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zerinus
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Originally Posted by zerinus’ blog
Firstly, Real Presence is understood differently in different churches; but as defined in Catholicism, Real Presence is no more biblical than is Transubstantiation. The way in which Real Presence is understood in the Catholic Church is far from being scripturally provable.
You are implying that I am making categorical assertions without sound arguments to back it up! Not true. In my Blog post I had made this “sound argument” to back up what I had said:Originally Posted by zerinus
making categorical assertions doesn’t really mean anything unless you can back it up with sound arguments.
The passage raises other puzzling questions. I understand what “Body and Blood” means (i.e. Transubstantiation). But what is “His whole Divinity” and “the whole Christ”? How are “His whole Divinity” and the “whole of Christ” present in the bread and wine? And how does one actually eat the “whole of Christ” together with the “whole of His Divinity” all in one go? How do Catholics go about exactly doing that? And how is that doctrine in any way biblical?
Will be replied to in a separate post.
That makes sense the same way this makes sense:
Not true. That is not a good analogy. Real Presence says:An oak tree and photosynthesis are so intricately intertwined that it is not possible to separate them. The oak tree happens by means of photosynthesis, so that to all intents and purposes one could say they are the same.
. . . And this faith has ever been in the Church of God, that, immediately after the consecration, the veritable * Body of our Lord, and His veritable* * Blood, together with His soul and divinity, are under the species of bread and wine;* . . .
Transubstantiation says:
. . . by the consecration of the bread and of the wine, a conversion is made of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord, and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of His blood; which conversion is, by the holy Catholic Church, suitably and properly called Transubstantiation.
I agree that these are not identical expressions, and do not convey identical meanings—neither did I say that they did. But conceptually they are close enough to be virtually saying the same things. They are so interconnected and interdependent that one cannot exist without the other. You cannot say, for example, that Real Presence could be true (according to the Catholic definition), but Transubstantiation false—or the other way round for that matter. Catholic theology (which is what we are discussing here) requires that both be true as a consequence of the other.
zerinus