Transubstantiation Questions

[Catholic_Mike]

First of all, I believe in the Real Presence. I was largely convinced by the article in the old Catholic Encyclopedia. I am up for reading more on the subject, but I have a couple particular questions.

#1 Does anyone know of any online resources that could explain the views of various denominations, and maybe the history of those views?

#2 I ran across this web page. dawningrealm.org/sacraments/views.html It has a few arguments against transubstantiation, and some of them are giving me pause. Can anyone here refute them? The first is the one concerning Christ’s words of institution - where he apparently describes the contents of the cup as ‘fruit of the vine’ after consecration. The second is the one concerning Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians… which seems like nitpicking over words, but… I dunno.

I’ve also kind of wondered why the words of consecration seem to differ a bit between the gospels. Maybe that’s more a question about the Bible and how accurate it is though?

 

[challenger]

#2: Robert Sungenis refutes the “Fruit of the vine” argument in “Not By Bread Alone”. I think a shorter refutation is also in his debate with FCFC: catholicintl.com/epologetics/dialogs/eucharist/fcfc-eucharist1.htm
As far as the words of consecration differing, the gospel writers recorded what they felt as necessary.

More on #2: This dude’s “real food/physical food” argument makes no sense. His idea that the literal interpretation of John 6:54 must be wrong because Catholicism does not give out the wine is silly- Communion under either kind is full reception (see the article “On the Eucharist” in my blog for what John 6:54 would mean if not literal.)

As far as Paul- it is bread, sure, as far as the accidents go. Would it have been better for Paul to say, “The Christ that we break- is it not a communion of the body of Christ?” Would that have made much sense to people?

 

[JustSomeGuy]

certainly, it is a big task to fully refute what you are referring to. to begin with, you should be careful not to allow the disputes of others to damage your faith in the truth. if other faithless people make some well thought out argument against some other dogma, will you throw that out too? can you prove the divinity of Christ? or do you live by that faith, acknowledging evidence that supports it? the same attitude must be maintained in the case of the Eucharist. even more so, because this gift of Christ Himself to you is more delicate than other more obvious truths. the Holy Trinity has kept this mystery more obscure precisely because it is the summit of faith. it is Communion. if it were easy and obvious, how would we consider it precious?. it is not mundane and it is God who has made it so. if we waver in faith because it is not simple, we are not only failing ourselves, but rejecting how the Trinity has exposed us to our own salvation.

when these people refute the Real Presence and write down arguments, we see only a symptom of the disease they have allowed to infect them. they don’t only reject the Eucharist. they reject and distort the entire economy of salvation. anyone who might give credence to these views must reject apostolic succession and apostolic teaching. they must reject the presence of the Holy Spirit in the world, who is the guardian of Truth. they’ve also distorted the purpose of scripture. don’t only focus on what they say, but to avoid the poison, stay focused on what kind of person one must be in order to say these things.

we would not know what might satisfy our cravings for God, were it not for our saintly brothers and sisters who came before us. those who perpetuate the heresies of sinners betray all who loved God enough to pass the Faith down to us through time. Luther, Calvin, et al. would have known nothing, and would have had nothing to reject and distort, had it not been for those who professed the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

scripture is not a tome of encoded, hidden messages. we cannot hope to find in it the nuanced explanations that developed over to time. these explanations developed in order to illuminate the very contents of scripture. ‘transubstantiation’ is a word that was invented and defined by the Christiandom. that was necessary because until the day of the Lord’s Supper, nothing like this existed in the experience of man. should we be surprised that the apostles didn’t even have a word for it? they called it the “breaking of the bread.” that didn’t say much, but it signified the reality. later, for greater clarity, “Eucharist” signified the same reality. and still later, the doctrine of “transubstantiation.” substance was understood. change was understood. but ‘change of subtance without the change of accidents’ needed to be explained. none of this would be necessary, if the apostles had not informed the faithful of the reality in the first place. in fact, none of it would have been possible. the reality is not created in these explanations.

the reading of scripture is informed by faith. the arguments you’ve referred to are informed by dissention. these people are reading scripture in order to find proof for denial. if you read scripture without that bias, you cannot draw the same inferrences.

Mt 26:27-29 can just as easily be read that it doesn’t even say Jesus drank from that cup. it doesn’t say that He drank his own blood. (why would he have to?) it doesn’t say that when He said “this fruit of the vine” that He was still holding that cup. if He meant that same cup and that same ‘wine’, why didn’t He say “that” instead of “this”. “this” is in both the english and the latin. it doesn’t say that He hadn’t picked up another cup. besides, what’s wrong with calling the Blood “wine” if both you and those, to whom you are speaking, know what it realy is. we could come up with any number of absurdities if we profane scripture by using this way. will we still do this in “remembrance” in the kingdom of heaven? when we are in the true living presence of the Risen Christ, will we still need Him in his veiled appearence? will Christ drink his own blood in heaven? Christ ascended into heaven 40 days after he rose. he is sitting there now drinking wine with the apostles? what other foolish entertainments and diversions can we invent just from these few verses?

continued…

 

[JustSomeGuy]

continued…

the stuff on that website about true food, real food, physical food, fake food, whatever, doesn’t even make logical sense, so i won’t waste much time with it. they want to say that the Catholic understanding of John 6 is incorrect, and they grab at straws to do it. what they say is stupid, but at least they admit that He’s talking about something, and that something is special. what they call “physical food” is what normal people would call ‘ordinary food’. if the Eucharist is not the Body and Blood of Christ, then is is it not “physical food” or ‘ordinary food’? what would it be then and still be special? symbolic food? it is “more real”? what? that doesn’t even make sense. that’s like saying, ‘well, it is changed. but not very much.’ if you start out by saying that the Eucharist isn’t Christ, then what they say might make sense, i guess. but i don’t know how.

that the apostle couldn’t make full sense of John 6 during the episode is obvious. the gospels testify that they came to understand the details of what Jesus said once the Holy Spirit came. John 6 doesn’t say they understood. it says that they didn’t leave. St. Peter is basically saying, ‘Lord, you could tells us winged monkeys are going to fly out of our but*s, and we’re still sticking with you.’ he’s not saying, ‘sure, Lord, that’s what we call “transubstantiation”. that’s when the substance of the matter…’ how silly is it to expect that? all of their arguments only reveal the predisposition to object. that’s all.

the point about receiving under only one species was dealt with definitively at the council of trent. but of course they already ignore that, so what’s the point? Christ is entirely present in either species. we could only distribute the Blood if we wanted. that’s just not how it developed. the historical reasons for that are many. they are saying that consuming both kinds of a symbol is more efficacious than consuming just one kind, but salvation is by faith alone. what?? “partake of real food (by faith)” what? do they speak english? do they listen to themselves?

in 1 Cor 10:16, the NAB uses “is it not a participation…” in the latin, it uses both “communicatio” and “participatio”. the latin is ‘partaking’ and ‘sharing’. in all cases, these are actions of the body, not just spiritual or mental assent. “partaking of what?” we ask St. Paul. the “Body” and “Blood” St. Paul says. so, they all called it bread. that means nothing. first of all it is not “bread”, just any bread, it is “the bread that we break”, particular bread. the same with the cup, it is “the cup of blessing”. so, the conclusion is that it is not Christ because Paul has bad diction, even though he signifies it in the terms used by everyone at the time. and he never said the “bread” "is" anything. “eat this bread and drink the cup” (1 Cor 11:26) and “eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord” (1 Cor 11:27) both signify something in particular. St. Paul definitely is not saying “bread, any bread” or “cup, any cup.” if we want to get picky, he doesn’t even say what has to be in the cup. does that mean that we could say that it doesn’t need to be wine? of course not. anyhow, this section is a lie about what scripture says. it only holds weight if you don’t take the time to read what scripture really says. i defy anyone to match their words with what really appears, and explain how scripture would make sense if St. Paul wrote ‘for as often as you eat what merely appears to be bread and drink what merely appears to be the cup…" what on earth would that mean? we’re proclaiming Jesus’ death if we’re eating something that looks like bread, but we’re not if it looks like chicken? whatever.

so, i hope that helps you out. i hope you can tell that i think their arguments are moronic. don’t waste your time. holy doubt is recognition before God that you don’t trust or understand. doubt leading to destruction is a tragedy that we need not inflict on ourselves. speak to Him about it. just because He looks like bread, doesn’t mean He’s not listening. the work of that website is the work of the devil. don’t get sucked into the darkness. go toward the Light.

be careful about how you make our Lord prove Himself to you. i have found that i don’t always like the methods He chooses in order to do it.

in Christ,

john

p.s. sorry, i guess i could have made that shorter.

 

[masterjedi747]

For many centuries, Roman Catholicism has been teaching the doctrine of transubstantiation, that the wine and bread of the Mass literally become the blood and body of Christ, so that they are no longer wine and bread.

Hey, they actually got something right for a change!

Further, the Roman Catholic Church cannot literally interpret John 6:53-54: “Most assuredly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you. Whoever eats My flesh and drinks My blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”

The Church doesn’t have to interpret it literally. It was literally written that way in the original Greek language. Christ’s word which we translate as “eat” actually meant something more like “chew” or “munch”, and the word for His “flesh” is literally translated as being something much closer to our present day word for “skin”. The Church doesn’t somehow make what Christ said literal. Christ meant it literally in the first place. Just as the Jews were instructed to eat the flesh of the Passover lamb, so Christ literally becomes the new Passover lamb of the New Covenant. It should also be noted that many of the people who heard Christ say this walked away. They knew that He was speaking about this literally, and didn’t understand how what He said could be possible. If Christ had not meant it literally, He would not have simply corrected their misunderstanding so that they would not leave. There are many other examples of Christ doing this in Scripture: the Samaratin Woman at the Well, and Nicodemus, to name a few.

Paul, followed by Augustine and others, referred to the bread as “bread,” even after it was consecrated. Consistently, he said the partakers ate bread, not that they ate what merely appears to be bread.

What else did you want them to call it? Christ did call Himself the Bread of Life. And today, we still refer to the Eucharist as the Bread of Life. But that doesn’t somehow mean that it isn’t really Jesus Christ. Church Tradition confirms all of this for us, anyway – this is exactly how it had always been understood and taught, directly from the Apostles themselves straight on through to us today. The Eucharist is Christ is the Bread of Life. All just different names for the exact same thing. I don’t see any big problems here.

 

[KennySe]

Peace be with you.

Here is a link to my “Essay on the Eucharist”.

Each “section” includes links to various articles and web sites on that particular section’s subject.
christianforums.com/t53175