transubstantiation being but one example. This, of course, is a falsehood. The Church indeed is infallible, and assuredly has no trouble providing convincing evidence for the doctrines she teaches. Once you’ve made an assertion that the Church is fallible, it becomes quite clear that the non-Catholic Christian has nothing to back that claim up with... except the fallible teachings of men; teachings which only arose in the past 450 years or so. Catholics (and the Orthodox as well) can back up their claim that the Church’s authority is infallible from Scripture, specifically in Matthew 28: 18-20, Matthew 16:18, and Acts 15:28, just to name a few passages. Therefore, since Jesus is “with [us] all days”, we can count on the Church giving us plenty of evidence for its doctrines, since they ultimately come from God.

A person questioning how the Church has such authority, will naturally ask where such authority to declare that the Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Christ comes from. Every Christian has heard of apostolic succession. This is what Catholics and Orthodox believe makes their sacraments valid; that each priest and bishop is directly traced back to the Apostles. But are those men that we see in the Bible who follow the Apostles in ministry actually ordained into the apostolic office? Well, there's a reason why the bishops are called successors to the Apostles. Apologist Jimmy Akin expalins:

“Does this mean that the bishops are all really apostles, with a different name? Are they successors in that sense? No. They are the successors of the apostles in the sense that the apostles were originally the highest office in the Church and, when they passed from the scene, they left the bishops in charge. The bishops thus succeeded the apostles by becoming the highest leaders in the Church, but not by becoming apostles.”

The Church itself admits as such in its own documents, this coming from the dogmatic constitution Lumen Gentium back in 1964:

"The parallel between Peter and the rest of the Apostles on the one hand, and between the Supreme Pontiff and the bishops on the other hand, does not imply the transmission of the Apostles’ extraordinary power to their successors; nor does it imply, as is obvious, equality between the head of the College and its members, but only a proportionality between the first relationship (Peter-Apostles) and the second (Pope-bishops).”

Furthermore, the Catholic Church also states in its Catechism (CCC):

“In the office of the apostles there is one aspect that cannot be transmitted: to be the chosen witnesses of the Lord's Resurrection and so the foundation stones of the Church. But their office also has a permanent aspect. Christ promised to remain with them always. The divine mission entrusted by Jesus to them "will continue to the end of time, since the Gospel they handed on is the lasting source of all life for the Church.” (CCC 860)

So, stating that the bishops are the successors of the apostles “does not imply the transmission of the apostles’ extraordinary power to their successors,” the bishops. They are their successors in a different sense. St. Irenaeus of Lyons makes that distinction very clear in the year 189 in his “Against Heresies”, one that still holds true today in the Catholic and Orthodox Churches, emphases mine:

"It is possible, then, for everyone in every Church, who may wish to know the truth, to contemplate the tradition of the Apostles which has been made known throughout the whole world. And we are in a position to enumerate those who were instituted bishops by the Apostles, and their successors to our own times: men who neither knew nor taught anything like these heretics rave about. For if the Apostles had known hidden mysteries which they taught to the elite secretly and apart from the rest, they would have handed them down especially to those very ones to whom they were committing the self-same Churches. For surely they wished all those and their successors to be perfect and without reproach, to whom they handed down their authority.

"[I]t is incumbent to obey the presbyters who are in the Church—those who, as I have shown, possess the succession of the Apostles; those who, together with the succession of the episcopate, have received the infallible charism of truth, according to the good pleasure of the Father. But [it is also incumbent] to hold in suspicion others who depart from the primitive succession, and assemble themselves together in any place whatsoever, either as heretics of perverse minds, or as schismatics puffed up and self-pleasing, or again as hypocrites, acting thus for the sake of lucre and vainglory. For all these have fallen from the truth."

And St. Ignatius of Antioch comments even earlier, in the year 110:

"Take care to do all things in harmony with God, with the bishop presiding in the place of God and with the presbyters in the place of the council of the Apostles... Be subject to the bishop and to one another, as Jesus Christ was subject to the Father, and the Apostles were subject to Christ and to the Father; so that there may be unity in both body and in spirit." (Letter to the Magnesians 6:1; 13:1-2)

"...do nothing without the bishop, and that you be subject also to the presbytery, as to the Apostles of Jesus Christ our hope… In like manner let everyone respect the deacons as they would respect Jesus Christ, and just as they respect the bishop as a type of the Father, and the presbyters as the council of God and college of Apostles. Without these, it cannot be called a Church." (Letter to the Trallians 2:2; 3:1)

“You must all follow the bishop as Jesus Christ follows the Father, and the presbytery as you would the Apostles. Reverence the deacons as you would the command of God. Let no one do anything of concern to the Church without the bishop” (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 8:1-2).

Do most Protestant churches have a bishop, the presbytery, or deacons? Do ANY evangelical or fundamentalist churches? Because St. Ignatius tells us institutions that don’t have them are not called a Church. Thankfully for me, the Catholic Church does have these things. St. Irenaeus and St. Ignatius both interacted and talked and listened to the preaching of men who personally knew the Apostles. Could they really have gotten things so mucked up in less than a 100 years of Christianity’s founding? So while strictly there is no "apostolic office" today, it can plainly be seen that this new office of the bishops and presbyterate are the successors to the Apostles, and hold just as much authority as the Apostles did, even though they differ in certain ways. This is the permanent aspect of the Apostles’ office. It's apparent that the Holy Spirit speaks through the successors of the Apostles through the promulgation of teaching through the Magisterium. The notion is quite Scriptural, as long as one does not overlook it:

"...I will pray the Father, and he will give you another Counselor, to be with you for ever... the Spirit of truth, I will not leave you desolate; I will come to you. He who does not love me does not keep my words; and the word which you hear is not mine but the Father’s who sent me. These things I have spoken to you, while I am still with you. But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you" (John 16, 17- 24-26).

I can honestly say I would be scared to have the beliefs of many sola scrptura Christains if I was living in the late first century. There was no Bible compiled at this time... not even all the New Testament books had yet been written! What authority what I have followed then? Especially if I was illiterate, as most people were in those days? This is why it is so important that we are united with the early Church on this issue; that we recognize the authority of Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium. The Church is not fallible in her teachings regarding faith and morals, because Christ told us so. This is why we can trust the Church on transubstantiation and the Real Presence. As St. Hilary of Poitiers puts it:

“About the truth of his Flesh and Blood there is left no room for doubt. For by the Lord’s own word and by our faith [we know] that it is truly flesh and truly blood. And when we have received and drunk these realities it comes about that we are in Christ and Christ in us. Is this not the truth? Let it happen that those who deny that Christ is God deny this also.”

Virtually all Christians believe that Christ could turn water into wine, and also change the physical properties of water to become solid so He could walk on it, even though it remained in what appeared to be a liquid state… right? Then why is it such a leap of faith, and such a difficult exercise, to take Christ at His word in the Eucharist? He simply says, take and eat for THIS IS MY BODY.”