Ok, first off, did anyone else have a problem getting on site yesterday afternoon until now I could Google browse anywhere but here and could not figure out what happened. It's great I'm in this a.m.
It seems that he believes Catholicism is not within the church. He sees it like JWs and Mormonism
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I never even saw this. As you might expect, I reject his conjecture completely and the reason it was even brought to this topic ( polytheism and omnipresence ). It is a complete distraction to the topic at hand and, believe me when I say i would rather follow the faith of 1 billion people who all feel and realize the Catholic faith and it's teachings correctness over 2000 years, than the platitudes of 1 man who seemingly is hard pressed to choose a faith he is willing to follow.
I'm seeing, at least for now, you've narrowed it down to omnipresence.
This has been it from the git-go
And how you think Gendron is claiming God is not omnipresent because he thinks Transubstantiation is wrong.
No, it's that Gendron considers transubstantiation polytheistic because he denies capability of the omnipresence of God. Subtle, but very different. He attacks God, not man's attempt at defining the attributes of transubstantiation.
From this, I see no indication that what Gendron is saying, undermines God's omnipresence.
He says that :
Since each Eucharist contains the whole Christ, and since upwards of hundreds of wafers are consecrated during each mass, hundreds of Jesus Christs become physically present. Although the Vatican would never acknowledge it, this is a form of polytheism, the worship of many gods.
If he thinks "hundred of Jesus' become physically present at each mass" and further says "this is a form of polytheism... the worship of many gods" (lower case g)... what else is there to think other than the omnipresence capabilities of God have been impuned... ? He can't wrap his head around it so it's wrong and it's ok to vilify the religion who thinks God (upper case G) does have omnipresence abilities.
Almighty God, who once humbled Himself to become man, now transforms Himself into lifeless, inanimate wafers.
This is parsing of words again... God does not transform Himself in to a lifeless wafer, He transubstantiates Himself within a lifeless wafer to become the essence of eternal life. Here's the literal definitions of transform and transubstantiation:
trans form :to
change in form,
appearance, or
structure; metamorphose. (the host does none of this)
transubstantiation: the
conversion of the substance of the Eucharistic elements into the body and blood of Christ at consecration, only the appearances of bread and wine still remaining.
There's a difference between God being everywhere(omnipresence), and God transforming himself into a wafer
Not much... replace the wafer with; an angel of the Lord to Hagar, a burning bush to Moses, a pillar of fire and a cloud to the escaping Hebrews from Egypt , a sound of rushing wind and tongues of fire at the first Pentecost, as a dove at Christ's Baptism in the Jordan, as the lion or the lamb, yes even Jesus Himself, the essential sacrifice for the salvation of men and many more I am sure you are familiar with. If He can be in 2 places at once, then 3 (the Holy Trinity) then why not as many as
He deems necessary to fit the time and circumstance of any given event that requires His omnipresence, especially for something as important as the salvation of men in the form of the Eucharist, millions of times a day.
I'm not getting how that equates to a disbelief in omnipresence
I hope you do now. Wisdom, Infinitude, Sovereignty, Holiness, Trinity, Omniscience, Faithfulness, Love, Omnipotence, Self Existence, Self Sufficiency, Justice, Immutability, Mercy, Eternal, Goodness and Gracious. This is the description of the God of the Bible. All other ideas about God are, according to the Bible, false gods. They are from the imagination of men. By learning the attributes of God, you may praise God for who He really is and for how each of His attributes impacts your life in a positive way. Gendron refutes this, only partial, but Holy significant, descriptions of God with his claim of polytheism (many gods) and thereby IMO these writings are heresy. He knows the difference Rick, he simply chooses to pick and define under his mandate of wording and thereby assigns new meaning through his IMO, meaningless conjecture.
2 Peter 2:1-3
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.
Trust the past to God’s mercy, the present to God’s love, and the future to God’s providence. -St Augustine
Gendron just pissed me off and his modus operandi is incorrect and inappropriate.