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It's not like we invented this idea out of whole cloth

Well, yes, you sort of did. Not you personally, that is. But the deviation from the original meaning is significant.

Do you seriously think Jesus is God, and yet it comes to him as a big surprise that hundreds of millions of people take his words literally?

Truth isn't measured by the number of people who get it wrong.

Besides, I'm not even sure I know what "literal" means in these Eucharistic conversations anymore. I have spoken with some who seem to take "literal" to mean physical in the ordinary sense, just not discernible to the senses.

Others, when pressed on the question of physicality, retreat to the ambiguity of Aristotelian substance theory. They tell us the presence is not physical, but is still real, yet not simply spiritually real, as Calvin would have it, but really real, just not real in any way we know about. Yes, that is confusing, and I am confused by it.

I'm not 100% sure, but I think this substance retreat is done as a defense against the cannibalism charge. But in fact it only delays that charge by a step or two, and then it comes anyway. This is because the substance of Christ necessarily entails his physicality, so even if it is not a normal physical presence, a physical presence it nevertheless remains, under transubstantive theory. Thus if one eats the physicality of Christ, even if hidden behind an outer layer of accidence, and an inner enigma of substance, one has still consumed human flesh. Literally. I guess. So the cannibalism charge stands. If "literally" is to be taken ... literally.

When he held up a cup and said "take, all of ye, and drink of it: this cup is the new covenant IN MY BLOOD," just as a year before he had said, "unless you eat my flesh AND DRINK MY BLOOD" ... was he being unclear? Setting a bad example? Tempting people to sin by using a figure of speech? Speaking unwisely? Which one?

It is damaging to your cause to work only in straw man arguments. They are so flammable. Nothing in your list represents the Protestant/evangelical position. Wouldn't it be more "devastating" if, instead of straw men, you appealed to sound reason to show us why it cannot possibly be a metaphor? But perhaps you do not take that approach because it cannot be done. There are excellent reasons to understand this as a simple, direct metaphor. They all stand because you have not refuted them. You haven't even mentioned them. You've given no one who sees this as an obvious example of metaphor any reason to see it differently.

Because it does take the classical form of direct metaphor. A is B, where A and B are two distinct conceptual domains, having shared attributes, so that we can learn about B from what we know of A. Jesus says He is the Bread of Life. We know He is not a loaf of bread. He is the God-man. So we learn, which is the point of metaphor. It is an instrument of education. We learn that Jesus, if we draw our sustenance from Him, sustains us and gives us eternal life. But how we do that is not by means of the flesh, but the spirit. Do we get to take Jesus "literally" in verse 63, where He tells us outright He's talking about spirit, not flesh? Do we get to take Jesus literally in verse 35, where He tells us we eat and drink Him by coming to Him and believing in Him, both spiritual acts?

No, Jesus has been very clear. And it is a frightful thing to even suggest He would tempt others to sin, as would be the case if the elements were literally physical flesh and blood. God tempts no man, says James. If people sin, that is because the fault is in them. Nothing Jesus has ever said was unwise. Yet some have mutilated their bodies trying to comply literally with His teaching about plucking out one's sinning eyes. People can be incredibly stupid. We can't blame God for that, and it seems intemperate and unwise to even raise that as an argument.

Peace,

SR

Others, when pressed on the question of physicality, retreat to the ambiguity of Aristotelian substance theory. They tell us the presence is not physical, but is still real, yet not simply spiritually real, as Calvin would have it, but really real, just not real in any way we know about. Yes, that is confusing, and I am confused by it.

Really! As the monk i quote said, (Even really is a problematic term here, stemming as it does from the philosophical term res.) - http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/30/transubstantiation-and-aristotle-warning-heavy-philosophy/

Do we get to take Jesus literally in verse 35, where He tells us we eat and drink Him by coming to Him and believing in Him, both spiritual acts?

Do we get to take Jesus literally in verse 57, when He tells us that "as the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father: so he that eateth me, even he shall live by me," yet He did not live by eating the Father's flesh, but by every word that came from the Father, (Mt. 4:4) the doing of which was His "meat." (Jn. 4:34)

How often does John have to use physical terms which are actually allegorical when seen in context for us ti get it?