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I articulate a real presence theory of the Eucharist that is coherent, attractive, and utilizes the resources of contemporary Christology. First, I review some of the recent analytic discussions of the metaphysics of the incarnation. From this, I distinguish two types of impanation, which I name Type-H and Type-S Impanation. I then expound Type-S Impanation utilizing the notion of enabling externalism. I raise two potential objections to this view, the responses to which allow me to highlight the incarnation-like coherence and attractiveness of this view as an exposition of the liturgical utterance ‘This is my body.’

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The doctrine of the Eucharist has been one of the more fruitful locales of philosophical reflection within Christian theology. The central philosophical question has been, ‘what is the state of affairs such that it is apt to say of a piece of bread, “This is the body of Christ”?’ In this article, I offer a delineation of various families of answers to this question as they have been proffered in the history of the church. These families are distinguished by how they view the presence of the body of Christ as well as the continued presence of the bread and wine after consecration. I then provide a specific examination of some recent attempts to explicate these views. A number of the recent work has focused on the Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, but I also survey consubstantiation, transignification, and a recent revival of impanation as potential means for describing the metaphysical realities of the Eucharist.

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