Originally posted by Eric B:
Now, we are in the dispensation of the Spirit, where God reveals Himself to us through the Spirit in us. I neverargued that God couldn't be manifest visibly. He just does not choose to do it now, because the New Testament (after Christ) is about the Spirit, and the Old Covenant was "fleshy", and more physical/visible oriented (the whole lesson is that that did not solve man's problem of sin).
Now you are trying to have your cake and eat it too. On the one hand, you theoretically leave open the possibility that God can manifest himself visibly, but on the other hand you are quite confident that "He just does not choose to do it now" based on your
assumptions about the differences the Old and New Covenants, assumptions which
continue to have more in common with gnosticism than historic Christianity. The truth is that the New Covenant is based supremely on the fact that God became visible for our salvation--He became a visible man (like us), taking on a physical nature, and lived a visible, physical life, died a visible, physical death (which affected our spiritual
and physical salvation) and visibly arose again. This was not to dispense with the visible/physical by any means, but was rather to
redeem it. Therefore, to suggest that we are not to use visible means to attest to this truth or that God "doesn't choose" to use visible means to convey His Incarnational reality to us, but that rather the visible/physical was done away with (once Christ ascended) and is still (by the mere
fact of it being visible/physical) irredeemably "fleshy", falls back into quasi-gnosticism.
Historic Christianity has affirmed both the Spirit coming upon the Church at Pentecost and indwelling believers and also the Christians communion with the Incarnate Christ in the Eucharist. It has also affirmed that Christ came to redeem the entire person--body and soul. It isn't "either/or".
So now it does "change". That's what the RCC says, and now, the only difference seems to be that they say it is only flesh and blood, and you say it is both. Once again; if it is both; then the physical side of it can be said to be a symbol of the spiritual. Else; it appears that a separate "spiritual version" is "floating" beside it or residing in it, or whatever, which you deny.
But the invisible (to
us) reality is not "floating" at all; it's anchored in history in Christ's once-for-all sacrifice. That's why one can call the bread and the wine "symbols", but only in the sense that the ancients used that word to mean a visible sign which actually makes present the invisible reality, or by which it is effected.
In regards, to specifics (or "mechanics") of the "change", the Orthodox Church has been content to leave it as a mystery rather than trying to define it in Aristotelian philosphical categories.
Likewise, we have no reason to expect the rest of these "teachings not written" to be much different than anything we do read about.
Of course there's nothing contradictory between what wasn't written and what was, but that then brings up the problem of the
interpretation of what
was actually written.
For instance, let's suppose (for the sake of argument) that Paul had said some other things in more detail about the Real Presence, perhaps not worded exactly the same as in 1 Corinthians yet consistent with what he
meant in that passage. Now suppose that these different nuances--including the idea of "change"--were later written down by different orthodox church fathers. If then, a Lutheran or Anglican (or Orthodox or Catholic) look back and see these writings and compare them with what Paul wrote in Scripture, they would see complimentary ways of saying the same truth. However, if a Zwinglian were to do the comparison then he'd see contradiction, and would say: "Nope...look here--this church father says the elements "change", a word that Paul didn't specifically write in Corinthians. We know that Paul must have meant this merely metaphorically, so this must be where everyone got off track." However, the Zwinglian would be wrong in his assessment. The tradition would actually be agreeing with the scriptural
"principle" but this fact would be denied by the Zwinglian, but affirmed by those who maintain the historical belief in the real presence.
OTOH, suppose for the sake of argument that Paul meant for the Eucharist to be interpreted in the Zwinglian sense and clarified this belief in statements outside of Scripture, perhaps in anticipation of future misunderstandings. One would expect that
somewhere among the orthodox Christians that this view would be defended as the correct one, especially when other otherwise orthodox Christians started taking it too literally. Given the controversies on several other issues that brought out spirited defenses from the orthodox believers in the face of heresy one would think that there would be a statement somewhere to the fact that: "This Real Presence doctrine is a heresy! Don't you know this is the "dispensation of the Spirit" and that such emphasis on visible and physical things is just a fleshy vestige of the Old Covenant? Physical and visible things avail for nothing!" Yet not only do we not see any such repudiation of the Real Presence from orthodox Christians, but the place in which we do encounter beliefs such as these are in the teachings of the gnostic heretics. (Of course--one may argue that such defenses may have existed before vanishing without a trace, but then folks like the Mormons could also in such a manner argue from silence.)
So starting with different presuppositions about how the written Scriptures are interpreted, one comes to different conclusions of whether the patristic
consensus is in agreement with the scriptural "principle" or whether they are in opposition. The fact is that there is no historical evidence for that these Zwinglian presuppositions existed among the otherwise orthodox christians until...Zwingli.
