 Leibniz’s writings on theology thus become focused on establishing what he seems to have viewed as this moderate Lutheran position, of showing across a range of issues that what might appear contrary to reason is often merely above it (see Antognazza  2018b).[10]  One central theological issue which Leibniz deals with in this way, and which as we have seen concerned Luther (see  Luther entry §2)  and became a crucial matter of dispute within the later Reformation, was the question of the Eucharist. Unsurprisingly, therefore, this issue becomes central for Leibniz too, both in his ecumenical attempts to find common ground between the various Christian traditions, and to show how a reason informed by new developments in philosophical thinking (most especially his own) can find a way forward in these apparently intractable debates (see Backus 2016: Chapters 1 and 2; Mercer 2002: 82–89; Fouke 1992). Nonetheless, despite his ecumenical endeavours, it has been noted (Adams 1994: 354–5; Antognazza 2018b: 746–48) that Leibniz’s metaphysics works best as an attempt to make sense of the Eucharist when this is conceived along the lines of the Lutheran position of real presence rather than the Catholic conception of  transubstantiation.[11]  To this extent his metaphysics more generally may be said to operate within a broadly Lutheran outlook, though one which (thanks to the influence of Melanchthon and others) had more room in it than Luther himself may have liked for Aristotelian ideas of the sort Leibniz employed to deal with these issues, such as substantial form (see Mercer 2002:  101).[12]