Okay, so I describe the Incarnation in my last post as an example of a "supernaturalism" which is basically the convergance of one of your "types" of "supernaturalsim" (ie the virgin birth) with the other "type" (the spiritual truth of the Incarnation)--types which you implied in the earlier post shouldn't be confused. I made this point to show there's no necessary reason to make a hard and fast distinction between these two "types" in order to keep them from being "confused" (as a prelude into my discussion of the Eucharist). However, to the part of the post in which I describe how in the Incarnation the Divine Person (the Son) assumes humanity (rather than a separately subsiting
man) and thus becomes empirically a historical man, you respond....
But again, this embodiment is still in a PERSON
Which is somewhat ambiguous. I would hope you aren't that suggesting that the Divine Word became embodied in
another subsisting PERSON. If you are, you are Nestorian. But moving on...
Since all "persons" inhabit bodies, then this divine person would be no different in that respect.
Except that not
all "persons"
necessarily inhabit 'bodies'. From eternity the Three Divine Persons--God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost--did
not inhabit bodies, nor is it some how logically necessary that they do so now. I've already made reference to the fact that Solomon said of God:
"The LORD said
He would dwell in the dark cloud. I have surely built for you an exalted house. And a
place for You to dwell forever". (1 Kings 8:12-13)
So if the Divine Person can inhabit non-human "inanimate" objects, why can't He in others? It's HIS creation--he can do what He wants to with it, right?
And the flesh in itself is not said to be divine, as it bled and died like anyone else.
But the flesh belongs to the Divine Person. It's
HIS and no other person's. (But I'm not really sure what this has to do with the topic at hand, except to say that the same Divine Person whose human flesh was given on the cross ("for the life of world") had said that this same flesh is food indeed and His blood drink indeed, and that at the Last Supper He declared that the bread was His body and the wine was His blood.)
I would agree with "spiritual presence", but then again, the spiritual presence is in US already,
Except now you seem to be digressing into modalism, or at least confusing the Persons of the Trinity. It's
Christ whose Body and Blood is present in the bread and wine. The Holy Spirit did not become Incarnate (though He played a "role" in the Incarnation) Himself, so
His presense in the Church is not exactly the same as Christ's special presence in the Eucharist (though of course, the Son and the Holy Spirit can't ultimately be separated). Also, at Christ's baptism, when the Incarnate Son came out of the water, the Holy Spirit descended as a dove. In other words, They were both present in unique ways at Christ's Baptism, so there's no
a priori reason to assume They could not be both present in unique ways in the Church.
and there is no need to make anything else of it.
Not unless you assume that there can't possibly be two "types" (or modes) of Divine presence exisiting simultaneously, one of the Son (in the Eucharist) and the other of the Holy Spirit. But we already know from Scripture that God is omnipresent and yet can be said also to dwell (somehow 'locally') in the cloud/tabernacle/temple. And if God can so be present simulataneously in more than one of different senses in the OT examples, He certainly can be present in different ways simultaneously so in the NT.
If it is a spiritual presence IN the bread and wine, then not only is there no change in the elements, but there is no flesh and blood at all (because those are PHYSICAL substances, in contrast with "spirit"),
But that doesn't necessarily follow, unless you want to tell Christ our God that He
can't possibly communicate His flesh and blood to us in the empirical forms of bread and wine.
and you might as well just go on and say that the elements themselves are symbols
That may be your
assertion, but it doesn't logically follow. Saying that "there's a special spiritual presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the bread and wine" can't be logically reduced to the proposition that "there's
no special spiritual presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the bread and wine" (if that's what you mean by the word 'symbol'). That's like saying, "Well if A is true, you might as well just go on and say A is
not true"
...with the Spirit "entering" us as the food enters us, or something like that.
Again, I'm beginning to think you have the Persons of the Trinity confused. It's Christ who "enters" us in the bread and the wine. (The Spirit, as you say, is "
already in us")
After you made the claim that God doesn't indwell things, I pointed out some counter-examples from the OT. Then you responded...
And in those cases, God had some sort of visible manifestation inhabit a physical object.
So what was the 'visible manifestation' that inhabited the
dark cloud? Solomon said in the verse cited above that God dwelt in the "dark cloud". So what was the 'visible' manifestation that inhabited the dark physical cloud?
But then the physical item itself was not then said to "become" God's body, but rather;
I don't believe I ever claimed that the cloud, temple, of tabernacle "became" God's 'body'. I just pointed out that the Scriptures asserted that God at one time or another dwelt in those things.
God continued to say that man had never seen any real "form" of God (Deuteronomy 4:12, 15-16).
And? In the NT, Christ is declared to be the express image of God, and He was seen physically and handled. And if He declares the bread and wine to be His body and blood, I believe Him.
And there was still some empirical difference in the object: the light and sound from the cloud or mountaintop, the bush not burning up; priests getting struck down for entering the holiest of holies in the Temple wrong, etc.
So I guess you're backing off your earlier claim that God can't or doesn't indwell "things". Now you seem to be retreating into an unproven assumption that if there's no "empirical difference in the object" then God can't possibly be supernaturally present in it. God was supernaturally present (in a unique way) in Christ, yet for most of Christ's life (the many years He wasn't performing any miracles) there was apparently no empirical difference between He and other men (ie under a microscope, one wouldn't be able to tell He was God Incarnate). And when Christ did start performing miracles people didn't instantly conclude that God dwelled in Him. Similarly, there's no
empirical difference between the Scriptures and other books that would compell us to say that the words of the former are "God-breathed" in contradistinction to the latter (eg. empirical lightening bolts don't jump off the pages when we read them) So there's no a priori reason to rule out God becoming supernaturally involved with His creation, in different ways, without being "empirically detected".
So-called "Memorialism" could agree with a "spiritual benefit" being "conveyed" through bread, wine and water. In that case, the elements have no change, or power in thelselves, but are being used to "convey" something else; which in its definitions (To transport; to carry; to take from one place to another.
To communicate; to make known. (law) To transfer legal rights (to).) is compatible with symbolism. (i.e. You can transport an actual item, or "make it known" through a representation of it).
If one believes that spiritual benefits are actually conveyed through bread, wine, and water, then that one is by definition
not a "memorialist", but a "sacramentalist". But you don't really believe that spiritual benefits are actually conveyed through the bread, wine, and water themselves (as will be pointed out below...)
I do not believe in any "change" of the elements at all.