Books on Substance/nature

[Kronk]

Substance is a word I hear thrown around a lot, I’ve had explanations galore but absolutely none of it makes sense to me, and thus is an unacceptable thing in my mind at the moment. I think I need actual books, reading material, something to study. None of it makes sense to me so when I hear “the bread’s substance changes in the eucharist” I just can’t really accept it. I’m well aware of what it is, but coming from a background that treats believing in this as direct heresy, I cannot easily change. I am hoping something will come that will help me make sense.

 

[BartholomewB]

Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s terminology of “substance” and “accidents” as part of his larger project for ironing out the apparently irreconcilable differences between Aristotelian philosophy and the Catholic faith. Nowadays we no longer use these terms, as Aristotle did, to explain the phenomena of the material world.

If we are trying to explain to a nonscientist why we see the flash of lightning before we hear the thunder, or how a cow turns grass into milk, or why a can goes rusty if we leave it out in the rain, we no longer explain those things in terms of “substance” and “accidents”. But Aristotle did, which is why Aquinas decided he needed to explain the Eucharist, too, using the same Aristotelian terminology.

When we try and use the terms “substance” and “accidents” to explain the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist to a nonbeliever, we run into the difficulty that we first have to explain what the two words themselves mean. The trouble is that in our present-day world these terms are now used only in connection with the Eucharist.

 

[Wesrock]

Substance is just the Latin word for being/essence/material. Or in common parlance, when we talk of a thing’s substance we mean the concept of “what it is.”

You don’t need to be Aristotlean or Platonist to believe in transubstantiation.

In Aristotlean terms, a substance exists in itself, while accidents can’t exist by themselves but only in a substance. For example, redness is an accident. We know this because you can’t have redness exist in itself. It’s a type of property that can only exist if there is something actually there to be red. Roundness, hardness, roughness, etc… are all accidents. They are not things in themselves, but properties that can only exist in some other being/thing. An apple, meanwhile, is a substance, because to have an apple you only need, well, an apple. It’s not a type of property that can only exist if there’s something to have that property.

You may be thinking too metaphysical with it. A substance isn’t some hidden ghost in a thing. It’s just that when discussing something we can come up with these types of distinctions in principles. At least, that’s how an Aristotlean sees it.

The Eucharist isn’t normal. It’s not something natural or that can occur in the natural world. This type of substantial change with only the accidents remaining is a supernatural event.

And again, you don’t need to think of this in an Aristotlean way. Literally transubstantiation just means “a change in what it is.” The dogma isn’t philosophical. Latin is just the language the Church has historically used. All the dogma means is that what-the-host-is changes while the appearance stays the same.

And I’m fairly certain the dogma uses the words species (the material) and accidents.