This do in remembrance of me Luke 22:19

[Eric B]

I'm not sure the Bible does give you the sort of clear blue water you'd like between the two. Take the healing miracles of Jesus for example: the Gospel writers seemed to have no difficulty in attributing supernatural causes (demon possession) to conditions which modern (with a small and large 'M') medicine would class as epilepsy and mutism etc.

That doesn't mean it was actually the same thing. It could be two different things with a similar effect. Else, you would be suggesting that everyone with epilepsy and mutism today are demon posessed, as the two categories are really the same.

I'm sure Matt will answer for himself, but he may be referring to either the (1) tendancy of some to make too radical a distinction between the spiritual and material, leading to Manichaeanism, gnosticism and the like;

Even though you keep accusing me of that; that is not what I have ever suggested at all.

and/or (2) the tendancy to come up with artificial allowable categories of the 'supernatural' as if this somehow rules out ahead of time how God may or may not act "supernaturally". Both tendencies are based on a priori assumptions about what the God of the Bible can or cannot do with certain aspects of creation. However, all things were made by God--both visible and invisible--and He can pretty much use His creation as He in His loving, righteous wisdom sees fit.

It's not how God "may" act; it's that by your own explanation, there is no supernatural "change" in the bread and wine. You then speak of a spiritual presence, but the only spiritual presence mentioned in the Bible is through the Holy Spirit in us. Then, when that is mentioned, you go back to "But He said eat His flesh". And it keeps circling back around from there. So then, either there is a physical change in the elements, or you are using bread and wine to represent the flesh and blood, however you may try to express this. Coming up with some new type of "supernatural change that is not really a change" and attributing it to God is just a tactic anybody can do to try to prove anything.

Which is exactly the same charge skeptical detractors have made against the orthodox concepts of the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union through the years. However, neither the Trinity nor the Incarnation are incoherent when expressed correctly--and neither is the real presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the bread and wine of the Eucharist--although all of the above equally are mysteries to us. However, that which we finite humans cannot comprehend is no problem for God to "figure out".

And in many of those doctrines like that, the Church opverformulated (understandably, since they were guarding against specific errors on the issues), and the overformulation often raised more questions. The Church, when it ran out of answers, then began this "it's above our comprehension" tactic. They overused the claim of incomprehensibility (even though they were the ones trying to make it comprehendable to their liking in the first place), leading to precisely all the skepticism and distrust of "supernatural" claims we complain about in the "modern, enlightened West".

 

[BobRyan]

No Helen, what you showed us what your private interpretation of Jesus' teaching in John 6 is to be.

Give me one good reason why should I accept your private interpretation and neglect almost 2,000 years of Church History?

The RCC is not the basis for Doctrine. In Acts 17:11 "They searched the SCRIPTURES daily to see IF those things told to them by the Apostle Paul WERE SO".

That has always been the Bible model.

Simply blindly following the RCC was never a "proof" of the validity of any doctrine.

What that means is "you have to address the pointed questions" in John 6 that fully debunk the RCC' view (shared by the faithLESS disciples in John 6) that Christ wanted everyone there in John 6 to literally bite his flesh.

In Christ,

Bob

 

[BobRyan]

What “details” must be faithfully ignored in John 6 to hold to the RC doctrine on eating the Flesh of Christ?

#1. Ignore the context starting with vs 25-40 Where Christ is explicitly redirecting His followers AWAY from Earthly concern about food.


#2. Ignore the "Lesson of manna" that Christ references in 31-51 which is spelled out for us by God in Deut 8:3 – avoid God’s own summary of that lesson.


#3. Ignore Christ’s own summary of the discussion in John 6:63 saying that the term “FLESH” as he has used in his discussion so far (exegesis: Context determines meaning) “is worthless" for something to literally “bite” and then get eternal life.


#4. Ignore the detail in vs 43-58 that Christ is not stating “that the truth is a FUTURE truth” but rather is already true. He is Already the bread that already came down and they must already eat His flesh. He does not say “someday in the future you must eat My flesh”.


#5. Ignore the John 6:68 detail of Peter's summary conclusion of the "lesson learned" and the fact that it does not take the too-literal view of the faithLESS disciples in 6:52,60, but rather matches perfectly with Christ’s own clear statement as to how we literally obtain life in 6:63.


#6. Ignore the Matt 16:6-12 event where Christ scolds the disciples for taking the symbol of both bread and leaven too literally. MAtt 16:6-12. And do not connect that with the fact that He says nothing against the faithFULL disciple’s understanding/view in John 6.

#7. Ignore the detail of John 6 whereby the taking of Christ literally by the faithFULL disciples and then immediately obeying – (as the RC claims they should) – the gospel would end in John 6 with their biting His literal flesh for He said “My Flesh IS real food”.

#8. Ignore the detail of John 6 making no mention at all of a future Lord’s supper or Communion service needed for Christ’s words to “Then” become true at that future time.


Matt 16
9 ""Do you not yet understand or remember the five loaves of the five thousand[/b], and how many baskets full you picked up?
10 ""Or the seven loaves of the four thousand,[/b] and how many large baskets full you picked up?
11 ""How is it that you do not understand that [b]I did not speak to you concerning bread?[/b] But beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and Sadducees.''
12 Then they understood that He did not say to beware of the leaven of bread, but of the teaching of the Pharisees and Sadducees.

 

[Eliyahu]

The RCC is not the basis for Doctrine. In Acts 17:11 "They searched the SCRIPTURES daily to see IF those things told to them by the Apostle Paul WERE SO".

That has always been the Bible model.

Simply blindly following the RCC was never a "proof" of the validity of any doctrine.

What that means is "you have to address the pointed questions" in John 6 that fully debunk the RCC' view (shared by the faithLESS disciples in John 6) that Christ wanted everyone there in John 6 to literally bite his flesh.

In Christ,

Bob

Correct!
If I add one more statement as detractors may say " whose interpretation is correct?"

Bible explains Bible itself. Read the Bible carefully again, especially Leviticus 17 and Deut 12-15.

Jesus offered Himself based on this very Truth that Blood is offered to God, for the reconcilation and redemption.

The Blood of Lamb was smeared onto the door posts and lintels so that the Destroyer may see it and passover the believers inside. ( Exodus 12:5-13). The Blood of the lamb was the shadow of the Blood of Jesus Christ.


Dear Friends believing in Transubstantiation,

Imagine what would have happened if the Israelites drank the Blood inside the house and didn't apply it onto the door posts and onto the lintels.

They would have been cursed and killed as the Egyptians were killed.

Sadly, even today many people do not believe this truth and confess that they drink Blood, which is the apparent disobedience against the teachings in Leviticus 17:10-14.

Blood is not for human beings to drink! but is to be offered to God!

Do you want to change this verse?

Without shedding of Blood there is no remission of sin ( Heb 9:22)

to Without drinking of Blood there is no remission of sin ?


Don't you realize that you are far away from the Words of God yet?

 

[tragic_pizza]

This thread is just another example of why I like Reformed theology so much.

 

[Matt Black]

Bob, why are you so obsessed with the RCC? Neither I, nor TP, nor Servent are RC - check our profiles. I'm a member of a Baptist church who's about to become an Anglican. TP's Presbyterian/Reformed and Servent seems to be Southern Baptist. Only Agnus Dei is heading Romewards and even s/he hasn't fully swum the Tiber yet as far as I know. The point is that there are many Protestants - in fact the majority - who don't adhere to the strictly Memorialist position: Anglicans, Reformed, Methodist, some Baptists, not just Catholics. Why do you keep tilting as this straw man? (NB: the same question goes to you, Eliyahu re: tilting at transubstantiation?)

 

[Eliyahu]

The claim that there was no record of the rejection of the Transubstantiation before 1520 may be an echo of RCC only.

The oldest church that has been discovered so far may be the one near the Prison of Meggido, Israel which was discovered in November 2005.

Here is one of many sites which report about it.


http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=641806&contrassID=2&subContrassID=15&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

The excerpts of it are :

1) Donation to God Jesus Christ, which indicates that the believers regarded Jesus as God.

2) The ceramic mosaics indicate that they gathered around the Table, not an Altar.

[FONT=&#48148]One of the most dramatic finds suggests that, instead of an altar, a simple table stood in the center of the church, at which a sacred meal was held to commemorate the Last Supper. [/FONT]


Archaeologists say may have found oldest church
By Amiram Barkat, Haaretz Correspondent, and AP Nov 6, 2005

A mosaic and the remains of a building uncovered recently in excavations on the Megiddo prison grounds may belong to the earliest church in the world, according to a preliminary examination by the Israel Antiquities Authority.
One of the most dramatic finds suggests that, instead of an altar, a simple table stood in the center of the church, at which a sacred meal was held to commemorate the Last Supper.
Photographs of three Greek inscriptions in the mosaic were sent to Hebrew University expert Professor Leah Di Segni, who told Haaretz on Sunday that the use of the term "table" in one of them instead of the word "altar" might lead to a breakthrough in the study of ancient Christianity. It is commonly believed that church rituals based on the Last Supper took place around an altar.

[FONT=&#48148]

[/FONT]
[FONT=&#48148]This is exactly the same as what so-called Plymouth Brethren churches do today.
[/FONT]

 

[Chemnitz]

Bob, why are you so obsessed with the RCC? Neither I, nor TP, nor Servent are RC - check our profiles. I'm a member of a Baptist church who's about to become an Anglican. TP's Presbyterian/Reformed and Servent seems to be Southern Baptist. Only Agnus Dei is heading Romewards and even s/he hasn't fully swum the Tiber yet as far as I know. The point is that there are many Protestants - in fact the majority - who don't adhere to the strictly Memorialist position: Anglicans, Reformed, Methodist, some Baptists, not just Catholics. Why do you keep tilting as this straw man? (NB: the same question goes to you, Eliyahu re: tilting at transubstantiation?)

Hey Matt! Don't forget us Lutherans! :wavey:

 

[Matt Black]

Sorry, Chemnitz!

Eliyahu, your link tells us neither one thing nor the other about how the Early Church regarded communion and doesn't really take the discussion forward. The consistent evidence from the writings of the Early Church is that Malachi 1:10ff (the 'pure offering' of the Gentiles in every place) was adopted by the Church by the close of the 1st century as referring to communion/ the Eucharist ie: just at the time the NT was completed eg: the Didache 14:1-3 applies the term thesia (sacrifice) to communion, and similar concepts are found in Clement's writings (eg:40-44), Justin's c.150AD (eg: Dialogoi, 41:2; 117:1 - "all the sacrifices which Jesus appointed to be performed, viz, in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are celebrated in every place by Christians"; 41:3 - "the bread of the Eucharist and the cup likewise of the Eucharist" are indentified with the "pure offering" foretold by Malachi) and Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, AD 189, 4, 17, 5 - "(the Eucharist is) the new oblation of the new covenant"); Ignatius c.107AD refers to "one altar, just as there is one bishop" (Epistle to the Philadelphians:4).

In addition, the Didache 9:5 and 10:3 speaks of the bread and wine being "holy" and spiritual food and drink conferring eternal life; Ignatius refers to it as "the medicine of immortality" (Epistle to the Ephesians 20:2); Justin says, "We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

 

[Eliyahu]

Sorry, Chemnitz!

Eliyahu, your link tells us neither one thing nor the other about how the Early Church regarded communion and doesn't really take the discussion forward. The consistent evidence from the writings of the Early Church is that Malachi 1:10ff (the 'pure offering' of the Gentiles in every place) was adopted by the Church by the close of the 1st century as referring to communion/ the Eucharist ie: just at the time the NT was completed eg: the Didache 14:1-3 applies the term thesia (sacrifice) to communion, and similar concepts are found in Clement's writings (eg:40-44), Justin's c.150AD (eg: Dialogoi, 41:2; 117:1 - "all the sacrifices which Jesus appointed to be performed, viz, in the Eucharist of the bread and the cup, and which are celebrated in every place by Christians"; 41:3 - "the bread of the Eucharist and the cup likewise of the Eucharist" are indentified with the "pure offering" foretold by Malachi) and Irenaeus (Adversus Haereses, AD 189, 4, 17, 5 - "(the Eucharist is) the new oblation of the new covenant"); Ignatius c.107AD refers to "one altar, just as there is one bishop" (Epistle to the Philadelphians:4).

In addition, the Didache 9:5 and 10:3 speaks of the bread and wine being "holy" and spiritual food and drink conferring eternal life; Ignatius refers to it as "the medicine of immortality" (Epistle to the Ephesians 20:2); Justin says, "We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [i.e., has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus" (First Apology 66 [A.D. 151]).

1. Indeed the article itself doesn't tell us why it is the Table, not the Altar in detail. But the archaeologists who worked there noticed that the table was very simple in the center and it is different from what RCC claimed as Altar. It will be clear when we visit there.

2. your articles say nothing but that the didaches regarded the Lord's Supper as special, different from common Bread and Wine, which none of the Protestants deny, because they are taken as Body and Blood by faith. The ECF's wrote many articles but none of them, I notice, claim that the Bread and Wine turn into flesh and blood by any prayer or any other process. If you find any documents that they claimed the Bread and Wine are changed to flesh and blood, show it to me !

Again, ECF's just believed that Bread and Wine symbolize the Body and Blood, and they performed the Lord Supper with such belief that they are Body and Blood. They believed it so. They performed the Lord Supper with such notion and such belief. Show me any explicit statement which can support Transformation of the Substances.

 

[Matt Black]

Didn't you read what Justin said, "the food...is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"?

And there are more: Ignatius: "Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

Irenaeus



"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).


Clement of Alexandria



"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).


Tertullian



"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).


Hippolytus



"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).


Origen



"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).


Cyprian of Carthage



"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).

 

[Eliyahu]

Didn't you read what Justin said, "the food...is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus"?

And there are more: Ignatius: "Take note of those who hold heterodox opinions on the grace of Jesus Christ which has come to us, and see how contrary their opinions are to the mind of God. . . . They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer because they do not confess that the Eucharist is the flesh of our Savior Jesus Christ, flesh which suffered for our sins and which that Father, in his goodness, raised up again. They who deny the gift of God are perishing in their disputes" (Letter to the Smyrnaeans 6:2–7:1 [A.D. 110]).

Irenaeus



"If the Lord were from other than the Father, how could he rightly take bread, which is of the same creation as our own, and confess it to be his body and affirm that the mixture in the cup is his blood?" (Against Heresies 4:33–32 [A.D. 189]).

"He has declared the cup, a part of creation, to be his own blood, from which he causes our blood to flow; and the bread, a part of creation, he has established as his own body, from which he gives increase unto our bodies. When, therefore, the mixed cup [wine and water] and the baked bread receives the Word of God and becomes the Eucharist, the body of Christ, and from these the substance of our flesh is increased and supported, how can they say that the flesh is not capable of receiving the gift of God, which is eternal life—flesh which is nourished by the body and blood of the Lord, and is in fact a member of him?" (ibid., 5:2).


Clement of Alexandria



"’Eat my flesh,’ [Jesus] says, ‘and drink my blood.’ The Lord supplies us with these intimate nutrients, he delivers over his flesh and pours out his blood, and nothing is lacking for the growth of his children" (The Instructor of Children 1:6:43:3 [A.D. 191]).


Tertullian



"[T]here is not a soul that can at all procure salvation, except it believe whilst it is in the flesh, so true is it that the flesh is the very condition on which salvation hinges. And since the soul is, in consequence of its salvation, chosen to the service of God, it is the flesh which actually renders it capable of such service. The flesh, indeed, is washed [in baptism], in order that the soul may be cleansed . . . the flesh is shadowed with the imposition of hands [in confirmation], that the soul also may be illuminated by the Spirit; the flesh feeds [in the Eucharist] on the body and blood of Christ, that the soul likewise may be filled with God" (The Resurrection of the Dead 8 [A.D. 210]).


Hippolytus



"‘And she [Wisdom] has furnished her table’ [Prov. 9:2] . . . refers to his [Christ’s] honored and undefiled body and blood, which day by day are administered and offered sacrificially at the spiritual divine table, as a memorial of that first and ever-memorable table of the spiritual divine supper [i.e.,
the Last Supper]" (Fragment from Commentary on Proverbs [A.D. 217]).


Origen



"Formerly there was baptism in an obscure way . . . now, however, in full view, there is regeneration in water and in the Holy Spirit. Formerly, in an obscure way, there was manna for food; now, however, in full view, there is the true food, the flesh of the Word of God, as he himself says: ‘My flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink’ [John 6:55]" (Homilies on Numbers 7:2 [A.D. 248]).


Cyprian of Carthage



"He [Paul] threatens, moreover, the stubborn and forward, and denounces them, saying, ‘Whosoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily, is guilty of the body and blood of the Lord’ [1 Cor. 11:27]. All these warnings being scorned and contemned—[lapsed Christians will often take Communion] before their sin is expiated, before confession has been made of their crime, before their conscience has been purged by sacrifice and by the hand of the priest, before the offense of an angry and threatening Lord has been appeased, [and so] violence is done to his body and blood; and they sin now against their Lord more with their hand and mouth than when they denied their Lord" (The Lapsed 15–16 [A.D. 251]).

Could you see the points in all of your posts?

They never explained how the bread from the bakery becomes body or flesh, never mentioned that the Wine becomes another substance-Blood.

They clearly believed that the Bread and Wine are special and took them as Body and Blood by faith.

They clearly demonstrated their faith that the Bread is the Body, and performed the Lord's Supper with such belief.

I know Justin Martyr confessed such faith of his, that he reckoned the Bread and Wine as flesh and blood.

I am very sure that he believed he himself was crucified with Christ ( Gal 2:20). Was he nailed at the Cross physically with Jesus?

Could you show me any more than that? Show me!

Did they say that they have to drink the physical blood despite the prohibition in OT?
Show me the evidence then!

None of them denied that the Bread indicate the Body of Christ by Faith!

They clearly showed that they RECKONED them as Bible said, and that's it!

Transubstantiation came only after 12 century AD, I believe. Just before Thomas Acquinas organized it. Therefore the Objections by the Protestants wouldn't have emerged very much before, even though the True believers would have objected to any sporadic idea of Transubstantiation before the Lateran Council after the Early Church in NT. The Key of Truth discovered in 1895 which describes the Faith of the Paulicians around 8-9c doesn't show any Transubstantiation there.
Instead, Paulicians condemned the practices of RCC priests saying " This is my body" not the body of Christ, but the body of the sinful priests! ( Key of Truth)

You can find any ECF's didache claiming Transubstantiation, but if any, they were not bibleical at all, but superstitious, without knowing the meaning of Lord's Supper.

 

[Eric B]

The problem here again, is that on one hand, people keep denying the RCC doctrine of Transubstantiation, yet you keep quoting those ECF's showing that the bread and wine "change into" somethign else when a prayer is made over it. Note, none of the quotes even say that some "spiritual" flesh and blood comes and resides "IN", "under", or "besides", or whatever, the elements, but that rather they "become" flesh and blood. So either they believed in transubstantiationn, or it was a spiritual metaphor, which eventually corrupted into Transubstantiation as successive fathers added more detailed language to the concept, which is what appears to be happening as you jump from Ignatius and the Didache, to Justin and Irenaeus, to the later fathers.

You non-RCC's are tying to strip away the RCC conception, yet keep the "supernatural presence" aspect of it through the statements of the ECF's which were used to support the Roman conception, but you can't have it both ways.

 

[tragic_pizza]

You non-RCC's are tying to strip away the RCC conception, yet keep the "supernatural presence" aspect of it through the statements of the ECF's which were used to support the Roman conception, but you can't have it both ways.

Excuse me? Try that sentence again in English, and I'll try to respond in kind.

 

[Eric B]

Well, I meant "trying", not "tying", if that's what threw you off.
Otherwise, it's pretty clear.
The RCC's will argue for transubstantiation, and since RCC is the more popular advocate of some sort of "real presence", this is why some people here keep attacking transubstantiation. So others who are not RCC yet believe in "real presence" (Lutherans, Anglicans/Episcopalians, don't forget EOC, etc) use the ECF's, yet keep disclaiming transubstantiation; but the ECF's taken literally to prove "real presence" will lead to RCC "Transubstantiation", because there is clearly a claim of a "change" in the elements, not some nondescript "presence" "in", or "under" them.

 

[tragic_pizza]

Well, I meant "trying", not "tying", if that's what threw you off.
Otherwise, it's pretty clear.
The RCC's will argue for transubstantiation, and since RCC is the more popular advocate of some sort of "real presence", this is why some people here keep attacking transubstantiation. So others who are not RCC yet believe in "real presence" (Lutherans, Anglicans/Episcopalians, don't forget EOC, etc) use the ECF's, yet keep disclaiming transubstantiation; but the ECF's taken literally to prove "real presence" will lead to RCC "Transubstantiation", because there is clearly a claim of a "change" in the elements, not some nondescript "presence" "in", or "under" them.

Oh, OK.

Again, this is why I like Reformed theology.

 

[Doubting Thomas]

Even though you keep accusing me of that; that is not what I have ever suggested at all.

But you have made comments repeatedly in the past which have seemed to denigrate, for whatever reason, the idea of God using matter for spiritual purposes, particularly in regards to the waters of Baptism, and the bread and wine of Holy Communion. I have merely pointed out the fact that such views are more in keeping with the ideas of the gnostic dualists than those of the early orthodox catholic Christians. I have also pointed out the inconsistency of your position regarding the water, bread, and wine with the fact that God already uses physical matter to affect our salvation in that:
(1)the Incarnation involved an intimate (and permanent) joining of the Divine to created matter (matter indistinguishable from that of other humans) for our salvation
(2)that the Incarnate Word of God physically suffered and died on a physical cross (with physical nails) shedding physical blood for our spiritual (and, at the Eschaton, physical) salvation
(3)that the Incarnate Word of God physically rose from the dead and with His physical body ascended into Heaven
(4)that our ultimate fate is not to become disembodied spirits but to have resurrected physical bodies like that of Christ.

At least the gnostic dualists were consistent in denying not only God's use of water, wine, and bread to communicate His life to us but also in denying the four points listed above. You seem to want to stop God's use of matter at some arbitrary point (likely based on some personally-held soteriological presuppositions which I'm sure would take a whole 'nother thread to discuss), but the same God that used matter in an intimate way in the Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection of Christ may also use matter to communicate the Life of Christ to the individual belivers.
You seem to concede that God "may" act this way, but you proceed to say...

It's not how God "may" act; it's that by your own explanation, there is no supernatural "change" in the bread and wine.

But there is a supernatural "change". What before was only empirically bread and wine is now (after consecration) not only empirically bread and wine but also supernaturally the Body and Blood of Christ. The "change" is making truly present what was not there before--the Body and Blood of Christ. It doesn't necessarily mean--nor have I ever claimed--that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine in the same sense they were prior to their consecration.

You then speak of a spiritual presence, but the only spiritual presence mentioned in the Bible is through the Holy Spirit in us.

But that's begging the question, given the fact that the plain meaning of the Scriptures speak of another presence, namely the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine (as will be demonstrated further below). Paul specifically identifies the bread and the cup as the participation in the Body and Blood of Christ respectively. In your denial of the plain grammatical statements of this and other passages, you seem to assume God can only be present in one way in the Church, ignoring the Biblical evidence that God can indeed be 'present' in more than one way simultaneously:
(1) In the Old Testament, for example, God is described as dwelling in a sense 'locally' in the tabernacle/temple while at the same time remaining omnipresent.
(2) In the Incarnation, God the Son is walking around (locally) as a man on earth while still united to God in the Father and the Holy Spirit (yet neither the Father nor Holy Spirit were themselves incarnate).
(3) At Christ's Baptism, the Incarnate Christ comes up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove revealing that both Persons are simultaneously present at the same event, but in unique ways.

So we have ample evidence that God can indeed "be present" in more than one way simultanuously, so we can't rule out ahead of time that the only way Christ is present with us in the Church is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Besides, your assertion also confuses one type of presence of one of the Divine Persons (The Holy Spirit) with another type of presence by another Divine Person (the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist), as if these Persons can't somehow be present in unique ways simultaneously in the Church. This, of course, smacks of modalism, and we've already seen the counter-example of Christ and the Spirit, both Persons of the Undivided Trinity, being present at Christ's Baptism in unique ways.

Then, when that is mentioned, you go back to "But He said eat His flesh". And it keeps circling back around from there.

Yes, once we deal with your side's a priori assumptions we do inevitably return to the Scriptural texts themselves. For starters is Paul's statement to the Corinthians:
"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" 1 Corinthians 10:16 (Of course, these are rhetorical questions for which Paul expects the answers to be affirmative)

Here grammatically Paul clearly identifies the communion of (participation in) the blood of Christ with the cup, and the communion of (participation in) the body of Christ with the bread. The "cup" and the "bread" were not metaphorical--they were blessing then drinking from a literal cup and breaking and then eating a literal loaf of bread. And it's these--the cup and bread--that Paul identified with the participation in the body and blood of Christ...if the grammatical construction of the text means anything at all.

Notice, despite how much one may wish it to be so, that Paul did not say:
"Our 'togetherness' in drinking, is this not the communion of the blood of Christ? Our 'togetherness' in eating, is this not the communion of the body of Christ"?

That Paul is referring to the actual bread and the wine (and not merely some 'togetherness'), is strengthened when he makes reference to Christ's own words of Institution in the Upper Room in which Christ Himself refers to the literal bread which He broke and was to be eaten as His body (1 Corinthians 11:24)--unless you suppose Christ really didn't break and the disciples really didn't eat an actual loaf of bread in the upper room and that this was all just some metaphorical code for their 'togetherness'.

We can, of course, proceed to analyze the context and grammatical statements of these and the other passages (especially John 6) in more detail, but I'm not sure if it will be profitable if you persist in begging the question by "circling back" to the same a priori assumptions about what Christ and the Apostles can or cannot be teaching in these passages.
(For example "Paul really can't be teaching that the bread itself is the communion of (participation in) the body of Christ" because [insert a priori assumption of choice]."
or "Jesus really couldn't have meant that the same flesh He was literally giving for the life of the world was food indeed that we must eat in order to abide in Him because [insert a priori assumption of choice].")

So then, either there is a physical change in the elements, or you are using bread and wine to represent the flesh and blood, however you may try to express this.

Again, if you are using the word "represent" in a way other than it's original usage (ie "to re-present", "to make present again"), then you are creating a false dichotomy. I believe that bread and wine do represent the Body and Blood of Christ, in that the actual Body and Blood of Christ is "presented again" or "made present" in/with the forms of Bread and Wine (forms which do not physically change themselves). However, I do not believe that the bread and wine are mere visual aids for an absent reality--the actual Body and Blood of Christ--which is not substantially present in the bread and wine.

 

[Doubting Thomas]

Eric B: Coming up with some new type of "supernatural change that is not really a change" and attributing it to God is just a tactic anybody can do to try to prove anything.

(Of course the expression "new type of 'supernatural change that is not really change'" is a gross straw man mischaracterization of the Real Presence, and I dealt with this above...and of course our authority for believing in the Real Presence is not just "anybody", but Christ and the Apostles.)

If one dismisses the supernatural presence of the body and blood in the bread and wine simply because it, being unique in many respects, is a "new type of 'supernaturalism'", then to be consistent the Incarnation itself must be dismissed as this was also a "new type of supernaturalism'", unique in all of Scripture. The Incarnation was a supernatural "change", in that God the Word assumed humanity into His existence in time, thus changing the way He has since existed. There is no other example of a 'supernaturalism' in Scriptures in which God becomes a specific man in history by hypostatically joining humanity to Himself. Yet looking at the historical Man Jesus under a microscope wouldn't yield any empirical evidence that He was any different from any other human, let alone that He was the God of the universe. The empirical similarity between Christ and all other men, and the unheard-of possibility that God would (or indeed could) be hypostatically joined to humanity (ie no heretofore Scriptural examples of such a thing happening) were stumbling blocks to the unbelieving Jews (and skeptics today) when encountering the claims of Christ--they picked up stones to kill Him for this more than once.

And yet the Incarnation, despite its uniqueness among all other "supernaturalisms" in Scripture, is a core tenet of our faith. And if God can act supernaturally in this unique way, what's to keep Him from acting in another unique way in making His Body and Blood present in the bread and wine of Holy Communion (other than a personal bias against this doctrine)? Again, it's God's creation--He can act in any unique supernatural way that He sees fit.

And in many of those doctrines like that, the Church opverformulated (understandably, since they were guarding against specific errors on the issues), and the overformulation often raised more questions

"Overformulated" how and according to whom? How is clarifying a doctrine in a logically non-contradictory way in order to exclude heretical misinterpretations "overformulating"? You may have to provide examples of "many of those doctrines like that" so we can actually discuss the merits of the claim that said doctrine(s) were "overformulated".

The Church, when it ran out of answers, then began this "it's above our comprehension" tactic. They overused the claim of incomprehensibility (even though they were the ones trying to make it comprehendable to their liking in the first place),

When did the Church ever claim to comprehend the Trinity or the Hypostatic Union in it's conciliar statements? (Do you claim to comprehend the Trinity and the Incarnation? ) The Trinitarian and Christological defintions were not meant to "comprehend" either of those doctrines, but to state them in such a way that would be non-contradictory and that would exclude erroneous ways of expressing them.

...leading to precisely all the skepticism and distrust of "supernatural" claims we complain about in the "modern, enlightened West".

I'm not sure you can blame all the skepticism, nominalism, radical empiricism, and deism of the Enlightenment on the Church.

 

[Eric B]

But that's begging the question, given the fact that the plain meaning of the Scriptures speak of another presence, namely the body and blood of Christ in the bread and wine (as will be demonstrated further below). Paul specifically identifies the bread and the cup as the participation in the Body and Blood of Christ respectively.

Yes, once we deal with your side's a priori assumptions we do inevitably return to the Scriptural texts themselves. For starters is Paul's statement to the Corinthians:

"The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?" 1 Corinthians 10:16 (Of course, these are rhetorical questions for which Paul expects the answers to be affirmative)

Here grammatically Paul clearly identifies the communion of (participation in) the blood of Christ with the cup, and the communion of (participation in) the body of Christ with the bread. The "cup" and the "bread" were not metaphorical--they were blessing then drinking from a literal cup and breaking and then eating a literal loaf of bread. And it's these--the cup and bread--that Paul identified with the participation in the body and blood of Christ...if the grammatical construction of the text means anything at all.

Notice, despite how much one may wish it to be so, that Paul did not say:
"Our 'togetherness' in drinking, is this not the communion of the blood of Christ? Our 'togetherness' in eating, is this not the communion of the body of Christ"?

That Paul is referring to the actual bread and the wine (and not merely some 'togetherness'), is strengthened when he makes reference to Christ's own words of Institution in the Upper Room in which Christ Himself refers to the literal bread which He broke and was to be eaten as His body (1 Corinthians 11:24)--unless you suppose Christ really didn't break and the disciples really didn't eat an actual loaf of bread in the upper room and that this was all just some metaphorical code for their 'togetherness'.

We can, of course, proceed to analyze the context and grammatical statements of these and the other passages (especially John 6) in more detail, but I'm not sure if it will be profitable if you persist in begging the question by "circling back" to the same a priori assumptions about what Christ and the Apostles can or cannot be teaching in these passages.
(For example "Paul really can't be teaching that the bread itself is the communion of (participation in) the body of Christ" because [insert a priori assumption of choice]."
or "Jesus really couldn't have meant that the same flesh He was literally giving for the life of the world was food indeed that we must eat in order to abide in Him because [insert a priori assumption of choice].")

Plain meaning with your a priori interpretation back-read into it through your interpretation of the ECF's (and later ECF's interpretation of the earlier ones). Then, the additional point in the cycle you use is that yours is older. But again; we can clearly see this doctrine developing as more and more fathers added concepts, like the elements "changing" at the prayer. There is no reason otherwise to not understand this metaphorically, and your argument is basically that "the scriptures should say this, if it meant that"; but they often did spea metaphorically as if it really was the thing they were calling it (Like Christ the door). And that's why I was pointing out that Christ is in us spiritually. WE are "the body". To come together and eat together in His name IS to "partake of His body" without it having to say "our togetherness...". Again, you are forcefitting your eccelsaiastical interpretation on it, and it is the same mistake the Jews made when they got offended, or when the apostles misunderstood the "leaven of the Pharisees".

Again, if you are using the word "represent" in a way other than it's original usage (ie "to re-present", "to make present again"), then you are creating a false dichotomy. I believe that bread and wine do represent the Body and Blood of Christ, in that the actual Body and Blood of Christ is "presented again" or "made present" in/with the forms of Bread and Wine (forms which do not physically change themselves). However, I do not believe that the bread and wine are mere visual aids for an absent reality--the actual Body and Blood of Christ--which is not substantially present in the bread and wine.

Again; you're introducing a foreign idea of "re-produce". Metaphorically; it is still "re-producing" it, without having to add all of this other stuff to it.

"Overformulated" how and according to whom? How is clarifying a doctrine in a logically non-contradictory way in order to exclude heretical misinterpretations "overformulating"? You may have to provide examples of "many of those doctrines like that" so we can actually discuss the merits of the claim that said doctrine(s) were "overformulated".

When did the Church ever claim to comprehend the Trinity or the Hypostatic Union in it's conciliar statements? (Do you claim to comprehend the Trinity and the Incarnation? ) The Trinitarian and Christological defintions were not meant to "comprehend" either of those doctrines, but to state them in such a way that would be non-contradictory and that would exclude erroneous ways of expressing them.

It was the language they used, and with the Trinity it was not even unanimous, but basically it was politics that led to either one or the other side gaining power at different times, and eventually one winning out.
That doctrine as well, you could see slowly developing as you go through the same ECF's, and they begin adding more and more language to it, to try to clarify it. Then, you end up with a perfect symmetrical statement of "three equals", called "persons", sharing one "substance". But this continued to confuse prople and raise objections. Then, just like with Transubstantiation, the West continues to add to it, with Augustine's and others endless atempts to illustate it, and the East (such as the Cappadocians) drawing a line and saying "no, this is just a mystery for contemplation only; do not try to explain it any further". But they still had the Nicene symmetry, and that was already overformulated, and then that became an end in itself (like the fact that the symmetry was handy to "contemplate" on). They should have left it with Ireneaus, Tertullian or Hippolytus' language (The Father as the one substance, the Son and Spirit proceeding forth from Him. That also may have even halted filioque). They still could have countered Arianism, Modalism and others without adding the symmetrical stetements.

I'm not sure you can blame all the skepticism, nominalism, radical empiricism, and deism of the Enlightenment on the Church.

Well, as much as the Church complains about these movements, as if they just up and sprang out of nowhere, or in a vacuum totally outside the Church, it was the Church that had almost complete control over almost every facet of Western society. If all thus skepticism, nominalism, deism, etc. sprung up and took hold, we must ask what was wring with the environment it sprung up in in the first place.

 

[Eric B]

But you have made comments repeatedly in the past which have seemed to denigrate, for whatever reason, the idea of God using matter for spiritual purposes, particularly in regards to the waters of Baptism, and the bread and wine of Holy Communion. I have merely pointed out the fact that such views are more in keeping with the ideas of the gnostic dualists than those of the early orthodox catholic Christians.

I did not denigrate the using of matter for spiritual purposes, you misunderstood what I was trying to say, and mischaracterized it as such to get the "gnostic" label on it, as an apparant "association" tactic.

I have also pointed out the inconsistency of your position regarding the water, bread, and wine with the fact that God already uses physical matter to affect our salvation in that:
(1)the Incarnation involved an intimate (and permanent) joining of the Divine to created matter (matter indistinguishable from that of other humans) for our salvation
(2)that the Incarnate Word of God physically suffered and died on a physical cross (with physical nails) shedding physical blood for our spiritual (and, at the Eschaton, physical) salvation
(3)that the Incarnate Word of God physically rose from the dead and with His physical body ascended into Heaven
(4)that our ultimate fate is not to become disembodied spirits but to have resurrected physical bodies like that of Christ.

At least the gnostic dualists were consistent in denying not only God's use of water, wine, and bread to communicate His life to us but also in denying the four points listed above. You seem to want to stop God's use of matter at some arbitrary point (likely based on some personally-held soteriological presuppositions which I'm sure would take a whole 'nother thread to discuss), but the same God that used matter in an intimate way in the Incarnation, Atonement, and Resurrection of Christ may also use matter to communicate the Life of Christ to the individual belivers.

In your denial of the plain grammatical statements of this and other passages, you seem to assume God can only be present in one way in the Church, ignoring the Biblical evidence that God can indeed be 'present' in more than one way simultaneously:
(1) In the Old Testament, for example, God is described as dwelling in a sense 'locally' in the tabernacle/temple while at the same time remaining omnipresent.
(2) In the Incarnation, God the Son is walking around (locally) as a man on earth while still united to God in the Father and the Holy Spirit (yet neither the Father nor Holy Spirit were themselves incarnate).
(3) At Christ's Baptism, the Incarnate Christ comes up out of the water and the Holy Spirit descends like a dove revealing that both Persons are simultaneously present at the same event, but in unique ways.

So we have ample evidence that God can indeed "be present" in more than one way simultanuously, so we can't rule out ahead of time that the only way Christ is present with us in the Church is through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Besides, your assertion also confuses one type of presence of one of the Divine Persons (The Holy Spirit) with another type of presence by another Divine Person (the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist), as if these Persons can't somehow be present in unique ways simultaneously in the Church. This, of course, smacks of modalism, and we've already seen the counter-example of Christ and the Spirit, both Persons of the Undivided Trinity, being present at Christ's Baptism in unique ways.

But there is a supernatural "change". What before was only empirically bread and wine is now (after consecration) not only empirically bread and wine but also supernaturally the Body and Blood of Christ.

"Supernaturally"; HOW? Any other supernatural act, even if you could not completely understand or describe it, there was something about it that you could explain. 'cont.

The "change" is making truly present what was not there before--the Body and Blood of Christ. It doesn't necessarily mean--nor have I ever claimed--that the bread and wine cease to be bread and wine in the same sense they were prior to their consecration.

(Of course the expression "new type of 'supernatural change that is not really change'" is a gross straw man mischaracterization of the Real Presence, and I dealt with this above...and of course our authority for believing in the Real Presence is not just "anybody", but Christ and the Apostles.)

If one dismisses the supernatural presence of the body and blood in the bread and wine simply because it, being unique in many respects, is a "new type of 'supernaturalism'", then to be consistent the Incarnation itself must be dismissed as this was also a "new type of supernaturalism'", unique in all of Scripture. The Incarnation was a supernatural "change", in that God the Word assumed humanity into His existence in time, thus changing the way He has since existed. There is no other example of a 'supernaturalism' in Scriptures in which God becomes a specific man in history by hypostatically joining humanity to Himself. Yet looking at the historical Man Jesus under a microscope wouldn't yield any empirical evidence that He was any different from any other human, let alone that He was the God of the universe. The empirical similarity between Christ and all other men, and the unheard-of possibility that God would (or indeed could) be hypostatically joined to humanity (ie no heretofore Scriptural examples of such a thing happening) were stumbling blocks to the unbelieving Jews (and skeptics today) when encountering the claims of Christ--they picked up stones to kill Him for this more than once.

And yet the Incarnation, despite its uniqueness among all other "supernaturalisms" in Scripture, is a core tenet of our faith. And if God can act supernaturally in this unique way, what's to keep Him from acting in another unique way in making His Body and Blood present in the bread and wine of Holy Communion (other than a personal bias against this doctrine)? Again, it's God's creation--He can act in any unique supernatural way that He sees fit.

The problem here is that in the incarnation and the other miracles; it was a Person who was present in ojects, not other objects present in objects. That's what the real issue is here, and why I said you were making up a new kind of "supernatural". Not that God can't do something new, but what you are doing is totally foreign to the acts of a God who HIMSELF becomes present in objects. You are making matter into separate "personal" deities by comparing it to God's presence in various forms. Again; someone can do that to any two objects, and claim "well; it's supernatural; you just can't understand it".

And in all of this, you have still skirted the issue that you are denying Transubstantiation, but what you are teaching in place of it is only semantically different. In either case, there is no empirical change in the bread and wine, so some sort of "supernatural" reality must be apealed to.