The burden of proof is not on me to prove that these ECF’s held to a strictly Lutheran view of the Sacrament.
Nice dodge. Come out swinging, but when someone asks you to back up your claim, retreat and claim the burden is solely on them.
Had you remained passive and not made assertions, I would agree with your statement, however, you have also made strong assertions which you should back up. Like this:
All of those could just as easily be teaching the common Lutheran view or consubstantiation.
And this:
Every passage adduced thus far can also be understood to teach and uphold the Lutheran view while Transubstantiation proper cannot be directly inferred from them…
The latter especially, is utter balderdash. The ECF’s make statements like “the Eucharist is the Body of Christ” and you expect us to accept that is somehow folly to interpret that to mean that the Bread has actually become the Body.
My point is that the doctrine as these fathers explain it, while clearly teaching a Real Presence, does not necessarily teach Transubstantiation either.
Here you imply what you deny above, that the doctrine of Transubustantiation can be inferred from the passages.
Words can be interpreted incorrectly. That’s why we look for the chain of belief and trace it back. No one denies that these men were Catholic and that their teaching influenced the Church. This same Church based on these same teachings, teaches the doctrine of Transubstantiation. Who are you to tell the faithful student that he has completely misunderstood the teacher?
The Lutheran view has the benefit of simplicity, thus it is perhaps easier to see in the quotes given, it goes no further than the fathers who just didn’t think in terms of substance and accidence as separable aspects of phenomona.
Transubstantiation is more complicated. It doesn’t stop at the idea that the bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Christ (which is as far as the ECF’s go and thus far Lutherans and Catholics both go with them) but goes on to tell us that something happened to the bread and wine in the Sacramental action. It tells us that the bread and wine cease to exist substantially. It tells us that all that remains is the appearance or “accidens” of bread and wine.
Since when did simplicity equal truth?
What kind of an argument is that?
The ECF’s never go this far.
The Lutheran view is fully in keeping with the fathers cited.
In order for it to be said that the Church’s teaching on the Sacrament “has always been” Transubstantiation, or even that the church’s belief “has always been the same” (without specific reference to Transubstantiation proper) one would expect it to be maintained by these men. In order to reasonably say that it was in fact maintained by these men one would be justified in expecting some dilation on the state of the “terrestrial elements” after the “confection” of the Sacrament, since it is key to the whole idea. But they never do this, therefore it cannot be reasonably maintained that they taught Transubstantiation.
It can be and is reasonably maintained. As I pointed out above, the same Church which now teaches the doctrine of Transubstantiation is the student of these men. It is their students who walked in their footsteps and faithfully adhered to what they had taught, who definitively stated the doctrine in no uncertain terms.
Your position is the unreasonable one. Your position is that the unfaithful student who left the fold, better understands the teaching of the shepherds. It’s nonsense.
