According to Lutherans, why is Calvin's understanding of Communion unacceptable?
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I just finished reading Herman Sasse's *This is My Body*, which was highly recommended by two different Lutheran pastors. The Lutheran position, as I understand it, is that believing in Christ's Real Presence in Communion is essential, but philosophical explanations as to what/how this presence is accomplished are not. Luther's own explanation, that Christ's human nature is "ubiquitous" and thus can be present anywhere including in the wafer of bread, is not asserted as dogma, but simply as a possibility. Sasse and the pastor I talked to are both emphatic, however, that eating Christ's body *does not* mean we are eating his bones or muscles or viscera.
Then comes Calvin, who also speaks of a "Real Presence", but with a different explanation of what this means: In taking Communion, we are spiritually lifted up to heaven where Christ is (bodily) and consume his body in a spiritual manner.
The Lutherans seem to object to understanding the eating of Christ's body as "spiritual" instead of "literal", but it isn't clear to me what the difference between eating Christ's body in a spiritual way (as Calvin talked about) is different from eating Christ's body, but not the bones or muscles or viscera (as Luther talked about). What other sense is there, other than mere symbolism (as Zwingli said, and both Luther and Calvin rejected)?
I thought the Lutherans' objection might be that Calvin's view requires the communicant to engage his/her intellect in contemplating Christ in order to receive the blessing, whereas Luther might say that you only must receive the elements in faith. However, this doesn't seem to be the difference. The Lutherans do not offer communion to children, on the basis of their inability to "discern the body" (1 Cor. 11:29), an intellectual exercise.
The Lutheran pastor told me that the important thing to believe is that Christ is present in a special, unique way in communion, different from how he is present "in this room". However, Calvin would also assent to that, as does my (Baptist) pastor, and Wayne Grudem in *Systematic Theology* Chapter 50. These three would not assent to Luther's theory of ubiquity, but neither Luther nor Sasse nor that pastor would say that belief in ubiquity is required for an acceptable doctrine of communion.
With all this in mind, I am a bit at a loss as to what, in particular, about Calvin's eucharistic theology the Lutherans find unacceptable?
Asked by Dark Malthorp
(4706 rep)
Jan 24, 2024, 07:18 PM
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Last activity: Mar 20, 2024, 10:45 AM