SPLIT:The Real Presence

[SolaScriptura]

Yes. I also agree that his separation was false and that he never justified it, merely asserting that the positions were “mutually exclusive as a matter of strict logic.” There’s no reason for me to take Kelly’s word on that. It’s a philosophical conclusion, not a historical one, and it requires an argument.

Well, he does make an argument for it I only quoted one or two sentences. However, my main point is that Dave was taking Kelly out of context to make it seem like Kelly was supporting his position just because Kelly used “real presence”. Everyone knows he used “real presence”, but as you said earlier you have to interpret the meaning and Kelly’s meaning is not in line with Dave’s usage.

Actually, they both had drastically different positions (Schaff was Nestorian, and Pelikan was Monophysite), although they were all equally wrong.

Is Pelikan still a Monophysite that he has now joined the EO church? If not could you please document where he changed his views on “Monophysitism”?

Wrong. It’s a perfectly valid approach to take their historical conclusions apart from their philosophical and theological conclusions. What Dave is saying (and I am saying) is that they drew incorrect theological/philosophical conclusions from accurate historical conclusions.

I know that is what you are saying but you haven’t proved it. All you are doing is asserting he meant something different and your something different goes against at least 3 scholars we know. So until you present something stronger than you and Dave against 3 scholars you will understand if I’m not swayed by your assertions.

Kelly says, without any argument, that the positions he separates are “mutually exclusive as a matter of strict logic.” That’s absolutely an assumption. If you can show what I’ve assumed, you’re welcome to do it. Just saying it proves nothing.

Kelly does make an argument. He talks about this issue for a number of pages. He speaks of Augustine and others saying the bread and wine are symbols, types, and figures whereas the other group saying things such as the bread you eat is the same as the body that was scourged and nailed to the cross and they speak of the bread changing into the Body.

What you have assumed or asserted is that when Augustine says you do not eat the Body with your teeth and Chrysostom says you do eat the Flesh with your teeth they are not disagreeing with each other. You attempt to justify this by saying what you think Augustine really meant and what Chrysostom really meant, but that is only an assertion. You have done nothing to prove they meant what you are contending except to assert it.

SolaScriptura:

He makes the point that you only partake of it by faith. He makes the point that it is spiritual eating.

So do all Catholics.

Well, if the bread is changed into Christ’s body and blood why is that you can only eat it by faith? It seems like anyone who eats it would eat Christ’s body.

 

[SolaScriptura]

No, he says that they are both signs, not that they are both signs in the same sense. That’s what you’ve read into him, but if you read City of God 10.20, it’s obvious that the Old Testament signs were shadows, not true signs in the sense that the Eucharist is.

Of course they are shadows and types, but that doesn’t change the point. They are the same in that they both point to the same spiritual truth(i.e. Christ’s Body and Blood ) and believers under both dispensations partake of the same spiritual food through their respective sign. Here are Augustine’s words:

“For I would not that ye should be ignorant, brethren,” saith he, “that all our fathers were under the cloud, and all passed through the sea; and were all baptized unto Moses in the cloud and in the sea; and did all eat the same spiritual meat.” Of course, the same spiritual meat; for corporally it was another: since they ate manna, we eat another thing; but the spiritual was the same as that which we eat.
…
“And did all drink the same spiritual drink.” They one kind of drink, we another, but only in the visible form, which, however, signified the same thing in its spiritual virtue. For how was it
that they drank the “same drink”? “They drank,” saith he “of the spiritual Rock that followed them, and that Rock was Christ.” … *But this is what belongs to the virtue of the sacrament, not to the visible sacrament; *he that eateth within, not without; who eateth in his heart, not who presses with his teeth.

Augustine says they ate the same spiritual meat even though corporally they ate something different, but the spiritual is the same. He says all drink the same spiritual drink, they only differ in visible form. You eat it within(i.e. the heart ) not the teeth.

That’s because Calvin means something totally different. He means by “signs” what Augustine means by “Old Testament signs.” Because his metaphysics is messed up, he can’t see the difference.

This is just an assertion on your part.

Everybody (Edit – except maybe Lutherans, although it’s hard to tell) denies a local presence. Denying a change of reality is denying a real presence, period.

Well, if a change is reality is how you define a real presence then Augustine likewise denied the real presence unless you can show where argued for a change in reality?

 

[Randy_Carson]

Jon-

In the past, some have argued that we can’t possibly know with any real certainty what the Catholic Church teaches because all we have is our own interpretation of the Catechism.

I believe this argument was presented in response to the problems associated with the doctrine of sola scriptura…the logic being, “Well, you Catholics have it even worse because you have to interpret both the Bible and the Catechism.” etc, etc.

Now, if Catholics can’t really be sure what the Church teaches because they’re just interpreting the Catechism for themselves, then I’m wondering how someone can be SO sure of his interpretation of Kelly, Schaff and Pelikan that he can use them confidently to argue that Augustine was a “proto-Protestant”?

Seems like a double standard, doesn’t it?

You may recall that Dr. Sippo commented on this on another forum, but I’m interested in your take on this if you have one.

 

[Dominicanis]

Jon-

In the past, some have argued that we can’t possibly know with any real certainty what the Catholic Church teaches because all we have is our own interpretation of the Catechism.

I believe this argument was presented in response to the problems associated with the doctrine of sola scriptura…the logic being, “Well, you Catholics have it even worse because you have to interpret both the Bible and the Catechism.” etc, etc.

Now, if Catholics can’t really be sure what the Church teaches because they’re just interpreting the Catechism for themselves, then I’m wondering how someone can be SO sure of his interpretation of Kelly, Schaff and Pelikan that he can use them confidently to argue that Augustine was a “proto-Protestant”?

Seems like a double standard, doesn’t it?

You may recall that Dr. Sippo commented on this on another forum, but I’m interested in your take on this if you have one.

I hesitate to use the term, but the double standard you’re describing begins with an h and ends with a y. In reading through this thread, I have encountered seriously profound material that has been rejected out of hand and rebuffed with mere opinion and appeals to protestant scholars’ interpretation of Augustine. (Strangely enough, with a name like his, it is ironic that Mr. SS is lending the same credence to these scholars that he normally reserves for the Bible…) While I am grateful to those who have defended the Eucharist brilliantly, it is apparent that this endeavor has become an exercise in tedium because of the simple refusal to seriously engage anyone’s argument on the part of the protestant side. Perhaps it would be best to continue for the sake of the lurkers who might learn something about the wondrous Miracle of the Eucharist, but at this time, it looks as though people are getting tired of expending effort and thought on presenting a well-crafted argument that is treated dismissively simply because it comes from a Catholic.

Note especially the remark directed at JPrejean that our esteemed opponent has three scholars on his side of the argument and Jonathan has only himself and Dave Armstrong. However, Dave, Jonathan, and every Catholic here has more than three scholars. We have ecumenical councils and doctors of the Church like Thomas Aquinas (to name one) that have read the ECF and the Scriptures and rendered their teachings. This body of work will of course be rejected as too Catholic. That’s fine. Mr. SS will understand our reluctance to take his three scholars’ word on Augustine and the Eucharist over our solemn councils and the theology of even just one doctor.

Here is Aquinas’s take on the words of Augustine used to demonstrate that he did not believe in that the Eucharist was truly the flesh and blood of Christ:

Summa Theologica, Tertia Pars, Q. 75, art. 1

Reply to Objection 1. From this authority the aforesaid heretics have taken occasion to err from evilly understanding Augustine’s words. For when Augustine says: “You are not to eat this body which you see,” he means not to exclude the truth of Christ’s body, but that it was not to be eaten in this species in which it was seen by them. And by the words: “It is a mystery that I put before you; in its spiritual sense it will quicken you,” he intends not that the body of Christ is in this sacrament merely according to mystical signification, but “spiritually,” that is, invisibly, and by the power of the spirit. Hence (Tract. xxvii), expounding John 6:64: “the flesh profiteth nothing,” he says: “Yea, but as they understood it, for they understood that the flesh was to be eaten as it is divided piecemeal in a dead body, or as sold in the shambles, not as it is quickened by the spirit . . . Let the spirit draw nigh to the flesh . . . then the flesh profiteth very much: for if the flesh profiteth nothing, the Word had not been made flesh, that It might dwell among us.”

All of the pertinent section of the ST may be accessed here:

newadvent.org/summa/4075.htm

Thank you for your defense, everyone.

Yours in Christ,
Domincanis

 

[JPrejean]

Yeah, anyone would know that. You know anyone like patristic and historical scholars such as Kelly, Pelikan, and Schaff. Tell you what, provide me with some quotes from the individuals who have studied Augustine in any depth and interpret Augustine in that way?

You mean like world-renowned Augustinian scholars who have literally written books on Augustine?

Of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist Augustine preached: ‘Not all bread but only that receiving the blessing of Christ becomes the body of Christ’ ((Sermons) 2343). Through the eating of this consecrated bread the physical body of Christ is received. To belong to the spiritual body of Christ is to participate in his life; by receiving with faith the Eucharist, an external offering of the Church, the divine life of love is nourished. And so of the Eucharist Augustine exclaimed: ‘O sacrament of unity! O bond of charity!’ (Tractates on the Gospel of John CXXIV).
– Mary T. Clark RSCJ, Augustine of Hippo (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), p. 78.

Our present concern with such matters relates only to their relationship to his treatment of verbal signs. For such signs indicated objects (res) and events – though not necessarily with clarity – from the point of view of the speaker (or thinker), and his point of view must be understood in a broad sense to include his aims, intentions, habits, beliefs, and prejudices. Thus when we get to know objects and events through signs, we only known them at second hand, so that if second hand knowledge is really only belief, as Augustine holds, then what is communicated through signs alone will only be belief. Only a sign which is identical with that of which it is a sign will give more than this, and then only to those capable of understanding it. Even when he develops a sacramental theology, where he will obviously treat of non-verbal as well as verbal signs, Augustine thinks along similar lines. Even the Lord, he says, did not hesitate to say ‘This is my body’, though he only gave us a sign for his body (Against Adimantus 12.3). The Christian doctrine that the Eucharist is his body is, therefore, in this life, only to be believed (by faith), not known.
– John M. Rist, Augustine (Cambridge, Melbourne, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), p. 31-32.

And by the way, Pelikan, Kelly, and Schaff all acknowledge that Augustine made a realist identification of the Body of Christ with the Eucharist. They just charge on theological or philosophical grounds that Augustine was simply being inconsistent or otherwise dismiss relevant passages, but they don’t deny. They actually would be among the “great number of people” who acknowledge Augustine’s acceptance of the Real Presence (and incidentally, the whole point about Pelikan was that the charge of inconsistency was based on theological opinion, not historical considerations, so his subsequent change is irrelevant; theological opinion is still theological opinion).

BTW, I’ve got Kelly in front of me, and he asserts an “apparent contradiction” in his discussion of Tertullian (p. 212 in my version) and again asserts the two being “mutually exclusive” in the introduction to the later discussion (p. 440), but I see no actual argument, merely application of his assertion. I’ve got Paul Helm’s John Calvin’s Ideas for Calvin’s doctrine of the Eucharist, but really, what would be the point? Until you show yourself capable of a careful read of what you have in front of you already (to say nothing of everything you obviously haven’t read), who’s going to believe you?

If you want to know what Augustine actually believed, the way to go about it isn’t to challenge other people to do your homework. If you actually care, spend the time to find out what he actually believed, and take responsibility for finding out what is true. Start there, and THEN figure out how he fits into the big picture. That’s the way you do history, not picking a side before you even know where the field is. This has some good places to start:
camellia.shc.edu/theology/Augustine.htm

 

[SolaScriptura]

Jon-

In the past, some have argued that we can’t possibly know with any real certainty what the Catholic Church teaches because all we have is our own interpretation of the Catechism.

I believe this argument was presented in response to the problems associated with the doctrine of sola scriptura…the logic being, “Well, you Catholics have it even worse because you have to interpret both the Bible and the Catechism.” etc, etc.

And don’t forget Tradition. Remember, you guys have been preaching that Tradition is an interpretive grid for Scripture that makes things clear. Well, we see from reading Augustine how far that is from the truth. How many Catholics on this board interpreted Augustine as Jonathan does? According to Jonathan even world renown scholars don’t understand him.

Now, if Catholics can’t really be sure what the Church teaches because they’re just interpreting the Catechism for themselves, then I’m wondering how someone can be SO sure of his interpretation of Kelly, Schaff and Pelikan that he can use them confidently to argue that Augustine was a “proto-Protestant”?

Actually is your argument that one cannot be sure when interpreting the Scriptures, so I was just turning the argument back on you and pointing out the obvioius, you have interpret Scripture, Tradition, and the Magisterium teaching. So it is not really my argument, but yours.

Seems like a double standard, doesn’t it?

Nope, seems like you still haven’t grasped what is going on with the argument.

 

[SolaScriptura]

You mean like world-renowned Augustinian scholars who have literally written books on Augustine?

Yeah or even just world renowned patristic scholar would help or even world renowned historical scholars would even help. If your claim is that anyone with more than a superficial understanding of Augustine would know these things then I expect all these people to know it.

Of the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist Augustine preached: ‘Not all bread but only that receiving the blessing of Christ becomes the body of Christ’ ((Sermons) 2343). Through the eating of this consecrated bread the physical body of Christ is received. To belong to the spiritual body of Christ is to participate in his life; by receiving with faith the Eucharist, an external offering of the Church, the divine life of love is nourished. And so of the Eucharist Augustine exclaimed: ‘O sacrament of unity! O bond of charity!’ (Tractates on the Gospel of John CXXIV).
– Mary T. Clark RSCJ, Augustine of Hippo (London and New York: Continuum, 2004), p. 78.

This doesn’t prove your point, maybe more context would, but this doesn’t. By eating the bread the physical body of Christ is received is no different than saying, by eating the sign the thing signified is received. It could be argued that even Calvin believed we eat the physical body of Christ, though not we teeth, but through faith. For example, Calvin says the following to his Lutheran interlocutor:

I say that although Christ is absent from the earth in respect of the flesh, yet in the Supper we truly feed on his body and blood — that owing to the secret agency of the Spirit we enjoy the presence of both. I** say that distance of place is no obstacle to prevent the flesh, which was once crucified, from being given to us for food**. Heshusius supposes, what is far from being the fact, that I imagine a presence of deity only.( John Calvin, “Clear Explanation of Sound Doctrine, concerning the True Partaking of the Flesh and Blood of Christ in the Holy Supper” )

Our present concern with such matters relates only to their relationship to his treatment of verbal signs. For such signs indicated objects (res) and events – though not necessarily with clarity – from the point of view of the speaker (or thinker), and his point of view must be understood in a broad sense to include his aims, intentions, habits, beliefs, and prejudices. Thus when we get to know objects and events through signs, we only known them at second hand, so that if second hand knowledge is really only belief, as Augustine holds, then what is communicated through signs alone will only be belief. Only a sign which is identical with that of which it is a sign will give more than this, and then only to those capable of understanding it. Even when he develops a sacramental theology, where he will obviously treat of non-verbal as well as verbal signs, Augustine thinks along similar lines. Even the Lord, he says, did not hesitate to say ‘This is my body’, though he only gave us a sign for his body (Against Adimantus 12.3). The Christian doctrine that the Eucharist is his body is, therefore, in this life, only to be believed (by faith), not known.
– John M. Rist, Augustine (Cambridge, Melbourne, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1997), p. 31-32.

I don’t see how this vindicates the argument you have been making.

 

[SolaScriptura]

And by the way, Pelikan, Kelly, and Schaff all acknowledge that Augustine made a realist identification of the Body of Christ with the Eucharist. They just charge on theological or philosophical grounds that Augustine was simply being inconsistent or otherwise dismiss relevant passages, but they don’t deny.

Yes, they argue he was a “realist”, but not in the sense of other fathers who were more consistent with Transubstantiation. He was realist in the sense that he believe Christ was really and truly present in the Lord’s Supper. The elect really and truly partook of his body through faith, not through the mouth because there was a change in the bread and wine.

They actually would be among the “great number of people” who acknowledge Augustine’s acceptance of the Real Presence (and incidentally, the whole point about Pelikan was that the charge of inconsistency was based on theological opinion, not historical considerations, so his subsequent change is irrelevant; theological opinion is still theological opinion).

Well, the issue was not over Augustine denial of Christ’s real presence. Your comment about the “great number of people” was in reference to my point that Augustine mentioned we do not eat Christ’s body with our teeth, and Chrysostom says we do. This is essentially Kelly’s point when he quotes from the two fathers to show they have different views on the real presence. One believed there was a conversion of the bread into Christ’s body and the other did not. How therefore Kelly is one of the “great number of people” when you were arguing against Kelly’s distinction indirectly is beyond me.

BTW, I’ve got Kelly in front of me, and he asserts an “apparent contradiction” in his discussion of Tertullian (p. 212 in my version) and again asserts the two being “mutually exclusive” in the introduction to the later discussion (p. 440), but I see no actual argument, merely application of his assertion.

Kelly is saying that Tertullian is attempting to rationalize the “apparent contradiction” in the dogma that a) the elements are Christ’s body and blood b) the empirical fact that the elements are still bread and wine. So this is an “apparent contradiction” for us all. However, the “mutually exclusive” view is not the “apparent contradiction” that he mentioned earlier, but instead those who maintained a conversion theory and those who distinguished the sign from the thing signified. If you keep reading, Kelly goes on to argue this point from page 440-449.

I’ve got Paul Helm’s John Calvin’s Ideas for Calvin’s doctrine of the Eucharist, but really, what would be the point? Until you show yourself capable of a careful read of what you have in front of you already (to say nothing of everything you obviously haven’t read), who’s going to believe you?

Ironic that you should say speak of carefully reading after you just butchered Kelly. Now who should believe you over Kelly, Pelikan, and Schaff and I’m sure they have read a lot more than you on this topic and patristics in general.

If you want to know what Augustine actually believed, the way to go about it isn’t to challenge other people to do your homework.

I’m not challenging you to do my homework, but to at least document your assertion.

If you actually care, spend the time to find out what he actually believed, and take responsibility for finding out what is true. Start there, and THEN figure out how he fits into the big picture. That’s the way you do history, not picking a side before you even know where the field is. This has some good places to start:
camellia.shc.edu/theology/Augustine.htm

I don’t have the time to read the fathers and volumes and volumes of scholars opinions on the fathers and every topic I’m interested in. If I didn’t have kids, work, other responsibilities, and I was wealthy to buy all these works then maybe I could. So some of us have to pick and choose, but at least I have read some of the scholars that I would think have read most, if not all of the bibliographies you linked to and look at how you casually dismiss them. So I don’t think any amount of reading will satisfy you unless one agrees with your position.

 

[john654]

Hi,
Sola Scriptura,

We could speculate all day that even though two individuals say the opposite things they actually mean the same thing, but you have to put a very strong case to overturn this.

What in the world do you mean by statments like this. I’m sorry, but this reminds me of statments like "it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is. Are you a moral relativist, or do you believe that Jesus IS God?

John

 

[Randy_Carson]

Jon-

Perhaps you can help me out.

The question has been asked: how many Catholics participating on this board have interpreted Augustine in the same manner that you have?

My take would be this: since Augustine’s thought is not out of sync with that of the Church, and since most Catholics here would be faithful to the teaching of the Church concerning the doctrine of transubstantiation, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that most Catholics - without having actually read Augustine themselves - would be in agreement with him?

If A = B and B = C, then A = C. Agreed?

Additionally, it was argued that Tradition is an “interpretive grid for Scripture”. I’m not sure I would agree. Tradition is “another voice” of the same gospel once delivered. Rather, it is the Magisterium that provides the interpretive function. Since the Magisterium is “alive”, we can always refer to and defer to its infallible wisdom for clarification.

Jon, If you feel I haven’t grasped what is going on with the argument, then by all means, clarify it for me. There is so much falsehood and distortion bandied about as Gospel truth by some here who claim to speak authoritatively that one must be careful not to get sucked in. What they lack in truth they try to compensate for with self-assurance and bluster. Falsehood confidently stated is still just a lie.

Finally, I can’t help but notice a compounding of errors taking place…one individual misinterprets (or misuses) the writings of Protestant scholars who themselves have misinterpreted the Fathers. This truly is a game of telephone! One that is truly illustrative of all of Protestantism, IMO.

However, I am more than eager to learn from a trustworthy teacher, so lead on! :yup:

 

[PhilVaz]

Not sure what we’re arguing here anymore? Is it that the 5th century St. Augustine is closer to the 16th century Calvin or to Trent ? The Orthodox Pelikan (then Lutheran) provides the answer:

“…the doctrine of the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist…did not become the subject of controversy until the ninth century. The definitive and precise formulation of the crucial doctrinal issues concerning the Eucharist had to await that controversy and others that followed even later. This does not mean at all, however, that the church did not yet have a doctrine of the Eucharist; it does mean that the statements of its doctrine must not be sought in polemical and dogmatic treatises devoted to sacramental theology. It means also that the effort to cross-examine the fathers of the second or third century about where they stood in the controversies of the ninth or sixteenth century is both silly and futile.” (Jaroslav Pelikan, The Christian Tradition, volume 1, page 166-7)

I would grant the point (but wouldn’t argue it if someone thought otherwise) that St. Augustine did not explicitly have “transubstantiation” or “change of substance” in mind. The closest the Fathers come to that are St. Ambrose in the west, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. John Chrysostom, St. Cyril of Alexandria and St. John Damascene in the east who explicitly use such terms as “change” or “convert” (in Latin and Greek). All the terms are covered by Darwell Stone’s two-volume A History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist (1909) which you can get through inter-library loan. The Robert Sungenis book Not By Bread Alone (2000) also does a good job laying out all the major passages and terms used by the Fathers.

Schaff once again from History of the Christian Church, volume 3, pages 507-510 on St. Augustine and sacrifice:

“It is not a new sacrifice added to that of the cross, but a daily, unbloody repetition and perpetual application of that ONE ONLY sacrifice. Augustine represents it, on the one hand, as a -sacramentum memoriae-, a symbolical commemoration of the sacrificial death of Christ; to which of course there is no objection [Contr Faust Manich 1.xx.18 Latin given].”

This tells us (according to Schaff) St. Augustine believes the Eucharist is a sacramental memorial.

“But, on the other hand, he calls the celebration of the communion -verissimum sacrificium- of the body of Christ. The church, he says, offers (immolat) to God the sacrifice of thanks in the body of Christ, from the days of the apostles through the sure succession of the bishops down to our time. But the church at the same time offers, with Christ, herself, as the body of Christ, to God. As all are one body, so also all are together the same sacrifice [De civit Dei x.20 Latin given].” (Schaff, vol 3, page 507)

This tells us (according to Schaff) St. Augustine believes the Eucharist is a true sacrifice, and the Church since the times of the apostles, through her ordained priests and bishops, offers Christ along with herself in the Mass.

“The subject of the sacrifice is the body of Jesus Christ, which is as TRULY PRESENT on the altar of the church, as it once was on the altar of the cross, and which now offers itself to God through his priest. Hence the frequent language of the liturgies: ‘Thou art he who offerest, and who art offered, O Christ, our God.’ Augustine, however, CONNECTS WITH THIS, as we have already said, the true and important moral idea of the self-sacrifice of the whole redeemed church to God. The prayers of the liturgies do the same.” (page 508)

This tells us (according to Schaff) St. Augustine believes the body of Jesus Christ is as truly present on the altar of the Church as it was on the altar of the cross, and that all redeemed believers also offer themselves through Him in the Liturgy.

"Even St. Augustine, with Tertullian, teaches plainly, as an OLD tradition, that the eucharistic sacrifice, the intercessions or -suffragia- and alms, of the living are of benefit to the departed believers, so that the Lord deals more mercifully with them than their sins deserve [Serm 172:2 Latin given]. His noble mother, Monica, when dying, told him he might bury her body where he pleased, and should give himself no concern for it, only she begged of him that he would remember her SOUL at the altar of the Lord [Confess 1:9:27 Latin given]. (page 510)

This tells us (according to Schaff) St. Augustine believes the Mass was offered to benefit departed Christians, so the Lord will deal more mercifully with them in the afterlife.

Again, as I said to my opponent in FidoNet over 10 years ago, " how much more Roman Catholic can you get? " Again, we are talking 5th century here, not 16th century. I am not a theologian, but I play one on the Internet. For a real Catholic theologian, you can also find through inter-library loan Eucharistic Sacrifice and the Reformation (1960) by Francis Clark, S.J.

Phil P

 

[TobyLue]

Just one more post for me and I’m through reading through this quagmire.
All this reminds me of the story in the news that an ossuary containing the bones of Jesus has been found together with those of his “wife” Mary Magdalene. Of course there is also the “Gospel of Judas” proclaiming Judas as a hero. And then there is the famous Dan Brown’s “The DaVinci code”. What does all of this mean to me? Well first of all as I mentioned earlier it all goes back to the beginning. Satan putting doubts in the minds of Adam and Eve. He used deception to get his way. We all know that Jesus has defeated Satan. We all know that following Jesus is the way to eternal life. What is Satan trying to do? Place doubts in the minds of men as he has been doing since the beginning of creation. Could this be a sign that we are close to the end of time? Only God knows. We are seeing more and more of these “doubts” springing up all over the place. Satan is going around like a roaring lion trying to win as many souls to his side as possible. And how is he doing this? By placing doubts in minds of men. He will go to any lengths to do this and I see it especially in the Eucharist. This has been the core of worship in the Church since Jesus founded His Church. The Church has stood firm and will stand firm. All of these “interpretations” as to what he actually mean come up with new twists all the time. As john654 said, “it depends on what the meaning of the word is, is.”
Jesus said “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst.” Well, there are those that will say; “it depends on what He actually mean by ‘am’”.
Jesus said “…so he who eats me will live because of me". Then there are those that will say, “it depends on what he actually means by who ‘eats me’”.
Jesus said “…this **IS my body….” And here again we have those that will say, “it depends on what he actually meant by ‘is’”.
Judas doubted and I see many Judas’ all throughout the history of the church.
The Church has being fighting all these heresies since its beginning, trying its best to explain that Jesus really meant that the bread and wine are the body and blood of Jesus. Satan will go to any means to get people to look at Jesus’ words and puts it in their minds to question Him. “Did Jesus really mean what He said”. (Did God really **say you were not to eat…)
Look a little further. God told Adam and Eve. “You must not eat it, nor touch it, under pain of death.” Satan says, “No! You will not die.” A deception by Satan turning God’s words around.

Then we have Jesus saying. “ if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever”. Satan is saying “No! You will not live for ever. Jesus does not mean that the piece of bread is Him.” A deception by Satan turning Jesus’ words around and telling people that Jesus really didn’t mean that. He has been saying this for 2000 years. The Church is standing its ground by Jesus’ own words. Those of you that are trying “desperately” to convince Catholics, and regrettably you have succeeded in many cases; will go to any lengths to prove the Church wrong. But YOU WILL NOT SUCCEED. The Church will stand its ground till the end of time. The end days may be closer than we think because Satan is **“desperately” trying to convince many by influencing people with false gospels, which we know from scripture that there will be many preaching those, and coming up with new discoveries to prove that Jesus “really” didn’t rise from the dead. Satan is influencing people to go back and read the teachings of the Early Fathers, do their own interpretation and coming up with new twists to “prove” that Jesus “really” didn’t mean that the bread “is” His body.
It is the faith that we have in Jesus. Faith is believing in things unseen. We see a piece of bread that looks like bread, tastes like bread, feels like bread, but IN FAITH we believe it actually is **the flesh of Jesus.
……“As Isaish says; Lord, how many believed what we proclaimed? So faith comes from what is preached, and what is preached comes from the word of Christ.”
The Church has been preaching all along, It IS Jesus in the Eucharist. Jesus said it, I believe it.

To those of you that do not believe**, Go**, and do as you please, but as for me and my house, WE WILL WORSHIP THE LORD. And we will worship Him in the Eucharist.
God Bless…

 

[Randy_Carson]

I hope the mods will allow this brief quotation which I provide with permission of the original author. Permission is verifiable online at:

envoymagazine.com/Forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=2656&#33211

DR. ART SIPPO RESPONDS

There were a variety of theories proposed in the Early Church to explain what the Eucharist was. We should not be surprised if there was no clear focus on the Eucharistic theology of the presence of Christ until a much later period.

Fr. Edward J. Kilmartin has an excellent book The Eucharist in the West: History and Theology which deals with this in technical detail. There is also the quintessential work of Anglo-Catholic scholar Darwell Stone History of the Doctrine of the Holy Eucharist which supports the deep apostolic origins of the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist.

Here is an online article by Stone that you might find interesting:

anglicanhistory.org/england/stone/dictionary_eucharist1912.html

St. Augustine did develop an understanding of the Eucharist as “symbol” but he used the term in a Platonic way, not the Nominalist way that historic Protestnstism has done. Symbols in Platonic and Neo-Platonic thought were direct connections to the reality of the object in the realm of the Eternal Forms. Circular objects shared a connection to the Perfect Circle Form and were thus particular incarnations of that idea in the real world.

In Nominalism, a symbol is just a label for a particular object and there is no such thing as a universal form in which the symbol participates. Symbols are seen as powerless pointers to recall ideas and nothing more. This is obviously NOT what the Early Church thought about the Eucharist.

There is no doubt as others have shown on this thread that St Augustine reaffirmed the substantial presence of Christ in the Eucharist. But he was also trying to develop the meaning of that presence and for him Platonic symbolism was the best way to do so.

Art

 

[JPrejean]

This doesn’t prove your point, maybe more context would, but this doesn’t. By eating the bread the physical body of Christ is received is no different than saying, by eating the sign the thing signified is received. It could be argued that even Calvin believed we eat the physical body of Christ, though not we teeth, but through faith. For example, Calvin says the following to his Lutheran interlocutor:

If that WERE what Calvin believed, then there wouldn’t even be a difference. That’s exactly what Catholics believe, and I’m more than happy for anyone to read the context in Clark or Rist for confirmation (I just picked out clear conclusions within the analysis). The problem with what you just said is that Calvin considers that impossible (InstitutesIV.17.24):
What is the nature of our flesh? Is it not something that has its own fixed dimension, is contained in a place, is touched, is seen? And why (they (the Lutherans) say) cannot God make the same flesh occupy many and divers places, be contained in no place, so as to lack measure and form? Madman, why do you demand that God’s power make flesh to be and not to be flesh at the same time! It is as if you insisted that me make light to be both light and darkness at the same time?

Consequently, while it is possible to have real participation in Christ’s Body, it’s not possible on Calvin’s view for the Eucharist to be a true sign in the Platonic sense, which is what Augustine affirms (City of God 10.20) and why Rist is saying the same thing I am. It’s also why I think Kelly’s false dichotomy between (1) authors that distinguish between the sign and the thing signified and (2) authors with a “conversionist” understanding won’t hold. There’s no logical opposition between the concepts, and Kelly never shows why he thinks that there is. He just classifies a number of people according to his made-up category.

I don’t have the time to read the fathers and volumes and volumes of scholars opinions on the fathers and every topic I’m interested in. If I didn’t have kids, work, other responsibilities, and I was wealthy to buy all these works then maybe I could.

Then, with all due respect, you’re just being irresponsible. It’s not like the standard survey works like Clark, Rist, and Peter Brown exist in one copy in the Secret Vatican Archives. In the time you waste on the Internet embarrassing yourself and your religion, you could be reading actual books by people who know the score. Maybe you wouldn’t make silly and obvious mistakes about what Kelly, Pelikan, and Schaff said (thanks for the additional support, Phil!). Kelly and Pelikan HAVE read the bibliography, and that’s why it’s so obvious that you’re mistaken. That’s leaving aside the fact that you need to be a great deal more critical of guys offering lay theological opinions outside their area of specialty (and Schaff’s been dead for 100 years, so he hasn’t read much of anything).

This is silly. If you can’t be bothered to spend the time necessary to even basically understand the subject, why would anyone listen to you?

 

[Dominicanis]

TobyLue’s final post was eloquent, and made an excellent point: Either we accept God’s Word made man at His word when He taught in John’s Gospel that He was the living bread come down from Heaven or we do not. If we accept, then we stand with Peter and the Apostles, who said to Christ, “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of everlasting life.” If we reject, then we turn away with the rest of the crowd and leave. And Christ will not say now what He did not say then, “Come back, I was only speaking figuratively.”

There are people here who have defended Our Lord’s Church and His Sacrament with great vigor and staggering intellectual insights. Sola, you must come up with a better response than to offer constraints on your time as an excuse not to read up more thoroughly on the side you’ve taken in this debate. You have rebuffed every argument without responding with anything compelling, which leaves open the possibility that there is nothing compelling to offer from your perspective.

Please try not to harden your heart against the Eucharist because it is too “Catholic”, but pray earnestly that Our Lord Jesus will help you to understand the truth He has given all mankind. Augustine spoke of adoration with regard to the Eucharist. If you are willing to trust him as an authority, then you must read more than a few snippets of his taken from their context. He adored Christ in the Eucharist and exhorted other Christians to do so. If Christ really isn’t there at all, wasn’t Augustine guilty of idolatry of bread and wine?

Yours in Christ,
Dominicanis

 

[Writer]

If interested in a note I sent to Dave Armstrong, I thought that I’d post it here. Following, I will say a few words regarding his good and gracious response.

…*I enjoyed your blog post concerning this issue, as I am one of the Forum Members involved in this online debate–although to a lesser extent than many of them. I wanted to share a few thoughts on this issue, for two main reasons. First, I am concerned that Saint Augustine’s views may not be accurately explained here. Second, I have a quote from Saint Augustine which I was planning to use within a talk about our conversion/enrichment to the Catholic Church. I don’t want to misrepresent Saint Augustine’s views on Transubstantiation to this group, or the next one… *I’d like to begin with that quote from Confessions.

"I am the food of full-grown men. Grow and you shall feed on me. But you shall not change me into your own substance, as you do with the food of your body. Instead you shall be changed into me."

I don’t know whether you read much C.S. Lewis, but one recurrent theme of his writing concerns the need to use caution when engaging in textual criticism not to over-step what is known about the author and step into speculation or assumption concerning his underlying motivations or deepest thoughts. Sometimes this is hard to avoid, but I’d humbly suggest that the proposition that Saint Augustine did not accept Transubstantiation as real is misleading and unfair to this great saint. In fact, I’d suggest that some of his passages (taken out of context on the Forum) are more aimed at addressing the wearisome argument that Catholics engage in cannibalism when they take the Sacrament. He appears to have been trying to clarify the Platonic distinction between appearance or “accidents” and actual substance. in other words, if God says that the door is now window, I’ll call it a window. Remember, Saint Augustine did have a classical or pagan, as he sometimes seems to think of it, education.
**

While it’s true that he seems to give conflicting statements at times, I think you nearly hit the nail on the head in your article. To Saint Augustine the Eucharist appears to be simultaneously both a profound symbol of unity and truly the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. I am no expert on Saint Augustine, but I remain unconvinced that Saint Augustine failed to believe in Transubstantiation. Granted, he may not have used quite the right vocabulary, but I believe we need to extend to him the honor of the benefit of the doubt. Reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote from Letters to Malcolm.
**

I could wish that no definitions had ever been felt to be necessary; and, still more, that none had been allowed to make divisions between churches.

---

---

I am afraid this debate accomplishes little more than the splitting of hairs. In short, I suggest that we are going too far when we say that this great Saint failed to believe in Transubstantiation. As a curious aside to this debate, our arguing among ourselves makes it even easier for our separated brethren to point at us and observe that we can’t even agree on core issues such as this. Whether it is the aforementioned quote from Confessions or Saint Augustine’s words on adoration of the Eucharist (idolatry, if he failed to believe in Transubstantiation) to Saint Thomas Aquinas’ words on Saint Augustine’s understanding of the transformation of the communion elements to the body, blood, soul, and divinity, it seems to me that this saint was on the right track. If we can’t agree on this, then you will, at least, have to be willing to meet with Saint Augustine and me by the gilded forest at some future date to get to the bottom of this present apologetic controversy.
**
**

Based on Dave Armstrong’s response, we’re really on the same page. His point is simply that Saint Augustine’s position on the issue is simply less refined than that provided by other fathers of the Catholic Church. I can agree to this, so I think we can find a “medias res”, or middle ground, in order to more clearly grasp and understand the profound gift of Saint Augustine’s honesty and intellect in his service to His Church.

 

[TobyLue]

Sorry, but this **is **definitely my last post. I just wanted to share this song with you guys. You will have to scroll down real fast to “one bread, one body” song and stop it because for some reason two songs are played at the same time. I learned this song when I made my first communion many eons ago, in the late 40’s and it has stayed with me all these years. It’s missing a verse that I learned back then. It’s this:
“O’ Jesus we adore thee
Who in thy love divine.
Proclaim the mighty Godhead
In forms of bread and wine”

God Bless and I shall continue praying daily for all to come to know Jesus in the Holy Eucharist. The awesomeness, the wonders, the joy, the GREAT MYSTERY…

 

[JPrejean]

The question has been asked: how many Catholics participating on this board have interpreted Augustine in the same manner that you have?

My take would be this: since Augustine’s thought is not out of sync with that of the Church, and since most Catholics here would be faithful to the teaching of the Church concerning the doctrine of transubstantiation, then wouldn’t it be reasonable to assume that most Catholics - without having actually read Augustine themselves - would be in agreement with him?

You’ve pointed out something that is rather often underestimated: ideas rarely come out of nowhere, and things never change for no reason. People arguing for radical shifts and supposed corrections of “innovations” bear the burden of showing the cause for these developments. Rarely is that explanatory burden actually shouldered; it’s generally an argument from ignorance.

But the first point is interesting, because in all honesty, it shouldn’t matter how many Catholics agree with me, because what matters (ultimately) is who has the best reasons for his belief. Catholics can be right for wrong reasons, and Protestants can be wrong for right reasons. The focus needs to move away from the belief itself to the reasons a particular individual believes it. And in a dialogue between two such persons, the dialogue needs to deal with those people’s reasons, and most important, both sides must commit to justifying their position according to reasonable criteria. Nobody gets to impose a burden of proof on anyone else or to take justification from someone else’s position that he hasn’t himself justified. It’s no defense to say “I don’t agree with your reasons” if you are unwilling or unable to say what your own belief is and what your reasons are. And frankly, if people aren’t willing to justify their beliefs in some reasonable way, then I can’t see why one can’t just dismiss them out of hand as being gratuitous. Here Sola Scriptura is offering an opinion about Augustine’s Eucharistic theology when, by his own admission, he knows next to nothing about the subject. In what other area but religious discussion would we entertain that sort of idea? It’s this sort of behavior by people of faith that leads outsiders and atheists to think that all religion is simply irrational. I think we’d do ourselves a service in the big picture by being willing to flat out tell people that if they aren’t going to even try to be reasonable, then we won’t dialogue with them. When people are making objective claims without sufficient warrant, that alone ought to give us pause.

 

[Randy_Carson]

You’ve pointed out something that is rather often underestimated: ideas rarely come out of nowhere, and things never change for no reason. People arguing for radical shifts and supposed corrections of “innovations” bear the burden of showing the cause for these developments. Rarely is that explanatory burden actually shouldered; it’s generally an argument from ignorance.

Thanks so much, Jon.

I expanded somewhat on this thought earlier today in a PM which I will reproduce here. I hope I haven’t pushed the edge of the envelope too much with this:

The Church’s current views are the fruit of thought by Augustine and others. Instead, [some] act as if our doctrines just dropped from the sky one day as opposed to developing over time precisely through the labors of people like Augustine.

To the contrary, it is Protestantism that cannot handle both dimensions of his thought, because its theology did spring forth (largely) from the pens of Luther and Calvin practically “overnight” when compared to the full history of the Church. Misappropriating Augustine is just revisionism.

I understand why this happens, of course. Lacking any real connection to the Apostolic Authority of the Early Church, Protestantism seeks some legitimacy and gravitas by reading back into the Fathers their own novel theology.

 

[glbaritone]

As an Orthodox Christian, I can tell you with the authority of experience and learning within that body that the Eastern Orthodox Church never accepted the dogma of
Transubstation as defined by Thomas Aquinas. Unless you are prepared to demonstrate by evidence other than polemic and opinion that Aquinas taught something hitherto not taught or understood within the undivided Church up to 1054, you cannot claim that all Christians held that theological position. As testified in the writings of Father Kalistos Ware, an Anglican converted to Eastern Orthodoxy, both Anglicans (up to the time of the Reformation) and the Orthodox have preferred to leave the “mechanics” of the “Presence” to be undefined but objectively affirmed, based on Jesus’ words, being humbly satisfied not to “peek under the curtain” of the Divine operation. It is true, however, that many Anglicans held to the view of Transubstantiation, then and now, owing to their understanding of their connection to Rome, historically. But many more Anglicans agree with the Orthodox view, which both understand as rooted in tradition and Patristics. It may well be that the writings of the Early Church Fathers can be interpreted as supporting the notion of Transubstantiation, and all Christians should take note. But it is certainly true that these writings can, and indeed were, interpreted before the time of Aquinas without the specifics of the explanation of Transubstantiation, by the Eastern Orthodox Church. By the way, the quickest way to upset a Lutheran and find the limit of his Christian Love is to accuse them of Consubstantiation. This is a grave mistake and betrays the limits of an uninformed parochialism on the part of one makes such an assertion. Luther’s misguided view of the “Presence” was called “Spiritual Union”, like the infused heat of a horseshoe glowing red in the fire. At any rate, the explanation called “Transubstantiation”, as such, is plainly the invention of Thomas Aquinas and is rejected by the Orthodox. In as much as the question of “how” of the Presence never came before the first seven Ecumenical councils, held before East and West formally split in 1054, it cannot be argued soundly that this explanation of the Presence was the prevailing accepted dogma, without supposing that the East never found it necessary to challenge it, or without making some ridiculous assertion that the East must have rejected Transubstation only after the Great Schism of 1054. Since the East was willing to split over an issue so lacking in real substance as the “filioque” clause, a phrase they will admit today is heretical only in Greek which has two differently nuanced words for “proceed,” but not heretical in Latin, which has only one word for “proceed”, it is untenable to think they would not have objected to Aquinas’ definition of the “how” of the Presence, if that indeed what was believed and accepted as the only true explanation since the time of the Apostles, in as much as they object to it today. How is it, that it is not enough for Roman Catholics to accept the validity of other’s beliefs unless they come to that same belief through the same ontological reasoning? I believe that Jesus died for my sins and the sins of the world and that his sacrifice made atonement for those sins. I do not need to now that there is such a word as “propitiation,” let alone be articulate in its various explanations to have an effective faith in it, to the salvation of my soul. God said it. That is sufficient. It isn’t calculus and it need not be explained to be believed. In fact, it is more humble to believe it without an explanation that satisfies that all too human desire to “peek behind the curtain" of the Divine Mystery. How the devil must smile to listen to these theological “urination contests”!