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<Who twists what again? Theological Controversy over Predestination ~~ Johannis Scotus Erigena argues in De divina praedestinatione that God, being perfectly good, wants all humans to be saved, and does not predestine souls to damnation. God's being is His willing and ‘no necessity binds the will of God’. On the contrary, humans damn themselves through their own free choices: ‘Sin, death, unhappiness are not from God’. Since God is outside time, He cannot be said to fore-know or to pre-destine, terms that involve temporal predicates. Furthermore, if God's being is His wisdom, God can be said to have but a single knowledge and hence a ‘double’ predestination cannot be ascribed to Him. Human nature, on the other hand, was created rational, and rationality requires freedom. Human nature is therefore essentially free: ‘For God did not create in man a captive will but a free one, and that freedom remained after sin’.

Who twists what?

With respect, Destro -- your fine Philosophy Editor hasn't given us nearly enough to go on to even determine that. Most of the above quotation is what he says Erigina says. Surely we can't use that as a standard, when I've at least tried to occupy the majority of my Celtic quotations with... well, actual Celtic quotations. The above Philosophy paragraph includes only three actual snippets of Erigina -- none of which can even be shown to conclusively divide him from Gottschalk (his own debate opponent!), let alone John Calvin (whose views were far better developed than Gottschalk's -- no mere boast; Erigina thought of Gottschalk's writings as "ravings" and he was somewhat correct). To wit:

"no necessity binds the will of God" -- Erigina
Entirely True; but so what? It wholly agrees with Gottschalk (and Calvin):
"For we know that He who is obviously eternal can by no means be predestined" – Gottschalk
”Sin, death, unhappiness are not from God”. -- Erigina
Well, as to ultimate causes, even Erigina declares that as God “brings forth the Primary Causes of all creation”, everything in Creation at least ultimately derives from God’s initial Creative Act. But if Erigina here means that God is not the proximate Cause of Sin, then when Erigina declares also that “All Sin is of Free Will” again he tells us nothing more than Gottschalk (and Calvin):
"But in God’s double predestination, where His ways are contained, concerning which it is said: “All the ways of the Lord are mercy and truth,” (Ps. 25:10) singularity has rightly remained and duly remains. And so since “He has spoken once, and that [is],” (cf. Ps. 62:11) which Saint Augustine explained so, that He immutably arranged all His future works, there are by no means two predestinations, but only one. That is why the psalmist just as in logical consequence says: “Twice I have heard that power belongs to God; and to you, O Lord, belongs mercy, for You render to each one according to his works,” (Ps. 62:12) and on account of these two predestination is understood as double; namely, in a general sense it is one because it was eternally set up forever and at the same time; neither of them is unjust but both just; and in a special sense it is double, because one is owed and the other is gratuitous." -- Gottschalk
For God did not create in man a captive will but a free one, and that freedom remained after sin -- Erigina
Yes; but even John Calvin did not write “The Bondage of the Will” (that was Luther), and rather affirmed the existence of Free Will – but freedom unto what? If we hear again Erigina tell us that “All Sin is of Free Will”, he still has told us nothing terribly different from Gottschalk and Calvin:
"Therefore also Prosper in that same chapter says: “The Redeemer of the world gave His blood for the world, but the world did not want to be redeemed, because darkness did not accept light but [other] darkness did accept light, [that darkness,] to which the Apostle says: ‘You were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord’ (Eph. 5:8).—And those will walk, who will be freed and redeemed by the Lord" –- Gottschalk

Regrettably, it seems that our Philosophy Editor friend has arbitrarily torn three snippets at random from Erigina’s library, merely to cast his own gloss upon them – for there is nothing in these three brief, vague scraps which would allow us even to conclusively divide Erigina from his own debate opponent Gottschalk, let alone from the better-refined work of John Calvin.

And at any rate, even should we suppose that Erigina were to fall on the “soft” side of Celtic Predestination (and even Calvinists have a “softer predestinarian” school in the Amyrauldians), it cannot be forgotten that there are a number of other Celtic Fathers who have spoken on Predestination also – and more clearly than this Philosophy Editor has allowed Erigina to speak for himself.

"Man, by making an ill use of his Free-will, lost both himself and it. For, like a man who kills himself, is able, of course, to kill himself, because he lives, but by killing himself becomes unable to live, neither can raise himself again from the dead after he has killed himself; so when sin was committed by means of free-will, then, sin being the conqueror, free-will itself also was lost, for of whom a man is overcome, of the same is he also brought into bondage.” -- Sedulius Scotus

"God is the author of all that is good in man; that is to say, both of good-nature and goodwill, which, unless God do work in him, man cannot do, because this good-will is prepared by the Lord in man, that, by the gift of God he may do that which by himself he could not do of his own free-will." -- Claudius Scotus

It is Gallus who speaks, the fellow-labourer of Columbanus, and the founder of the monastery of St. Gall. "The apostle says, 'God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world," that is, by his eternal predestination, his free calling, and his grace which was due to none.'' They teach the sovereignty not less than the eternity of God's purposes. "God," says Sedulius, " Hath mercy with great goodness, and hardeneth without any iniquity; so that neither can he who is saved glory of his own merits, nor he that is lost complain but of his own merits.

That being kept in mind, then, let’s move on to the Eucharist.

"The Sacraments of the Altar are not the real Body and Blood of Christ, but only the commemoration of his Body and Blood."

In response to this you say:

One of the most unfortunate developments took place when men began to debate the reality of Christ's Body and Blood in the eucharist. While some said that the eucharistic gifts of bread and wine were the real Body and Blood of Christ, others said that the gifts were not real, but merely the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood. The tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical.

Well, if the “tragedy in both of these approaches is that what is real came to be opposed to what is symbolic or mystical”, it is a “tragedy” in which Erigina himself participated. For he said in his own words:

The Sacraments of the Altar ARE NOT THE REAL Body and Blood of Christ,
but ONLY THE COMMEMORATION of his Body and Blood.

But if we shall suppose, that by “only the commemoration” Erigina actually meant “the symbolic or mystical presence of the Body and Blood”, then you have just made of Erigina every bit the Presbyterian which I have claimed him to be!!

For to the Calvinist Presbyterian, the importance of the matter is the denial of the carnal doctrine of gross transubstantiation – which to us, denies the particular Humanity of the unique Body of Flesh prepared from Him of Mary, which we believe is now always locally present in whole at the right hand of the Father in Heaven, without ever any fleshly dispersion whatsoever into nuggets of bread upon earthly altars.

Thus we say with our Scottish forebear, the Celtic Father Erigina, "The Sacraments of the Altar are not the real Body and Blood of Christ, but only the commemoration of his Body and Blood."; but our Presbyterian “Commemoration” is no mere celebration of the “Real Absence” of Zwinglian theology, but a celebration of the "Spiritual Presence" Doctrine declared by John Calvin, as set forth in the Institutes of the Christian Religion:

That sacred communion of flesh and blood by which Christ transfuses His life into us, just as if it penetrated our bones and marrow, he testifies and seals in the Supper, and that not by presenting a vain or empty sign, but by there exerting an efficacy of the Spirit by which he fulfils what he promises.

For if we see that the sun, in sending forth its rays upon the earth, to generate, cherish, and invigorate its offspring, in a manner transfuses its substance into it, why should the radiance of the Spirit be less in conveying to us the communion of His flesh and blood? Wherefore, the Scripture, when it speaks of our participation with Christ, refers its whole efficacy to the Spirit.

This kingdom is not limited by any intervals of space, nor circumscribed by any dimensions. Christ can exert His energy wherever he pleases, in earth and heaven, can manifest His presence by the exercise of His power, can always be present with His people, breathing into them His own life, can live in them, sustain, confirm, and invigorate them, and preserve them safe, just as if he were with them in the body; in fine, can feed them with His own body, communion with which he transfuses into them.

After this manner, the body and blood of Christ are exhibited to us in the sacrament.... The covenant, ratified by the sacrifice of death, would not avail us without the addition of that secret communication, by which we are made one with Christ.

And if THIS is the Righteous and Mystical and Spiritually-communicative and Symbolic Celebration of which Erigina speaks, when he says ”The Sacraments of the Altar are not the real Body and Blood of Christ, but only the commemoration of his Body and Blood” – then this is the very same Supper which is Celebrated among the Calvinists….

…and Geneva shakes hand with Iona across the gulf of a thousand years.

Best, OP

Incidentally, to my #93, I'll append one more observation of John Calvin's -- ironically, a criticism of Martin Luther's "consubstantiation", but it equally well expresses our Presbyterian dismay with the Roman doctrine of "transubstantiation":

"Every time Luther mentions the Lord's Supper he has in mind something that a butcher handles." -- John Calvin

Rightly or wrongly, that pretty well expresses our disagreement.

Just for the record, the Eastern Orthodox Church does share the Roman Catholic dogma (established in the 16th century) of transsubstantiation. The term used by the Greeks is means change as in "alteration," but is not the equivalent of transubstantiation.

As always, the EOC treats things we cannot fully understand as inspired knowledge that remain a mystery and Eucharist is certainly one of those mysteries.

Not much has been written about it, but even St. Paul hints that it might be the real thing. After Paul, and quite some time after the Gospels were written, Irenaeus was hinting at the nature of "change" in the Eucharist as earl at 106 AD

Epistle to the Smyrnaeans 6, 7

This was echoed two centuries later by Ambrose of Milan in his Sacraments, who lived and died in 4th century.

But the whole idea of eating human flesh and drnking wine was abhorrant to the Jews as it is to us. Yet the Christian world sees the whole issue differentlyw when it comes to Eucharist.

The custom is certainly not in the Jewish tradition, but the Gospels leave no doubt that (1) we are to celbrate the Supper in memory of Him and that the bread "is" His body and the wine "is" His blood. Whether that constitutes cannibalism, as some have accused Christians of, or not is altogether unclear, but I would like to err on the divine side and say that the spirit of His gifts is present (and I am blaspheming here), until I am shown any different.

Sir, what you are qouting is an English tranlation-tranlated to fit an agenda. What did he say in the original Latin/Greek?