D
DL82
Guest
I am working a lot with linguistics and linguistic ethnography in my studies at the moment, and there is something I’ve been thinking about which puts a more modern philosophical account to the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. I’m not sure what other Catholics will make of the following account, but I’d be interested. If it helps, take it on board, if it doesn’t help, discard it, it’s only words. Please let me know what you think. I’ve tried to avoid the kind of linguistic jargon used by linguists and critical theorists.
In the beginning, God created the world through His Word, He spoke, and it came to be. His Word is far beyond our language. He said ‘let there be light’, and the fact in the world that our understanding calls ‘light’ came into existence, long before any human being called it ‘light’. As recent science shows, the facts about which the Bible’s human authors were trying to communicate in the creation story are far beyond our ordinary language. It is for this reason that the Catechism begins with a statement that God is infinitely beyond the language we use to describe Him.
At the beginning, God gives to Adam the right to name all the animals ‘and whatever Adam named them, that is what they were called’ - God has given us the gift to use our own linguistic patterns to name the things we perceive in the world. He doesn’t tell us how we ought to describe the world (which is why the Church is neutral toward different scientific theories about the creation) but He does tell us that what He has created is good. That is, God is a creator of moral and ontological facts, but not of our subjective descriptions. Throughout history, man has exercised this role of giving names to describe the perceived world around him. Man says ‘this is’.
When Moses asks God for a name, He deliberately refuses to involve Himself in our language, saying only “I AM”. Likewise God says to the Psalmist ‘My ways are not your ways, nor are My thoughts your thoughts’. God is infinitely above our language, because He doesn’t see the perceivable qualities of things, but things as they truly are. God says ‘I am’.
In the salvation history of Israel, the prophets use all kinds of descriptions to explain the promise God has given, but these are just symbols and analogies, attempts to put into human language the Truth of God’s love for us.
In Jesus, the Word becomes flesh. The same Word by whom all things were made. The same Word who said ‘let there be light’ and spoke the world into being. In Jesus, God makes an identity statement with His creation for the first and only time. In Jesus, the same God who says ‘let there be light’ says ‘this is my body’. Once only in history, God says ‘this is’ and connects it to Himself, the ‘I am’.
Bread is a human concept, we are the ones who mushed up some seeds, mixed them with water and called it ‘bread’. Bread is a human-made term to describe a human-made concept. ‘Light’, which exists, is God’s creation, but our concept, what we call ‘light’ isn’t God’s created light, but only our perception of light. Scientists are still discovering new things about light, and about all the other things God created. What the Genesis account means by ‘God said “let there be light”’ is something infinitely beyond the simple concept it presents to our mind. Light has a God-given truth, but also a human language name, a ‘this is’, given by man. ‘The body of Christ’ is the only thing in the created order that is given its’ ‘this is’ by God himself. Christ’s body and blood, soul and divinity, present in the Eucharist is the most real thing that exists on earth, because in it alone, God’s own language takes up our language and makes it real. The same God who says ‘let there be light’ says ‘this is my body’ - it is the only occurence where human language corresponds perfectly to ontological Truth, how much more real can anything be?
In the beginning, God created the world through His Word, He spoke, and it came to be. His Word is far beyond our language. He said ‘let there be light’, and the fact in the world that our understanding calls ‘light’ came into existence, long before any human being called it ‘light’. As recent science shows, the facts about which the Bible’s human authors were trying to communicate in the creation story are far beyond our ordinary language. It is for this reason that the Catechism begins with a statement that God is infinitely beyond the language we use to describe Him.
At the beginning, God gives to Adam the right to name all the animals ‘and whatever Adam named them, that is what they were called’ - God has given us the gift to use our own linguistic patterns to name the things we perceive in the world. He doesn’t tell us how we ought to describe the world (which is why the Church is neutral toward different scientific theories about the creation) but He does tell us that what He has created is good. That is, God is a creator of moral and ontological facts, but not of our subjective descriptions. Throughout history, man has exercised this role of giving names to describe the perceived world around him. Man says ‘this is’.
When Moses asks God for a name, He deliberately refuses to involve Himself in our language, saying only “I AM”. Likewise God says to the Psalmist ‘My ways are not your ways, nor are My thoughts your thoughts’. God is infinitely above our language, because He doesn’t see the perceivable qualities of things, but things as they truly are. God says ‘I am’.
In the salvation history of Israel, the prophets use all kinds of descriptions to explain the promise God has given, but these are just symbols and analogies, attempts to put into human language the Truth of God’s love for us.
In Jesus, the Word becomes flesh. The same Word by whom all things were made. The same Word who said ‘let there be light’ and spoke the world into being. In Jesus, God makes an identity statement with His creation for the first and only time. In Jesus, the same God who says ‘let there be light’ says ‘this is my body’. Once only in history, God says ‘this is’ and connects it to Himself, the ‘I am’.
Bread is a human concept, we are the ones who mushed up some seeds, mixed them with water and called it ‘bread’. Bread is a human-made term to describe a human-made concept. ‘Light’, which exists, is God’s creation, but our concept, what we call ‘light’ isn’t God’s created light, but only our perception of light. Scientists are still discovering new things about light, and about all the other things God created. What the Genesis account means by ‘God said “let there be light”’ is something infinitely beyond the simple concept it presents to our mind. Light has a God-given truth, but also a human language name, a ‘this is’, given by man. ‘The body of Christ’ is the only thing in the created order that is given its’ ‘this is’ by God himself. Christ’s body and blood, soul and divinity, present in the Eucharist is the most real thing that exists on earth, because in it alone, God’s own language takes up our language and makes it real. The same God who says ‘let there be light’ says ‘this is my body’ - it is the only occurence where human language corresponds perfectly to ontological Truth, how much more real can anything be?
