The Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist
The Metaphysics and Theology of the Eucharist

Author: Gyula Klima

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2024-01-01

Total Pages: 469

ISBN-13: 3031402502

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume is about the most mind-boggling sacrament of the Christian faith, also referred to as the Sacrament of the Altar, the Eucharist: in its Roman Catholic interpretation, the conversion of the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ for Holy Communion. The challenge of providing a rational interpretation of this doctrine of faith proved to be one of the most contentious issues in the Western history of ideas, apparently going against self-evident metaphysical principles (requiring accidents existing without a substance, and a body in several places at the same time, etc.), and dividing schools of thought, indeed, eventually, warring religious factions. The volume addresses both the metaphysical, theoretical issues involved in this challenge and the historical, theological developments of how meeting this challenge played out first in the schools and even later in religious schisms, leading to the paradigmatic shift from medieval to modern forms of thought. The essays of the volume derive from the lectures of an eponymous international conference held in Budapest, Hungary, which was also the occasion of founding the Society for the History of European Ideas (SEHI); accordingly, the book is the first volume of the annual Proceedings of the SEHI. This book is aimed just as much at laymen and religious scholars seeking a better understanding of their faith as at anyone seeking this understanding with a non-religious attitude.

Eucharist as Meaning
Eucharist as Meaning

Author: Joseph C. Mudd

Publisher: Liturgical Press

Published: 2014-06-26

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 0814682464

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This study moves beyond postmodern trends in Catholic eucharistic theology by exploring the works of Bernard Lonergan and Louis-Marie Chauvet: “Having learned from both Chauvet’s critique of metaphysics and Lonergan’s development of a critical metaphysics, we hope to offer a fruitful understanding of traditional eucharistic doctrines that is able to respond to some contemporary problems and shed some light on the great mystery that stands at the center of Christian worship” (from the introduction). Postmodern theologians have been critical of using metaphysics to interpret the presence of Christ in the Eucharist, liturgical sacrifice, and sacramental causality, preferring instead a symbolic approach. Lonergan’s critical metaphysics, however, offers an account of knowing and being that resists attempts to pit metaphysics against the symbolic and moves sacramental theology into the real world of meaning. The result is a theology of the Eucharist grounded in tradition that speaks to today’s believers.

The Mysteries of Christianity
The Mysteries of Christianity

Author: Matthias Joseph Scheeben

Publisher: Emmaus Academic

Published: 2023-03-17

Total Pages: 926

ISBN-13: 1645852857

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Mysteries of Christianity is Matthias Joseph Scheeben’s youthful magnum opus, a logically rigorous and spiritually profound dogmatic theology. In its pages, he explores the intelligibility of Christianity’s supernatural mysteries and their deep connectedness, ultimately demonstrating that Christian theology constitutes a science before the court of human reason, even as its object transcends human comprehension. Scheeben’s task is to present a unified view of the whole panorama of revealed truth, and he pursues this by considering nine key Christian mysteries: the Trinity, creation, sin, the Incarnation, the Eucharist, the Church and its sacraments, justification, eschatological glory, and predestination. Since the mystery of the Trinity is the root of the supernatural order, Scheeben begins here, showing that the foundation of the salvific economy lies in the eternal processions of persons in God—the begetting of the Son and the spiration of the Spirit being in different ways the cause of the life of grace in the human soul. When the Son and the Spirit are sent into the world in the Incarnation and through the bestowal of grace, they provide the way for human beings to see God face-to-face in the beatific vision, the end for which God created humans. Among the means of return to God, Scheeben particularly emphasizes the Eucharist, on account of its close connection with the mystery of the Incarnation. By placing his treatment of the Eucharist before that of the Church, he signals that his is a genuinely Eucharistic ecclesiology, centered on the abiding presence of the incarnate divine Son.

Transubstantiation
Transubstantiation

Author: Brett Salkeld

Publisher: Baker Academic

Published: 2019-11-19

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1493418246

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This thoroughgoing study examines the doctrine of transubstantiation from historical, theological, and ecumenical vantage points. Brett Salkeld explores eucharistic presence in the theologies of Aquinas, Luther, and Calvin, showing that Christians might have more in common on this topic than they have typically been led to believe. As Salkeld corrects false understandings of the theology of transubstantiation, he shows that Luther and Calvin were much closer to the medieval Catholic tradition than is often acknowledged. The book includes a foreword by Michael Root.

An Incarnational Model of the Eucharist
An Incarnational Model of the Eucharist

Author: James M. Arcadi

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Published: 2018-05-31

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 110866671X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Eucharist is at the heart of Christian worship and at the heart of the Eucharist are the curious phrases, 'This is my body' and 'This is my blood'. James M. Arcadi offers a constructive proposal for understanding Christ's presence in the Eucharist that draws on contemporary conceptual resources and is faithful to the history of interpretation. He locates his proposal along a spectrum of Eucharistic theories. Arcadi explores the motif of God's presence related to divine omnipresence and special presence in holy places, which undergirds a biblical-theological proposal concerning Christ's presence. Utilizing recent work in speech-act theory, Arcadi probes the acts of consecration and renaming in their biblical and liturgical contexts. A thorough examination of recent work in Christology leads to an action model of the Incarnation that borrows the notion of enabling externalism from philosophy of mind. These threads undergird a model of Christ's presence in the Eucharist.

The Catholic Thing
The Catholic Thing

Author: Robert Royal

Publisher:

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781587311055

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Catholic "thing" - the concrete historical reality of Catholicism as a presence in human history - is the richest cultural tradition in the world. It values both faith and reason, and therefore has a great deal to say about politics and economics, war and peace, manners and morals, children and families, careers and vocations, and many other perennial and contemporary questions. In addition, it has inspired some of the greatest art, music, and architecture, while offering unparalleled human solidarity to tens of millions through hospitals, soup kitchens, schools, universities, and relief services. This volume brings together some of the very best commentary on a wide range of recent events and controversies by some of the very best Catholic writers in the English language: Ralph McInerny, Michael Novak, Fr. James V. Schall, Hadley Arkes, Robert Royal, Anthony Esolen, Brad Miner, George Marlin, David Warren, Austin Ruse, Francis Beckwith, and many others. Their contributions cover large Catholic subjects such as philosophy and theology, liturgy and Church dogma, postmodern culture, the Church and modern politics, literature, and music. But they also look into specific contemporary problems such as religious liberty, the role of Catholic officials in public life, growing moral hazards in bio-medical advances, and such like. The Catholic Thing is a virtual encyclopedia of Catholic thought about modern life.

Dialectical Anatomy of the Eucharist
Dialectical Anatomy of the Eucharist

Author: Donald Wallenfang

Publisher: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Published: 2017-05-16

Total Pages: 322

ISBN-13: 1498293409

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

For centuries, Christian theology has understood the Eucharist in terms of metaphysics or in protest against it. Today an opening has been made to imagine the sacrament through the method of phenomenology, bringing about new theological life and meaning. In Dialectical Anatomy of the Eucharist, Donald Wallenfang conducts a sustained analysis of the Eucharist through the aperture of phenomenology, yet concludes the study with poetic and metaphysical twists. Engaging the work of Jean-Luc Marion, Paul Ricoeur, and Emmanuel Levinas, Wallenfang proposes pioneering ideas for contemporary sacramental theology that have vast implications for interfaith and interreligious dialogue. By tapping into the various currents within the Judeo-Christian tradition--Jewish, Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant--a radical argument is developed that leverages the tension among them all. Several new frontiers are explored: dialectical theology, a fourth phenomenological reduction, the phenomenology of human personhood, the poetics of the Eucharist, and a reinterpretation of the concept of gift as conversation. On the whole, Wallenfang advances recent debates surrounding the relationship between phenomenology and theology by claiming an uncanny way out of emerging dead ends in philosophical theology: return to the fray.

The Holy Grail and the Eucharist
The Holy Grail and the Eucharist

Author: Sergiĭ Bulgakov

Publisher: SteinerBooks

Published: 1997

Total Pages: 166

ISBN-13: 9780940262812

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

These two moving studies by the eminent Orthodox theologian and sophiologist Father Sergei Bulgakov are remarkable in many ways. The first is a unique consideration--from the point of view of Eastern Christianity--of the Holy Grail, the chalice used by Joseph of Arimathea to catch the blood and water as it flowed from Jesus' side when it was pierced on the Cross by the spear of Longinus. This moment is described in John 19:34. Bulgakov's essay is a "dogmatic exegesis" of this passage in which, with astounding passion and precision, he reveals that the Earth itself and hence the human universe is the Grail wherein Christ lives forever. The second essay is also unique--the most important contribution to eucharistic theology by an Orthodox theologian. In the West, the meaning of the Communion bread and wine as the Christ's Body and Blood has been interpreted largely in philosophical terms deriving from Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas. Bulgakov insists on a christological and Gospel-based interpretation, one with tremendous significance for our understanding of the supernatural and sophianic nature of a world interpenetrated by the divine. This little book is a priceless gift, enriching our understanding of the Christian mystery and two of its deepest aspects, the Grail and the Eucharist.

Sacrifice and Community
Sacrifice and Community

Author: Matthew Levering

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2006-01-10

Total Pages: 448

ISBN-13: 1405136898

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This book explores the character of the Eucharist as communion in and through sacrifice. It will stimulate discussion because of its controversial critique of the dominant paradigm for Eucharistic theology, its reclamation of St Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the Eucharist, and its response to Pope John Paul II’s Ecclesia de Eucharistia. Argues that the Eucharist cannot be separated from sacrifice, and rediscovers the biblical connections between sacrifice and communion. Timed to coincide with the Year of the Eucharist, proclaimed by Pope John Paul II. Reclaims the riches of St Thomas Aquinas’s theology of the Eucharist, which had recently been reduced to a metaphysical defence of transubstantiation.

Aquinas on Transubstantiation
Aquinas on Transubstantiation

Author: Reinhard Hutter

Publisher: Catholic University of America Press

Published: 2019

Total Pages: 145

ISBN-13: 0813231779

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Aquinas on Transubstantiation treats one of the most frequently mis-understood and mis-represented teachings of Thomas Aquinas—Eucharistic transubstantiation. The study interprets Aquinas’s teaching as an exercise of “holy teaching” (sacra doctrina) that intends to show theologically and back up philosophically the simple yet profound thesis that “transubstantiation” affirms nothing but the truth of Christ’s words at the Last Supper—“This is my body,” “This is my blood.” Yet in order to achieve a contemporary ressourcement of this simple yet profound truth, it is necessary to probe the depths of Thomas Aquinas’s philosophical interpretation of it. For Thomas Aquinas, in regarding the truth of Eucharistic conversion, it is faith that preserves the human intellect from missing or dismissing the mystery announced in Christ’s words. Faith, however, is not intellectually blind, a faith that, as is often erroneously held, is commanded by arbitrary divine dictates to which the will submits in blind obedience. Rather, Aquinas takes faith is sustained, but not constituted, by an intellectual contemplation of the proposed mystery of faith, by faith seeking understanding. Thomas Aquinas unfolds this exercise of understanding guided by faith in the medium of a metaphysical contemplation that affords a profound intellectual appreciation of this central mystery of faith—precisely as mystery. Thomas’s metaphysical contemplation of Eucharistic conversion gestures toward the blinding light of superintelligibility, experienced as the unique darkness that surrounds this sublime mystery of faith. A ressourcement in Thomas Aquinas’s doctrine of transubstantiation also affords an renewed appreciation of the Church’s affirmation of transubstantiation as the most apt term for the interpretation of the mystery of Eucharistic conversion and a greater precision of what is centrally at stake in this mystery in the ongoing ecumenical conversation of this most central Christian teaching. A doctrinally sound, ecumenically informed, and philosophically reflected contemporary Catholic theology cannot afford to ignore or dismiss Aquinas’s surpassing account of Eucharistic conversion.