I don’t think I said anything about “disagreeing.” What I said is that I find the unique, new Catholic dogma of Transubstantiation to be biblically baseless, theologically moot and hermeneutically problematic.
It is
biblically baseless because it has NOTHING in Scripture that remotely supports it. It’s all about the Church’s official interpretation of the words “change” “convert” and “becomes” in the Eucharistic texts, but ignores the reality that none of those words even exist in any Eucharistic texts. The only relevant word in ANY Eucharistic text is the word “is” - and that’s developed in the doctrine of Real Presence (which the OO, EO and Lutherans agree with). BTW, it’s also baseless in Tradition.
It’s
theologically moot because who in the world CARES about the bread and wine AFTER the consecration? Why this obsession over THAT when CHRIST is present! It seems to me, Transubstantition diverts attention from the point to an entirely moot issue. When my Lutheran pastor places the Host on my tongue, his exact words are, “Josiah - this IS the Body of Christ” (Real Presence). There’s no NEED - theologically - to add, “the elements of bread and wine have undergone an alchemic transubstantiation leaving behind Aristotelian accidents that make it APPEAR like there is bread and wine, but the bread and wine are actually not “there” in the full sense, but are accidents merely having the appearances and properties of such without being such.” Theologically, all this obsession over the bread and wine just detracts from the Real Presence of Christ and has no theological signifcance whatsoever.
It is** hermeneutically problematic** because the RCC in the 16th century did EXACTLY the same thing as Zwingli did. It rejected a literal reading and interpretation of the Eucharistic texts, insisting instead that select words here and there are less-than-literal (with ZERO textual support for this split “half is/half isn’t” handling). Catholics RIGHTLY repudiate Zwingli because his entirely arbitrary acceptance of only SOME of the words in the Eucharistic texts places the others in jeoprody. I agree. Of course, those same Catholics don’t seem to “see” that the 16th Century Transubstantiation interpretation does exactly the same thing - you guys just don’t agree on which words are arbitrarily literal and which aren’t. Some hermeneutic. The reality is, the words are what they are. If we take it literally, then we should take them literally. And we need to realize that jesus speaks of wine AFTER the consecration, Paul speaks of bread and wine FAR MORE OFTEN after the Consecration than before - with no textual distinction WHATSOEVR. If bread = bread, then bread = bread. If Body = body, then body = body. It’s dangerous - the Catholic argues - to say “well, it means it here but not here.” And I agree. Lutherans simply see the issue of “bread” and “wine” AFTER the consecration as entirely moot. Catholics (since 1551) go on and on and on and on about that - applying the alchemy’s transubstantiation and Aristotle’s long ago rejected theory of “accidents.” And of course, a lot of pure speculation over the meaning of the words “becomes” “converts” “changes” in the texts without even noticing… those words aren’t there. ADDING words not there, dismissing words that ARE there, an arbitrary split “half literal, half not” interpretation (just like Zwingli did), it’s all problematic. To ME, I have exactly the same problem with the new, unique Catholic handling of the texts as The Catholic Church does with Zwingli’s.
But again, I didn’t say it was WRONG. If it were just what the Catholic Scholastics seem to have intended it to be, just ONE possible speculation about some questions, I wouldn’t have any problems. I would not “buy it” but hey - I have a theory about just about everything, and I welcome other people to do that, too. But it was declared DOGMA in 1551.
Thank you.
Pax
.
esp since I or you can change it at will.