I think you have misrepresented what science tells us. Some scientists (and non-scientists), without scientific evidence, have claimed that accidents are all that exist. There is much non-empirical evidence the supports the contrary.Modern science tells us that the accidents are all that there is. There isn’t some substantial form that is the fundamental efficient cause or determines the behavior of the object. This is incompatible with modern science.
Which is the original point. There is nothing to undergo the “conversion.”
Well, accidents are all that they can perceive, and most scientists are not philosophers. Still, if they use an infrared filter when viewing a galaxy instead of an ultraviolet filter, or use a radio image instead of a visual image, the accidents will be quite different. Even scientists don’t think that the underlying reality has changed based upon those different perceptions–different accidents.Modern science tells us that the accidents are all that there is. There isn’t some substantial form that is the fundamental efficient cause or determines the behavior of the object. This is incompatible with modern science.
Which is the original point. There is nothing to undergo the “conversion.”
Please point to this evidence, then.I think you have misrepresented what science tells us. Some scientists (and non-scientists), without scientific evidence, have claimed that accidents are all that exist. There is much non-empirical evidence the supports the contrary.
And this particular problem comes up when philosophers step into the realm of science and make claims.Well, accidents are all that they can perceive, and most scientists are not philosophers.
You’re playing word games with “perceptions” and “accidents.” Just because I view something through a green filter doesn’t mean the accident of that object’s color has changed.Still, if they use an infrared filter when viewing a galaxy instead of an ultraviolet filter, or use a radio image instead of a visual image, the accidents will be quite different. Even scientists don’t think that the underlying reality has changed based upon those different perceptions–different accidents.
The accident of the object’s color is how the object reacts to our senses or our instruments, whatever modifications we may use as filters. We understand the reality by observing the accidents. We just can’t directly perceive the underlying reality without the mediation of accidents.And this particular problem comes up when philosophers step into the realm of science and make claims.
You’re playing word games with “perceptions” and “accidents.” Just because I view something through a green filter doesn’t mean the accident of that object’s color has changed.
Off topic. Please join the conversation here.Please point to this evidence, then.
But they can only coexist when Aristotle’s substantial forms are only explanatory, and not fundamental efficient causes.
Whether you take Aristotle’s substantial forms to be only explanatory or otherwise, it doesn’t effect the doctrine of transubstantiation. The whole substance of the bread and wine is converted and that includes the matter. In fact, in all normal substantial changes in the physical world, the primary subject of the change is the matter. One form succeeds another and the change is brought about by an efficient cause not by a form. You are confusing Aristotle’s formal cause with the efficient cause, they are not the same. The efficient cause is the agent that brings about the change such as when you set fire to a piece of wood and the wood turns to ashes. Fire is the efficient cause of the substantial change. The new form, ashes, is educed from the matter through the causality of the fire. In transubstantiation, the divine power is the efficient cause of the conversion of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ.
It seems fairly clear to me that Aristotle (and Aquinas) intended substance to exist
Well, that would be true if A&A were correct, but modern science tells us otherwise. We CAN and DO perceive the reality of an object, as its reality is defined by the composition physical matter and not some hidden substance.The accident of the object’s color is how the object reacts to our senses or our instruments, whatever modifications we may use as filters. We understand the reality by observing the accidents. We just can’t directly perceive the underlying reality without the mediation of accidents.
And the composition of physical matter is known to us by its accidents. We get sense impressions of it, either through our senses directly or through scientific instrumentation. We might use an electron scanning microscope, a cloud chamber photograph, red-shift lines from image analysis, gas chromatography, but it’s all accidents: it’s sense perceptions reaching our senses. No one’s ever directly touched an atom, an electron, a string, a quasar. We know their reality through their accidents. Accidents are how we know reality, through our sense perceptions. We don’t intuit reality directly. All knowledge begins in the senses, and sense knowledge comes from accidents.Well, that would be true if A&A were correct, but modern science tells us otherwise. We CAN and DO perceive the reality of an object, as its reality is defined by the composition physical matter and not some hidden substance.
Actually, you directly touch atoms pretty much all the time. That’s what materials are made of. And for whatever level of breakdown of matter you want to go to, that remains in the physical universe. There isn’t anything of a metaphysical substance to undergo conversion.And the composition of physical matter is known to us by its accidents. We get sense impressions of it, either through our senses directly or through scientific instrumentation. We might use an electron scanning microscope, a cloud chamber photograph, red-shift lines from image analysis, gas chromatography, but it’s all accidents: it’s sense perceptions reaching our senses. No one’s ever directly touched an atom, an electron, a string, a quasar. We know their reality through their accidents. Accidents are how we know reality, through our sense perceptions. We don’t intuit reality directly. All knowledge begins in the senses, and sense knowledge comes from accidents.
If so, why are some atoms arranged as human while others are arranged as ants and still others arranged as granite blocks?Actually, you directly touch atoms pretty much all the time. That’s what materials are made of. And for whatever level of breakdown of matter you want to go to, that remains in the physical universe. There isn’t anything of a metaphysical substance to undergo conversion.
I’m not sure where you get the term “metaphysical substance.” I do not believe you will find this term in either Aristotle’s or Aquinas’ writings or in any commentary on them. There are two kinds of primary substances, material and spiritual. Bread and wine are material substances composed of matter and form.Actually, you directly touch atoms pretty much all the time. That’s what materials are made of. And for whatever level of breakdown of matter you want to go to, that remains in the physical universe. There isn’t anything of a metaphysical substance to undergo conversion.
Well, if you directly touch atoms, I suppose you might examine them with your five senses. How many electron shells in this one? How many protons in the nucleus? If you could see them directly, of course, you would be gathering data from your sense perceptions–that is, by the accidents of the atoms observed. Since it might be hard to make those observations visually, we can use scientific instruments as an extension of our senses. But we always get the data into our head through the accidents of matter. If I want to know what a bird is, I don’t cram the bird into my head, I observe it, and gather the data through the use of sense perceptions. We know everything about the outside world by starting with sense perception, because–the outside world is out there, and my mind is in here.Actually, you directly touch atoms pretty much all the time. That’s what materials are made of. And for whatever level of breakdown of matter you want to go to, that remains in the physical universe. There isn’t anything of a metaphysical substance to undergo conversion.
MuzeActually, you directly touch atoms pretty much all the time. That’s what materials are made of. And for whatever level of breakdown of matter you want to go to, that remains in the physical universe. There isn’t anything of a metaphysical substance to undergo conversion.
That’s how the molecules react to each other.If so, why are some atoms arranged as human while others are arranged as ants and still others arranged as granite blocks?
It isn’t magical at all. It’s merely how the molecules react to each other and how the human body works.Muze
You appreciate, of course, that the size of the typical atom, the basic particle of matter, is 50,000 times the size of its nucleus. The dimension of the atom is defined by the configuration of surrounding electrons and the nucleus is made up of protons and neutrons both which are composed of quarks. Now electrons and quarks are point particles, meaning they have no measurable dimension. In other words, the atom, composed of nothing but point particles, is essentially empty space. In your view, what gives an atom, which is essentially empty space, the feeling of materiality when you touch it? An what is the nature of “touch” that you “feel?” Seems to me that something more magical is going on, more magical than science makes us believe.
Yppop
Muze,It isn’t magical at all. It’s merely how the molecules react to each other and how the human body works.
This does not answer the question that was asked.That’s how the molecules react to each other.
MuzeMuze,
I have a Master’s degree in solid state physics and am quite familiar with the physics of surfaces, so I know “it’s merely how molecules react to each other…” But that’s not an answer to the question: What gives the atom, which is virtually nothing but empty space, it’s feeling of materiality? The scientific answer will always reduce to a description of what is observed without an explanation of why. The scientific way out of answering the difficult question is to invoke the presence of a “force”, but if you think about “force” deeply enough you begin to realize that the word “force” is simply an abstraction that abrogates the need to answer the why question.
Do not misunderstand; I love science, and I have no problem with science restricting itself to that which can be observed, but I love God more, and I find that I am compelled to diminish, whenever I can, the presumed monopoly materialists assign science in the quest for knowledge because science is the main weapon that the materialists use in their attempt to diminish God, There is a deeper level of reality, a spiritual level that envelopes all of objective reality, that gives form to all matter (hylomorphism), in the same way that water is essential to the making of sand castles.
Our discussion can proceed only if we can agree to define and distinguish science and technology and not conflate the two as you did when you gave “space technology” as an example of the application of “science” in the Cern project.
Yppop
I don’t have a problem with saying that the spiritual exists. But that’s not what transubstantiation claims. The body and blood are physical, not spiritual, and somehow the unseen substantial forms of the bread and wine (which are the fundamental efficient cause AND determine how they behave), which are material (and in your area of expertise) undergo conversion to body and blood without changing the “accidents.” That’s transubstantiation.Muze,
I have a Master’s degree in solid state physics and am quite familiar with the physics of surfaces, so I know “it’s merely how molecules react to each other…” But that’s not an answer to the question: What gives the atom, which is virtually nothing but empty space, it’s feeling of materiality? The scientific answer will always reduce to a description of what is observed without an explanation of why. The scientific way out of answering the difficult question is to invoke the presence of a “force”, but if you think about “force” deeply enough you begin to realize that the word “force” is simply an abstraction that abrogates the need to answer the why question.
Do not misunderstand; I love science, and I have no problem with science restricting itself to that which can be observed, but I love God more, and I find that I am compelled to diminish, whenever I can, the presumed monopoly materialists assign science in the quest for knowledge because science is the main weapon that the materialists use in their attempt to diminish God, There is a deeper level of reality, a spiritual level that envelopes all of objective reality, that gives form to all matter (hylomorphism), in the same way that water is essential to the making of sand castles.