{"id":57774,"date":"2015-05-27T16:53:15","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T23:53:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/?p=57774"},"modified":"2019-04-15T16:31:12","modified_gmt":"2019-04-15T23:31:12","slug":"the-divine-eucharist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/2015\/05\/27\/the-divine-eucharist\/","title":{"rendered":"The Divine Eucharist"},"content":{"rendered":"

This last weekend I was in LA to attend\u00a0a debate between Dr. James White and Shaykh Mustafa Umar on the divinity of Christ.<\/p>\n

Despite Dr. White’s\u00a0rather scathing view of\u00a0Catholicism, even denying it the classification of “Christian”, I jumped at the opportunity to see him\u00a0in-person. You see, I have consumed a lot of his\u00a0material over the years. His apologetics material concerning the Watchtower, Mormonism and Islam\u00a0have been of considerable help to me in my own encounters with members of those groups. Not only that, but my understanding of Reformed theology is almost entirely drawn from\u00a0his\u00a0various videos\u00a0which are available online.<\/p>\n

\"Umar\" \"White\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The debate itself was constructive and enjoyable, despite having\u00a0a rather disappointingly\u00a0truncated Q&A session at the end. After the debate, the line for Dr. White was considerable,\u00a0but I did get a change to speak to Shaykh Umar. Although I found the Shaykh’s answers to my questions unconvincing, I found him to be down-to-earth and very pleasant.<\/p>\n

Aside from announcing that I’ve ticked off another\u00a0bucket list<\/a>\u00a0item, I wanted to do a quick post about this last weekend because I wanted to briefly mention a line of argumentation used by Dr. White during the debate…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Figurative Father?<\/h2>\n

To support Shaykh Umar’s denial of Jesus’ divinity, he attempted to explain away many problematic passages of Scripture by saying that Jesus was speaking figuratively, not literally. For example, the Shaykh contended that when Jesus referred to God as His “Father”<\/span>, He only meant it in a broad, inclusive, figurative sense.<\/p>\n

Naturally, Dr. White objected to this explanation, proving his point by examining\u00a0the reaction of the crowds\u00a0to Jesus’ words.\u00a0For example, in John 5, Jesus heals a\u00a0man at the pool of\u00a0Bethzatha. When the Jews come to Him complaining that the miracle was performed on the Sabbath, Jesus\u00a0responds by saying “My Father is working still, and I am working”<\/em><\/span>. \u00a0How did they react to these words? Did they conclude that Jesus was speaking figuratively? No, instead we read that “This was why the Jews sought all the more to kill him, because he not only broke the sabbath but also called God his Father, making himself equal with\u00a0God<\/strong>“<\/em><\/span>. They took Jesus at His word.<\/p>\n

Dr. White then turned to Jesus’ trial before the Sanhedrin.\u00a0Jesus was sentenced to death under charges\u00a0of blasphemy, yet at no point does Jesus attempt to correct his accusers saying “No, no, you misunderstand, I’m only speaking figuratively<\/strong>!”<\/span><\/em>\u00a0I know that if I was sentenced to death due to a\u00a0misunderstanding, I would do everything in my power to clarify and correct the misunderstanding! However, Jesus doesn’t do this…He keeps\u00a0silent.<\/p>\n

\"Jesus\"<\/p>\n

As a Christian, I obviously agreed with Dr. White’s analysis. The reaction of the Jews is\u00a0only understandable if Jesus meant what He said. However, as Dr. White explained this in the debate, it called to mind another Gospel passage…<\/p>\n

Figurative Bread?<\/h2>\n

A few chapters earlier in John, Jesus\u00a0says something else which evoked a strong reaction among the people:<\/p>\n

I am the living bread<\/strong> that came down from heaven…\u00a0This bread is my flesh<\/strong>\u2026 For my flesh is real food and\u00a0my blood is real drink<\/strong>… \u00a0\u2013 John 6:51-54<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When this passage came to mind in the debate, I considered what would happen if we took Dr. White’s argument concerning Jesus’\u00a0divinity and applied it to this passage. How did Jesus’ listeners respond to these words?<\/p>\n

Many of his disciples, when they heard it, said, \u201cThis is a hard saying<\/strong>; who can listen to it?\u201d …\u00a0After this many of his disciples drew back<\/strong> and no longer went about with him<\/strong><\/em>. – John 6:60, 66<\/span><\/p>\n

Surely we must conclude\u00a0that Jesus was speaking literally? His hearers certainly took Him at His word! Why else would this be “a hard saying”<\/em><\/span>? Why would they be offended if Jesus was only speaking figuratively?\u00a0Not only that, but would Jesus really let a large number of souls walk away from Him based on a misunderstanding<\/strong>? Wouldn’t Jesus\u00a0clarify? Wouldn’t He explain the metaphor? Wouldn’t He\u00a0soften His language? Yet why then do we see Jesus’ language in John 6 become increasingly\u00a0vivid and explicit unless we should understand His words at face value?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

As a Catholic, I can apply Dr. White’s argument consistently. Using his\u00a0argument, I conclude both that Jesus is divine and also that He is truly present in the Eucharist. His flesh is “real food”<\/span><\/em> indeed!<\/p>\n

I can’t imagine that Dr. White would agree with my understanding of John 6 and I had hoped to ask\u00a0him what fault he would find in my applying his argument to this passage. Unfortunately, as I said at the beginning of the post, the line to meet Dr. White was long and many of us at the end of the line did not get a chance to meet him. However, if you’re reading this and you’re not Catholic or Eastern Orthodox, I’d be very interested in hearing your thoughts on my\u00a0reapplication of Dr. White’s\u00a0argument.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This last weekend I was in LA to attend\u00a0a debate between Dr. James White and Shaykh Mustafa Umar on the divinity of Christ. Despite Dr. White’s\u00a0rather scathing view of\u00a0Catholicism, even denying it the classification of “Christian”, I jumped at the opportunity to see him\u00a0in-person. You see, I have consumed a lot of his\u00a0material over the years. His apologetics material concerning<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":57783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[3174,2969,1849,1648,3175],"class_list":["post-57774","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-faith","tag-dr-james-white","tag-featured","tag-john-6","tag-real-presence","tag-shaykh-mustafa-umar"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/DebateBanner.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57774","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57774"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57774\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":70933,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57774\/revisions\/70933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57774"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57774"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57774"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}