Talk:Lutheranism

Should this article be placed in the Christianity portal/section instead of Religion? We all know Lutheranism is a branch of Christianity, but this makes it seem that Lutheranism is a separate religion. Feredir28 (talk) 05:00, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Template:Religion was created in July 2010, Template:Christianity - in February 2011, you can guess why it's not used here.--ZooGuard (talk) 08:16, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * Fixed. ТyUser_talk:Tyrannis 11:52, 22 March 2011 (UTC)
 * If you were to visit some of the Lutheran churches around here, you might get the impression that the original categorization was correct. 03:40, 25 March 2011 (UTC)

Lutheran "Sacramental Union"
This article currently claims that "They believe that the "substance" of Christ's body and blood are present in the bread and wine of communion but not his literal physical body and blood." and that "Lutherans do not believe that the bread and wine are changed into Christ's body and blood (transubstantiation). Lutherans reject such an attempt to explain the Real Presence and affirm that one must be content to believe the simple words of Jesus as a divine mystery beyond human comprehension or explanation. Lutherans reject any understanding of the Lord's Supper as a sacrificial act on our part."

These statements clearly lack the proper understanding of the term transsubstantiation and some other concepts related to the theology of the Eucharist. Philosophically, as outlined by Aristotle, the substance is the "being" or the "presence" of whatever the object in question is. Accident, on the other hand, is a "secondary characteristic" of an object, its representation and its mode of appearing. So, substance is the real deal, the pure being, while the accident is how something appears in the world. Kant's terms noumenon and phenomenon roughly correspond to this classification. Transsubstantiation thus means "the replacement of the object's substance with an another substance, an object acquiring an other, foreign substance, while losing its previous substance", i.e. the substance of the bread is transformed into the substance of Jesus Christ's body, while the accidental characteristics of the bread remain the same (it tastes like bread, it looks like bread).

Thus, to believe that "the substance of Christ's body and blood are present" is to say that Christ's body and blood are literally present, that the bread and wine are literally Christ's body and blood, although they might look like bread and wine. That is what is called the Real Presence and it is something jointly believed by the Lutheran, Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox Churches.

However, it is correct to state that Lutherans don't believe in transsubstantiation, i.e. that bread and wine are CHANGED into Christ's body and blood. Luther himself devised a doctrine of "Sacramental union", which is also sometimes dubbed consubstantiation. Consubstantiation claims that an object could posses two substances simultaneously. So an object could, at the same time, be the body of Christ and a piece of bread, while still outwardly, accidentally, seeming to be just a piece of bread. This is how Lutherans view the Eucharist, with both substances (bread & body, wine & blood) present without any replacement of any substances. Lutherans might be a bit wary to elaborate upon the fine distinctions between transsubstantiation and the "Sacramental union" or the other juicy details but they vehemently affirm the Real Presence and reject, just like is stated in the article, the Calvinist position of Eucharist being a "commemorative meal" or a "sacrificial act" of any kind.

Since I don't have an account here, someone else could probably clarify the Lutheran doctrine on Eucharist. Alister McGrath's Christian Theology could be useful as a source for information, but many other books suffice as well, of course. 93.106.186.121 (talk) 01:20, 21 October 2016 (UTC)
 * Interesting! Considering that you seem qualified — why don't you just make the edits yourself, with or without an account? None is required to do so. Reverend Black Percy (talk) 13:05, 21 October 2016 (UTC)