The Real Presence is NOT 'Literal'

We're often told that the real-presence of Christ in the Eucharist is just the "literal" interpretation of the words of institution and John chapter 6. But is this actually the case? I question that widespread assumption in this video.

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[barelyprotestant]

I disliked this before listening to it.

[Richie_roo]

“Christ was being carried in his own hands when he handed over his body, saying, ‘This is my body’; for he was holding that very body in his hands as he spoke.” -St Augustine

[cristian_]

the Lutheran view is exempt from this critique

[amfm]

Let me get this straight, what you're saying is that Jesus wasn't an Aristotelian philosopher?

[calebjohnston_youtube]

Could you do a video on the church fathers' view of this? That would be awesome!

[matthewpaolantonio]

Here's the issue with your interpretation of John 6. If you asked me "Do you eat Christ's Flesh and Blood?" I can give you an unqualified "yes" as an answer. I think that still qualifies as a "literal" meaning. It's definitely not metaphorical. Your contention that the "most basic" reading would include physicality is debatable. Ontology would suffice here.

[TheDisciple]

Hi Other Paul! I loved this video! Here is the thing however, if I were to give to you that the Bible is ambiguous with the interpretation of literal flesh and symbolic flesh, the early church fathers did not take it as symbolic flesh. Did the idea of transubstantiation come about later? Yes. However, did the prior church fathers believe in it while not having a set term to define the miracle? Yes. It is just really hard for me to deny St. Ignatius who was a follower of St. John got it all wrong with the Eucharist because that would mean two things: Either St. John got it all wrong or St. Ignatius misinterpreted.

[marcuswilliams]

The Lord Jesus could have said "This bread is like my body" even as He says "The kingdom of heaven is like a sower, " etc., etc. He did not. The most natural reading of someone's Last Will and Testament is to understand the words as they read. The Words of Institution are actually quite simple and the Real Presence does not require corporeal physicality to set forth the literal meaning of the word "is" in the context.

[kiroshakir]

This was just a word salad
Paul refuted you heretics when he said
1 Corinthians 11:27-30
New International Version
27 So then, whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning against the body and blood of the Lord. 28 Everyone ought to examine themselves before they eat of the bread and drink from the cup. 29 For those who eat and drink without discerning the body of Christ eat and drink judgment on themselves. 30 That is why many among you are weak and sick, and a number of you have fallen asleep.
Eating without decerning the body and blood of the lord is a sin according to paul
And no amount of mental gymnastics can convince me otherwise

[BornAgainRN]

“The seed IS the word of God” (Luke 8:11). A “literal“ meaning, according to Roman Catholicism, would lead one to believe that a seed literally transforms into Scripture. But an actual literal meaning leads the reader to understand that Jesus is making a comparison between the seed and Scripture, just as He is making a comparison between bread and His body.

[MichaelVFlowers]

The doctrine of real presence strikes me as so much gaslighting. What's even more obnoxious is the way that many proponents of the doctrine (at least within Roman Catholicism) are now trying to pull back, claiming that they don't really like the word "literal" anymore. Sorry, one can't allow virtually everyone to use the term for hundreds of years and then pretend as if that's a non-issue, as if it didn't actually reflect the sensus fidei. I realize that the terminology was never used in dogmatic statements (although Pope Paul VI used the term in his Mysterium fidei, if I recall correctly). We all know that this is how Roman Catholics have talked about the doctrine for years and years. I've got quote after quote of bishops, priest, apologists, and other faithful Roman Catholics (usually with imprimaturs) insisting that the eucharistic texts of Scripture be interpreted literally. So if that whole notion of the sensus fidei means anything, this terminology should be counted as entirely appropriate theologically speaking, even if it's not sanctioned in an official dogmatic definition.

[augustinian]

I’d be curious to hear The Other Paul define real presence; I’ve typically referred to it as anything which Lutherans, Calvinists, Roman Catholics, or Eastern Orthodox would agree with—basically anything but a Zwinglian real absence. This video seems to want to exclude the Calvinist position from the heading of real presence, unless I’ve misunderstood.

I also, more broadly, take issue with the idea of “literal interpretation.” It seems to be a bit of a bad philosophical hangover. I subscribe to the view of biblical authority that holds the authority of the text rests with the meaning intended by the author—illocution, as opposed to mere locution—I reject reader-response theory, even the variant that holds the meaning of the text to lie in what the plain literal meaning of the text is to me/one particular reader. There are many times in the usage of human language where the illocution of an utterance is equivalent to a perceived locution, but in general there’s a great deal of subjectivity all around, with locution basically being what an utterance “literally” means to a particular hearer as a result of their exposure to the usage of words over the course of their life. Having recently migrated from the Lutheran tradition to the Anglican tradition, I can definitely attest that different language communities speaking the same language and which are even extremely similar to one another still will be found to be using the same words differently in some key places (e.g. ‘Evangelical’ in Lutheranism vs ‘Evangelical’ in Anglicanism). So I’d agree that seeking the literal meaning is pretty pointless if we’re not trying to get at what the author was actually intending to communicate.

With regard to the Lord’s Supper, I think the question is what words would we expect the author to have used if they meant real presence (in the sense I gave at the top) vs real absence. Even if we were to find that scripture is ultimately unclear, early secondary literature is a great help here—how did the next several generations of Christians use language with regard to the Eucharist. If our next earliest references came 200 years or more later, we wouldn’t have much to go on. Thankfully we’ve got writers like Ignatius, Justin Martyr, and Irenaeus just one to three degrees removed from the apostles themselves to help us out and show us roughly what the authors of scripture intended. While these writings don’t definitely tip the needle into one particular camp’s theology, they do rather effectively allow us to rule out a Zwinglian view. No one in the early church seemed to have received a tradition or read the text the same way as poor Ulrich, so he has to be dismissed. Yet the early Christians rejected the notion that they were cannibalistically eating Christ’s σωμα/σαρξ ψυχικον; the eating appears to have been σωμα/σαρξ πνευματικον in some real sense.
As a result, to get a bit ahead of myself, I’ve adapted a statement from the Lutheran Formula of Concord to be a bit more ecumenical and describe what we can surmise:

“We must reject the idea of the Capernaitic eating of Christ’s body, as though His flesh were torn with the teeth and digested like other food. Christ’s body and blood are received with the bread and wine, yet not in a “Capernaitic” way, but orally in a supernatural, heavenly, or spiritual way.”

The biggest alteration to the Lutheran view is removing an objection to the use of the word ‘spiritual’, as I don’t believe we have enough information to really rule it out, and ‘spiritual’ standing for Paul’s use of πνευματικον in 1 Corinthians 10 & 15 would work nicely. Like the Trinity and the Hypostatic Union, precisely how Christ is present in the Eucharist is ultimately a mystery. But there is a clear trail of language usage indicative of a belief in real presence from the pages of scripture into the church fathers that reigned unmolested until Ulrich Zwingli came on the scene, so I believe it is ultimately unwise to invest too much in any one rational explanation of the mystery. As an old Lutheran communion hymn by Gerhard Wolter Molanus wisely counsels us on the subject,

Search not how this takes place,
This wondrous mystery;
God can accomplish vastly more
Than what we think could be.

[Andthethingwhich]

I do not understand: every Sunday, I eat and rip apart Christ's literal flesh with my teeth. I also drink his blood.

I do not understand how this is possible, but it is true. Because our Lord has promised us that he will forgive us if we drink his blood and eat his body.

[DanielWard]

If Jesus was not being literal about eating his flesh then Jesus did not die for our sins on the cross!!!
John 6:51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world

[serbo-bulgarianorthobro]

Interesting video. As an Orthodox, I can say that the meaning of "symbolic" has been distorted over time (especially with the Enlightenment). Traditionally, symbolic referred to a reality which was a sort of conjoining between a heavenly reality and an earthly one. Post-Enlightenment, it came to mean something more akin to "allegory" or "metaphor, " and was distinguished from the literal. This is key to the Orthodox understanding of the Eucharist. For us, the Eucharist does denote a real presence because it is symbolic. It is bread and wine, but it is more than that, because God is present mystically in the Eucharist and it is mystically transformed into the Body and Blood of Christ. At the same time though, it is done in remembrance of Christ. So, for us, there really isn't a distinction between a "literal" or "symbolic" understanding of the Eucharist. They are one and the same. Jonathan Pageau does a good job explaining these things, as do many other Orthodox.

[matthewpaolantonio]

You are vastly overcomplicating the matter. All transubstantiation means is that the Eucharist is truly (ontologically) Christ's Body and Blood, just as He said, even though it doesn't look like it. That's it! It's not that hard to grasp. And that view is ubiquitous in the Early Church Fathers.

[LaymanBibleLounge]

I’ve always been curious about how the Memorialism view of the Eucharist among people from “high church” denominations influences their view on baptism.

Is your view on baptism that it’s a picture symbol and representation of regeneration like how your view on the Eucharist is that it’s a picture symbol and representation of Jesus’ body?

If not, do you think there could be some interpretive disconnect among your view on the sacraments?

[mikeparker]

Other Paul just wondering. Would you be willing to agree that the Eucharist represents the body and blood of Christ on earth in a present day reality?

[Jeremy-gezv]

I liked this show but sheesh why you had to take route John 6:66 other Paul ☦️

[hexahexametermeter]

Great fuel for the JWs. The Word was with God and the Word WAS God. But IS does not denote ontology....so according to your logic, the Word is God-ish.