Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!usc!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: nanovx!news@gatech.edu (Network News) Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Transubstantiation/Power of God Message-ID: Date: 24 Nov 89 04:14:02 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: National Computer Systems, Atlanta, GA Lines: 107 Approved: christian@aramis.rutgers.edu In an earlier article, OFM (Our Fearless/Fair Moderator) remarked that transubstantiation is a result of an overly literal reading of Christ's words. I didn't copy the message, but I think that's the gist of what he said. At any rate, I was somewhat surprised, since the Protestant interpretation of Scriptures has always struck me as tending towards the extremely literal. The Protestant view that the Eucharist only "represents" the Body of Christ seems to me to be a far too interpretive stance. I might not be putting this well: What I mean is, Protestants have interpreted the Scripture to mean that the Eucharist only represents the Body of Christ, whereas Catholics tend to just read the words directly and not worry about interpreting it (i.e., This is my body, which is given up for you; instead of, This bread represents my body, which is given up for you.) Now, Catholic theologians have written great treatises on the nature of transubstantiation, but it seems to me that all those great expositions are merely one of many ways in which theologians have tried to interpret the real presence of God, in any form, anywhere in the universe. If God is everywhere, is God the ether, or is God in the ether? The ether having since been disproven, we seek elsewhere. Among those scientists who don't believe there is a God, most of them (who've given it any serious thought) are agnostic based on the scientific method; in other words, to be an atheist requires an act of faith most of them are not willing to make. The question, for me, boils down to a simple one: Is God real or isn't He? If I am coming down too hard on Protestants, I beg forgiveness, for it may be that I simply don't understand their position, though I'm attempting to do so. I'd appreciate any enlightenment. Protestants tend to place great emphasis, as do Catholics, on the great power of God; however, Protestants tend to give it merely lip service. God can do anything but only anything within the narrow range that they decide God is capable of doing/ought to do. In other words, God can do anything, but he doesn't/can't change water into wine, wine into the blood of Christ, or bread into the Body of Christ. Incidentally, I've read that Body of Christ is extremely poor translation of the Greek. "Body" should be translated, from what I've read, the whole person; as I mentioned above, the birth, life, teachings, suffering, death, resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth; more than just the physical flesh, in other words. It's almost a pity, I think, that "Body of Christ" has become so much a part of our language; I think it would be more apropos if the priest said, "This is the whole Person of Jesus Christ" or "This is the Person of God." Without being superstitious, Protestants tend to believe in the power of God in the abstract, whereas Catholics tend to believe in the power of God in the concrete, and cite numerous examples of miracles to prove the point. Catholics and Protestants are often alike, however, in that both are much more willing to believe in miracles as long as they happened over 100 years ago. Protestants are more willing to believe in miracles as long as the event is interpreted by them to have been the direct intervention of God; if God directly intervenes in human affairs through a saint, well, that falls outside the narrow range of the "Power of God." It's okay if God uses angels; it isn't okay if God uses saints. On the other hand, it could be that this is more a reflection of my own personal beliefs as opposed to the beliefs of most people, Catholic, Protestant, or otherwise. If I've offended anyone by my window, I'd like to apologize right away. I'm looking through the Protestant window from the outside looking in. I'm very interested in hearing/seeing the Protestant viewpoint from the inside looking out. I've read, by the way, that Martin Luther disliked the Letter of James since it refers to works and grace in terms of salvation. I heard he refused to translate it, but I'm not sure about that. Martin Luther was a good Roman Catholic priest/monk until the day he died. On his deathbed, he said he sincerely regretted having been the cause of the separatist movement, having only wanted reform within the holy Catholic Church. He's probably one of the most misunderstood figures in history. He was a great thinker. I can pay a higher compliment to no one than to say he thought about what he believed. If nothing else, he was an Athenian, not a Visigoth. He left the world a better place; would that all of us left such a legacy. I'm being verbose again; many sincere apologies. Sincerely, These are my soul opinions, heartfelt and passionately expressed; they are my own SPAWN OF A JEWISH CARPENTER opinions -- oy vey! They are mine. [The traditional Protestant view on Scripture tends to be literal in some senses. That is, we don't go in for allegorical interpretations. However we still understand that the writers use metaphors and images. I don't think there's any systematic difference between modern Protestant and Catholic interpreters as to how "literal" they are, though I agree that in the past there may have been some. It is hard to come up with precise rules for deciding when something is meant literally and when it's a metaphor. That is something natural-language work has found a bit complex to deal with. Without giving a complete algorithm for language understanding, we may never be able to be really objective about it. Certainly a typical cue for metaphor is that the literal meaning is impossible. But when dealing with Christ that becomes complex. I don't think you'll find a difference in appreciation of the power of God between Protestants and Catholics. I believe God could change bread into Christ's body if he wanted to. But either I have to believe that Christ intended his language to be understood in the usual way, or how can I judge his meaning at all? "I am the door for the sheep" or "you are the rock" could, I suppose, be taken literally, since God could no doubt find a way to make them literally true... At any rate, the issue with Protestants is not that we think God is unable to do transsubstantiation if he wants to, but that we think the most natural reading of the words of institution is the metaphorical reading. By the way, many (most?) Protestants do think Christ is present in communion. They simply don't believe his presence involves a change in the elements. If you think of transsubstantiation as saying that God is present in the elements the same way he is present anywhere, then I doubt that Protestants would disagree with you. But I'm pretty sure the Catholic doctrine means to say something more specific. In fact you could push things a bit further than you do and still be consistent with ideas many Protestants would accept. I think many of us believe that Christ is present in communion in a more specific sense than he is present everywhere and all the time. We simply don't see his presence as involving a metaphysical change in the elements. --clh]