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edwest211
Guest
Thank you. Well said.
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Richca
Guest
It is not entirely correct to say that I understand the gluten molecules in the host to be simply accidents. There is a sense in which the chemical/atomic/ molecular structure of the bread and wine are accidents and there is a sense in which they are not, namely, that some of the realities in the atomic structure of the elements are substantial parts of the bread and wine, at least before the consecration at Mass. I know I may sound like what your saying at times but a clarification and a few distinctions are in order.
The bread and wine before the consecration are made out of matter and matter is a substantial component of bodily substances. For example, as the CCC says, human beings are a composite of spirit or soul and body or matter. The CCC says that the spirit or soul is the form of the body which is made out of matter. So, we have a form/matter composite which united together makes one being, a human being.
Our bodies made out of matter are a substantial part of our being, the other substantial part is the rational soul, the form of the body. And it belongs to the nature of a human body to have a head, arms, legs, hands, heart, lungs, flesh, muscles, bones, etc. The above mentioned parts are the products or results of the various elemental/molecular structure of these parts. The elements along with the parts that result from their various combinations and structure, heart, flesh, bone, and such like, are all made out of matter and are substantial parts of the whole body.
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Richca
Guest
(continued)
The bread and wine are made out of the matter from the elements that are structured in which bread and wine results. The elemental atoms and their sub particles such as the neutrons, protons, and electrons are made out of matter so these atoms are substantial parts of the bread and wine. The elemental atoms also have various active and passive qualities and powers which are accidental forms such as their charges and electromagnetism. The neutrons, protons, electrons and such are not matter itself but formed matter with both the substantial form of the elements and accidental forms such as dimensive quantity or extension and shape. This is why I said in the beginnning of this post there is a sense in which the sensible appearances of the bread and wine whether looked at with the naked eye or under a microscope are accidents and not entirely accidents because some of these accidents are accidental forms united to matter. And matter is a part of the substance of a thing. But, matter in itself understood according to A/T, is not something that can be observed, measured, quantified, or even imagined. It cannot exist without form and in itself is unknowable and thus it is said that all knowledge is through the forms. Forms determine matter as matter is essentially potentiality and matter is called sensible or measurable due to sensible and measurable accidental forms that inhere in it such as various qualities and quantity.
At the consecration at Mass, the substance is withdrawn from the bread and wine, i.e, the substantial forms and matter, and is changed into the substances, form and matter, of Christ’s body and blood. What remains are the accidental forms of the bread and wine which we see without a substance to inhere in, namely, the substantial form and matter of the bread and wine that no longer exist. Christ’s body and blood exists substantially under the appearances of the bread and wine and whole and entire under every part of the bread and wine but without them (his body and blood) being extended, i.e, part from part spatially separated in the three dimensions of height, length, depth such as his body is in heaven. Essentially, the entire body and blood of Christ including all its accidents exists under the appearances of the bread and wine as if it is just substance, outside the order of spatial dimensions, invisible and in a spirit mode like fashion. This mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist is analogous to the mode of our soul in the body which is whole in the whole body and whole in every part of the body. Similarly, the entire physical/material and quantified body of Christ is present under the eucharistic species in the mode of substance in which the body of Christ is whole in the whole host and whole under every part of the host, and the same goes with his blood under the appearances of the wine.
The bread and wine are made out of the matter from the elements that are structured in which bread and wine results. The elemental atoms and their sub particles such as the neutrons, protons, and electrons are made out of matter so these atoms are substantial parts of the bread and wine. The elemental atoms also have various active and passive qualities and powers which are accidental forms such as their charges and electromagnetism. The neutrons, protons, electrons and such are not matter itself but formed matter with both the substantial form of the elements and accidental forms such as dimensive quantity or extension and shape. This is why I said in the beginnning of this post there is a sense in which the sensible appearances of the bread and wine whether looked at with the naked eye or under a microscope are accidents and not entirely accidents because some of these accidents are accidental forms united to matter. And matter is a part of the substance of a thing. But, matter in itself understood according to A/T, is not something that can be observed, measured, quantified, or even imagined. It cannot exist without form and in itself is unknowable and thus it is said that all knowledge is through the forms. Forms determine matter as matter is essentially potentiality and matter is called sensible or measurable due to sensible and measurable accidental forms that inhere in it such as various qualities and quantity.
At the consecration at Mass, the substance is withdrawn from the bread and wine, i.e, the substantial forms and matter, and is changed into the substances, form and matter, of Christ’s body and blood. What remains are the accidental forms of the bread and wine which we see without a substance to inhere in, namely, the substantial form and matter of the bread and wine that no longer exist. Christ’s body and blood exists substantially under the appearances of the bread and wine and whole and entire under every part of the bread and wine but without them (his body and blood) being extended, i.e, part from part spatially separated in the three dimensions of height, length, depth such as his body is in heaven. Essentially, the entire body and blood of Christ including all its accidents exists under the appearances of the bread and wine as if it is just substance, outside the order of spatial dimensions, invisible and in a spirit mode like fashion. This mode of Christ’s presence in the eucharist is analogous to the mode of our soul in the body which is whole in the whole body and whole in every part of the body. Similarly, the entire physical/material and quantified body of Christ is present under the eucharistic species in the mode of substance in which the body of Christ is whole in the whole host and whole under every part of the host, and the same goes with his blood under the appearances of the wine.
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Aloysium
Guest
Frankly, I don’t see how anyone cannot translate what another is saying into something understandable to oneself. You can’t read the understanding I have, which my words can only poorly describe.
What you go on to explain as being my view, is not.
What is reality but what God says it is.
I’ll try to roughly translate what I’m saying using some A/T terms although they do not really fit well:
- substance (matter and form) is more or less equivalent to being and information
- Prime matter would be formless being from which everything outside of God is constructed
- Atoms can be understood as a simple form of information each becoming whole in itself, but losing their individual being when they are entangled into a new greater system, like that of a person. Here they exert an influence in the individual’s existence as a relational being. The sustance of the person, does not change although the accidents, the “material” constituents, atoms are changing and interacting with one another and those in the environment.
- materialism is an illusion, a belief that what we can break down into atoms is the ground of something’s being.
- As to the substance of the Eucharist, each part remains the the body and blood of Christ. However, once the appearance of the bread is lost, it is no longer what it was. Doing a chemical analysis will break down its “species”. The substance is lost; the reality of its being has been reduced to constituent parts. It does not mean that these molecules or the bread that previously existed as themselves remained while it exists as the Eucharist.
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Techno2000
Guest
I wonder what scientist would find before and after the consecration of the bread and wine .
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Richca
Guest
I would not expect a natural scientist to find anything different in the bread or wine after the consecration as before the consecration for it is apparent that the sensible appearances or accidents of the bread and wine do not change after the consecration. Nor are they going to find the body and blood of Jesus as that is invisible. Nor the substance of the bread and wine before the consecration as that is invisible too and is changed into the invisible substances of the body and blood of Christ. Substance in contrast to the accidents in the A-T philosophical tradition is only known by the intellect and that indirectly through the sensible accidents of the thing.I wonder what scientist would find before and after the consecration of the bread and wine .
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buffalo
Guest
What empirical evidence (observable, repeatable and predictable) is that?
The Church believed in 6 days since the beginning and is supported in other places in the OT and NT and by Jesus Himself, when He spoke about believing Moses.
The Church believed in 6 days since the beginning and is supported in other places in the OT and NT and by Jesus Himself, when He spoke about believing Moses.
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buffalo
Guest
Except when the host bleeds or beats as in some miracles.
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ASC
Guest
Be careful which miracles you believe. To quote GK Chesterton, “I believe in miracles. I believe in man-eating tigers, too, but I don’t see them running about everywhere.”
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Gorgias
Guest
Empirical evidence doesn’t have to be “observable, repeatable, and predictable”, per se. Go to a graveyard and pick any plot at random. Is the evidence of that person’s death ‘repeatable’? Have you observed the death, or merely the evidence that leads you to conclude he’s dead? Can you predict anything from the evidence (other than he’s really likely to remain dead, the next time you visit)?
In the absence of scientific, empirical evidence to the contrary, it was eminently reasonable to believe that the six-day creation epic was historically accurate. Now that we have empirical evidence to the contrary, it is still accurate theologically, but the Church allows for the interpretation that it’s figurative, not literal.
I’d also make the case that Jesus was assenting to the theology moreso than to the physics.
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buffalo
Guest
ARTICLE 2. Whether the human body was immediately
produced by God?
Objection 1: It would seem that the human body was not produced
by God immediately. For Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 4), that
“corporeal things are disposed by God through the angels.” But the
human body was made of corporeal matter, as stated above (Article
1). Therefore it was produced by the instrumentality of the angels,
and not immediately by God.
Objection 2: Further, whatever can be made by a created power, is
not necessarily produced immediately by God. But the human body
can be produced by the created power of a heavenly body; for even
certain animals are produced from putrefaction by the active power
of a heavenly body; and Albumazar says that man is not generated
where heat and cold are extreme, but only in temperate regions.
Therefore the human body was not necessarily produced
immediately by God.
Objection 3: Further, nothing is made of corporeal matter except by
some material change. But all corporeal change is caused by a
movement of a heavenly body, which is the first movement.
Therefore, since the human body was produced from corporeal
matter, it seems that a heavenly body had part in its production.
Objection 4: Further, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. vii, 24) that man’s
body was made during the work of the six days, according to the
causal virtues which God inserted in corporeal creatures; and that
afterwards it was actually produced. But what pre-exists in the
corporeal creature by reason of causal virtues can be produced by
some corporeal body. Therefore the human body was produced by
some created power, and not immediately by God.
On the contrary, It is written (Ecclus. 17:1): “God created man out of
the earth.”
Reply to Objection 4: An effect may be said to pre-exist in the causal
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St. Thomas Aquinas THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA Translated by Fathers: L.91, C.3.
virtues of creatures, in two ways. First, both in active and in passive
potentiality, so that not only can it be produced out of pre-existing
matter, but also that some pre-existing creature can produce it.
Secondly, in passive potentiality only; that is, that out of pre-existing
matter it can be produced by God. In this sense, according to
Augustine, the human body pre-existed in the previous work in their
causal virtues.
produced by God?
Objection 1: It would seem that the human body was not produced
by God immediately. For Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 4), that
“corporeal things are disposed by God through the angels.” But the
human body was made of corporeal matter, as stated above (Article
1). Therefore it was produced by the instrumentality of the angels,
and not immediately by God.
Objection 2: Further, whatever can be made by a created power, is
not necessarily produced immediately by God. But the human body
can be produced by the created power of a heavenly body; for even
certain animals are produced from putrefaction by the active power
of a heavenly body; and Albumazar says that man is not generated
where heat and cold are extreme, but only in temperate regions.
Therefore the human body was not necessarily produced
immediately by God.
Objection 3: Further, nothing is made of corporeal matter except by
some material change. But all corporeal change is caused by a
movement of a heavenly body, which is the first movement.
Therefore, since the human body was produced from corporeal
matter, it seems that a heavenly body had part in its production.
Objection 4: Further, Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. vii, 24) that man’s
body was made during the work of the six days, according to the
causal virtues which God inserted in corporeal creatures; and that
afterwards it was actually produced. But what pre-exists in the
corporeal creature by reason of causal virtues can be produced by
some corporeal body. Therefore the human body was produced by
some created power, and not immediately by God.
On the contrary, It is written (Ecclus. 17:1): “God created man out of
the earth.”
Reply to Objection 4: An effect may be said to pre-exist in the causal
file:///D|/Documenta%20Chatolica%20Omnia/99%20-%20P…0Aquinas%20-%20Summa%20Theologica/PrimaPars91-3.htm (2 of 3)2006-05-29 20:41:26
St. Thomas Aquinas THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA Translated by Fathers: L.91, C.3.
virtues of creatures, in two ways. First, both in active and in passive
potentiality, so that not only can it be produced out of pre-existing
matter, but also that some pre-existing creature can produce it.
Secondly, in passive potentiality only; that is, that out of pre-existing
matter it can be produced by God. In this sense, according to
Augustine, the human body pre-existed in the previous work in their
causal virtues.
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buffalo
Guest
I answer that, The first formation of the human body could not be by
the instrumentality of any created power, but was immediately from
God. Some, indeed, supposed that the forms which are in corporeal
matter are derived from some immaterial forms; but the Philosopher
refutes this opinion (Metaph. vii), for the reason that forms cannot be
file:///D|/Documenta%20Chatolica%20Omnia/99%20-%20P…0Aquinas%20-%20Summa%20Theologica/PrimaPars91-3.htm (1 of 3)2006-05-29 20:41:26
St. Thomas Aquinas THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA Translated by Fathers: L.91, C.3.
made in themselves, but only in the composite, as we have explained
(Question 65, Article 4); and because the agent must be like its
effect, it is not fitting that a pure form, not existing in matter, should
produce a form which is in matter, and which form is only made by
the fact that the composite is made. So a form which is in matter can
only be the cause of another form that is in matter, according as
composite is made by composite. Now God, though He is absolutely
immaterial, can alone by His own power produce matter by creation:
wherefore He alone can produce a form in matter, without the aid of
any preceding material form. For this reason the angels cannot
transform a body except by making use of something in the nature of
a seed, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 19). Therefore as no preexisting
body has been formed whereby another body of the same
species could be generated, the first human body was of necessity
made immediately by God.
Reply to Objection 1: Although the angels are the ministers of God,
as regards what He does in bodies, yet God does something in
bodies beyond the angels’ power, as, for instance, raising the dead,
or giving sight to the blind: and by this power He formed the body of
the first man from the slime of the earth. Nevertheless the angels
could act as ministers in the formation of the body of the first man,
in the same way as they will do at the last resurrection by collecting
the dust.
Reply to Objection 2: Perfect animals, produced from seed, cannot
be made by the sole power of a heavenly body, as Avicenna
imagined; although the power of a heavenly body may assist by cooperation
in the work of natural generation, as the Philosopher says
(Phys. ii, 26), “man and the sun beget man from matter.” For this
reason, a place of moderate temperature is required for the
production of man and other animals. But the power of heavenly
bodies suffices for the production of some imperfect animals from
properly disposed matter: for it is clear that more conditions are
required to produce a perfect than an imperfect thing.
Reply to Objection 3: The movement of the heavens causes natural
changes; but not changes that surpass the order of nature, and are
caused by the Divine Power alone, as for the dead to be raised to life,
or the blind to see: like to which also is the making of man from the
slime of the earth.
the instrumentality of any created power, but was immediately from
God. Some, indeed, supposed that the forms which are in corporeal
matter are derived from some immaterial forms; but the Philosopher
refutes this opinion (Metaph. vii), for the reason that forms cannot be
file:///D|/Documenta%20Chatolica%20Omnia/99%20-%20P…0Aquinas%20-%20Summa%20Theologica/PrimaPars91-3.htm (1 of 3)2006-05-29 20:41:26
St. Thomas Aquinas THE SUMMA THEOLOGICA Translated by Fathers: L.91, C.3.
made in themselves, but only in the composite, as we have explained
(Question 65, Article 4); and because the agent must be like its
effect, it is not fitting that a pure form, not existing in matter, should
produce a form which is in matter, and which form is only made by
the fact that the composite is made. So a form which is in matter can
only be the cause of another form that is in matter, according as
composite is made by composite. Now God, though He is absolutely
immaterial, can alone by His own power produce matter by creation:
wherefore He alone can produce a form in matter, without the aid of
any preceding material form. For this reason the angels cannot
transform a body except by making use of something in the nature of
a seed, as Augustine says (De Trin. iii, 19). Therefore as no preexisting
body has been formed whereby another body of the same
species could be generated, the first human body was of necessity
made immediately by God.
Reply to Objection 1: Although the angels are the ministers of God,
as regards what He does in bodies, yet God does something in
bodies beyond the angels’ power, as, for instance, raising the dead,
or giving sight to the blind: and by this power He formed the body of
the first man from the slime of the earth. Nevertheless the angels
could act as ministers in the formation of the body of the first man,
in the same way as they will do at the last resurrection by collecting
the dust.
Reply to Objection 2: Perfect animals, produced from seed, cannot
be made by the sole power of a heavenly body, as Avicenna
imagined; although the power of a heavenly body may assist by cooperation
in the work of natural generation, as the Philosopher says
(Phys. ii, 26), “man and the sun beget man from matter.” For this
reason, a place of moderate temperature is required for the
production of man and other animals. But the power of heavenly
bodies suffices for the production of some imperfect animals from
properly disposed matter: for it is clear that more conditions are
required to produce a perfect than an imperfect thing.
Reply to Objection 3: The movement of the heavens causes natural
changes; but not changes that surpass the order of nature, and are
caused by the Divine Power alone, as for the dead to be raised to life,
or the blind to see: like to which also is the making of man from the
slime of the earth.
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buffalo
Guest
Ahhhhh- it was reasonable and still is since it was Revealed. To maintain your position you must do violence to the clear meaning, constant and firm teaching protected by the Holy Spirit.n the absence of scientific, empirical evidence to the contrary, it was eminently reasonable to believe that the six-day creation epic was historically accurate. Now that we have empirical evidence to the contrary, it is still accurate theologically, but the Church allows for the interpretation that it’s figurative , not literal .
I’d also make the case that Jesus was assenting to the theology moreso than to the physics.
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buffalo
Guest
This would be deductive reasoning. Evolution is inductive reasoning.Empirical evidence doesn’t have to be “observable, repeatable, and predictable”, per se. Go to a graveyard and pick any plot at random. Is the evidence of that person’s death ‘repeatable’? Have you observed the death, or merely the evidence that leads you to conclude he’s dead? Can you predict anything from the evidence (other than he’s really likely to remain dead, the next time you visit)?
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Gorgias
Guest
That depends. Does the Holy Spirit teach science? Or does he protect teachings on faith and morals?
If the former, I’d like to see the magisterial teaching that proclaims that the Church speaks infallibly on matters of science. Please cite the document that makes this claim.
If only the latter, however, then your assertion fails to hold (that is, that belief in anything other than six-day creation as historical fact is contrary to the teachings of the Church).
No… arguing from evidence to a conclusion is what inductive reasoning is. Looking at a cemetery plot and concluding the person is dead is inductive, not deductive.
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buffalo
Guest
The Holy Spirit protects truth. Genesis is supported by Jesus Himself. Where faith and reason intersect that truth is protected.That depends. Does the Holy Spirit teach science? Or does he protect teachings on faith and morals ?
If the former, I’d like to see the magisterial teaching that proclaims that the Church speaks infallibly on matters of science. Please cite the document that makes this claim.
If only the latter, however, then your assertion fails to hold (that is, that belief in anything other than six-day creation is contrary to the teachings of the Church).
buffalo:
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buffalo
Guest
Evolution is inductive.No… arguing from evidence to a conclusion is what inductive reasoning is. Looking at a cemetery plot and concluding the person is dead is inductive , not deductive .
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Gorgias
Guest
When Paul tells Timothy that wine heals infirmities, does the Holy Spirit protect that “truth”?
When Peter instructs the faithful not to eat blood, does the Holy Spirit protect that “truth”? (If so, kishka and boudin and other blood sausages and any meat that isn’t prepared according to kosher slaughter rules is all anti-Catholic, right?)
True, but that’s a completely different assertion than ‘all of Genesis tells historical, scientifically accurate truth, which is what Jesus supports’.
Agreed. By the way, the case that is being made here is that reason does not tell us that the creation of the universe took place 6000 years ago. Therefore, while I agree with your statement about faith and reason, I disagree that they intersect in YEC.
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buffalo
Guest
Yes. And you are taking it out of context.
23Do not still drink water, but use a little wine for thy stomach’s sake, and thy frequent infirmities. (science backs it up)
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