Thursday, September 16, 2021

No, Luther wouldn't have agreed with Calvin on the Eucharist

Even though that new-to-me argument is making some rounds in recent years.

Many post-Zwinglian Calvinist Reformed argue that Luther actually accept Calvin's spiritual presence, while noting Zwingli believed the same, but involved in direct disputations with Luther, focused on the "no bodily presence." See here, near the end.

Yes, Melanchthon did, but ... IMO, Luther more ignored Calvin in silence than anything. He was focused on intra-Lutheran issues post-1530 more than anything else. And, this is itself a claim from silence.

Sure, Luther accepted Calvin's "spiritual presence" — as far as it went. But, that wasn't far enough. 

He explicitly condemned it for not going further. In reality, Calvin stood with Zwingli and against Luther on "local presence" vs "illocal presence," and on rejecting Luther and Rome on what's technically called "oral manducation" or similar. See here. Let us not forget that, while it was Zwingli's idea, Calvin also never explicitly rejected "finitum infinit non capax est," an idea that appalled Luther. Let us not forget that running until Barth or beyond, the Reformed have held to this.

Indeed, until writing this post, I'd never heard of claims that Calvin and Luther agreed on the Eucharist. Tosh!

That said, as noted most in my Roper Luther bio review, Luther was wrong and Karlstadt was right on this issue.

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