The Eucharist in Lutheran and other protestant religions?

[steido01]

Christ’s plain words, eh? Where does Christ mention anything about bread and/or wine during His consecration?

Um… “This (bread) is my Body.” To what else would he be referring, except to the bread that he holds in his hands?

Also, attempting to pit “Christ’s plain words” against reason and philosophy into a false dichotomy only denigrates the virtues of reason and logic that God blesses us with. Trying to supersede reason with faith, deliberate or inadvertent, is a sly tactic to try to convince people of believing in unreasonable things under the guise of them being a “mystery”.

Read our conversation again. What I actually said was in response to YOUR accusation. “If you say so.” I do not see reason at odds with Christ’s plain words. It’s you, brother, who has to do philosophical handsprings to make Jesus not say what he very plainly states.

Ironic how you just used reason and natural knowledge to explain the Trinity (the most philosophical term we employ to explain a revealed Divine Dogma).

Yes, the irony would seem to be lost on you.

Did you notice, though, that the Father is not the Son, and the Son is not the Father, and the Holy Spirit is neither the Father nor the Son?

Indeed. So what’s to prevent Bread and Body from likewise being united in a sacramental way that is beyond human comprehension, and doesn’t require a totally human-invented theory to try and explain away the miracle with Aristotelian language? Why not simply take Christ at his word?

I have no problem with that, inasmuch as your words are distinguishing between natural knowledge and divine revelations. But, distinguishing the two does not mean to intrinsically depict natural knowledge as contradicting faith:
“Even though faith is above reason, there can never be any real disagreement between faith and reason, since it is the same God who reveals the mysteries and infuses faith, and who has endowed the human mind with the light of reason.
Not only can faith and reason never be at odds with one another but they mutually support each other, for on the one hand right reason established the foundations of the faith and, illuminated by its light, develops the science of divine things; on the other hand, faith delivers reason from errors and protects it and furnishes it with knowledge of many kinds.” - Dogmatic constitution on the Catholic faith, Chapter 4, Vatican I, 1870

I think there’s significantly less disagreement here than you’d like to admit.

I do not need to know what it is not.

Au contraire! This is fundamental in professing the Real Presence. It is not merely spiritual, and certainly not carnal, but truly, actually, really the Body and Blood of our Lord!

 

[steido01]

Bingo! Today’s disagreement, at least from the Roman Catholic side (as I understand it), is less about the slight difference in the understanding of the Real Presence, and more about the disagreement on whether Lutherans have “valid” priestly orders.

Obviously, Lutherans and Roman Catholics will disagree on that point. Well, most of them, anyway.

 

[AugustTherese]

What makes you think I hold antipathy towards the pope?

Well, for one, you are not in full communion with the Holy See of Peter. You have explicitly declared your disdain for his “universal jurisdiction”. Just because you have love for a particular Pontiff or two does not negate your disinclination for the papal office.

 

[AugustTherese]

Um… “This (bread) is my Body.” To what else would he be referring, except to the bread that he holds in his hands?

Your quote is not from Scripture! “This [bread] is my Body” is nowhere to be found in Scripture. Does this not bother your conscience in the least bit?

 

[steido01]

“And taking bread, he gave thanks, and brake; and gave to them, saying: This is my body, which is given for you. Do this for a commemoration of me.”

‘Bread’ is clearly what he’s referring to. If I pick up a pen and I say “This is my gift to you.” To what would I be referring? Obviously, the pen. Jesus says the bread is his Body. Ok. Take him at his word. The bread is his Body. How? He does not say.

 

[steido01]

I’m glad to see Catholics are also able to distinguish between the Office of the Papacy and the good men who hold it.

 

[AugustTherese]

Indeed. So what’s to prevent Bread and Body from likewise being united in a sacramental way that is beyond human comprehension, and doesn’t require a totally human-invented theory to try and explain away the miracle with Aristotelian language? Why not simply take Christ at his word?

Many reasons. The full deposit of Apostolic faith did not include this “Sacramental Union”; it was unfounded until the 16th century under the pretext of what Scripture states. This “Sacramental Union” attacks and disgraces the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. This contrived idea of “Sacramental Union” keeps the real Eucharist from Christians (especially honest, pious Lutherans) from receiving the Body and Blood of Christ. “Sacramental Union” is not simply “beyond human comprehension”, it is beyond the nature and will of God. Supernatural miracles are not some mystical forces that disorder and contradict God’s creation, they supplement it through divine means. It would be analogous to someone declaring that Jesus Christ is simultaneously a human person and a divine person, and to pawn off this “doctrine” as “beyond human comprehension” and claim this is what Christ’s words really meant.

 

[steido01]

“Full deposit of the Apostolic Faith”

That’s silly. Roman doctrine is constantly adding – I mean, “clarifying” – things to ‘deepen the deposit of the Apostolic Faith.’ Like dogmatic belief in Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, for example. It’s pious belief, sure. Most likely true, even. But necessary belief to be considered a true Christian? Too bad about all those Christians born prior to 1869, huh?

Full deposit of the Apostolic Faith. Right.

 

[AugustTherese]

‘Bread’ is clearly what he’s referring to. If I pick up a pen and I say “This is my gift to you.” To what would I be referring? Obviously, the pen. Jesus says the bread is his Body. Ok. Take him at his word. The bread is his Body. How? He does not say.

Are you inadvertently calling Our Lord a liar? When Jesus places something in his hands, whether it’s bread, or jello, or even a book and explicitly and unambiguously states, “This is my Body”, it doesn’t matter what He placed in His hands, what matter are “His words” as you repeatedly state. If Jesus says, “This is my Body”, but in reality is really bread, then Our Lord is a liar. To say that it is both, again, denies and contradicts God’s creative order.

 

[steido01]

You just said that God created us with logic and reason and senses that are to be used. When senses reason something to be the truth, but they conflict with God’s clear word – which of us is actually calling our Lord the liar?

Why try to explain what even God does not? Instead of putting words in his mouth, I’ll just trust as a child and take him at his word.

 

[AugustTherese]

Like dogmatic belief in Mary’s Perpetual Virginity, for example. It’s pious belief, sure. Most likely true, even. But necessary belief to be considered a true Christian? Too bad about all those Christians born prior to 1869, huh?

In addition to these we also anathematize the impious Epistle which Ibas is said to have written to Maris, the Persian, which denies that God the Word was incarnate of the holy Mother of God, and ever Virgin Mary, and accuses Cyril of holy memory, who taught the truth, as an heretic, and of the same sentiments with Apollinaris, and blames the first Synod of Ephesus as deposing Nestorius without examination and inquiry, and calls the Twelve Chapters of the holy Cyril impious, and contrary to the right faith, and defends Theodorus and Nestorius, and their impious dogmas and writings. We therefore anathematize the Three Chapters before-mentioned, that is, the impious Theodore of Mopsuestia, with his execrable writings, and those things which Theodoret impiously wrote, and the impious letter which is said to be of Ibas, and their defenders, and those who have written or do write in defense of them, or who dare to say that they are correct, and who have defended or attempt to defend their impiety with the names of the holy Fathers, or of the holy Council of Chalcedon. - Second Council of Constantinople, 553 AD

Would you like me to include the other Ecumenical Councils that promulgate Mary as “ever-virgin” before “1869”?

 

[AugustTherese]

Instead of putting words in his mouth

“This (bread) is my Body.”

The irony is nearly too much for me to handle.

 

[steido01]

Would you like me to include the other Ecumenical Councils that promulgate Mary as “ever-virgin” before “1869”?

No. I’m familiar with the Fathers, and I share the belief that Mary remained a virgin, as did the Lutheran reformers. Never once did I say that belief didn’t come from the early church.

What I did say, and what you’ve ignored, is that this was not ever a required belief of the church catholic for salvation. It was in 1869 when your pope declared Mary to be not only a virgin after Jesus was born (a pious belief with Scriptural support), but that she was definitely assumed into heaven (a pious belief with no Scriptural support) and that she was even without sin – elevating her to a position of ‘Redemptrix’ practically equal to Christ! (an offensive belief in clear defiance of Scripture!)

So tell me, again, with a straight face that your communion’s doctrine never changes.

 

[AugustTherese]

What I did say, and what you’ve ignored, is that this was not ever a required belief of the church catholic for salvation

Yes it was! If you are suggesting revealed core Dogmas are not required for salvation until a Ecumenical Council promulgates it publicly, then the first three centuries of Christians did not have to believe in the Dogma of the Trinity for salvation.

 

[JonNC]

Yes it was! If you are suggesting revealed core Dogmas are not required for salvation until a Ecumenical Council promulgates it publicly, then the first three centuries of Christians did not have to believe in the Dogma of the Trinity for salvation.

Which revealed core dogmas are currently not promulgated by an Ecumenical Council?

 

[JonNC]

steido01:

Instead of putting words in his mouth

“This (bread) is my Body.”

The irony is nearly too much for me to handle.

What then does the “this” refer to? Why did He not say, “here is my body?” The clear meaning of the words is that the "this " refers to what He held in His hands. In a series of pronouns referring to the bread.
Jesus took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to the disciples, and said, “Take, eat; this is my body.”

 

[JonNC]

Well, for one, you are not in full communion with the Holy See of Peter. You have explicitly declared your disdain for his “universal jurisdiction”. Just because you have love for a particular Pontiff or two does not negate your disinclination for the papal office.

Would I be honest with myself and the Church if I were in communion with the bishop of Rome if I didn’t believe what the Catholic church teaches about him? That would be antipathy!
I din’t even have a disinclination for the papal office, but only for the claim of universal jurisdiction.

 

[steido01]

And many Lutherans (and Anglicans, among others) wouldn’t even take issue with universal jurisdiction, so long as he’d admit he wielded it out of human necessity for good order and not by any divine right.

 

[AugustTherese]

The clear meaning of the words is that the "this " refers to what He held in His hands

Exactly, hence, “This IS my Body”. He held His Body in His hands.

“Christ held Himself in His hands when He gave His Body to His disciples saying: ‘This is My Body.’ No one partakes of this Flesh before he has adored it.” - Saint Augustine

 

[AugustTherese]

I din’t even have a disinclination for the papal office, but only for the claim of universal jurisdiction.

Papal supremacy is the papal office. To dichotomize and cherry-pick what you like and do not like about the papal office and to claim you do not “have a disinclination for the papal office” seems like a mixture of indifferentism and relativism.