The doctrine of Transubstantiation is the belief that the elements of the Lord’s table (bread and wine) supernaturally transform into the body and blood of Christ during the Mass. This is uniquely held by Roman Catholics but some form of a “Real Presence” view is held by Eastern Orthodox, Lutherans, and some Anglicans. The Calvinist/Reformed tradition believes in a real spiritual presence but not one of substance. Most of the remaining Protestant traditions (myself included) don’t believe in any real presence, either spiritual or physical, but believe that the Eucharist is a memorial and a proclamation of Christ’s work on the cross (this is often called Zwinglianism). The Roman Catholic Council of Trent (1545-1563) defined Transubstantiation this way:
By the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation” (Session XIII, chapter IV)
As well, there is an abiding curse (anathema) placed on all Christians who deny this doctrine:
If anyone denies that in the sacrament of the most Holy Eucharist are contained truly, really and substantially the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ,[42] but says that He is in it only as in a sign, or figure or force, let him be anathema. (Session XII, Canon I)
It is very important to note that Roman Catholics not only believe that taking the Eucharist in the right manner is essential for salvation, but that belief in the doctrine is just as essential.
Here are the five primary reasons why I reject the doctrine of Transubstantiation:
1. It takes Christ too literally
There does not seem to be any reason to take Christ literally when he institutes the Eucharist with the words, “This is my body” and “This is my blood” (Matt. 26:26-28, et al). Christ often used metaphor in order to communicate a point. For example, he says “I am the door,” “I am the vine,” “You are the salt of the earth,” and “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:13-14) but people know that we don’t take such statement literally. After all, who believes that Christ is literally a door swinging on a hinge?
2. It does not take Christ literally enough
Let’s say for the sake of the argument that in this instance Christ did mean to be taken literally. What would this mean? Well, it seems hard to escape the conclusion that the night before Christ died on the cross, when he said, “This is my body” and “This is my blood,” that it actually was his body and blood that night before he died. If this were the case, and Christ really meant to be taken literally, we have Christ, before the atonement was actually made, offering the atonement to his disciples. I think this alone gives strong support to a denial of any substantial real presence.
3. It does not take Christ literally enough (2)
In each of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) we have the institution of the Eucharist. When the wine is presented, Christ’s wording is a bit different. Here is how it goes in Luke’s Gospel: “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood” (Luk 22:20). Here, if we were really to take Christ literally, the “cup” is the new covenant. It is not the wine, it is the cup that is holy. However, of course, even Roman Catholics would agree that the cup is symbolic of the wine. But why one and not the other? Why can’t the wine be symbolic of his death if the cup can be symbolic of the wine? As well, is the cup actually the “new covenant”? That is what he says. “This cup . . . is the new covenant.” Is the cup the actual new covenant, or only symbolic of it? See the issues?
4. The Gospel of John fails to mention the Eucharist
Another significant problem I have with the Roman Catholic interpretation of the Eucharist and its abiding anathemas is that the one Gospel which claims to be written so that people may have eternal life, John (John 20:31), does not even include the institution of the Eucharist. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all tell the story of Christ giving the first Lord’s table, but John decides to leave it out. Why? This issue is made more significant in that John includes more of the “Upper Room” narrative than any of the other Gospels. Nearly one-third of the entire book of John walks us through what Christ did and said that night with his disciples. Yet no breaking of the bread or giving of the wine is included. This is a pretty significant oversight if John meant to give people the message that would lead to eternal life (John 20:31). From the Roman Catholic perspective, his message must be seen as insufficient to lead to eternal life since practice and belief in the Mass are essential for eternal life and he leaves these completely out of the Upper Room narrative.
(Some believe that John does mention the importance of belief in Transubstantiation in John 6. The whole, “Why did he let them walk away?” argument. But I think this argument is weak. I talk about that here. Nevertheless, it still does not answer why John left out the institution of the Lord’s Supper. It could be that by A.D. 90, John saw an abuse of the Lord’s table already rising. He may have sought to curb this abuse by leaving the Eucharist completely out of his Gospel. But this, I readily admit, is speculative.)
5. Problems with the Hypostatic Union and the Council of Chalcedon
This one is going to be a bit difficult to explain, but let me give it a shot. Orthodox Christianity (not Eastern Orthodox) holds to the “Hypostatic Union” of Christ. This means that we believe that Christ is fully God and fully man. This was most acutely defined at the Council of Chalcedon in 451. Important for our conversation is that Christ had to be fully man to fully redeem us. Christ could not be a mixture of God and man, or he could only represent other mixtures of God and man. He is/was one person with two complete natures. These nature do not intermingle (they are “without confusion”). In other words, his human nature does not infect or corrupt his divine nature. And his divine nature does not infect or corrupt his human nature. This is called the communicatio idiomatum (communication of properties or attributes). The attributes of one nature cannot communicate (transfer/share) with another nature. Christ’s humanity did not become divinitized. It remained complete and perfect humanity (with all its limitations). The natures can communicate with the Person, but not with each other. Therefore, the attribute of omnipresence (present everywhere) cannot communicate to his humanity to make his humanity omnipresent. If it did, we lose our representative High Priest, since we don’t have this attribute communicated to our nature. Christ must always remain as we are in order to be the Priest and Pioneer of our faith. What does all of this mean? Christ’s body cannot be at more than one place at a time, much less at millions of places across the world every Sunday during Mass. In this sense, I believe that any real physical presence view denies the definition of Chalcedon and the principles therein.
There are many more objections that I could bring including Paul’s lack of mentioning it to the Romans (the most comprehensive presentation of the Gospel in the Bible), some issues of anatomy, issues of idolatry, and just some very practical things concerning Holy Orders, church history, and . . . ahem . . . excrement. But I think these five are significant enough to justify a denial of Transubstantiation. While I respect Roman Catholicism a great deal, I must admit how hard it is for me to believe that a doctrine that is so difficult to defend biblically is held to such a degree that abiding anathemas are pronounced on those who disagree.
345 replies to "Five Reasons I Reject the Doctrine of Transubstantiation"
“Jesus mentions being born again and salvation by faith in John 3:16 and many other places.”
John 3 also says you must be born of water which has always historically been understood as baptism. Interpretation and perspective again.
“Born of water” is understood by many as born of flesh, and that Jesus defines this later in the passage. Paul mentions baptism as baptism into Christ’s death, and being raised to new life in him, so it rather speaks of resurrection and not rebirth.
I think by “a matter of interpretation”, you mean the origin of diverse doctrine and practice?
Yet the Lord’s supper is practiced by all ecclesiastical bodies – we just disagree about its significance. But if there is an absolute truth in the matter then there can be only one answer.
When Jesus lifted up the cup, he said, “This is . . .”, and not, this will become, or this will be now and in the future.
Even so, when we obey his command, his glory is seen over the bread and cup when we lift them up this way. This is why the apostle says that it is no longer an ordinary meal when we lift it up. This we all can agree!
I personally see no reason or evidence that in contemporary times it actually becomes real flesh and blood, neither is it necessary for the Lord’s glory to be seen over it.
The bread ceases to appear to be bread as soon as it enters the mouth; does that mean it ceases to be His Body the moment you chew on it (now chew on that!)? It would seem that the connection between the bread and His Body is rather tenuous.
As Michael mentions, the RCC teaches both partaking of the elements and acceptance of the doctrine of transubstantiation are required for salvation. And, since the CC teaches a forensic justification that occurs in parallel with the process of sanctification, partaking of the eucharist is viewed as a necessary means of becoming righteous. I have often wondered, though, if Jesus’ teaching in Matt 15:17-20 doesn’t have application here. Just as eating with unwashed hands does not defile the eater it would seem a necessary corollary that nothing we eat can make us righteous (for the same reasons Christ gave – i.e. food passes into the stomach and is expelled). Christ identifies the heart as the source of defilement. It is likewise “with the heart one believes and is justified” (Romans 10:10).
You can create doubt in your own mind by focusing your attention on the digestive process but you still need to explain how your inability to understand and accept Jesus’ teaching in John 6 compares to the writings of the Church Fathers and the history of Catholic, Orthodox, Lutheran and Anglican belief.
If they are all wrong, then there should be centuries of contemporaneous writings of Christians who believe in the Lack of Presence like you do today who would have at the time criticized the Heresy of the Real Presence.
So, let’s see who can find the earliest denunciation of what later came to be called Transubstantiation.
” it would seem a necessary corollary that nothing we eat can make us righteous”
Firstly, the Catholic Church does not teach that the Eucharist is simple food. It’s a supernatural help. Why does the book of James say to anoint the sick with oil? Why in the book of acts is someone healed with Paul’s handkerchief? The Eucharist is taught to be a supernatural medicine, just like other supernatural instances of physical instruments of medicine.
Secondly, it’s not taught that it “makes you righteous” like forensic justification. Rather it is a supernatural medicine and help.
John is right. It doesn’t “make you righteous”. You should already BE in a state of justification, (sanctifying grace within you), before you receive Jesus. If you are in a state of mortal sin when you receive him, you do yourself great harm.
[…] http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2013/03/five-reasons-i-reject-the-doctrine-of-transubstantiati… […]
My problem is that when you push hard enough there is no difference between a Real Presence view and a Spiritual Presence view.
You end up getting non-fleshy flesh. You get some attempts at an explanation of how Christ’s body is there without having any attributes of a body being there. And then there seems to be no idea what “body” actually means in the context of the Lord’s Supper.
So why not just hold a Spiritual Presence view?
“So why not just hold a Spiritual Presence view?”
So why not just hold a Real Presence view, if they are the same? Why go contrary to the two biggest churches and the historical view? Just to be difficult?
John and Irene,
According to the CCC [1393], “Holy Communion separates us from sin,” and “For this reason the Eucharist cannot unite us to Christ without at the same time cleansing us from past sins and preserving us from future sins.” This sounds to me as though the RCC is teaching the Eucharist is a means of increasing in righteousness. No? Call it a supernatural medicine if you will, but the ailment being treated is sin (i.e. unrighteousness). This teaching of the RCC appears to contradict Jesus’ own teaching in Matt 15:17-20. Righteousness is not obtained by ingesting food, regardless of the substance, just as the ingestion of food does not defile the eater. Jesus is saying the heart is what must be addressed and Paul tells us in Romans 10:10 that the “supernatural medicine” is faith (i.e. a believing heart).
Well even as Luther was being condemned at the diet of Worms for justification by faith, Luther was happy to affirm the sacraments as a means of grace. How can it be?
When we are dealing with these terms, people get gridlocked into narrow views. If you look up righteousness in the bible, it covers a lot of ground. On one level, doing good works is righteousness. And on that level there are infinite things I can do to improve my righteousness. Anyone who thinks biblical righteousness can only be forensic imaginary righteousness has biblically got their head in the sand. Do a word study on righteousness.
J. Schwartz,
When I say the Eucharist doesn’t “make you righteous”, I mean in the sense that it’s not like getting your ticket to heaven punched. It’s not equivalent to what, in the Protestant view, the “sinner’s prayer” does. As the CCC says in 1395–
“The Eucharist is not ordered to the forgiveness of mortal sins-that is proper to the sacrament of Reconciliation. The Eucharist is properly the sacrament of those who are in full communion with the Church.”
If you take the sacrament in a state of unworthiness, you harm yourself, as Paul says in 1 Cor 11. and CCC in 1385-
“Anyone conscious of a grave sin must receive the sacrament of Reconciliation before coming to communion.”
I think a lot of the misunderstandings and disagreements come from the differences between the Protestant and historic Catholic/Orthodox understandings of what righteousness is. Many Protestants would primarily see it as all or nothing. Light on or light off. Historically, righteousness is more a progression. We become more and more holy, as we become more and more unified with Christ. This unity with Christ is one of the fruits of the Eucharist.
“So why not just hold a Real Presence view, if they are the same? Why go contrary to the two biggest churches and the historical view? Just to be difficult?”
Because it doesn’t make any sense. Non-fleshy flesh doesn’t have any meaning. It’s like saying “square circle.”
“Because it doesn’t make any sense. Non-fleshy flesh doesn’t have any meaning. It’s like saying “square circle.””
If that’s true that you haven’t been able to make sense of it, why should we believe you that they reduce to the same thing?
And if it has no meaning, why is it filled with meaning for the world’s biggest religion?
Doesn’t make any sense?
You mean like creation out of nothing? Like 3 in 1 and 1 in 3? Like a virgin birth? Like changing water into wine? Like the multiplication of the loaves? Like healing with dirt and spit? Like walking on water?
Like God dying?
Is Scripture really so un-supernatural that the Real Presence can be denied because someone thinks it “makes no sense”?
Can 1500+ years of Christian doctrine be dismissed because someone in 2013 doesn’t understand what they’re talking about?
It can be difficult to put transubstantiation into words. (if This Is My Body isn’t enough for you) It takes some philosophical terms. But the complexity of an explanation, or the possibility that someone cannot or will not believe the explanation, does not make that explanation untrue.
Greg,
If one could accept the possibility that Christianity, for the majority of its history, and still today the overwhelming majority of Christendom, teaches the real physical presence in error, then St. Vincent’s canon, which CMP always references, has to be discarded. One would have to say the church went apostate very early on.
Don’t know if you care about St. Vincent’s canon or not.
Seems to me if one allows the possibility that the Holy Spirit could allow the Church to be in error, then one can have no confidence in the church’s teaching today, either.
Did the always present holy remnant leave any writings? How do you know it existed?
“This is a BIG subject, but your church’s attempt at a monolithic earthly visible organization as if that could ever be THE bride of Christ was ill conceived from the start, is opposed by scripture and has been a non stop to this day God dishonoring disaster ”
Depends what you mean by monolithic.
You’re going to have to make SOME attempt to sort the wheat from the chaff, or you have no biblical canon. ALL the ancient church from which you derive your canon believed the real presence. You want to start paying attention to what weird heretical groups believed? Fine, you’ll have to consider their canon too. Maybe Marcion’s canon is to your liking? But if you want to accept the established church, then your objection doesn’t work.
As far as CMP’s short list of arguments at the end of his original post, I think I can anticipate his arguments for “issues of anatomy” and “idolatry”, but does anyone know what he means by “practical things concerning Holy Orders”?
“You mean like creation out of nothing? Like 3 in 1 and 1 in 3? Like a virgin birth? Like changing water into wine? Like the multiplication of the loaves? Like healing with dirt and spit? Like walking on water?
Like God dying?”
No. When you say Christ’s body is present but the communion elements have no properties of a body, that is incoherent. A miracle isn’t incoherent.
So what’s going on is that people are using the word “body” but filling it with meaning which means “not a body” because they have to define “body” in such a way where there are no physical properties. Roman Catholics use Aristotle. Lutherans say “mystery”. But the basic gist is that you have non-bodily bodies.
Honestly, I would like someone to explain how a Real Presence view is different than a Spiritual Presence in a way that doesn’t boil down to “But we use the word ‘body’ so the elements are the body!”
Your discussions from a Roman Catholic are quite comical. The real question is how you “interpret” John 6.
“Honestly, I would like someone to explain how a Real Presence view is different than a Spiritual Presence”
I’d like to know how spiritual presence is different to a pure Zwinglian memorial. Christ is spiritually present? So what? What difference does it make? How does it affect me? Cause if it makes no difference, I argue it isn’t different. And under a sola scriptura theory where you don’t accept real presence, under what verse can you justify spiritual presence?
Real Presence differs in that it teaches that the body is real, and therefore DOES something. Remember that handkerchief of Paul’s in Acts that people touched and they were healed? If you owned that handkerchief how would it look different to a regular handkerchief? My guess is it wouldn’t look different at all. Yet it contained within it properties that affect reality and are part of reality, even though they can’t be seen by merely looking at the handkerchief. Whether you accept the reality if the body or not, you ought to at least admit that this aspect: that physical things can have a special holy nature that affects reality, is a biblical world view.
John 6? What the… I just read it for the first time. You are right. It is so clear now. Everything Rome teaches about this issue right before my eyes. I am enrolling in catechism class tomorrow.
🙂
Sorry for being sarcastic, but your comment about comical made me want to be comical.
[…] Got Roman Catholic friends who believe the wafer and the wine actually become the body and blood of Christ? Here are some reasons for rejecting transubstantiation. […]
Geoff, here are portions of the Baltimore Cat. question 242, with link following if you are interested.
“Substance” literally means that which stands underneath. Underneath what? Underneath the outward appearances or qualities-such as color, taste, figure, smell, etc.-that are perceptible to our senses. Therefore we never see the substance of anything. Of this seat, for instance, I see the color, size, and shape; I feel the hardness, etc.; but I do not see the substance, namely, the wood of which it is made. When the substance of anything is changed, the outward appearances change with it. But not so in the Holy Eucharist; for by a miracle the appearances of bread and wine remain the same after the substance has been changed as they were before. As the substance alone is changed in the Holy Eucharist, and as I cannot see the substance, I cannot see the change….Our Lord changed water into wine….Why, then, could He not change in the same way and by the same power the substance of bread and wine into the substance of His own body and blood? When He changed the water into wine, besides changing the substance, He changed everything else about it; so that it had no longer the appearance of water, but everyone could see that it was wine. But in changing the bread and wine into His body and blood He changes only the substance, and leaves everything else unchanged so that it still looks and tastes like bread and wine; even after the change has taken place and you could not tell by looking at it that it was changed….Now Our Lord, being God, created the world out of nothing; and He could therefore easily change the substance of bread into the substance of flesh.
Since these are snippets, here is the link. Question 245 also contains some relevant explanation.
http://www.cin.org/users/james/ebooks/master/baltimore/bsacr-e.htm
The Gospel of John fails to mention the Eucharist??? John 6:55 “my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.” No mincing words here. That’s why Paul says it is such a serious thing to receive unworthily. If it was just symbolic, it wouldn’t be a big deal. And He let them walk away, because they understood what he meant but couldn’t accept it. If he meant symbolically, he would have called them back and clarified.
What is needed is a compelling reason to believe that he actually did/does a given thing or not.
Besides John 6 and the Last Supper narratives and 1 Cor 11, we’ve got 1) the prefigurement of the Eucharist in the Passover observance (eating the flesh of the sacrifice), 2) Jesus of Nazareth being born in Bethlehem (“house of bread”) and being laid in a manger (feeding trough) and 3) the disciples on the way to Emmaus not recognizing Jesus in his resurrected body but recognizing him “in the breaking of the bread”.
There are others.
“The reasons given by Catholics for this extraordinary proposition are entirely unconvincing to anyone who has not already surrendered their mind to Rome. ”
It’s foolish to blame Rome. The Coptic church which broke away in the 400s believes the same thing.
If you want to say every church since that time is idolatrous, that’s great. Now who have you got left to quote as a basis for your biblical canon? Nobody! You’ve got nothing left but your own fancies. Which BTW is your basis for sitting as judge over church history as idolatrous.
Greg: I don’t see REPRESENTS in the text, and writing it in ALL CAPS doesn’t make it so. I think good points have been made about the seriousness with which Paul treats the bread and wine. If its just bread and wine, how can it bring judgement on you?
As for the Passover as a prefigurment, did painting their doors with blood DO something to stop the angel of death coming? Or was it just a nice to have symbol, no harm no foul if you forgot to do it when the angel of death came? Once you answer that, you lose.
“Always argue your opponents postilions to yourself with all the zeal and jealousy as if they were your own before concluding that you have a refutation”
I’m not RC, I’m Orthodox which is catholic. But I’m a convert. Spent years arguing against catholicism, with zeal. Eventually concluded I don’t have a good refutation.
Greg,
I don’t need an entire book on the “remnant”. If you could provide even one reference to something written before A.D. 1500 (from someone you wouldn’t label as a heretic) that agrees with your position on John 6 and refutes the catholic/orthodox position, that would be great.
Greg: I had a look at what Tertulllian, Clement and Eusebius say on the subject, and they say a heck of a lot more than it being a metaphor. If they do say that (I didn’t find any such quote), that’s not precluding it being a sacrifice. The catholic view doesn’t mean it is not a rememberance. It just goes way beyond that. These church fathers say the Eucharist is a sacrifice. If you read all the stuff they say it goes WAY beyond anything that any memorial faction Protestant would be caught dead saying. And that’s without going and consulting other church fathers which are even more clear.
Greg, I understand perfectly the weight of arguments in favor of your position, from a sola scriptura viewpoint. If the scriptures existed in a vacuum, your view has a lot of weight. But… What were the scriptures born into? If you say a vacuum then you have a very uncomfortable position of explaining why the world wide church read those scriptures and universally came to a position of real presence at the very earliest date. But if you acknowledge it wasn’t born into a vacuum, but rather it was born into an existing church, established by the apostles, and with a shared understanding of how to interpret it, given by the apostles, then your position is even worse, because the scriptures were born into a church with a pre existing apostolic tradition, which explains the consensus against your view. Either way, your position fails, not because on an intellectual basis it is without merit, but because there are multiple intellectually defensible positions, purely on the basis of the text, but only one of them has a place in the history of the church. That’s why I am orthodox. Not because I don’t understand Protestant arguments and their weight. But precisely because I do understand them, but also I undertand Orthodox arguments. For that matter I understand Jehovah’s Witness arguments, and they have some pretty damned good ones too on various topics.
Greg: “it ain’t that tough to discern which writings should be granted authority and which shouldn’t.”
Really. Perhaps you could point to chapter and verse showing the criteria for something to be considered scripture. Then we could see if its hard to discern which writings fulfil it. But since there is no chapter and verse, what you wrote is highly speculative without a physical organisation to lend opinion to it.
“The text says what it says. Regardless of what anybody 15 minutes later says that it says.”
Yeah, it says what it says. “This is my body”. But you don’t accept that. So… its a bit more difficult than that, right?
“Paul himself warned that even if HE began preaching something other than he already had that HE HIMSELF would be anathema.”
Yes, and he’s talking about his orally transmitted gospel. In theory then, what he wrote in his letters should be disregarded if it contradicts his previously given oral gospel. How would you know? By asking the church. No other way to know.
Greg, since I’m not Roman Catholic, I have no Vatican issued glasses. So much for that theory.
So… reading between the lines of your example of what is scripture (devoid of any explanation, we’re supposed to just see what you see), what are you saying? That any book with material in it that you can’t accept and/or don’t understand and/or seems weird to you, we can reject?
Firstly, that’s just a negative criteria. That’s not a positive criteria in favour of what we should accept. What about all the early “orthodox” literature? What about the first Epistle of Clement, found in many NT manuscripts? Don’t say he wasn’t an apostle, because neither was James, neither was Jude, neither was Mark, Luke, probably Hebrews, etc.
Secondly, you picked one of the oddest sections in all pseudo-Christian literature as your example. Wow. What about all the other books, many of which were in some circles accepted in the canonical churches?
Thirdly, what is odd in the recognised canon? What about Mark 16 “They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them.” That’s kinda odd. What about 1 Corinthians 15:29, baptism for the dead. Kinda odd. What about the whole book of Revelation? I mean where does it end?
Fourthly, your criteria seems to set yourself up and judge, jury and executioner of what material you can accept to be in the NT.
–“The point he was making was: “what we are saying and WRITING right now CANNOT BE CONTRADICTED”
(a) That’s not actually what he said. He said disregard anything different to what he previously gave orally prior to the NT being written. You can claim it means the opposite of what he said, but its an empty claim.
(b) It’s all in your interpretation anyway. Depending on what you mean by “Catholic”, if you include belief that was actually universal in the church (not just Rome), who are you to know better than Christendom?
How can anyone explain to me what the Council of Chalcedon mean in her definition on the Hypostatic Union? Because what I believe is that the Roman Catholic Church contradict the Chalcedon definition.
Why Jesus say:
“But very truly I tell you, it is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Advocate will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you.” Why Jesus really wants to go?
How can you explain these following presence to me. Is it in Spirit or Flesh?
“For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.”
“…and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
Catholics said that after consecration the bread changed really to the flesh and bone and maybe everything a human being has, so how can they explain that according to Jesus saying:
“Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as ye see me have.”
You said the bread after consecration is transformed into the literal flesh and literal blood.
What is the difference between flesh and bone and SPIRIT?
If the Holy Spirit present with us during the Eucharist,
Is God the Father and the Son are sleeping at Home in Heaven no knowing the Holy Spirit was dwelling on earth among the Believers? Or is the Father and Son also present with us through the presence of the Holy Spirit? What is Trinity? Is it three Gods or One God? I think you understand my point, because some said and I quote:
“If He CANNOT be present – REALLY present – in the Bread and Wine because of His human nature, He cannot be present anywhere else for that same reason. You thus require a different person – the Holy Spirit, to be REALLY present in all the places that the Bible talks about Christ being present. Thus, Christ isn’t really with us always, as He promised, but only figurative”
God bless
1. Is hardly a reason to reject transubstantiation. At best its a reason to be cautious.
2. Did Christ die for those in the old covenant???? If so, how is this a problem?
3. Kind of silliness, but yet again we see the problems of sola scriptura. Am I really as an individual to know when to interpret literally apart from tradition?
4. Again, you THINK John doesn’t mention the eucharist, but that is again your speculation and up for debate. In any case this is really an argument about the SIGNIFICANCE of transubstantiation rather than the EXISTENCE of transubstantion, which is really a totally different issue. John’s not mentioning it doesn’t disprove it, at best it says something about its importance.
In any case, do the gospels discuss salvation by faith alone, the centrepiece of protestantism? No? So is it untrue?
5. Actually, science proves that Christ is truly present in the bread and wine. Why? because we shed all the cells in our body every 10 years or something, and the atoms get scattered all over the world, and apparently that means some atoms are likely to be in that bread at church. Yep, atoms are small.
Anyway, that may or may not be the case, but the point is, if science can say its possible, it seems astonishing that Protestantism cannot allow for it. Being in a million places is NOT omnipresence. Even regular mortals can have bits of their bodies in millions of places.
Some will say that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is not confine with the LAW OF NATURE and that is why it is truly a presence in physicality (literal Body)
How about the presence of the Spirit in the Eucharist, is such a presence confined with the LAW OF NATURE?
Please answer my questions above including this one.
God bless all
I believe the Roman Catholics and those who held the same belief with them must not use the term real presence. The reason is because they make people confused. If they want to talk of the real presence better used their own term TRANSUBSTANTIATION, because that will avoid confusion. We also understand what you mean by real presence, but for your own good use your loving word.
God bless
Roman Catholics and others claims that the doctrine of Sola Scriptura is not mentioned in the gospel and in the New Testament as a whole. But then let me asked did the doctrine of Trinity mentioned in the scripture? Did Trinity was not mentioned in the scripture but only in the Tradition? Where does those who formulate that doctrines acquired their evidence or information in support of the Trinity? Is it from Tradition or scripture?
Seems quite a lot of questions I asked here, but I will wait then for my questions if someone willing to take.
@Ebouty I think it’s fair to say that the trinity is one possible inference you could draw from the facts found in scripture. It’s orthodoxy as the correct set of inferences, as opposed to other possible inferences, is to be found in the authority of tradition.
Thanks John, but I kind to wait first for answers to my questions above and I will be able then to respond to your reply on your post dated November 4, 2013 at 11:19 pm.
God bless
Good day everyone.
Do I not make myself clear in my questions above? Please let me know if you don’t understand the wordings especially my Grammar so I can make it clear. Or if there are some reasons you believe such questions are not relevant.
God bless
While I’m still waiting for anyone to answer my questions, I would also like to post some interesting quotes from St. Augustine that I have no doubt you knew already:
‘If the sentence . . . SEEMS TO ENJOIN A CRIME OR VICE. . . it is FIGURATIVE. “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of man,” says Christ, “and drink His blood, ye have no life in you.” THIS SEEMS TO ENJOIN A CRIME OR A VICE; it is therefore a FIGURE, ENJOINING THAT WE SHOULD HAVE A SHARE IN THE SUFFERING OF OUR LORD, and that we should RETAIN A SWEET AND AND PROFITABLE MEMORY of the fact that His FLESH was wounded and crucified for us.’ (Philip Schaff, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, vol. II, St. Augustin: The City of God and On Christian Doctrine, On Christian Doctrine 3.16.2 (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1956), p. 563.)
“In respect of the presence of the Majesty we have Christ always; in respect of the presence of the flesh, it was rightly said to the disciples, But Me ye will not always have. For the Church had Him in respect of the presence of the flesh, for a few days; now, by faith it holds, not with eyes beholds Him.”
A Library of the Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church, Homilies on the Gospel According to St. John by S. Augustine, Homily 92.1, p. 873; Homily 50.13 (Oxford: Parker, 1849), pp. 677-78.”
Then I offer anyone a chance to put some light here on those comments from St. Augustine. I believe he wasn’t a proponent to the doctrine of Transubstantiation, unless someone gave me a good reason that he does not mean what he said.
What I really know in some place, If he had doubt, he would write again to clarify his point whether he hold on to what he says or not. But that wasn’t happen here thus he meant what he said in those aforementioned comments.
God bless
John, I believe you can give reasonable and logical answers to my questions I long been waiting for anyone to answer. Can you?
God bless
@Ebouty, as a reluctant convert to Orthodoxy, and as someone who used to be on forums quoting like you are, I understand perfectly where you are coming from.
However, after a long while of doing that, and reading the fathers on their own terms, I started to get a better insight into their thinking, and I reluctantly came to the conclusion that they one and all believed in the real presence. Yes including Augustine.
“Christ was carried in his own hands when, referring to his own body, he said, ‘This is my body’ [Matt. 26:26]. For he carried that body in his hands” (Explanations of the Psalms 33:1:10 [A.D. 405]).
“I promised you [new Christians], who have now been baptized, a sermon in which I would explain the sacrament of the Lord’s Table. . . . That bread which you see on the altar, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That chalice, or rather, what is in that chalice, having been sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ” (Sermons 227 [A.D. 411]).
“What you see is the bread and the chalice; that is what your own eyes report to you. But what your faith obliges you to accept is that the bread is the body of Christ and the chalice is the blood of Christ. This has been said very briefly, which may perhaps be sufficient for faith; yet faith does not desire instruction” (ibid., 272).
As for the quotes you gave, it would seem that in this quote in city of God he is not interpreting John 6 Eucharistically. Protestants often try to argue it is not eucharistic. Anyway, if he isn’t interpreting it eucharistically, then it doesn’t really have any bearing on his beliefs about the eucharist.
For the other quote, it’s hard to comment since this work doesn’t seem to be very readily available so there isn’t much context to work with. I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess you haven’t read the context either. It’s one of those internet quotes that takes on a life of its own, but nobody has really read for themselves. I’ve been around the traps long enough to distrust such quotes because I’ve seen how much they are twisted when the full context is known. But if I had to guess, I would say that again, Augustine is not speaking eucharistically. Yes of course there is a sense in which Christ is not here in the flesh. He’s not walking around like he was in the 1st century.
Anyway, if you want to selectively quote the fathers to look like Protestants, and if you honestly believe the fathers were protestants, be my guest. A long time ago I was naive enough that I found that enough. Then I started to read the fathers for myself, and I couldn’t hold that any longer.
Thanks John, but please go on and deal with the other biblical passages I gave earlier and explain it to me.
God bless
Just a simple question to ask, is not those quotes are from St. Augustine’s work on the Gospel of John? Where did your inference for your Transubstantiation comes from, is it not one the Gospel of St. John Chapter 6, the bread of life discourse?
Any way, it was amazing that every Catholic (but I believe you are from an Orthodox if I’m right) I had a debate with him and when he cannot answer my questions he comes up with brilliant ideas like what you did now in saying that St. Augustine is not talking about the Eucharist. Wow, keep up the good work.
God bless