My first installment is found here: Response Part I
Mr. Clover continues,
"Upon reading the article a couple of my Lutheran friends suggested that my source for dogmatic definitions concerning the Lord’s supper was not a great one. I quoted two or three times from Mueller’s Christian Dogmatics, which I understood to be a standard Lutheran work. But I must have missed something because my Lutheran friends seem to view Mueller as somewhat rationalistic and too Reformed sounding(rationalistic and Reformed are almost synonymous to many Lutherans). So I decided, given the general lukewarmness of my Lutheran friends for Mueller, that it would only be fair to examine The Book of Concord (BoC hereafter) and see from the source whether my observations have any merit. For the purposes of this article I will be referencing The Formula of Concord, Epitome, section VII."Kudos to Andrew for heading to the Lutheran Confessions. If you are going to get a feel for the Lutheran doctrine of the Lord's Supper, the Book of Concord is definitely where you should go. He continues by quoting some of the statements made in the Epitome of the Formula of Concord, Section VII. If you want to read it, here is the Epitome on the Lord's Supper: Epitome VII: The Lord's Supper
Specifically, he quotes theses 1, 2, and 6. They read,
“We believe, teach, and confess that in the Holy Supper the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present, and are truly distributed and received with the bread and wine.” (Ep. VII, 6)
“We believe, teach, and confess that the words of the testament of Christ are not to be understood otherwise than as they read, according to the letter, so that the bread does not signify the absent body and the wine the absent blood of Christ, but that, on account of the sacramental union, they [the bread and wine] are truly the body and blood of Christ.” (Ep. VII, 7)
“We believe, teach, and confess that the body and blood of Christ are received with the bread and wine, not only spiritually by faith, but also orally; yet not in a Capernaitic, but in a supernatural, heavenly mode, because of the sacramental union; as the words of Christ clearly show, when Christ gives direction to take, eat, and drink, as was also done by the apostles; for it is written Mark 14:23: And they all drank of it. St. Paul likewise says, 1 Cor. 10:16: The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ? that is: He who eats this bread eats the body of Christ, which also the chief ancient teachers of the Church, Chrysostom, Cyprian, Leo I, Gregory, Ambrose, Augustine, unanimously testify.” (Ep. VII, 15)
After quoting the Epitome, Mr. Clover continues,
"So do the Lutheran confessions give us a doctrine of the Lord’s supper that simply takes Jesus’ words at face value? I suggest that they do not. I do not see an essential difference between what Mueller had to say about the Lord’s supper and the confessional definition found in the Formula of Concord. How is “this is my body” in any way propositionally equative with “the body and blood of Christ are truly and essentially present, and are truly distributed and received with the bread and wine“? Jesus did not say “my body is truly and essentially present with this bread and wine“. He said “this is my body”. So how can a Lutheran claim to just take Jesus’ words at face value all the while chiding other Christians for not doing so? I am afraid my critique on this point stands. The Lutheran position and the attendant polemical argumentation fails to bear the weight of its own demand."I know it's an overused term, especially in polemical circles, but Mr. Clover here is intent on banging down the same old strawman. He is conflating two things. The first thing is the question: What is it? And we answer: This is My Body. The true Body of Christ, per Scripture. He then proceeds to answer the question: How is it present? (Sacramental Union) The problem is, he takes the "how is it present?" question and says we're not taking "this is My body" literally because we say is answers the question of how it is present.
Thus, the only way Mr. Clover's point stands is if we allow his strawman to stand. I however, will not concede a strawman as a valid argument. He continues with more of the same:
"But again I ask, is this explanation arrived at simply by taking Christ’s words at face value? Or is the “sacramental union” marshaled as a philosophical rescue device? When the confessional document quoted above designates the nature of the eating of Christ’s body and drinking of His blood as not done in a Capernaitic manner, ie not cannibalism, but rather in a supernatural, heavenly way, does this not go well beyond the simple statement that “this is my body”?"And again I answer in the negative. It's not a philosophical rescue device at all. It's actually the opposite. The Sacramental Union is a way of saying that in some mysterious way, the bread truly is Christ's body. We're not trying to rationalize or philosophize the Eucharist. We're actually saying that it truly is the body and blood, and we don't know exactly how God does that; but He certainly does do that in the Sacrament. Hence, Sacramental Union.
"If the bread is the body of Christ, then it is. If it is present with His body, then it isn’t His body. He did not say “this accompanies my body”. Nor did He say “take, eat, but not in a Capernaitic way, in a supernatural, heavenly way. My body is present with this bread through the sacramental union”. No, my Lutheran friends, yours is not an understanding of Christ’s words “as the read, according to the letter”. You could never pull these dogmatic definitions out of that simple phrase “this is my body”. The question then as it pertains to Lutherans and the rest of Protestantism is not the question of who takes Christ’s words of institution literally, or according to the letter. The question is rather which non-literal understanding is correct?"And again Mr. Clover fires off more of the same. Ultimately Mr. Clover's problem regarding his argumentation here is that every single argument he makes and every single direction he comes at us from are based on the same faulty premise which does not hold up in light of Scripture or in light of Philosophy and Logic, two things the Reformed are big on.
Thus, I would argue that by his own Reformed hermeneutic and manner of argumentation, his argument fails since it is illogical. It's a conflation of two things and ultimately a strawman.
+Pax+
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