k2aggie07 said:

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It does and He did. There's no quandary.

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Allow me to clarify: you believe that bread and wine (and not just any bread and wine, only bread and wine from approved sources) is miraculously flesh and blood despite no evidence (a mystery). Otherwise, you're left in the quandary that you must literally eat his flesh and drink his blood, despite his his physical body ascending into heaven leaving us with nothing.

I'm not sure there is a precedence for miracles without evidence. What other miracles in the Bible did not have evidence at the time for the miracle? Healing? Before and after. Fire from heaven? burned bodies. If there are examples that I cannot think of, please share it with me.

You act like the understanding of the Eucharistic liturgy was a result of a particular interpretation of scripture. The two proceed in tandem from the same source. In the case of St Ignatius of Antioch, both sources are the Apostle John. The same guy that wrote the Gospel in question instructed St Ignatius.

The same belief, as we've shown, is widely held throughout the entire world in in the 100s. It's far more likely that the teaching and liturgy, the Eucharistic celebrations we know from historical and archaeological evidence existed, influenced the understanding and interpretation of the Gospel, which itself became widespread later.

Divorce yourself from theological opinions and let's view this as a matter of historical inquiry. Whether or not you believe the teaching of the fathers, it's a huge leap to suggest that the Eucharisit being special and changed was not a core teaching of apostolic origin, given it's widespread adoption and adherence (literally all over the world).

To explain this away you have to come up with a new concept - that is, that the Apostles taught something else and the Eucharist faction shouted them down - to explain otherwise. But this brings the whole concept of the integrity of the faith into question. Once you do that, the scriptures themselves are basically useless, because the same church that preserved them is the one that taught the Eucharist.

The immediate and widespread Eucharistic belief and practice suggests by Occam's razor that it was an apostolic teaching.

Re: the fathers. You're reading them wrong if St Clement referencing a Phoenix bothered you. They're people, fallible, subject to the limitations of their own time and place, just like us. But on matters of faith, and where they speak in unison, that's where we should listen. It's like really good sermons, from people who the church collectively has said are trustworthy instructors.

I would check your humility to say that you're in any position to judge the writing of St Clement when millions of pious Christians before you or me have preserved his writings. And I mean that mainly toward judgment of spiritual content. The fathers weren't (all) preserved because they were great orators or writers (though some were) but because they spoke truths about the faith.

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Just curious. Were you pro or anti real presence at the start of this evaluation?

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Sorry, I keep forgetting to reply to this. I was anti real presence but had not given it a tremendous amount of thought. I had pretty much always simply dismissed it as ridiculous, since I see no solid evidence for it in scripture. After looking at the early Christian writings, I can see why people believe it. I don't see the unanimous agreement that you do, but it is obvious some believed in it.

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People who dive into philosophy by picking and choosing from quotes on google search websites should take some care. There is a massive difference between cherry picking a quote out of context and reading all of what they wrote.

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You could not be more right on this. After this post, I will probably bow out of the quote discussion. You provided the context of the Clement quote for me. Do you have another source that you would recommend from the early Christians, preferably from Tertullian if possible since he is one whose quotes seem pretty figurative to me. I'd like to see if I really am misunderstanding him.

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So, question -- then what did Tertullian disagree with Marcion? Marcion said it was just bread, that he must have given bread for us. Tertullian is teaching that he didn't give bread for us.

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From what I could find on Marcion, he believed Christ lacked a body and existed more as a phantom. As such he would have stated Christ was merely pretending that the bread was His body. Tertullian's point was very clear though. He stated the bread could not possibly be a figure of something that did not actuallly exist. His argument with Marcion was regarding whether or not Christ had an actual body. This does nothing to support the real presence in the bread.

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Second quote -- Tertullian saying that someone received the Lord's Body means that he didn't believe it was the Lord's Body?

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Let's go to Christ's words: Take, eat, this is my body. If I were to hand you a piece of bread that looked like bread, felt like bread, smelled like bread, and tasted like bread and told you it was my body, you would conclude I was either crazy or speaking figuratively. With Christ, there is obviously a third option, since He actually possesses the power to transform the substance. Adding a third viable option, however, does not negate the validity of the second option. You have to look at the context to determine whether he means literally or figuratively. I believe the context provided by scripture supports the figurative. If Christ Himself used this language figuratively, I have no reason to suspect the early Christians would not have done the same.

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There is a union of physical and spiritual here. What is the amazing mystery of bread and wine that's just a remembrance? Only symbolic?

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The Greek word for mystery, musterion, is used 27 times in the New Testament. The vast majority of the time it is used to describe God's will or plan regarding the salvation of man or of some specific aspect of that salvation. The mystery is what the bread and wine represent and what is being proclaimed when they are consumed. Whether or not the bread is symbolic or literal detracts zero from the mystery.

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Later he says "since flesh is moistened with blood, and blood is figuratively termed wine, we are bidden to know that, as bread, crumbled into a mixture of wine and water, seizes on the wine and leaves the watery portion, so also the flesh of Christ, the bread of heaven absorbs the blood; that is, those among men who are heavenly, nourishing them up to immortality, and leaving only to destruction the lusts of the flesh."

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This is why I believe it is dangerous to give the early Christians anywhere close to the same consideration one gives scripture. This is absolute nonsense. Water and wine would mix into solution and soak into the bread as a solution. There would be no separating or "seizing" on the wine, unless you are advocating God miraculously separates the two, a teaching which would have zero scriptural support. Clement's analogy here is based on a ridiculous false premise.

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Again, I don't think you're understanding the use of type and symbol here. Those words are probably tupos and symbolum. Tupos is like a model, an image, a pattern a figure; and symbolum means that which implies the other. The type symbol of the bread implies anti-type of the spiritual reality of the mystery. And I would agree also that it's not the bread that we eat unworthily, but the Body. Does that make sense?

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I'm fairly familiar with types and anti-types, as the Bible is replete with them (e.g. flood/baptism in 1 Pet 3). Most often the objects of comparison involve one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament. The Passover lamb and Christ would be an anti-type/type. The Passover meal and the Eucharist would be an anti-type/type. I'm not particularly certain I understand the anti-type/type you are saying Origen is referring to.

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St Cyril
"For thus we come to bear Christ in us, because His Body and Blood are distributed through our members; thus it is that, according to the blessed Peter, we become partakers of the divine nature."

How can a symbol be distributed through our members? Is a symbol the divine nature?

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As I said in my comments regarding this quote, I don't think Cyril is right in applying Peter's words to the Eucharist. I think Peter explains his own words, and it doesn't involve this at all. Regarding how Christ is distributed through our members, this is getting into territory I believe it is difficult for us to understand. Scripture talks about all persons of the Trinity dwelling in us, and this is something that I admittedly find difficult to understand. Thankfully, though I continue to try and understand more, I don't think God expects me to understand all the ins and outs.

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For point 4, it's not flesh. It's bread. But it is the body and blood of Christ.

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Now I'm confused. Such a big deal has been made about Christ saying his flesh really is food, but you don't believe it is flesh???

swimmerbabe11 said:

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Win At Life said:

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You are working very hard to make a non-obvious distinction that forces Yeshua out to be a sinner and Torah breaker. I believe Yeshau was the only one to ever keep the Law perfectly and not sin. If there is a plausible interpretation of what Yeshua said that is in keeping with His Torah keeping, then why would you choose a strained interpretation that also makes our LORD our to be a sinner and violator of His own Words? Odd.

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What is the sin?

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Leviticus 17:10 "I will set My face against that person who eats blood and will cut him off from among his people."

Deuteronomy 12:23 "Only be sure not to eat the blood, for the blood is the life, and you shall not eat the life with the flesh."

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This is not the same statement as in John 6, where He said alethes, which is more like what we would say as true as the opposite of false. This is a verifiable truth, a testable truth. He said, my flesh is truly food, meaning, if my flesh isn't actual food this statement is false.

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I don't believe anyone here is questioning whether it is food. The question is whether it is physical food, spirtual food, or both. If you look at the analogy he develops throughout chapter, which is strikingly similar to an analogy he makes just two chapters earlier, the context suggests it is spirtual food.

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When you got baptized, were you a new creation? If a scientist measured you, was there any difference in your molecular makeup before and after? No. But are you willing to say that the scriptures are false? They say we are a new creation (2 Cor 5:17, Gal 6:15). Are we not a new creation? Of course we are, we were fresh-born of the Spirit. We really are a new creation when we are baptized.

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Much like Christ's teaching in John 6 is using the physical to explain the spiritual, so is Paul on this idea of a new creation. Romans 6 provides what is probably the most detailed description of this process.

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What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin. Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

(Rom 6:1-11)

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Did the physical fleshly body literally die? For that matter, can you even say that the flesh (i.e. carnal) literally died apart from the body? Clearly not, for in Rom 7 Paul describes the effect that part of him is still playing in his life. This is a spirtual death and resurrection. The new creation is spiritual. Yes, we really are a new creation, spiritually, much like Christ's flesh really is food, spiritually.

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So the dozens upon dozens of writings aren't evidence? St Ignatius clear an explicit teaching in ~108 AD is, what, exactly?

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They [gnostics] abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils.

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I said I was going to bow out of the quote discussion, but here I am. Unless there is something in the context not provided, this does not provide explicit evidence for the real presence. His quote applies without requiring a single edit to a metaphorical presence as well. Gnostics would have denied both a real and/or metaphorical presence.

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To explain this away you have to come up with a new concept - that is, that the Apostles taught something else and the Eucharist faction shouted them down - to explain otherwise. But this brings the whole concept of the integrity of the faith into question. Once you do that, the scriptures themselves are basically useless, because the same church that preserved them is the one that taught the Eucharist.

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Based on this discussion and others I've only lurked on, it has become obvious that the second half of this quote is the crux of the matter. Some believe scripture is the only reliable source of information, while others believe that the people who provided the canon are themselves an additional source. All of these specific issue discussions all end up back at the same place. While I understand the argument of the catholic/orthodox position, I do think the logic has one major flaw. It does not necessarily follow that just because God was with these people when preserving the canon, He was with them in other things. God throughout scripture uses individuals and groups of people to accomplish His purpose. He uses both people of whom He approves and those he disapproves. He even uses a donkey as a teacher at one point. I'm not saying this is necessarily the case with the Catholic church, but to assume that they must be right about all doctrine because they preserved the canon is fallacy.

How could it be spiritual food and not both? The bread and wine at least contains some nutrients.

Yes, of course, the bread is physical food. It is His flesh, which I believe the bread represents that is spiritual food.

GQ - I recommend a book by Trent Horn - "Hard Sayings" to help explain not just the sacrament of the Eucharist / Transubstantiation, but all the seemingly difficult or apparently contradictory things in the Bible from a Catholic perspective. It does a great job of instructing how to read the Bible in context, while also paving the way for proving the historicity of the actual events taking place, and explaining those non-historical & non-literal events in the Bible as well. It does a great job of describing and exploring the Bible itself as a record of History in some ways, while comparing to other historical accounts at the time. And it addresses a TON of critics of the Bible, which would help clear up a lot of doubt I know you're having, that I shared as well in the past.

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So, you're definitely arguing against something I don't hold. It is not red meat and blood that I drink. That doesn't mean it isn't really changed.

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Christ says his flesh really is food. If you take that literally, which, you have claimed to do, how can you say that you don't eat flesh?

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The quote argument you're presenting requires a biased view. He says it right there. The Eucharist is the flesh of Christ. That is my belief. But that is not a metaphorical presence. It's not a metaphor.

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Sure, I carry a bias, as do we all. But you do realize that if he were using a metaphor, he would still "The Eucharist is the flesh of Christ."? That's what a metaphor is - saying something is something that it literally is not.

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No one ever says the church is right because the church preserved the canon. They're saying, if the church is suspect, then the canon is suspect too. Along with the doctrines the church puts forward, like that of the Trinity.

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If God wanted the canon preserved, then He could have used any agency He wanted, suspect or not. Your reasoning here simply does not stand on its own.

One question which I think is a neat thought experiment is to consider a hypothetical situation (for most protestants who dont believe in the real presence) wherein Jesus truly meant to convey that his flesh and blood were really food, and should really be eaten?

What words should he have used other than those used in John 6?

GQaggie said:

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Thanks, I'll check it out. I can honestly say that my respect for Catholic/Orthodox theology and doctrine has grown immensely through the reading this board. Obviously I disagree with some things, but I can see that it is well-reasoned out.

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My friend, I say this understanding it sounds arrogant but without meaning it to be so; I do not think it possible to earnestly study the history of the church and its fathers and not be Orthodox or Catholic

There are as many who are atheists too. What does that prove?

JJMt said:

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k2aggie07 said:

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There are as many who are atheists to. What does that prove?

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It proves that it is not only possible, but most likely probable, to "earnestly study the history of the church and its fathers and not be Orthodox or Catholic".

You guys talk about the hubris of the Protestant reformers. Gosh, look in the mirror sometime.

What one person calls hubris, another calls courage.

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I actually would use "heresy" which is a product of hubris. Anecdotally speaking, look at the major "doctors" of modern Orthodox Catholicism/Orthodoxy vs Protestantism, you'll find a lot of former Protestants heavyweights in the Orthodoxy camp, but not vice versa.

I've refuted this several times as it isn't the great point it is thought to be:

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Protestants take the Bible, given to them by the Holy Spirit through the engine of Christ's appointed Church on earth, and use it to dowse heretical doctrines from the scripture, outside of the authority of the very same engine.

K-2 said it perfectly, I dont understand the hubris of those who figure after 1600 years of Christianity wallowing in darkness, Protestants divined some insights that completely went counter to the unanimous teaching of the Church, and used the same scriptures given to them by the Church to do so.

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The rebuttal is simple: Protestants don't believe they lack the authority.

You may not agree that Protestants do have that authority, but the argument itself is intellectually identical to that of Catholicism and Orthodoxy: ALL claim they have the authority.

tehmackdaddy said:

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I've refuted this several times as it isn't the great point it is thought to be:

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Protestants take the Bible, given to them by the Holy Spirit through the engine of Christ's appointed Church on earth, and use it to dowse heretical doctrines from the scripture, outside of the authority of the very same engine.

K-2 said it perfectly, I dont understand the hubris of those who figure after 1600 years of Christianity wallowing in darkness, Protestants divined some insights that completely went counter to the unanimous teaching of the Church, and used the same scriptures given to them by the Church to do so.

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The rebuttal is simple: Protestants don't believe they lack the authority.

You may not agree that Protestants do have that authority, but the argument itself is intellectually identical to that of Catholicism and Orthodoxy: ALL claim they have the authority.

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You haven't refuted, you've merely opined. We claim the authority due to the apostolic nature of our Church and the authority given the apostles by Christ himself. In all of early Christianity, at the Council of Jerusalem, at the early Church councils, who had the authority? The Apostles/Bishops? Or any random Christian?

Sq16Aggie2006 said:

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tehmackdaddy said:

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I've refuted this several times as it isn't the great point it is thought to be:

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Protestants take the Bible, given to them by the Holy Spirit through the engine of Christ's appointed Church on earth, and use it to dowse heretical doctrines from the scripture, outside of the authority of the very same engine.

K-2 said it perfectly, I dont understand the hubris of those who figure after 1600 years of Christianity wallowing in darkness, Protestants divined some insights that completely went counter to the unanimous teaching of the Church, and used the same scriptures given to them by the Church to do so.

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The rebuttal is simple: Protestants don't believe they lack the authority.

You may not agree that Protestants do have that authority, but the argument itself is intellectually identical to that of Catholicism and Orthodoxy: ALL claim they have the authority.

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You haven't refuted, you've merely opined.

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It is a complete intellectual and logical refutation of the idea. Those who keep blue-starring the point I quoted use the EXACT same argument as those they disagree with. The difference is in THEIR opinion, not the logical flaw I pointed out.

The rest of what you posted is exactly what I'm talking about - the "why" of why your (or others') opinion is the right one and does not address the logic of the argument at all.

All three - Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants - believe they have the authority to interpret Scripture. I don't understand why that is so difficult to accept or understand, neither of which interferes with disagreement.

It does address the logic, all of Christianity is an appeal to authority, the authority of Jesus Christ. Catholics and Orthodox are pointing to Christ's delegation of authority and commissioning of and to the Apostles as the source of their authority.

Your appeal to authority falls because it necessitates that everyone is an authority, and that truth is based on an infinite number of personal interpretations, rather than revealed truth.

Sq16Aggie2006 said:

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It does address the logic, all of Christianity is an appeal to authority, the authority of Jesus Christ.

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All three of which claim they have.

Done. Over. I'm not going to interpret English for you as well.

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For point 4, it's not flesh. It's bread. But it is the body and blood of Christ.

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So, you're definitely arguing against something I don't hold. It is not red meat and blood that I drink. That doesn't mean it isn't really changed.

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Christ says his flesh really is food. If you take that literally, which, you have claimed to do, how can you say that you don't eat flesh?

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I've asked this a couple of times because I really am not understanding the thought process. You've said a couple of times now that you aren't eating flesh but seem to be all in on the statement by Christ that His flesh really is food. By stating that you aren't eating flesh, it seems more like you would have Christ say that His flesh really is food, but the food isn't really flesh. It doesn't seem like I can be understanding you correctly.

I wish I had the laughing/crying emoticon for that one.

Sq16Aggie2006 said:

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Your appeal to authority falls because it necessitates that everyone is an authority, and that truth is based on an infinite number of personal interpretations, rather than revealed truth.

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My appeal to authority does not fall to that because it is not as you describe.

You aren't even talking about the logical flaw I illuminated, which, I suspect, is why you aren't seeing it. If you'd like me to go back to what was posted and show it to you, I will.

I mean, yeah. Basically. But it really is His flesh, His body and blood. But it is still bread. The whole transubstantiation thing in Greek (I quoted Gennadios Scholarius' use previously -- he was an Aristotlian proponent, so it makes sense he would use it) is a change in substance or essence. Metaousios. Change in substance or property. Does this have to be a physical change? No. We speak of Christ being of one essence with the Father (homoousios) but clearly this is not a physical substance, the essence of God is not physical. It just means it really changed, so much so that it is not the same thing it was before.

To get reeeeeaally specific, we partake of God in the Eucharist, His grace manifested in physical elements, bread and wine. Grace is always (in orthodox theology) an example of God's uncreated energies, which manifest from the essence which subsists eternally and is beyond knowledgen or comprehension. Because His energies are uncreated there is no reason to expect or require a physical change when something is blessed with them. (Even this is probably more than I should speculate on. Forgive if I speak an error.)