History, sola scriptura, and the real presence

From a Facebook conversation

Hays

If Newman could have found what he was looking for from the beginning, his theory of development would be superfluous at best and counterproductive at worst.

Ernesto

There is no such thing as the doctrine of development... might be worth to go back and have a second look. 

Hays

“The tradition which comes from the apostles develops in the Church with the help of the Holy Spirit. For there is a growth in the understanding of the realities and the words which have been handed down. This happens through the contemplation and study made by believers, who treasure these things in their hearts, through a penetrating understanding of the spiritual realities which they experience, and through the preaching of those who have received through episcopal succession the sure gift of truth. For, as the centuries succeed one another, the Church constantly moves forward toward the fullness of divine truth until the words of God reach their complete fulfillment in her” (Vatican II, Dei Verbum 8).

Mass suspended!

It is easier for the earth to exist without the sun than without the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass!

– Padre Pio

Well that may just be put to the test. What if Mass is suspended and nothing happens? The skies don't blacken. Demons don't storm out of hellmouth and take over the world. What if everything is business as usual? Suppose you can't tell the difference? 

This is another crisis for the Catholic church. I've been joking with friends about how the Vatican needs to authorize communion condoms so that the faithful can safely take communion on the tongue. 

But humor aside, it's pretty amazing that public masses have now been suspended throughout Italy. The hierarchy is sending a clarion message about its lack of faith, and the dispensability of this central sacrament. Logically, they should trust in God to protect faithful communicants. Yet they're afraid to take the risk in case the gamble doesn't pay off. But if you can't bet on your own religion...

Eucharistic miracle

On Christmas Day in 2013, a consecrated Host fell to the floor, the bishop said in a statement. It was put in a container of water and red stains subsequently appeared on the Host.

Tests were performed at the Department of Forensic Medicine in Wroclaw at the beginning of 2014. Another study was subsequently performed by the Department of Forensic Medicine of the Pomeranian Medical University in Szczecin, which concluded that “in the histopathological image, the fragments (of the Host) were found containing the fragmented parts of the cross striated muscle. It is most similar to the heart muscle. Tests also determined the tissue to be of human origin, and found that it bore signs of distress.”

https://catholicherald.co.uk/news/2016/04/19/bleeding-host-in-poland-has-hallmarks-of-a-eucharistic-miracle/

This raises some intriguing questions:

i) Could it be staged? After all, the priest has custody of the wavers. So could that be engineered behind-the-scenes? Catholic miracles are good for business. 

ii) But let's grant for discussions purposes that this is a supernatural phenomenon. Given how little a wafer weighs, the Host must suffer from hemophilia to bleed when dropped. 

Indeed, if it bleeds when dropped on the floor, won't it bleed when eaten?  Won't worshipers taste blood when they consume the wafer? 

iii) So the concreted wafer contained parts of the cross striated muscle. Remind me again of how that's supposed to be different from cannibalism?

iv) Is the eucharistic miracle actually consistent with Catholic dogma? According to transubstantiation, isn't the body/blood of Christ supposed to be empirically undetectable? Phenomenogically, it's supposed to be indistinguishable from bread and wine. It retains the species of bread and wine. 

Another problem is that according to Trent, the Host isn't supposed to be bits and pieces of Jesus' flesh but "Christ whole and entire under the species of bread, the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity". So the eucharistic miracle falsifies Catholic dogma.

In fact, since transubstantiation is already supposed to be a miracle, a eucharistic miracle is a counter-miracle that suspends or nullifies the "ordinary" miracle of transubstantiation to make the body/blood manifest. An anti-miracle miracle. So the eucharist miracle poses a dilemma for Catholics. 

Is a Bird in the Chan worth two in the bush?

Michael F. Bird

@mbird12

Okay, those bagging Francis Chan for having a high view of the Lord supper, mostly nondenominational and low church Evangelicals, regard catholicity as a swearword and have a view of the sacraments that is mere memorialism heading into christological docetism.

i) Have you ever noticed the alleged parallel between having a high view of the Eucharist and having a high view of Mary? That's compared to having a "low" view. Of course, the adjective "low" generally has pejorative connotations. So the debate is rhetorically front-loaded. 

But it's all a question of context. For instance, is it better to have a high view or low view of Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and Benny Hinn? 

ii) How does having a "mere memorialist" view of a Christian rite head into christological doceism? Is the Son reincarnated in every consecrated wafer? Is every consecrated wafer a separate incarnation of God? 

How is it docetic to differentiate a ceremony from what is symbolizes? Is it docetic to differentiate a Christian cross from the event of Christ's crucifixion? Is it docetic to differentiate a Christmas service from the actual Incarnation? Is it docetic to differentiate an Easter service from what happened 2000 years ago? 

Does Michael Bird think the communion wine is in fact the hemoglobin of Jesus? If not, then he's playing a bait-n-switch. 

iii) BTW, even on the reflexively reviled Zwinglian view, the communion elements aren't mere bread and wine. In terms of their composition, they're just bread and wine. But when used in a communion service, they're not mere bread and wine because in that context they've been assigned a particular religious function. They acquire a significance in that setting which they don't have on the dinner table. The significance of an action is often context-dependent. The same action may have a variable-significance according to the setting. Take the difference between an erotic kiss and a platonic kiss. 

Paul declares that the Lord's supper is a "participation" (κοινωνία) in Jesus' body and blood. You cannot participate in what is not real or not present. See 1 Cor 10:15-16!

The worshipers participate in something real by participating in the rite. It's a real rite. The ceremony is present. 

And the ceremony commemorates their actual participation in the sacrifice of Christ because they have a share in the redemptive death of Christ by virtue of vicarious atonement. He redeemed them by his blood. 

Some evangelicals believe in the doctrine of the real absence of Jesus, wherever Jesus is, he's nowhere near the bread and the wine, better to leave Jesus' presence outside the celebration, or else we might turn Catholic.

Cute but willfully equivocal. Ordinarily, Jesus isn't physically present in a worship service. It is, of course, possible for Jesus to appear to people in dreams and visions. And it's possible for Jesus to appear to be physically present with them. To occupy their time and space. The paradigm-cases are the post-Resurrection appearances in the NT, but Jesus can do that in the course of church history he and when he wants to. 

But by virtue of the Ascension, Jesus is normally absent on earth. Worshipers aren't excluding Jesus from the celebration. He hasn't been banished or evicted. Rather, he physically absents himself. We can't summon him against his will. We live between the Ascension and the Parousia. Most of the time, Jesus isn't here, although we can make allowance for occasional Christophanies in church history. But that's unpredictable and unexpected. 

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QP9roQQwzsA

I didn't know that for the first 1500 years of church history, everyone saw it as the literal body and blood of Christ. And it wasn't until 500 years ago that someone popularized the thought that it's just a symbol and nothing more.

It was at that same time that for the first time someone put a pulpit in the front of the gathering. Because before that it was always the body and blood of Christ that was central to the gatherings. For 1500 years it was never one guy and his pulpit being the center of the church. It was the body and blood of Christ, and even the leaders just saw themselves as partakers.

Because the church is more divided than at anytime in history…and for a thousand years there was just one church. We're so used to growing up in a time when literally there are over 30,000 Christian denominations right now. Yet for the first thousand years there was just one. 

What's interesting is that communion was at the center of the room every time they gathered. And it wasn't a pulpit where a guy preached.

There was something about taking communion out of the center of the church and replace it a gifted speaker. But the Body itself needs to be back in the center of the church. 

1. Francis Chan is a wonderful Christian leader. To some degree this is an extension of what he's been thinking and saying for years. He's a celebrity preacher who's conflicted about his success. He feels guilty about being the center of attention. It's a dilemma that he constantly struggles with. 

2. I'm always struck by the fallacious appeal to circular consensus. If people are only taught one thing, then that's what they're apt to believe. If they're not exposed to alternatives, then that fosters groupthink. If they don't have access to the primary sources, if theological dissent is punished, then what they believe is likely to echo what they were taught. That's what happens when the flow of information is tightly controlled. There's nothing probative, nothing of evidentiary value, about that sociological phenomenon. It creates no presumption that the status quo is true. It's no different from the fact that most Buddhists hail from Buddhist cultures, Muslims from Muslim cultures, Hindus from Hindu cultures. That so many people are impressed by appeal to circular consensus reflects a lack of critical discernment.

3. The reason the Renaissance and Reformation spawned theological diversity, contributing to the breakup of the medieval synthesis, is because it provided a marketplace of ideas. Back when there was a state religion and national churches, when the Cuius regio, eius religio policy was the rule, when the religious establishment had a monopoly, that deliberately cultivated and reinforced status quo thinking because theological competition was banned. But when access to the primary sources expanded, when literacy expanded, when the educated class expanded, when the laity would read whatever the clergy could read, that challenged the status quo, that challenged the preexisting consensus. 

4. Pastor Chan confuses church architecture with original Christian worship. The first Christians didn't worship in churches, in the sense of buildings designed for Christian worship. They worshipped out of doors or in private homes. The development of church architecture had to await the legal stabilization of the Christian faith. 

5. In liturgical churches, the Eucharist is separated from the life of the body. Separated from celebrants gathered in corporate fellowship and worship. In liturgical churches, the Host or reserved sacrament often occupies the tabernacle in a deserted church. So the centrality of the Eucharist is depersonalized and detached from the living worshipping community. An architectural centrality in an empty sanctuary. 

According to the Real Presence, Jesus is present in the consecrated communion elements even if the entire human race went extinct. There'd be no Christians on earth. The whole planet would be a cemetery. But Jesus remains present in the tabernacle. It's an idiosyncratic concept of communion where the "body and blood of Christ" is said to be found in abandoned churches, after all the worshipers were wiped out by the neutron bombs, leaving buildings and physical remains intact. A communion of skeletons. 

6. And during a communion service, it isn't just the altar or communion table that's front and center. The theology of the real presence necessitates the priesthood. So it's one or more priests (and acolytes) front and center. 

7. Was the eucharist central to NT worship? Consider Paul's classic statement: "When you come together, each one has a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, a tongue, or an interpretation. Let all things be done for building up" (1 Cor 14:26). Doesn't seem like any one thing is central to the worship service. The worship service includes a celebration of the eucharist (1 Cor 11), but Paul doesn't rank that above other activities. 

8. Then we're treated to the fiction of the undivided church. Before the Photian schism, there was just one church. Everyone attended the same church. Really? 

With all due respect, Pastor Chan needs to think more deeply about his ecclesiology. There was never one institutional church. There were local and regional churches, often embroiled in turf wars. Does Pastor Chan seriously think that before the Patriarch of Constantinople excommunicated the pope, there was just one church, the one church, and his action made the difference? Does Pastor Chan think that's what makes there to be one church? One undivided church? Is the unity of Christ's church determined by the actions of popes and ecumenical patriarchs? Are the actions of Greek Orthodox bishops and Roman Catholic bishops constitutive of the church as a unity or disunity? 

The unity of the church is grounded in the headship of Christ, the agency of the Holy Spirit, and fidelity to God's word. The unity of the church is independent of Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox authority structures. That's unless you buy into a particular ecclesiology which I doubt Pastor Chan subscribes to. Seems to me he's been taken in by some catchy, superficial slogans, without considering the theological paradigm in which those are embedded. And if he really is moving in that direction, then he's lost his bearings. 

From Last Supper to Lord's Supper

1. From what I've read, the fundamental objection to female priests is that a priest assumes the role of alter Christus at Mass. When celebrating the eucharist, the priest is a stand-in for Jesus. Therefore, a priest must be male.

Since I repudiate the whole sacerdotal paradigm, I reject female priests for the same reason I reject male priests. My objection lies further upstream. I reject a key presupposition that underlies that understanding of communion. 

I'm not fighting over a word. If Anglicans wish to call their clergymen priests, I don't care. 

2. However, the issue doesn't stop there. With the possible exception of the Plymouth Brethren, in nearly all Protestant denominations of my acquaintance, elders officiate at communion. From what I can tell, that's a relic of the Catholic paradigm. 

So this is a Christian custom rather than a divine mandate. I don't object to Christian customs, per se. I've always attended churches where the clergy officiate at communion. I do think that's a somewhat pernicious tradition because it fosters bad subliminal theological conditioning. However, I never felt called to start a whole new denomination over this one issue. 

It's one of those things where I sometimes have private mental reservations when I attend a church service. My own theology is so developed that I don't expect any denomination to be the mirror-image of my theology. 

3. This does raise a live issue in theological method. How does the Lord's Supper correspond to the Last Supper? Is the Lord's Supper a theatrical historical reenactment of the Last Supper, where participants resume the same roles as the Last Supper? A sacred play in which the original parts are represented? Or does the Last Supper provide general guidelines for how the Lord's Supper should be celebrated?

4. There's no presumption that the way in which a practice is inaugurated furnishes the template for how it's subsequently observed. For instance, festivals like Yom Kippur, Tabernacles, Firstfruits, and the Feast of Weeks were inaugurated by a thunderstorm theophany and angelophany at Mt. Sinai, but that doesn't mean the initial conditions are repeated every time the festivals were celebrated. Indeed, the initial conditions were unrepeatable.

Likewise, the new covenant community was inaugurated at Pentecost with a fire theophany and xenoglossy, but that doesn't' mean every time the lost are evangelized or a new church is planted, the initial conditions are repeated. Indeed, the fire theophany is unrepeatable while xenoglossy is rare. 

5. For instance, the Last Supper was a Passover Seder meal. As such, roast lamb was on the menu. But when we celebrate communion we don't repeat that detail as a historical reenactment of the Last Supper. 

Needless to say, few denominations practice foot-washing whenever communion is celebrated. Jesus led the disciples in singing a Hallel Psalm at the Last Supper (Mt 26:30; Mk 14:26). But that's not a fixture of most communion liturgies I'm aware of. 

6. The fact that we follow the instructions in the institution of the Lord's Supper doesn't entail we reprise the role of Jesus. That's a non sequitur. We repeat the instructions, not the instructor. If a physician prescribes a medication, that doesn't mean someone must reprise the physician's role every time the patient takes the medication. 

The fact that Jesus presided at the Last Supper doesn't carry over to the Lord's Supper because the Last Supper is a one-time event with some unique circumstances–the foremost being Jesus himself. The instructions for the Lord's Supper don't include instructions for somebody to take his place when we celebrate communion. That confuses the descriptive level of the narrative with the prescriptive level. 

The "Jewish roots" of the Mass

I'm going to comment on this presentation by Brant Pitre:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P45BHDRA7pU

It was worse than I expected, and my expectations were low going in–given other presentations of his. Part of the problem is that to a great extent he seems to inhabit a Catholic bubble. He's a cradle Catholic. Apparently, he was raised in a traditionally Catholic state (Louisiana). He got a doctorate from Notre Dame. He's taught at a number of Catholic institutions.  And he's a popular speaker at Catholic powwows. 

One of the dangers is that when you spend so much time around like-minded people, when you constantly speak to sympathetic audiences, it's easy to become slipshod. What if he spoke at a Southern Baptist seminary? Likewise, suppose he ran his arguments by a group of Orthodox rabbis. I imagine the reaction would be quite different than when he's addressing lay Catholics. For that matter, how many Catholic Bible scholars like John Meier, John J. Collins, Luke Timothy Johnson, the late Joseph Fitzmyer or Raymond Brown would take his typology seriously?  

What is the Essence of Roman Catholicism?

http://vaticanfiles.org/en/2019/08/vf165/

A wakeup call for Catholics

1. In this video, Bishop Barron, who's far and away the most popular Catholic apologist of his generation, is tearing his hair out over the fact that 75% of American Catholics don't believe in transubstantiation:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0yTGlYCIvks&app=desktop

In addition, the figure rises to 80% for the younger generation–and that's the future of his sect. 

2. He quotes Flannery O'Connor's exclamation that if the eucharist is only a symbol, then "I say: to hell with it"–adding (in his own words), "why bother?".

That's a revealing reaction. Imagine an OT Jew exclaiming, "If Passover is just a symbol, then I say: to hell with it! Why bother?"

3. It's especially ironic because a large part of his apologetic for Catholicism trades heavily on aesthetic symbolism. Catholic art and architecture. The rose windows of Notre-Dame de Paris are a favorite theme of his. Why doesn't he exclaim: "If the rose windows are only symbolic, to hell with them!"

4. He goes on to say the eucharist is "tied to divinity of Jesus, the Incarnation, the sacraments, the church, and everything else". 

i) In part, that's an allusion to his view that the real presence is a prolongation of the Incarnation.

ii) In addition, the real presence is a presupposition of the priesthood. It takes a priest to change the communion elements into the "true body and blood of Christ". If you deny the real presence, that eliminates a key rationale for the priesthood. 

To be sure, priests have other sacramental functions like the rite of penance. Yet a major reason for penance is to prepare communicants to receive the eucharist. 

If you deny the real presence, it tugs a thread that unravels the entire tapestry of Catholic theology. That's because Catholic theology is a package deal. Not only are some dogmas logically and internally linked to other dogmas, but all the dogmas rely on the authority of the Magisterium. 

5. The Catholic church is in a state of crisis, on multiple fronts, in multiple countries. And we should be thankful for that.

The problem with his wakeup call is that many Catholic priests, bishops, and cardinals have a highly secularized outlook. They no longer believe in Catholic dogmas. They no longer believe in Catholic supernaturalism. So they don't share his sense of alarm. 

Mind you, evangelicalism has its own challenges. Its own attrition rate. Nominal piety. 

Unworthy communicants

Let's consider two related Catholic positions:

1. Traditional Catholicism practices closed communion. That's to protect unworthy communicants from physical and spiritual harm. Based on 1 Cor 11:27-30, priests have a duty to fence the table because unworthy communicants expose themselves to illness, including mortal illness, as well as endangering their souls. To be a worthy communicate you must be in state of grace at the time of communion. 

That's why Pope Francis's Amoris laetitia is so controversial. It allows divorced and remarried Catholics to take communion. But if marriage is indissoluble, then divorced and remarried Catholics are living in sin–the sin of adultery. This means they are in a state of mortal sin when they received communion. 

2. Protestant communion is invalid. They don't receive the Host. The bread and wine (or grape juice) never becomes the True Body and Blood of Christ. The communion elements remain bread and wine (or grape juice).

I see Catholic apologists make this argument. I haven't read a Catholic theologian make this argument, but I'm guessing the logic goes something like this: for communion to be a valid sacrament, the communion elements must be consecrated by a validly ordained priest. To be validly ordained, the officiant must be in apostolic succession. But when Protestants broke with Mother Church, they ceased to be in apostolic succession. Here's one example: 

https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo13/l13curae.htm

Moreover, Anglicans have a stronger historical claim to be in apostolic succession than Lutherans, Baptists, Presbyterians, Pentecostals, &c., so if even Anglican ordination is null and void, where does that leave candidates with a poorer claim to apostolic succession?

3. Assuming that's an accurate representation of traditional Catholic theology, let's consider these two positions in combination. 

i) On the one hand, it follows that as a rule, Protestant communicants can't be unworthy communicants. They fail to satisfy a necessary condition to be an unworthy communicant. So long as they confine themselves to Protestant communion, they can't be unworthy communicants because the Protestant eucharist was never a valid sacrament in the first place. They aren't receiving the Host unworthily. The Host isn't present in the Protestant eucharist. 

Protestants can only be unworthy communicants if they attend Mass and receive the sacrament at Mass. Say a Protestant married to a Catholic who attends Mass to accommodate the spouse. 

ii) The flip side is that only Catholics are in danger of becoming unworthy communicants, since only Catholics receive the Host. 

4. This generates a striking risk-assessment dilemma. On the one hand, the risk to Protestants is to miss out on the benefit of sacramental grace in the eucharist.

On the other hand, the risk to Catholics is to contract illness, even fatal illness, and worse yet, imperil their immortal soul. 

Ironically, this means Catholics have more to lose than Protestants. While Protestants miss out on a channel of sacramental grace, Catholics endanger their physical wellbeing and even–or especially–their eternal wellbeing. Protestant communion is safe whereas Catholic communion is Russian roulette. A cost/benefit analysis discourages the Catholic option. 

5. Finally, this invites an actuarial comparison. If the Catholic position is true, then the morbidity rate for Catholics ought to be much higher than for Protestants. Given the number of unworthy communicants at Mass, Catholic communicants should be dying like flies, well above the replacement rate. You'd be safer in a snake-handling service than attending Mass. But is there any comparative statistical evidence that Catholic communion is far more hazardous than Protestant communion? 

I don't accept the Catholic paradigm. I'm just playing along for the sake of argument to examine the implications of the Catholic paradigm on its own terms. 

Communion and cannibalism

Progressive theologian Randal Rauser offers an outlandish and unsuccessful defense of transubstantiation against the cannibalism charge:

https://randalrauser.com/2019/04/is-catholic-communion-cannibalism-my-thoughts/

It seems to me that the best way forward for the Catholic is to bite the bullet on this one. Yes, it is cannibalism. However, we must make an important distinction. While it is true that this act technically meets the definition of cannibalism, it is not cannibalistic in the substantial sense, and that’s the sense that matters.

So what’s the difference I am drawing between technical and substantial? That difference is rooted in the standard social function of the term “cannibal”. Consider, by analogy, the term “vegetarian”. To be a vegetarian is to abstain from the consumption of all animal matter (i.e. meat) in one’s diet.

While that is the standard definition of vegetarian, I would argue that it can also be viewed as the technical application of the term. By contrast, the substantial application of the term vegetarian is somewhat more narrow and pertains to abstaining from the consumption of all animal matter in one’s diet that once constituted part of an animal. There are at least two reasons for this dietary restriction: consuming that animal matter is complicit in the infliction of unjust suffering upon animals and it also exacts a disproportionate environmental cost. These concerns are the real motivation for censuring the consumption of animal matter.

And so, what if a person could consume meat wholly apart from any animal suffering or disproportionate environmental cost? I am thinking specifically of animal matter which has been cultivated in a laboratory such that this meat never formed part of the body of a sentient, living organism. Instead, it was cultivated from cells in a petri dish. (I’m assuming the cellular base was originally collected in a wholly ethical way consistent with vegetarian concern to avoid animal suffering.) While the consumption of this meat would technically violate the vegetarian identity, I would submit that it would be consistent with the substantial motivations behind (most) vegetarianism: i.e. the avoidance of animal suffering and disproportionate environmental cost of meat production.

From that perspective, the person who eats only lab meat may technically be violating the definition of vegetarianism, but they nonetheless meet the substantial definition and its underlying moral concerns. And thus, while this person may not be a technical vegetarian, they retain substantially a vegetarian.

i) That's fatally equivocal. What motivates a vegetarian isn't constitutive of what differentiates meat from vegetable matter. In his thought-experiment, the person who consumes artificial meat is still a meat-eater. What he's consuming is objectively meat. His psychological motivations for vegetarianism don't alter the content of what he consumes. The process by which the meat is produced doesn't change the constitution of the product. 

Rather, he's a meat-eater whose diet is consistent with vegetarian scruples inasmuch as he is sidestepping ethical objections to meat-eating. That doesn't make him a vegetarian. Rather, it demonstrates that, in principle, meat-eating can satisfy vegetarian ethical criteria. So even if Rauser's comparison was relevantly analogous, it would still fail to prove his point. 

ii) Moreover, cannibalism would still be morally abhorrent even if a human body was cultivated in a lab from scratch. 

The same point can be made with respect to cannibalism and the Eucharist. Non-cannibalism eschews the cannibalistic act because that act involves inflicting suffering upon human persons and devaluing human personhood and the body by way of consumption of that body. But those strictures assume that the matter which is consumed once formed part of a living human person’s body.

This is not true of the Eucharist. Thus, while these elements may technically become one with the body and blood of Christ, they were never part of the body of the living human person Jesus. In that sense, the consecration of Eucharistic elements in the Mass is analogous to the growing of new meat in a laboratory. And the consumption of the Eucharist avoids the social censure of cannibalism in the same way that the consumption of lab-grown meat avoids the social censure of carnivory.

To conclude, just as the person who restricts themselves to lab-grown meat may meet the substantial definition of being a vegetarian, so the person who restricts themselves to Eucharistic elements may meet the substantial definition of being a non-cannibal. And so, the cannibal charge may be good for a cheap shot in a meme, but as a significant objection to Catholicism, it lacks a substantial bite.

That's another fatal equivocation. Although the unconsecrated communion elements don't originate in the living body of Jesus, they become identical with the living body of Jesus (according to transubstantiation). The result of the process is identical with the living body of Jesus. 

To take a different comparison, if I'm born blind, but science is able to clone a pair of eyes using my own genetic material, those are as much my eyes as if I was born sighted. Those are as much my eyes as my hands or ears or tongue. They're indistinguishable from the eyes I'd have if I was born sighted. 

Or take in-vitro fertilization. If the ovum is fertilized outside the womb, it remains substantially a human baby–no less that if it was fertilized through normal procreation. 

Emergency kit for the vampire apocalypse

During the vampire apocalypse, you better have a cache of wafers to stave off the bloodsuckers!

Fellas, a vampire priest is good material for a Catholic anime: bloodlust satisfied by the sacrament. Make him an exorcist that fights demons, and we've got a killer imprimatur show.

— Iconic Inquisitor Iago (@FCJamesT) December 30, 2017

Saving the Blessed Sacrament

Etienne Loraillère, an editor at France's KTO Catholic Television, reported that “Fr. Fournier, chaplain of the Paris Firefighters, went with the firefighters into Notre-Dame cathedral to save the crown of thorns and the Blessed Sacrament.” 

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/structure-of-notre-dame-saved-after-major-fire-64772

If the Blessed Sacrament just is Jesus Christ (a la transubstantiation), can't he protect himself from fire? 

"Mere" symbolism

To my knowledge, the standard Baptist position takes a Zwinglian view of the Lord's Supper. This is often characterized as "mere" symbolism. 

"Mere" is an interesting adjective because, depending on context, it can either have a neutral or pejorative connotation. On the one hand, it can simply be used to establish a point of contrast between opposing views. On the other hand, consider some synonyms for "mere": "trifling, meager, bare, trivial, paltry, basic, scant, scanty, skimpy…"

Suppose I said "elected officials are merely public servants, not dictators". That's a good thing, right? We don't want elected officials to be dictators, do we? (Admittedly, secular progressives are dictatorial.)

"Mere" can be used in a slighting way, as if that indicates something defective. Suppose I have pictures of my kids on my office desk. Suppose a client said, "Those are merely photographs!"

That would be a strange thing to say. The adjective would be gratuitous. Yes, they're just photos. What else are they supposed to be? That's all they're supposed to be. That's the purpose they serve. 

Suppose someone told me "your girlfriend is merely a woman". That would be an odd thing to say. What else is she supposed to be? Is there something deficient about having a female girlfriend? As opposed to what? In fact, in the age of transgender propaganda, that needs to be accentuated, not minimized. 

Suppose you told a carpenter that his screwdriver is merely a screwdriver. But isn't that the function of a screwdriver? Is it a design flaw if a screwdriver is a poor tool for pounding nails? 

Suppose we said circumcision is merely a covenant sign. Yeah. So what? 

The use of "mere" or "merely" can be prejudicial, by gratuitously recasting the Zwinglian view as if that's a weakness. But that's a tendentious way to frame the alternatives. 

Cracker Jack® Mass

“It would be entirely improper for the Synod on the Amazon to discuss the change of the matter of the Holy Eucharist,” Cardinal Burke told LifeSite. “To depart from the use of what has always been the matter of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist has the gravest of implications,” he said.

“This is completely impossible because it is against the divine law which God has given us,” Bishop Athanasius Schneider, auxiliary of Astana, responded to the proposed change. “To celebrate the Eucharist with yuca would mean introducing a kind of a new religion.”

Fr. John Saward, senior research fellow at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford, said that replacing wheaten bread with yuca would contravene the witness of Tradition, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the Code of Canon Law. 

And one prominent theologian, speaking on condition of anonymity, told LifeSite: 

If the Pope were to press ahead with this permission on the grounds of “development of doctrine,” thereby aiding and abetting the heterodox theologians in Rome (or Brazil or Germany or wherever) who proposed it, then he will be authorizing a change of the substance of the Sacrament as determined by the action of Christ our Lord at the Last Supper. “Masses” celebrated with “yuca” bread would not be Masses; there would be no Real Presence, no Sacrifice. 

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/proposal-at-vatican-to-change-eucharist-would-create-a-new-religion

Here's what canon law presently says:

http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_P3A.HTM

A few quick observations:

i) As a rule, I think the communion elements should be bread and (red) wine. 

ii) Many evangelical churches use bread and grape juice while liturgical churches use wafers and wine. Both traditions fail to correspond consistently to the Last Supper.

iii) There is no "divine law" about the communion elements. The Last Supper accounts are descriptive, not prescriptive. Mind you, it would be flippant to substitute communion elements without good reason. 

iv) This is an issue for communicants with food allergies. Consider the debate over gluten-free wafers. 

v) I've never seen the rationale for communion wafers. I assume one reason is that it makes it look more official. It may be related to the tradition of the "reserved sacrament"–which is, in turn, related to eucharistic adoration. Communion wafers last longer than fresh bread, 

vi) However, the Catholic reaction to the trial balloon about changing the "matter of communion" illustrates the fanatical inconsistency of Catholic sacramentology. Since, according to transubstantiation, the communion elements are not, in fact, wheat bread and wine, what difference does it make? How would substituting different communion elements invalidate the eucharist if the empirical properties of bread and wine are illusory while the substance is the "true body and blood together with the soul and divinity" of Jesus? According to transubstantiation, the appearance of the consecrated bread and wine is just an optical (tangible, gustatory) illusion. By that reckoning, what difference would it make if the priest used Cracker Jack® instead of bread?  

Extortion racket

Why do Catholics remain Catholic under the Francis pontificate? Many reasons. For cradle Catholics there may be an overriding sociological component. For converts there's loss of face. Many Catholics aren't news junkies or theology junkies, so they don't keep up with the doctrinal controversies. Many Catholics are social liberals, so they like the direction Francis is taking the church in. 

But a reason many Catholics give is the sacraments, especially the Eucharist. 

In that respect, Catholicism is an extortion racket. What keeps the faithful faithful is how the hierarchy has them over a barrel. 

However, unlike the usual extortion racket, this is voluntary. Catholics have been snookered into believing Catholic sacramentology, which keeps them chained to the priesthood and hierarchy. It's like a devil's pact: we'll continue to support the Catholic church financially, no matter how often the hierarchy betrays our faith and abuses our trust, in exchange for the Host. One of the all-time great con jobs. 

The sacrifice of the Mass

A friend asked me to comment on this post by a Catholic apologist:

https://erickybarra.wordpress.com/2018/09/11/why-every-bible-believing-christian-must-believe-in-the-holy-sacrifice-of-the-mass/

I'll confine my observations to what I take to be the meat of his argument. 

Christians throughout the world who are actively seeking to join the original “Church” which Christ founded are confronted with the myriad of communities and denominations which compete with each other.

That's a Catholic solution to something that's only a problem if you grant Catholic ecclesiology. In my 42 years as a Christian, I never sought to join the original “Church” which Christ founded. What about joining Christianity? That's a better starting-point.

I don't think there's a one-to-one matchup between "the original Church which Christ founded" and particular instantiations of the church. I'm not looking for a needle in a haystack, because I don't need to eliminate all the contenders. I don't view Christian denominations as a zero-sum game. It's not mortal combat, where you have to kill off all the competition. I don't subscribe to a Hunger Games ecclesiology. 

What does it mean to "have a personal relationship" with Jesus?

1. What does it mean to have a "personal relationship" with Jesus? Traditionally, I think that stands in contrast to dead formalism and liturgical churches. In contrast to the notion that salvation is mediated through priesthood and sacraments. You don't experience God directly but indirectly via rites and rituals. 

In addition, it stands in contrast to salvation or fellowship with God as an essentially corporate rather than individual experience. It's your membership in the group that confers salvation or percolates fellowship with God. Once again, you don't experience God directly but indirectly through the "community of faith". 

But ironically, "having a personal relationship" with Jesus is apt to replace one formulaic piety with another formulaic piety. Still ritualistic–just a different set of rituals, viz. the altar call, sinner's prayer.

2. Here's another perspective:

When I think back to the “ethos” of that American evangelicalism of the 1950s and 1960s one thing stands out to me as mostly missing in contemporary American evangelicalism—a fervent, passionate experience of intimacy with Jesus. Maybe that wasn’t true of all evangelicals, but it seemed so to me. Everywhere I turned in that evangelical world the one thing that stood out above all else was Jesus as not only lord and savior but also as friend.

“Friendship with Jesus, fellowship divine. O what blessed sweet communion, Jesus is a friend of mine” and “He’s a faithful friend, such a faithful friend; I can count on him, to the very end….” I could go on and on and on with the songs we sang in church (especially on Sunday evenings) and at YFC “rallies” and at summer “Bible camp” and that I heard on Christian radio which was always the background noise in our home—with my stepmother singing along or humming the songs to herself.

Jesus was a living presence in our home and the center of attention in every church service. People talked about Jesus a lot when they sat around tables in the church fellowship hall. “How is it between you and Jesus?” was a frequent question—especially if someone had a “downcast countenance.” Testimonies of Jesus’s faithful friendship and help in times of trouble and need were frequent. “Jesus will walk with me down through life’s valley; Jesus will walk with me over life’s plane…if he goes with me I shall not complain” and “Where Jesus is, ‘tis heaven there….”

Although I could not see him with my physical eyes, I knew Jesus was among us and with me—all the time and everywhere. And his presence was one of love and compassion as well as disappointment when I sinned.

The ideal of that possibly lost evangelical Christianity was something beyond discipleship; it was real friendship with Jesus. Discipleship was part of that. But above discipleship was friendship, intimacy, close fellowship, presence of Jesus in the day-to-day rhythms of life. I will dare to say that without something like this friendship with Jesus, discipleship is just duty and drudgery.

Where has that experience gone? I’m not talking about in my own personal life; I still experience it—even if I find it mostly absent in contemporary church life. But I have trouble noticing it as an emphasis in contemporary American evangelical life. It seems that we have put Jesus up on a pedestal which is not bad, of course, but does he ever come down? Do we encourage children and youth especially to experience him as living, dynamic, compassionate, guiding, comforting presence in daily life?

One aspect of that Jesus-centered evangelical Christianity was an emphasis on the name of Jesus. “Jesus is the sweetest name I know” and “Precious name, O how sweet, hope of earth and joy of heaven, precious name….” 

For some of you out there this all sounds foreign and strange, even weird. I understand that and yet I don’t—if you consider yourself evangelical in any sense of the word...Some will consider this sentimental clap-trap and that doesn’t bother me—anymore.

http://www.patheos.com/blogs/rogereolson/2018/06/is-the-evangelical-christianity-of-my-youth-gone/

The problem with that paradigm is twofold:

i) This isn't actually experiencing the presence of Jesus in your life from day to day. Rather, it's make-believe. A conditioned feeling by constantly hearing and singing music about having a personal relationship with Jesus. The lyrics are an ersatz substitute for the experience. There's a fundamental difference between singing about an experience and having the experience you sing about. That's a way to cultivate the feeling that Jesus is present, but it's a psychological projection. Constantly telling yourself that's the case. 

ii) In addition, what many Christians actually experience is the apparent absence of God, especially in time of crisis. They desperately pray for divine intervention, but nothing happens. A piety based on hymns and choruses about having an intimate relationship with Jesus when that's put to the test during a personal ordeal. It's spiritually hazardous because it fosters a false expectation. What's there when the music stops? What's there to back up the lyrics? While the music promises a tangible presence, there's nothing tangible to fall back on when the edifying lyrics collide with unedifying reality. 

I'm not saying God never intervenes. In addition, what may seem pointless at the time, what may seem like divine abandonment at the time, can take on providential significance in retrospect. But the kind of gauzy spirituality that Olson hankers for can set up Christians for a crisis of faith when the promised experience amounts to a broken promise. Sometimes devotional music promises too much but delivers too little. 

3. Here's another viewpoint:

And then you have community. Community is incredibly important and then you have – like in so many faiths, you have a shared sociology. You have a shared history and so there are many elements that go into the Jewish worldview. Now in the Jewish religion, there are really only two major parts to it. It’s actually simple. One is belief and the other is practice. Now for a lot of evangelicals, a lot of Christians, belief is always the most important thing. And when we think about practice, we think about living out the gospel in the way that we treat one another, the way we treat the poor, the way we are stewards of our stuff, and et cetera. Jewish people, that’s not exactly what Jewish people mean by practice. You have belief, which has to do with your view of God, man, the future, the Bible, everything else, but most Jewish people done spend a lot of time on that. It’s not emphasized really in Judaism.

The question is how do they feel personally. Even though we are part of the people of God, if they’re adherent to the Jewish religion in some form, you don’t think about that as much. You don’t think about your personal relationship with God and you think about your corporate relationship with God. But Jewish people do not believe we need to get saved because there’s nothing wrong with our being born the first time. It sounds like a little bit of John 3 there and so this is really critical. A lot of Christians have a completely missed understanding of why Jewish people keep the law. Jewish people do not keep the law to get saved. Jewish people keep the law out of joy and out of a desire to simply be obedient. And you even have the understanding you’re gonna get forgiven for things you didn’t get forgiven of before, but it’s not for personal salvation. 

https://voice.dts.edu/tablepodcast/judaism/

i) That definitely sharpens the contrast. If you think that you, as an individual, are at risk of damnation, then it's all-important to get right with God. In that case it's crucial that God be concerned with individuals; that God be concerned with what's going on in your life. Does God care you? Does he care about what happens to you? Well, if you're not in danger, there's nothing to worry about. The particular becomes urgent when your destiny is riding on how God views you and you view him. 

ii) And even apart from eternal salvation, people often find themselves at a crossroads where they're very isolated and vulnerable. For years they've be coasting, when it suddenly hits them how terribly alone they really are and always were. It finally caught up with them. The world is indifferent. People pass out of their lives. It's all so transient. When people feel lost, the question of whether there's a God, a God who takes an interest in individuals, becomes paramount.