Did you write this? Or was it AI? I suspect the former.
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Does it matter?
I asked
“Give me a statement that is both True and false”
So if you have an argument it is with ChatGPT, not me.
So you are just wrong, again. it was not (just) me who claimed it (understood it) to to be both true and false.
Richard
I think the more common paradox you were aiming for was:
“This sentence is false.”
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I was lazy and asked ChatGPT. I knew there were several, I just couldn’t be bothered to either work them out or look the up on my own.
The point has always been the fallacy of applying The Law of Contradiction to faith and religion, rather than the fallacy or not of the principle.
Perhaps I could have been more specific, but I was intrigued as to whether anyone would confront it with science thought as well. That has yet to appear, either way.
RIchard
Your first mistake was asking ChatGPT – it has no reasoning power. Your second mistake was your question – ChatGPT tends to give very shallow answers unless questioned well.
Garbage into a garbage can, garbage out.
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If you want to claim that I’m wrong and you aren’t being refuted because AI provided all the answers, it does.
If you want to retain acquire some integrity, it does.
But in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter in the slightest.
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The key word is the bolded one…
I fixed it…
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You have set the limit of true Christianity to an interpretation that is not fundamental for Christianity. You must be thinking that it is, as you wrote as you wrote. Many, including I, disagree in this matter and are yet Christian believers.
Your writings have got me to think about my relationship with Catholicism.
I think that during the history, many doctrines have deviated from the original meaning (I know that you disagree but that is another matter).
What if I would accept the principle that RCC has a legitimate right to develop doctrines as the understanding within the Church increases or there comes a need to set limits to acceptable beliefs?
The current interpretation of Eucharist (transsubstation) is something I do not support. Yet, the teaching about Eucharist would not be a barrier for me to join RCC. I would just be a contrarian within the Church in this interpretation.
The interpretations related to water baptism would be a more influential factor. I thought that perhaps I could accept the change from the baptism of believers to the baptism of infants. But then I realized that the basic difference is not in the age of those baptized, it is in what happens in the baptism and who can be baptized. The interpretation I support differs from the doctrine of RCC. I can accept a baptism done in RCC as valid if the person can express her/his belief in Jesus before the baptism. Even in such a case, the interpretation of what happens in the baptism would be slightly different.
There are also other teachings where the interpretations would disagree.
- The interpretations about priesthood would be somewhat different (perhaps not so much as to be a barrier).
- I do not support the elevation of Mary to the importance and status that RCC has given to her.
- I have a somewhat negative attitude towards the current practices regarding the dead Saints as I do not believe that they are listening to our prayers.
- I do not support the current teaching about the Fall and the consequences of the Original Sin.
- Although I accept that what the first ecumenical councils concluded represents the teaching in the catholic and Apostolic churches during that era and later, I do not believe that the subsequent councils were infallible.
- I think that the teaching of the early church, as documented in the canonical scripture, has more authority than the decisions of the later leaders. If the teaching in the scriptures is more difficult to interpret, so be it.
Etc.
If I would join RCC, these disagreements would lead to me being kicked out as a heretic. It is much easier for all that I do not try to join the organisation that claims to be the one body of Christ.
Divisions are not solely caused by people who do not want to be part of one church. A more common reason are the narrow demands of the leaders of the church - accept and obey what we say or be condemned and kicked out.
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This is a statement that should be substantiated. I have asked you many times whether your opinion would have been accepted in the early Church and judged orthodox or heterodox.
If it turns out that the Church of the first millenium would have regarded your opinion as fundamentally heterodox and alien to the apostolic faith, how can you call it something “that is not fundamental to Christianity”? How could the nature of the Blessed Sacrament not be fundamental to Christianity?
Back then the majority of Christians were Arians. Was this a position that concerned something not fundamental to Christianity?
Speaking of which you know that the Church fathers were fundamentally realist and regarded the denial of the true presence a denial of the incarnation?
As I have shown to St.Roymond, already back then in 95 AD Clement of Rome was affirming an understanding of the priesthood that was fundamentally incompatible with Protestant understanding of it. Why should someone who lived so close to the apostles, someone who even met them, be seen as less veritative than interpretations that gained more power 15 centuries later?
Again; would your interpretation of Mary have been accepted in the early Church or is it, fundamentally, a novelty? Why do you think that something that would not have been accepted in the first millenium should be accepted today? In what grounds?
Again. Is this interpretation aligned with what the Church taught from the beginning? If the answer is no, why should your intepretation be regarded as more valuable and veritative? Why should Arianism or all forms of subordinationisms, conversely, be rejected? Just because you happen to agree with the trinitarian dogma?
Is your understanding of original sin supported by the Fathers or is it, once again, a novelty?
On what grounds do you establish that ecumenical councils that represented the Church as a whole, Councils that the Church herself understood as infallible and protected from error by the Holy Spirit, should be conducive to errors?
How can you separate what you call “the teaching of the early church, as documented in the canonical scripture” from the very way that same early Church interpreted those Scriptures? Do you realize the absurdity?
Not necessarily unless you wanted to teach that your understanding can be in line with that of the Church and lead other people astray. The thing is that “joining the RCC” while deeming your own interpretation as more authoritative would be à contradiction, an oxhimoron. It would be like me complaining because I can’t become a Muslim while still keeping my faith in the triune God. Don’t you think Muslims would laugh in my face (and rightly so) if I told them that they should accept me as a Muslim while I don’t accept the principles that would make a Muslim in the first place?
If people want to deem their own interpretations as more authoritative than the intepretation of the Church, even the intepretation of the successors of the apostles gathered in ecumenical Councils, how is division not a necessary and unavoidable consequence of this very principle?
I do not think that our discussions about doctrines have been fruitful. Therefore, I do not want to put time into such debates.
Here, I make one relevant note about the interpretations of what the Fathers wrote but do not intend to continue a fruitless debate further.
In our church, when we have the Lord’s Supper/Holy Communion/Eucharist/whatever name you want to use, we usually use the words:
‘The body of Christ, given for you’
‘The blood of Jesus, given for you’.
If I would write about our practices and someone would read the text centuries later, our practices and words could be used to support the doctrine of transsubstantiation - the body, the blood. Yet, we do not support the doctrine of transsubstantiation.
How we interpret the expressions depends on the hermeneutical framework we use and our expectations. When you interpret the expressions used by the Fathers, you may put into the words a doctrine that was formulated much later and that the Father did not mean.
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This is a reasonable argument: can you point me at even one historian of the Church who says that the understanding of the Fathers about the Eucharist wasn’t “realist” and could be reconciled with the zwinglian interpretation that you accept?
I’m not saying you are wrong, I’m just asking you to show me if there are historians who actually think that the meaning you assign to the Eucharist would indeed have been compatible with the faith of the early Church.
I’m not asking you to drop your doctrine, nor am I asking you to admit that you are wrong: I’m just asking you if there are actual historians who support your claim.
You’ve made a claim, and I respect your right to make it: can you support it?
I have not read many church historians, so it would take much time to go through the texts. I do not trust AI, so I would not leave the work for AI.
I do not support the zwinglian understanding, at least not in the extreme form. ‘Remembrance’ in this context is much deeper than mere memorial. I could compare it to the Jewish Pesah meal. It includes remembrance of what happened but at a very personal level: ‘when I left Egypt’…
In the Holy Communion/etc, I believe that Jesus is present through the Holy Spirit and what happens at the table is spiritually significant. I would not want to write a detailed report of what it is - best to think there may be a ‘mysterion’ involved…
Even with the ‘mysterion’, we assume that the most holy thing in such an occasion are the believers who are part of the one bread. The Holy Spirit dwells in the believers who are ‘in Christ’.
Ai or not Ai, can you provide sources that substantiate your claim? Sources with textual citazions and links, so that people can actually check the content and verify whether the content has been faithfully reported or not?
I don’t care whether you use AI or not: all I care about is that you actually provide verifiable sources that can be indipendently verified.
Otherwise it’s just “methinks” but I’m afraid that “methinks” isn’t a really credible modus operandi.
I made a quick net search about this question. As is natural, there were different interpretations and opinions. Below is a link to one source that inspected what the early Fathers told about Eucharist. This is just one page in the diversity of interpretations:
Here, you are basically saying that I’m being biased and I’m reading my understanding of the Eucharist in the writings of the Fathers when the meaning they assigned to the Blessed Sacrament was fundamentally different (according to you).
The problem is that you are overlooking a crucial distinction: the early Church Fathers did not merely repeat the words “the Body of Christ” and “the Blood of Christ.” Several of them explicitly explained what they believed those expressions meant.
And when we examine those explanations, we find substantial evidence of a Eucharistic understanding that is incompatible with yours, and this isn’t simply the opinion of Catholic apologists, it us also recognized by respected historians of early Christianity, including Protestant scholars.
1. Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 110)
In his Letter to the Smyrnaeans 7:1, Ignatius condemns certain Christians because they refuse to acknowledge the Eucharist as Christ’s flesh.
He writes: “They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ”
The historical context is essential.
Ignatius was opposing Docetists, who denied the reality of Christ’s human flesh and suffering. He explicitly connects their rejection of Christ’s real flesh with their refusal to recognize the Eucharist as that same flesh.
Ignatius is not merely reproducing a liturgical formula. He is making a theological argument about the nature of the Eucharist.
Primary source: Ignatius, Letter to the Smyrnaeans, Chapter 7
2. Justin Martyr (c. AD 155)
Justin provides an even clearer example.
In First Apology 66, he explains the Eucharist to a largely pagan audience unfamiliar with Christian worship.
He writes: “For not as common bread and common drink do we receive these”
He then explains that the food consecrated through the Eucharistic prayer is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus Christ.
This is particularly significant because Justin is explicitly explaining Christian Eucharistic belief to outsiders.
He is not merely quoting ceremonial language that could be interpreted differently centuries later.
His purpose is to explain what Christians actually believe they receive.
Primary source: Justin Martyr, First Apology, Chapter 66
3. Irenaeus of Lyons (c. AD 180)
In Against Heresies IV, 18:5, Irenaeus explains that the Eucharistic bread, after receiving God’s invocation, is no longer ordinary bread.
He describes the Eucharist as possessing both an earthly and a heavenly reality.
Again, the context matters.
Irenaeus is arguing against Gnostic views that undermine the goodness of material creation and the resurrection of the body.
His argument depends on the Eucharist truly communicating Christ’s life to human beings.
This is a theological explanation of the Eucharist’s sacramental reality, not simply the repetition of the words of institution.
Primary source: Irenaeus, Against Heresies IV, 18
4. Cyril of Jerusalem (c. AD 350)
Cyril makes the distinction between outward appearances and Eucharistic reality especially explicit.
In Mystagogical Catechesis IV, he instructs newly baptized Christians not to judge the consecrated elements merely by their sensory characteristics.
He writes: “Consider therefore the Bread and the Wine not as bare elements”
In §9, he explains that what appears and tastes like bread is, according to Christian faith, Christ’s Body.
Cyril is explicitly teaching his audience to distinguish the Eucharist’s outward appearance from its sacramental reality.
Whatever terminology we use to describe his teaching, it is impossible to reconcile this explanation with the idea that the Eucharist is merely ordinary bread serving as a reminder of Christ.
Primary source: Cyril of Jerusalem, Mystagogical Catechesis IV
5. Ambrose of Milan (late fourth century)
Ambrose goes even further by explicitly discussing the transformation brought about through consecration.
In On the Mysteries 9:50, he writes: “because by blessing nature itself is changed”
In the following paragraphs, Ambrose appeals to God’s power to transform created things and explains that Christ’s words bring about the Eucharistic consecration.
His argument is specifically intended to answer the objection that the Eucharistic elements still appear to be ordinary bread and wine.
Primary source: Ambrose, On the Mysteries, Chapter 9
Now: what do modern historians say?
This is where your objection about reading later doctrines into earlier texts becomes particularly interesting (and equally difficult to support).
J. N. D. Kelly, a distinguished Anglican historian and patristic scholar at the University of Oxford, provides particularly important evidence for the antiquity of the Christian belief in the Real Presence.
In his influential historical study Early Christian Doctrines, Kelly examines the Eucharistic theology of the Church Fathers from the first centuries through the fifth century.
His conclusions are especially relevant to the suggestion that interpreting the Fathers realistically necessarily involves projecting later Catholic theology onto their writings.
1. The Eucharist Was Already Understood as a Sacrifice in the First Century
Early Christian Doctrines, p. 196
Kelly traces the understanding of the Eucharist as the specifically Christian sacrifice back to the final decade of the first century, possibly earlier.
Significantly, he cites Clement of Rome’s First Epistle to the Corinthians, chapters 40–44, where Clement compares Christian ministers with the priests and Levites of the Old Testament and refers to their offering of gifts.
Kelly interprets this language within the context of early Christian Eucharistic sacrifice.
He also cites the Didache, Ignatius of Antioch, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus as witnesses to the development of this understanding.
This is historically significant because Kelly recognizes sacrificial Eucharistic language already in Christianity’s earliest surviving post-apostolic writings, rather than treating it as a medieval innovation.
Read Kelly, p. 196 — Original PDF
2. Ignatius of Antioch Intended His Eucharistic Realism to Be Taken Seriously
Early Christian Doctrines, p. 197
Discussing Ignatius of Antioch, who wrote around AD 110, Kelly examines his explicit identification of the Eucharist with the flesh of Jesus Christ.
Kelly concludes:
“Clearly he intends this realism to be taken strictly”
His explanation is particularly important.
Ignatius was arguing against Docetists who denied the reality of Christ’s human flesh and suffering.
Kelly explains that Ignatius’s Eucharistic teaching forms part of his argument against precisely that denial.
In other words, Kelly does not impose a realistic interpretation upon Ignatius from a later Catholic theological framework. He derives it from the historical and doctrinal context of Ignatius’s own writings.
This makes it difficult to argue that Ignatius was merely repeating conventional liturgical language without intending to affirm a real relationship between the Eucharist and Christ’s flesh.
Read Kelly, p. 197 — Original PDF
3. Irenaeus Believed the Eucharistic Elements Were Truly Christ’s Body and Blood
Early Christian Doctrines, p. 198
Kelly also examines the Eucharistic teaching of Irenaeus of Lyons, writing toward the end of the second century.
He concludes that Irenaeus understood the bread and wine as:
“really the Lord’s body and blood”
Kelly considers Irenaeus’s testimony particularly significant because his Eucharistic realism emerges naturally within his arguments against Gnostic and Docetic teachings that denied or diminished Christ’s real humanity.
Irenaeus is not primarily attempting to construct a systematic doctrine of Eucharistic transformation. Rather, he appeals to what he understands as the Eucharistic reality in the course of defending the incarnation and the resurrection of the body.
For Kelly, this makes Irenaeus’s testimony especially valuable as evidence of an already established Eucharistic belief.
Kelly also observes that Irenaeus appears to envisage a change in the Eucharistic elements through their reception of God’s invocation.
Read Kelly, p. 198 — Original PDF
4. The Eucharistic Belief of the Third Century Continued Earlier Christian Teaching
Early Christian Doctrines, pp. 211–213
In the section entitled Progress in Eucharistic Doctrine, Kelly explains that the third-century identification of the consecrated bread and wine with Christ’s Body and Blood continued the understanding found in earlier Christianity.
He examines Hippolytus, Tertullian, and Cyprian.
For Tertullian, Kelly points to the comparison between baptism and the Eucharist: just as baptismal water acts upon the body, the Eucharist communicates Christ’s Body and Blood for the spiritual nourishment of the believer.
Regarding Cyprian of Carthage, Kelly explains that Cyprian’s descriptions of the dangers of profaning the Eucharist confirm that he: “took the real presence literally”
An especially important part of Kelly’s analysis concerns Tertullian’s occasional use of terms such as figure or symbol.
Kelly warns against interpreting these expressions according to their ordinary modern meaning.
In ancient sacramental thought, a symbol could have a mysterious and effective relationship with the reality it signified. It was not necessarily understood as an empty representation of something absent.
Thus, Kelly explains that Tertullian’s symbolic terminology does not automatically contradict his realistic identification of the Eucharist with Christ’s Body and Blood.
This point directly addresses the hermeneutical objection that ancient Christian expressions about the Eucharist might have been merely symbolic in the modern memorialist sense.
Kelly argues that the meanings of these expressions must be established through their historical context, not through modern assumptions about what the word symbol implies.
Read Kelly, pp. 211–213 — Original PDF
5. Eucharistic Teaching in the Fourth and Fifth Centuries Was Generally Realist
Early Christian Doctrines, p. 440
In his discussion of the fourth and fifth centuries, Kelly characterizes Eucharistic teaching as: “in general unquestioningly realist”
He explains that the consecrated bread and wine were understood and treated as Christ’s Body and Blood.
This assessment is particularly important because Kelly is describing the predominant Eucharistic belief of the period rather than merely quoting isolated expressions from individual Fathers.
However, he also recognizes that Christian theologians differed in their explanations of how Christ was present.
Some employed symbolic or figurative language, while others increasingly described consecration as bringing about an actual transformation of the elements.
Kelly discusses these developments in greater detail in the following pages, particularly in connection with Cyril of Jerusalem, Gregory of Nyssa, John Chrysostom, and Ambrose of Milan.
Read Kelly, p. 440 — Original PDF
Obviously there was development but development doesn’t entail contradiction: the Trinity too is a development and a very big one as well (some of the Fathers were explicitly subordinationists).
Kelly’s historical analysis is particularly valuable because it does not rely upon simply assuming that the Church Fathers shared later Catholic formulations.
Instead, he examines their theological arguments, the controversies in which they participated, and the terminology available to them.
His conclusions indicate that:
-
Eucharistic sacrifice was recognized in the earliest surviving post-apostolic Christian literature.
-
Ignatius of Antioch intended his identification of the Eucharist with Christ’s flesh realistically.
-
Irenaeus understood the Eucharistic elements as truly Christ’s Body and Blood.
-
This fundamental identification continued through the third century, including in Tertullian and Cyprian.
-
Eucharistic teaching in the fourth and fifth centuries remained predominantly realist, although theological explanations varied.
Consequently, the claim that Eucharistic realism is merely a later Catholic interpretation imposed upon the Church Fathers is difficult to reconcile with Kelly’s historical findings.
This does not establish that the complete medieval doctrine of transubstantiation was explicitly articulated in the first or second century, in the same way the doctrine of the Trinity was very much NOT explicitly articulated and defended before Nicaea. It does, however, provide substantial historical support for continuity between central elements of ancient Eucharistic belief and the Catholic doctrine of the Real Presence today.
Full bibliographical reference:
J. N. D. Kelly, Early Christian Doctrines, 2nd ed. (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), Chapter VIII, §§2 and 5, pp. 196–198, 211–213; Chapter XVI, §5, pp. 440–445.
Complete original PDF — Early Christian Doctrines
Historical Significance
Kelly’s assessment is particularly important because he was an Anglican historian, not a Catholic apologist.
What Kelly’s research supports is a substantial historical continuity between the realist Eucharistic faith of the ancient Church and the Catholic belief in the Real Presence today, even though the theological explanations developed over time.
My Question to You
Your analogy demonstrates that two Christian communities can use the same liturgical expressions while assigning different meanings to them.
I agree.
But that observation does not establish what Ignatius, Justin, Irenaeus, Cyril, or Ambrose actually believed. Their own explanations must determine that.
And we have modern historians, including Anglican and Protestant scholars, who recognize the realistic and sacramental character of significant portions of early Eucharistic theology.
So rather than simply suggesting that I am projecting later Catholic theology onto the Fathers, I would ask you to address their actual statements in their historical contexts.
How does your interpretation account for Ignatius explicitly identifying the Eucharist with Christ’s suffering flesh, Justin explaining that the consecrated food is not ordinary bread, Cyril distinguishing sensory appearances from Eucharistic reality, and Ambrose explicitly teaching a change brought about through consecration?
And on what historical grounds should your interpretation of these passages be preferred to the conclusions of scholars who have examined these very texts in their original historical and theological contexts?
Finally a source, thank you! I will analyze it. Finally something more substantial than “methinks therefore me right hurrr durrrr”. I’m touched, seriously. And I really mean it. Because the way it usually goes is that I quote sources; historians; links (where I provide the verifiable sources for my arguments so that they can be checked and verified); and I get contradicted and dimissed on the grounds of the all powerful “methinks”.
This is a great improvement, Knor! It really is! Thank you again!!!
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I’m having the time of my life analyzing the source you’ve provided, Knor. Seriously. I can’t thank you enough. I’m just finishing the work.
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This is your belief and assertion, that the Early church got it right. Why? (and don’t go on about unity and the Holy Spirit, both those are subject to your own view also)
And as such there is no valid argument that will satisfy you.
It is the same approach as the Scientists who claim that science can only be countered by science. You will only accept arguments that fit within your framework of History and Your view of Scripture, and unity.
Until or unless you will accept the possibility of valid views which are different (not even contradictory) to yours there is no conversation.
Richard
Clemente in 95 AD, a martyr and a Saint, who knew the apostles, got everything wrong about the priesthood (as i have shown here Answer to St.Roymond on the Eucharist ), Luther, writing 15 centuries later and essentially contradicting him, was right instead.
Because, even more obviously, a Bishop of Rome writing in 95 AD and who met the apostles, has the same veritative value of someone writing 15 centuries later who wrote the OPPOSITE on the very same subject.
This makes absolutely sense.
You have no business in recognizing a valid or invalid argument, i’m sorry. Yesterday you kept affirming that two specific propositions i wrote were contradictory when literally everyone alive on earth who accepts the basic principles of Logic could see that they were not.
You and Logic and rationality are polar opposites and this isn’t an accusation or anything, it is just the way it is.