Richard Hooker nullifies scholastic distinctions (transubstantiation, consubstantiation)

“Sith [since] we all agree that by the sacrament, Christ doth really and truly in us perform his promise: why do we vainly trouble our selves with so fierce contentions. whether by consubstantiation or else by transubstantiation the sacrament it self be first possessed with Christ or no: a thing which no way can either further or hinder us howsoever it stand, because our participation of Christ in the Sacrament, dependeth on the cooperation of his omnipotent power, which maketh it his body and blood unto us, whether with change or without alteration of the element, such as they imagine, we need not greatly to care nor inquire after.”
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Thoughts? Seems eminently reasonable to me...

 

Well, I think that could be quite correct and true. Between consubstantiation and transubstantiation there isn't much of a difference. (Assuming that the Lutherans believe that Jesus is physically present in, under and with the bread & wine; I'm not sure how many of them do.) The difference may lie more in what the Lutherans and the RCs did with their respective doctrines.

Between our Anglican view and those two, the difference is considerable: one is a partaking of Jesus in a spiritual sense and the other is a gnawing on Jesus' physical flesh. The thing about being born again and redeemed by God is, it's a change of our spirits. We are in Christ and He is in us (spiritually, not physically). The Holy Spirit indwells us, but without physical form. Reception is spiritual. We are not meant to be in Jesus' tummy, nor is His body meant to be in ours. Jesus sits physically at the right hand of the Father and He will not return physically to earth until the Second Advent.

When the RCs adopted transubstantiation, they sort of 'pushed all the poker chips into the pot' and made their physical-gnawing Eucharist a major linchpin of their belief system; in their system one must necessarily receive Christ's physicality at least once per year in order to be saved, and moreover they teach their members that the RCC is 'the only game in town' because no other group's priests can confect it. This is a terrible misuse of the sacrament, and said misuse was made possible by the transubstantiation doctrine (because it is not merely a 'how it happens' explanation but is also a 'how important and how necessary it is to you' doctrinal shift.)

The Lutherans never did the same with consubstantiation. They didn't misuse the concept to scare people into never leaving their denomination. They taught salvation by grace through faith, not by grace through ingesting Jesus physically. The potential was there, but the Lutherans didn't fall into the error; they did not build their church by manipulating the members with fear. I'm not really sure if they all teach or emphasize physical Presence, either; what I've read about consubstantiation seems rather vague on this point.