How to explain to a Protestant that the Eucharist isn't cannabalism?

[504Katrin]

Several reasons. First after his death, he was able to walk through locked doors, which he did twice. This shows that at his Resurrection, his body underwent a substantial change by which his body acquired the attribute of " subtlety, " through which it was freed from the restraints placed on matter in our world. It could now pass through solid objects, take on different sizes, shapes, weights, appearances, etc. This was again demonstrated when 500 witnessed his Ascension into the clouds - something bodies subject to the laws of physics cannot do.

Linus2nd

Thanks Linus, I understand this. So this is why I’m asking, what then was it that you ate before he died (and resurrected)? He also had the same supper the night before he died. What did you eat and drink there? He was still alive.

 

[504Katrin]

That would be a miracle of Jesus! Just as we believe in all the other miracles he performed. It was/ is his flesh and blood thru transubstantiation.

God isn’t strapped to time like we are - it is He who created/made time, so He can twiddle with it as He wishes. Now, and backwards and forwards, infinity is infinity. God isn’t constrained by our five senses, 'though our own comprehension and physical experience by and large is.

Thank you for your kind replies

 

[BeProfOSX]

Speaking as a Protestant… That argument is just silly. They aren’t even making an argument at that point. They’re just throwing stuff against the wall and seeing what sticks.

 

[Convert2013]

“Thank you for your kind replies” …Your welcome 504Katrin!

Which argument specifically? As a former Protestant (no fault of my own ) I did at least believe in the Virgin birth, Jesus walking on the water, turning water into wine, the loaves and the fishes, etc. etc. etc. …Jesus’ resurrection!! . But this is what I take issue with Protestant theology in general and as I already mentioned …there seems to be a pick and choose to fit whatever picture that is desired. (Thanks Martin Luther)

Can you explain as a Protestant why you can’t believe in Transubstatiation but believe in certain other aspects of Christianity? I’m asking that genuinely as I have never gotten a straight logical answer from any protestants including my own family.

 

[JonNC]

“Thank you for your kind replies” …Your welcome 504Katrin!

Which argument specifically? As a former Protestant (no fault of my own ) I did at least believe in the Virgin birth, Jesus walking on the water, turning water into wine, the loaves and the fishes, etc. etc. etc. …Jesus’ resurrection!! . But this is what I take issue with Protestant theology in general and as I already mentioned …there seems to be a pick and choose to fit whatever picture that is desired. (Thanks Martin Luther)

Can you explain as a Protestant why you can’t believe in Transubstatiation but believe in certain other aspects of Christianity? I’m asking that genuinely as I have never gotten a straight logical answer from any protestants including my own family.

Thanks to Martin Luther for what? Luther and Lutherans believe and confess as firmly as Catholics that the Eucharist is the true and substantial body and blood of Christ. That we don’t choose to use metaphysical terms - Transubstantiation and consubstantiation - to explain the mystery is from the fact that Christ did not do so. While the Virgin birth, physical resurrection, Jesus walking on water, the changing of water into wine, etc. are in the scriptures, Transubstantiation as an explanation for the mystery of the real presence is not. Is Transubstantiation wrong? I don’t know, because Christ did not choose to explain the mystery. He only said, “Take and eat. This IS my body.”

Jon

 

[Kliska]

Can you explain as a Protestant why you can’t believe in Transubstatiation but believe in certain other aspects of Christianity? I’m asking that genuinely as I have never gotten a straight logical answer from any protestants including my own family.

Because the way scripture reads about this particular issue doesn’t support the teaching of transubstantiation from certain protestant perspectives. The virgin birth, loaves and fishes, walking on water, etc… are clearly taught, but transubstantiation isn’t. What I mean here is that if scripture supported the idea of an Aristotelian change then protestants like me would have no problem believing it, but we don’t see that in scripture.

So, for example, I am a member of the body of Christ, but that is a metaphor communicating spiritual truth… I’m not literally Jesus’ elbow. Jesus isn’t literally a vine. Spiritual truth conveyed in metaphor. Not trying to change anyone’s mind, just trying to explain how protestants like me see it.

 

[Major_Tom]

catholic.com/magazine/articles/what-catholics-believe-about-john-6

I’m very interested in this question, not from a Protestant point of view, just a now-a-Unitarian-was-formerly-Catholic point of view. The reference cited above is very poor for several reasons. First, the author is creating his own definition on “cannibalism”. He states that the cannibalism charge is inappropriate as “Catholics do not receive our Lord in a cannibalistic form. Catholics receive him in the form of bread and wine…The cannibal kills his victim; Jesus does not die… The cannibal eats part of his victim, whereas in Communion the entire Christ is consumed…The cannibal sheds the blood of his victim…”

I have no idea where he’s getting his definition of cannibal.
Merriam-Webster: cannibal: one that eats the flesh of its own kind.
Merriam-Webster: Cannibalism: the usually ritualistic eating of human flesh by a human being. The eating of the flesh of an animal by another animal of the same kind.
Oxford Dictionary: cannibal: a person who eats the flesh of other human beings.
Try dictionary.com or Cambridge dictionary, you get the same idea. There’s simply no mention of anything regarding the method of consumption, form, or anything else the author suggests.

Would anyone know where the author gets his definition? I’ve seen other explanations along similar lines, suggesting that if you don’t “chew” or “gnaw”, it isn’t cannibalism….

Please don’t interpret this as an attack. If I was Catholic, I think I’d respond very much like Richca has above… call it what it is. If the act fits a textbook definition, then it fits a textbook definition of cannibalism. It’s unique circumstances. I think you do an injustice using circuitous, bad logic just to avoid a particular word.

 

[Millie123]

I’ve heard of this argument before. A little off topic but there are instances in which humans have eaten of the flesh of other humans. A woman breastfeeding her newborn infant for example is feeding and nourishing her infant from her own flesh. I’ve had the privilege to breastfeed only one baby so far in my life, early on in the process I had a very difficult time I had lost blood and flesh due to feeding my infant. Would breastfeeding be considered an act of cannibalism?

Anyways for me I can draw many similarities between a mother feeding and nourishing her child from her body. And my God feeding and nourishing my body and soul with his body. An infant is souly dependent on his mother to nourish and grow through feeding on its mother. At least this is the way it has been since the beginning of the human race. This is how God designed a woman to feed her children. Likewise my soul is fed and nourished through eating of the flesh and blood of my God.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Thanks Linus, I understand this. So this is why I’m asking, what then was it that you ate before he died (and resurrected)? He also had the same supper the night before he died. What did you eat and drink there? He was still alive.

If you are referring to the bread and wine, after he pronounced the words of consecration, he consumed his Glorified body and Blood, it was the confected Sacrament by anticipitaion, which he had the power to do just as he has the power to be present in the Sacrament after his death.

As for the entire mea, I suppose they had bread, wine, lamb and perhaps steamed vegetables of some kind, whatever the Jews ate at Passover.

Linus2nd

 

[JonNC]

Because the way scripture reads about this particular issue doesn’t support the teaching of transubstantiation from certain protestant perspectives. The virgin birth, loaves and fishes, walking on water, etc… are clearly taught, but transubstantiation isn’t. What I mean here is that if scripture supported the idea of an Aristotelian change then protestants like me would have no problem believing it, but we don’t see that in scripture.

So, for example, I am a member of the body of Christ, but that is a metaphor communicating spiritual truth… I’m not literally Jesus’ elbow. Jesus isn’t literally a vine. Spiritual truth conveyed in metaphor. Not trying to change anyone’s mind, just trying to explain how protestants like me see it.

ISTM you are conflating the two issues. On the one hand, Christ is quite clear that what we receive is His true and substantial body and blood. “Take and eat. This IS my body.” etc. This is not metaphoric or symbolic.
On the other hand, Transubstantiation is, as you say, an Aristotelian method of describing/explaining how things happen, which Christ does not do.

So, is it His body and blood, received by faith AND orally by the mouth? Yes. Does this happen by transubstantiation? Impossible to know because Christ does not say.

Jon

 

[Kliska]

ISTM you are conflating the two issues. On the one hand, Christ is quite clear that what we receive is His true and substantial body and blood. “Take and eat. This IS my body.” etc. This is not metaphoric or symbolic.
On the other hand, Transubstantiation is, as you say, an Aristotelian method of describing/explaining how things happen, which Christ does not do.

So, is it His body and blood, received by faith AND orally by the mouth? Yes. Does this happen by transubstantiation? Impossible to know because Christ does not say.

Jon

I can see why you’d think and describe it in the way you do; however, I obviously would argue with the premise that Jesus ever taught imbibing in His blood in a literal sense. The RC understanding is what I was referring to in my reply. The idea of consubstantiation (I know many Lutherans don’t like that label, but for the sake of talking about it short hand, I feel it stands) is closer to the way Jesus taught it, but obviously in my opinion, still teaches too much of a Real Presence in a categorically different sense then I believe scripture teaches.

Again, not to argue the point, but rather to answer the OP’s question. IF described using the philosophy of transubstantiation, then cannibalism is taught. I don’t have a problem with that IF taught directly by Jesus, but that isn’t what I see when looking at the whole of scripture.

 

[504Katrin]

If you are referring to the bread and wine, after he pronounced the words of consecration, he consumed his Glorified body and Blood, it was the confected Sacrament by anticipitaion, which he had the power to do just as he has the power to be present in the Sacrament after his death.

As for the entire mea, I suppose they had bread, wine, lamb and perhaps steamed vegetables of some kind, whatever the Jews ate at Passover.

Linus2nd

Yes, I’m referring to the bread and the wine. Let me see if I understand this correctly. He did consume his own (glorified) flesh and blood the night before he died? Bodies get glorified after they die? So if his body was already glorified before he died, how could he die at all a day later?
I’m having an issue with these two different occations of Eurachist before / after his death being the same thing.

 

[BeProfOSX]

“Thank you for your kind replies” …Your welcome 504Katrin!

Which argument specifically? As a former Protestant (no fault of my own ) I did at least believe in the Virgin birth, Jesus walking on the water, turning water into wine, the loaves and the fishes, etc. etc. etc. …Jesus’ resurrection!! . But this is what I take issue with Protestant theology in general and as I already mentioned …there seems to be a pick and choose to fit whatever picture that is desired. (Thanks Martin Luther)

Can you explain as a Protestant why you can’t believe in Transubstatiation but believe in certain other aspects of Christianity? I’m asking that genuinely as I have never gotten a straight logical answer from any protestants including my own family.

I believe that Transubstantiation is certainly possible, but I don’t think that it happens. Why? Well… I don’t see it explicitly laid out in Scripture. Sure, I see things that could be references to transubstantiation, but they could just as easily not be.

The Virgin Birth, the Miracles, etc. on the other hand, are laid out there in black and white to the point that you can’t get rid of them without just getting rid of a high view of Scripture altogether. You knock those out and the whole edifice of the New Testament, and indeed the whole Bible, collapses.

And, as an Evangelical Protestant, I take the “party line” that when it comes to things that are definitely there in black and white, we must have unity, but that on the things that simply might or might not be so, you’re free to believe whatever your best effort understanding is.

I don’t believe in that “party line” because I am a member of the party, btw. I am a member of the party because I believe in that “party line.” If I didn’t believe in that, I wouldn’t be an Evangelical Protestant, and ultimately that’s what Transubstantiation comes down to: You accept the councils and the Popes as authoritative and we don’t.

I’m not going to try to defend our view over yours because this ain’t my turf. This is your turf and I’m not interested in trying to tear down your faith, or for that matter, to build my own. I’m not here to “win.” I’m certainly not here to swim the Tiber nor to see you swim it over to my side. I’m just here to represent, in as straightforward a way as I can, what I believe, and by extension what people like me believe and to explain why those of us who remain divided from you continue to remain so and, perhaps, to point out that perhaps the division (at least on some points) isn’t as wide and deep as either of us think.

 

[Convert2013]

Thanks to Martin Luther for what?

Jon

For picking and choosing what he wanted to fit in his picture of theology. It wasn’t meant as a slam on Lutherans specifically.

 

[lakotak]

From what I understand cannabalism is eating the flesh of a dead person. Christ is very much alive in His glorified state. So how can it be cannabalism when the the Victim is very much alive.

 

[504Katrin]

Cannibalism is when someone eats the flesh of his own kind, alive or dead doesn’t matter.

 

[Reuben_J]

You are right. There are no two ways in defining cannibalism.

Being a cradle Catholic and especially one who has very limited contact with Protestants except perhaps here in CAF, I am cocooned from being exposed to question like this and in answering it. Personally I have no problem in admitting that if by eating the body of Christ it is cannibalism then so be it because that is what exactly happened in the Holy Communion during the mass. We partake in the body (and blood) of Christ. Jesus taught this and many of his disciples being Jewish could not understand this teaching (because it is against the prohibition of drinking blood) and left him. He made no clarification in saying it was not cannibalism and not drinking his blood. So it is the same for us (Catholics) today - we are eating his body and drinking his blood.

This is indeed the mystery of the Eucharist – we partake in Christ’s body (and blood) for the food of our souls so that they (the souls) will have life.

Well, I hope I don’t have to explain to a Protestant that partaking in the body and blood of Christ is not cannibalism. Cannibalism it is but it is good for our souls because what we eat is not any ordinary human flesh and blood but of God’s.

 

[lakotak]

You are right. There are no two ways in defining cannibalism.

Being a cradle Catholic and especially one who has very limited contact with Protestants except perhaps here in CAF, I am cocooned from being exposed to question like this and in answering it. Personally I have no problem in admitting that if by eating the body of Christ it is cannibalism then so be it because that is what exactly happened in the Holy Communion during the mass. We partake in the body (and blood) of Christ. Jesus taught this and many of his disciples being Jewish could not understand this teaching (because it is against the prohibition of drinking blood) and left him. He made no clarification in saying it was not cannibalism and not drinking his blood. So it is the same for us (Catholics) today - we are eating his body and drinking his blood.

This is indeed the mystery of the Eucharist – we partake in Christ’s body (and blood) for the food of our souls so that they (the souls) will have life.

Well, I hope I don’t have to explain to a Protestant that partaking in the body and blood of Christ is not cannibalism. Cannibalism it is but it is good for our souls because what we eat is not any ordinary human flesh and blood but of God’s.

It was also in Jewish Tradition that when the lamb, animal, was sacrificed, its flesh was eaten. On the Passover, the lamb was sacrificed and its flesh was eaten. Jesus is the “Lamb of God” so in this tradition He gave us His Flesh to eat as the sacrifice for our sins and our Redeemer. He is the New Covenant, with the a covenant there is a sacrifice and a meal and the flesh of the sacrifice had to be eaten.

 

[504Katrin]

He gave us His Flesh to eat as the sacrifice for our sins and our Redeemer.

I’ve got another question then if I may
So when you go to the Eucharist and eat his flesh (the host) it’s the sacrifice that you make in order to attone for sins. How then is confession before eating the Eucharist necessary at all?

 

[lakotak]

I’ve got another question then if I may
So when you go to the Eucharist and eat his flesh (the host) it’s the sacrifice that you make in order to attone for sins. How then is confession before eating the Eucharist necessary at all?

No, He made the sacrifice, once and for all, He is the Perfect offering to the Father, we share in His sacrifice when we receive Him. As in the meal, we eat the sacrifice. However, we must not receive Him, share in His sacrifice, in a state of mortal sin, lest, like Paul says, “we eat and drink our own damnation.” This is why that you must confess any mortal sins before you go up to that altar to receive Him. A covenant has a curse and a blessing, if you are faithful to God you receive the Blessing, if you are not, then it is as Paul says, you receive a curse because you have not been faithful to Him.