What the Transubstantiation is

Tuesday, November 6, 2007, 7:57 PM

So, if the Transubstantiation is not magic, and it is not even a miracle, what does it mean to say that it is a mystery? I believe in Transubstantiation, which has nothing to do with a presumed (somehow magic, somehow miraculous) “real presence”. The Mass is essentially a dramatic re-actualization of the Last Supper and of the Sacrifice of the Cross. What matters is to share the certitude that what Jesus did then, on the eve of his Passion and Death, with the institution of the Eucharist, and which he gave the command to the Apostles to repeat «in memory of me», is made present in the Sacrifice of the Mass, as the Canon of Mass solemnly proclaims:

“We announce your Death, our Lord, we proclaim your Resurrection, and we are waiting for your Coming”.
 
The cheque analogy

A comparison which comes to my mind (and which, at first impression, may seem even blasphemous, but isn’t) is the following: imagine a piece of paper on which a person would write: «I undersigned hereby transfer to Mr. So and So (or to the Bearer) the indicated amount of money». By means of this fully recognizable act, a simple piece of paper has become a cheque. Its “ontological status” has changed, and within an interpretive system able to recognize it and to interpret it (in the example, the Banking System), it has become “substantially different”. If the expression had not become entirely crystallized in its theological-scholastic use, it would be entirely appropriate to describe the situation by saying that the Piece of Paper was “transubstantiated”. Likewise, in a way mysterious, but not repugnant the reason, the Bread and the Wine of the Mass, by the irrevocable commission imparted by Jesus, become the synthesis of His earthly path as our Saviour, and for all the people who receive the Sacrament of the Eucharist with pure heart and right intention , a … cheque unto Life Everlasting.

The cheque analogy revisited: the banknote analogy

Someone may remark that the signature on the cheque introduces a physical alteration, however little. An analogy that is even more appropriate than that of the cheque, is that of a a banknote. Every banknote is ultimately a piece of printed paper: it is more then paper (viz. money) only because there is the recognizably declared intention, on the part of the government that it should be "payable to the bearer". And (unlike the cheque) there is not even the marginal problem of the “added” signature, because it is there since the beginning!”

Go to More on the "real presence"

What the Transubstantiation is not

Tuesday, November 6, 2007, 7:25 PM

a. It is not magic: some view the Celebration of the Eucharist as something similar to an “enchantment”. The priest behaves like a wizard, so the story goes, who by enchantment transforms the bread and the wine in “food of gods”. This misinterpretation of the transubstantiation has always been decidedly rejected by the Church.

b. It is not a miracle: often the analogy if drawn with the Miracle of Cana (John 2:1-12). But in that case the water was, by Jesus’ miraculous action, transformed into wine, which had all the organolectic characteristics of wine (colour, brilliancy, taste, smell): indistinguishable by anybody (even the master of ceremonies, certainly a competent wine waiter, but totally unaware of the miracle). For this “miraculous” interpretation of the transubstantiation (the wine becomes real blood, and the bread real flesh), the position of the Church ahs always been ambiguous. On the one side the “spiritual” meaning of the “transformation” is insisted upon. On the other, though, insisting on the concept of “substance” (Transubstantiation=transformation of substance), can allow for a (almost) literalistic interpretation (the wine becomes real blood, and the bread real flesh). The best expression of this is the so-called "Miracle of Bolsena", which, though, is not officially supported by the Roman Catholic Church.

Go to What the Transubstantiation is

Transubstantiation and "Real Presence"

Monday, November 5, 2007, 12:24 AM

If Jesus Christ was “present” in the bread and wine at the Last Supper, and if he is just as present in the Mass, then the explanation is that, as Jesus cannot have been physically present in his “body, soul, and divinity” sitting with the Apostles and, at the same time, monstrously (NOT: mysteriously) “present physically” in the bread and wine (whatever this may mean), he must be “present” (there, and now) in the bread and wine, not literally, but in some other sense. Does it mean to say that also Transubstantiation is a meaningless word? Not at all. In fact it is much more accurate than the vague “Real Presence”.

Go to What the Transubstantiation is not
Go to What the Transubstantiation is
Go to More on the "real presence"

3. In The Apostles’ Creed There Is All That Is Essential!

Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 5:39 PM

(Jesus and the Apostles, St Laurence, Chapel of St Aquilino, Milan)

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved” (Epistle of Saint Paul Apostle to the Romans, 10:9)  

THE APOSTLES CREED

I believe in God, the Father Almighty, the Creator of heaven and earth,
and in Jesus Christ, His only Son, our Lord:
Who was conceived of the Holy Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried.
He descended into hell; the third day He arose again from the dead.
He ascended into heaven and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty,
whence He shall come to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy Catholic Church, the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body,
and the life everlasting.

To say the Apostles’ Creed means to declare one’s faith in God the Father and in Jesus Christ whom God sent to the world for us, and whom he appointed as our Judge, “whereof he hath given assurance unto all men in that he hath raised him from the dead” (Acts, 17:31). It means also that the Deposit of the Faith that Jesus entrusted to the Apostles has reached us intact. Our Faith in God is therefore inseparable from our trust in men.  

• The God of Christians is not a “force” that moves the world, bur a real Personal God, He is strictly One, He is the same God of Abraham, of Isaac and of Jacob in whom Jews and Moslems believe. God is called Father because he loves His creatures, and most of all human beings, who are the ultimate purpose of His Creation.  

• Jesus of Nazareth is the Christ, that is the Messiah, announced by the Scriptures, who has dwelt among us as a man, and who will return in the Glory. Jesus is Son of God not “from eternity”, but generated by God in the fullness of time from the Blessed Virgin Mary. He is true God and true man, inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the Divine nature of God his Father and the human nature of his Mother, the Virgin Mary. This is the greatest Miracle and Mystery of Christianity. In Jesus has been fully expressed God’s Wisdom, which had already been deployed at Creation. The Word, or God’s Wisdom, is therefore not a distinct person neither from God, nor in God, and it is not even a “project” of Creation, but an eternal attribute of the Eternal God.

• Creation is tied to the One God Father by a twofold bond. Creation is Nature, which obeys the laws that God imposed upon it in His Wisdom. In Nature the Divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony, with reference to the General (although Nature includes also breaches of order and catastrophes). But God acts also directly upon Creation, with actions that are addressed to the Particular. This direct action and presence of God in His Creation, is called by the Scripture Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by His Spirit both as inspiration in humans chosen by God, and as miracle in Nature’s extraordinary events.

Go back to Strict Monotheism

2. Trinity and Incarnation: a solution

Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 5:12 PM
Masaccio's Trinity (Santa Maria Novella, Florence)

In my tormented relationship with Christianity I have developed a total repulsion for the Doctrine of Trinity, as it is proposed by the Catholic Church and more in general by all the Christian churches, Orthodox, Protestant etc., with the single exception of the Unitarian Church.

For a long time I believed that the motivation of my attitude was due to several facts, amongst which I mention the main ones:

• that the Doctrine of Trinity has no foundation upon the basis of the Old Testament, and not even of the New testament,
• that there is an obvious evolution that has carried from the first formulations, tied to the necessity to distinguish the role and the nature of Jesus Christ with regard to God the Father, to the definitive formulation (three persons, equal, distinguished and co-eternal),
• that there are obvious contributions from stoic philosophy, as well as middle-platonic, neo-platonic in the various Trinitarian formulations,
• that the complete formulation of the dogma (as can be found in the s.c. Athanasian Creed) erects a true verbal "eidolon" to the Trinity.

Without modifying anything of the above exposed convictions, I gradually came to realize that the true problem for me is above all that of Incarnation. It appears difficult to me to accept and to believe that Jesus Christ can be the Incarnation of God (or more exactly, according to the Dogma, of the second person of the Trinity) and that therefore, inasmuch as God, he cannot not enjoy divine attributes, in particular Omnipotence and Omniscience, that we consider necessarily associated to the notion of God.

How can in fact such Man-God actually suffer the limitations imposed by human nature? What kind of redemptive value has for humans the death of Someone who ultimately only has "up to a certain point" shared the human condition? Which is the meaning and the value of the Resurrection of a Man-God who, in inasmuch as God, cannot really suffer death and, inasmuch as man, whose nature is intimately connected to his divine nature, from this same divine nature would have received, so to speak "by dragging", victory over death, making therefore superfluous to think of the intervention of the One God Father, which however is expressed without possible misunderstanding in the NT, and in particular in Peter’s speech in the "Acts of the Apostles"?

Therefore, thinking to overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, but in fact (as I came to realize) above all in order to overcome the difficulties with the Doctrine the Incarnation (difficulties that, it is worth noticing, do not depend on the formulation according to the Trinitarian Dogma, but indeed would be aggravated by a “Unitarian" or "Patripassian" formulation of the Incarnation), I have thought to find a satisfactory solution to both problems in the enunciations that follow, which constitute some kind of "personal creed":

• The Christian God is a Personal God (therefore neither a "force" nor a "motor") and strictly One (not less than the God of the Jews and of the Muslims). God is Father inasmuch as He loves His creatures, and in particular human beings.

• Jesus is the Son of God not "ab aeterno" but inasmuch as generated from God by means of the Virgin Mary. In this sense, that is inasmuch as He joins in Himself by generation the divine nature of God Father and the human nature of the Virgin Mary, He is True God and True Man. In Jesus the Divine Wisdom, which had been unfolded in Creation, has found full expression. The Logos, or divine Wisdom, is not therefore a distinct person (neither from God, nor in God), but it is not even a "plan" of the Creation, but rather an eternal attribute of the eternal God.
• Creation is tied to the only God Father and Creator with a twofold bond.
Inasmuch as it obeys the "laws" that God has imposed on it, Creation is Nature, in which the divine Providence expresses itself as Order and Harmony (although Nature includes in itself also breaches of order and catastrophes), but always with reference to the General. God though acts also directly upon His Creation, with acts directed to the Particular. This action and direct presence of God in His Creation is what is normally called Holy Spirit. God manifests Himself by means of His Spirit both as inspiration in the human beings chosen by Him, and as miracle in the extraordinary events of Nature

This "creed", with its heterodoxy, has somehow satisfied the primary requirement to refer to God as a Personal Entity, present in the world created by Him and acting on it with Wisdom and Love.

Besides this requirement, but of no less importance , this "creed" allows me to feel that the call to sharing with Jews and Muslims the same One God of Abraham is neither strained nor fictitious.

But if on one side this creed helps overcome my repulsion for the doctrine of Trinity, and my perplexities regarding the doctrine of Incarnation, I cannot deny that a different problem arises. God, the Father Almighty, who loves His Creation so much as to give it His One-begotten Son, in the end is also the one who sent Him in this world without any warning of danger, who literally gave Him the illusion of the imminent foundation of God’s Kingdom, and of the possibility to establish this Kingdom in a non traumatic way. This can be clearly perceived from the Gospels in the first phase of the mission of Jesus, until the "crisis of Caesarea" and in the tragic character of the rest of the mission of Jesus, until the epilogue on the Cross.

Therefore a choice is inevitable. On one side the doctrine of Trinity and of Incarnation, which attempts the impossible (and for me sacrilegious) combination of the "God" of philosophers with the One and True God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and inevitably transforms Incarnation itself in some kind of "sacred representation", of "comedy", "pedagogical action" by God (but which God?) towards Humanity, without any true sharing of "human condition", in spite of every well-meaning apologetic effort. On the other side a creed that apparently introduces the notion of "cruelty" in God the Father, even towards His Beloved Son.

I believe that this apparent "cruelty" is the true key to understanding the Sacrifice of the Cross. We must think of Jesus who, as reads the "Letter to the Hebrews", "learns from His suffering", who at Gethsemane prays that He be spared the bitter cup (but only "if it is still possible"), who reminds Pontius Pilate that a legion of Angels could free Him, if only He should ask His Father. Jesus who in the supreme moment does not resort to His relationship with God the Father in any form other than obedience. Who affirms His Regality only by means of His Word. Who knows well the precariousness and unreliability of every human solidarity, even from one’s most trusted friends. Who finally, so His humanity can manifest itself in the fullness of its limits, is and feels totally abandoned by God the death, and like every human being faces the supreme moment with that fear of the unknown that every human being must experience and that God Father, abandoning Him totally to death, interrupting the intimacy with which He has always supported Him, lets Him taste in all its horror.

This is the Jesus who, "approved by God”, is resurrected by God. He has defied death and He has conquered it not because, inasmuch as Son of God, He could only win, but because, "first of the resurrected" God has put Him as a Guide of Humanity until the final Victory. Jesus has received from God, His Father, a mission to accomplish. He has gradually understood it and freely accepted it, up to the Sacrifice of His Life. We must think that Jesus could have failed, but that he had the Courage to endure to the end, for our Love.

Go to 3. In the Apostles’ Creed there Is All That Is Essential!

1. Trinity and Incarnation: the problem

Tuesday, October 30, 2007, 4:53 PM

Shield of Trinity

God, according to Genesis, made man “in His image and likeness”

Now, if by “man” we do not mean human society, but the real and concrete human being of flesh and blood, the concrete human being that each of us is, then God can only be One Person, and Trinity is nothing but the symbolic expression of the inner Life of this Person, of His Creative Power, His Loving Wisdom and His Vivifying Spirit.

If, on the other hand, we do not mean “man” as concrete human being, but rather as human society, we may likewise argue that God is a Society of Persons, and in this case the dogma of Trinity is not a symbolic expression, but a literal truth.

This latter position, which can be perfectly upheld from a rational point of view, has the main disadvantage that it is not supported anywhere in the Scriptures. Neither in the Old Testament, in which God’s Oneness only is proclaimed, and when God’s Wisdom or Spirit are spoken of, there is no reason to assume that what is referred to is anything other than attributes of the One God and Father. Nor in the New Testament, in which, rather, it is insisted that God is Abba, Father.

Things become even more complicated with the dogma of Incarnation. Assuming, in fact, that in God there subsist a Trinity of Persons, and that in Jesus human nature has been united to the divine nature of the Eternal Son so as to constitute one Person, how is Jesus, resurrected and sitting on the right hand of the Father, posited with respect to this Trinity? Two only are the possibilities: either the divinity of the Son has been changed and somehow “enriched” by the humanity of Jesus, or the humanity of Jesus has been entirely “absorbed” into the divinity of the Son.

In the former case it is God’s immutability which is questioned, in the latter case it is the very reality, value and meaning of Resurrection which dissolve into a haze.

Go to 2. Trinity and Incarnation: a solution

Strict Monotheism

YHWH the True Name of God

I prefer the expression Strict Monotheism to Anti-Trinitarism, because, although for me personally Strict Monotheism was a reaction to the notion of Trinity, Trinity was NOT an original Christian tenet.

The crash course in Strict Monotheism will be in 3 stages:

1. Trinity and Incarnation: the problem.
2. Trinity and Incarnation: a solution
3. In the Apostles’ Creed there Is All That Is Essential!

So brace your selves: we go.

Go to => Trinity and Incarnation: the problem

Go to => Trinity and Incarnation: a solution

Go to => In the Apostles’ Creed there Is All That Is Essential!