Protestants - Eucharist - Trogo/Phago

[MarcoPolo]

Ok, Jolly Joe, maybe my question wasn’t worded correctly then. Where do you get the idea that Catholic Church uses philosophy rather than the words of Christ as a basis for anything it teaches?

This is not an uncommon idea, many Catholics would readily admit to “Aristotelian” philosophy as a means to explain “substance” and “accident”, but the idea of a Transubstantiation is not exclusive to Aristotle.

Apologist Dave Armstrong:
*Contrary to the common misconception, transubstantiation is not dependent upon Aristotelian philosophy, since some notion of the concept goes back to the earliest days of the Church when Aristotle’s philosophy was not known. The eastern Fathers, before the sixth century, used the Greek expression metaousiosis, or “change of being,” which is essentially the same idea. The Church did, however, draw upon prevalent philosophical categories, such as substance and accidents. In all ages, Christians have sought to defend Christianity by means of philosophy and human learning (wherever the individual intellectual categories utilized were consistent with Christian faith). St. Paul, for instance, did this in his sermon on Mars Hill in Athens, where he made reference to pagan poets and philosophers (Acts 17:22-31). St. Augustine incorporated elements of Platonic thought into his theology, and St. Thomas Aquinas synthesized Aristotle and Christianity into a unified, consistent system of Christian thought (Scholasticism or Thomism). (full article here)*It seems unique to Lutheran apologists to say that Transubstantiation is Aristotelian. They do so in an attempt to demonstrate Catholic teaching is false if Aristotelian philosophy is used. Of course, this is faulty logic, and does not attempt to address the actual nature of this doctrine.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

Ok, Jolly Joe, maybe my question wasn’t worded correctly then. Where do you get the idea that Catholic Church uses philosophy rather than the words of Christ as a basis for anything it teaches?

Because the doctrine of transubstatiation does not come from the Bible. The transformation and the language is taken directly from philosophy such as alchemy.

Scripture teaches it is the body and blood of Christ, but still refers to the bread and the cup after institution. It never says there is a transformation, never says the elements are accidents and so on. It’s alchemy that taught that sort of thing.

We don’t accept the Catholic teaching because it is not satisfied with what God revealed but went beyond and used the philosophy of it’s time to find the answers.

Many Catholics thin that trasubstatiation equals the real presence. But both Lutherans and Orthodox reject transubstatiation and yet hold to as close as I can tell identical positions. Catholics it seems have to freedom to agree with them and the bible because transubstatiation was declared dogma.

It will probably go away, there is increasing Communion all the time between the Orthodox and the Catholics and the difference in doctrine just seems to basically be ignored.

 

[Jolly_Joe]

This is not an uncommon idea, many Catholics would readily admit to “Aristotelian” philosophy as a means to explain “substance” and “accident”, but the idea of a Transubstantiation is not exclusive to Aristotle.

Apologist Dave Armstrong:
Contrary to the common misconception, transubstantiation is not dependent upon Aristotelian philosophy, since some notion of the concept goes back to the earliest days of the Church when Aristotle’s philosophy was not known. The eastern Fathers, before the sixth century, used the Greek expression metaousiosis, or “change of being,” which is essentially the same idea. The Church did, however, draw upon prevalent philosophical categories, such as substance and accidents. In all ages, Christians have sought to defend Christianity by means of philosophy and human learning (wherever the individual intellectual categories utilized were consistent with Christian faith). St. Paul, for instance, did this in his sermon on Mars Hill in Athens, where he made reference to pagan poets and philosophers (Acts 17:22-31). St. Augustine incorporated elements of Platonic thought into his theology, and St. Thomas Aquinas synthesized Aristotle and Christianity into a unified, consistent system of Christian thought (Scholasticism or Thomism). (full article here)It seems unique to Lutheran apologists to say that Transubstantiation is Aristotelian. They do so in an attempt to demonstrate Catholic teaching is false if Aristotelian philosophy is used. Of course, this is faulty logic, and does not attempt to address the actual nature of this doctrine.

It’s probably being a bit sloppy to just say Aristotle’s philosophy because the philosophy and the roots of it actually predate Aristotle. Much of it going back at least to Plato.

You can read it in Aristotle but it would probably be more accurate to say Aristotle and the Catholic Church got it from those who preceeded him. It’s just there isn’t a lot written between Plato and Aristotle to read about the whole thing but the early fathers give some glimpses into what was going on.

 

[NotWorthy]

It’s probably being a bit sloppy to just say Aristotle’s philosophy because the philosophy and the roots of it actually predate Aristotle. Much of it going back at least to Plato.

You can read it in Aristotle but it would probably be more accurate to say Aristotle and the Catholic Church got it from those who preceeded him. It’s just there isn’t a lot written between Plato and Aristotle to read about the whole thing but the early fathers give some glimpses into what was going on.

Of course, this is like saying the Greeks (would it be Pluto or Socrates?) influenced the Jewish belief in the Resurrection of the Body.

The point is, while being true that the Greek thought helped formulate the belief, it’s irrelevant. In other words, it doesn’t invalidate the belief.

While Aristotle may have (and probably did) influence the doctrine of Transubstantiation, this doesn’t nullify the teaching.