Yes, and that word, "is", contains the proposition that an ontological change has occurred. To ignore this would be to obscure Christ's revelatory word, not to honor it.
The bread is Christ's real body. The wine is Christ's real blood.
That is ontological, in that we are talking about is-ness.
Is it still bread? Does Christ's word negate the ontological reality of the bread?
That's the point I'm making.
But you make it seem like metaphysics is this highfalutin thing that has nothing to do with the meaning of ordinary language. That's not true. If it's nothing more than ordinary bread then Christ's words are false. If it's different from ordinary bread then there has been an ontological change.
The fact that we are getting into philosophical debates about whether bread is still bread is, I think, kind of the whole point of why the metaphysic is wholly unnecessary; and ought to be set aside.
Can it be regular, ordinary, run-of-the-mill bread and also Christ's true, real, actual, bodily flesh?
It's a false dichotomy that doesn't need to exist. And it's something that simply doesn't matter--to make such philosophical speculation a matter of dogma is the other part of the issue.
We can't say anything other than what the Lord said, "This [bread] is My body" et al.
This is also why the question of when does it become Christ's flesh is regarded as mere speculation. Likewise, is the bread outside of the context of the Eucharist, still His flesh? Lutherans can't answer that either, it is pure speculation.
Here in the Eucharist the bread is Jesus' flesh, because Jesus said so.
Here in the Eucharist the wine is Jesus' blood, because Jesus said so.
The assortment of speculative questions that can be asked after the fact are matters of pure speculation and opinion. What God has not said, we cannot confess or believe as revealed dogma.
But what do you mean by, "this"? Obviously you mean bread and wine. We need to use our sense. Revelation comes through natural language and natural categories. If "This (bread) is the body of Christ," then it exists in a different way than ordinary bread. Faith does not mean throwing the natural meaning of words out the window. If that were true then faith-based revelation would be impossible.
Right, it is the body of Christ, that is the revelation of Christ. Christ said "this [bread] is My body", and the natural meaning of the language is that the bread [of His Supper, the Holy Eucharist] is His body.
That's what I've been saying.
I think what you are trying to say is that the natural meaning of Christ's words somehow innately indicate the change of the substance from bread to Christ's flesh, therefore it is no longer bread. But none of that is innate to what Jesus said, the Lord's word here does not say anything less or more than what He has said.
We can infer that what was merely bread and nothing more or other than that is, now, somehow, Christ's true flesh. That is, I believe a natural inference by which the language has cohesive meaning.
But it does not explicate beyond this into a metaphysical transformation of breadly substance into fleshly substance.
To borrow the Aristotelian framework; we are not forced to conclude as a matter of dogma that the accidents of the species have become a deception, telling us the substance is of one thing rather than that of another.
Indeed, what the "accidents" tell us are totally immaterial. Is it no longer substantially bread? Who can say? Does it still remain substantially bread? Who could know?
What we can say, because of faith in Christ's own word, is that it (the species of the Eucharist) is, indeed, truly and really Christ's flesh and blood.
You are disregarding the meaning of the word "is". I don't know why you are doing that. Christ used that word on purpose. He didn't want us to disregard it.
I've been consistently emphasizing the very use of the word "is". I'm fully aware that we are speaking of ontology, speaking of the essence, substance, the esse/is-ness of the Eucharist.
That has been the basis of what I've been writing in my posts.
But the question is not about what Christ is. It is about what the bread is. I assume you didn't make a typo.
Christ is--tangibly, ontologically, His real flesh and real blood--in, with, and under the species of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
-CryptoLutheran