Autor: Sokolowski, Robert

Buch: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Titel: Christian Faith & Human Understanding

Stichwort: Eucharistie u. Transsubstantiation (Inkarnation u. Schöpfung vs. Pantheismus); Brot u. Wein (Notwendigkeit ihrer "Entleerung"; himmlische Liturgie); Eu.: Gegenwart d. transzendenten Gottes: erlösender Tod, Auferstehung; Maria - Christus

Kurzinhalt: If the Eucharist is truly the action of God, the bread and wine cannot remain in their substance. However, if one were to claim that the Eucharist is primarily the action of the community ... then the bread and wine would remain what they are.

Textausschnitt: Transubstantiation, Incarnation, and Creation

108a We have discussed the way in which the logic of the Incarnation leads on to Transubstantiation, but more can be said about the interplay between these two mysteries. They should not be seen as separate truths; they are interrelated, and the two should be profiled theologically against one another. The intelligibility of each is clarified by bringing out the identities and the differences between them. (Fs)
108b In the Incarnation, both the divine and the human substances are present, and the actions of the incarnate Word are theandric, the actions of God and man. As many of the Church Fathers claim, if the actions of Christ were not those of both God and man, our salvation could not have been achieved. We had to be saved by one like us if we were to be saved, but we had to be saved by one greater than us, by God himself, if we were to be reconciled with God and allowed to share in his life. The act of salvation sheds light on the agent who accomplishes it. (Fs)

108c The Eucharist reenacts the same theandric action, the action of God and man, but the substance of the bread does not enter into this action. It is not the case that in the Eucharist there is the sacramental action of God, man, and also bread. If this were the case, the eucharistic action would not be the same as that of Calvary; it would be something new and different. The bread and wine must give way and not enter into the substantial action. The bread and wine do not act, and so sacramentally they are not there to act. It is true that the bread and wine are consumed and nourish our bodies, but this physical achievement belongs to the species of the Eucharist, not to its substance. It is fitting that we receive the bread and wine as an expression of the life that is given in the sacrament, but their effect on our person, though necessary as a condition, is accidental to the sacramental action. The bread and wine do not enter into the action in the way that the human substance of Christ enters into the action of the incarnate Word. Furthermore, they are not present in the celestial liturgy, while the human nature of Christ is present and effective there. They are simply the worldly expression of that liturgy. (Fs)

109a The term substance does not name a merely passive substrate. It expresses what a thing is, not only as a being but also as a source of action. We say that the substance of the Eucharist is the body and blood of Christ because the action being reenacted is that which occurred in the separation of his body and blood, in his redemptive death, and this action was defined by being the achievement of his divine and human natures. Both natures are present in the act of salvation and in its eucharistic reenactment. This divine nature, furthermore, is the one nature of the Holy Trinity, even though it is present, in the Incarnation and the Eucharist, in the person of the Son. The divine substance is the power by which the world was created; it entered into creation when the Word became man, and in the Eucharist we worship it as the origin of all things and the source of our Redemption. In the Eucharist the Creator becomes immanent in his creation not just by his causal power but also by his localized presence. (Fs) (notabene)

109b This presence of the divine nature in the Eucharist is such as to exclude the danger of pantheism from Christian belief. The concentrated presence of the Creator in the Eucharist makes it clear, by way of contrast, that God is not present in the world as the universal force and highest entity, as the Stoics understood the divine nature to be. If God becomes part of the world, he does so in the manner of the Incarnation and the Eucharist, not as a spirit or intelligence that is the governing part of the world. The Eucharist bears witness to the radical transcendence of the Christian God. (Fs) (notabene)

109c We have seen earlier that the bodily aspect of the Incarnation makes Transubstantiation necessary; because the body and blood of Christ become present, the substance of bread and wine cannot remain. While the material character of the Incarnation makes Transubstantiation necessary, it is the divine aspect of the Incarnation, the presence of the divine nature in the Incarnation, that makes Transubstantiation possible (and the possibility is prior to the necessity). Only because the divine substance becomes present in the Eucharist, as the ultimate source of the action being reenacted there, can Transubstantiation occur. (Fs) (notabene)

109d When we claim that the presence of the divine nature is a condition for the possibility of the Eucharist, we do not appeal simply to the omnipotence of God; it is not just that God as Creator is all-powerful and could bring about the kind of change that occurs in the Eucharist. Rather, the point is that the Eucharist represents the action of the transcendent God: the redemptive Death and Resurrection of Jesus is the work of God (his primary work, greater even than Creation, revealing more profoundly who and what he is), and hence the reenactment of that action is the work of the same divine nature, the work of the transcendent Creator who recreates the world he has made. The risen Christ reveals the kind of life that is given by God and the kind of life that is lived by him. If this is the work being done, and if the divine nature is there to do it, the natural substance by which this action is represented dare not remain, even though the human nature with which the action was accomplished must remain. The bread and wine are substantially emptied out to clear a place for the action of God. If the bread and wine were still there they would continue to act and so would intervene in the single divine performance. We would not be drawn by the Eucharist toward the one action achieved on Calvary, but would partake of something simply happening now. (Fs)

110a If the Eucharist is truly the action of God, the bread and wine cannot remain in their substance. However, if one were to claim that the Eucharist is primarily the action of the community (and not of the priest speaking in the person of Christ), then the bread and wine would remain what they are. Transubstantiation would not occur; instead, the bread and wine would become symbols of the gifts the people offer. In such an interpretation, it would not be Christ who speaks the words of consecration but the community, whether the assembly gathered here and now or the one that is said to have originally compiled the ritual and the words. Transubstantiation depends on whose action the Eucharist represents. (Fs) (notabene)

110b Both the Incarnation and Creation provide the background for the Eucharist. This relationship can be clarified by a contrast between Christ and the Blessed Virgin. The glorified body of Christ is present in the Eucharist, but the sanctified body of the Blessed Virgin could not become present in a worldly substance. The reason for the difference is that the Eucharist expresses the action of salvation, while the Blessed Virgin was and is its primary and paradigmatic recipient. It is true that her action in the fiat was part of her salvation and ours, but it was so in a manner different from the way the active obedience of the man Jesus was part of our salvation. Christ redeemed but was not redeemed, while Mary was the first of those who were redeemed. The Assumption and Coronation of the Virgin express her perfect receptivity to grace, while the glorification of Christ expresses his action and victory, which is ultimately the action and victory of God himself, the work of the divine nature. It is this action that is present in the Eucharist, in such a manner that the bread and wine that are its expression cannot remain as a part of the achievement. (Fs) (notabene)