Eucharist (cont'd)
I’ve heard it said that proclaiming some Catholic doctrines “mysteries” is an excuse we use when we can’t justify or explain a doctrine. This argument is used, usually, in a screed denying the doctrine in question. The correct view of course, is that God is, ultimately, unfathomable apart from revelation, so it stands to reason that the truth about him, at least partially, would be beyond human comprehension.
Further, I take the truth of mysteries to be a proof for the existence of God and the truth of the doctrines themselves. As my friend and mentor John Soos says, “How can a finite mind make up an infinite God?” Indeed. And how could a finite theologian make up a doctrine that he himself can’t fully explain?
Not that it is tough to make up nonsense, e.g., “Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself couldn’t lift it?” (Which I first heard posited by the eminent American philosopher George Carlin). However when you’ve asked a nonsensical question you haven’t asked anything at all (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis). When you ask, on the other hand, how God can be three-in-one or how bread and wine can become the Body and Blood of Christ, you ask a question that can be studied and answered and understood, but only to a point. Like infinity, you can only go so far in your contemplation until you hit the “wall” so to speak, which human intelligence can’t scale.
So, when I approached the Eucharist, I came to believe it via a combination of rational argument and transcendent truth.
The rational argument came from the teaching of the Fathers, who from the earliest days of the Church proclaimed the truth of the Real Presence. It came from modern writers, many of them converts, who were able to take those historical arguments and synthesize them in a way intelligible to a 20th century materialist. It came from a clear reading of John chapter 6, which I had never been able to manage as a fundamentalist.
But I also came to believe it because it was so unbelievable. It was something no one could have made up (the similarity of the myths of the Mystery Cults only proves that the pagan world was yearning and looking forward to the coming of the Messiah as much as Israel was, though they hardly knew it). It was so audacious and wonderful that it couldn’t be anything else but true. The only “too good to be true” that has ever actually turned out to be true.
I hardly knew what to make of it then, and ever since, even as I thank God for it and glory in it each time I go to Mass, I hardly know what to make of it now. I just know it is true, and that it makes all the difference in the world.
Further, I take the truth of mysteries to be a proof for the existence of God and the truth of the doctrines themselves. As my friend and mentor John Soos says, “How can a finite mind make up an infinite God?” Indeed. And how could a finite theologian make up a doctrine that he himself can’t fully explain?
Not that it is tough to make up nonsense, e.g., “Can God create a rock so heavy that he himself couldn’t lift it?” (Which I first heard posited by the eminent American philosopher George Carlin). However when you’ve asked a nonsensical question you haven’t asked anything at all (to paraphrase C.S. Lewis). When you ask, on the other hand, how God can be three-in-one or how bread and wine can become the Body and Blood of Christ, you ask a question that can be studied and answered and understood, but only to a point. Like infinity, you can only go so far in your contemplation until you hit the “wall” so to speak, which human intelligence can’t scale.
So, when I approached the Eucharist, I came to believe it via a combination of rational argument and transcendent truth.
The rational argument came from the teaching of the Fathers, who from the earliest days of the Church proclaimed the truth of the Real Presence. It came from modern writers, many of them converts, who were able to take those historical arguments and synthesize them in a way intelligible to a 20th century materialist. It came from a clear reading of John chapter 6, which I had never been able to manage as a fundamentalist.
But I also came to believe it because it was so unbelievable. It was something no one could have made up (the similarity of the myths of the Mystery Cults only proves that the pagan world was yearning and looking forward to the coming of the Messiah as much as Israel was, though they hardly knew it). It was so audacious and wonderful that it couldn’t be anything else but true. The only “too good to be true” that has ever actually turned out to be true.
I hardly knew what to make of it then, and ever since, even as I thank God for it and glory in it each time I go to Mass, I hardly know what to make of it now. I just know it is true, and that it makes all the difference in the world.
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