The Conservative Reformation and Its Theology - Saint Mary ...

aside by the very thing whose infirmity necessitates the giving of it, is as
unphilosophical as it is unchristian.
Objection from the nature of space.
An objection which is a species under the metaphysical, and which
is, perhaps more frequently used than any other, is, that it is impossible that
a true human body should be really present in more than one place at the
same time--the essential nature of the body, and the essential space.
nature of space, make the thing impossible. It is worthy of note that the
objection is usually put in the vague assertion that a body, or a human
body, cannot be thus present. In this already lies a certain evasiveness or
obscuration of the real question. The incautious thinker is thrown off his
guard, as if the assertion controverted is that a body, or a human body in
general, that every and any body can be present in the sense denied. There
is a fallacy both as to what is present, and what the mode of the presence
is. As to the first, the question fairly stated is: Can Christ's body be
present? Can a body which is in inseparable personal unity with the
Godhead be present? Can that, which no human body simply as such
could do, be done by the body of our Lord, whose relations and powers
are unique and transcendent? The question of possibility all through is not
what is possible to a human body, in its natural and familiar limitations, but
what is possible to God. Is there evidence that it is His will that the body
of our Lord should be sacramentally present at His Supper; and if God
wills it, is it possible for Him to fulfil it? If the evidence is clear that God
does so will, that man is no Christian who denies that His will can be
consummated; and that man, who, because he thinks the thing is
impossible, refuses to accept what, but for that difficulty, he would
acknowledge to be invincible testimony as to God's will, is a Rationalist;
his mode of interpretation is Socinianizing, though he may be nominally
orthodox.
The impossible Self-existence.
On the question of possibility, it is well to remember, first, that we do
not know the absolute limits of the possible. All sound philosophers
acknowledge that there are incontrovertible facts whose possibility not
only cannot be demonstrated, but which are overthrown speculatively by