Posted on 08/24/2014 3:18:46 AM PDT by markomalley
So; given that neither of us is going to convince the other of the 'correctness' of which to believe; let's switch to the presumed CONSEQUENCES of believing one over the over; if there is any.
They’ll just switch to overtone singing.
Do you hold Luther's doctrine of "sola scriptura" to the same standard? Because...
It's not in the Bible.
And i think Augustine seems to have said things that supported both
Both, as in, transubstantiation? This is an easy mistake to make because the Catholics constantly misquote him, or refuse to quote the entire things. Augustine's position is suprasubstantiation, that is, that Christ is present in the Lord's Supper, but in a spiritual way that is beyond the physical. He does not believe in transubstantiation.
Here is a fuller collection of quotes which makes this quite clear:
Augustine - Against Transubstantiation
To believe in Christ is to eat the living bread. This cannot be so if transubstantiation is true.
“Wherefore, the Lord, about to give the Holy Spirit, said that Himself was the bread that came down from heaven, exhorting us to believe in Him. For to believe in Him is to eat the living bread. He that believes eats; he is sated invisibly, because invisibly is he born again. A babe within, a new man within. Where he is made new, there he is satisfied with food. (12) What then did the Lord answer to such murmurers? Murmur not among yourselves. As if He said, I know why you are not hungry, and do not understand nor seek after this bread. Murmur not among yourselves: no man can come unto me, except the Father that sent me draw him. Noble excellence of grace! No man comes unless drawn. There is whom He draws, and there is whom He draws not; why He draws one and draws not another, do not desire to judge, if you desire not to err.” (Augustine, Tractate 26)
Augustine, writing on his “rule for interpreting commands,” calls the eating of Christ to be figurative, since otherwise it compels us to do something that is unlawful.
“If the sentence is one of command, either forbidding a crime or vice, or enjoining an act of prudence or benevolence, it is not figurative. If, however, it seems to enjoin a crime or vice, or to forbid an act of prudence or benevolence, it is figurative. Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, says Christ, and drink His blood, you have no life in you. John 6:53 This seems to enjoin a crime or a vice; it is therefore a figure, enjoining that we should have a share [communicandem] in the sufferings of our Lord, and that we should retain a sweet and profitable memory [in memoria] of the fact that His flesh was wounded and crucified for us. Scripture says: If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink; and this is beyond doubt a command to do a kindness. But in what follows, for in so doing you shall heap coals of fire on his head, one would think a deed of malevolence was enjoined. Do not doubt, then, that the expression is figurative; and, while it is possible to interpret it in two ways, one pointing to the doing of an injury, the other to a display of superiority, let charity on the contrary call you back to benevolence, and interpret the coals of fire as the burning groans of penitence by which a man’s pride is cured who bewails that he has been the enemy of one who came to his assistance in distress. In the same way, when our Lord says, He who loves his life shall lose it, we are not to think that He forbids the prudence with which it is a man’s duty to care for his life, but that He says in a figurative sense, Let him lose his life— that is, let him destroy and lose that perverted and unnatural use which he now makes of his life, and through which his desires are fixed on temporal things so that he gives no heed to eternal. It is written: Give to the godly man, and help not a sinner. The latter clause of this sentence seems to forbid benevolence; for it says, help not a sinner. Understand, therefore, that sinner is put figuratively for sin, so that it is his sin you are not to help.” (Augustine, Christian Doctrine, Ch. 16)
In another place, he tells us that it is weakness to interpret the sign as being what it signifies:
“To this class of spiritual persons belonged the patriarchs and the prophets, and all those among the people of Israel through whose instrumentality the Holy Spirit ministered unto us the aids and consolations of the Scriptures. But at the present time, after that the proof of our liberty has shone forth so clearly in the resurrection of our Lord, we are not oppressed with the heavy burden of attending even to those signs which we now understand, but our Lord Himself, and apostolic practice, have handed down to us a few rites in place of many, and these at once very easy to perform, most majestic in their significance, and most sacred in the observance; such, for example, as the sacrament of baptism, and the celebration of the body and blood of the Lord. And as soon as any one looks upon these observances he knows to what they refer, and so reveres them not in carnal bondage, but in spiritual freedom. Now, as to follow the letter, and to take signs for the things that are signified by them, is a mark of weakness and bondage; so to interpret signs wrongly is the result of being misled by error. He, however, who does not understand what a sign signifies, but yet knows that it is a sign, is not in bondage. And it is better even to be in bondage to unknown but useful signs than, by interpreting them wrongly, to draw the neck from under the yoke of bondage only to insert it in the coils of error.” (Augustine, Christian Doctrine, Ch. 9)
In still another place, he calls referring to the Eucharist as the “body and blood of Christ” as only a “certain manner of speaking".
“You know that in ordinary parlance we often say, when Easter is approaching, Tomorrow or the day after is the Lord’s Passion, although He suffered so many years ago, and His passion was endured once for all time. In like manner, on Easter Sunday, we say, This day the Lord rose from the dead, although so many years have passed since His resurrection. But no one is so foolish as to accuse us of falsehood when we use these phrases, for this reason, that we give such names to these days on the ground of a likeness between them and the days on which the events referred to actually transpired, the day being called the day of that event, although it is not the very day on which the event took place, but one corresponding to it by the revolution of the same time of the year, and the event itself being said to take place on that day, because, although it really took place long before, it is on that day sacramentally celebrated. Was not Christ once for all offered up in His own person as a sacrifice? And yet, is He not likewise offered up in the sacrament as a sacrifice, not only in the special solemnities of Easter, but also daily among our congregations; so that the man who, being questioned, answers that He is offered as a sacrifice in that ordinance, declares what is strictly true? For if sacraments had not some points of real resemblance to the things of which they are the sacraments, they would not be sacraments at all. In most cases, moreover, they do in virtue of this likeness bear the names of the realities which they resemble. As, therefore, in a certain manner the sacrament of Christ’s body is Christ’s body, and the sacrament of Christ’s blood is Christ’s blood.” (Augustine, Letters 98)
When the Eucharist is offered, it is ourselves who we receive. (Are we transubstantiated into the bread?) A spiritual lesson is to be received from it, which is the purpose of the sacrament.
“How can bread be his body? And the cup, or what the cup contains, how can it be his blood? The reason these things, brothers and sisters, are called sacraments is that in them one thing is seen, another is to be understood. What can be seen has a bodily appearance, what is to be understood provides spiritual fruit. So if it’s you that are the body of Christ and its members, it’s the mystery meaning you that has been placed on the Lord’s table; what you receive is the mystery that means you.” (Augustine, Sermon 272)
(The Catholics will often quote the first part of this sermon, but will not attempt to discuss the lesson of it.)
In fact, throughout this sermon, sacraments are tools to impart spiritual lessons. For example, the sacrament of the Holy Spirit (oil), but it is not actually the Holy Spirit:
“Then came baptism, and you were, in a manner of speaking, moistened with water in order to be shaped into bread. But it’s not yet bread without fire to bake it. So what does fire represent? That’s the chrism, the anointing. Oil, the fire-feeder, you see, is the sacrament of the Holy Spirit.” (Same as above)
Another, the sacrament of the kiss of peace:
“After that comes Peace be with you; a great sacrament, the kiss of peace. So kiss in such a way as really meaning that you love. Don’t be Judas; Judas the traitor kissed Christ with his mouth, while setting a trap for him in his heart. But perhaps somebody has unfriendly feelings toward you, and you are unable to win him round, to show him he’s wrong; you’re obliged to tolerate him. Don’t pay him back evil for evil in your heart. He hates; just you love, and you can kiss him without anxiety.” (Same as above)
Same theme, different sermon.
“I haven’t forgotten my promise. I had promised those of you who have just been baptized a sermon to explain the sacrament of the Lord’s table, which you can see right now, and which you shared in last night. You ought to know what you have received, what you are about to receive, what you ought to receive every day. That bread which you can see on the altar, sanctified by the word of God, is the body of Christ. That cup, or rather what the cup contains, sanctified by the word of God, is the blood of Christ. It was by means of these things that the Lord Christ wished to present us with his body and blood, which he shed for our sake for the forgiveness of sins. If you receive them well, you are yourselves what you receive. You see, the apostle says, We, being many, are one loaf, one body (1 Cor 10:17). That’s how he explained the sacrament of the Lord’s table; one loaf, one body, is what we all are, many though we be.” (Augustine, Sermon 227)
The Eucharist, which symbolizes both the entire church and Christ, “not really consumed.” The Eucharist signifies an invisible reality, and is not that reality. Christians should take the spiritual lesson of unity from the Lord’s supper. Also from sermon 227.
“What you can see passes away, but the invisible reality signified does not pass away, but remains. Look, it’s received, it’s eaten, it’s consumed. Is the body of Christ consumed, is the Church of Christ consumed, are the members of Christ consumed? Perish the thought! Here they are being purified, there they will be crowned with the victor’s laurels. So what is signified will remain eternally, although the thing that signifies it seems to pass away. So receive the sacrament in such a way that you think about yourselves, that you retain unity in your hearts, that you always fix your hearts up above. Don’t let your hope be placed on earth, but in heaven. Let your faith be firm in God, let it be acceptable to God. Because what you don’t see now, but believe, you are going to see there, where you will have joy without end.” (Augustine, Ser. 227)
The body of Christ not held by any believer, even in the sacrament. Christ is held in the heart, and not in the hand. This cannot be so if transubstantation is true.
“Let them come to the church and hear where Christ is, and take Him. They may hear it from us, they may hear it from the gospel. He was slain by their forefathers, He was buried, He rose again, He was recognized by the disciples, He ascended before their eyes into heaven, and there sitteth at the right hand of the Father; and He who was judged is yet to come as Judge of all: let them hear, and hold fast. Do they reply, How shall I take hold of the absent? how shall I stretch up my hand into heaven, and take hold of one who is sitting there? Stretch up thy faith, and thou hast got hold. Thy forefathers held by the flesh, hold thou with the heart; for the absent Christ is also present. But for His presence, we ourselves were unable to hold Him.” (Augustine, Tractate 50)
Christ must be understood spiritually, not carnally.
“It seemed unto them hard that He said, “Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man, ye have no life in you:” they received it foolishly, they thought of it carnally, and imagined that the Lord would cut off parts from His body, and give unto them; and they said, “This is a hard saying.” It was they who were hard, not the saying; for unless they had been hard, and not meek, they would have said unto themselves, He saith not this without reason, but there must be some latent mystery herein. They would have remained with Him, softened, not hard: and would have learnt that from Him which they who remained, when the others departed, learnt. For when twelve disciples had remained with Him, on their departure, these remaining followers suggested to Him, as if in grief for the death of the former, that they were offended by His words, and turned back. But He instructed them, and saith unto them, “It is the Spirit that quickeneth, but the flesh profiteth nothing; the words that I have spoken unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” Understand spiritually what I have said; ye are not to eat this body which ye see; nor to drink that blood which they who will crucify Me shall pour forth. I have commended unto you a certain mystery; spiritually understood, it will quicken. Although it is needful that this be visibly celebrated, yet it must be spiritually understood.” NPNF1: Vol. VIII, St. Augustin on the Psalms, Psalm 99 (98)
These things cannot be so if transubstantiation is the historical Christian interpretation.
For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.How can what appears to be bread, actually be Christ's body? The Church Fathers grappled with this great mystery, and various lines of thought existed within the Church until the thirteenth century, when the Church solemnly defined the doctrine. The Aristotelian terms, substance and accidents, rediscovered by the Scholastics, made a coherent definition of the doctrine possible.Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord bin an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some ehave died.
St. Paul
There is nothing hidden, but if one ignores the Spirit, they won’t understand the spiritual significance of the Scripture.
If the scripture teaches transubstantiation, then we must believe that Christ ate His own flesh and blood, and will continue to do so, even in heaven. Check your chronology. It is not your friend:
1) He gives thanks, breaks the bread, declares it is His body: “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.(1Co 11:24)
2) After “he had supped,” He offers the cup, which He calls His blood: “After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1Co 11:25)
3) After calling it the blood of the covenant, with the cup still in hand, He calls it “this fruit of the vine” which He would not drink AGAIN until reunited with the Apostles in heaven, either indicating He was about to drink it, or had just drank it: “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Mat 26:28-29)
Notice also that he continues to call it “the fruit of the vine” even after it had supposedly been transformed.
Furthermore, you do not have a sacrament of “living water,” which is necessary to drink in order to possess eternal life:
Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.
Joh 4:15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.
The scripture does not teach transubstantiation, and neither did Augustine and many other Church Fathers.
HarleyD:
Ok, I am neither Mormon, JW, or Joel Osteen.
Elsie:
No I will not do that. I am not God, I am comfortable with Him deciding the consequences.
“Catholic teaching limits this to Simon Peter.”
Because Catholic doctine is correct and it is BIBLICAL. Catholic teaching is always found in scripture.
You just laid it our for us!
The text is plain - who interprets???
Except that Aquinas appears to invert the standard use of substance vs accidence in his novel formulation. In Greek philosophical parlance, substance was what something continued to be in essence, even though the actual constituents changed. Accidence describes those changing constituents.
For example, you are composed of billions of cells. They change constantly, but you are still recognized as you. So, loosely, your cells are the accidence, the changeable thing flowing through you, and your nature of being you, the constant, is the substance.
Aquinas inverts the changeability factor, by making the substance that which changes, whilst taking the accidence, the flow of change, and making it that which stays the same. The whole thing is a horribly convoluted mess.
Before Aquinas tried to infuse it with Aristotelian respectability, it appears the first person to propose it in terms of the radical realism of the modern view was the 9th Century monk Radbertus. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc4.i.xi.xxi.html So the doctrine, in it’s fully articulated form, was a novelty, and as a result Radbertus was hard pressed to explain how his new view was consistent with Augustine’s clear treatment of the Eucharist as a sign and not the thing signified. Obviously, he eventually won enough adherents to bring it mainstream.
But no, the whole doctrine as rendered by Radbertus through Aquinas through Trent is really incoherent. I think a great many Protestants simply reject the unnecessary addition of complexity and take Christ at His word that the purpose of the Lord’s Supper was primarily as a memorial. If He had intended it to be used primarily as a direct means of ingesting the corporeal Christ to obtain salvation, He would have said so. But in the institution of the service, He never said that. He said “do this in remembrance” of Him. So that is the primary, instituted reason. And THAT is coherent, as it reconciles well with the metaphorical presentation in John 6, as well as preserving the locus of salvation in the entire Gospel narrative, not in corporeal consumption of Christ, but in believing in His teaching and His crucified and risen person.
Peace,
SR
“The argument never ceases to amaze me”...
No amazement necessary!! Corinthians Chapter 4 verse 14! Look it up for yourself.
“Nor is it complicated”
Excuse me? Get out your bible and look up Corinthians Chapter 4 Verse 15.
PS - we catholics know scripture
“except that Aquinas appears to invert...”
Aquinas inverts nothing. Aquinas explains John 6:53 etc. literally.
How odd that we are symbolic until the literal actual meaning of the BIBLE...the body of Christ is real food.
Get with the literal meaning, stop with the explanations, and accept the straight Truth.
If your “bible” mistranslates - this is the correct translation for the Vulgate of Jerome
Amen, Amen, I say to unto you Except you eat the flesh of the son of man and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
“Building a church on a man instead of God, is a recipe for failure...”
Correct!!!
However we live in a fallen world. We are on a pilgrimage here. The New Jerusalem is NOT YET.
That is why Christ gave the keys to Peter/man, a man .
Peter first isn’t shown in scripture...
Get out your bible
Luke Chapter 21 - 31- 32
John 21, 15 -19.
Explain away- “in context”
The text says ‘you’. That word can be either singular or plural. There is nothing in the scripture that limits it to either. How do you ‘know’ which is meant?
O2
It just doesn't. So the quote you always post to "prove" St Augustine didn't believe the Eucharist really is His flesh and blood is misapplied. That's just a fact.
You read it again.
"12. “They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already. Faith is indeed distinguished from works, even as the apostle says, “that a man is justified by faith without the works of the law:”13 there are works which appear good, without faith in Christ; but they are not good, because they are not referred to that end in which works are good; “for Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.”14 For that reason, He willeth not to distinguish faith from work, but declared faith itself to be work. For it is that same faith that worketh by love.15 Nor did He say, This is your work; but, “This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent;” so that he who glories, may glory in the Lord. And because He invited them to faith, they, on the other hand, were still asking for signs by which they might believe. See if the Jews do not ask for signs. “They said therefore rate Him, What sign doest thou, that we may see and believe thee? what dost thou work?” Was it a trifle that they were fed with five loaves? They knew this indeed, but they preferred manna from heaven to this food. But the Lord Jesus declared Himself to be such an one, that He was superior to Moses. For Moses dared not say of Himself that He gave, “not the meat which perisheth, but that which endureth to eternal life.” Jesus promised something greater than Moses gave. By Moses indeed was promised a kingdom, and a land flowing with milk and honey, temporal peace, abundance of children, health of body, and all other things, temporal goods indeed, yet in figure spiritual; because in the Old Testament they were promised to the old man. They considered therefore the things promised by Moses, and they considered the things promised by Christ. The former promised a full belly on the earth, but of the meat which perisheth; the latter promised, “not the meat which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life.” They gave attention to Him that promised the more, but just as if they did not yet see Him do greater things. They considered therefore what sort of works Moses had done, and they wished yet some greater works to be done by Him who promised them such great things. What, say they, doest thou, that we may believe thee? And that thou mayest know that they compared those former miracles with this and so judged these miracles which Jesus did as being less; “Our fathers,” say they, “did eat manna in the wilderness.” But what is manna? Perhaps ye despise it. “As it is written, He gave them manna to eat.” By Moses our fathers received bread from heaven, and Moses did not say to them, “Labor for the meat which perisheth not.” Thou promisest “meat which perisheth not, but which endureth to eternal life;” and yet thou workest not such works as Moses did. He gave, not barley loaves, but manna from heaven."
He (St Augustine) is talking here about John 6:28. This is wayyy before the discourse on the need for Jesus' flesh and blood for salvation.
He (St Augustine) is talking here about the need for faith first, because it is faith first in Jesus that truly sustains, ie brings life eternal. Not the food the Jews were seeking. They were seeking another miracle from Jesus not Him himself. This is what St Agustine was saying when he was saying "believe and ye have eaten already". He's saying that we shouldn't look to Jesus to fill our bellies (in other words as Someone who is some kind of heavenly ATM providing us things here on earth), rather He is the source of life itself therefore we must believe in Him first before anything else including seeking after any carnal need or desire.
He (St Augustine along with Jesus) goes on to say: (in the same Tractate)
13. “Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, not Moses gave you bread from heaven, but my Father gave you bread from heaven. For the true bread is He that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world.” The true bread then is He that giveth life to the world; and the same is the meat of which I have spoken a little before,-“Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eernal life.” Therefore, both that manna signified this meat, and all those signs were signs of me. Ye have longed for signs of me; do ye despise Him that was signified? Not Moses then gave bread from heaven: God gives bread. But what bread? Manna, perhaps? No, but the bread which manna signified, namely, the Lord Jesus Himself. My Father giveth you the true bread. “For the bread of God is He that cometh down from heaven, and giveth life to the world Then said they unto Him, Lord, evermore give us this bread.” Like that Samaritan woman, to whom it was said, “Whoso drinketh of this water shall never thirst.” She, immediately understanding it in reference to the body, and wishing to be rid of want, said, “Give me, O Lord, of this water;” in the same manner also these said, “O Lord, give us this bread;” which may refresh us, and yet not fail."
Here we can already see St Augustine stressing the need for Jesus as a heavenly food. However, as has already been pointed out to you, Tractate 26 (starting from paragraph 15 onward) more fully develops this concept and indeed the belief he had that the Eucharist was indeed His flesh and blood.
Why don't you ever discuss those paragraphs, GPH, instead of accusing people of illiteracy? Here, I'll get you started:
20. “This is the bread that cometh down from heaven;” that by eating it we may live, since we cannot have eternal life from ourselves. Not,” saith He, “as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth this bread shall live forever.” That those fathers are dead, He would have to be understood as meaning, that they do not live forever. For even they who eat Christ shall certainly die temporally; but they live forever, because Christ is eternal life.
Talk about these (and the other paragraphs starting from 15) in Tractate 26. For once.
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