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How do those Christians who believe that believers' partaking of the divine nature that Apostle Peter was talking about in 2 Pet. 1:4 is possible only through Eucharist prove that? What are their main arguments supporting that notion?

2 Pet 1:4: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust." (KJV)

I am not sure if the concept of Eucharist being the exclusive way of partaking of the divine nature is a must belief in any one branch of Christianity. It is most likely that in each branch there could be found both proponents and opponents of that belief. However, in my question I am primarily interested in the arguments of RCC, EOC and main-stream Protestants.

brilliant
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  • I never considered receiving the Eucharist as partaking of the divine nature, but of partaking of the divine person. Do you have a reference that receiving the Eucharist has something to do with partaking of the divine nature? The idea, for example, goes against my understanding that when we are Baptized into Christ we are partaking of the divine nature when we become part of the Body. The Eucharist may be part of the process of sanctification which forgives venial sins when received worthily yet before doing so, one must be "In Christ". Good question, just looking for clarification. – Marc Feb 07 '19 at 13:09
  • @Marc - "Do you have a reference that receiving the Eucharist has something to do with partaking of the divine nature?" - I heard that from a few orthodox priests. – brilliant Feb 08 '19 at 00:42

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In the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The Word became flesh to make us "partakers of the divine nature":78 "For this is why the Word became man, and the Son of God became the Son of man: so that man, by entering into communion with the Word and thus receiving divine sonship, might become a son of God."79 "For the Son of God became man so that we might become God."80 "The only-begotten Son of God, wanting to make us sharers in his divinity, assumed our nature, so that he, made man, might make men gods."81 CCC 460

"by entering into communion with the Word": since the Word is capitalized, it means the Eucharist.

I think this quote above explains it nicely. I encourage you to read the whole section.

Grasper
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  • "since the Word is capitalized, it means the Eucharist" - I don't quite understand the logic of this jump. I would say "since the Word is capitalized, it means Christ". You might need to add some additional links in this chain to prove that exactly Eucharist is implied by the capitalized Word. – brilliant Feb 07 '19 at 14:41
  • It is Jesus but how do you enter into communion with the bread of life who is Jesus? Your question is basically asking to prove Christ's presence in the Eucharist. – Grasper Feb 07 '19 at 15:32
  • "...how do you enter into communion with the bread of life who is Jesus? Your question is basically asking to prove Christ's presence in the Eucharist" - It would be asking that if Eucharist were for sure the only way of how a believer enters into communion with Jesus the Bread of Life. However, besides the Eucharist we still have a prayer. One still needs to prove here that a simple act of prayer IS NOT an act of entering into communion with Jesus. This, in fact, is the very essence of my question. – brilliant Feb 07 '19 at 16:45
  • To be truly in communion you must believe what the Church teaches. One of the teaching is the Eucharist. You can learn more about what it means to be in communion with the Catholic Church. The Church believes John 6:53 was literal. https://chnetwork.org/2015/12/10/unless-you-eat-my-body-and-drink-my-blood-there-is-no-life-in-you-symbolic-or-literal/ – Grasper Feb 07 '19 at 16:51
  • Do you consider Eucharist and communion to be synonymous? Do you consider the partaking of divined nature in 2 Pet 1:4 synonymous with Eucharist? How do you know that partaking of the divine nature is NOT possible through merely a prayer? – brilliant Feb 07 '19 at 16:59
  • The Eucharist is also called Holy communion. So yes. How do I know? The church teaches it. You can't give what you don't have. You have to take something that's holy otherwise we don't need Christ. We could just pray to God and all will be good. Our prayers are useless because we are sinners. They only have values when are connected to Christ's sacrifice. How can our prayers be connected to his sacrifice? Only through the communion which is the Eucharist and we are now back where we started... – Grasper Feb 07 '19 at 17:51
  • "We could just pray to God and all will be good. Our prayers are useless because we are sinners" - Unless I misunderstand something, these two sentences seem to contradict to each other. "Our prayers are useless because we are sinners. They only have values when are connected to Christ's sacrifice. How can our prayers be connected to his sacrifice? Only through the communion which is the Eucharist" - So, does this mean that the prayers of all the old-testament saints like Abraham were useless? – brilliant Feb 07 '19 at 17:59
  • What about the robber on the cross crucified along with Jesus, what about the Eunuch from Acts 8 - were their prayers also useless and were they also not connected to the sacrifice? After all, we don't have any record of them participating in Eucharist during their lifetime. – brilliant Feb 07 '19 at 18:02
  • In that, the "Word" refers to the incarnate Word the second person in the Holy Trinity and that Person is fully present in the Eucharist, I understand your answer. However, participation in the Mass, aka Sacrament of the Eucharist, is not how we initial enter into divine sonship and become sharers in the divinity of Christ. The Eucharist is part of our sanctification process as we walk our life towards Christ. – Marc Feb 07 '19 at 18:04
  • We could just pray if our prayers weren't useless. Yes, the prayers of all the Old-Testament saints were useless. This is why all of them went to hell or the church also calls it "Limbo of the Fathers". Jesus descended to "hell" after he died and freed them because his sacrifice was now suddenly available. The reason why they went to heaven later is because they kept the faith in the promise of this holy sacrifice which is the Eucharist. Which means if it was available they would receive it. – Grasper Feb 07 '19 at 18:08
  • @Marc, that's why we need to receive it in a worthy manner otherwise it could easily be a source of our damnation. – Grasper Feb 07 '19 at 18:12
  • "The reason why they went to heaven later is because they kept the faith in the promise of this holy sacrifice which is the Eucharist. Which means if it was available they would receive it" - How do we know that "they kept faith in the Eucharist"? After all, they didn't even know anything about the Eucharist. Besides, you didn't say anything about the robber on the cross and the Eunuch in Acts 8 - they never participated in Eucharist. – brilliant Feb 08 '19 at 00:49
  • @brilliant, hm it looks like you don't have very much knowledge of how the Jewish religion worked. I recommend to read the old testament. I can't explain more that would be too much. Not many were ever closer to the Eucharist than the robber on the cross and united himself to Christ (except Our Lady, of course). The Eucharist is the calvary, the offering to the Father. It's not just a piece of bread. It's what the whole Jewish nation was trying to imitate in their animal sacrifice. Christ's death is the completion of this. How can you say they didn't know about the Eucharist? – Grasper Feb 08 '19 at 18:19
  • They didn't call it Eucharist because that's a Latin word but they were practicing it in a way of animal offerings. – Grasper Feb 08 '19 at 18:19
  • (1) "it looks like you don't have very much knowledge of how the Jewish religion worked. I recommend to read the old testament" – Rest assured I did and not once. "How can you say they didn't know about the Eucharist?" - When I was saying "Eucharist" I meant what Jesus instituted in Matthew 26:26-29. You can’t say that what was established in Matthew 26 had nothing new compared to what had been established in Leviticus 1-7. Unlike what was done in the old-testament offerings, in this institution the participants were not commanded to offer something, but to partake of something. – brilliant Feb 09 '19 at 16:31
  • (2) And that was not an act of partaking of some animal’s flesh, but rather of something, which was identified as the human body. And not just a body of some human, but the human body of God Himself! Besides, it included something, which was identified as drinking of blood. There was no such thing like blood-drinking in any of the old-testament offerings. – brilliant Feb 09 '19 at 16:32
  • (3) The old-testament sacrificial practices contained the concept of obtaining forgiveness from God, but they did not contain the concept of partaking of God and becoming one with God. You would have a hard time trying to prove that the old-testament Jews knew all of that. – brilliant Feb 09 '19 at 16:33
  • (4) Besides, if you insist on equating "what the whole Jewish nation was trying to imitate in their animal sacrifice" to the knowledge and practice of what was later established in Matthew 26, then that will inevitably beg the question of why this new establishment in Matthew 26 was needed at all. Only the fulfillment in Matthew 27 would have been needed then. – brilliant Feb 09 '19 at 16:34
  • (5) "Not many were ever closer to the Eucharist than the robber on the cross and united himself to Christ" - Can you, please, elaborate here? How did he "unite himself to Christ"? For example, was he, according to you, already united to Christ before he was crucified or was it something that happened only on the cross? – brilliant Feb 09 '19 at 16:34
  • It happened on the cross when he united his suffering with the Christ's. – Grasper Feb 11 '19 at 15:31