Likewise! It has been a very educational experience.That reminds me…Lyrikal, thank you for taking the time to make thoughtful responses on this thread. Those posts forced me to think, learn and frame my argument more clearly…though apparently, I too have left many second guessing as to what I meant
Quickly but I thought the decrees of the Council of Trent 1585 specifically said the elements are NOT “symbols” and anathema to anyone who says so .Again just a quick thought. Otherwise, I understood your thoughts.Thanks
see what I mean Lyrikal?..it just can’t be accepted - it has to be contested yes, that would be a claim and not an argument…if I say that the USA has a bigger population than Canada…it is a claim (that can be validated by stats)…it isn’t an argument…sheeesh!
to clarify for CopticChristian, b/c he just didn’t seem to be able to grasp how I could say that a majority didn’t accept a RBP.
That reminds me…Lyrikal, thank you for taking the time to make thoughtful responses on this thread. Those posts forced me to think, learn and frame my argument more clearly…though apparently, I too have left many second guessing as to what I meant
You lack the ability to infer. You do not read minds. You believe that I asked you that question to cause me to grasp your proposal. I asked you a question and the answer you provided exposed your faulty logic.
:thumbsup:
If we look at it as merely a sign and only a sign and symbol of the Body and Blood of Christ, then that’s where the Anathema holds true. But if we look at a both/and concept of the matter, then there is no problem there. I don’t think there is a Christian who would deny that the Bread and Wine is a sign of the memorial and what Christ did for us on the cross.
I see this misunderstanding among non catholics common place (especially among Mormons); bread and wine before the consecration are symbols, after the consecration these signs become the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ real presence sacramentally.
Huh!
So you are saying that the ECFs after the first 100 years viewed the Eucharist as the Real Body and Blood of Christ but those in the 1st 100 years did not? So you are saying that corruption of the doctrine occured as early as the 2nd Century.That, my dear I have shown on another thread as supremely untenable a proposition as can be.
David cannot and will not produce an ounce of evidence because none exist supporting his position of symbolic eucharist the first 100 years. His position is based on pure speculation,conjecture and biased views based on a novel position:symbolic eucharist.Huh!
Hmmm, you’ve got a lot of proving to do.
We await.
What about the Didache? Does it speak of the RP in relation to the eucharist? Does it even discuss the “sacrifice of the mass” as held by the CC today? Just a question…but the Didache was the first early document outside the NT which explained the eucharist…and it did so with no hint of “re-presenting” the sacrifice of Christ…nor did it indicate the bread and wine were His blood and body.
Unfortunately the Didache does not give us a detailed theological understanding of it nor does it discuss the Liturgy.However,it does not rebuke the RP or the understanding of the RP. The problem with many opponents of the RP and other doctrines is their failure to understand doctrinal development. Many have the belief everything was all layed out explicitly,which is absolutely false. Precisely why Jesus says in the Gospel of John the Holy Spirit will guide into ALL truth,not instantly. We are talking about an infinite God dealing with his finite creatures.
I stopped responding to David however I will say that I would have a difficult time taking everything I believe, everything that has provided me solace, everything that I believe has been my link to my God and realizing that I may be wrong. That is a big deal. I will say that in reviewing and listening to the coming home network and Protestants that become Catholic John 6:51 is the passage cited as more often than not that they glossed over, had to read many times and finally had to conclude that it meant what it said. It is like hearing them say they were tired of fighting and just gave up. David is putting up a good fight. He is not the first nor will he be the last.
It’s his methods that are severely deficient that he is using to support his rationalizations. He seeks to infer that such a science as theology, and the objects that are to be believed, must be quantifiable in order to determine their truthfulness.So by your reasoning the number of people that believe that Jesus was God/man is relevant to something.
Thank you for showing me your fallible teaching.
There’s a difference, as someone pointed out earlier, between saying “I am the door” and “This door is me”.
For the bread to be now, how is it that it has to be figurative?
Indeed. Not to get off topic, but Alister McGrath, a Protestant scholar, acknowledges that this notion of justification was unheard of before the Reformation. It’s ironic to see Protestants here refuse to accept Catholic doctrinal developments as not in line with what Christ and his apostles taught when one of their fundamental principles was invented by one fallible man, Martin Luther.
Haha, this certainly reveals an American cultural bias against authority. And it doesn’t line up with Ignatius of Antioch in his epistle to the Ephesians:
Do you have any evidence that confession of serious sins to other Christians was optional in the Early Church, and that going to God directly for the forgiveness of such sins was ever taught? Methinks you’re reading your presuppositions into history.
Why is that? What evidence do we have that this was the way Christ wanted things to be?
This surely isn’t optimal, and can’t change until we have everyone read the history books and see the Early Church wasn’t invisible and anti-sacramental.
What do you mean?
The question remains: if Christ set up a visible church, shouldn’t we do our utmost to find it and start catechetical classes as soon as possible?
Exactly! Likewise,at the Passover meals,did Jews eat an actual tangent lamb or a “symbolic” cut-out of a lamb?
So, what do you think St. Augustine was in today’s terms?
This is getting tedious. Others are already debating the question of what St. Augustine meant. Let’s leave them to it
Indeed. Some have argued that Christ was both divine and human; others have argued that he was only divine; and still others have argued that he was only human. Appealing to subjectivity isn’t going to settle this
But the “both/and” approach represents the Judeo-Christian view, while the “either/or” constitutes the Protestant, and worldly, view. As I’ve read, Passover–when the Eucharist was instituted–was not simply a commemoration of a past event, but in fact a bringing forward of a long-ago episode into the present. Christ’s statement about coming to fulfill and not to abolish the law is apropos here.
For people who wish to continue denying something difficult to understand. Yahweh appeared in a burning bush to Moses, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove at Jesus’ baptism. Why not use bread and wine for a similar end?
Interpreting John 6 literally isn’t complicating things unnecessarily. It’s taking the text at face value. Nowhere does the Bible emphasize crying or calling out to the Lord like Christ does the essential character of eating his body and drinking his blood.
How do you know this?
Peter and the other apostles didn’t know what Jesus meant; no matter how much they struggled with his bizarre statements, they knew he was the Messiah, so couldn’t abandon the Son of God in good conscience.
Hyperbole was at play.
Even if Huss, Wycliffe, and their comrades, a century or two earlier, advocated the same doctrines as the leaders of the “Reformation”, this is still nowhere near the earliest centuries of Christianity. If evangelical Protestantism restores the faith to its pristine form, how can it be that the ostensible forerunners of Zwingli lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, not the second or third?
What I originally meant was that Luther departed from all those who had lived before him in two key respects: justification and authority. But now that we’re looking at this topic, it bears mentioning that Luther actually areasfifty from orthodox Catholicism before he was excommunicated in 1520:
Now if that is not one crazy Augustinian Monk German priest and professor of theology who initiated the Protestant Reformation. If my priest said even a few of those things I would think he was wacko.Hyperbole was at play.
Even if Huss, Wycliffe, and their comrades, a century or two earlier, advocated the same doctrines as the leaders of the “Reformation”, this is still nowhere near the earliest centuries of Christianity. If evangelical Protestantism restores the faith to its pristine form, how can it be that the ostensible forerunners of Zwingli lived in the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries, not the second or third?
What I originally meant was that Luther departed from all those who had lived before him in two key respects: justification and authority. But now that we’re looking at this topic, it bears mentioning that Luther actually dissented in fifty areas from orthodox Catholicism before he was excommunicated in 1520:
Sure. The trinity and deity of Christ, for example. But why have eighty percent of the truth when you can have more?
When did the Catholic Church “NOT say they had Scripture on their side”?
The link where I got those statements of Luther had a lot more damning material. This was an (ostensibly) well-educated priest and monk who should have realized that opposing the historical faith was just a bad idea, but he didn’t care. And, of course, we can thank Luther for laying the groundwork for the Jehovah’s Witnesses and Mormons. They also claim the Christian faith became corrupted at some point and their fallible, self-appointed prophet–whether Charles Taze Russell or Joseph Smith–is made out to be God’s man chosen to save the day. Even though we have no evidence that Christianity did go south or one of these prophets was in fact God’s instrument for restoring it, millions have fallen for their preposterous assertions to meriting our obedience.
I’m still considering both Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy, so I will decline to comment.
Not all, but many; see above.
But the Church didn’t officially endorse the sale of indulgences. Corruption in the Church doesn’t mean the whole thing should be thrown overboard. And Luther didn’t get himself in trouble for merely opposing the sale of indulgences anyway.
No, but Christ wasn’t a pacifist. He accepted the Old Testament as divinely inspired–even though it called for the death penalty as punishment for a number of crimes.
Are you conceding the ahistorical character of Protestantism?
But if throughout history Christians viewed the Church as infallible, whether just the councils or also the popes, why should we modify that paradigm? We might as well throw out the Bible: it has some seeming contradictions and discrepancies too, but that doesn’t prevent us from accepting it as divinely inspired.
Part of the problem is that there isn’t a huge amount of extrabiblical material up to 130 A.D. for us to consider; based on my reading, we seem to have much more from the fourth century.
But you’re assuming sola scriptura here–which is itself not taught by the Bible, ironically enough.
And this should give Protestants pause.
This is why the sparsity of writings from that time period is so lamentable.
Not “from cover to cover”.
But the story illustrates the importance of Scripture as well as an external teaching authority. And you’re assuming sola scriptura again, which will prejudice an individual to reach Protestant conclusions–“The Early Church Fathers believed in infant baptism, but it [purportedly] violates Scripture, so their opinions don’t count.”
Where does the Bible instruct us to take Luther’s approach: “If you can’t convince me, this means you’re wrong”?
Do you have any evidence for this?
Sola fide and sola scriptura can be argued against from the Bible alone with great success.
Where did you read this?
St. Paul would tell us to follow the bishops, priests, and deacons who are the successors to the clergy he appointed, rather than to pay heed to the ideas of Luther, Calvin, Zwingli, and their ilk, propounded long after the first century.