Pot of gold-3

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I am having trouble understanding what your purpose was here. It could hardly be a logical argument.

If you are arguing that the dogma of the Real Presence, then you are right to focus on John 6 for your scriptural basis. Repeatedly, Jesus makes the claim, and those listening obviously understand his meaning to be literal, as evidenced by their horrified reaction.

If you are arguing about the consecration, why would you focus on John 6 and ignore the four times the institution of the Eucharist is told (3 in the synoptics and one in Paul's letter to the Corinthians). The statements "this is my body" and "this is my blood" are straightforward enough.

http://triablogue.blogspot.com/2005/10/real-ellipsis.html

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i) My logic parallels the logic of the CCC. Any illogicality is a reflection of the original source. Thanks for agreeing with me.

ii) I’m arguing about the dogma of the Real Presence (allegedly) in Jn 6 and the words of institution elsewhere because that it how the CCC argument is put together. The CCC supplies the framework for my reply.

***QUOTE***

In your article you suggest it is incorrect to use connect scripture from one book of the Bible to scripture from another book of the Bible:
"But there are not a few problems with this move. To begin with, it isn’t very sound exegetical method to complete your interpretation of one writer by ransacking another author. This is, frankly, a way of filling in the gaps of an interpretation that goes beyond the textual evidence."

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No, my objection was more specific than your introductory sentence makes it out to be.

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If this is truly what you meant, one must wonder if you are truly Christian. The Muslims believe the Koran was dictated by Allah in Arabic to Mohammed, who captured every word. Christians believe the Word of God to be the word of God but written by men. For this reason, we speak of the Psalms of David and the Book of Hosea.

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Now you’re going off on a tangent.

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The historical-critical analysis school of biblical study popularized by German theologians in the 19th century suggested ideas about the authors of the texts, but it is a departure from Christian tradition to assume that the full interpretation of the Divine Revelation is found in a single book of the bible.

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i) I don’t endorse the historical-critical method. Rather, I endorse the grammatico-historical method. It’s your church which has adopted the liberal Lutheran grammatico-historical method.

ii) Your recourse to Christian tradition assumes what it needs to prove.

***QUOTE***

St. Paul is liberal with his quotations and citations from the Psalter and from the major prophets like Isaiah. Is St. Paul not using a "sound exegetical method?"

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Your comparison breaks down at the very point where it needs to hold up. If Paul were quoting John or vice versa, then, of course, we’d know that Paul was extending or supplementing Jn 6. In that case, the connection would be valid because the connection would be intended and evident.

***QUOTE***

You claim we have here "clearly a dogma in search of a prooftext. The dogma comes first." Of course the dogma comes first, for the dogma comes from God. That is what a dogma is: some authoritative, unchanging divine truth. As creatures of God we do not necessarily have the lexicon of the Creator and may employ a doctrine that is our best effort at explaining concepts that are beyond the confines of time and space and creation.

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That’s a rather obscure statement:

i) Are your dogmas divinely revealed or not? If they’re revealed, then revelation comes first. That’s the source of your knowledge of dogma. If not that, then what?

You seem to be confounding the orders of knowing and being. Metaphysically speaking, divine truth is prior to divine revelation--but epistemically speaking, divine revelation is prior to divine truth. We formulate dogma in light of God’s dogmatic disclosures. That, at least, represents Reformed theological method.

ii) Now you seem to be giving a Kantian cast to truth—that divine truth is some noumenal, ineffable whatever.

You’re welcome to your opinion, but if our spatiotemporal categories fail to capture then truth, then Catholic dogma can’t right or wrong, true or false. How can something with no truth-value be authoritative?

iii) It will hardly suffice to say that we try to do the best we can, for that assumes an approximation to the truth--but if the truth is unknowable, then you have no basis of comparison.