You take a, for lack of a better term, philosophically literalist position on being born again. I do so with regard to the Body and Blood, though in point of fact neither of us are pointing to an action recognizable by a third party as what we describe.
You. can not, at least while maintaining any kind of intellectual integrity, claim your "second birth" is in any sense literal, while also denying my assertion consuming the bread and wine is literally consuming the Body and Blood, without cutting off the interpretational limb you're standing on.
Ahh, I see what you are driving at - I accept the term 'philosophically literalist' - And therein lies the difference:
You [...] claim your "second birth" is [...] literal [...]
Sorry to chop your quote up so much but the above is the root of your comment...
'Born Again' is merely a popular phrase to denote a process - No one I know would take that process as a literally physical thing. There are certainly physical aspects to it... the baptism is certainly a physical representation of what is going on spiritually, and powerful spiritual forces can effect emotional and physical responses in the body, but the mechanism, as it were, is certainly spiritual.
The circumcision is a good example: While the physical aspect of the circumcision cannot be denied, it is *not* the physical aspect that is necessary. It is only representative. YHWH has declared it is the circumcision of the heart that He desires, and that, as a point of fact, must certainly be the important part...
To wit: I do not claim that my 'second birth' is literal in the physical sense...
I think you have fallen into a mental snare that often accuses literalists and fundamentalists - That as literalists, we *must* take the literal sense. That is not true. We tend to take the literal position as the first or most desired position, but no one supposes that one can take the entirety of the Bible as wholly literal. The literal position is taken first - but if that cannot make sense, or doesn't seem to make sense, the spiritual aspect is then considered.
Perhaps that is why we are quicker than most to scoff at transubtantiation - A definition whose explanation is so convoluted that it required an invented name and page upon page of explanation to arrive at it's meaning - A literalist orientation strains at accepting such convolutions. Our own collective experience has taught us that bending and twisting the Word to fit is never profitable. The simplest and most elegant interpretation is usually the best.
After all, the 'milk' of the matter can be understood by a child - The Torah was read in it's entirety to the people every seven years in part so that the children born in the interim would hear the words of YHWH. That infers the child would be able to grasp it. And no doubt there is 'meat' - I have spent the greater portion of my life peeling the onion-like layers of the Bible. But while endeavoring to eat the meat of it, it is always needful to remember to wash it down with the milk, lest one would choke. : )
Eloquently stated! Thank you.
I do not know how I could have qualified my comments about the second birth any more.
I must therefore conclude you are either being willfully obtuse for the purpose of maintaining your line of reasoning, or not bothering to read what I write, for you to imply I think being born again is thought by anyone to be a physical process.
As that initial premise is flawed, the rest of your restatement of Protestant reasoning is fatuous, and it still remains for you to answer the dilemma I posed.