Who invented transubstantiation?

[abacabb3]

Still does not answer my question.

1. When was the first written mention of this idea?
2. How can one partake in the same sacrifice outside of time but that same sacrifice is in its nature, fundamentally different (bloody sacrifice simultaneously unbloody at the same time)
3. If I travel back in time and kill Hitler, but Hitler builds a time machine and travels forward in time to kill me, what happens?

 

[PaladinValer]

Still does not answer my question.

1. When was the first written mention of this idea?

Reread my post. I even give a century for the rise of Aristotelianism in the West.

2. How can one partake in the same sacrifice outside of time but that same sacrifice is in its nature, fundamentally different (bloody sacrifice simultaneously unbloody at the same time)

Ontologically.

3. If I travel back in time and kill Hitler, but Hitler builds a time machine and travels forward in time to kill me, what happens?

Too little information. No dates given.

 

[abacabb3]

Reread my post. I even give a century for the rise of Aristotelianism in the West.

Which post?

Ontologically.

Use words I know when answering the question please.

Too little information. No dates given.

1937 and 2015.

 

[PaladinValer]

Which post?

Go back one page.

Use words I know when answering the question please.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

1937 and 2015.

Impossible example, since the 2015 thought of wouldn't exist due to 1937.

 

[abacabb3]

Go back one page.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ontology

Link. please.

Further different words please. I know what ontology means, but I am not drawing the inference you are.

If you are trying to convince someone of your position and they ask you to elaborate upon what you believe in different words, that would be something good to do if your position had any real merit.

And again, when as the first time someone actually elucidated the idea that the eucharist forgave sins?

 

[tz620q]

That's not very good temporal mechanics.

Since it is a participation in the same sacrifice, it is a sharing in the same benefits, which is the forgiveness of sins.

As it is the exact same event, it isn't being repeated in reality, but it is being experienced again. It is like taking a ride back into the future...same event, but experienced again. And because nothing interferes with the timeline, nothing is ever altered.

I realize that is very difficult to follow, but then again, temporal mechanics isn't a very easy subject.

I didn't understand why Jesus had done this until I read Leviticus 1:3, then the typology became apparent.

"If a person’s offering is a burnt offering from the herd, the offering must be a male without blemish. The individual shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to find favor with the LORD, and shall lay a hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it may be acceptable to make atonement for the one who offers it."

I saw a connection with my receiving the Eucharist into my hand and that this physical act of touching our sacrifice was the fulfillment of the type of the OT sin sacrifice. So participation extends to actual physical contact to transfer our sins into our sacrifice.

 

[PaladinValer]

I didn't understand why Jesus had done this until I read Leviticus 1:3, then the typology became apparent.

"If a person’s offering is a burnt offering from the herd, the offering must be a male without blemish. The individual shall bring it to the entrance of the tent of meeting to find favor with the LORD, and shall lay a hand on the head of the burnt offering, so that it may be acceptable to make atonement for the one who offers it."

I saw a connection with my receiving the Eucharist into my hand and that this physical act of touching our sacrifice was the fulfillment of the type of the OT sin sacrifice. So participation extends to actual physical contact to transfer our sins into our sacrifice.

Of course, back in the day, we communicated by the tongue, not the hand, although that's something neither of our good churches are limited to anymore

I like the fact that it is a communal sacrifice, not solely of a priest here too. Because we are all hiereus, though of course not all presbyteros. The gifts of bread and the mixed chalice are truly of the Church, the whole community, to God, who, by His priest or bishop, sanctifies to be His Body and His Blood.

 

[abacabb3]

We still don't have an answer for:

-When it was first written that the Eucharist forgives sins
-How the Eucharist is the same sacrifice as Christ's on the cross from 2,000 years ago, which was bloody, but at the same time is unbloody

I know I was accused of having a poor understanding of Temporal Mechanics, which is forgivable for me because I was too young to watch any of the Back to the Future movies in the theaters, but the above concerns are a tad more concrete. One pertains to the history of the doctrine. For it to be Apostolic, we need to find it in the Scripture. For it to be suggestive that it was preserved in oral tradition, we need to find it in the ECFs at some point. The other pertains to simple logic (i.e. it cant be raining and not raining at the same time.)

 

[tz620q]

We still don't have an answer for:

-How the Eucharist is the same sacrifice as Christ's on the cross from 2,000 years ago, which was bloody, but at the same time is unbloody

I started to understand this when I started to realize the incarnational nature of the Eucharist. I cannot put it better than St. Justin Martyr did in his First Apologia:

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

This refers back to what St. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:27-29
"Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord. A person should examine himself, and so eat the bread and drink the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment on himself."

and Jesus said in Matthew 28:20
"And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

So it is not that odd to see the early Christians take the Eucharist as a mysterious form of communion with both God and each other in a real and physical way, not just as a remembrance of a fallen comrade. To help understand the nature of the Eucharist, they saw it as having both natural and supernatural elements just as Jesus had both human and divine natures. So if someone says that there is an actual spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist, we say, "Amen". It is easy to accept this without getting squeamish about cannibalism. But we do not leave it there and as so many of the early Christian martyrs witnessed to, it is the actual physical presence of Christ's body. Is this the bloody body taken down from the cross, dead? No. This body is alive and works in our lives.

From the USCCB website on the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist -
http://www.usccb.org/prayer-and-wor...the-eucharist-basic-questions-and-answers.cfm

"The whole Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, under the appearances of bread and wine—the glorified Christ who rose from the dead after dying for our sins. This is what the Church means when she speaks of the "Real Presence" of Christ in the Eucharist. This presence of Christ in the Eucharist is called "real" not to exclude other types of his presence as if they could not be understood as real (cf. Catechism, no. 1374). The risen Christ is present to his Church in many ways, but most especially through the sacrament of his Body and Blood."

" By eating the Body and drinking the Blood of Christ in the Eucharist we become united to the person of Christ through his humanity. "Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him" (Jn 6:56). In being united to the humanity of Christ we are at the same time united to his divinity. Our mortal and corruptible natures are transformed by being joined to the source of life. "

This is a mystery that cannot even be explained fully using philosophical terms. It can be tried, like was done in the definition of transubstantiation; but will always fall short because the human mind has a hard time comprehending how this can be done using logic and experience. It is my contention that like most doctrine, transubstantiation was more of a defense against those who denied the real presence, than an attempt to finally and for all time define how the Eucharist could become the body and blood of our Lord. The true meat to this argument is based on discerning the actual and real body of our Lord in the Eucharist. This requires faith. It's a good thing we can accept it on faith in our Lord and not have to completely understand it.

May God be with you Today, in all our senses,
Byron

 

[abacabb3]

I started to understand this when I started to realize the incarnational nature of the Eucharist. I cannot put it better than St. Justin Martyr did in his First Apologia:

"We call this food Eucharist, and no one else is permitted to partake of it, except one who believes our teaching to be true and who has been washed in the washing which is for the remission of sins and for regeneration [has received baptism] and is thereby living as Christ enjoined. For not as common bread nor common drink do we receive these; but since Jesus Christ our Savior was made incarnate by the word of God and had both flesh and blood for our salvation, so too, as we have been taught, the food which has been made into the Eucharist by the Eucharistic prayer set down by him, and by the change of which our blood and flesh is nurtured, is both the flesh and the blood of that incarnated Jesus.”

Yes, the real presence is there but there is no mention of sins being forgiven by partaking in the Eucharist. In fact, he clearly ascribes this power to the sacrament of baptism in the quote you provided, but appears unaware of that same detail when speaking of the Eucharist.

God bless,
Craib

 

[JM]

Yes, the real presence is there but there is no mention of sins being forgiven by partaking in the Eucharist. In fact, he clearly ascribes this power to the sacrament of baptism in the quote you provided, but appears unaware of that same detail when speaking of the Eucharist.

God bless,
Craib

You can lead horse to water....

 

[abacabb3]

You can lead horse to water....

So far in my conversations on the subject, there appears to be an odd conflation of ideas. If they read in an ECF that he ascribed to the Real Presence, he automatically presumes that the ECF ALSO ascribes to the Eucharist the forgiveness of sins...a detail notably missing and not discussed in any of the quotations they cite.

So, if for hundreds of years they clearly ascribe to baptism the forgiveness of sins, something specifically found in Scripture, yet for centuries not mention the similar detail that the Eucharist does the same, the logical conclusion is that no one believed the latter for centuries. Believing that the Eucharist is a memorial sacrifice (as CHrysostom said) is a much different idea than the Eucharist being a sacrifice that brings about real forgiveness of sins, if not paraken in by the Christian, leaves that Christian stained with unforgiven sins.

 

[fatherjimparker]

Who came up with transubstantiation? I think it was Simon the Magician of Acts 8. He liked to perform magic tricks. He also visited Rome.

The earliest known use of the word is from the 11th century, about 1000 years after the death of Simon Magus.

 

[fatherjimparker]

<<The Christian doctrine of the Real Presence was "invented" by Jesus Christ when at His Last Supper He took bread and wine and said they were His body and blood.>>


I love it! Well said.

 

[tz620q]

Yes, the real presence is there but there is no mention of sins being forgiven by partaking in the Eucharist. In fact, he clearly ascribes this power to the sacrament of baptism in the quote you provided, but appears unaware of that same detail when speaking of the Eucharist.

God bless,
Craib

I was really trying to answer the second question and not the first in my previous post. As regards Justin Martyr's quote, do you acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins? And if so, how are one's sins forgiven after baptism? If I had a better sense of which denomination you belonged to, I could make the forgivable sin of stereotyping your views. I've fallen into unprofitable discussion in the past where I found I was trying to put a pin in the ground to establish some agreement and the person that I was conversing with kept shifting their stance to make it impossible. I don't think you are this way; but it is a maddening thing to realize that the person on the other end of the discussion is purely there to be a contrarian.

Am I right in reading into your posts that you believe in a real presence in the Eucharist?

Thank you for your quotes and your comments,
Byron

 

[tz620q]

I was really trying to answer the second question and not the first in my previous post. As regards Justin Martyr's quote, do you acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins? And if so, how are one's sins forgiven after baptism? If I had a better sense of which denomination you belonged to, I could make the forgivable sin of stereotyping your views. I've fallen into unprofitable discussion in the past where I found I was trying to put a pin in the ground to establish some agreement and the person that I was conversing with kept shifting their stance to make it impossible. I don't think you are this way; but it is a maddening thing to realize that the person on the other end of the discussion is purely there to be a contrarian.

Am I right in reading into your posts that you believe in a real presence in the Eucharist?

Thank you for your quotes and your comments,
Byron

Sorry abacabb3,
I just remembered our discussions on Deuterocanonical quotes in the NT. Please forgive me. I remember now that you believe in Reformed theology. How was your trip to China?

God be with you,
Byron

 

[fatherjimparker]

<<do you acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins? And if so, how are one's sins forgiven after baptism?>>

Yes.

After baptism sins are forgiven by repentance and confession. The Christian life is a constant process of repentance and confession as we "press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus." (Phl 3:14)

<< Am I right in reading into your posts that you believe in a real presence in the Eucharist? >>

Rather than "real presence", and a Orthodox Christian, I would say with Justin that the bread is the body of Christ and the wine His blood.

 

[abacabb3]

Sorry abacabb3,
I just remembered our discussions on Deuterocanonical quotes in the NT. Please forgive me. I remember now that you believe in Reformed theology. How was your trip to China?

It was Cambodia, but it was real good. Please pray, even if just once, that I can pick up their language (Khmer), I would like to spend more time there and do some street preaching.

I was really trying to answer the second question and not the first in my previous post. As regards Justin Martyr's quote, do you acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins?

I understand Justin Martyr's position on the topic, but this thread is not on baptismal regeneration. I was talking about how RCCs view transubstantiation in light of the eucharist's supposed ability to forgive venial sins.

And if so, how are one's sins forgiven after baptism?

Faith in Christ. I am aware that love covers a multitude of sins, the forgiveness of others forgives sins, that confessing sins forgives sins, and that repentance forgives sins. However, all of these things divorced from faith (including baptism) do not forgive sins, so it is always faith at all times and in all ways that forgives sins.

If I had a better sense of which denomination you belonged to, I could make the forgivable sin of stereotyping your views. I've fallen into unprofitable discussion in the past where I found I was trying to put a pin in the ground to establish some agreement and the person that I was conversing with kept shifting their stance to make it impossible. I don't think you are this way; but it is a maddening thing to realize that the person on the other end of the discussion is purely there to be a contrarian.

Reformed Baptist if you want to stereotype, but I hold to the traditional view of 1 Cor 11 (including both head coverings and the Real presence) and hold to the Presbyterian view of the sacraments. Honestly, if I did not view baptismal regeneration so at odds with the Scripture (which is why even ancient advocates also adhered to the idea of "baptism by desire"), I would probably hold to every important ancient doctrine...though I would argue that every Christian is baptized by desire.


However, for the discussion here, I am not here to argue against that there is no blessing in the sacrament of the eucharist. All sacraments bring their blessings. I just don't think we can take quotations such as Ignatius Letter to the Ephesians Chapter 20 and argue that anyone in the early church held that the eucharist forgives venial sins. This is a later doctrine and does not work within the theological framework of Eastern Orthodoxy which does not even believe sin can be differentiated between venial and mortal.

God bless,
Craig

 

[fatherjimparker]

<< I was talking about how RCCs view transubstantiation in light of the eucharist's supposed ability to forgive venial sins.>>

Can you cite a RCC source for that view? I do not believe it is correct.

One may not participate in the Eucharist unless one has been baptized and gone to confession. The forgiveness of sin is, therefore, addressed BEFORE anyone approaches the bread and wine.

<<it is always faith at all times and in all ways that forgives sins.>>

Faith forgives nothing.

God forgives sins.

 

[JustHisKid]

Who came up with transubstantiation? I think it was Simon the Magician of Acts 8. He liked to perform magic tricks. He also visited Rome.

The devil?