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56. Teresa Polk Says:
October 15th, 2005 at 9:54 am
#54 - Spirit of Vatican II, I think you have gone way too far now. For one thing, I don’t see how from Trent or any other Catholic source you get approval for a non-denominational communion service, possibly by non-ordained people, as being what Christ intended. Even the non-denominational Protestants would not call what they do Eucharist — although you could find some who would say that they believe in the very limited concept of Transubstantiation that you have now made more clear is what you believe. Even in the Early Church, in Tertullian’s writings, there were concerns expressed about who could celebrate sacraments. The Eucharistic liturgy in the Didache is drawn more from John 6 than from the Last Supper, so that it is historically clear that the first century Church understood John 6 as pertaining to the Eucharist. As the Pontificator’s original posting makes clear, finding the Eucharist in John 6 is troubling to the purely Protestant position, and yet it is in the Didache’s liturgy which dates back to New Testament times. I don’t think you can reconcile your position with the first and second century understanding of what Christ intended, unless you view Christ’s intention from Scripture taken out of context from the surrounding culture and the historical events that led to some of the persecution. You would also have to explain, for example, how Roman rumors developed that accused the Christians of cannibalism — clearly, the surrounding secular culture thought they took the Eucharist so literally that it was feared they might actually be eating someone’s flesh. You could not explain that kind of slander toward a group who used a non-denominational Protestant understanding of Christ’s intention.
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1.Her own reference to Tertullian implies that even by the 3C, the question of who officiated at the Eucharist was still unsettled.
2.The Didache is generally dated to the 2C.
3.Even if a given teaching or practice did go back to Apostolic times, that doesn’t make it Apostolic. Most of the NT correspondence was occasioned by false teaching which sprung up with great frequency and alacrity in Apostolic Sees whenever the Apostles were away, planting other churches.
4.The Bread of Life Discourse was delivered around AD 30 or so. The historical setting is Jewish and pre-Eucharistic. What would this have meant to Jesus’ Jewish audience, given their preunderstanding? The explicit background and express frame of reference is not the NT Eucharist, but the OT manna.
5.Whenever and to whomever the Fourth Gospel was written, it is a historical record of speeches which were delivered at an earlier time to a different audience.
Failure to distinguish between the target-audience for the Fourth Gospel and the original audience for the embedded narrative discourse within the Fourth Gospel commits an elementary level-confusion and basic hermeneutical blunder.
Since the sheep seem so intent on employing a crassly literal hermeneutic when it suits their ecclesiastical and theological purposes - I am curious whether they take Christ's first reference to the “bread from heaven” in John 6 (6:32-35) as literally as they insist one must interpret this same phrase later in the same discourse (e.g., 6:51).
ReplyDeleteIf they do, are they consistently literal in their interpretation of John 6:32-35? In other words, after they consume the elements, do they still literally hunger and thirst or is it only the reference to the bread that must be construed literally while the rest of Christ's explication concerning the bread must be taken in a purely metaphorical sense?
"32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it is not Moses who has given you the bread out of heaven, but it is My Father who gives you the true bread out of heaven. 33 "For the bread of God is that which comes down out of heaven, and gives life to the world." 34 Then they said to Him, "Lord, always give us this bread." 35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst." (John 6:32-35)
And of course, as everyone knows, Jesus intended the other famous ego eimi + predicate nominative constructions in the 4th gospel to be taken literally as well. Jesus provides literal luminescence to the world every morning. That’s not the Sun, you see, but the Son (9:5). He also has literal hinges if you look closely (10:7), people literally walk on Him to get where they’re going (14:6), and, of course, He has literal leafs hanging from His body (15:5).
I guess the point of Matt’s suppressed argument is that sola Scriptura cannot function as a rule of faith it if is inaccessible. By way of reply:
ReplyDeletei) Even if this were a problem for the Protestant position, it does nothing to negate the force of the objection in relation to the Catholic understanding of Jn 6. If Catholics say that their interpretation is valid simply because billions of Catholics have read Jn 6 that way when, in fact, billions of Catholics never had a chance to read (or hear) Jn 6 for themselves, then the objection is sustained. The objection doesn’t’ have to prove the alternative rule of faith (sola Scriptura) to disprove the Catholic appeal. These are logically distinct and separable propositions.
ii) To say that the Protestant rule of faith cannot function unless certain conditions are met does nothing to invalidate that rule of faith. You might as well contend that the multiplication tables are invalid unless they are universally available.
iii) Matt’s objection would undercut the Catholic rule of faith with equal efficiency, for tradition is also disseminated by the medium of the written word.
iv) Universal literacy and access to Scripture is not a precondition of sola Scriptura. The public reading of Scripture was a custom in both the synagogue and the NT church. Lectors and lectionaries were used.
The problem is when, for centuries, the church uses a version of the Bible (the Vulgate) which is unintelligible to most of the laity and many of the lower clergy.
Matt is now changing the subject from accessibility to consistency. The fact that he changes the subject is a tacit admission that his original objection was flawed.
ReplyDeleteLet's see. Matt "responded" by ignoring points one and three, then bringing up points two and four, only to change the subject. Now he asserts that I'm begging the question, without bothering to expand his assertion into an actual argument, just as he didn't bother to expand his original assertion into an actual argument. This is how people argue who have no argument to offer.
ReplyDeleteMatt says I beg the question. He doesn't say what question I beg, or how I beg it, but he says I beg the question.
ReplyDeleteSo all his objection amounts to is an unsupported assertion about an unspecified target.
With such quality of reasoning it's no mystery that he converted to Catholicism.