Replies

A Consolidated Response:

1. On Scripture as the Final Court of Appeal:

Contrary to your assessment, Scripture is more than law. Perhaps this is one of the unstated difficulties in crossing the divide between Sola Scriptura and Sola Ecclesia. At any given moment in time, law is static, simply a set of words that require a human interpreter to explain and render decisions from. If someone thought this is all the word of God was, I could see how they might regard it as subject to the whim of it's interpreters. But the word of God has its own voice, and if we listen it will tell us that it is not mere law, but the living manifestation of the power of God speaking with us. As you already surely know:

Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is quick, and powerful, and sharper than any twoedged sword, piercing even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit, and of the joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.

"Quick" here means "alive." (Greek "zon") So the enscripturated communication of God to man is a living thing. How does it live? Why should we not simply think of it as mere words on paper? Because God always sends it to a purpose, and that purpose is always accomplished, because it is carried forward by the intervention of God Himself through His Holy Spirit to its intended recipients, and will not fail to reach us. Nothing can be more alive, nor more suitable to serve as both the measure and the adjudicator of truth for Christian faith and practice, than the epistle of the living God, the living expression of His own mind, written for and to His children, the sheep of His pasture, whom He has personally guaranteed will hear His voice, and will not follow another.

But this is a topic which for apologetic purposes we actually are in practical agreement, sort of, and so should probably not invest too much time going over the same old arguments. If you bring your testimony to one who adheres to Sola Scriptura, you must either undermine the authority of Scripture for that person, in order to offer your own source of authority, i.e., the theories of the Roman schism. Or you must attempt to build your case from Scripture, in which you at least temporarily consent to use Scripture as a "common ground" authority. Inasmuch as it is completely incoherent to try and undermine Scripture with Scripture, the more typical approach is to try and build a case from Scripture for the unique features of Roman Catholicism versus a more generic Christianity. The problem with that theory is that those unique distinctives do not emerge from the Biblical text, but surface later, in post-apostolic history, which lacks the presumption of God-breathed divine communication. Let God be true, but every man a liar. Thus, at every turn, you are compelled to attempt to advance your case from Scripture, and that's fine with me, as it is the only starting point I would accept anyway.

2. On Signs and Eucharistic History:

Because we have a provisional agreement that the patristic testimony on the Eucharist is mixed, I will not inundate you with a wall post full of quotes favorable to the symbolic view. That has been done and is available for those who wish to find it. Instead, you seemed to be saying no single passage could be found which directly conflicts with transubstantiation (and if I have misunderstood you in this, please feel free to correct me). I offer you this passage in Augustine as evidence of direct conflict with Aquinian transubstantiation:

13. Now he is in bondage to a sign who uses, or pays homage to, any significant object without knowing what it signifies: he, on the other hand, who either uses or honors a useful sign divinely appointed, whose force and significance he understands, does not honor the sign which is seen and temporal, but that to which all such signs refer. Now such a man is spiritual and free even at the time of his bondage, when it is not yet expedient to reveal to carnal minds those signs by subjection to which their carnality is to be overcome. 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.

Available at: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/12023.htm

In the above passage Augustine is drawing a contrast between being in carnal bondage to a wrongly interpreted sign, versus the spiritual freedom of recognizing that to which the sign refers, and giving honor to that "truth behind," and not the sign itself, as if it were anything in itself. So as the patriarchs and prophets labored under various signs before Christ came to fulfill them, yet those signs were ordained for their good, providing they did not do so in weakness, confusing the temporal sign with the divine reality it expressed. So too in the New Covenant, we have signs in the form of rites, including the celebration of the body and blood of Jesus, and we also have the reality, the living Christ, to which the signs refer. Thus, Augustine's analysis is reduced to a pile of nonsense IF the sign and the thing to which it refers are the same thing, for then there is no distinction in honor, honoring the reality by means of the sign, but not the sign itself, which is the focal point of this paragraph.

Notice here Augustine is not making fine ontological distinctions. A modern Roman theorist might try to rehabilitate Augustine by suggesting he is only discussing the accidence of the bread and wine, the superficial appearance, but that the essence or substance might be the same, and so you could preserve both sameness and difference (a masterful use of doublespeak, I might add). The problem with that creative theory is that Augustine simply doesn't make those fine distinctions. Like a bull in a china shop he just goes crashing through to his point that these two things are really different, and that recognizing the difference in them is essential to using them rightly in support of Christian faith. In this he is making a statement that is irreconcilable with the ontological identity transubstantiation proposes between the signs and the thing they represent.

Therefore, by Aristotle's Law of Non-contradiction, this is a real contradiction. X cannot also be Not X in the same way at the same time. If Aquinas is right, the sign and the reality are the same, not just in name, or in descriptive attributes, but in absolute essence, substance. If Augustine is right, the sign is a figure precisely because it does NOT share the same essence/substance with the underlying reality, but exists only to point to that reality, i.e., a metaphor, which by its name and descriptive attributes, teaches us what we need to know about the truth behind it, the living Christ:

One more offering in this regard:

Orth.— Although what has been said is enough for your faith, I will, for confirmation of the faith, give you yet another proof.
Eran.— I shall be grateful to you for so doing, for you will increase the favour done me.
Orth.— You know how God called His own body bread?
Eran.— Yes.
Orth.— And how in another place he called His flesh grain?
Eran.— Yes, I know. For I have heard Him saying “The hour has come that the Son of man should be glorified,” and “Except a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abides alone; but if it die it brings forth much fruit.”
Orth.— Yes; and in the giving of the mysteries He called the bread, body, and what had been mixed, blood.
Eran.— He so did.
Orth.— Yet naturally the body would properly be called body, and the blood, blood.
Eran.— Agreed.
Orth.— But our Saviour changed the names, and to His body gave the name of the symbol and to the symbol that of his body. So, after calling himself a vine, he spoke of the symbol as blood.
Eran.— True. But I am desirous of knowing the reason of the change of names.
Orth.— To them that are initiated in divine things the intention is plain. For he wished the partakers in the divine mysteries not to give heed to the nature of the visible objects, but, by means of the variation of the names, to believe the change wrought of grace. For He, we know, who spoke of his natural body as grain and bread, and, again, called Himself a vine, dignified the visible symbols by the appellation of the body and blood, not because He had changed their nature, but because to their nature He had added grace.

Available here: http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/27031.htm

In this hypothetical dialog, Orthodoxos represents what was widely accepted as orthodox Christian belief at the time of this writing (5th Century, I believe). This also represents a direct, irreconcilable conflict with the central premise of transubstantiation. A transformation of the Eucharist is admitted, but not one that vacates the nature of the visible objects, but rather adds to that nature grace. Thus, if the nature of bread remains, the bread is bread both in substance and accidence. As with the wine. This still represents an evolution from the simpler sense of the paschal meal in Scripture, but clearly cuts against the grain of the sense conveyed in Aquinas and later Trent, and would doubtless be subject to the anathemas of Trent. And yet it was obviously widely and uncontroversially accepted before Radbertus appeared to propose his novel and alien hyper-literalism.

3. On Truth versus Really True Truth:

I recommend you read the following essay in it's entirety: http://www.the-highway.com/trueandtruth_Vos.html. It is by Reformed theologian Gerhardus Vos, and I found it very helpful and quite edifying. I will be drawing on it somewhat to respond to your claim of support from the difference between alethes versus althinos as two distinct senses of "true," as if this could help you avoid the clear use of metaphor in John 6.

From both Trench and Vos, who appear to be in general agreement, the adjective "alethes" means "true" in a generic sense, whereas "alethinos" is the intensified form, "true" on steroids. By patterns of usage we further discern that alethinos is not a strict contrast with false, but often is used to point out a typological relationship, a lower truth versus a higher truth. For example:

John 6:32 Then Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Moses gave you not that bread from heaven; but my Father giveth you the true bread from heaven.

Here, alethinos does not deny the corporeal reality of the manna that fed the children of Israel in the wilderness, but instead points to the underlying truth for which the manna was simply a type or figure, which Jesus then clarifies as being Himself. He is the antitype to which the type of the manna pointed.

Similarly, as you have pointed out, Jesus presents Himself as the True ("alethine") Vine, again, as with the bread, not that other, physical vines are false, but that we may learn from the analogy about how we as dependent branches are to rely on Him as the true source of our nutrition. It is very clear that in both passages, the headline metaphor (Vine, Bread) draws an analogy between Jesus and some well-known means of providing nutrition. Yet no one is arguing that Jesus should be thought of as a literal vine, or that there is any literal vine that becomes Jesus on command of a priest.

Whereas John 6:55 uses "alethes,' which is the more generic, unintensified form:

John 6:55 For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed.

However, it is important to observe, as Vos does, that what we are seeing here are not two absolutely distinct terms, but the same term at different levels of intensity. This means that you can sometimes get semantic overlap, where the sense of alethinos is not appreciably different from alethes, which connotes more of a binary true/false relationship to the subject under discussion:

John 4:37 And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth.

What this means for John 6:55 is that when He says "true food" and "true drink," we are looking at the unintensified, generic "true/false" assertion. In that lesser sense, the manna was "true food," in that it met the physical hunger for which it was designed. But Jesus has raised the stakes, and is confronting the confusion in his audience. They know the bread He fed them with from the loaves and fishes was true food, in that it met their physical hunger. But now they are hearing Him speak of His body and blood as food, something they know, under the law, and by natural law, they have neither right nor inclination to eat, and they are challenged about whether this offer of food is sincere. How can it be true food, if the thing being offered cannot be eaten, at least not under the rules as they understood them?

Jesus addresses this by pressing the metaphor. He has already given them the breakout clue in verse 35, that coming to Him will cure their hunger, permanently, and believing in Him will quench their thirst, permanently. Thus, under the rules of the metaphor, belief in Him and coming to Him are the same, and both of those things stand in the place of feeding on Him. But they are blocked from accepting that very easy and natural conclusion, because they not at all ready to believe in Him, or feed on Him spiritually. So they grope about in spiritual darkness, coming up, just like Nicodemas, with an unresolvable conundrum, "We can't eat you physically? How is that supposed to work? That's no kind of food?" Yet He lays it on the line, Oh yes it is real food, alethes, verifiable as real sustenance. But, as He hints in verse 63, you have to be thinking about the spirit to get this. If you stay stuck on the flesh, you're going to miss it. And most of them stayed stuck on trying to solve the "true food" problem as a physical question. They literally did not believe Him when He told them His words are spirit. Except of course for the apostles. They got it.

So regardless of the semantic subtleties of alethes versus alethinos, we see in the end the problem is with the false assumption that "true" or "real" must mean physical. God is real, but He is a spirit, and not corporeal at all. And what does Jesus say when Satan is goading Him to create physical bread to satisfy His physical hunger? Man does not live (satisfy his hunger) by (physical) bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. An entirely spiritual food for an entirely spiritual hunger. And in John 4:34 we hear Jesus say His food is to do God's will and accomplish the work God. We could not say such food is unreal or untrue. But it is clearly not physical.

Therefore, the simple assertion that Jesus' body and blood are true food or true drink does NOT imply they are physical food or drink. They are physical by nature, but their power to give life is bound up in the substitutionary offering of the atonement. The life-giving forgiveness of God that flows from the death of Christ is taken into the soul, not the stomach, by faith, and not by physical eating. Believe on Jesus, and you have your spiritual hunger met, and being filled with the life of Christ, you will have eternal life, because He is eternal, and it is His life within you. If you believe.

4. On the Question of Gnawing versus Merely Eating:

Some have thought it significant that John's uses "trogo" (eat, munch, gnaw) in verse 56, as though it were proof that the eating must be literal, because the other two Scriptural instances of that word, occurring outside of John 6, describe literal eating. However, this entirely misses the point of what a metaphor is. Metaphor is not bound up in specific words, as though there were a class of things that can be metaphor, and a class that cannot. This is simply false. Any two objects and/or actions can be set in a metaphorical relationship to each other. In fact, if the complaint is that the term "trogo" seems too vivid, that is exactly what makes it a great candidate for a dramatic metaphor. The more vivid the better. A good teacher always goes for what is most memorable, and this word would certainly be memorable if Jesus used it to describe intense spiritual eating as a metaphor for faith in Him.

And indeed that very vivid mode of eating is exactly how Tertullian decribes eating Christ by faith. Speaking of John 6, he says:

He says, it is true, that “the flesh profiteth nothing;” 7525 but then, as in the former case, the meaning must be regulated by the subject which is spoken of. Now, because they thought His discourse was harsh and intolerable, supposing that He had really and literally enjoined on them to eat his flesh, He, with the view of ordering the state of salvation as a spiritual thing, set out with the principle, “It is the spirit that quickeneth;” and then added, “The flesh profiteth nothing,”—meaning, of course, to the giving of life. He also goes on to explain what He would have us to understand by spirit: “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” In a like sense He had previously said: “He that heareth my words, and believeth on Him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation, but shall pass from death unto life.” 7526 Constituting, therefore, His word as the life-giving principle, because that word is spirit and life, He likewise called His flesh by the same appellation; because, too, the Word had become flesh, 7527 we ought therefore to desire Him in order that we may have life, and to devour Him with the ear, and to ruminate on Him with the understanding, and to digest Him by faith.

So we have at least one patristic writer who would take no offense at the word "trogo" being used as an intense metaphor for spiritually feeding on Christ.

However, all of this may be moot. The evidence is starting to trickle in that "trogo" may have lost the vividness it had in classical Greek and by New Testament times become more like a synonym to "phago." This helps us understand why John may be using it as the term of choice for describing eating in the present as opposed to the aorist tense. It simply meant "to eat," but had acquired a grammatical attachment to present tense expressions. This is borne out by the recent and quite excellent semantic range lexicon by Louw-Nida, in which it is lumped together as a synonym to a number of other terms for eating which have no special claim to vividness:

23.3 τρώγω; γεύομαιb; βιβρώσκω; βρῶσιςa, εως f: to consume solid food—‘to eat, eating.’
τρώγω: ἦσαν … τρώγοντες καὶ πίνοντες ‘people ate and drank’ Mt 24:38.
γεύομαιb: ἐγένετο δὲ πρόσπεινος καὶ ἤθελεν γεύσασθαι ‘he became hungry and wanted to eat’ Ac 10:10.
βιβρώσκω: ἐκ τῶν πέντε ἄρτων τῶν κριθίνων ἃ ἐπερίσσευσαν τοῖς βεβρωκόσιν ‘from the five barley loaves of bread which the people had eaten’ Jn 6:13.
βρῶσιςa: περὶ τῆς βρώσεως οὖν τῶν εἰδωλοθύτων ‘concerning the eating of meat sacrificed to idols’ 1 Cor 8:4.

Either way, the impetus to arrive at a literal meaning is not compelled by the text itself, but by the need to retroactively justify the later speculations of transubstantiation, which in reality have no bearing on this passage whatsoever. Jesus is doing what He always does in the Gospels, inviting lost, hunger sinners to find everything they need in Him, by coming to Him in faith, and feeding on the grace of God that flows from the cross of Jesus.

Peace,

SR