1st “I assert the real presence …] that assertion of the omnipresence …] impels me to deny His physical presence” - illogical: the denial is not necessitated by omnipresence, since omnipresence is not obliged to be uniform
"Christ Himself insists against any view of a merely `local presence’ " - tendentiously misapplies the text, which has nothing to do with the Eucharist
2nd through 10th - irrelevant: does not refer to the sacrament of the Eucharist as practised in Christian churches
11th - irrelevant, but ironically amusing from a professor in church history, since
Imperial Rome did charge Christians with cannibalism
12th - not actually an argument of any kind, just a denial
13th - illogical: presumes that Christ could not both be whole in Himself and in the elements which he presented to the disciples, an insecure presumption regarding someone capable of walking on water and raising the dead
14th - illogical and presumptive: makes a claim for something wholly undemonstrated
15th through 25th - irrelevant: argument from silence, but the fact that someone fails to mention something tells us nothing about their view of it
26th -
actually a valid point!, albeit not particularly relevant: Justin Martyr also believed in Annihilationism; just because one Church Father believed an idea does not make that idea The Belief Of The Church
27th - irrelevant: argument from silence, again
28th - see 11th, above
29th - irrelevant and nonsensical
30th - self-contradictory, and irrelevant on later terminology
31st - irrelevant: argument from silence, again
32nd - irrelevant: Tertullian is speaking typologically, not empirically
33rd through 35th - only actually one point, it all being one passage
36th - irrelevant: does not refer to the sacrament of the Eucharist as practised in Christian churches
37th - irrelevant: implicitly claims the non-existence of the belief on the basis that this is the earliest
articulation of it
which he could find; by the same argument, the Trinity would not be a Christian doctrine, because it had not yet been formally articulated as such
38th - irrelevant: argument from silence, again
39th - irrelevant: discusses the mixing of water with wine, rather than having wine undiluted
40th and 41st - actually **contradict **his claims: Cyprian conflates “wine” with “blood”
42nd - irrelevant: typology with a different tenor (i.e. on a different topic)
43rd - actually
contradicts his claims: saying that the words have effect
is an assertion of
ex opere operato
44th - irrelevant: argument from silence, again
45th - irrelevant: discussing the divinity of Christ, not the material of the elements of the sacrament
46th - irrelevant: argument from silence, again; misreads Eusebius, since a συμβολον is not just an reference, but a guarantee of the thing itself
47th - irrelevant, and the comment from Augustine actually **contradicts **his argument: “to receive in faith the gift of his Eucharist is to receive the Lord himself.” - Catechism of the Catholic Church,
1336
48th - undemonstrated claim that transubstantiation had never been accepted anywhere else, and illogical claim (given Roman Catholic traditionalism) that it did not predate the 4th Lateran
49th - irrelevant: Catholics are allowed to think for themselves, and them doing so is not the same as Church doctrine being changed
50th and 51st - Calvin!?! citing a Protestant reformer as an argument against Catholic doctrine!!!
uch: That’s like citing Mao Ze Dong as an argument against democracy! argument from authority, and not even from a good one!
52nd through 54th - the WCF! after Calvin, it’s not so much of a surprise, but is just as daft: an oppositional party’s views are irrelevant
55th - irrelevant
Summary:
- depends heavily upon argument from silence (“They did not mention it; therefore, they did not believe it!”), which is a logical error;
- presumes that a Church Father teaching something in one way meant that the same Church Father could not teach or believe that thing to work in another way, which is a remarkably amateurish mistake for a professor of Christian history;
- fails to understand that the lack of articulation of a belief is no evidence of its non-existence, another remarkably amateurish mistake for a professor of Christian history;
- conflates “worshipping in Spirit and Truth” with a claim against transubtantiation, despite a complete lack of demonstration of this;
- conflates own position, and position of people on same side, with evidence for belief;
- tendentiously uses passages on entirely unrelated topics as “proof”;
- inflates numbers by claiming multiple excerpts from a single writer as separate points.
To be frank, I am not impressed, and
I don’t even believe in transubstantiation. I mean it
might happen; how on earth could I know? But this guy’s arguments are no reason whatsoever to disbelieve it.
It is my understanding that the Holy Spirit spoke through the prophets and that God the Father sometimes spoke directly (public revelations), but neither the Son nor the Holy Spirit were known.