Removing Jesus

White Horse Inn ^ | June 1, 2014 | Timothy F. Kauffman

[Mrs. Don-o]

This is a great link, aMPU. Thank you for sending it. I will be glad to familiarize myself with your catechism.

[Mrs. Don-o]

AMPU, as you surely know, when I referred to "Fun-House Mirror reflections about what Catholics believe", the phrase "Fun-House mirror" modifies the word "reflections", not "what Catholics believe" -- in other words, your (and other people's) reflections have a "fun-house" quality which distorts the true picture of what Catholics actually believe.

If you don't see that --- ahem--- please diagram that sentence. (My irrepressible schoolmarmism comes through once again!)

The problem is that YOU evidently believe the "fun-house mirror reflection" is not a distortion, but the reality. It does not accurately convey Catholic doctrine.

Since you are interested in scholarship, wouldn't you want to pursue that?

Anyhow, thanks for sending me the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Here's the Catechism of the Catholic Church right back at'cha.

Reading each others' catechisms does seem like a strangely fair-minded and sensible thing to do, in the midst of these FReepin' fracases.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

You’re welcome. There are many here who come from a Reformed Background. I do not. We share a common faith in every major way.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

” The problem is that YOU evidently believe the “fun-house mirror reflection” is not a distortion, but the reality. It does not accurately convey Catholic doctrine. “

It is not a problem. Nor do I believe it is a “fun-house” reflection. I believe it is the essence of what Catholic belief means.

I acknowledge you do not see it that way. You cannot.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

I’m not sure you are reading my replies today. I went through the catholic catechism prior to my confirmation back before I came to Christ.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"I went through the catholic catechism prior to my confirmation"

Sorry, didn't see that - I thought when you were talking about "every chapter, every verse" you were talking about Scripture. What Catholic Catechism did you study before you were Confirmed? The Baltimore? Because the CCC wasn't published until 1992.

[aMorePerfectUnion]

“Sorry, didn’t see that - I thought when you were talking about “every chapter, every verse” you were talking about Scripture.”

I was talking about the Bible.

“What Catholic Catechism did you study before you were Confirmed? The Baltimore? Because the CCC wasn’t published until 1992.”

Whatever one was used leading up to my confirmation.

[Springfield Reformer]

Dear and scholarly SR, I think you've done a great philosophical work by turning a short truth into a long problem.

LOL! My dad used to say, "What's the difference between a scientist and a philosopher?  Well, a scientist knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing.  Whereas a philosopher knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything."  :)

So no, I do not purport to be a philosopher.  Indeed, my treatment of the doctrine of substances has been ridiculously brief and inadequate.  But we do have a problem.  The doctrine does present the dilemma I raised concerning cannibalism.  That is the question presented, as they say, and that's what I was trying to address, that while nothing in the NT narrative requires a conclusion of cannibalism, transubstantiation misses the mark, and presents as dogma a position that cannot be anything but cannibalism, albeit of a very sophisticated nature.  

So while it may be that others can come at this without having to deal with its implications, I cannot unsee what I have seen.  Transubstantiation, to my current understanding, does imply cannibalism, however convoluted.  To get past that, it would be necessary for Rome to completely dispense with the Aristotelian-Aquinan formula, and I do not expect Rome to do that at my request.  It is an impassible boundary.

Rather, I am bound to the simplicity of Scripture.  I agree with what you said about "literal."  Half my reason for even bringing that up was to show how useless it is as a means of understanding.  I felt compelled to mention it only because it is so often raised by your fellow RCs, presumably as a means of establishing contrast with the Protestant/evangelical understanding of metaphor.  It's kind of a straw man.  The right way to interpret a passage is to understand it the way the writer meant it.  Sometimes that's totally concrete. Very often there is much more there, including metaphor.  That's why, in terms of methodology, just plain old honest use of language is probably the single most important thing on can do to get the right meaning.  It would certainly help our Supreme Court do a better job with the Constitution.

As for Jesus, He did use the word "alethos" ("true") in John 6, discussing how His body and blood are true food.  But he used the same word here:

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed ("truly");
(John 8:31)

So the use of the word "true" does not confine one to physical or even quasi-physical things.  Being a true disciple of Christ is a spiritual thing.  God desires that we worship Him is spirit and in truth.  God is a spirit and nothing is more true than God.  You see my problem here.  "True" by itself does not tell us whether Jesus means physical, Aristotelian substantive, spiritual, or anything else in that ontological area. In fact, I'd say inserting ontology here completely misses the point.  He is saying what He said in verse 35.  What is the telos (purpose) of food? To satisfy hunger.  What is the telos of drink? To satisfy thirst.  Come to Jesus in faith, and you will have the truest food and truest drink you have ever consumed, because for the first time in your life, you will know permanent satisfaction.  How? Believe on Him.  So he's not addressing the ontology, but the teleology.

Anyway, thank you for your kind response.

Peace,

SR

[daniel1212]

A response with some profound reasoning, which is above the usual class of responses we see here, and is more than i can comment on now, but worth being shared.

We are constantly reminded here that "Real Presence" means the body and blood are "really present" in the host, that "is" must be taken literally, not metaphorically, etc. But even if we grant that (which we do not), what have we granted? Real in what way? Literal how? We must drill deeper to specifics, or we will never know what those words mean.

And the more it is examined, the more it become evident that Eucharistic theology is not taught in Scripture, but is a contrived explanation necessitated by the literalistic interpretation of words in the Lord's Supper and Jn. 6. But which are easily understood metaphorically, and is the only one that is consistent with all of Scripture, and requires none of the neoPlatonic eisegesis that Catholicism engages in to justify its literalistic interpretation.

The property cannot be removed without losing the substance as well.

Thus a special unique miracle must be claimed, like as with the Immaculate Conception, etc. In which a miracle is claimed that the Bible does not teach occurred to the person, but which is not the basis for the veracity of the claim anyway, which instead is the premise of the ensured veracity of Rome.

Notice the problem this presents to transubstantiation. If all accidents must have a subject, i.e., a substance of which they are the expression, then removal of the substance of bread and wine would take the accidents away as well. There would be no bread and wine to express. Only body and blood. The perception of bread and wine depends on there really being bread and wine present. The explanation for which sounds too much like what Scalia referred to as to the mystical aphorisms of the fortune cookie" in SCOTUS judging sodomite marriage as a right all States must affirm.

[metmom]

Outstanding as usual.

[Elsie]

A Japanese android with cloud computational enhancement could do that easily even today.

And with just as many results; too!

[Elsie]

The angels, who are fond of you, are are giggling at your simplicity.

Demons, who HATE! you, are marveling at your acceptance of their simple plans.

[Elsie]

I didn't say the teaching was in error to begin with.

Of COURSE you won't!

I presume you mean the Apostles' teaching.

Almost.

Somewhere between their 'perfect' teaching and John's revelation to the seven Catholic churches in Asia; SOMETHING sure got screwed up!

[Elsie]

I don't see the problem.

Of COURSE not!

[Elsie]

Could you please clarify for your readers here that these are not doctrinal statements of the Catholic Church?

Could you please clarify for your readers here that these NON-doctrinal statements of the Catholic Church are therefore a WASTE of time??

[Elsie]

(In contrast to the Blessed Virgin Mary, who Elsie has calculated can process 139 requests per second, if Catholics are praying as they ought!)

Not much calculation to it.

I plucked some random numbers out of thin air and then did some simple math.

[Elsie]

I plucked some random numbers out of thin air ...

Hey!

I could come up with some Catholic NON-doctrine this way!

[Elsie]

Well, thanks for confirming what I strongly suspected: that you don't really care about factually ascertaining what Catholic Doctrine actually IS.

HMMMmmm...

Doctrine or NOT???

"One indeed is the universal Church of the faithful, outside which no one at all is saved, in which the priest himself is the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, whose body and blood are truly contained in the sacrament of the altar under the species of bread and wine; the bread (changed) into His body by the divine power of transubstantiation, and the wine into the blood, so that to accomplish the mystery of unity we ourselves receive from His (nature) what He Himself received from ours." — Pope Innocent III and Lateran Council IV (A.D. 1215)

Therefore, if anyone says that it is not by the institution of Christ the lord himself (that is to say, by divine law) that blessed Peter should have perpetual successors in the primacy over the whole Church; or that the Roman Pontiff is not the successor of blessed Peter in this primacy: let him be anathema. — Vatican 1, Ses. 4, Cp. 1

[Elsie]

"A scientist knows more and more about less and less until he knows everything about nothing. Whereas a philosopher knows less and less about more and more until he knows nothing about everything."

And then there is ELSIE; somewhere in the middle...

If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.

1 Corinthians 8:2

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Somewhere between their 'perfect' teaching and John's revelation to the seven Catholic churches in Asia; SOMETHING sure got screwed up!

They must have departed from the perfect teaching.