Do you find it odd that all religious people don't believe in the "real presence"?

  • Thread starter Thread starter evangelical
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
I find it odd that many non Catholic Christians believe all manner of things and then scoff at the notion of the Real Presence. Like the people at my husband’s church got very excited by tales of normal fillings turning into gold fillings, and gold dust and such like, but think I am ridiculous for believing that God could be eaten.
It’s like there is a bottomless capacity for believing any old tale from a visiting preacher, but the scripture backed and historical pedigree of the Eucharist gets scorned because it is too weird.
 
Remind them that ALL Christians believed for 1600 years in the Real Presence until Luther came into the scene
 
Dan_Defender said:
Remind them that ALL Christians believed for 1600 years in the Real Presence until Luther came into the scene
Click to expand...
I don’t that’s true. There were disputes on the Sacrament, and it was one of the discussion points during the 4th Lateran Council in the early 13th Century. It was there that transubstantiation was defined.
 
Transubstantiation as doctrine was defined. People believed in the real presence before that. Tradition precedes councils.
 
This is an invalid question. I’m a “religious” person. I believe in the True Presence of the Body, Blood, Soul, & Divinity of THE Lord Jesus Christ, having been Transubstantiated by a valid Roman Catholic Priest acting in persona Christi using valid Rites & Rubrics during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
 
The Holy Apostles believed it. They stayed with Jesus, while others left because it was a “hard saying”.
 
That’s why many left Jesus after He taught this. WE who believe have been given the Gift of Faith, others have not been given the Gift.
 
I don’t find it odd at all that even all Christians don’t believe in a physical RP if that is what you mean by real presence. Many who don’t believe in a physical presence nonetheless believe in a spiritual presence. I once had a Disciples of Christ pastor tell me he sure hopes Jesus is present with them in spirit! Much depends on interpretation of verses such as in John 6 and the interpretation of the Last Supper verses. Not every word in Scripture is taken literally even by Catholics. And honestly who is to know for certain if those early Christians who some interpret to have believed in a physical real presence had everything right. They were human with finite minds just like the rest of us in regard to their understanding of an infinite being. It all comes down to a matter of faith when one gets right down to it.
 
From the very beginning of Jesus’ Ministry everything was Taught orally by Himself. I never heard that Jesus carried around a notebook, although spies as Scribes could have been present during any of Jesus’ Teachings taking notes to be given to the Temple authorities to make the case against Jesus. Everything that was believed was heard & held as True long before even the very first Council, including beliefs regarding the Virgin Mary.
 
Last edited:
Sy_Noe said:
Scripture is taken literally even by Catholics. And honestly who is to know for certain if those early Christians who some interpret to have believed in a physical real presence had everything right. They were human with finite minds just like the rest of us in regard to their understanding of an infinite being. It all comes down to a matter of faith when one gets right down to it.
Click to expand...
How nice of Jesus to promise the Holy Spirit to lead the Church in such matters!
 
Many Catholics don’t believe in the real presence today from some survey I remember reading and what our parish priest said in a homily. Less than half, I think.
 
Scoochy said:
These would be the fruits of Vatican “Council” II.
Click to expand...
It wasn’t the Vatican council that closed all of the Catholic schools. People moved out of the cities, the suburbanization and the spreading out of the Catholic population caused a lot of schools to be unsustainable.

America has really changed a lot
 
The Church has it right. Scripture can be argued plausibly enough either way, which is why it cannot be depended upon as the sole authoritative source of Christian revelation. For that, a living entity, the Church, is required, to interpret and expound on the two streams of revelation, Scripture and Tradition.
 
fhansen said:
The Church has it right. Scripture can be argued plausibly enough either way, which is why it cannot be depended upon as the sole authoritative source of Christian revelation. For that, a living entity, the Church, is required, to interpret and expound on the two streams of revelation, Scripture and Tradition.
Click to expand...
But it can only be said the Catholic Church has it right if the believer has the necessary faith required to have reached a point to think they know with certainty what is right and even where it is that the Holy Spirit resides today in which to lead. My only point is that regardless of one’s beliefs on the real presence or any other belief for that matter, it takes faith and that goes for all religious communities. For me personally, due to my limit as a human being with a finite mind to understand an infinite being, I don’t have a need to think I know with 100% certainty anything in regard to matters of faith. And I am much more comfortable in not thinking that I know for sure. For others, I understand they have the need to think and believe they know. And that’s fine. But one can only reach that point by taking leaps of faith.
 
Sy_Noe said:
But it can only be said the Catholic Church has it right if the believer has the necessary faith required to have reached a point to think they know with certainty what is right and even where it is that the Holy Spirit resides today in which to lead. My only point is that regardless of one’s beliefs on the real presence or any other belief for that matter, it takes faith and that goes for all religious communities. For me personally, due to my limit as a human being with a finite mind to understand an infinite being, I don’t have a need to think I know with 100% certainty anything in regard to matters of faith. And I am much more comfortable in not thinking that I know for sure. For others, I understand they have the need to think and believe they know. And that’s fine. But one can only reach that point by taking leaps of faith.
Click to expand...
I don’t think leaps of faith work at all. Beliefs and understanding can take time to blossom or develop in us; they may require much seeking and also experience. But I agree that we shouldn’t be of the opinion that we can know anything with 100% certainty, in consideration of our human limitations, etc. This can be said of any tenet of the faith BTW, including belief in God. But, because God does exist, grace and reason are expected to be used, and we can certainly arrive at reasonable positions regarding truths of our faith, to know God’s existence and His will in the matter-that’s the purpose of the gospel, the good news, after all.

continued:
 
Last edited:
The reason for the Real Presence is simple. The New Covenant is all about grace; it’s about man’s need for God, for intimate communion with Him, and the sacraments acknowledge, in a structured, physical way, God’s will and provide a means to carry out that will in some most basic ways. So Baptism, the “sacrament of faith”, gains entrance to God’s kingdom in obedience to Christ’s command, as a first formal and public profession of our faith. The Eucharist, received at First Holy Communion, recognizes our continuous need for that direct relationship with God, ‘apart from whom we can do nothing’ (John 15:5), and the nurturing that takes place as He resides in us. This communion is what man’s justice consists of; we were made for it, and Adam broke it. And if we break communion with Him, by serious or grave sin-acts against love of God and/or neighbor, grace is lost; we’ve separated ourselves from God again, breaking the reconciliation that Jesus won for us-and so likewise we’re to cease partaking of the Eucharist, acknowledging in real time what has already transpired within. So now the sacrament of Reconciliation is available in order to restore that communion, whereupon we may resume partaking of the Host, living out physically what has likewise occurred spiritually within.

This gives definition and understanding to our faith, arguably even more critical during the majority of centuries when most believers were illiterate and this simple means of relating to God put it all in perspective. And this all works simply because it’s true. Baptism really effects regeneration, Jesus is really Present in the Eucharist. Forgiveness is really achieved in the Sacrament of Reconciliation/Confession. At least for those properly disposed, those who truly believe, who really want what God offers rather than practicing it all mechanically, admittedly a very human trap to fall into BTW, one which we need to guard against. Anyway, it’s all grace, the difference between the Old Covenant, where man is “under the Law”, and the New, where he is “under grace”. These sacraments are New Covenant theology in action, putting into practice the NC prophecy of Jer 31:33-34.
 
Last edited:
I can only surmise that you are expressing the Catholic position wonderfully in your posts. Except you lost me when you said leaps of faith don’t work at all. Because then you agreed that any tenet of faith including even a belief in God can not be certain. But then you said because God does exist… To me it can only be said God exists by a leap of faith. But maybe we are not too far off the same page. Regardless, matters of faith shall continue to be debated I have little doubt until the end when we shall know. In the meantime, we walk by faith not by sight. Peace be with you in yours.
 
What I was trying to express is that only because God does exist, is faith possible, the kind of faith that would result in trust in and love for Him-Christian faith IOW. This is so simply because only He can give that faith. So because faith is a gift, we know that God exists. To be open to faith is one thing, or to be free from concern over what others might think about it, but we cannot make faith happen. So leaps of faith don’t really occur IMO if by that we mean something accomplished by our own effort. We have to be convinced.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top