Every single possible test that one could have applied to Jesus Christ would have told us that he was a human person. But he was not a human person, he was God. So by your logic, if you will deny the Real Presence then you will also deny the Incarnation.
Emeraldisle, if you really want to know the reasoning behind transubstantiation, please know that it exists. It entails getting what Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas mean by the words “substance” , “accident”, “being and becoming.” Their explanation of reality is part of how the Catholic Church thinks about “Transubstantiation.” I will not attempt any of these explanations here, as that would derail the conversation.
Why did Jesus have to challenge the faith of his disciples by appearing as a man?
He doesn’t. As a Catholic you should know this.
He also said we are branches and sheep, and we know that these are not literally true. But he said nothing about human beings that was not literally true when he spoke of the need to eat his flesh and drink his blood. So your argument actualy argues for a literal interpretation in that case, not against it.
It was granted to the apostles at the Last Supper, and by the apostles to all whom they gave the authority, and so on down to today.
well said.
Do you claim that the flesh of Jesus Christ profits nothing? A simple YES or NO, please.
The decision over which books to include in the Bible was ALSO a creation of the Catholic Church. Using the teachings of the early church, handed down by tradition, they were able to determine which books belonged and which did not (along with the aid of the Holy Spirit, of course). Without those “Catholic” traditions, you could be a Gnostic, Docetist, or Arian right now…
Well, that seems all well and good, but the problem is that **absolutely no one believed that **until around 1500 AD. Are you saying that 3/4 of Christianity has been a complete lie? Let me pose two questions:
I certainly do believe the words that the Lord Jesus actually said, and as I mentioned, I interpret that to SUPPORT transubstantiation. Obviously, either you or I, or neither of us, is right about our interpretation. We cannot both be right. What makes your interpretation better than mine? At best we are at a standstill, using sola scriptura; in fact, we are at 33,000 standstills. 33,000 conflicting views of the truth? Not everyone can be right. Not everyone can be teaching what Christ taught. How can we be sure that what we are teaching is what Christ taught? Only if we have been given authority by Christ to teach exactly what he taught. This is apostolic succession; this is what Christ intended.
According to the reasoning that says it looks like bread, it tastes like bread, it is bread but it’s not bread it’s the Lord Jesus’ flesh one could equally say that Christians look and act like humans and are human but they are really sheep, branches and have a literal spring of water welling up in them. Anything is possible in the “transubstantiation” reasoning!
EXACTLY! We see the inconsistent and tell tale irrational “teaching of man” in the lack of symmetry from those Protestants who can easily accept the miracle of the Incarnation but utterly reject an extension of the same principal in the transubstantiation. I have said it many times - one MUST go well out of their way to not believe in real presence. Symbolic presence simply can not be read into scripture by natural and ordinary use of the reasoning facilities. To reject real presence one must simultaneously take secondary and tertiary interpretations of one portion of scripture while completely refusing to admit literal evidence in other parts of scripture AND one must also ignore all the many OT prefigurements (e.g. manna from heaven, pascal lamb etc.) as well as the prefigurements of the miracles leading up to the last supper (eg. the multiplication of the loafs etc.).
You are confused, I’m stating the biblical fact that the bread isn’t the Lord Jesus’ flesh and that the Lord Jesus is speaking in spiritual terms.
So you are asking me a question and then you are telling me how to answer the question.
Where is your evidence for your absolute statement that until around 1500 AD absolutely no one believed that the bread was in fact bread and not the flesh of the Lord Jesus?
Could you please address the issue of the thread and stop making personal attacks against me.All I can say is pray for someone like emeraldisle. When the answer is presented to this person they twist words and focus on minutiae instead of the answer in front of their face. He/she wants people to adopt the man-made tradition of Sola Scriptura to try to answer his/her question. I hope he/she comes here to have a discussion instead of trying to just argue.
Personal attacks are not Christ-like.
There you go again, this thread is not about me it’s about **“Transubstantiation” **. Please comment about this and not me.I did not make a personal attack on any level. I stated what you were doing, how you were presenting your arguments, and how you are focusing on minutiae. I made a statement about your actions! I do not even know you but I see the content in your responses and anyone can see that. Nice try on twisting it again. God Bless You and I will say another prayer!
I have already provided massive evidence for you. It is clear that the Biblical passage in question is most generally taken literally (as the percentages of Christians that believe it that I posted attest to), but that many Protestants read it symbolically. As much as you try to argue with us that your interpretation is correct, the fact that we firmly believe in a different one proves beyond any shadow of a doubt that the interpretation CAN INDEED be called into question. This means that one or the other has to be right. I have cited EIGHT CENTURIES of some of the most important figures in all of Christian history supporting the idea of the Real Presence. Even MARTIN LUTHER believed in it (albeit in a different form). Is it really so hard for you to provide evidence from HISTORY that anyone believed in the symbolic nature of Communion before 1500? If it is so obvious, then clearly there should be a tremendous number of people from the early church who support that position. As you can see, a Biblical interpretation alone doesn’t work in this case, since it is clear that the Bible alone is not sufficient to interpret which way it was meant. (Much like the Trinity, which was only finally settled at the Council of Nicea in 325 AD).