A Defense of Transubstantiation

Buckle up everyone as we are about to take a tour through perhaps the oldest doctrine of Roman Catholicism. In our tour I will define, explain, defend and prove that the idea of Transubstantiation is not only biblical, historical and necessary, but also truth itself.

Let's start with definition of a few key terms:

• Transubstantiation: The belief held by Catholics (and all Christians until the Protestant Era) that during the words of consecration the bread and wine of the Lord's Supper become truly His Body and Blood, in a real and sacramental way. 
• Real Presence: The belief that Christ is really and substantially present in both species of the Eucharist. 
• Consubstantiation: Martin Luther's teaching that the bread and Christ are both present in the Host. Rejected by Catholics and later "Reformers" alike. Those reformers after Luther maintained a strictly symbolic view of the Eucharist.

I have mentioned in this space an ongoing debate I was having on Facebook. My opponent quit the debate but posted his refutation of the doctrine at his blog here. 

So in many ways this shall serve as my answer to him as well as just a good chance to examine a core Catholic belief.

The crux of the whole argument comes down to a few key passages from Scripture.

For starters John 6: 48-70 is a passage known as the Bread of Life discourse. It is one of Jesus' longest teachings in John's Gospel. In the course of that teaching Jesus instructs his followers that if they desire eternal life they must eat His flesh and drink His blood. Jesus counterweighs this radical, and obviously scandalous new teaching by discussing the manna in the desert. We know from Scripture that the manna was considered among the holiest of holy things as the Jewish people kept a jar of it in the Ark (Heb 9:4).

In Psalm 78: 24-25 we see the manna called the bread of Heaven; the bread of the angels. This was indeed special bread. Reading from a strict typological perspective the New Testament bread from Heaven must be even more spectacular. Indeed Christ tells us He is the new bread of life, the new Manna from Heaven.

Now some raise the point that Levitical law prohibited the drinking of blood. Indeed it did, however Christ as the fulfillment of the old law abrogates that, as He commands the people that if they wish to be raised on the last day they must eat My flesh and drink my blood. Christ clears this up at the end of the discourse after many people "drew away and no longer walked with Him... (John 6:67)." Christ looks to the Twelve; asking them will you also go away? St. Peter answers Him in the negative. The apostles have heard and don't quite understand but again they know that Christ is the "Son of God."

There is a similar passage in Matthew 5:21-35. Wherein Jesus abrogates or in some cases strengthens portions of the Mosaic law.

With those points out of the way let's investigate some claims made against the doctrine by my opponent. He cites Luke 24:38-39 as somehow proof that Christ had no blood in His resurrected body. An interesting claim, but one without an exegetical basis. For in Genesis 2:23 Adam refers to Eve as flesh and bone...does that mean she has not blood within her? After all this is before the fall she is immaculately created, so her body should in fact be every bit identical (save basic gender differences) to Christ's resurrected body.

Further St. Ambrose of Milan uses those very verses (Lk. 24:39) to defend Transubstantiation:

123. If, then, there has neither been a time when the Life of the Son took a commencement, nor any power to which it has been subjected, let us consider what His meaning was when He said: Even as the living Father has sent Me, and I live by the Father? Let us expound His meaning as best we can; nay, rather let Him expound it Himself.

124. Take notice, then, what He said in an earlier part of His discourse. Verily, verily, I say unto you. He first teaches you how you ought to listen. Verily, verily, I say unto you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink His blood, you shall have no life in you. John 6:54 He first premised that He was speaking as Son of Man; do you then think that what He has said, as Son of Man, concerning His Flesh and His Blood, is to be applied to His Godhead?

125. Then He added: For My Flesh is meat indeed, and My Blood is drink [indeed]. John 6:56 You hear Him speak of His Flesh and of His Blood, you perceive the sacred pledges, [conveying to us the merits and power] of the Lord's death, John 6:52 and you dishonour His Godhead. Hear His own words: A spirit has not flesh and bones. Luke 24:39 Now we, as often as we receive the Sacramental Elements, which by the mysterious efficacy of holy prayer are transformed into the Flesh and the Blood, do show the Lord's Death.

When I pointed this passage out to my opponent I was accused of proof-texting. Right, because I need to pull one quote by one father to support my view. He also submits that there is a "disagreement" on what Ambrose meant, I submit it is no disagreement it is merely Protestant academics attempting to cast shadows to support their theologically novel doctrines. Ambrose is evidently being targeted now as they failed to do the same with Augustine.

Further to dispel his biggest argument, hardly merits discussion other than to quickly correct his false explanation. Reminds me of what Abp. Sheen once said "There are not even 100 people in this country who hate the Catholic Church, but there are millions who hate what they think the Catholic Church to be." I think the late Archbishop even expanded on that frequent remark adding that even Catholics would hate the church if it was what it was purported to be.

Now Catholics as I say do believe in the Real Presence of Christ. However while that Presence is Real it is a Sacramental presence. Meaning that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ is contained in that consecrated bread and wine. In other words He is not physically present, but that Presence is still literal.

As the Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood...the Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.¹⁵³

1336 The first announcement of the Eucharist divided the disciples, just as the announcement of the Passion scandalized them: "This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?"¹⁵⁸ The Eucharist and the Cross are stumbling blocks. It is the same mystery and it never ceases to be an occasion of division. "Will you also go away?":¹⁵⁹ The Lord's question echoes through the ages, as a loving invitation to discover that only he has "the words of eternal life"¹⁶⁰ and that to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.

...

1374 The mode of Christ's presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend."¹⁹⁹ In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained."²⁰⁰ "This presence is called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present."²⁰¹

1375 It is by the conversion of the bread and wine into Christ's body and blood that Christ becomes present in this sacrament. the Church Fathers strongly affirmed the faith of the Church in the efficacy of the Word of Christ and of the action of the Holy Spirit to bring about this conversion.

1376 The Council of Trent summarizes the Catholic faith by declaring: "Because Christ our Redeemer said that it was truly his body that he was offering under the species of bread, it has always been the conviction of the Church of God, and this holy Council now declares again, that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation."²⁰⁴

My opponent also claims that this doctrine cannot be true because Christ or the Apostles did not teach it. This is a rather weak case of arguing from silence and I believe he knows that to be true in his heart. For if they did not teach this doctrine where was the outrage when certain of the father's taught it to be true. Fathers like Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr. Ignatius is especially damning of his argument since he learned from the Apostle John. Yet he proclaimed the truth of the Real Presence. If someone who learned from an Apostle held and taught this to be true and there were no cries of heresy from the other bishops or fathers to be heard than in fact that must have been the universal teaching of Holy Mother Church.

Edited to Add: For another thing if  the Apostles didn't teach a Real Presence/Transubstantiation view, then St. Paul's warning to the Corinthians (1 Cor. 11:27) is ridiculously overblown. To in essence be called guilty of murder for unworthy consumption of  a symbol is a bit much.

As to the supposed moral dilemma presented by my opponent:

"The Lord tells His people that He does not change;[3] therefore, the command to literally eat literal flesh and literally drink literal blood cannot be a command from God. For the Lord expressly forbids the eating of meat with blood still in it, as well as the drinking of blood; both of these practices were pagan abominations which the Lord strictly commanded Israel to not engage in."

Has he ever eaten a piece of meat cooked short of being charcoal? For that would be a sin as he points out. He is trying to have it both ways. Either we are still under the Mosaic law or we are under the New Covenant. We can't be both. Further, if God cannot change then the Mosaic law still applies, period. As to his opinion that the Jerusalem Council kept the Mosaic law for the new Gentile converts that seems to stretch the text to an unusual degree.

Some scholars think that this apostolic decree suggested by James, the immediate leader of the Jerusalem community, derives from another historical occasion than the meeting in question. This seems to be the case if the meeting is the same as the one related in Gal 2:1–10. According to that account, nothing was imposed upon Gentile Christians in respect to Mosaic law; whereas the decree instructs Gentile Christians of mixed communities to abstain from meats sacrificed to idols and from blood-meats, and to avoid marriage within forbidden degrees of consanguinity and affinity.

http://www.usccb.org/bible/acts/15/

However regarding one other point here it is crucial to note that while Christ instituted the Eucharist while He was still in his incarnated flesh, it was not celebrated by the Apostles until after the Resurrection. Thus the law had been fulfilled. Moreover this view doesn't in any way preclude the institution at the Last Supper from being identical to the Sacrament celebrated to this day, confected by the successors of the Apostles, the bishops and priests of the Roman Catholic Church.

After all Christ doesn't tell His Apostles after my Resurrection this will be my body. And as St. Augustine pointed out the Psalms speak to this moment:

" 'And was carried in His Own Hands:' how 'carried in His Own Hands'? Because when He commended His Own Body and Blood, He took into His Hands that which the faithful know; and in a manner carried Himself, when He said, 'This is My Body.' "

As I mentioned even Martin Luther maintained a belief in some sort of Real Presence. He merely taught a heretical, theologically novel position on it. However certain other "Reformers" chief among them Huldrich Zwingli taught that the lesson in John 6 was intended merely as a symbol. Zwingli to prove his case pulled a single verse, Jn 6:63 and declared that Christ's teaching that the flesh was of no avail clearly intended a symbolic reading of all the preceding text.

This is absurdly false for several reasons; not the least of which is that Christ didn't say His flesh was of no avail. For we know it avails much, after all it was Christ's flesh through which it was prophesied "By His stripes we are healed. (Is 53:5)" It is also false because it presupposes the word spirit to mean symbolic. If that is the case then Jesus tells us God is merely a symbol in Jn. 4:24.

Finally perhaps a poetic defense is in order. The Angelic Doctor Thomas Aquinas wrote numerous poems and hymns about the topic, which even his own massive intellect couldn't rationally explain. My favorite happens to be the Adoro Te Devote:

 Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost, all lost in wonder at the God thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in thee deceived:
How says trusty hearing? that shall be believed;
What God's Son has told me, take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly or there's nothing true.

On the cross Thy godhead made no sign to men,
Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken:
 Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the prayer of the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call thee Lord and God as he;
Let me to a deeper faith daily nearer move,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom he died,
Lend this life to me then: feed and feast my mind,
There be thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesu Lord, in what Thy bosom ran
Blood whereof a single drop has power to win
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesu, whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech thee send me what I thirst for so,
Some day to gaze on thee face to face in light
And be blest for ever with Thy glory's sight. Amen.