Has someone properly refuted this?
This isn’t the first time this link has been posted. Actually, the cited piece is meaningless except that it points to early Church Fathers using words such as ‘figurative’ and ‘symbol’. My previous response is in the attached link.
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?p=6588111#post6588111
The problem with the refutation is the author confuses “commemoration” with symbol. That is to say, that Christ commands that we ‘do this in commemoration’ of Him (some bibles use the English translation in ‘memory’ or ‘memorial’. In Jewish culture, to commemorate is a memorial followed by some act in remembrance of God’s particular grace. The commemoration was usually ritualized and most often a meat sacrifice was offered in Temple. This author makes the mistake in believing, conveniently, that ‘commemorate’ means a simple ‘symbol’. After all, we can commemorate a holiday, an occurrence in history, with a meal. The acknowledging Presidents Day with a BIG TURKEY is symbolic in that the Presidents aren’t there, most are dead, and there is nothing can we do except recall the great deeds (or misdeeds) of the Presidents. Thank God, the turkey and dressing are REAL!
As I see it, the second problem with the cited piece is that every time ‘figurative’ or ‘symbol’ is used the object of the word isn’t Christ’s real presence in the Eucharist, e.g. in the quote “The flesh figuratively represents to us the Holy Spirit” (Clement) the object of ‘figurative’ is the Holy Spirit, not the transubstantiation of bead and meat to Christ. And, of course the “Blood points to the Word of God”, but says nothing of the species of contained in the Eucharist.
It seems to me that non-Catholics have a subjective way of reading Scripture; of course this carries over to the early Church Fathers. It’s my opinion that Protestantism is symptomatic of the H1N1 virus of faith. I liken it to a designer virus attacking right reasoning ever since its introduction by an errant monk. (I’ve recently been convinced that he was pathologically mad – but that’s for another thread).
I define this virus as liberalism; somewhat similar to the political variant of ‘liberalism’. Liberalism holds that there is, as a right, emancipation from Divine Authority proclaiming a sovereignty of will in all sectors of life that control and judge all matters of faith and morals. To satisfy the liberal, God must conform His will to the liberal’s. Liberalism’s true authority resides in the subjective interior of the individual with the power to shut out God’s workings within His own creation. The philosophy proposes that "It is contrary to the natural, innate, and inalienable right and liberty and dignity of man, to subject himself to an authority, the root, rule, measure, and sanction of which is not in himself.” At least in part, and perhaps in some cases without realizing it, liberalism denies God with this autonomous freedom, conflicting with the Catholic Church. Once completely overtaken by the disease, the individual finds no ‘right’, no ‘wrong’, all moral and virtue become subjective as well; only that which which feels good becomes good.
Such an autonomous authority requires ‘freedom from’ morals as well as ‘freedom to’ implement a proxy ethic independent of God’s will. As such Scriptures become subjective to the individual and the meaning becomes different for each individual (or from group to group – each is moved by the Spirit – sometimes I wonder which spirit); thus we hear the refrain “one religion is as good as another.” Faith becomes a social construct based on whether or not it feels right, or feels good, changing from time to time depending on expediency. Discipline in faith is exercised less and less; it becomes weedy with passing of time until all discipline in right reasoning is rejected. The fault seems to be that conclusions drawn from the autonomous intellectual is lacking the guidance and authority found in the Catholic Church. Judgments become rationalizations without a foundation in an absolute truth that only the Catechism brings. Thus it can be said that liberalism becomes the program of rationalism; where “Free thought begets free morals, or immorality- Restraint is thrown off and a free rein given to the passions. WHOEVER THINKS WHAT HE PLEASES WILL DO WHAT HE PLEASES (sic).” (See Link
-~Liberalism is a Sin~
Like many viruses found in nature, there is no natural immunity, the body merely becomes accustomed to the profaning pathogen. Each variant of liberalism mutates from simple schismatic sect to complex variants completely void of any vestige of Christianity. There is however a treatment facility, you might say a Divine hospice, which is the Catholic faith.
JoeT
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