The RCC born in 313 AD? (2)

MoreCoffee said:

There are no "magic words" but the priest dopes repeat what Jesus said at the last supper and those words are the words of consecration.
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You said it. I did not.

bbbbbbb said:

What I do know is that when I was young, growing up in an extremely Catholic city, all of my Catholic friends were quite insistent that at a Catholic mass, the priest said the magic words in Latin, the bells chimed, and the bread became the flesh of Jesus Christ and the wine became the very blood of Jesus Christ. They did not believe that the "accidents" remained unchanged.

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To be completely fair, this is an understanding of children, many years ago?

I've met little children who think that there is a tiny Baby Jesus physically residing in their hearts. Admittedly this reflects thinking even less sophisticated than what you are describing of (probably older) children, but it might be fair to think that the children did not have a perfect understanding of all aspects of their Church's theology?

At least if we want to know what any particular Church actually teaches, it seems fairer to ask someone who knows?

FWIW, I had always thought that's what "transubstantiation" meant too, and that the belief was that there was literal blood in a cup being drunk. Sounded spooky and gross to me. But that was an understanding and prejudice I'd carried since childhood too.

bbbbbbb said:

What I do know is that when I was young, growing up in an extremely Catholic city, all of my Catholic friends were quite insistent that at a Catholic mass, the priest said the magic words in Latin, the bells chimed, and the bread became the flesh of Jesus Christ and the wine became the very blood of Jesus Christ. They did not believe that the "accidents" remained unchanged.

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Really? Every parish I have been to the sacrament still looks like bread and wine. Must have been a funky city you grew up in.

In all seriousness.....not all Catholics are well cathecatized.

concretecamper said:

Why would one expect that the DNA of the consecrated bread and wine be different than what they appear to be?

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Good question - no Bible text says that the Bread is changed into something that is not bread.

In John 10 - Jesus "is the DOOR"

In Rev 4 Jesus is the LAMB

In John 6 Jesus said he was already BREAD that came down from heaven -- manna.

All symbols.

in Christ,

Bob

By Faith Alone said:

This is my body.

This is my blood.

I am the door.

I am the true vine.

All flesh is grass.

You are the salt of the earth.

Much to do about...METAPHORS.

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True that

MoreCoffee said:

If you want to think that what Jesus said was a metaphor that's up to you.

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Or else... He is really a wooden door/gate/vine or a lamb or manna floating down from heaven?

Really?

Kylissa said:

To be completely fair, this is an understanding of children, many years ago?

I've met little children who think that there is a tiny Baby Jesus physically residing in their hearts. .

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Indeed metaphors taken too literally leads to some pretty strange stuff.

But in the case of this thread the problem getting the RCC to exist in the first century is that they don't have RCC doctrine in the first century.


Which brings us to this post #123

So then where is the first century evidence for the RCC's doctrines?

BobRyan said:

The RCC evolved over time as error after error was incorporated.

No pugatory in the NT.

no "Mary mother of God" in the NT

no prayers to the dead in the NT.

No "confecting the body and divinity of Christ" in the NT.

No indulgences in the NT.

No exterminating heretics in the NT.

No Pope Peter in the NT - as we see in Acts 15 - James is the leader.

No infant baptism in the NT

No order of priests in the NT

And without all of that - do you really have the RCC in the NT?

No.

hint - even Catholic sources themselves admit that the RCC doctrines "evolved over time" see "A Concise history of the Catholic Church" and "Catholic Digest" as they research the history of infant baptism and priests.

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Nowhere.

in Christ,

Bob

MoreCoffee said:

There are no "magic words" but the priest dopes repeat what Jesus said at the last supper and those words are the words of consecration.
Jesus said, 'Take it and eat, this is my body.'
Jesus also said, 'Drink from this, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.'

If your friends didn't believe that the substance changed and the accidents remained unchanged then they are either well over 500 years old and wouldn't use that vocabulary or they knew very little of the Catholic faith (or you may be remembering things not quite the way they were?). The vocabulary of transubstantiation was given conciliar approval at the council of Trent in the 16th century. So no Catholic can accurately present Catholic teaching without knowing what the Church teaches about the ideas of substance and accidents in the explanation of the real presence.

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I think the reality of the situation was that they failed to grasp the nuances of the doctrine of transubstantiation. As you know, most non-Catholics struggle to properly understand the doctrine. Even today a clost friend of mine who is a devout Catholic and teaches the children in his parish, has told me that he cannot explain transubstantiation, but firmly believes that the bread "really and truly becomes the flesh of Jesus Christ and the wine really and truly becomes the blood of Jesus Christ". His words, not mine.

As I say, if Catholics have difficulty comprehending the doctrine, what are we poor Protestants to do?

concretecamper said:

So in the case where God removed the accidents, you would expect the DNA of bread and wine?

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Of course not. However, because the actual flesh has been preserved for posterity, would it not be a matter of some interest to perform a DNA test on it? After all, similar testing was performed on the Shroud of Turin.

Kylissa said:

To be completely fair, this is an understanding of children, many years ago?

I've met little children who think that there is a tiny Baby Jesus physically residing in their hearts. Admittedly this reflects thinking even less sophisticated than what you are describing of (probably older) children, but it might be fair to think that the children did not have a perfect understanding of all aspects of their Church's theology?

At least if we want to know what any particular Church actually teaches, it seems fairer to ask someone who knows?

FWIW, I had always thought that's what "transubstantiation" meant too, and that the belief was that there was literal blood in a cup being drunk. Sounded spooky and gross to me. But that was an understanding and prejudice I'd carried since childhood too.

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Actually, it was not just children, but their parents who intervened to attempt to convince me and other neighborhood kids.

However, the difficulty does remain that many of us, both non-Catholic as well as Catholic do struggle to grasp the nuances of transubstantiation.

concretecamper said:

Really? Every parish I have been to the sacrament still looks like bread and wine. Must have been a funky city you grew up in.

In all seriousness.....not all Catholics are well cathecatized.

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I agree entirely. That is a struggle in every denomination.

bbbbbbb said:

Actually, it was not just children, but their parents who intervened to attempt to convince me and other neighborhood kids.

However, the difficulty does remain that many of us, both non-Catholic as well as Catholic do struggle to grasp the nuances of transubstantiation.

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Primarily because it does not exist.

bbbbbbb said:

Of course not. However, because the actual flesh has been preserved for posterity, would it not be a matter of some interest to perform a DNA test on it? After all, similar testing was performed on the Shroud of Turin.

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It is fiction from the dark ages and even the RCC claims that if you study the bread you will find that going right down to the carbon atoms - it is just bread.

in Christ,

Bob

bbbbbbb said:

Actually, it was not just children, but their parents who intervened to attempt to convince me and other neighborhood kids.

However, the difficulty does remain that many of us, both non-Catholic as well as Catholic do struggle to grasp the nuances of transubstantiation.

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Well, I can appreciate that actually. When I decided to find out what Catholics believe, what Lutherans believe, what Methodists believe, and so on ...

I had to ask many times. The words someone uses sometimes made me assume a wrong thing. So I asked whether I got it right. Often I did not, and they explained further.

Some of these things take quite a bit of explaining. The nuances of various doctrines, in many kinds of churches, are like that to me.

Believe me, I've asked quite a few times, and I'm reasonably confident that I understand the Catholic view (most of it - I missed whether the "when" question I asked ever got answered but I don't think so). Yet I would not want to try to explain to anyone for fear that I would just create more confusion. If I had to, I would try, but if it were important, I would rather let someone else.

I think that's one reason I prefer the Orthodox answers in many cases. Often the answer is "we don't know".

But I am seeing the Catholics had to codify their beliefs because of certain pressures on the Church, and it is useful to me, even though I am not Catholic and I may not agree, so I have to appreciate the efforts, at least.

By Faith Alone said:

Not on your life:
Prov 14:9 Fools make a mock at sin....

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But you were not addressing sin. You were (not-mocking-but-commenting-your-opinion?) on a Church's sacramental beliefs.

Did you ever ask anyone that question in the thread "Protestant errors and inventions"? Mock City in that one.

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Very possibly true. And also likely just as inappropriate. But no, I did not ask, because I am not the mocking police. I asked you only because you were responding directly to me.


(And I never liked that kind of comment "since you didn't ask I won't say it" ... right as one is saying something. It's not honest, because one has just said it.)

BobRyan said:

It is fiction from the dark ages and even the RCC claims that if you study the bread you will find that going right down to the carbon atoms - it is just bread.

in Christ,

Bob

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In the case that was cited, the bread is believed to have been completely transformed into human flesh and this has been preserved as evidence of the miracle. Thus, the RCC is in a particular situation where it cannot claim that the "accidents" (i.e. bread) remained unchanged.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia article - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eucharistic_miracle

bbbbbbb said:

In the case that was cited, the bread is believed to have been completely transformed into human flesh and this has been preserved as evidence of the miracle. Thus, the RCC is in a particular situation where it cannot claim that the "accidents" (i.e. bread) remained unchanged.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia article - Eucharistic miracle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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Catholic Eucharistic Doctrine hinges on a quasi-Aristotelian understanding of reality,[1] in which the core substance or essential reality of a given thing is bound to, but not equivalent with, its sensible realities or accidents.

Yeah. The Greeks stepped in many a Biblical doctrine and made God a liar.

By Faith Alone said:

Catholic Eucharistic Doctrine hinges on a quasi-Aristotelian understanding of reality,[1] in which the core substance or essential reality of a given thing is bound to, but not equivalent with, its sensible realities or accidents.

Yeah. The Greeks stepped in many a Biblical doctrine and made God a liar.

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Don't you think that this is a bit prejudicial? What were the gentile Christians supposed to do, magically erase the historical, cultural, and educational contexts from which they came and turn into "Hebrews?"

If this is the game you want to play, consider where the "Hebrew mind" of the Old Testament Hebrews got them, enslavement to foreign nations, whoring after bloodthirsty idols, and ultimately the destruction of their homeland and Temple. Twice.

bbbbbbb said:

In the case that was cited, the bread is believed to have been completely transformed into human flesh and this has been preserved as evidence of the miracle. Thus, the RCC is in a particular situation where it cannot claim that the "accidents" (i.e. bread) remained unchanged.

Here is an interesting Wikipedia article - Eucharistic miracle - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

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The RCC had many stories and legends in the dark ages. nothing changes.

They have bleeding statues - crying statues - oil generating statues.

Does that prove that the statues became olive trees, humans?

The egyptian magicians toss down their staff along with Moses' staff and all of them appear to become snakes.

The question is not what new trick can the devil do - the question is "What does the Bible say".

In the Bible "no bread is bleeding"

In the bible "no statues are bleeding or crying ".

In the Bible the doctrine of the church is stated without promoting any of the RCC distinctives which is a problem for the claim that the RCC even existed at all in the first century.

in Christ,

Bob

By Faith Alone said:

Catholic Eucharistic Doctrine hinges on a quasi-Aristotelian understanding of reality,[1] in which the core substance or essential reality of a given thing is bound to, but not equivalent with, its sensible realities or accidents.

Yeah. The Greeks stepped in many a Biblical doctrine and made God a liar.

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That is true - but thank God it did not get into the Bible itself.