Essentially then, what the Roman Catholics are saying is the the host (bread) and the wine are physical symbols of a spiritual reality.
Since the bread and the wine to not change in physical substance into literal flesh and literal blood, there can be no other option.
WHICH, of course, is a catch-22 for them.
Because Proddys say it’s essentially spiritual/symbolic.
So, their weasel words end up in the Proddy position in more ways than one. LOL.
No, that isn't what Catholics believe at all.
At the consecration, the bread and wine cease to exist.
What appears to be bread and wine are the glorified Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
There is no bread. There is no wine.
Those have ceased to exist.
What remains is the literal, physical Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ.
But this appears under the appearance (the accidents) of bread and wine.
If you object that you don't believe this, or it doesn't make sense to you, I understand. Only someone with the supernatural gift from God of Catholic faith can accept this truth (although anyone who claims to really understand it isn't saying something true - there's a reason why it's called a mystery).
sitetest
This slippery
schizophrenic ?position? [They don’t actually take a STABLE POSITION—more like a moving target]
regarding THE REAL PRESENCE.
Given all their pronouncements about Mary, one would think they’d morph her into the Soylent White Wafer wholesale.
I mean—she’s declared PART OF THE HYPOSTATIC UNION OF THE TRINITY. Being part of the Soylent White Wafer would be the tiniest of details beyond that.
Or, given all their pronouncements about THEIR EXCLUSIONIST LITTLE CLUB BEING THE EXLUSIVE BODY OF CHRIST . . . that they’d proudly proclaim SOYLENT WHITE WAFER and that Proddys had no part in the sufferings of Christ’s Broken Body nor in His Lord’s Supper and therefore could not DARE to construe themselves as sharing anything, any part in the Soylent White Wafer . . . which they sort of do and sort of don’t.
However, given their puffed up outrage and prissy pronouncements about it all . . . MAYBE, JUST MAYBE they can get some hint at HOW OFFENSIVE ALL THEIR MARY MANGLING HERETICAL BLASPHEMOUS, IDOLATROUS HOGWASH IS TO PRODDYS.
That is absolutely NOT what Catholics understand to be true.
Since the bread and the wine to not change in physical substance into literal flesh and literal blood, there can be no other option.
Do you believed that God is some how restricted to the confines of what you are able to perceive? No doubt there were a great many people in Jerusalem a couple thousand years ago saying, "Jesus of Nazareth can't possibly be God, He looks just like everyone else."
It fallacious to believe that a change must be immediately visible to the naked eye to be real.
I've posted this several times before, but I will post it again because it is important. Ignatius of Antioch was an Apostolic Father, a student of Saint John, probably Saint Peter and possibly the child in Matthew 18:2. As a prisoner awaiting martyrdom he wrote several epistles; though the validity of some of these epistles is very questionable, the one I am quoting from has NEVER been disputed. You should note that the FIRST attribute he cites of heretics is their denial of the Real Presence and he wrote this no later than 108 AD.
The Epistle of Ignatius to the Smyrnæans
Chapter VII — Let us stand aloof from such hereticsThey abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils.
They are ashamed of the cross; they mock at the passion; they make a jest of the resurrection. They are the offspring of that spirit who is the author of all evil, who led Adam by means of his wife, to transgress the commandment, who slew Abel by the hands of Cain, who fought against Job, who was the accuser of Joshua the son of Josedech, who sought to “sift the faith” of the apostles, who stirred up the multitude of the Jews against the Lord, who also now “worketh in the children of disobedience; from whom the Lord Jesus Christ will deliver us, who prayed that the faith of the apostles might not fail, not because He was not able of Himself to preserve it, but because He rejoiced in the pre-eminence of the Father. It is fitting, therefore, that ye should keep aloof from such persons, and neither in private nor in public to talk with them; but to give heed to the law, and the prophets, and to those who have preached to you the word of salvation. But flee from all abominable heresies, and those that cause schisms, as the beginning of evils.
So, let’s get this straight — you agree to the idea of discombobulated demons posing as zombie aliens who are actually bio-engineered robots and you think that the idea of transubstantiation is strange?
Exactly. Which is completely backwards.
It's almost as if Rome intended to parody Christianity and so concocted all the doctrines of men Rome teaches.
Thank God for His perfect word which reveals the truth.
Look, if you want to BEGIN to gt one corner of a clue about "Real Presence" you can start by grasping what "Realism" is. And one thing "Realism" is NOT is materialism.
Here's the problem: There are lots of different kinds of sheep. And each individual ewe or ram is unique. But there is SOMETHING they share, or we wouldn't call them sheep. Also, we say, this sheep is a better than that one. It seems there is something which is not an instance or example of sheep by which we determine that this sheep is better than that one.
I judged a show once. I had to assess varieties of sheep and their excellences, and then I had to declare a 'best in show."
I could do this because I had an "idea" of a sheep. This is more than a "picture". I looked at the sheep, I felt them. I watched them move, I checked their hooves, smelled their breath -- all kinds of stuff.
None of the sheep were perfectly good exemplars either of "sheep" or of "Suffolk" "Churro" "Columbia" "Karakul". But there are all those "ideas" which I understood, if not well, at least well enough to be asked to judge.
PLEASE notice that an idea does not exist in my head. That is it's not, as I am using the term, possible for it to be "my idea." I am distinguishing between MY UNDERSTANDING and THE IDEA
So, now we can get going: Realism teaches that "ideas" are, um "real." That is, what some might call "the idea" of, say, triangularity is real and can be thought about without having to think about the examples or instances of triangularity. "Twoness" exists in a different way from any actual pairs of things. We can learn about arithmetic and numbers without having to use pairs of things, but only symbols.
I am using "idea" in this, though the term "form" is probably more usual. But I think for materialists, "form" is a confusing term.
Almost anything that is in a class of things, is in the class because it has a "idea" (NOT an 'appearance', a "idea" can be entirely without appearance THOUGH it is normally encountered at first through its instantiations.)
There is a "idea" therefore of animals, of sheep, of Lincoln Longwool Sheep. We can meaningfully speak of any of those classes.
There is a idea of humans, and a idea of each individual human. When the idea and the human body are separated, except by the grace of God, the human dies and you are not looking at a human, but merely at a human body.
In any event, the ideas exist in the mind of God, AND are manifested in members or instantiations of their class, and are perceived by the human mind. Because they exist in the mind of God, they are REAL.
A substance is an instantiation of a idea. Substance is NOT the equivalent of "material" -- at least not until the "enlightenment" when philosophy started getting incoherent.
A substance, the union of matter with its specifying "idea", is the what-it-isness of a thing -- its "quiddity". We are made of pretty much the same "material" as a sheep, but we are humans NOT JUST because that material is organized in a different way, but because we think and choose and do things which are in themselves esssentially immaterial.
Just as my understanding of the "idea" of sheep is imperfect, so my understanding of the "idea" of Jesus Christ is imperfect. But I can say that when that idea is instantiated, that is when it is "joined" to matter (whether "spiritual" or "natural" matter), I have before me Jesus Christ -- who, incidentally, does not come in pieces, because He is God and God has no parts.
So it is the "whatness" of Jesus with which God graciously replaces the "whatness" of the bread and the wine. In the normal case, without a further miracle, that's all that's done. (But it's a big 'all')
Most importantly, in the normal case the "accidents" (smell, taste, ability to make one drunk or fat, ability to trigger allergic reaction, and so forth) usually remain.
Almost done. We hold that, as "ideas" are real, so this change is real. It is true whether or not it is believed, whether or not it is perceived.
Quix, you asked for Realism 101. You got it. I'll send you a bill.