Protestants: If the Eucharist is merely a symbol, explain this!

[pneuma07]

So here I am, with something like a summary/ final remarks.

On John 6, Radical was right IMHO, in observing that catholics cannot simply say something like : “The BoL passage is litteral to us”. There is nothing as a “ pan-litterlaness” there, in fact, if I may say so. It was agreed that head counts ( pointing to real things rather than symbols in our passage, anyway ) are of no great avail in themselves.

It has to be accepted anyway, that ordinary cannibalistic eating and the Eucharistic banquet at the Lord’s table , in their huge difference, belong for one aspect to the same genus, in that in both cases a “real eating” takes place. So, yes, Apostolic Churches believe they take the Lord’s words on the necessity that believers eat Him at face value, by way of a miracle of His.

On the othe hand, the available figurative meaning of “eating someone’s flesh, drinking someome’s blood) was of no help.
The hearers could probably guess: “So we somehow have to eat Him, according to HIM” They could NOT, were not expected then to understand the HOW , about eating Jesus’ flesh.
The point IMHO is not that they refused RP. In this, as in them being confused I and offended Radical and I concur. I’m never tired to repeat that the RP Eucharist was promised, NOT explained in John 6. So, those deserting Jesus in that situation do not share with our brothers of the NRP persuasion that they would not accept the euchastic miracle.
They can be said to share a skepticism on the general idea that the Lord does mean He has to be eaten by us ( the “what” of the “hard saying”) and that He has ( and “has shown” for our time, “would show” for the time of His preaching) His peculiar way to make this possible for us ( ie the “how” of the “hard saying").
The hearer’s faith could not remain open to this seeming absurdity. This does give us a plausible explanation about why they desert.

So, where we part way with NRP brother’s expositions, is in their assuming, by what we could call the “Sola Fide reading” of the BOL passage that there is such a hard saying ….without a hard message. In other words, it is assumed that the Lord is just repeating here the same message we see throughout John’s Gospel: salvific faith.
Only , in this passage he also uses an obscure and confusing language for what he is teaching plainly any time …. (and this time too): “you must have faith, faith saves”.

This IMHO, is not the most plausible of the motivations for the only desertion by disciples we know from the Gospels.

 

[pneuma07]

A short assessment of Radical’s proposal about 6:51, according to which “The cross is what I see promised and not a RP Eucharist”.

1. In a Sola Fide reading of the Bread of Lfe passage, this sounds like a strangely isolated statement, before and after which the Lord goes on repeating, sometimes plainy, sometimes obscurely : “You must have faith”. In particular, this would be a strikingly isolated usage of the expression “my flesh” within the passage: referring here to its flesh itself, and in other cases to teachings, doctrines.
2. The tense of the Institution is not future. Not the tense of promise. We have tenses of fulfilment instead.

In 6:51 he says I will give bread. . In Luke 22 he gave bread, declaring it to be His body. “το υπερ υμων διδομενον” ( “that which is given for you”). The body was GIVEN at the Institution, not promised again ! Ie: “I am giving you, under the kind of the bread, the very same body which is given for you ”.

1. In other words the body at the Calvary is given FOR US. The bread of the Eucharist is that body, given US, to eat. By making the sacrifice of the Calvary present, the RP Eucharist fulfils the Lord’s promise in John 6:51. If the Calvary were not made present at the Eucharist, that would not be in itself related to eating, and therefore to the whole of the BOL passage.
2. If you, on the other hand, prefer to remain on a Sola Fide reading of the passage, then it will be noted that between "you must have faith” and the promise of giving His body on the Calvary there isn’t even by far the same strict harmonious connection as between the imperative to eat His body and the fulfilment/explanation of that command at the Institution.

 

[pneuma07]

I repeat briefly my argument on 1 Cor 11:27.

Paul’s words show a very high degree of gravity of the offense described. It is evident that, between a RP and an NRP view, the former is perfectly equipped with explaining this sort of gravity, ( whatever its precise nature, which likely escapes us).

My argument is not that NRP is automatically ruled out. I simply consider that, being offenses to symbols in itself a priori less grave than to the real things ( which can hardly be denied), no NRP apologetics can make us remotely sure IMHO that the degree of offense against a symbol is beyond the threshold of gravity which is supposed by Paul’s words here. Period.

With his switching from “OR” to “AND” , the Apostle makes matters become only worse for the NRP vision. Which has to make us believe, not only that a symbol of the offended thing is certainly enough to explain the gravity of this offense, but that even a symbol of a just related thing is.

About the “therefore”, let me just observe that if what above sounds plausible, that (far from needing any circularity) simply backfires into the NRP reading of the Institution.

 

[pneuma07]

Some potentially misleading views/expressions seem to have been settled in this exchange, which would be IMHO an important outcome in itself. .

1. It could seem that saying about the BoL passage “Jesus was speaking about a spiritual reality” could point to a spiritual (only) presence of Jesus in the Eucharsit, (or anything else but RP).
   It was later agreed that: NRP is NOT, as such a more spiritual understanding/approach, than RP. And that a spiritual understanding of John 6 is different from a “merely spiritual presence” of Jesus.
   .
2. Verse 63 which seems to have played an unfortunate remarkable role in igniting the zwinglian case, has been put into the linguistic-cultural context. It has been agreed it fundamentally means that Jesus says : “Trust me”. ( and then “Do not just follow your own way”)
3. A passage by St. Augustine from the work On Christian Doctrine, Book III, allegedely implying a figurative understanding of the Eucharist and ruling out RP, was quoted in post 40. I dare guess at this point we got rid of that impression and the specific anti-RP use of the mentioned passage.
   It was also shown, BTW, by quoting Sermon 228 B, that that Doctor of the Church, who would clearly consider the Eucharist as salvific, sees John 6 as referring to what we have on the Lord’s Table. What he manifestly does rule out this way is the Sola Fide understanding of John 6. It is the reading telling us that Jesus is just teaching we have to believe Him, in that passage.

It is to be noted that this reading appears dear to most of protestantisms ( I understand lutherans do see here both faith and the oral way of eating Him) in order to defend the fundamental Sola Fide principle of Reformation ( which in my humble understanding sounds that behaving according to the love for God and our brothers is not part of our adhering to Christ, but rather a manifestation, or something like that, of this adhesion) . To which Augustine could not be more alien.

 

[pneuma07]

You give me too much credit…it is easy to “put one’s best foot forward” when one has to time to craft a statement. !

This is another pearl of wisdom, IMHO.

Sometimes it occurs to me that probably the forum makes me appear somehow better than I am. OTOH, it is possible that the forum “in a certain way” ( ) does make us a little better.
I suppose that could be food for a thread.

Btw, at one time in my past I marked university history papers…and I can say that your command of english exceeds the typical university student here.

Who’s giving too much credit ?

(I had actually thought you were an american overseas…if you don’t mind the question, what is your nationality?)

I’m going to be precise: I’m from the region were Augustine received the teachings by Ambrose and became a christian.

not yet…some sort of hormone treatment

I perceive you can tackle this in the best way.

As always it has been a great pleasure discussing theology with you…may God bless you and your family greatly

Ditto

 

[EdWasHere]

Holly

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**Thanks for the wonderful post. **
God’s Peace
Ed

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† Pray That Jesus Be At Your Last Supper.