This is a good question, but it could be reversed. If the Church got it wrong for a millennium and a half regarding the very nature of the Eucharist, why would it be believable that this very same nature, misunderstood for fifteen centuries, had finally been grasped in the sixteenth century? Furthermore, it can be argued that it would be borderline nonsensical on God’s part to allow His own faithful to go astray for so many centuries. I mean, we have testimonies from the earliest Church regarding the nature of the Eucharist, one prominent example being Saint Ignatius in the seventh chapter of his Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (107-110 AD)CHURCH FATHERS: Epistle to the Smyrnaeans (St. Ignatius)
“They 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”.
Even if one completely dismisses tradition and the Church Fathers, anyone searching for a textual and linguistic argument that is 100% secure in its written formulation must look to the Bread of Life Discourse in chapter 6 of the Gospel of John (which, on top of being recognized as a canonical text, also predates the letter of St.Ignatius) because, unljke the Synoptic Gospels, which briefly report the events of the Last Supper, John utilizes a selection of Greek terms that fundamentally excludes any purely symbolic or metaphorical interpretation.
The Deliberate Shift from Sòma to Sarx: while Mark and Paul utilize the more generic term Sòma (body), the Greek text in John 6 introduces the word Sárx (σάρξ). Sarx leaves absolutely no room for abstract, figurative, or spiritualized nuances; it strictly denotes physical flesh, muscle, and biological tissue. Crucially, it is the exact same term used in the Prologue to declare that “ the Word became flesh”. In verse 51, Jesus states explicitly: “The bread that I will give is my flesh (sarx) for the life of the world.”
The Violence of the Verb Trògo (To Chew):To eliminate any risk of His statement being reduced to a bloodless spiritual metaphor, the Greek text undergoes an extraordinary verbal switch from verse 54 onward. Jesus completely abandons the common verb for eating (esthìo, which could easily be used in a figurative sense, such as ‘to feed on concepts’) and repeatedly deploys the verb Trògo (τρώγω). Of onomatopoeic origin, Trògo literally means to chew, to crunch, to tear with the teeth, or to gnaw. Traditionally applied to animals grazing or devouring prey, asserting that one must “crunch my flesh” utterly dismantles the hypothesis of a mere symbolic representation.
Put together, the textual proof from the Gospel of John and the overwhelming consensus of the early Church make it profoundly difficult to believe that this entire doctrine could have been misunderstood for fifteen centuries. This is further supported by modern secular scholarship; J.N.D. Kelly, in Early Christian Doctrines, explicitly states that Eucharistic teaching in the early Church was characterized by an “unquestioned realism”, with the consecrated bread and wine universally regarded as the body and blood of the Savior.
And I mean… even if one were to grant the premise that the Church was wrong for a millennium and a half, an even more unsettling question would inmediately arise: what else have we completely misunderstood, and perhaps for an even longer period of time?
No one is claiming that the Catholics and the Ancient church got it wrong.
The subsidiary question is why must there be only one way to understand and celebrate the Lord’s Supper?
I have never claimed that Transubstantiation is wrong, only that I consider it unnecessary to fulfill the words and meaning of Christ (and Paul)
Religion and faith are personal. There are many who see the Passion as a human sacrifice and are uncomfortable with that notion. Eating the flesh and blood of Christ is a continuation of that notion. Cannibalism and human Sacrifice? Those were precisely the crimes of the so called Primitive cultures Christians tried to convert and educate. (cvilise)
As cultures develop and we develop our views on what is right and wrong, acceptable and not our beliefs will, dare I say Evolve? Slavery is no longer acceptable. Why should cannibalism be?
The objection to Catholicism is not whether they are wrong, but whether they are exclusively right. I trust that you can see the difference.
Organisms aren’t necessarily intrinsically directed towards survival and reproduction. Natural selection is extremely biased against organisms which don’t survive or reproduce, so any leaning towards survival and reproduction will rapidly come to dominate life, and any leaning away from it will be eliminated.
(There are a few exceptions e.g. eusociality or kin selection, but in general survival and reproduction instincts will lead to more offspring)
Let me be clear: I absolutely respect everyone’s right to believe whatever they want. However, in my opinion, there is a very distinct and undeniable difference between the Eucharist being Christ Himself and it being a mere memorial. Regarding the rest, I believe Jesus’ words are eternal, so I don’t feel comfortable removing or adapting words just because they might sound uncomfortable to modern ears. Many theologians even believe the Eucharist is the Katechon (which will be removed in the end times to pave the way for the son of perdition, as the second letter to the Thessalonians says) so it’s a pretty big deal. Like I said, I respect different opinions, but we aren’t talking about something minor here, or something that be accomodated to suit modern times
That is a platitude and the bastion of all who know they are right but must not be seen as arogant and exclusive. It is consescending and fools no one but the speaker.
You must accept the fact that your views can be seen as uncivilised and not defend them with Scriptural or Historical defenses. Religion is not black and white. God reveals Himself to each one where they are. I am civilsed. I do not support human Sacrifice or cannibalism as good principles. I therefore do not view the Passion in that manner.
t’s funny (seriously funny, thank God I’m not having breakfast or drinking, I laughed my lungs out) that you talk about being condescending, and then you proceed to claim that the Church has been uncivilized for 15 centuries (it’s a direct implication of “I’m civilized”), and that more than a billion and a half Christians today (Catholics + Orthodox) are uncivilized.
I give an opinion, not necessarily my own, as an explanation for a view and…
Did I ever say I thought Catholicism was uncivilised? Or is expressing a thought proof that it is my own view. I am not comfortable with Transubstantiation, I see no need for it, but that is the limit of my judgmentalism.
You didn’t directly say that but saying “I’m civilized” as a reason for rejecting something that the Church has held as truth from the beginning implies that those who still hold on to that teaching are uncivilized or at least less civilized, there’s no getting around it.
Well there are many things that I’m not comfortable with, but when speaking about God and the Faith I tend not to let that get in the way. I mean I’m not required to be comfortable with everything and certainly me being comfortable with something is not a requirement for that something to be true or not.
That being said, I really respect the right of everyone to believe what they want, I really do.
Yeah I joined the dots because of your words, not mine. I drew the logical conclusions from your premises.
Lmao. Laughed my lungs out…again.
The thought that believing in a teaching that has been believed by the Church from the very beginning makes someone less civilized or uncivilized never crossed my mind, so I don’t agree with your definition of civilized.
For the same reason a Christian should believe in the Trinitarian nature of God, the indissolubility of marriage, and the importance of loving one’s neighbor as oneself and helping those in need, and I could go on and on. Pretty much all the teachings passed down by Jesus and His disciples should be believed by Christians. I don’t think I, or anyone else, have the authority to pick and choose what to believe. Some people clearly do, and more power to them, but I certainly don’t think it’s the right course of action. Then again, Henry VIII went so far as to break away from Rome and establish the independence of the Church of England just because the Pope wouldn’t grant him a decree of nullity for his marriage, so…
Anyway, if someone is truly acting in good conscience, making a few errors and not giving assent to certain teachings will not be held against them; loving others is certainly more important.
However, I definitely wouldn’t want to be in the shoes of those who originated these errors in the first place (in some way I actually admire their courage, because it certainly takes a whole lot of courage to willingly go against God’s word and His Church, splitting it in the process, and believe they will get away with it) . Their case is very different from that of the faithful who grow up in a specific denomination and simply adopt its teachings since childhood. Splitting the Church, as the people who originated those errors did, is a sin of unfathomable seriousness, diabolical in its nature (since diabolos derives from διαβάλλω, which is a Greek verb, its meaning is “to divide”, and the devil is the divider par excellence).
Not really. Quite the opposite: I accept that I am not meant to be the arbiter of Scripture. I believe that only the Church can possess the correct understanding of it, thanks to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
I can have my own interpretations on things that aren’t settled (for example how Grace functions -the famous “de Auxiliis” controversy- has never been definitively settled, I find the interpretation of Banez repulsive, both morally and philosophically, personally) but once something is settled I accept it
And yet, there they all are! And remain. So apparently it isn’t so inevitable as your last phrase there claims!
I think we believers should be a whole lot more alarmed by the many who reject materialism, and yet find their way into accepting and even embracing fear, hatred, and violence, all the things that should have inevitably been rejected by self-proclaimed Christians. And yet, there they are too!
And that is one of the problems of modernity. Believe whatever you like as long as it makes you comfortable and feel good. Christ crucified wasn’t comfortable in context. Stumbling block and foolishness are how Paul described it to others.
Certainly Catholics and Protestants will disagree on the Magisterium, but even outside this, I have been trying to hammer home the point, isn’t the near universal testimony of the early Church (every branch not just RCC) for a thousand years worth something? As I just noted in the other thread, it seems there was more disagreement on what books belonged in the Canon than on the real presence.
I’m not blind. I mean we can disagree with the global historic Church on some issues. Suppose the entire Church accepted a worldwide flood the first thousand years (probably true). On there not being a global flood we have mountains and mountains of physical data (not subjective interpretations of literary data and “this makes me uncomfortable”). Evidence should be overwhelming.
For me this always boils to sola scripture. All we gotta do is interpret the scriptures correctly. Who cares about where they came from or why. It’s the Bible fell from heaven view that is disconnected from the actual flesh and blood Church that preserved and interpreted apostolic Christianity.
I just feel you need really good reasons as a Christian to disagree with the almost universal testimony of the Church on important issues. I feel this is sometimes lost on modern exegetes (sola scripture!!!).
Yes. The substitution of truth with subjectivism. Maritain said that Luther was the apostle of subjectivism and he was quite right about it, imho.
And the fate of his disciples was even less comfortable. To be honest, hardly anything about the Gospel is comfortable, except the promise of the afterlife, the final resurrection, and the ultimate defeat of the evil spiritual forces that rule the world (since let’s not forget that the Gospel states with absolute clarity that the entire world is under the dominion of the devil).
Yes, absolutely. I would also add that the RCC [Roman Catholic Church] wasn’t just another denomination; the Church of the first millennium was basically unified. There were schisms, but none as devastating as the later ones. Not even the Chalcedonian schism was as big as what came after. The Arians, for example, have essentiallydisappeared and been defeated, but the divisions created in the second millennium have still not been fixed. And to be honest(without meaning to offend )I will never understand how someone can take seriously a Church founded upon the private desires of a monarch. Even less will I understand how such a Church can be seen as more authoritative than the most ancient Churches, but that’s just me
And also who guarantees that your intepretation or mine is the correct one? Nobody can. That’s why I said that it opens the Pandora’s box uf unbdridled subjectivism.
You have just contradicted yourself. Sola Scrriptura would rule out the mountains of scientific evidence.
I am sorry, but I am not the only ne who can be accused of picking and choosing (rightly or wrongy)
Either the early church got it right or they did not. You cannot just decide it is only the scientific or material things that they got wrong.
No one is going to accept slavery in this age, yet it was accepted until very recently, as was the global flood. If you are going to start disputing , then you cannot complain if I (et al) dispute the view of the Eucharist.
The Church actually condemned slavery back in 1537 (sublimis Deus). And the Bible and the Church have never been the supreme authority on scientific matters; matters of faith and morals though are another thing entirely.
