Hey, fellow Catholics. Got an interesting argument against the Transubstantiation here, courtesy of CARM. Ive already pretty thoroughly rebutted against the rest of the article whence it proceeds, but would anyone like to give me a hand in arguing against this one? ***** [The Transubstantiation] is a violation of the incarnation. The biblical doctrine of the incarnation states that the Word which was God and was with God (John 1:1), became flesh and dwelt among us (John 1:14). This became flesh involves what is known as the hypostatic Union. This is the teaching that in the one person of Christ are two natures: divine and human. That is, Jesus is both God and man at the same time and He will forever be God and man. Furthermore, by definition, for Jesus to be human He must be located in one place. This is the nature of being human. A human male does not have the ability to be omnipresent. He can only be in one place at one time. To say that Jesus in His physical form is in more than one place at a time, is to deny the incarnation. That is, it denies that Jesus is completely and totally a man -- since a man can only be it one place at one time. Therefore, to say that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ is to violate the doctrine of the incarnation by stating that Christ is physically present all over the planet as the mass is celebrated. This is a serious problem and a serious denial of the true and absolute incarnation of the Word of God as a man. But, did not Jesus say in Matt. 28:18-20 that He would be with the disciples always, even to the ends of the earth? Is this not a declaration that Jesus will be physically present everywhere? No, this is not what is stated. The answer is found in the teaching of the communicatio idiomatum. This is the teaching that the attributes of both the divine and human nature are ascribed to the single person of Christ. It does not mean, however, that anything particular to the divine nature was communicated to the human nature. Likewise, it does not mean that anything particular to the human nature was communicated to the divine nature. It means that the attributes of the divine nature are claimed by the person of Christ. Therefore, Jesus is omnipresent, not in His human nature, but in His divine nature. To make this more clear, lets look at some verses that illustrate the communicatio idiomatum: John 17:5, And now, glorify Thou Me together with Thyself, Father, with the glory which I had with Thee before the world was. John 3:13,And no one has ascended into heaven, but He who descended from heaven, even the Son of Man. Please notice that in these two verses, Jesus lays claim to the glory that He had with the Father before the foundation of the world. He also claims to have descended from heaven, but how could these be true since He is a man? The answer is because the attributes of the divine nature are claimed by the person of Christ. Therefore, the person of Christ could claim to have glory with the Father and could claim to descend from heaven. But we know that the man Jesus, in the flesh, did not exist until His conception. Furthermore, this means that the two natures of Christ are distinct, yet they are in Union in the one person of Christ (the hypostatic union). It further means that the attributes of the divine and the attributes of the human are not transferred to one another -- the divine does not become localized and the human does not become infinite. If this were the case, then the nature of the divine and the nature of the human will be violated. Therefore, we can see that for Jesus to be a man, He must retain the attributes of humanity. This means that He must be localized and it means He cannot be physically omnipresent. If He were, by definition He would not be a man. But the Roman Catholic position is that the bread and wine become the actual body and blood of Christ and this violates the doctrine of the incarnation. Therefore, transubstantiation cannot be the correct teaching of Scripture. ***** Please keep your critiques focused on this particular argument; Ive already talked about John 6, 1 Corinthians 10 and 11, the Church Fathers, and so on. Have fun!
Posted on: Sat, 26 Apr 2014 19:32:47 +0000
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