Protestantism was falsified here on TOL

[Clete]

I wonder whether I should hold my breath in wait for someone to present any real evidence that transubstantiation actually happens?

No. I think I won't be doing that.

 

[Idolater]

All Protestants believe Christ is present in the Eucharist

No they don't. I used to be a Protestant before I reasoned about Scripture at a high enough level to see how plain the liturgical argument for Orthodoxy and Catholicism is, it's a flat scriptural argument, and there isn't a credible alternative to the very literal interpretation of the Bible in this matter. There is an office. It was made by the Apostles. It did persist after they all died. And it does operate today the same exact way as we are told that it operated in direct scriptural quotes. And there is no reason to think the process today was interrupted at any time in the past almost 20 centuries. In order for that to have happened all the bishops would have had to catch Covid or something and drop dead, before consecrating any new bishops to take their place. If that happened, then and only then would the biblical office of a bishop (cf. 1st Timothy 3:1) cease to exist.

, just like we believe He is present in our other worship services.

Nobody calls it the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist unless they believe in the Real Presence though.

Matthew 18:20 (KJV)
For where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.

Yeah. That's an allusion to the Real Presence. To you all Protestants (I used to be one) Matthew 18:20 is a general remark (we would wonder exactly what's meant by gathering "in" His name), but no Protestant calls Matthew 18:20 an allusion to Christ's presence in worship services. To those of us who believe in the Real Presence this mystical verse just belongs with other mystical verses like "This is My Body" and "My flesh is real meat indeed" and "not discerning the Body of the Lord".

But if Christ is present only when a priest blesses the elements, it goes beyond what scripture tells us.

The liturgical argument for Catholicism and Orthodoxy is germane here. It's well within what Scripture tells us, directly. There is a valid liturgy of the one Church. It's the business of the bishops to facilitate its celebration properly, but in no case is it valid without the valid pastors.

Disputation about liturgy was going on during Christ's time on earth of course, between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Jews celebrated the valid liturgy validly, and the Samaritans' liturgy was invalid ---- Jesus said as much to the Samaritan woman at the well. There was a right answer to the question back then, and there's a right answer today too.

So that's biblical as well.

 

[Idolater]

Thank you, Clete, I did actually read some of this thread and the other one before posting.

I can't believe I have to thank someone for reading what this thread's about before posting in it, but here we are: Thank you.

I'm trying to understand why they think there's warrant for taking the scripture so literal in this one aspect, while not bothering to in another.

The only one that cannot be concisely explained is the 'call no man father' bit. There is an answer, but it isn't brief. All the other charges about how Catholicism doesn't obey the Scripture, literally or otherwise, are easy to logically disable.

I don't believe the wine and bread become body and blood, but I don't see a scriptural reason why it couldn't be that way

Thank you.

--even the cannibalism side of it, even though gross to me, is not prohibited in scripture, as far as I can tell. But I also saw no indication from the referenced thread, so far as I've read, to make such a wild conclusion as @Idolater has made, that the debate was decisively won in the Catholic/Orthodox position's favor. The position was laid out, and some refutations were made. But I haven't finished reading it, either.

I was trying to save you the time. It is a "@God's Truth" thread, she saw to that, and that means that it was set on fire! It is so full of her skubalon that nobody would ever think to read through it, unless someone said, "This part is worth reading."

I've been reasoning about Catholicism and Orthodoxy and Protestantism for decades. I've seen every argument. @csuguy makes the most creative and powerful argument against the Real Presence that's ever been put in print, and it was literally swiftly dispatched, not only in the thread, but in real time, you can tell with the dates of the posts that it didn't require a lot of thought for @brewmama to respond.

So that means that logically, the Real Presence is Apostolic. Rhetorically of course, nothing changed that day, but logically, there is no further reason to doubt that the Apostles all believed and taught the earliest Church that Christ is Really Present in the Eucharist.

 

[Idolater]

...Can you ask the same question that was asked of him here? Or are you too lazy to make the argument?

Him who?

Please and thank you.

 

[Idolater]

This is a problem, you realize?

I indicated that.

I don't know how you came up with this idea, that a Protestant doesn't see any substantial difference.

Meaning, there's no such thing as valid liturgy for believers in Christ.

I've been a Catholic since I was a weeks-old baby. I don't need your imprimatur.

Oh.

You may have a convert's zeal, but you're going about this in a way that's divisive.

The Church is riven. It can't get any more divided!

 

[JudgeRightly]

Him who?

"He had no answer to @brewmama, who 'cleaned up'. It began post 115 and was over post 217. It wasn't much of a contest either, sad to say.)"

 

[Idolater]

You don't have a theological leg to stand on with this one.

These words have no meaning.

 

[Idolater]

"He had no answer to @brewmama, who 'cleaned up'. It began post 115 and was over post 217. It wasn't much of a contest either, sad to say.)"

I agree with @brewmama's argument. It's like how I agree with Catholicism's ethics. I don't make the argument to support my ethics, I just say I'm Catholic. I have Catholic ethics.

 

[Idolater]

And it saddens me because they have allowed the priest to come between them and God.

And if the Real Presence is true, then logically you're the sad ones.

Agreed?

 

[Idolater]

Yeah, well that may be taking a bit too far. There are lots of Christians who believe wacky things but who still love God and trust in Christ's shed blood as the payment for their sin and that God raised Him from the dead. In other words, believing this one wacky doctrine does not absolutely disqualify someone as a saved believer in Christ.

His shed blood being payment for sin requires a liturgical framework in order to be valid, and not just some random death that was after the fact proclaimed to be fulfillment of prophecy. This framework is the New Covenant, not the Old, which of course didn't have any part of it concerned with a man being the offering. It was always an animal, not a man. And it didn't have any part talking about the priest Himself being the offering either, but in the N.C. the Lord Jesus is the everlasting high priest.

Transubstantiation isn't even the wackiest thing that I've seen otherwise well meaning Christians believe! Watch TBN much? Pentecostals believe one wacky doctrine after another. Everything from the "name it and claim it" nonsense, to speaking in gibberish, to snake handling and intentionally drinking poison.

Transubstantiation and especially the distinction between transubstantiation and the Real Presence (which is actually the topic here) was dealt with in the range of posts I advised that you peruse to get yourself caught up to speed on what we're actually trying to talk about in this thread Clete.

 

[ok doser]

His shed blood being payment for sin requires a liturgical framework in order to be valid ...

Nope

Not even close.

 

[JudgeRightly]

I agree with @brewmama's argument.

I didn't ask if you agree with the argument.

We know you do.

What I asked was, can you ask the same question?

Can you articulate the same argument that you hold in such high esteem, or are you just someone who parrots that which he finds pleasing to the ear?

Can you ask the same question that was asked of him here? Or are you too lazy to make the argument?

I don't make the argument to support my ethics

Then what use are you? Then why are you on TOL?

 

[JudgeRightly]

These words have no meaning.

Saying it doesn't make so.

 

[ok doser]

Can you articulate the same argument that you hold in such high esteem, or are you just someone who parrots that which he finds pleasing to the ear?

This sounds sooooo familiar.



I believe this has happened in the past with regards to the arguments around evolution?

 

[Idolater]

Lutherans aren't protestants? Lutherans very much do believe in the real presence in the eucharist. What lutherans reject is transsubtantiation. Not because they deny the real presence, but because Luther rejected the reduction of the mystery of the eucharist to a rational explanation tied to a specific metaphysical conception of reality.

Rejection of the Real Presence didn't have any credibility as an idea until the Reformation. That's almost 1500 years of zero disputation, so what's wrong with calling it the Protestant view, alluding to the Protestant Reformation, which is when Christians first started to entertain this innovative and Nonapostolic view?

 

[Idolater]

Nope

Not even close.

He is our High Priest forever, agreed?

 

[Idolater]

I didn't ask if you agree with the argument.

We know you do.

What I asked was, can you ask the same question?

Can you articulate the same argument that you hold in such high esteem, or are you just someone who parrots that which he finds pleasing to the ear?

Sure.

Then what use are you? Then why are you on TOL?

I was asked this a long time ago, and my answer's the same, even though I myself wasn't yet theologically Catholic, let alone a convert, way back then. We are spiritually and mystically one body, but there is great division and factions on the earth right now between us. But it needn't be this way. I value and pursue the reunion of the one Church on the earth. As it was in the beginning, must be as it is now, so I strive for that unity among His believers.

There are basically three salient trunks of our 'tree'. Catholicism, Orthodoxy and Protestantism. We used to have just one 'trunk', for like 1000 years, but now we have three. Those trunks have to somehow grow back together. It could be that Catholicism and Orthodoxy rejoin first, or it could be that Protestants convert to either Orthodoxy or Catholicism first, and I don't really care which one happens first, I'm just hoping that something happens, because this is unworthy of our Lord, frankly. And unbiblical. Christ, Peter and Paul all exhorted the Church to be one. We're not obeying the Bible.

 

[Idolater]

This sounds sooooo familiar.



I believe this has happened in the past with regards to the arguments around evolution?

I believe the world was made in six days flat.

 

[JudgeRightly]

He is our High Priest forever, agreed?

For those in the Body of Christ, He is not our High Priest, no.

For those who are under the New Covenant, yes, but no one alive today is under the New Covenant, not even for the past 1800 years.

Sure.

Please do so.

 

[Selaphiel]

Rejection of the Real Presence didn't have any credibility as an idea until the Reformation. That's almost 1500 years of zero disputation, so what's wrong with calling it the Protestant view, alluding to the Protestant Reformation, which is when Christians first started to entertain this innovative and Nonapostolic view?

That some groups emerging from a movement entertains something that is wrong does not invalidate the origin of the movement, the principles of the movement or the movement as a whole. That would be a weird form of a genetic fallacy. Nor does the abuse of a principle prove the invalidity of the principle itself, as the medieval expression goes: abusus non tollit usum

Here are some facts for you: The Lutheran World Federation, The Anglican Communion and The World Methodist Council make up a body of about 240 million believers, who are also protestants and who do not in any way deny the real presence of Christ in the eucharist. That shows that there is no necessary relationship between being protestant and denying the real presence.