parresia

I'm guessing that last view of the Supper is supposed to represent how some people take Calvin's view. Calvin's view, however, was rather more robust than that.

He was willing to speak of Christ being brought down to us by the Spirit. He said that the same body that was offered to the Father on the cross is not offered to us in the Supper. He insisted that our eucharistic partaking of Christ was a substantial one in which the life-giving power of Christ's flesh was received by use.

And in all of this he insisted that the bread and wine of the Supper, eaten and drunk, were, in his words, the true means, vehicles, instruments, and implements.

After all, the two primary influences on Calvin's eucharistic theology were the Eastern Fathers and Augustine.

Joel,

Via email Martin has made much of that clear to me; I do too appreciate your accordance.

It seems that though Calvin did attempt to align his view of the Lord's Supper with the early church fathers, trying, I imagine, at least in part, to avoid the type of paradigm shift that I charge above, still his conclusion, though not as radically different as I had suspected, still denied certainly the Western (and seemingly also the Eastern) practice and belief concerning the presence of Christ's flesh in the Lord's Supper.

thanks again; your thoughts are always welcomed and indeed sought.

Well, Calvin certainly denied the western view as that had come to be expressed in medieval discussions of "transubstantiation." I think it is a matter of debate whether or not he denied the eastern view, whatever that view is (which, of course, isn't easy to pin down). Most Orthodox theologians would reject, with Calvin, the western terminology of "transubstantiation" and myopic focus upon consecratory formulations, focusing instead upon the Eucharist as a liturgical event and action through which we are transformed by receiving Christ's flesh.

I'm hard pressed to articulate the difference between Calvin's view and, for example, the view of Schmemman in his book on the Eucharist, except perhaps that Calvin still remains, to some degree, within western categories.

Joel, So do I understand you correctly, that you interpret Calvin as NOT denying a "transformation" (of the bread of some sort) as it seems that Ware makes very clear in his book The Orthodox Church

As the words of the Epiclesis make abundantly plain, the Orthodox Church believes that after consecration the bread and wine become in very truth the Body and Blood of Christ; they are not mere symbols, but the reality. But while Orthodoxy has always insisted on the reality of the change, it has never attempted to explain the manner of the change: the Eucharistic Prayer in the Liturgy simply uses the neutral term metaballo, to "turn about," "change," or "alter."

Or is it you interpret, and perhaps Schmemman makes this more clear, the Orthodox view of "turning about" to be best understood as more "spiritual" as Calivin would prefer?