Father Mike Schmitz is a Roman Catholic influencer priest. He has done other things, and so I don’t mean to diminish him with that description. He has been ordained as a priest longer than I have been ordained in any capacity. He has conducted ministry to youth and college students, including at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He has created compelling videos on the Bible and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. He has been an outspoken advocate for prolife ministry. As a matter of professionalism and Christian faithfulness, Fr. Mike deserves recognition. But I do think that more recently he has adopted the Youtube or podcaster “mode” of communication and engagement. When I started seeing him, I thought he sounded an awful lot like an Acts 29-style church planter. And recently he has created videos which are more in the lane of Roman Catholic apologetics. This is what has gotten my attention now.

A recent Youtube short appeared on my feed with Fr. Mike stating, “I have not met one person who loved Christ, as a Christian but not as a Catholic, who, when they heard this, didn’t end up becoming Catholic.” He then asks the audience to turn to John 6, and he proceeds to make the argument that it should be taken literally. Again and again, he points out that the text requires a literal reading because a figurative or spiritual one would take away the offensiveness of Christ’s claims and therefore allow the various people in the story a way out of the difficulty. Fr. Mike presents this argument as a new or creative one which most Protestant will likely not have encountered. That is, after all, why every one of them that he uses this argument on eventually become Catholic. It’s also important to keep in mind that Fr. Mike is not talking about non-Christians here. He is talking about other kinds of Christians besides Roman Catholics. This video is meant to be a piece of apologetics to bring Protestants into the Roman Catholic Church.

So, ok. Let’s talk this through.

First of all, this is a pretty common rhetorical move. I have not met one…. Every single time… Silence your opponent in 3 steps…. This is a classic silver bullet claim. It’s not an actual claim of fact. I don’t doubt that Fr. Mike gets a lot of results on the college campus. If someone truly hasn’t done a lot of comparative theology or expositional bible studies, then they might be surprised. They might easily be won over. But come on, how many people “who loved Christ” as informed Protestants is Fr. Mike actually talking about? He can’t be talking about Lutherans (He is based out of Minnesota, remember). They would agree with a more literal understanding of the sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ and see no need to become Roman Catholic. We should not take his words literally at this point. He does not intend for us to do a headcount or look at the scorecards.

I suppose that Fr. Mike has left himself an escape-hatch. Anyone who isn’t persuaded by the argument doesn’t love Christ. They are excluded by some of the qualifying clauses in the claim. That is definitely a rhetorical move that I have encountered among megachurch-style representatives over the years. But it is a fallacy. Popularly called the “No True Scotsman,” it is a version of petitio principii. If they are right about the issue under dispute, then they do love Christ.

Let me offer up one counterexample that should take a little force out of Fr. Mike’s claim. I think it is someone that he will agree loves Christ. I’m talking about St. Augustine of Hippo, the greatest of the church fathers. If he’s not the greatest Christian theologian of all time, he’s certainly on our Mt. Rushmore. We all love St. Augustine.

And St. Augustine does not read John 6 literally.

Turn in your Schaff books with me to…. Ok, ok, you can just click here.

Commenting on precisely these controversial words of John 6, St. Augustine says this:

And He explained the mode of this bestowal and gift of His, in what manner He gave His flesh to eat, saying, “He that eats my flesh, and drinks my blood, dwells in me, and I in him.” The proof that a man has eaten and drank is this, if he abides and is abode in, if he dwells and is dwelt in, if he adheres so as not to be deserted. This, then, He has taught us, and admonished us in mystical words that we may be in His body, in His members under Himself as head, eating His flesh, not abandoning our unity with Him. 

So we can see that the discussion is being framed in terms of how to interpret the words of Jesus when he says that he will give his flesh to eat. “He explained the mode of this bestowal… in what manner He gave His flesh to eat…”

Augustine says that these are “mystical words.” The way that you know that you have eaten Christ’s flesh and drank his blood “is this…. if he adheres so as not to be deserted.” In other words, perseverance in the faith. You can know that you have eaten Christ’s flesh if you persevere. If you persevere, then you have eaten Christ’s flesh.

Now this doesn’t quite answer the question, because we haven’t totally explained what “eaten” means. We have only been told how a person can know if they have eaten. Let’s read on.

Augustine tells how not to understand these words. We should not understand them carnally:

[M]ost of those who were present, by not understanding Him, were offended; for in hearing these things, they thought only of flesh…

The Lord gives us His flesh to eat, and yet to understand it according to the flesh is death.

So, don’t interpret these words in an entirely literal or direct manner. You have to put some sort of rhetorical inflection on them. Let’s keep going.

After stating that even the disciples couldn’t understand what Jesus was saying, because the words were indeed being used in a potentially confusing manner, Augustine gives this added denial:

For they supposed that He was going to deal out His body to them; but He said that He was to ascend into heaven, of course, whole: “When you shall see the Son of man ascending where He was before;” certainly then, at least, you will see that not in the manner you suppose does He dispense His body; certainly then, at least, you will understand that His grace is not consumed by tooth-biting.

Wow. His grace is not consumed by tooth-biting. I wonder if Fr. Mike could say that. Also, notice that Augustine says the mistaken audience “supposed that He was going to deal out His body to them.” Again, they were the ones taking things literally, and this was a mistake. Christ’s body is going to ascend into heaven whole.

Augustine goes on to give a lengthy discussion about the difference between flesh and spirit, namely the Spirit of God. He mentions that while flesh is not essentially bad, it can do nothing on its own. It must be made alive by the Spirit. We receive this life-giving spirit through believing the words of Christ. Perseverance continues to be a theme.

And then Augustine comes back around to talking about the sacrament. He says:

 let all this, then, avail us to this end, most beloved, that we eat not the flesh and blood of Christ merely in the sacrament, as many evil men do, but that we eat and drink to the participation of the Spirit, that we abide as members in the Lord’s body, to be quickened by His Spirit, and that we be not offended, even if many do now with us eat and drink the sacraments in a temporal manner, who shall in the end have eternal torments. For at present Christ’s body is as it were mixed on the threshing-floor: “But the Lord knows them that are His.” 2 Timothy 2:19 

Again, this is not a simple literal interpretation. Augustine does not want people to think “merely” taking the sacrament will equate to eating the flesh of Christ. If we “eat and drink the sacraments in a temporal manner” we may not actually abide in Christ. Indeed, many will do this and end up in Hell. How then do we eat the sacraments spiritually and not with our teeth? How can we make sure that we aren’t “merely” receiving, that we are not operating in a carnal or temporal manner?

It must be by faith. “Eating” and “drinking” in John 6, according to Augustine, are terms being employed mystically and are meant to indicate our believing Christ’s words and persevering in His teaching. Augustine concludes, “But what is this that He says: He that abides in me, and I in him? What, but that which the martyrs heard: ‘He that perseveres unto the end, the same shall be saved?‘ Matthew 24:13″

Eating Christ’s flesh and drinking his blood, according to St. Augustine, means truly believing Christ’s words. You can know that you have eaten if you persevere until the end.