What we know about Jesus is that after his Resurrection he appeared to his disciples in a “glorified” body, which I take to mean a physical body like our own, but not as it is in time-space. He could appear to them, interact with them as he had before, share with them a meal on the shores of the lake, walk and talk with him as he had “before.” We cannot explain this either in concrete terms as known by the apostles, nor theological terms as known to the Council fathers. nor in terms of the science of our own times. It is a mystery. And my problem with the doctrine of transubstantiation is that some take it to explain what it only describes. It describes truly but explains nothing. Much the same is true of what the Bible says. It compares with the Summa of St. Thomas as a mountain does to a plain, but it is not the last word. THAT will only come later. As Paul says about seeing things darkly as in a polished metal mirror.
What we know about Jesus is that after his Resurrection he appeared to his disciples in a “glorified” body, which I take to mean a physical body like our own, but not as it is in time-space. He could appear to them, interact with them as he had before, share with them a meal on the shores of the lake, walk and talk with him as he had “before.” We cannot explain this either in concrete terms as known by the apostles, nor theological terms as known to the Council fathers. nor in terms of the science of our own times. It is a mystery. And my problem with the doctrine of transubstantiation is that some take it to explain what it only describes. It describes truly but explains nothing. Much the same is true of what the Bible says. It compares with the Summa of St. Thomas as a mountain does to a plain, but it is not the last word. THAT will only come later. As Paul says about seeing things darkly as in a polished metal mirror.
"but not as it is in time-space?" Based on what? There is simply no evidence His glorified body was any more detachable from time-space than his pre-glorification body. How does a natural body walk on water? How does a natural body evade a crowd pressing in to stone Him to death? The things He did in either state were miracles engineered by the Godhead, but in no fashion require him to violate His human nature, including His human physicality and its limitations in space-time. To do so, as I said before, would violate the well established principles of Chalcedon, and I am in shock that you, as a professed Catholic, have taken no apparent effort to factor that in, especially after preaching to me on the value of listening to those who have gone before us.
In any event, the notion of a Christ "outside of time" is nowhere found in Scripture, and relies heavily on modern, post-Newtonian ideas of the space-time manifold, which notions have in modern, liberal theology merged with the eastern notion of timeless Nirvana, but are completely absent in the actual revelation God gave us concerning these things. To retrofit Scripture with such an anachronism is preposterous, and a grand presumption against the plain facts as they have been revealed by the Holy Spirit. Any retreat to "ineffability," the inability to express an idea, where the facts are plainly recorded, amounts in my view to yet another attempt to discover a blank check with which you can solve any glaring inconsistency by the appeal to uncertainty.
But all this is so unnecessary. John 6 is clearly teaching we consume Christ by coming to Him and believing in His words, as Peter himself demonstrates right at the end of the Bread of Life discourse. He understood what the materialists who abandoned Jesus did not. The earliest records give no evidence of a sacramental re-participation in the supposed perpetual suffering of the Lamb, but instead present a time of offering thanksgiving, in memory of the gift once given. The very name "Eucharist" records this fact, as it simply means "thanksgiving." Not until centuries later did the neoplatonic influence drive many in the churches to a distorted view of the bread and wine, reverting in effect to nearly the same error as those failed materialists who so profoundly misunderstood Jesus that day. The body and blood He gave for us was real enough on the cross. But it is only when we trust in Him, and believe in what He said, and what He did for us on that cross, that we really are consuming Him, drawing our life from Him, eternal life, which Jesus never taught came from eating bread and wine, or even the appearances of bread and wine, but only ever by believing in Him.
John 6:47 Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me hath everlasting life.
Peace,
SR