CREDO QUIA ABSURDUM - I believe because it is absurd (or impossible). A phrase attributed (maybe falsely) to Tertullian (160-220), by which is meant that a Christian believer is not scandalized at the apparent absurdity or impossibility of such revealed mysteries as the Incarnation, that God became man, or the Real Presence, that Christ is truly present under the Eucharist species.
Why is one miracle less likely than another?
” I believe because it is absurd (or impossible). A phrase attributed (maybe falsely) to Tertullian (160-220), by which is meant that a Christian believer is not scandalized at the apparent absurdity or impossibility of such revealed mysteries as the Incarnation, that God became man, or the Real Presence, that Christ is truly present under the Eucharist species.”
Lots of people believe in the real presence of Christ during the Lord’s Supper. Not too many people believe in Roman Catholic transubstantiation though. The question is, did Tertullian believe that the bread and wine was literally transformed into the body and blood of Christ?
“He says, it is true, “that the flesh profits nothing;” John 6:63 but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, “It is the spirit that quickens;” and then added, “The flesh profits nothing,”— meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In a like sense He had previously said: “He that hears my words, and believes in Him that sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.” John 5:24 Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, “the Word had become flesh,” John 1:14 we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.” (Tertullian, On the Resurrection of the Flesh, Chapter 37. “Christ’s Assertion About the Unprofitableness of the Flesh Explained Consistently with Our Doctrine.”)
Unless you believe Christ was really eating and drinking His own body, and was lying when He called the cup, after the prayer, “the fruit of the vine,” then we’re forced to side with Tertullian against transubstantiation.
I’m sorry, Mike, but if one need ask this.....
One must be filled with the Holy Spirit to understand the things of God. Only then can one receive God’s mind and wisdom and discernment, thru His Spirit, to understand these things.
Until then, questions like these are asked again and again.
Thanks for the English btw. I do appreciate it.