I'm going to divide the talk into three parts.

First part is going to be an is it so.

Is the Eucharist really Jesus?

And that's going to be aimed at a Christian audience.

It's going to be an argument from scripture and tradition.

The second part, and that's going to be theology. The second part will also be theology, it'll be talking about why.

Why would God do such a thing?

So I will argue in the first part that he does do such a thing, and the second part speculate as to why he might do such a strange thing.

I'll briefly consider it why not.

And then I will end with philosophy, which is how.

And this is going to be mostly speculations, perhaps far-fetched ones,

but speculations meant to show that it's not a contradiction in terms for God to do this sort of thing. Okay, so some terminology, right?

So we have the word Eucharist. It comes from the Greek verb to give thanks. It is a Christian

offering of Thanksgiving that is initiated by Jesus at the last supper.

But we also use the Eucharist for what is received there, the consecrated bread and wine.

And that's the sense in which I'll use the word most of the time.

And now some doctrines. So the one I'll be spending most of the time on is the real presence.

So this is the doctrine that Jesus is really substantially present in the Eucharist.

Not merely symbolically, but really substantially so.

So this is a doctrine that Catholics,

the Eastern Orthodox,

Anglicans, and

...