Common sense questions to protestants about the Eucharist

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I’m not here to debate whether or not the Eucharist really contains the body and blood of Jesus, but to ask some mind boggling questions I have for protestants if He’s not present in the Eucharist.
  1. Why would anyone (Catholic or anyone else) make this up, what would be the benefit?
  2. Just how charismatic would a person have to be to get the Huge majority of Christans to believe this? ( I mean imagine being an apostle and trying to sell Christianity with this sales pitch "Hi, my name is Peter and let me tell you why you should be Christian. “We take care of orphans if anything happens to parents, have an outstanding moral system, and oh, by the way we get together every Sunday and eat Jesus’ body and blood.”) The very thought is laughable. Must have had divine intervention!
 
Josh316 said:
I’m not here to debate whether or not the Eucharist really contains the body and blood of Jesus, but to ask some mind boggling questions I have for protestants if He’s not present in the Eucharist.
  1. Why would anyone (Catholic or anyone else) make this up, what would be the benefit?
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Nothing. It’s a misunderstanding of scripture.
  1. Just how charismatic would a person have to be to get the Huge majority of Christans to believe this? ( I mean imagine being an apostle and trying to sell Christianity with this sales pitch "Hi, my name is Peter and let me tell you why you should be Christian. “We take care of orphans if anything happens to parents, have an outstanding moral system, and oh, by the way we get together every Sunday and eat Jesus’ body and blood.”) The very thought is laughable. Must have had divine intervention!
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Yes the thought is laughable which is why Peter never preached that. Dont RCs ever get tired of asking these questions 🤷
 
NDfan said:
Nothing. It’s a misunderstanding of scripture.

Yes the thought is laughable which is why Peter never preached that. Dont RCs ever get tired of asking these questions 🤷
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Don’t protestants ever get tired of giving the same answers? Give me a break “he didn’t teach that, you misinterpret this and that.”

All evidence of the early Church (I won’t say Catholic to save arguement) and Church fathers point to Catholic teaching so how can you be arrogant enough to say your interpretation of the early Church fathers is better than a sixth of the world’s population? And how can you feel comfortable being part of one of 33,000 denominations (red flags should be popping up!)
 
Why can’t protestants just look at history to confirm that the eucharist is the body blood soul and divinity of christ.

untill martin luther wanted to “stick it to the man” aka the pope and church authority…

martin luther brought up the idea of consubstansiation (Sp?)
instead of the correct transubstansiation…

After luther it all went down hill…MAINLY BECAUSE THE HERETICAL RELIGIONS POPPING UP DIDN’T APOSTOLIC “power” can’t think of the right word anyway

and because they couldn’t consacrate host…they just changed the whole interpretation to confirmwith their religion
 
NDfan said:
Nothing. It’s a misunderstanding of scripture.
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But how did such a misunderstanding come to take over the entire Christian world? If the Church began with a correct understanding of the scriptures, how and why did this incorrect understanding push out that correct understanding?
 
VociMike said:
But how did such a misunderstanding come to take over the entire Christian world? If the Church began with a correct understanding of the scriptures, how and why did this incorrect understanding push out that correct understanding?
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I think it’s even more than that. One doesn’t need to run to the ancient Christian world to see the overwhelming acknowledgment that Christ is present with us in the Supper. 1 billion Catholics, half a billion Eastern Orthodox. 80+ million Anglicans, 77 million Lutherans, 70 million Methodists (give or take, since there may be some that deny it)…plus a smattering of smaller denominations. That’s roughly 80% of the Christian world!
 
sancte_joseph said:
Why can’t protestants just look at history to confirm that the eucharist is the body blood soul and divinity of christ.

untill martin luther wanted to “stick it to the man” aka the pope and church authority…

martin luther brought up the idea of consubstansiation (Sp?)
instead of the correct transubstansiation…
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Luther never used the term consubstantiation…nor do Lutherans.
 
TriuneUnity said:
Uhm…I don’t know what your point is. Are you saying consubstantiation is biblical, what?
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no of course not but you said that luther never used the term consubstantiation…but guess who made it up…the word comes from the idea being expresses…

in this case con=with so with the substance
luther taught the bread is still there but jesus is with it

while: transubstantiation mean the substance changes so even if we see bread…bread is not there but it is Jesus
 
sancte_joseph said:
no of course not but you said that luther never used the term consubstantiation…but guess who made it up…the word comes from the idea being expresses…

in this case con=with so with the substance
luther taught the bread is still there but jesus is with it

while: transubstantiation mean the substance changes so even if we see bread…bread is not there but it is Jesus
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Consubstantiation was actually a term used by a theologian prior to Luther. Lutherans have never used it.
 
NDfan said:
Nothing. It’s a misunderstanding of scripture.

Yes the thought is laughable which is why Peter never preached that. Dont RCs ever get tired of asking these questions 🤷
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The same questions th same answers.
 
Well, I started reading the above posts, but seeing that they soon devolved into fighting instead of healthy discussion, I decided to share what I know about the various Protestant understandings of the Eucharist.
  1. Anglican/Episcopal - essentially the same as the Catholic church… Very little Theology changed between the two.
  2. Reformed (Calvinist) Churches - Calvin taught a “Spiritual” presence. Christ is in the elements spiritually, but not physically.
  3. Lutheran- There are two major views on this in the Lutheran churches, in terms of metaphysical explanations of the Eucharist. The first, as was held by Luther, is that Christ is bodily present but that it defies metaphysical explanation. The specifics were not important, but the emphasis was on the grace of God given through this Sacrament in virtue of the faith of the communicant. The second, developed mostly by Phillip Melancthon, has since been dubbed “Consubstantiation”. This teaching holds that the forms of “Body of Christ” and “Bread”, for example, coexist together in the communion element.
  4. Anabaptists (and other unclassifiable groupings) - Most other Protestant groups teach a symbolic presence. This idea was heavily promoted by the well known Theologian, Zwingli, among others.
 
Another thing. It is entirely possible that the differences between Lutherans’ and Catholics’ understandings of the Eucharist exist entirely in semantics. Where Aquinas tried to explain the happenings of the Blessed event in terms of an Aristotellian world, the consubstantiation theologians have tried to do so from a Platonic metaphysical orientation. I tend to side with Luther personally. What is gained from the Eucharist by attempts at metaphysical explanations? How it occurs doesn’t do anything for the grace given or the fact that Christ is bodily present. Any responses to the above are welcomed 🙂
 
I think the disscusion kind of went more to people debating what the real presense is instead of “do you beleive”

Anyway Apostolic “succesion” (i think is the word) is and unbroken chain from the apostle down to the catholic priest of today…in that sense of thinking

It would give you no grace how ever you believed in the real presense because Lutherans episcopalians and most anglicans and other “catholic looking” realigions don’t have that power handed down from the apostles…only tehcatholic church which some would say includes those of the orthodox faith not in communion with rome
 
“Another thing. It is entirely possible that the differences between Lutherans’ and Catholics’ understandings of the Eucharist exist entirely in semantics. Where Aquinas tried to explain the happenings of the Blessed event in terms of an Aristotellian world, the consubstantiation theologians have tried to do so from a Platonic metaphysical orientation. I tend to side with Luther personally. What is gained from the Eucharist by attempts at metaphysical explanations? How it occurs doesn’t do anything for the grace given or the fact that Christ is bodily present. Any responses to the above are welcomed ” quote from ndismyhome

Pardon my ignorance, but what do you mean by the Aristotle vs. Plato analogy?

Don’t you think that the wafers and the wine need to go through a transformation to become the body and blood? After all, before Mass they are just wafers and wine. Nothing special. It’s the same with holy water. The water was just water before the priest blessed it.
 
NDfan said:
Nothing. It’s a misunderstanding of scripture.

Yes the thought is laughable which is why Peter never preached that. Dont RCs ever get tired of asking these questions 🤷
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I think you’re wrong my friend.
A rudimentary study of secular history tells us that the Roman empire referred to the early Christians as “cannibals” because they professed to “eat their lord”. How could this accusation sound plausible unless they (Christians) were professing it?

My Evangelical sister said the very same thing. I felt so happy and secure in knowing that she accused us of the very same thing that the early Fathers were accused of by the pagans.

I do feel sad for her, though . . .
 
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