Well, the risk of boring the pants off everyone else here…
Perhaps so. I have only time to address some of your points at this time, so quickly:
John Charles Storer - 13 August 2008 08:55 PM
The point is that Jesus was reported as using a word which the translators render into English as the word flesh. Now in English that word has a primary meaning which is meat. There is another meaning such as “the way of all flesh” or “in the flesh” but these meanings also convey an aspect of realness, of substantiality or of corporality.
Now if Jesus was talking about some form of mana I would think the translators might use a word like spirit or even body, but they didn’t.
Now the points are becoming confused. First, when instituting the Lord’s Supper, all accounts use the word σωμα sōma which is best translated “body” and NOT “flesh” (see Matt 26:26 and ALL other passages recording the words of the Lord’s Supper).
Second, the word “flesh” (σαρξ, sarx) is used in John 6 (the word σωμα sōma is not used at all). I think this enhances the case against reading John 6 as referring to the Supper (aside from the contextual anachronism required to read it this way: if you want to be parsimonious at this point but maintain the link to the Eucharist you have to ignore the context since the narrative has Jesus speaking to people who have no idea about the Supper; John 6 is linked with the provision of food in the wilderness while the Lord’s Supper is linked to the Passover; and he uses different language).
Third, “meat” is not quite right. If Jesus really wanted to be meaty, he could have disambiguated by using the word κρεας kreas. And, of course, in English, the translators still chose “flesh” over “meat” for some reason.
John Charles Storer - 13 August 2008 08:55 PM
If he meant the bread to be symbolic of his flesh, I would have expected a word like symbol or remembrance.
Do we really have to go over the definition of metaphor? John records Jesus using metaphor quite frequently and nowhere else does he have to use such explicatory langauge.
John Charles Storer - 13 August 2008 08:55 PM
In Luke for example the word remembrance or memorial is used but in the next line. By common rules of english construction ie use of the verb do this, I expect he is referring to an action, that is the act of breaking and passing bread. If on the other hand he had said “this is a memorial of my body which will be given up for you” it would seem quite clear that the memorial refers to the bread, by rules of subject and object.
I agree that the imperative “do this” refers to the breaking of bread (and drinking of wine). And it explains why it is to be done: to remember.
John Charles Storer - 13 August 2008 08:55 PM
Martin, all you are doing in the next paragraph is garnering evidence against transubstantiation. There is alternative evidence for transubstantiation in both the new testament and from the early church fathers. I choose to give that more weight than you do.
I disagree: you give the church fathers more weight than I do, but I don’t think you give the OT or the NT more weight. For some more discussion in this vein, see my last post here.
I have to say I am confused. the discussion about flesh started with a discussion of John 6. I cited this as evidence of Jesus foreshadowing the eucharist and in a literal way or alternatively, the gospel writer has attributed words to Jesus in support of the eucharist and particularly a view of the eucharist including transubstantiation. I would presume you may struggle with the second view. You quoted parts of John back to me to demonstrate a metaphorical interpretation. I asserted you quoted selectively and argued that the chapter should be read as a totality and in particular the use of the word flesh in passages where Jesus expands on his meaning was significant in denoting an aspect of corporality, rather than metaphor. The metaphorical reading is of course possible, as is a literal reading, but in my view it is a more parsiminous approach to prefer a literal reading to a metaphorical reading. We then got bogged down into a discussion regarding whether the use of a word meaning flesh was significant. I claimed it was.
I am not suggesting meat as a reading. I meant that flesh is closer to meat in a corporeal sense than it is to body, which has wider connotations.
Back to metaphor. If you are going to invoke metaphor you better be clear on the rules for doing so. I have found in previous discussions with low church anglicans that they seem to invoke metaphor when it suits the 39 articles and invoke a literal reading when it seems utterly unsupported, eg the two creation accounts in genesis. All I am trying to get you to say is; what is your rule for invoking metaphor? Then I would like to test that rule to see if it is applied consistently. It’s that simple.
Are you adding the usual protestant gloss to Luke? I say that as my niece’s bible (she is low church anglican) that she uses for bible study has a footnote to Luke where it states that this is meant metaphorically or words to that effect, a gloss if I have ever seen one and in the true sense of the word. I can’t remember the edition but I was astounded by the addition. To say something is a memorial is additional to the nature of the bread. The two things do not exclude each other. The bread can be “the body of Christ” and it can be broken “in memory”. The argument is of the form if A=B, then A cannot equal “not B”, however the second does not flow from the first. By another view they are different classes of things. It is like saying 11 can’t be a prime because 8+3=11. However both statements are true.
I say that you diminish the weight given to the NT by invoking metaphor to reduce the import of the words of Jesus reported in the gospel and the words of Paul, you give weight to your understanding of jewish culture which I fail to see as of relevance at all, particularly given Jesus revolutionary statements in the light of Jewish culture, and you give little weight to the church fathers by invoking “corruption by greek philosphy”.
I have to say I am confused. the discussion about flesh started with a discussion of John 6. I cited this as evidence of Jesus foreshadowing the eucharist and in a literal way or alternatively, the gospel writer has attributed words to Jesus in support of the eucharist and particularly a view of the eucharist including transubstantiation. I would presume you may struggle with the second view.
And I pointed out that such “foreshadowing” fails to take the literary context of the chapter into account, and that your parsimony is quite selective at this point, apparently willing to overlook the inference the reader would normally make from the text based on the context. As I said previously, reading the Lord’s Supper into John 6 requires that one overlook the broader context and overlook the different terminology. It seems a strange parsimony that you have adopted.
But let’s cut to the chase:
John Charles Storer - 15 August 2008 06:54 PM
Back to metaphor. If you are going to invoke metaphor you better be clear on the rules for doing so. I have found in previous discussions with low church anglicans that they seem to invoke metaphor when it suits the 39 articles and invoke a literal reading when it seems utterly unsupported, eg the two creation accounts in genesis. All I am trying to get you to say is; what is your rule for invoking metaphor? Then I would like to test that rule to see if it is applied consistently. It’s that simple.
John, I had no particular problem with the rule for identifying metaphor which you have when I first asked. Do you remember? Back in this post. Back when you acknowledged that, by applying this rule to Jesus’ words, they must be metaphorical. That’s when you needed to introduce the whole notion of mana (which, given its connection to Polynesian thought, is not necessarily even directly applicable to the first-century near-east) as a means to escape what is otherwise parsimonious! What is more, by introducing the notion that “religious” language and subject matter can somehow allow you to escape from the normal rules of communication you essentially empty any words of Jesus of their meaning because anyone can use this reasoning as a “get-out-of-jail free” card whenever they dislike the meaning of the text. Of course, you also needed to overlook the fact that Jesus elsewhere frequently employs metaphor and when he does do something miraculous there’s what you’d call “scientific” evidence that something actually happened (e.g. the water changed to wine).
So you want to know if I apply rules consistently, but you seem happy to throw the rules out the window in order to maintain your position!
John Charles Storer - 15 August 2008 06:54 PM
I say that you diminish the weight given to the NT by invoking metaphor to reduce the import of the words of Jesus reported in the gospel and the words of Paul, you give weight to your understanding of jewish culture which I fail to see as of relevance at all, particularly given Jesus revolutionary statements in the light of Jewish culture, and you give little weight to the church fathers by invoking “corruption by greek philosphy”.
It astounds me that someone who claims to know so much about epistemology can say that he fails to see the relevance of Jewish culture to the understanding of the Bible (I mean aside from your self-deconstructing explanation about Jesus’ revolutionary statements: how could you know they were revolutionary without knowing about the cultural context in which they were revolutionary?). The amount of contemporary scholarship on the matter is substantial, the connections between language, culture, and thought are significant and ignoring one of these while trying to understand the others merely results in misunderstanding. You repeatedly refer to our “paradigm,” but we also need to come to grips with the “paradigm” of the authors of the text in order to understand them.
Looks like it is you and me slogging it out on this topic.
My paragraphs follow yours as usual.
Your position seems to be based on a) the existence of an absolute historical truth and b) a belief that you have the keys to it. I can’t argue with your belief, it exists in your head. I say that the historical existence of the eucharist and its existence in the early church suggest that the writer of John was aware of the eucharist when penning this chapter. The parallels are too numerous to be ignored. The reading is more or less parsiminous depending on what evidence one admits. I have to say I find your argument unconvincing, that is that from the earliest times christianity was corrupted by greek philosophy, including presumably the writers of the gospels, until the truth was revealed to the “false?” prophet Zwingli in the 16C. Your further approach to get the writers of the gospels off the hook by invoking metaphor sounds like special pleading to me and again is unconvincing.
I reread your post and I have to say I am no clearer on when you do or do not invoke metaphor. In previous discussions with low church anglicans, the best guide to the invocation of metaphor is the 39 artlcles, verified by Queen Elizabeth 1, a person of dubious apostolic succession. I would appreciate a few straight answers on some questions.
Does genesis contain one or two accounts of creation?
If it is one is it literal or allegorical. (I know it is not metaphor but the principle is the same).
Matthew 25:31ff literal or metaphor?
I don’t agree that I toss the rules out the window. What you mean is that I reach a different conclusion to yourself. Who the hell says you are right and why are you so sure? As I have discussed previously, the whole idea of historical truth is in itself vexed.
There is no scientific evidence that Jesus changed water to wine! Such a claim that scientific evidence exists is astounding. If you went court on this, there would merely be the hearsay evidence, documented long after the event, of people who had a vested interest in Jesus being some sort of supernatural being.
The matter is not one of the relevance of jewish culture but the weight to be given to it when making an assessment as to whether something is metaphorical or not. Please identify the “contemporary scholarship”, and please, not some evangelical crazy in the US writing on a website, I would be looking for references in refereed journals.
There are a lot bigger issues than transubstantiation here. I would be interested to hear from yourself why it is such a big deal to you. It is a big deal to me because it seems to me that protestant reliance on the bible is thrown away when it comes to this matter and lack of consistency bothers me. I first got wired on this when my brother in law didnt take communion at my mother in laws funeral. He later stated it was unbiblical. I thought “hang on the words are straight out of Luke” and of course they were. I chased it further and found that the origin was in Zwingli, and based on a fundamental desire to root out sacramentalism from christianity and secondly and using his own words that the notion was “nonsense”. In short the position was based primarily on an attack on catholicism, and in particulary the intermediary role of the priest in sacramentalism rather than based on a reading of the bible, itself being a post hoc reconstruction.
John, although, by inclination, I am more likely to agree with you than not, I think you ought to be more measured especially when debating with Enkers. He debates in a very logical and rather more sophisticated manner than you normally find here. His knowledge of the languages and the historical stuff tends to be at a high level.
I doubt you would ever find him quoting an evangelical crazy.
He does have an abrupt and to the point style, but understanding that he is attacking the arguement not the person is worth remembering. Ive never met him but have known him in these forums now for years and he is the least likely (I think) to ever stray betond the rational point of the arguement.
Your position seems to be based on a) the existence of an absolute historical truth and b) a belief that you have the keys to it. I can’t argue with your belief, it exists in your head.
If that is an accurate charicature of my position then it is also one of yours, since you are arguing that I’m wrong and you are right. If you were arguing that you simply cannot know, then perhaps you could claim some “high moral ground” (misplaced though I think it would be) in this matter.
To correct your observation, however, I would claim that I have arrived at my position by analysis of the information we have to hand and that my interpretation is favoured by the evidence (which I’ve repeatedly advanced and which includes a range of problems for your interpretation which have not been addressed).
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
I say that the historical existence of the eucharist and its existence in the early church suggest that the writer of John was aware of the eucharist when penning this chapter.
I agree with you, he was aware of the Lord’s Supper. Nor do I dispute that there are links between John 6 and the Supper (as I’ve said before). Yet he deliberately placed John 6 within his narrative in an historical context which made it distinct from and prior to the institution of the Lord’s Supper. Why? You seem to think the question is unimportant and that the author of John’s gospel simply didn’t care that he was depicting the teaching of Jesus in such an anachronistic manner as to make it impossible for those in the narrative audience to understand the meaning you insist is so parsimonious?
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
The parallels are too numerous to be ignored.
But what are these supposed parallels? The use of “bread” language? Is that it? Where’s the wine in John 6? Why is the “body” language different if it is meant to refer to the same thing? As I’ve indicated, your reading requires that you ignore quite a number of significant aspects of the text! It is a very subjective measure of parsimony.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
The reading is more or less parsiminous depending on what evidence one admits.
It’s parsimonious in the same way that Newton’s laws are parsimonious in comparison to Einstien’s theories: they’re simpler but they fail to account for all the evidence. But, I’m happy to compare lists. Can you identify all the elements within the text that compel you to believe that your reading is parsimonious? You will, of course, also need to indicate why you can discount the facets of the narrative which I’ve highlighted previously that count against the parsimony of your reading: the narrative context, the absence of wine, the different terminology in John 6 compared with all unequivocal references to the words Jesus’ used during the Supper, etc.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
I have to say I find your argument unconvincing, that is that from the earliest times christianity was corrupted by greek philosophy, including presumably the writers of the gospels, until the truth was revealed to the “false?” prophet Zwingli in the 16C.
As I’ve said previously, the gospel writers were writing out of a Jewish context, and a Palestinian Jewish context at that. Now if it were Alexandrian Judaism in the first century I might be tempted to think that they were writing from a perspective similar to that which came to dominate Christendom in the second century and beyond. Now of course a one paragraph summary is in no way comprehensive and the situation is considerably more complex, nonetheless I think that it is an important consideration when seeking to understand both the original meaning of the NT and its later appropriation.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
Your further approach to get the writers of the gospels off the hook by invoking metaphor sounds like special pleading to me and again is unconvincing.
Given that I appealed to your method of identifying metaphor, and that you agreed that it appeared metaphorical and that you then had to appeal to “mana” to arrive at a literalistic reading against the numerous indicators to the contrary to which I have pointed, I would have to say that it is your claim that sounds like special pleading. At least I’ve provided some points in support of my contention.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
I reread your post and I have to say I am no clearer on when you do or do not invoke metaphor.
Since I adopted your definition and means of identifying metaphor, I’m puzzled as to why you have this problem.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
In previous discussions with low church anglicans, the best guide to the invocation of metaphor is the 39 artlcles, verified by Queen Elizabeth 1, a person of dubious apostolic succession. I would appreciate a few straight answers on some questions.
I’m not an Anglican of any form. And my appeal to metaphor is in agreement with your stated method for identifying it. I’m not sure how many times I have to say this for you to acknowledge it, and to acknowledge that you have to make dubious recourse to a principle which essentially would allow you to claim absolutely anything you like. Why not address the issues raised in the previous post?
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
Does genesis contain one or two accounts of creation?
If it is one is it literal or allegorical. (I know it is not metaphor but the principle is the same).
I’ve written extensively on Genesis 1-3 both on these forums and elsewhere, so if you’re interested you could search for and find my thinking on this matter. To be frank, your question is so reductionistic as to be virtually meaningless. Genesis 1:1-2:3 is a cosmogony, Genesis 2:4-4:26 is not. They do not cover the same ground, neither are purely “literal” and they are certainly not “allegorical” in the strictest sense (the categories are not right). The answer is complex because your question fundamentally presupposes a modern perspective and asks modern questions of the text. Without an understanding of the ancient Near Eastern context of these stories you will not appreciate their full significance. However, at this point that would sidetrack this discussion and, as I say, it has been addressed at great length elsewhere.
I don’t agree that I toss the rules out the window. What you mean is that I reach a different conclusion to yourself.
No, what I mean is that you are not consistent in the application of the rules. You provided a definition of metaphor. Application of your definition would have identified Jesus’ words in John 6 as metaphorical (as you admitted). This doesn’t suit your interpretation of the passage so you introduce the notion of mana in order to escape the problem. But that only introduces more problems, because you haven’t demonstrated that the idea is applicable to the context (you’ve assumed it), and because it ignores the fact that elsewhere in the gospels any concept vaguely akin to mana operates in quite a distinct manner.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
Who the hell says you are right and why are you so sure?
John, you seem to be sitting in a glass house throwing stones!
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
There is no scientific evidence that Jesus changed water to wine! Such a claim that scientific evidence exists is astounding.
And I’ve not appealed to “scientific evidence” at all. All we have is the text and historical information contemporaneous with the text. My claim is that, within the world of the text, the characters at the wedding clearly believed that they were drinking wine, not water. That is, the text presents a miraculous event in which the water was actually transformed into wine. It didn’t retain the colour, taste, and smell of water. To suggest that this was the case is to make a nonsense of the story. And so it goes for all other recorded miracles. There’s no scientific evidence, but the narrative is internally consistent. Characters act as if something really happened. In every instance. Except, it would seem, in your account of the celebration of the Lord’s Supper.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
The matter is not one of the relevance of jewish culture but the weight to be given to it when making an assessment as to whether something is metaphorical or not. Please identify the “contemporary scholarship”, and please, not some evangelical crazy in the US writing on a website, I would be looking for references in refereed journals.
You won’t find any self-respecting “evangelical crazy in the US writing on a website” discussing the significance of the Jewish background, they insist that “all you need is the Bible.” In fact, those more toward the fundamentalist end of the spectrum are quite likely to see this approach as tantamount to selling out to liberalism. After all, N. T. Wright employs aspects of this approach in his work and many conservatives are immediately suspicious of anything he writes (for them here is a real danger, however, of throwing the baby out with the bathwater). And others have been pointing the way along this path for some time, whether it is Kenneth Bailey or James Dunn. It was even asserted in no uncertain terms that understanding the Jewish background to the NT was essential by Mitch Pacwa on one of the RC podcasts Donna pointed me to!
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
There are a lot bigger issues than transubstantiation here. I would be interested to hear from yourself why it is such a big deal to you. It is a big deal to me because it seems to me that protestant reliance on the bible is thrown away when it comes to this matter and lack of consistency bothers me.
Please go back carefully and look at the consistency of your own claims and address the issues I’ve raised which cast doubt on it.
John Charles Storer - 21 August 2008 01:54 PM
I first got wired on this when my brother in law didnt take communion at my mother in laws funeral. He later stated it was unbiblical. I thought “hang on the words are straight out of Luke” and of course they were. I chased it further and found that the origin was in Zwingli, and based on a fundamental desire to root out sacramentalism from christianity and secondly and using his own words that the notion was “nonsense”. In short the position was based primarily on an attack on catholicism, and in particulary the intermediary role of the priest in sacramentalism rather than based on a reading of the bible, itself being a post hoc reconstruction.
Since I’ve not once appealed to Zwingli in this discussion and have repeatedly pointed to the biblical text, you seem to be trying to make a straw-man out of me.
Why am I responding? Because I thought it appropriate to respond to the claims of a number of proponents of transubstantiation who have, for whatever reason, posted here insisting that their understanding was in some way “better” and that there are not good grounds for denying the belief in transubstantiation.
If you read carefully, you should see that I am arguing that we have different positions as a result of the different weight we give to different pieces of evidence. I apologise if my language is not as clear as I hope for. I say that at best we can hope for a concurrence position on a matter of history as an empirical laboratory is not available, at least in the absence of time travel. I am further saying that no matter how objective we think we might be, in the absence of data people have recourse to additional information in making an assessment and this includes favouring an explanation which accords with their a priori position arising from favouring a particular paradigm. I am saying that there are a number of explanations as to why you and I have different positions. These could include me being wrong, us giving different weight to different data (differences in epistemology) and cultural differences leading to different theological paradigms (catholic theology vs calvinist theology). In short, your apparent claim of an independent and objective assessment of the data by yourself seems far fetched. I doubt this is a purely intellectual exercise for your. Such an approach would be demonstrated by a clear setting out of arguments for and against, and an articulation of the reasons for your choosing to give more or less weight to different positions. However it would be difficult for me to evaluate your objectivity or otherwise. Some indicators could include your adherence to a particular ideology such as the 39 articles or some calvinist equivalent in spite of evidential, logical and philosophical problems. In my case I state in my defence that I I do not accept a number of catholic dogmas based on my assessment of scripture and my knowledge of history. Examples include papal infallibility although I can see how this position was arrived at because of contingent history. This suggests to me that I am prepared to view each position on its merits. I have tried to ask you questions to determine whether your position is one of defence of calvinist theology, or as you state, a reasoned position based on evidence. Some clearly illogical positions in calvinist theology include reliance on scripture alone with its inherently self referential nature and its ignorance of the level of tradition informing both the gospels and the canon. Now if you uncritically accepted this position of scripture alone, I would be inclined to say that this is someone defending the indefensible and I would conclude that your primary driver is ideological, rather than based on reason. In summary, you continue to state that the problem is one of evidence, I state it is one of epistemology and of paradigms.
I say that John was writing for an audience that was well aware of the context of his words through their regular ritual practice of the celebration of the eucharist. John himself was also aware of the celebration of eucharist. His words also suggest an understanding that accords with the true presence of christ in the eucharist (Note that I have not used transubstantiation here as this is really in my view a sort of sophistry to explain a mystery - the true presence of christ in the eucharist). So I quote this passage as supporting evidence of an early christian world in which the celebration of the eucharist and the true presence of christ in the eucharist was a wide spread shared belief. Similarly, I cite 1 Corinthians 11:23ff in support of the same position. I further cite a range of early church fathers in support of the same position. Underlying this approach is a reliance on tradition and the identification of tradition. It may well be that this is a departure point for us, however I note that your discussion of Jewish culture is also an appeal to tradition in the sense that it goes outside “scripture alone”. Is it possible for you to clarify your postion on this matter?
Some parallels between the celebration of the eucharist and the words of John include “eat my flesh and drink my blood” and “anyone who eats this bread will live forever” with the second suggesting some form of transmission of “mana” through the eating. Similar words are used repeatedly in the passage.
Your comparison of Newton and Einstein is spurious and incorrect. The difference is not one of parsimony but one of alignment with data. A better comparison would be the galilean universe and the aristotlean universe. The galileo model needed fewer spheres and avoided the problem of spheres within spheres. Hence it was more parsiminous. However, in simplistic terms, a deductive breakthrough was not achieved until Kepler and an inductive breakthrough was not achieved until Newton. I stress again the epistemological problem of historical fact, there is no laboratory and the best we can hope for is a probabilistic concurrence approach.
And I say that the gospel writers were also writing out of a christian culture with its own theology and that the gospel need to be read in this light, particularly given the corroborative evidence of the belief of the real presence in the eucharist within early christian culture. I also say, that in the same way you and I agree that the gospels need to be read in an historical and cultural context, the denial of the real presence by Zwingli and later adopted by the Calvinist stream of protestantism needs to be considered in the light of the political, social and cultural realities of the sixteenth century. Zwingli may well have had (and I believe he did have) wider reasons for rejecting sacramentalism than an objective reading of scripture. These reasons may well have influenced his reading of scripture.
My appeal to “mana” is no different to your appeal to jewish culture in the sense that we both seem to be in agreement that historical documents should be read within a context. I raise this idea to demonstrate that in human culture, the concept of some essence being passed from one person to another through eating (eg ritual cannibalism) is widespread, in short a reading of the real presence of christ in the eucharist is not incompatible with human culture and belief, and more to the point is aligned with an often encountered belief. The reference to “mana” is a response to Zwingli’s argument that the idea of the real presence is patent nonsense. From a materialist view it may be patent nonsense, but when viewed in the context of human religious beliefs, it is compatible with what people readily and often believe. If the rule for indentifying metaphor is that a literal reading leads to a requirement to believe nonsense, then the words must be metaphor. At the same time the consistent application of such a rule leads to a wholescale rejection of religion, in spite of the claim of the catholic church that the existence of god can be proven by the unaided reason.
i have managed to zap the rest of my response and it was all good stuff.
Apologies if what follows is sketchy:
Clearly adopting metaphor is a complex task. We need to consider internal and external consistency and give weight to different things. I think a literal meaning is internally and externally consistent as discussed at length, you don’t. You say our departure point is data, I say it is more likely to be epistemology and paradigm.
Sorry about calling you an anglican. I was just trying to get a handle on your paradigm. From my point of view, I was raised as a catholic and currently attend a catholic church but I am not an apologist for catholic dogma. There are a range of beliefs eg papal infallibity that are explainable in an historical, political and cultural context but to me are not supported otherwise. Without knowing more about your beliefs, I can’t assess whether you are driven by defence of a particular theology or whether you have considered that theology point by point.
The next point really flows from this. Could you please answer two questions for me. How old do you believe the earth to be? (regular, once around the sun is a year years). The answer will be a number. My answer would be around 4 billion years. Second do you believe in the modern darwinian synthesis of evolutionary theory. The answer is yes or no and partially means no. My answer is yes. I personally will give considerable weight to your answers to these questions in forming a view as the the extent I belive you are driven by ideology. Note I do not want to argue the points.
I am not saying I am right. I am saying why I form a particular view and hope to demonstrate that view is not unreasonable. Questions of history are not (in the absence of time travel) empirically testable, and the only form of truth is a concurrence view.
You used the words “scientific” proof in post #139. However you accept that a test of internal consistency is appropriate. A reading of the gospels in the light of the true presence in the eucharist is internally consistent, you accept a miracle on this basis even though an external reference eg science would suggest it is nonsense. You however reject the true presence in the eucharist on the basis of flimsy external evidence and in the light of denial of particular external references, the writings of Paul, John and the early church fathers.
You referred me to a crazy evangelical website in post #121. If the NT Wright you mention is the same one I looked up, he seems quite unprotestant (albeit eminently rational) in his views regarding tradition and scripture.
Again you have missed my point. I think you say we differ because I have misread or missed data. I say that we differ either because we have different epistemologies or different paradigms. I keep trying to get you to articulate either, particularly paradigm. As an example if you wholeheartedly subscribed to a protestant theology, say the 39 articles, even though some such as scripture alone are logically and philosophically unsupportable, this would lead me to a view that you are primarily motivated by defence of your paradigm. Alternatively, if you were sceptical in some areas, this would suggest to me that you had evaluated a range of positions and formed your own view.
I did not introduce Zwingli as a straw man type argument but rather as a way of contextualising the calvinist refutation of sacramentalism and demonstrating that this is explainable in terms of politics and cuture with the theological argument being a post hoc reconstruction. A view that theology was hijacked by 16 century nationalism and philosophy leading to a denial of the real presence is at least as supported as your view that christian theology was hijacked by greek philosophy some time in the early second century.
Just wondering, but does Paul mention, in his letters, the ritual of transubstantiation, or the real presence?
The gospel stories were apparently written in response to an oral tradition. Standard scholarly dating has Mark written in the 70’s, Matthew and Luke in the 80’s and John written in the 90’s.
Luke would have written Acts, which has Paul as a central figure under house arrest in Rome, when the book abruptly ends. What happens to Paul? He was apparently put to death after this. It is estimated that Acts could not have been written after AD 62.
Since Acts is a two part work, we know the first part, the gospel of Luke must have been written earlier than that. And as Luke incorporates parts of the gospel of Mark, that means that Mark was written even earlier. So Mark would probably have been written no later than AD 60, possibly in the 50’s.
Jesus was put to death in AD 30 or AD 33.
Now the gospels were written after the letters of Paul, whose writing ministry probably began in the late 40’s. Most of his major letters appeared in the 50’s.
And we may ask “Are there signs that earlier sources are used in writing them?”.
We find that Paul incorporates some creeds, confessions of faith, or hymns from thte earliest Christian church. These go back to the dawning of the church soon after the resurrection.
The most famous creeds include Philippians 2:6-11.
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death—
even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place
and gave him the name that is above every name,
that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.
and Colossians 1:15-20.
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.
And these are significant in explaining what the earliest Christians were convinced about Jesus.
Now if the crucifixion was in AD 30, Paul’s conversion was two years later. When he was converted Paul was ushered into Damascus where he met with Ananias and some other disciples. His first meeting with the apostles in Jerusalem would have been about AD 35. At some point there Paul was given the creed which is related in 1 Corinthians 15:3-8
For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Peter, and then to the Twelve. After that, he appeared to more than five hundred of the brothers at the same time, most of whom are still living, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles, and last of all he appeared to me also, as to one abnormally born.
Now with this background to the writing of parts of the New Testament, I ask again, does Paul state facts about the eating of the bread, and the drinking of the wine which may give a clue to answer the debate that is raging? Surely Paul would have stressed that transubstantiation takes place in this remembrance ceremony, if that was the belief of the early church?
And if it was central to being a Christian he would have been stating this over and over again?
PS. I found the above dates etc, by reference to a book by Lee Strobel called “A Case for Christmas”. Zondervan Press
With all due respect Ken, you would have been able to avoid writing all of this out (or cutting and pasting, as the case may be) had you simply stopped to read through the thread. I believe that some discussion of the Real Presence in the Pauline epistles has already been made therein.
With all due respects Joshua, many points have been already repeated ad infinitum. Why not mention this main point?
But the absence of mention of Transubstantiation in any part of the New Testament, except dubious attempts to translate minute parts of it, prove that transubstantiation is not an early Christian belief.
Even the letters of Peter do not claim anything about it. Peter the first Pope?
The point is proven by an absence to reference to it in the main body of the NT.
Ken, I agree that transubstantiation is a later development, but the Real Presence is an early doctrine (right or wrong). Transubstantiation, consubstantiation are later evolutions of Real Presence. Attempts to clarify it.
I rather think Calviin’s postion is the same.
Zwingli on the other hand is a sideways claim to tradition.
A couple of areas of concern regarding your post. Firstly I have to take issue with your statement that “the point is proven”. Epistemologically this statement is unsupportable, particularly in an historical context. Logical positivism asserts that we cannot prove, only disprove by empirical test, and history does not offer the opportunity of empirical test. At best with any theory regarding historical events and their meaning, we can hope for a concurrence theory (our theory concurs with the evidence) supported by probabilistic analysis. (I give more weight to this and less weight to something else for these reasons).
Secondly to argue that the point is proven by an absence of reference is entirely silly. Our most fundamental assumptions, our underlying paradigm, are the things least likely to be articulated because “everyone knows that” or “it is taken as given”. As an example,would a reading of the average novel lead you to conclude that the characters breathed oxygen or used the toilet on a regular basis?
I would say that various texts in the gospel support a view that the writer had a belief in the real presence of our saviour in the eucharist. See for example 1 Corinthians 11:23-32 and in particular verse 29. Alternate views are possible however the reading I propose concurs with Paul having a belief in the real presence in the eucharist. John 6 shows similar evidence and other similar evidence is found in other early church writings. As Owen says, whether right or wrong, the doctrine goes back a long way.
Suggest you refer to Owen re transubstantiation and focus rather on the real presence in the eucharist as the issue at hand.
I believe the Calvanist position is best understood in terms of Zwingli’s rejection of sacramentalism, with any appeal to scriptures being a post hoc reconstruction.
As a brain teaser for you, please spell out the biblical basis for a belief in the Trinity, itself a fourth century doctrine, and in particular that the father, the son and the holy spirit are not all separate. Should this doctrine be accepted or rejected? There are a number of protestant sects (mormons, JWs and unitarians I think are three) that reject this doctrine as nonsense.
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