What about legitimate use of power? The outstanding rebuttal is that both outstanding prophets of the Old and New Testaments are against them. When complaints were made to Moses that men were prophesying who had not been to theological college or got the right diploma, he said he wished all God’s people were prophets. When complaints were made to Jesus that unqualified men were healing in his name, he said if they were not against him, they were for him. Both in effect said that if you have the power to work miracles, you also have the authority; which is a very reasonable attitude to adopt. The historical Jesus had no diploma and would have said laymen could consecrate the sacrament.
So what is this miracle that takes place in the Eucharist? If you analysed the consecrated bread and wine, my guess is that not one molecule, not one atom, would have changed its structure. I cannot think the clergy would ever allow analysis; so one goes to the old authority of Armory v. Delamirie, which said in effect that where a person has a chattel (or knowledge) which he has a duty to disclose, but does not produce it, you may draw the worst inference against him, that the case reasonably bears. Not the worst possible inference; the worst the case reasonably bears. In other words, without analysis, one is entitled to infer that the consecration changes nothing physical. There is no need to draw that inference; but one is entitled to do so. If there is a duty to disclose, one would draw a much worse inference: that the clergy knew nothing had changed. Of course consecration changes the way communicants treat these objects; but so does a wedding present assume a value above other presents in the eyes of the bride and groom. It symbolizes more. The gift has enhanced value though only to them, and to people who respect their wishes. An auctioneer would be more phlegmatic. No-one suggests the gift becomes miraculous; though it helps to symbolize a profound spiritual truth. Nor is it obvious that the miracle of Christ’s indwelling spirit is helped by a consecration, whose effect is said to verge on magic.
My conclusion is that some of the clergy do in fact believe that their consecration changes the bread and wine into the very body and blood of Jesus; but it certainly does not do so for those members of the congregation who are more sceptical, or who view the whole ceremony as symbolism anyway. Educated atheists would say the clergy have mistaken words for reality. Words are seldom reality: usually they are mere ciphers to convey ideas. If words are reality on this occasion, then one would expect the clergy to be able to say to a man, “You are healed”, and for the man to be healed. But they do not dare to say it. If words are not reality on this occasion, then the clergyman who is claiming this miracle is leading us down Professor Eucken’s cul-de-sac. He was professor of philosophy at Jena in the early 1900s; and his theme was that though Christianity was much the best religion the world had known, the clergy had led it down a cul-de-sac, “in which there is lost all inner relation to reality, all inner obligation, any striving to construct our own existence…so that life loses all soul and value and becomes mere appearance”.