Posted on 05/29/2019 12:37:41 PM PDT by Mrs. Don-o
May 27, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — Speaking with one of the best-known conservative Jews, Dennis Prager, at the PragerU summit last week, world-famous psychologist Jordan Peterson spoke of God and his views of faith. After speaking about his dislike for the question ‘Do you believe in God?’ Peterson said, “I think that Catholicism — that's as sane as people can get.”
Peterson has often been asked about his faith, if he believes in God, and he said the question has always troubled him. He promised a podcast on the matter since he has given his dislike for the question much thought.
He explained, “Who would have the audacity to claim that they believed in God if they examined the way they lived? Who would dare say that?”
“To believe, in a Christian sense,” he added, “means that you live it out fully and that's an that's an unbearable task in some sense.”
Then in one long drawn-out, rapid-fire thought, the type that has enthralled his millions of fans, he laid out extemporaneously the vision of a believer in God:
“To be able to accept the structure of existence, the suffering that goes along with it and the disappointment and the betrayal, and to nonetheless act properly; to aim at the good with all your heart; to dispense with the malevolence and your desire for destruction and revenge and all of that; and to face things courageously and to tell the truth to speak the truth and to act it out, that's what it means to believe -- that's what it means -- it doesn't mean to state it, it means to act it out. And, unless you act it out you should be very careful about claiming it. And so, I've never been comfortable saying anything other than I try to act as if God exists because God only knows what you'd be if you truly believed.”
See the full exchange of Peterson and Prager here.
The language of "eating His Flesh and drinking His Blood" is explicit and consistent: from (500 years ago) Trent, and (800 years ago) Aquinas, and 1800+ years ago (Ignatius of Antioch and Justin Martyr), right back to Matthew - Mark - Luke - John and Paul(notably Corinthians).
I don’t think you want to appeal to the fallible ECFs on this or any other topic.
The consistency of Christians’ belief for two millennia puts your skepticism at a disadvantage.
Patently not true and already shown to be so on this thread....go back and read the comment regarding the Didache.
The only place in the NT where people are told to eat/drink the flesh and blood was to unbelieving Jews who were looking for a sign. And it was the unbelieving Jews who brought up the eating/drinking flesh and blood.
In no passage in the NT were new believers or prospects told they had to eat/drink flesh and blood.
Transubstantiation only came about in 1215. Hard to say the early church believed what Roman Catholicism teaches about this topic in light of this.
Recall, one of the charges against the early church was that of cannibalism….which the early church rejected.
There is a consistent inconsistency on this and the other topics near and dear to Roman Catholicism.
Recall, NONE of the writings of the ECFs are in the canon. Rome had a chance to do so at Trent when it finalized its canon but DID NOT add any of these. That is very telling.
Check....your move.
Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;” describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood.
Clement of Alexandria. (1885). The Instructor. In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. C. Coxe (Eds.), Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire) (Vol. 2, p. 219). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company
Good one!
You guys have some competition.
It is not happening forever anywhere.
It’s a DONE DEAL.
Once. Finished.
And He is now seated in the heavenly places at the right hand of God.
He is NOT constantly being sacrificed for our sins and He did not come to give Himself to us to offer to God for our sins as the OT sacrifices were.
Jesus offered HIMSELF to God, not to us to be used as an offering for our sins.
We don’t offer up to God Jesus for our sins like He was an OT sacrifice. That’s not our place.
Jesus offered HIMSELF for us. We don’t offer Him for ourselves.
It's superficial.
The canons of the Church teach that the Eucharist is the whole Christ: Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity: not dead, but the whole Living Christ. Please note that Clement (150 - 215 AD) calls the wine of the Eucharist the "blood of Christ," and condemns those who attempt to understand or celebrate the Eucharist in any manner except according to the canons of the Church.
Clement of Alexandria returns often to his theme that the Eucharist is multifold, symbol/mystery, matter/spirit, metaphor/reality, because it works on many levels at once:
"The blood of the Lord is twofold. For there is the blood of His flesh by which we are redeemed from corruption; and the spiritual, that by which we are anointed. And to drink the blood of Jesus, is to become partaker of the Lord’s immortality; the Spirit being the energetic principle of the Word, as blood is of flesh.So Catholic! We drink the Blood of Jesus."Accordingly, as wine is blended with water, so is the Spirit with man. And the one, the mixture of wine and water, nourishes to faith; while the other, the Spirit, conducts to immortality. And the mixture of both— of the water and of the Word— is called Eucharist, renowned and glorious grace; and they who by faith partake of it are sanctified both in body and soul. For the divine mixture, man, the Father’s will has mystically compounded by the Spirit and the Word. For, in truth, the spirit is joined to the soul, which is inspired by it; and the flesh, by reason of which the Word became flesh, to the Word.
It happens that, on a natural level, Clement writes at great length against wine, saying,
“I therefore admire those who have adopted an austere life, and who are fond of water, the medicine of temperance, and flee as far as possible from wine, shunning it as they would the danger of fire.”What a contrast: between the Eucharist, which he praises (and calls “the Blood of Jesus” and promises will lead us to eternal life if taken faithfully), and wine, which he calls us to flee from completely. Because, after the Consecration, Clement doesn’t think that the Eucharist is wine! You can’t abstain from wine and still receive the Eucharist, unless the Eucharist isn’t wine.
Finally, we also see Clement condemning as heretical those “employ bread and water in the oblation,not according to the canon of the Church. For there are those who celebrate the Eucharist with mere water.
So: Clement viewed wine as bad, and encouraged Christians to flee from it completely. But he also condemned as heretics those who attempted to consecrate water without wine at the Eucharist. Rather, wine must be used in the Eucharist, because (a) the Church requires it, and (b) it becomes the Blood of Christ (i.e., no longer wine, and no longer something to flee from).
Finally, note that Clement calls the Eucharist an Oblation, that is, a Sacrifice to God.
I see here a lot which differs from your Protestant view, and everything here that is in accord with the Catholic.
One more thought: Clement of Alexandria was honored as a canonized saint and a Father of the Church for over a millennium by the Catholic, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, and Eastern Orthodox Churches. No Church would say that Clement of Alexandria was infallible, and some took exception to his neo-Platonism.
However, what's striking is that his Eucharistic beliefs, specifically, were not controversial with either his Catholic contemporaries or with later Churchmen: and his Eucharistic teaching show his break with Platonism.
For Clement, the way to this union with God was only the Church's way. By the Eucharist, the believer was united with the Logos and the Spirit and made partaker of incorruptibility.
Later in his career, Clement debated with the Gnostics. They were very much opposed to Christ as God and Man --- they'd say "Spirit good, Matter bad! Down with the Incarnation!" This Clement saw as a distorted hyperspiritualism, and it made him put more stress both an the Eucharist as a real banquet of the Flesh and Blood, and on the Church as a visible institution.
Hebrews 10:10-14 And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, and since that time he waits for his enemies to be made his footstool. For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.
Hebrews 10:15-18 And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, “This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,” then he adds, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin. Jesus defeated sin on the cross. ALL of it.
He has done away with all penalty for sin. And since his one time for all sacrifice covered all sin, it is over and does not need to be continually offered because there is no sin it did not cover.
Without time, events do not occur
Without space a thing does not exist
EVERYTHING God has Created is in the Universe of HIS creation. We are not yet privy to all the dimensional variables of The Created Universe, but some aspect of time and some aspect of space will prevail in every nook and cranny of The Universe God has created.
In the creation there is 'shadow of turning'. Outside of The Creation is no shadow of turning ... God, in Whom there is no shadow of turning. Are you able to find that verse regarding 'no shadow of turning'? If you need help, teacher of catholiciism, ask, and it shall be given.
Most precisely
NO! He is not still offering Himself to the father for us.
He is at the right hand of the father interceding for us saints and waiting for His enemies to be made a footstool.
Jesus in heaven
Acts 2:32-36 This Jesus God raised up, and of that we all are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you yourselves are seeing and hearing. For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.”’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Acts 5:30-31 The God of our fathers raised Jesus, whom you killed by hanging him on a tree. God exalted him at his right hand as Leader and Savior, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.
Romans 8:34 Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.
Ephesians 1:15-23 For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.
Ephesians 2:4-6 But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
Colossians 3:1 If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.
Hebrews 1:1-4 Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name he has inherited is more excellent than theirs.
Hebrews 9:11-17 But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls, and the sprinkling of defiled persons with the ashes of a heifer, sanctify for the purification of the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish to God, purify our conscience from dead works to serve the living God.
Therefore he is the mediator of a new covenant, so that those who are called may receive the promised eternal inheritance, since a death has occurred that redeems them from the transgressions committed under the first covenant.
Hebrews 8:1-2 Now the point in what we are saying is this: we have such a high priest, one who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister in the holy places, in the true tent that the Lord set up, not man.
Hebrews 9:24-28 For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf. Nor was it to offer himself repeatedly, as the high priest enters the holy places every year with blood not his own, for then he would have had to suffer repeatedly since the foundation of the world. But as it is, he has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself. And just as it is appointed for man to die once, and after that comes judgment, so Christ, having been offered ONCE to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time, not to deal with sin but to save those who are eagerly waiting for him.
Hebrews 10:8-14 When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.
And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet. For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified.
Hebrews 12:1-2 Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.
1 Peter 3:21-22 Baptism, which corresponds to this, now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ, who has gone into heaven and is at the right hand of God, with angels, authorities, and powers having been subjected to him.
Honestly, Catholics are so obsessed and blinkered in their view of Christ. They can only see Him as the continually suffering sacrifice, always dying and never dead and raised, never FINISHING the work on the cross.
Priests perform more than ONE duty. Offering the sacrifice is only PART of what they do.
Wrong. The EFFECTS of the offering are eternal, not the offering itself.
If the offering were eternal, then He would be the eternal sacrifice, not the eternal priest.
If He’s on the altar, and He’s being offered again and again, as per your priests writings, then it IS being repeated because Christ’s sacrifice NEVER happened in heaven and it’s not happening there now.
God does not need Jesus to be constantly dying for our sins to be forever forgiven. The one time death of Jesus on the cross was enough and Jesus verified it when He said *IT is FINISHED* and died, and God proved that He accepted the FINISHED work by raising Christ from the dead.
The resurrection was proof that the sacrifice of Christ on the cross for the atonement was adequate and over and now they could move on.
Don't take the mark as easily as you blaspheme the Blood of the Savior which was sprinkled upon the Mercy Seat ONCE For All, For all time. Your priests are dead soul pagan officials. We have a couple or three who occasionally post on these threads, and they are as dead soul clueless as you show yourself to be.
The soul is mind, emotion and will. With the mind a person can believe anything. But whent he will is focused upon God's Grace, salvation comes with the asking for His deliverance from what you are. When that salvation happens it is GOD Who puts HIS Holy Spirit seal upon the spirit come alive in Christ. Catholiciism is a religion focused upon death yet The Lord Christ is Risen and will never die again. You cannot get His Holy Spirit Life into your human spirit by eating a offered wafer some dead soul tells you is the real flesh and blood of The Lord Christ. Christ draws life from the Spirit, not the blood. Life is in the blood of THE CREATED CREATURES. JESUS is no longer a creature, He is The Risen Lord Christ, not a snack for pagan altars.
It means nothing even if it were true.
Many other religions have been around longer than Catholicism. Do we have to accept them as true too just because they've been around a long time?
Preaching to mules placemarker
But in terms of the Christians of the past: they are His, and because of that, they are ours. We are allmembers of the One Body.
And I do not see in your attitude ("They don't matter") that love for the Body.
But Jesus said He was sending the Holy Spirit to guide the Church (His Body, His followers, His Bride, thecalled-out people, the people who believed in Him) into all truth. Therefore the record of those actual people and how they were guided, is about US, because we are all members of His One Body and guided by His Spirit.
I used to be mighty aggravated by history, because I was a young cynic who just saw history as it's usually taught, as One. Damned. Thing. After. Another.
Then a wise teacher told me that that history is the field of action of Divine Providence. I resisted that mightily, because it seemed patently absurd that Divine Providence had a hand in this mess.
But my teacher persisted: if our history is NOT the field of action of Divine Providence, then there IS no Divine Providence: because Providence can only act in the midst of what actually happened: and history is What Actually Happened.
So, back to our interest in, love for, and concern for all members of One Body.
The eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" And the head cannot say to the feet, "I don't need you!"
But you have to look at from the perspective of the people who, from age to age, trusted in His Name.
That got me into history again, with a new motive and a new meaning.
Your comments comes before the part where he clearly indicates the bread and wine are symbols.
Thus, then, the milk which is perfect is perfect nourishment, and brings to that consummation which cannot cease. Wherefore also the same milk and honey were promised in the rest. Rightly, therefore, the Lord again promises milk to the righteous, that the Word may be clearly shown to be both, “the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end;” the Word being figuratively represented as milk. Something like this Homer oracularly declares against his will, when he calls righteous men milk-fed (γαλακτοφάγοι). So also may we take the Scripture: “And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto babes in Christ;”7 so that the carnal may be understood as those recently instructed, and still babes in Christ. For he called those who had already believed on the Holy Spirit spiritual, and those newly instructed and not yet purified carnal; whom with justice he calls still carnal, as minding equally with the heathen the things of the flesh: “For whereas there is among you envy and strife, are ye not carnal, and walk as men?” “Wherefore also I have given you milk to drink,” he says; meaning, I have instilled into you the knowledge which, from instruction, nourishes up to life eternal. But the expression, “I have given you to drink” (ἐπότισα), is the symbol of perfect appropriation. For those who are full-grown are said to drink, babes to suck. “For my blood,” says the Lord, “is true drink.” In saying, therefore, “I have given you milk to drink,” has he not indicated the knowledge of the truth, the perfect gladness in the Word, who is the milk? And what follows next, “not meat, for ye were not able,” may indicate the clear revelation in the future world, like food, face to face. “For now we see as through a glass,” the same apostle says, “but then face to face.”10 Wherefore also he has added, “neither yet are ye now able, for ye are still carnal,” minding the things of the flesh,—desiring, loving, feeling jealousy, wrath, envy. “For we are no more in the flesh,” as some suppose. For with it [they say], having the face which is like an angel’s, we shall see the promise face to face. How then, if that is truly the promise after our departure hence, say they that they know “what eye hath not known, nor hath entered into the mind of man,” who have not perceived by the Spirit, but received from instruction “what ear hath not heard,”12 or that ear alone which “was rapt up into the third heaven?” But it even then was commanded to preserve it unspoken.
But if human wisdom, as it remains to understand, is the glorying in knowledge, hear the law of Scripture: “Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, and let not the mighty man glory in his might; but let him that glorieth glory in the Lord.” But we are God-taught, and glory in the name of Christ. How then are we not to regard the apostle as attaching this sense to the milk of the babes? And if we who preside over the Churches are shepherds after the image of the good Shepherd, and you the sheep, are we not to regard the Lord as preserving consistency in the use of figurative speech, when He speaks also of the milk of the flock? And to this meaning we may secondly accommodate the expression, “I have given you milk to drink, and not given you food, for ye are not yet able,” regarding the meat not as something different from the milk, but the same in substance. For the very same Word is fluid and mild as milk, or solid and compact as meat. And entertaining this view, we may regard the proclamation of the Gospel, which is universally diffused, as milk; and as meat, faith, which from instruction is compacted into a foundation, which, being more substantial than hearing, is likened to meat, and assimilates to the soul itself nourishment of this kind.
Elsewhere the Lord, in the Gospel according to John, brought this out by symbols, when He said: “Eat ye my flesh, and drink my blood;”2 describing distinctly by metaphor the drinkable properties of faith and the promise, by means of which the Church, like a human being consisting of many members, is refreshed and grows, is welded together and compacted of both,—of faith, which is the body, and of hope, which is the soul; as also the Lord of flesh and blood.
Clement of Alexandria. (1885). The Instructor. In A. Roberts, J. Donaldson, & A. C. Coxe (Eds.), Fathers of the Second Century: Hermas, Tatian, Athenagoras, Theophilus, and Clement of Alexandria (Entire) (Vol. 2, pp. 218–219). Buffalo, NY: Christian Literature Company.
Your conclusions of what Clement believed seem to be at odds with what he actually wrote.
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