Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!aramis.rutgers.edu!athos.rutgers.edu!christian From: jhpb@lancia.garage.att.com Newsgroups: soc.religion.christian Subject: Re: Transubstantiation/Power of God Message-ID: Date: 29 Nov 89 04:25:56 GMT Sender: hedrick@athos.rutgers.edu Organization: AT&T Bell Labs (Liberty Corner) Lines: 61 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: I think there may be a slight misconception underlying this. Catholic doctrine is not derived totally from a reading of Sacred Scripture. Transubstantiation wasn't adopted as the Catholic explanation of the Real Presence solely as a result of reading Scripture. Catholic theology has two sources, Scripture and Tradition. The Tradition part is there because the Church is infallible and guided by the Holy Ghost. She always preserves the truths of Divine Revelation, even though these truths may be more implicit that explicit at a given time in history. Transubstantiation is an "Aha!" in the history of the Church. It's the result of the Church's reflections on the Real Presence. In earlier periods in history, the Church's beliefs on the subject of the Real Presence were somewhat simpler; there were no doctrinal definitions from a general council. A period was reached when the Church began to ask itself: exactly how, in detail, might the Real Presence be explained, philosophically. The process is rather like a human being trying to explain all his deepest inner thoughts and feelings about things, the things that really make you you. If someone asked you to explain it all, it would take some time to put it all in concrete. There would be a searching for words, an examination of things that have never really been critically examined. The Church has a mindset, a way of thinking about things, that is not always easy to state in precise and clear terms. Sometimes it takes a few centuries to figure out exactly what the Church does think about things. The adoption of transubstantiation was the result of such a process. Various theories were examined by theoligians, and the answer to most of them was: "that's not it", "nope, not that either", "no, that's not quite right." There was always something that didn't quite fit. Eventually, transubstantiation was expounded, when the philosophy of Aristotle was re-discovered in Europe. And the Church started to think, "hey, this fits in pretty well with my idea of the Sacrament." And eventually, there was the "AHA! *That's* it! That sums up my historical thinking on the matter *exactly*!" Looking at her history, the way she had always thought of the Blessed Sacrament, talked about it, and treated it, the Catholic Church came to the realization around the 11th century that transubstantiation best expressed her beliefs. It wasn't the result of abstract reasoning based on Scripture texts. Joe Buehler