The Jews do not seem to have any metaphoric understanding of "Spirit." Yet many Christians cite such a metaphor as the key to the doctrine of the Eucharist as a purely symbolic meal. One step improved is the doctrine that the Eucharist is a purely Spiritual meal, but even that is not good enough. The Catholic doctrine is instead the sacramental one: the Eucharist is a parallel of the Incarnation. It is Spiritual and physical. It is also holy -- sacramental. How can something Christian not be sacramental, when Christ came and remains our most Blessed Sacrament? Just as the Incarnation is about God becoming man, the Eucharist is about God becoming bread and wine. And just as the Incarnation does not compromise the fullness of divinity, neither does the Eucharist.
It came to mind earlier that a similarly strange metaphor of the Spirit is also responsible for compromises on Baptism as a sacrament. Likewise Confirmation, the Eucharist, Holy Orders, Matrimony, Confession, and Extreme Unction.
I have an image of the Enemy chipping away at athe faith of the Church. Chip, chip, chip. No sacraments, no bodily Incarnation, no bodily Resurrection -- pretty soon, one is worshipping a christ who is not Jesus Christ; God who never became man.
When you exclude the hard doctrines because they are divisive, what do you risk losing? Who says that divisive doctrines are wrong simply because they are divisive?
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