I asked about causality because I doubt that there are brute facts. A brute fact is a state of affairs that can't be explained, even in principle. So, there would be no way to identify a brute fact since the ability to identify one would presuppose an explanation that by definition, no brute fact can have.

Would someone please tell me why there's causality when naturalism presupposes that causality exists? If I argue scientifically for something that science presupposes, my argument will be circular.

Luther and the other Protestant revolutionaries fought against some awful abuses, simony, for example. In fact, Luther didn't expect to cause the splintering. He even said something like, "I wanted to depose a pope but created 100 popes." During a lecture I attended, a seminary professor, Fr. Peter Strvinskas, told us that Luther paid a daily Rosary until he died. I feel empathy for him, too, because he was mentally ill.

I don't expect to convince anyone become Catholic because anything I write. Naturally, the do get something from what they believe. I do, too. That's why I should thank them when they prove me wrong.

I'm not theologian. I'm a computer science tutor with a philosophy degree. That's why I need you folks to look into what your hear from me. If I misinterpret Thomas or Catholicism, I want someone or something to correct me.

The older I grow, the more I long to know everlasting truths because knowledge is good in itself. I want to be an amateur scholar who writes about computer science, philosophy, theology, opera, and high culture. That's why I couldn't care less about most popular culture. Since have cerebral palsy, I want my intellect to make up for what my body can't do. Who knows how long that'll take.

The Bach/Gounod Ave Maria

Maybe insomnia is affecting me brain since didn't understand the joke.

Year ago, after I vowed to be a lifelong virgin, I boarded a bus with another member of the gym I belonged to in 2007. She said, "There's a guy in there. You know him very well. I've had my eye on him for months." Seeing that I didn't know who she meant, she asked whether I needed to get hit in the head with a brick.

We went to dinner at a restaurant where a morbidly obese man danced to Who Let the Dogs Out. That wasn't fun, especially when I knew that the woman had almost nothing in common with me. She frightened me by inviting me to a Christmas party. So I skipped it. Then the first woman I asked for a date preferred women.

You might say that my romantic life was a joke.

Folks, please let me tell you a true story because it relates to sola scriptura helps explain why Protestants often disagree with Catholics.

Years ago, I stumbled on a website where an acquaintance wrote about Genesis 1-3. After a serious motorcycle-accident, he convinced himself that only he interpreted Genesis accurately. He said the strangest things, too. For example, he told me that God gave Adam and Eve material bodies to punish the because they fell from grace "in the spiritual realm." That sounds Gnostic, eh? He even believed that "In the beginning" was a title for Christ rather than a phrase describing a time when something happened.

The man revised his will to ensure that after his death, other people would spread his theological theory. A Protestant pastor asked my acquaintance to publish that theory to help him, the pastor, teach it to his congregation. Is it any wonder that Protestant services and Protestant youth group meetings convinced me to stay in the Catholic Church?

By the way, acquaintance's name is "Kenneth G. Redden" if you want to Google for his writings. I can't find them online anymore.

Wow, thank you for clarifying "being qua being."

Relativist, maybe I believe some things uncritically. But I believe what the Catholic Church teaches, partly because I study documents from the Early Church. If you read them, I think you'll know that they confirm Catholicism instead of Protestantism.

Thanks to sola scriptura, Protestants have splintered into about 47,000 sects. So it seems anyone can invent a new Christian religion and interpret the Last Supper metaphorically. Episcopalians don't believe bread and wine transubstantiate. Some Protestants believe Catholics are idolators who worship bread. If those Protestants rode a Time Machine to the second century to visit St. Ignatius of Antioch's diocese, the Catholics there would have avoided them because they didn't believe in transubstantiation.

St. Ignatius writes:

Chapter 6. Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemned

Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.

Chapter 7. Let us stand aloof from such heretics

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils."

St. Ignatius of Antioch's letter to the Smyrnaeans


From what I can tell, an essence is always a nonphysical property. Aristotle defines man as rational animal because all human beings have rational animality in common. Your five senses help you perceive another person. But you can't see, touch, taste, hear, or smell rational animality.

In 431, the Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorianism. Then, in 451, the Council of Chalcedon taught that: "So, following the saintly fathers, we all with one voice teach the confession of one and the same Son, our Lord Jesus Christ: the same perfect in divinity and perfect in humanity, the same truly God and truly man, of a rational soul and a body; consubstantial with the Father as regards his divinity, and the same consubstantial with us as regards his humanity; like us in all respects except for sin; begotten before the ages from the Father as regards his divinity, and in the last days the same for us and for our salvation from Mary, the virgin God-bearer as regards his humanity; one and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only-begotten, acknowledged in two natures which undergo no confusion, no change, no division, no separation; at no point was the difference between the natures taken away through the union, but rather the property of both natures is preserved and comes together into a single person and a single subsistent being; he is not parted or divided into two persons, but is one and the same only-begotten Son, God, Word, Lord Jesus Christ, just as the prophets taught from the beginning about him, and as the Lord Jesus Christ himself instructed us, and as the creed of the fathers handed it down to us."

The Council of Chalcedon

What does Dr. Craig think a nature is in itself? I've never heard him define it. Whatever he believes a nature consists of, you've just supported my belief that his theology is heretical by quoting a document where he says he believes that God has three minds. one for each divine person. His belief is understandable because he rejects absolute divine simplicity. But his point about three minds might suggest polytheism.

In my opinion, if Dr. Craig absolute divine simplicity, he would know why Catholics disagree with his interpretation of Matthew 26:39. Catholics believe that since God is absolutely simple, each divine person has the same divine will and the same divine intellect.

Relativist, the Catholic Church doesn't require Catholics to be Thomists. So, if a Catholic disagrees with St. Thomas on some point, maybe that means that Thomas is mistaken on it. About 62 opes have endorsed his philosophy and his theology, knowing that infallibility didn't protect what he wrote. Many believe. that he's the greatest theologian the Catholic Church has ever produced. I agree. Still, I'm free to disagree with him on subjects where the Church lets me do that.

On the other hand, Catholics must believe that the essences of bread and wine became the essences of his body and blood. If they deny that belief, they become heretics. If they're impenitent for that heresy, they're no longer Catholics, even when they still believe they are. That means that they must revert to Catholicism if they still want to practice Catholicism.

Pope St. Pius X writes: "45. In the first place, with regard to studies, We will and ordain that scholastic philosophy be made the basis of the sacred sciences. It goes without saying that if anything is met with among the scholastic doctors which may be regarded as an excess of subtlety, or which is altogether destitute of probability, We have no desire whatever to propose it for the imitation of present generations (Leo XIII. Enc. Aeterni Patris). And let it be clearly understood above all things that the scholastic philosophy We prescribe is that which the Angelic Doctor has bequeathed to us, and We, therefore, declare that all the ordinances of Our Predecessor on this subject continue fully in force, and, as far as may be necessary, We do decree anew, and confirm, and ordain that they be by all strictly observed. In seminaries where they may have been neglected let the Bishops impose them and require their observance, and let this apply also to the Superiors of religious institutions. Further let Professors remember that they cannot set St. Thomas aside, especially in metaphysical questions, without grave detriment."

Pascendi Dominici Gregis (Feeding the Lord's Flock)

The Eastern Orthodox Christians believe that bread and wine transubstantiate. But they don't describe the change in an Aristotelian-Thomistic way. Catholics and the Eastern Orthodox can agree that bread and wine change, even when the disagree on the metaphysics behind the dogma.

Anyhow, I believe I've shown that Dr. Craig's theology is logically inconsistent with the Bible. So maybe you didn't find enough time to read the post where I argue that his theology is inconsistent. My point about the vicious infinite regress presupposes that Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics and the PSR are true. So, if someone falsifies them, that will show that I argued unsoundly.

Then again, my point inconsistency doesn't depend on Aristotlelian-Thomistic metaphysics. It relies instead on two things. First, Dr. Craig believes Monothelitism, though the Third Council of Constantinople condemned it in the seventh century. Second, my argument relies on Matthew 26:39.

In Matthew 26:39 in the RSV, Our Lord prays, "And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Monothelites believe that Christ's only will his the divine will, and the will his the faculty a person chooses with. Can God the Father have a human. will when he hasn't adopted a human nature? No, he can't. That means that the divine will God the Father uses must be distinct from Christ's human one. Our Savior asks his Father to take Our Savior's suffering away if God the Father chooses to do that. But Jesus distinguishes between his will and the Father's will. So, if Christ's only will is the divine one, his prayer is self-contradictory. It's absurd to say "Not my will but mine be done."

If I've found a self-contradiction in Dr. Craig's theology, that inconsistency makes his whole theology inconsistent. After all, propositions are mutually consistent if and only if they can be true together.

Hyper-pluralism explains why Dr. Allan Fimister and I think sola scriptura makes the idea of divine revelation seem absurd to secularists. When I recall that Protestants have splintered into about 47,000 sects, I don't blame agnostics, atheists, and others for rejecting Christianity. Why would they think they should believe the Bible when most Christians don't understand it?

Gregory, St. Thomas was an Aristotelian. So please tell us what Thomistic metaphysical theories he would revise or reject.

Maybe I'm biased. But you've just used "substance" in another sense. In the relevant Thomistic sense, "substance" means "essence." Since an essence isn't a container. you can't put anything into it.

When someone bilocates, he's somehow how in two places at once. So, Our Lord doesn't bilobate when to every Catholic Church in my neighborhood, let alone to each Catholic Church in the world.

Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, Italy, PART 1

Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, Italy, Part 2

I'm not obsessed with anything. But I began this discussion because I believe that I've found some flaws in his theology.

What about heresy? For a Catholic, a heretic is any baptized person who denies a dogma or doubts it stubbornly. We believe that each Protestant is a heretic. So is every Eastern Orthodox Christian and any baptized Messianic Jew.

But we distinguish among three kinds of heretic. A material heretic believes a heresy when he doesn't know it's heretical. A formal heretic knows that he believes a heresy. A subjective formal heretic believes a heresy and deserves blame because he believes. It can be mortally sinful to be a subjective formal heretic. Martin Luther was a formal heretic excommunicated for his heresy. But since the Catholic Church won't judge the dead, she doesn't know whether he went to hell. Neither do I.

I forgot to make an important point about Dr. Craig's Monothelitism. So I'll summarize it with a question. "Dr. Craig, how can Christ have a complete human nature if he has no human will? Every other human being has a human will. Does that suggest that in that respect, Our divine Lord is inferior to his human creatures?"

Dr. Craig says he takes theological disputes to the "bar of Scripture." But it seems that the "judge" hasn't ruled on Monothelitism. If the judge, the Bible, did rule on it, the good professor may have misinterpreted the decision. No offense. But now you know partly why Catholics reject sola scriptura in each sense of that vague phrase.

I've watched many videos with Prof. Craig in them, though I haven't heard him list the properties that each human nature must include to be a human nature. He hasn't filled in the blank in "For any x, x is a human nature if an only if x has these properties____."

I agree with you, Wayfarer. Maybe you've read some blogposts where Prof. Edward Feser answers Dr. Craig's objections to divine simplicity. Feser argues in God there's something like what we call knowledge along with something like what we call goodness, something like what we call power. . . But each of those words stands for God. Since we need to reason analytically, we must use those words as though they signified distinct properties that God has.

"In" sounds strange when people use it to talk about God's "properties" since that word suggests composition.

Now that I've heard Dr. Craig reply to Bishop Barron, I'm confused. Dr. Craig reminds us that councils teach that God is absolutely simple. But they don't teach what St. Thomas tells us about God's simplicity. On the other hand, Dr. Craig never explains what it means to say that an absolutely simple God can have inseparable parts.

An absolutely simple God has no parts of any kind. That's why "an absolutely simple God with inseparable parts" is self-contradictory. It implies that God is absolutely simple and not absolutely simple.

From a Thomistic perspective, theistic personalism is absurd because theistic personalists treat God as someone like Superman. They reflect on their human power, human, knowledge human goodness, etc., and think God has much more power, much more knowledge, and much more goodness than any human person does.

The theistic personalist's God is too creaturely. If theistic personalism is true, its God isn't the Biblical one. If the absolutely simple God and the theistic personalist's God exist, the theistic personalist's God is a creature. But then he's like Zeus if that Ancient Greek god exists. After all, Zeus has human-like parents.

I don't beg the question by merely inviting you to entertain something to see what follows from it. So, after work, I'll argue against Dr. Craig's notion of divine simplicity after rereading what St. Themas wrote about divine simplicity in my copy of the Summa Theologiae and read what he says about it in Summa Contra Gentiles.

No Catholic expects the Catholic dogma about God's absolute simplicity to convince non-Catholics merely because it's a dogma. But suppose that dogma is true. Then Dr. Craig's belief in relative divine simplicity is still false. That's because it implies that God has parts. Since any composed object needs a cause, Dr. Craig's "God" concept still produces a vicious infinite regress of causes but no composed effects.

Relativist, Dr. Craig believes that God is simple. But he rejects the absolute divine simplicity that Catholics must believe in. For us, the doctrine about absolute divine simplicity is a dogma. So, by Catholic standards, any baptized person is at least a material heretic if he denies that doctrine, That's because a material heretic believes a heresy when he doesn't know it's heretical.

For Catholics, Dr. Craig would still be at least a material heretic, even if he believed the dogma about absolute divine simplicity. That's because he still believes Monothelitism when he knows that the Third Council of Constantinople condemned it between 680 and 681 A.D.

An article about Monothelitism

In my opinion, if Monothelitism were true, Christ's human nature would be partial. That's because Catholics believe that a human nature includes a human will.But Dr. Craig thinks that Christ is fully human and fully divine. That suggests that the professor's Christology is logically inconsistent if being fully divine and fully human implies having a divine will and a human one.

Dr. Craig is a brilliant Christian scholar and a fine debater who knows more than I'll ever know. But no one can be an orthodox Catholic and believe Monothelitism. Catholics believe some doctrines that we need to deduce from the Bible because they follow from some Bible passages. Still, I suggest that Sacred Scripture flatly contradicts Craig's monthelitism in Matthew 26:39, the verse where Our Savior prays, '9 And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt." in the KJV.

How can Christ have only one will, his divine one, when he distinguishes between his will and God the Father's will? After all, God the Son is the only divine person with a human nature. Dr. Craig contradicts himself if he says that though Christ is full divine and fully human, his human nature is only partial.

Dr. Craig rejects Nestorianism, the heresy Council of Ephesus condemned in 431 A.D. Catholics believe that Christ, God's only-begotten Son, is a divine person with two natures. He's not one person composed of two persons. Nestorius believed that two persons, a divine person and a human one, shared Jesus's body. On the other hand, if Christ, the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, has only the divine will, who spoke to God the Father in Matthew 26:39? If the speaker had only a human will, it's hard to see how he could have been God the Son. After all, a mere human being can't save us from sin when he's a sinner.

The Historical Introduction to the Council of Ephesus that confirms the Catholic Church's belief that a council can teach infallibly

Maybe I should go into more detail about the first cause. Naturally, I know that there could still be other causes if God exists. So I granted that point when I wrote about the first cause. I told everyone that God is the cause who makes every other cause exist and enables it to produce its effect. Say I'm right. Then if there. was no God, there would be no causes since there wouldn't be anything at all.

Science can't explain why there's something instead of nothing since science assumes that there's something. That would make your argument circular if you argued scientifically to explain why there's something. Science is about causes and and how they produce their effects. Science doesn't explain what "causes causation."

Thomists believe in two general kinds of causal series, a linear causal series and a hierarchical one. Here's an example of a linear one.

I marry my girlfriend Elina. She gives birth to our children Marie and Timothy. Our daughter and our son start their own families and my grandchildren. Their children make my great grandchildren, and so forth. So, I could have infinitely many descendants because they can survive their parents. Like Elina and me, our descendants have built-in causal power that doesn't keep flowing from their ancestors. My children and their children aren't like a string of Christmas tree lights that must keep talking electricity from an outlet to keep each bulb lit. In the analogy, electricity represents existence and God's causal ability.

Now here's an example of a hierarchical causal series. You board an Amtrak train to ride from Albany, New York to Manhattan. When the engine pulls the first car, pulling power flows to every other car in the train. If the engine wouldn't work, the train would stand still.

Arrange 1,000 dominos on your floor. Then tap the first domino to topple it and knock the others down one by one. You started the series when you pushed the first domino. So you're like the train's locomotive and God since the series depends on you. You enabled each domino to except the last one thee power to tip the next one. Just as the train needed to engine to pull the train cars, the group of dominos relied ultimately on you.

But God is the cause who makes everyone else and everything else exist now. He's why there's something instead of nothing. If you ask what caused God, I'll remind you that he has no cause. Since his existence is built into him, he doesn't get it from another source.

He doesn't even cause himself to exist since "self-causation" implies a self-contradiction. For a cause to produce its effect, that cause must come before or be with its effect. On the other hand, for an object to make itself begin to exist, the cause and the effect must exist and not exist in the same respect at the same time.

In a hierarchical causal series, there must be cause that sustains every other cause and each effect. That's why the universe and each object in it depends on God. God explains why there's anything at all besides himself. His existence is built into him. He makes everyone else and everything else exist. He sustains it. He sustains the natural world, each natural process in it, and makes even merely possible events possible.

Science can't explain why there's something instead of nothing. Again, science presupposes that there's something.

In context, the first cause is the one that gives every other cause its causal ability. The first cause is the most fundamental one, the cause that each effect depends on. Every other cause needs God. So if he didn't exist, neither would anyone nor anything else.

Since I forgot the difference between a nature and an essence, I'll ask my friend Prof. Alexander Pruss to remind me of it. Then I'll tell you what he said.

An accident is a property that someone or something might gain or lose. He or it can survive with or without that nonessential property. You're essentially human. But having hair isn't an essential property. Your could shave your head. A sunburn is another inessential property. Your height is, too, because a surgeon could amputate your legs. If you lose an essential property, you'll die.

The essence of someone or something determines what he or it can do. Since you're human, you can reason. But you can't fly under your. own power. Water can hydrate you, put out some fires, drown, and animal, and more. It can't fuel a gasoline engine, turn into a cheesecake, or explode.

I'm still waiting for you to criticize my infinite regress argument against Dr. Craig's God concept.

First, Jesus is not an essence. Neither is a horse. An essence is a group of properties that causes, say, a dog to be a dog, a tree to be a tree, or Christ to be divine. A nature is not the person. place. or thing that has those properties. Doggyness is not a dog. it makes an animal a dog.

The difference between a person and his nature is a basic distinction from any Catholic catechism for adults. If you've studied a catechism, that distinction should be familiar to you.

When you make such obvious mistakes, it's hard to see how you could know whether Thomism leads to skepticism.

Then please criticize my vicious infinite regress argument. Tell us what fallacy or fallacies I committed in in it. What premises false?

What kind and of skepticism does it lead to, Phyronism? I have no idea why you think it would do anything like that. From what I can tell, you probably haven't studied Thomism. I begin to study it in about 1994.

No, I'm to treating it as a dogma partly because no pope and no council can turn it into one. But about 62 Popes have endorsed Thomism and transubstantiation seems to presuppose Aristotelian-Thomistic metaphysics. These reasons probably won't convince you to be a Thomist. Why would you since you've rejected Catholicism?

I specialized in logic when earned my philosophy degree.

Again, "substance" means "essence." So what do you mean by "inside" when I'm not talking bout spatial relationships. I'm doing metaphysics instead of science.

Here's a startling article by Dr. Craig. I say "startling" because he believes the monothelite heresy is plausible when Matthew 26:39 contradicts it. Monothelites believe that Christ's divine will is is only will. But in that verse, he distinguishes between his will and his Father's will. That's why said that Christ would have contradicted himself if he said "Not my wink but mine be done."

Craig on Monothelitism

Matthew 26:39 says, "And he went a little farther, and fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt" in the KJV.

Slavery? Maybe I can see why you'd believe that. But the Catholic Church teaches that Christ is fully present in even the tiniest fragment of a consecrated host.

There different kinds of presence, too. That's why St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that a consecrated host in a tabernacle doesn't have Christ's "dimensive qualities." For example, if he's six feet tall, he doesn't shrink to fit into a tabernacle. He doesn't clone himself to live in each tabernacle in the world either.

Again. Catholics distinguish between the substance, i.e., the natures of Christ's body and his blood and the walking, talking divine person. Suppose you remove a microscopic crumb from a loaf of bread. It'll still be a piece of bread, though you'll need to microscope to show it to you. What would you do to extract each ingredient a baker poured into s bowl while making the dough?

I suggest you try to think more deeply if you want to understand what I'm trying to say. You told us that you were a Catholic. So would you please tell us whether you studied, say, The Catechism of St. Pius X or another catechism?

I'm sorry, everyone. I didn't comment on what Dr. Craig wrote about whether St. Augustine believed about transubstantiation. Please read this article because the author quotes St. Augustin to show that he, Augustine, believes that the natures of bread and wine become those of Christ's body and his blood. Dr. Craig made a mistake.

An article by Mr. David Armstrong, professional Catholic apologist

God can annihilate the sun if he wants to do that. If he removes an essential property away from it, the sun will stop existing.

When Catholics say that even if an object has always existed and always will exist, it still needs God to sustain it. We don't assume that a created thing needs to have begun to exist.

We don't believe that Christ's body, blood, soul and divinity are acting as a piece of bread. St. Thomas Aquinas believes that the properties that bread and wine survive when they're no longer properties that anything has. That's a strange thing to say, partly because properties of wine can still get you drunk. But since I'm not an expert in sacramental theology, I'll see what I can find out for you. Since I may have made a mistake, please don't assume that I know that sacramental theologians agree with me. I'm only a theologically self-taught layman.

Two reasons make that post strange. First, St. Thomas lived in the 13th century and St. Thomas lived in the second one. Second, there's no way to put a ladybug's essence into a phone. A phone has an essence. That's because an essence differs from a description of it. But a description of a ladybug's essence isn't an essence.

An essence is the set of properties that distinguishes a person, a place, or a thing from everything else there is. For example, each dog has the properties that make him a dog. Every even number gives you a remainder equal to zero when you divide that number by two. A chemical is water if and only if it consists of H2O. If you dissolve table sugar in it, you make solution. But water is always H2O.

If someone or something loses an essential property, he or it will stop existing. When I die, my body will become a corpse because a body is a part of a living creature when we're not talking about a car's body, say.

Relativist, thank you for the two fine articles by Dr. Craig where his excellent prose puts me to shame. I proofread for Preserving Christian Publications, Inc., and some people think writing is my forte. But my prose needs plenty of work.

No, I'm sure Jesus doesn't feel my tongue when I receive Holy Communion. Catholics say "transubstantiate" because "substance" means essence or nature when St. Thomas uses that word. When we tell you that bread or wine transubstantiate, we mean that the nature of bread or wine gets replaced by another thing's nature.

That's why we distinguish between a substance and its accidents. In that sense of "substance," a substance has properties. But it's not a property. Bread can be square, round, white, brown, soft, crunchy and more. Those properties are essential to bread You wouldn't say, "Bill, that can't be a slice of bread. It's not square."

Catholics say that the color, texture, aroma, weight, and so forth are a host's accidents because an accident is a property that's not a part of a thing's essence or its nature. He even argued that after bread and wine transubstantiate, the accidents survive when they've stopped being properties of the bread or wine that had them.

I didn't say you insulted me. I wrote that your comment was potentially insulting.

Whatever you believe about transubstantiation, St. Ignatius of Antioch clearly thought bread and wine became Our Lord's body and blood. So, if you think Christ uses a metaphor when he says "This is my body," St. Ignatius disagrees with you. I remind you of that because if Christ spoke literally, bread and wine become more than mere symbols. That's why I posted the two-part article about the Eucharistic miracle in Lanciano, Italy.

Thank you for the links to videos I'll watch eagerly. It's always fun to hear Dr. Craig. He's a brilliant scholar. So I'm sorry to say that I still believe that his theistic personalism is clearly false. He believes in the Holy Trinity. But. his belief about what God is like is inconsistent with what ecumenical councils taught before the Protestant Reformation, which I call "a revolt."

Dr. Craig is a monothelite. That means that he believes Christ has only noe will, his divine one. He knows that a council condemned monothelitism. But that doesn't worry him when he takes each doctrine "to the bar of Scripture." It's as though he believes the Bible is a thinker that can say, "Dr. Craig. here's why Diothelites are wrong."

But think about how Sacred Scripture seems to falsify monothelitism when we read passages like Matthew 26:39. In the Revised Standard Version, he says, "
And going a little farther he fell on his face and prayed, “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

How can Christ have only one will when he distinguishes explicitly between his will and God the Father's will? Our Lord didn't contradict himself. He didn't pray, "Not my will but mine be done."

I'm staying on topic. So I need to reflect on what to tell you about consubstantiation. For now, my point is that Dr. Craig's monothelitism is unbiblical. So is consubstantiation, in my opinion. But I'll need to think harder about it before I'll know what to tell you about it.

Meanwhile, I suspect that Lutherans seem confused when they tell us that bread and wine with Christ's body and his blood. If a Lutheran minister says "This is my body" when consecrates bread during a Lutheran liturgy," other people may need to wonder briefly to tell what "this" stands for. Christ didn't say "This is my body along with the bread." He didn't describe a sandwich where he was "the meat."

Sometimes Christians act like rationalists. That means that they'll believe only what they think they understand. Still, as I discovered this morning, sometimes a Bible passage will seem perfectly clear. But we need much more background information to see what that passage takes for granted.

Protestants will exclaim that during their services, the Holy Ghost moves in their church building. But what does it mean to say that he goes from here to there when he doesn't take up space? How does a nonphysical person relate spatially to anyone or anything?

The logically possible action must be compatible with God's nature. For example, a created human person can kill himself. But God can't commit suicide since he's timeless and eternal.

Did you read the article about the Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy before your wrote your potentially insulting note?

1 Corinthians 11:27 says, "Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of profaning the body and blood of the Lord." How do you profane something that isn't there?

How do you interpret John 6:52-53?

How do I profane something that isn't there?

No, Francis didn't teach infallibility about the death penalty. The Church still supports it despite his politically progressive opinion. That's all it is, his opinion.

Sure, there are many interpretations of various interpretations of various Bible passages and of many doctrines. But in the end, it's for the Magisterium to settle disputes when it must. Protestants have no Magisterium.

Consider the dogma that during Holy Mass, bread and wine become Christ's body and his blood. Protestants usually think Our Lord speaks metaphorically about that change in John 6. They'll tell us that we're idolators who "worship wafers."

That's partly because they believe Luther's novel "sola scriptura" doctrine. It's novel because he invented it. You won't find it in any document from the Early Church. But if you read St. Ignatius of Antioch's 2nd-century letter to the Smyrnaeans where he warned them to avoid anyone who denied that bread changed into Christ's body and blood.

He wrote:

"Chapter 6. Unbelievers in the blood of Christ shall be condemned

Let no man deceive himself. Both the things which are in heaven, and the glorious angels, and rulers, both visible and invisible, if they believe not in the blood of Christ, shall, in consequence, incur condemnation. He that is able to receive it, let him receive it. Matthew 19:12 Let not [high] place puff any one up: for that which is worth all is faith and love, to which nothing is to be preferred. But consider those who are of a different opinion with respect to the grace of Christ which has come unto us, how opposed they are to the will of God. They have no regard for love; no care for the widow, or the orphan, or the oppressed; of the bond, or of the free; of the hungry, or of the thirsty.

Chapter 7. Let us stand aloof from such heretics

They abstain from the Eucharist and from prayer, because they confess not the Eucharist to be the flesh of our Saviour Jesus Christ, which suffered for our sins, and which the Father, of His goodness, raised up again. Those, therefore, who speak against this gift of God, incur death in the midst of their disputes. But it were better for them to treat it with respect, that they also might rise again. It is fitting, therefore, that you should keep aloof from such persons, and not to speak of them either in private or in public, but to give heed to the prophets, and above all, to the Gospel, in which the passion [of Christ] has been revealed to us, and the resurrection has been fully proved. But avoid all divisions, as the beginning of evils."

St. Ignatius's letter to the Smyrnaeans

If Dr. Craig rode a Time Machine to St. Ignatius's diocese, people there wouldn't have thought he was a Christian. Instead, they would have believed he was a heretic.

Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy

Eucharistic Miracle in Lanciano, Italy

Catholics pay attention to what the Early Church believed. But many Protestants ignore it because they believe sola scriptura.

Years ago, I emailed with a Seventh-Day Adventist about "soul sleep." I quoted St. Justin Marty's 2nd-century First Apology to show that he believed that disembodied souls stayed awake. So, the Adventist replied, "That doesn't matter. We have the Bible."

Justin's First Apology

In my previous reply, I agreed with what you said just now.

Please don't expect me to explain the incarnation when I know too little about Christology. Anyhow, I suggest that when we say that God in the world, we mean that he sustains it and makes events happen in it. If I'm right, we need to use the word "in" in a non-spatial sense.