On taking John 6 literally

triablogue ^ | October 16, 2005 | Steve

[RnMomof7]

On taking John 6 literally

Roman Catholics claim to take Jn 6 literally, unlike the Baptists. But what exactly does it mean to take Jn 6 literally, and who is more literal, the Catholic or the Baptist?

1.Here is what I take a literal interpretation of Jn 6 to mean. Some time around the year AD 30 or so, Jesus performed three nature miracles (the multiplication of food, walking on water, stilling the storm) situated on or about (the E. shore of) the Sea of Galilee.

The next day, in a synagogue located in Capernaum, on the NW shore of the Sea of Galilee, a debate took place between Jesus and the Jews, prior to the Last Supper, centering on a comparison and a contrast between Jesus and the manna in the wilderness.

2.What does a “literal” Catholic reading of Jn 6 amount to? They treat Jn 6 as an allegory of the Mass. What it symbolizes is what takes place whenever the Mass is celebrated, every day, in different parts of the world.

They justify this anachronistic and allegorical interpretation on the grounds that they deny the historicity of the original setting and substitute, in its place, a sitz-im-leben supplied by the life of the Johannine community at the tail-end of the 1C or so, residing in Asia Minor or Shangri-la. By “they,” I mean the standard Catholic commentators on John like Ray Brown and Rudolf Schnackenburg.

3.There is also a striking difference in how a Catholic and a Baptist defines a true body. For a Baptist, the true body of Christ would be the same sort of body—indeed, the very same body—as we see on display in the Gospels and Acts (Mt 28:9; Lk 24:39-40,42-43; Jn 20:17,20,24-29; Acts 1:4; 10:41).

This would be the visible, tangible body of a 1C Palestinian Jewish man, of a certain height and weight—a body that you and I would recognize for what it is.

For a Catholic, however, the true body of Christ is an invisible, intangible, unrecognizable entity hidden beneath the species of bread and wine.

One can’t help noticing that the way in which a Catholic defines the true body and real presence of Christ bears a startling resemblance to those millennial cults (e.g., Millerites, Campingites, J-Dubs, hyperpreterists) which predict the visible, bodily return of Christ, only to redraw the terms of fulfillment when their prediction fails to materialize. They assure us that Christ really did return, and is truly is present with his people, but you just can’t see him, that’s all. He actually did come back in AD 70…or was it 1844?…or was it 1914?…or was it 1994?

[daniel1212]

Yes, they ate the real, actual, physical, body of Christ because Jesus Christ Himself, God incarnate, The Word made flesh, said, This IS my body.

This superficial construance is consistent with your usual strawmen, but if a Prot said that then they would be, and have been, corrected as misrepresenting RC Eucharistic theology, and thus a RC should be the one to correct you here.

For rather than consuming the bloody flesh of Christ the way "eat my flesh" would convey in Scripture and in life if literal, and as per other miracles of physical change, so that water made wine was chemically wine and in appearance and taste (which literalism i believe RnMomof7 refers to), the RCs understanding of how the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ is rather Aristotelian. As a RC explains,

Yes, Catholics do believe that the bread and wine are transformed into the body and blood. Sort of. The "sort of" is because the technicalities of it go back to Aristotelian philosophy, which greatly influenced Thomas Aquinas, who is still in many ways the preeminent theologian of the Catholic Church...

I [Aquinas in Summa Theologica] answer that, The presence of Christ's true body and blood in this sacrament cannot be detected by sense, nor understanding, but by faith alone, which rests upon Divine authority...

It is more characteristic of Christ's love for us that he would find a way to actually be with us, not just to be represented among us.

So, yes; Catholics believe that the bread and wine are substantially (in a couple of different senses) transformed into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ. This belief is part of a longstanding interpretation of Scripture, and writings of the early Church fathers. Catholics do not, however, consider themselves to be cannibals, because the "accidents" of the bread and wine (the ingredients, the flavor, the shape, and so on) are not those of Christ Himself. (http://christianity.stackexchange.com/questions/30323/do-catholics-believe-that-they-are-actually-eating-the-body-of-christ-does-this)

And from a RC monk and defender:

Neoplatonic thought or at least conceptual terms are clearly interwoven with Christian theology long before the 13th century...

The doctrine of transubstantiation completely reverses the usual distinction between being and appearance, where being is held to be unchanging and appearance is constantly changing. Transubstantiation maintains instead that being or substance changes while appearance remains unchanged. Such reversals in the order of things are affronts to reason and require much, not little, to affirm philosophically. Moreover, transubstantiation seem to go far beyond the simple distinction between appearance and reality. It would be one thing if the body and blood of Christ simply appeared to be bread and wine. But I don’t think that is what is claimed with “transubstantiation.”

Aristotle picked up just such common-sense concepts as “what-it-is-to-be-X” and tried to explain rather complex philosophical problems with them. Thus, to take a “common-sense” concept like substance–even if one could maintain that it were somehow purified of Aristotelian provenance—and have it do paradoxical conceptual gymnastics in order to explain transubstantiation seems not to be not so anti-Aristotelian in spirit after all...

That the bread and wine are somehow really the body and blood of Christ is an ancient Christian belief—but using the concept of “substance” to talk about this necessarily involves Greek philosophy (Br. Dennis Beach, OSB, monk of St. John’s Abbey; doctorate in philosophy from Penn State; http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/30/transubstantiation-and-aristotle-warning-heavy-philosophy)

Edwin Hatch:

...it is among the Gnostics that there appears for the first time an attempt to realize the change of the elements to the material body and blood of Christ. The fact that they were so regarded is found in Justin Martyr. But at the same time, that the change was not vividly realized, is proved by the fact that, instead of being regarded as too awful for men to touch, the elements were taken by the communicants to their homes and carried about with them on their travels. (Hatch, Edwin, 1835-1889, "The influence of Greek ideas and usages upon the Christian church;" pp. 308-09 https://archive.org/stream/influenceofgreek00hatc/influenceofgreek00hatc_djvu.txt)

In Sacred Games: A History of Christian Worship, Bernhard Lang argues that, “When in late antiquity the religious elite of the Roman Empire rethought religion and ritual, the choice was not one between Mithraism and Christianity (as Ernest Renan suggested in the 19th century) but between pagan Neoplatonism and Neoplatonic Christianity.”

“In the third century CE, under the leadership of Plotinus, Plato’s philosophy enjoyed a renaissance that was to continue throughout late antiquity. This school of thought had much in common with Christianity: it believed in one God (the “One”), in the necessity of ritual, and in the saving contact with deities that were distinct from the ineffable One and stood closer to humanity. Like Judaism and Christianity, it also had its sacred books–the writings of Plato, and, in its later phase, also the Chaldean Oracles. In fact, major early Christian theologians–Origen, Augustine, Pseudo-Dionysus–can at the same time be considered major representatives of the Neoplatonic school of thought.” - (http://www.patheos.com/blogs/cosmostheinlost/2014/04/08/early-churchs-choice-between-neoplatonism)

Unlike all other miracles of physical change, the transubstantiation bread and wine consumed at the Last Supper would not have looked, tasted or tested as being the actual body and blood of Christ.

Note the the so-called "Eucharistic miracles" do not teach what Eucharistic theology teaches, while i think they have as much or less credibility then even the Raelian scientists who claim to have tested they tested some consecrated hosts. (http://atheistcreationist.org/news/dna-analysis-of-consecrated-sacramental-bread-refutes-catholic-transubstantiation-claim.html)

[Mad Dawg]

Daniel1212, I always enjoy your contributions.

As I bet you expected, I balked at “physical” in the first line you quoted. Substantial, even “real”, do not mean “physical.” A proponent of Catholic Eucharistic doctrine who doesn't get that probably is unclear about the doctrine and certainly is not careful in his language.

I don't think the neo-Platonists are all that bad. I think Plotinus (He's the only one I've read), though wrong ultimately, is very helpful as a kind of preliminary to thinking about the Trinity.

But with Aquinas, I think the paradigm shifts to Aristotle. And while the relationship of faith and reason//theology and philosophy is fluid in unexpected ways, Aquinas, and therefore Aristotle, have such authority that when a Catholic deviates (and if I were good enough to merit classification, I would be a phenomenologist/personalist — so I DO deviate) he still sort of “touches back,” like a base runner when a fly-ball is hit, to Aquinas before he runs.

Maybe it might not be amiss for me to give an example of what I “phenomenologist/personalist” means to me: Looking to Heidegger, I like to think about words. So, for example, it's very important to me that the Hebrew word for truth is an etymological sibling to the word for faith. And the English word, kin to troth, also has to do with fidelity, loyalty, commitment, reliability.

SO, in my alleged thought, perception or apprehension or knowledge of the Truth simply cannot occur without personal commitment. (This is why, by the time I was 10, I had pretty much given up on science, much as I loved it and continue to love it.) The Truth that answers my need for truth cannot be about moving bodies and the like. I called those truths “boring” only because they do not even approach the longing of the human heart.

Which longing is precisely to be “plighted” — to be put at hazard — to something worth the plighting of my self and all that matters to me. In the old wedding services the couple each said, “And thereto I PLIGHT thee my TROTH.”

So, if this is coherent at all, then it ripples through epistemology, and all the important areas of thought — or so I think.

It's a long way from that to the Eucharist. Maybe, as a prolegomenon, I could say this: My present custom is that as I approach the reception of the Sacrament, I plead thus, “For the sake of your sorrowful passion, have mercy on me and on the whole world.” (Some will recognize this as part of the “Divine Mercy”devotion.)

And, with the “Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity” (as we believe) in my mouth, as I return to my place, I plead for those who have asked for my prayers. [My flippant —ONLY flippant — thought is, “Now that I have your attention, Lord....”]

And I suppose one way to look at this is that there, at that moment, there is an inexplicable, mysterious, but authentic encounter with Jesus the Lord, the second Person of the Most Holy Trinity. He commits to me what is on His heart; I commit to Him what is on mine. In something similar to matrimony, there is a REAL, TRUE, ACTUAL, mutual “plighting of troths.”

So, I am looking over my shoulder at the objective presence of the Lord in the Sacrament. AND I am engaged in what I take to be an exchange of commitments in which the paltry truth of me encounters the transcendent Truth of God, in which — like a very small moon — I reflect a tiny bit of the sunlight of his covenantal love.

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At my degree of senility, I no longer feel obliged to present strictly rigorous accounts of anything! I find refuge in thinking that Truth and Love are meaningful names, but merely names nonetheless, for the One God. And I am confident that he offers to AND requires from me more than merely intellectual assent. He teaches me, empowers me to meet him in the exchange of hearts.

And I go to stick my tongue out at the priest and to look ridiculous, confident that that exchange is furthered and ... embodied, in that act.

Perhaps another time we can talk about the place of ritual and ceremonial in human affairs. Here let it suffice to say that Catholics hold that SOME rites and ceremonies are efficacious because God graciously pledges that they will be so. We come to him not a magicians or conjurers, but as beggars confident that their pleas will be granted.

[Elsie]

Just as he did at the Last Supper. A yearly meal of rememberance and thanksgiving.

Why has the 'church' morphed this into a ritual repeated every time the doors are open?

[Elsie]

Here let it suffice to say that Catholics hold that SOME rites and ceremonies are efficacious because God graciously pledges that they will be so.

Some?

Which ones?

Where does GOD say that?

[Mad Dawg]

Oh, MAN! Are you really going to do that?

If it helps, in my training the "rite" is what you say. The ceremonial is what you do.

So, that thing some do with water would be the ceremonial. And the "in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit" would be the ritual.

Ass a matter of definition only, Jesus says, "Do this ....," so the DOING part is "ceremonial."

This is about terminology, nothing more.

BTW, Happy Easter.

[Elsie]

 If it helps, in my training the "rite" is what you say.

Oh!

 

Like 'ual' part is what you do...

 

 

ritual

 

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rit·u·al

ˈriCH(əw)əl/

noun

noun: ritual; plural noun: rituals

1. 1.

   a religious or solemn ceremony consisting of a series of actions performed according to a prescribed order.

   "the ancient rituals of Christian worship"

   • the prescribed order of performing a ceremony, especially one characteristic of a particular religion or church.

     synonyms:

     ceremony, rite, ceremonial, observance; More service, sacrament, liturgy, worship; act, practice, custom, tradition, convention, formality, procedure, protocol "an elaborate civic ritual"

   • a series of actions or type of behavior regularly and invariably followed by someone.

     "her visits to Joy became a ritual"

adjective

adjective: ritual

1. 1.

   of, relating to, or done as a religious or solemn rite.

   "ritual burial"

[Rashputin]

"This saying is hard, and who can hear it?" is the real bottom line for folks who rely on their Self and Self Alone to interpret Scripture whether they murmur and walk away or wave their hands, mock those who accept His Word at face value, then insist that Jesus Christ, The Word Incarnate, could not possibly mean exactly what He said.

Someone rejecting Christ because "This is my body" is a hard saying is nothing new.

[Mad Dawg]

Yeah, even Catholics don't keep the distinction tidily. They're not high on my list of words whose etymology I want to scope out. Anthony Esolen -- who wth his wife turned out a fine translation of Dante's Commedia -- is an etymology whiz. Maybe I'll ask him some time.

The distinction as I stated it was what they taught me in seminary. I was pretty much parroting.

[Mad Dawg]

Would you be so kind as to run over the “yearly” point of view?

I think the el standardo argument for more often than yearly would be the phrase “breaking of bread” as used in Acts.

[HossB86]

"This saying is hard, and who can hear it?" is the real bottom line for folks who rely on their Self and Self Alone to interpret Scripture whether they murmur and walk away or wave their hands, mock those who accept His Word at face value, then insist that Jesus Christ, The Word Incarnate, could not possibly mean exactly what He said.

Odd... still that uncomfy position regarding worshipping the same god as the Muslims. There is no "self and self alone" -- another useless Catholic Cult Canard (hey.. kinda like the CCC... I like it!).

Christ spoke allegorically. Otherwise, he is a gate, a door, a vine, a cornerstone... at least according to Roman Catholicism.

Which "Holy Tradition" recounts which parts of Christ that were eaten at the Last Supper by the Disciples? He spoke literally, right? How much blood was drained from Christ and consumed by the Disciples?

That's the sort of pap you get from Rome and Rome Alone that look to fallible men of the Magicsterium for interpretation of scripture instead of relying on the Holy Spirit and prayer.

And common sense.

Hoss

[Rashputin]

LOL !!!

The same Holy Spirit and prayers that led all of Christianity up to and including Martin Luther to accept what Jesus Christ Himself said at face value or that other post Luther "holy spirit" hanging from a tree and whispering to the individual that they can rely on their Self and Self Alone?

Please, people who rely on their Self are free to do so but when such folks claim those who disagree with them are not relying on the Holy Spirit and prayer they just prove beyond all doubt they're exactly like the Jews who walked away from Christ when Christ said something that fell outside their comfort zone.

Those Jews rejected Christ based on putting their own limits on what was acceptable for Jesus Christ, the Messiah, God Incarnate, to do. People who are drowning in the heresy of Self and Self Alone do exactly the same thing.

They reject Christ saying "This is my body" because they know for sure God Incarnate would never mean exactly what He said and couldn't possibly perform the miracle of making His real flesh and real blood present for us every time the Eucharist is properly presented because such folks know the power of God Almighty is limited to what they can accept.

Are personal Self and Self Alone comfort zones the same as invincible ignorance?

[Mad Dawg]

Which "Holy Tradition" recounts which parts of Christ that were eaten at the Last Supper by the Disciples? He spoke literally, right? How much blood was drained from Christ and consumed by the Disciples?

(I'm already on record, repeatedly questioning the use of the word "literally" as confusing and imprecise.)
But here you go:
[Tertia Pars] Question 76. The way in which Christ is in this sacrament

You wouldn't be the first to ask the question or other ones like it. But if you really want to get into it, questions 73 through 83 of the Summa, Tertia Pars, are useful places to begin.

[Mad Dawg]

P.S. I'd recommend setting aside several hours to work through the questions. The Summa is a kind of an outline — for beginners, yeah, right — so sometimes it's painfully curt.

But if you're working at picking at Eucharistic teaching with questions like the one you asked, you pretty much have to read this.

[Elsie]

Someone rejecting Christ because "This is my body" is a hard saying is nothing new.

Someone rejecting Christ because "This is my body" is a metaphor for the symbolizism in the Passover is nothing new.

[Elsie]

I think the el standardo argument for more often than yearly would be the phrase “breaking of bread” as used in Acts.

Of course it is; but Jesus was not AROUND to eat the stuff found in Acts.

Rome wants to state that the thing Jesus was doing was something NEW; when it patently is NOT.

[Mad Dawg]

“patently”?

[HossB86]

Allegory. Learn it.

Hoss

[Rashputin]

[HossB86]

See ya.

Hoss

[HossB86]

I appreciate the offer; however, the metaphor that Christ used, and used obviously, is fine for me. I’ll take him at his word.

Thanks though — sincerely — for the kindness with which you offered it.

Hoss