Are not episcopalians in union or affiliated somehow with the Church of England? And correct me if I am wrong, doesn’t the CofE believe in the literal Real Presence? If yes, then episcopalians do too?I wish I had an answer for you. No doubt some in the Episcopal church may still believe in the somatic real presence in the Eucharist. I, like Calvin, believe that spiritual presence is in the Eucharist but not the body (and blood). This seems very reasonable to me.
These posts are very enlightening to me, a Protestant.
LCMS believe in the Real Presence
Incidental? Is that another word for goofy?
Thanks, but I don’t need to see more of the standard “copy and paste” efforts from internet Catholics. I don’t doubt that you actually believe that Augustine held to a real somatic presence [RSP]. I also strongly suspect that you need to be able to say that Augustine held to a RSP. After all, he is designated as a Doctor of the CC and so it would be more than embarassing, it would be absolutely unacceptable, if he didn’t believe in a RSP. The OPster wanted to know how Protestants could switch to a symbolic view. Part of the answer lies in what can be found in the ECFs. The Tradition isn’t nearly as strong/rock solid as you seem to think. A monolithic view around a RSP isn’t found in the early centuries (unless that is exactly what you need to find). As such, when certain Christians asked themselves whether the claimed RSP was the legitimate work of God or was mere superstition, it wasn’t as if the testimony of the ECFs could only be understood to demonstrate an always held, universal understanding of a RSP. In fact, it was very easy to find diversity and to find views that did not involve a RSP. That brings me back to Augustine. You produce a link with a few snippets of his work and think that you have demonstrated something with respect to Augustine’s beliefs about the Eucharist. In contrast, I have looked at the works of reputable historians who have devoted years to studying Augustine’s life and have actually read his sermons on the Eucharist in full. Those historians have come to the conclusion that Augustine’s view of the Eucharist did not involve a RSP. Why should I give your snippets a second glance? Ironically, Sermons 227 and 272 (the source of two of the snippets) are used by the copy and paste crew (that wants to show that Augustine was a RSP believer) and by the reputable historians (to show that Augustine actually believed in something other than an RSP). If you are so inclined, I would invite you to start a new thread, post the full texts of the two sermons and I will be happy to explain why I think you are dead wrong about Augustine’s view (as evidenced by those sermons).
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First, John 6 isn’t an introduction of the Eucharist. Second, it wasn’t a crisis for Christ. The text makes it very clear that Christ didn’t lose anyone that day or drive any one away that day who had been given to him by the Father (v. 37-39). The text is also clear that he was at ease with the fact that some would leave (v. 61-65).
yep…that and b/c they weren’t drawn by the Father (v. 65)
these claims are w/o any support from the text
they left, because they understood Jesus perfectly well. you are the one who has misunderstood. the Church has always taught the same thing as to the meaning of John 6, and it was not until the reformation that this changed. the Apostles taught the real presence, the ECF taught the real presence, and we still teach the true presence, and what Jesus truly meant in John 6. it is the majority of protestantism is misguided. if they were not drawn by the Father, they never would have been there in the first place.
“Still” isn’t the appropriate word, since the “somatic real presence” was generally not believed by Anglicans between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, and is now once again believed by many of us.
Indeed. In the sense you are using the word, I’m not sure that many Christian doctrines are “reasonable” without serious dilution. I think that Catholic apologists have a point when they argue that the dilution of sacramental theology was the “canary in the coal mine” prefiguring a broader movement toward explaining away the paradoxical and apparently “unreasonable” teachings of orthodox Christianity.
We are in union with the Church of England, although we are presently on what might be called probationary status owing to the issue of homosexual bishops.Are not episcopalians in union or affiliated somehow with the Church of England? And correct me if I am wrong, doesn’t the CofE believe in the literal Real Presence? If yes, then episcopalians do too?
Actually, I am not sure what he did after leaving the priesthood. Dad never told me. But I think you are right, he definitely didn’t join an EvangelicalChurch. Probably he became an Agnostic.
Yes, there is the Magesterium. But what is it good for if none listens to it? Believe me, I have realised that very often here in Austria!
I can understand the loss of the Mainline Churches quite well. I would also not want to attend a Church where you can believe nearly anything. I hope you understand what I mean.
Actually, I see no problem there. Evangelicals and Reformed, although thinking of the Eucharist as symbolic, are good Christians who love their Lord Christ Jesus and worship Him and read His word and do their best to live according to His commandments - better than some Catholics I know!
I am sort of an Anabaptist! (Although I think there is no real equivalent to the Church I am attending – except maybe pietistic Evangelicals. – Do they believe in credo baptism only? I don’t know.)
Yes, but as long as the groups that stopped don’t stop to exist there will always be “real Christians”.
I hope this never happens! But that was my point in my last post. Glad we can agree on that!
But, IMO, the one thing has nothing to do with the other.
When the Eucharist is removed from a Christian’s life, they are forever trying to find something to replace it with.
Yes, but this also leads us into the whole “the Early Church Fathers never expounded Transubstantiation” either argument.
It is a valid argument…as long as it isn’t centered on the failure to use that exact term and as long as it is presented as ** not all** the ECFs expounded a concept that is consistent with transubstantiation
agreed
and that is not what I am claiming.
I am not sure what you mean by this claim. Christ was physically present at the cross and was actually crucified. It is an odd use of words to say that Christ was “unified in and to” his death by crucifixion. It seems to me one can simply say that he died by crucifixion b/c that is what actually happened to him. Does the Church undergo crucifixion when it is offered up? Does the Church undergo death in the “Act”? Christ’s “Act” at Calvary is a different “Act” from what the Church undergoes at the Lord’s Supper.
I would go further and say that Augustine saw the “offering herself up” as contributing greatly to that unity
Supernatural and mystical yes, but entirely within the realm of the spiritual. There is nothing that touches the realm of a somatic real presence. A “real spiritual presence” can be seen in Augustine, but not a “real bodily presence”.
Well thanks, nothing completes the day like a good ol’ beseechin’…though do you really think that there was something there that ought to be marveled?
well, utilizing that approach I guess we should ask, what barrier is there to Augustine believing that God has transformed every atom in the entire universe for all of eternity into that which is perfectly and most pleasing to Him, namely, His Son? The “barrier” in the case of your question would be the absence of such a claim in Augustine’s works…at least that is the learned opinion of the experts that I quoted.
Actually, the “Host” maintains its material qualities…it starts out as bread and wine and is (materially) still bread and wine at the end. That “material” consistency should be obvious to all. No “remoulding” can be seen, which is exactly why transubstantiation must be offered as an explanation…it allows you the claim that a physical thing (Christ’s body) is really present w/o being physically present. Sounds like a square circle to me.
Right. The community of saints (aka the body of Christ by way of metaphor and not the actual body of Christ) is the thing that is offered.
Yep, and that is another concept that is absent from the earliest Church. According to Bradshaw (In Search for the Origins…p.201) before “the beginning of the third century no Christian text uses the title “priest”…directly to designate a particular individual or group of ministers within the Church.”
I think such is “obvious” only to those who desperately need to find some hint of a belief in a real somatic presence in Augustine’s works. For the rest of us, it isn’t merely that such isn’t obvious, it is that you are forcing a foreign concept into his works.
Yep, and to quote Wills (quoting van der Meer), in “all of Augustine’s hundreds of sermons delivered at the eucharistic meal, ‘he does not speak of a real presence’ in the bread and wine.” (Papal Sins p. 143) Word after word after word was written by Augustine, and yet the scholars (that I quoted) don’t find evidence of a belief in a somatic real presence. Is there any wonder as to why certain Protestants could feel justified in using Augustine to argue against a real somatic presence?
Oh, they may not be supported by the text but you must remember what the bible said we as Catholic’s also have tradition. And Tradition proves what I have said.
“That God may be all in all.”
Dear Radical,
But this is enitrely untenable. You must earn your namesake here and radically divorce Christ from His Body and imagine the two are entirely seperate and distinct. Christ, with His Body, gave salvation to all mankind, and redeemed us. It is exactly because he had a real and human body that permitted this, i.e., His Sacrifice rendering our redemption. The Apostle does not provide us with a metaphor, but a clear and obvious definition, he says the Church is the Body of Christ, and we are the members of that Body. One must go to extremes to translate the Apostle’s clear definition of the Church as the Body of Christ to make it mean something entirely different. To say that the ECF’s believed we offered up the Church, but not the Body of Christ, is to imagine they defined these two things as being two entirely seperate, unrelated and distinct entities.
I was demonstrating how the idea was clearly already present in this Bishop’s work. I did not say that it was encapsulated as in a doctrine, but that the necessary and prerequisite idea is clearly seen in St. Augustine’s beliefs on sacrifice,