Does Latin Rite Catholicism require acceptance of Aristotelian philosophy?

[fisherman_carl]

The short answer is ‘no’. Faith in Jesus, not in Aristotle.

 

[carefullytread]

Here’s the thing. Most people will be confused if the idea of “accidents” (I don’t really know what is meant if someone says “the accidents of bread and wine”, and I’d suspect the vast amount of lay people would hear that and confuse consubstantiation w/ transubstantiation). Pretty much, all I say is that, after the consecration, the Body and Blood of Christ might still look like bread and wine, smell like bread and wine, taste like bread and wine, and even digested like bread and wine, but are no longer bread and wine. They’ve fully become Jesus Himself. And yet, our physical bodies can’t tell the difference - only our souls can.

Hi Powerofk, I don’t dispute that most people don’t understand substance theory or even know that it is related to the teachings on transubstantiation. I certainly wasn’t catechized in that way. I was asking instead what is the strictly orthodox teachings of the Church, not what’s relevant to pastoral practice. I doubt any of this is of pastoral significance.

I found more evidence in favor of my conclusion that Aristotelian ontology. In 1965 Pope Paul VI promulgated Mysterium fidei in which he explicitly endorsed the substance explanation of transubstantiation and condemned two attempts to reformulate the doctrine that avoided substance theory.

This seems to imply that the Church doesn’t require acceptance of Aristotle per se, but one is required to have a sufficiently similar ontology.

 

[utunumsint]

Hi Ut,

As always, I appreciate your charitable comments. And I just wanted to stress again that I don’t wish to argue against Aristotle or argue about ontology at all, but rather just try to understand what sort of ontology is required by the Church. My response to you reads a bit argumentative at the end as I answered your question about my own beliefs and I’m worried that will distract from the question at hand.

The church does not impose any particular philosophy on its believers.

That said, after doing some reflecting and rereading the Council of Trent, I’m convinced that an ontology that’s non-Aristotelian in the sense of rejecting the idea of substance is in fact heretical. My thinking on this turned on the relevant section of the Council of Trent:

If any one says, that, in the sacred and holy sacrament of the Eucharist, the substance of the bread and wine remains conjointly with the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, and denies that wonderful and unique change of the whole substance of the bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of the wine into the Blood while only the species of the bread and wine remain, a change which the Catholic Church most fittingly calls Transubstantiation; let him be anathema.

I read this as saying that if you don’t believe discussing the “whole substance” is ontologically meaningful, you commit heresy. A Latin Rite Catholic cannot simply state it is a mystery; there is a specific formula for the Real Presence to which they much submit.

It seems you are allowed leeway semantically, but not ontologically.

I think, that a little historical criticism is required here. We have to realize that the church was making pronouncements in Trent that were applicable to a particular historical and intellectual context. It presupposes the protestant reformation and the rejection of church authority and discipline and also consequently, the churches understanding of the Eucharist. I fully believe we have every right to translate this context into something that we can understand in our own.

That translation has to boil down the statements into the bare facts. Why does Trent take up transubstantiation? What question is being answered? This is how I would start in the translation processes. For example, in analyzing the mystery, one could ask the following questions:

1. 
   *]Before the consecration happens, is the host bread? The answer isyes.
   *]What happens to the bread during consecration? It becomes the body of Christ.
   *]What happens to the bread? Catholic response - It is no longer there, even though it still has the appearance of bread. Lutheran response - The bread and Christ are somehow both present.
   *]In response to the Catholic position, how can we think that it is Christ’s body, soul, and divinity in the Eucharist when we can clearly see that it is still just bread? Because it is just the appearance of bread now that remains.
   
   The church is using Aristotelian terms in a utilitarian way to insist on these truths in opposition to others.
   

   I’m sure you can surmise this saddens me, but my feelings don’t affect the content of the Faith.

   Context is what is key here. With regard to your most recent post on Mysterium Fidei, look first at what is being rejected - see them in bold:
   

   1. To give an example of what We are talking about, it is not permissible to extol the so-called “community” Mass in such a way as to detract from Masses that are celebrated privately;

   In other words, the idea that the Eucharist is just a communal supper or a supper cool social gathering.
   

   or to concentrate on the notion of sacramental sign as if the symbolism—which no one will deny is certainly present in the Most Blessed Eucharist—fully expressed and exhausted the manner of Christ’s presence in this Sacrament;

   This would go against both consubstantiation and transubstantiation, I believe.
   

   or to discuss the mystery of transubstantiation without mentioning what the Council of Trent had to say about the marvelous conversion of the whole substance of the bread into the Body and the whole substance of the wine into the Blood of Christ, as if they involve nothing more than “transignification,” or “transfinalization” as they call it; or,

   Transignification or transfinalization, whatever these are, clearly oppose the realism of the transformation of the Eucharist into the real body and blood of Christ. See, what the Church is emphasizing here and what she want to preserve is the notion of the miracle that is happening every time the host is consecrated.
   

   finally, to propose and act upon the opinion that Christ Our Lord is no longer present in the consecrated Hosts that remain after the celebration of the sacrifice of the Mass has been completed.

   Again, the real body and blood is being insisted on.
   
   Continued… later. I have to bring the family to church. There is another paragraph In Mysterium Fidei that I want to comment on as well.
   
   God bless,
   Ut

 

[carefullytread]

Hi Ut,

I have to bring the family to church.

I hope you and your family have a blessed time at Mass and found nourishment. When I went this morning I abstained from Communion, as always, and it is a real absence.

The church does not impose any particular philosophy on its believers.

I agree that the Church does not impose a particular philosophy, but it certainly imposes limits.

Here’s an immediate example. One is not allowed to have a metaphysics that asserts the only things there are are physical things.

A more interesting example is in teleology. To quote the Catechism

286 Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason,122 even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

Clearly a Catholic must believe in God, but more so, one must believe that knowledge of God’s existence is accessible by reason. The nature of God is known from Revelation, but the existence of God is not. This is a meaningful bound on orthodox teleologies.

Another example is natural law. The philosophy of natural law is that some of God’s laws are knowable not through Revelation, but through reason alone. In legal theory, you might call the Ten Commandments Divine Positive law. But the Church teaches that God’s law is more than the Revealed law. This is both a limit on teleology, but also on moral philosophy. One’s moral philosophy must include natural law.

I mentioned the Mysterium Fidei, not because I wanted to talk about transfinalization in particular, but rather because I believe the Pope uses positive language to reenforce a particular mechanism by which transubstantiation takes place.

1. To avoid any misunderstanding of this type of presence, which goes beyond the laws of nature and constitutes the greatest miracle of its kind, (50) we have to listen with docility to the voice of the teaching and praying Church. Her voice, which constantly echoes the voice of Christ, assures us that the way in which Christ becomes present in this Sacrament is through the conversion of the whole substance of the bread into His body and of the whole substance of the wine into His blood, a unique and truly wonderful conversion that the Catholic Church fittingly and properly calls transubstantiation. (51) As a result of transubstantiation, the species of bread and wine undoubtedly take on a new signification and a new finality, for they are no longer ordinary bread and wine but instead a sign of something sacred and a sign of spiritual food; but they take on this new signification, this new finality, precisely because they contain a new “reality” which we can rightly call ontological. For what now lies beneath the aforementioned species is not what was there before, but something completely different; and not just in the estimation of Church belief but in reality, since once the substance or nature of the bread and wine has been changed into the body and blood of Christ, nothing remains of the bread and the wine except for the species—beneath which Christ is present whole and entire in His physical “reality,” corporeally present, although not in the manner in which bodies are in a place.

In the Council Trent, again here, and in the quote from the Catechism that I provided earlier, the Church is making a definite statement to which the Faithful must assent. And this statement is one that is only coherent within certain ontological frameworks.

You could broadly call them substance theory and I think I did a disservice to the thread by putting Aristotle in the title. Aristotle’s is the most famous example of ideas like this and they closely associated with him, but substance theory does not imply one follows Aristotle specifically.

It appears to me that the Church could have used other language to indicate they were, as you put it, using Aristotelian terms in a utilitarian way. But it didn’t. It continues to assert a positive statement that requires certain ontologies to be coherent.

Again, the real body and blood is being insisted on.

This is more than the Real Presence. I agree with the theologian I quoted a few posts back, Br. Beach, that the Real Presence makes no such ontological demands, but the doctrine of transubstantiation as repeatedly expressed by the Church does.

If one is required to assent to a statement of faith and that statement is only coherent inside a certain class of philosophies, rejection of those philosophies is ipso facto non-orthodox.

I have really appreciated your comments to clarify my own thinking on the matter, even though it has taken the surprising turn that while you seem to agree with Aristotle and I do not, you think the Church does not require him and I think it does.

As I’ve commented a few times, I didn’t want this thread to be about my own beliefs in particular but as much as possible about finding out the exact demands of the Church’s teachings. And as much as I may be saddened to uncover them, it seems worthwhile to do so and for your help I am thankful.

God bless.

 

[carefullytread]

One last thought.

I think, that a little historical criticism is required here. We have to realize that the church was making pronouncements in Trent that were applicable to a particular historical and intellectual context.

Yes, I think that might be true of Trent. But it is not true of Mysterium Fidei. Paul VI was writing in a fully modern context. He knew about the modern competing ontologies. He was in large part responding to theologians trying to remove a certain ontology from transubstantiation.

He could have said that they were wrong while noting that there is some ontological looseness in the doctrine. But he explicitly did not. He asserted the substance explanation and he didn’t do so in a different historical context, but in our own. It’s a modern teaching.

He doesn’t say he’s using it in a utilitarian way to give one possible explanation of the phenomenon. I think that given the environment in which he was writing, if that’s what he meant, he would have said so. But he did not and I believe the proper spirit of Catholic docility in front of the doctrine means we have to assume he meant what he said.

As always, I welcome your response.

 

[utunumsint]

Hi Ut,
I hope you and your family have a blessed time at Mass and found nourishment. When I went this morning I abstained from Communion, as always, and it is a real absence.

Thanks carefullytread. We had a good Sunday. I have six kids under the age of 10 and they were particularly (almost miraculously) well behaved today. Only my oldest can attend communion at the moment. The second will do his first communion in a few weeks. I think he is looking forward to it. Not being able to receive only becomes a problem if you care enough about the sacrament to want it in the first place.

I agree that the Church does not impose a particular philosophy, but it certainly imposes limits.

Here’s an immediate example. One is not allowed to have a metaphysics that asserts the only things there are are physical things.

Yes. Agreed. Although I have heard of a Catholic trying to craft an materialist philosophy that somehow remains Orthodox. I’m very sceptical, but I can ask my friend about it. He did his PHD thesis on transubstantiation.

A more interesting example is in teleology. To quote the Catechism

286 Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason,122 even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

Clearly a Catholic must believe in God, but more so, one must believe that knowledge of God’s existence is accessible by reason. The nature of God is known from Revelation, but the existence of God is not. This is a meaningful bound on orthodox teleologies.

Agreed!

Another example is natural law. The philosophy of natural law is that some of God’s laws are knowable not through Revelation, but through reason alone. In legal theory, you might call the Ten Commandments Divine Positive law. But the Church teaches that God’s law is more than the Revealed law. This is both a limit on teleology, but also on moral philosophy. One’s moral philosophy must include natural law.

Natural law of some sort. Yes.

I mentioned the Mysterium Fidei, not because I wanted to talk about transfinalization in particular, but rather because I believe the Pope uses positive language to reenforce a particular mechanism by which transubstantiation takes place.

In the Council Trent, again here, and in the quote from the Catechism that I provided earlier, the Church is making a definite statement to which the Faithful must assent. And this statement is one that is only coherent within certain ontological frameworks.

This was the quote I wanted to comment on before running out of time. I will do so in the context of this post.

Continued.

 

[Brendan]

Are they allowed to say “this is a mystery” or must they think it terms of accidents and substances?

Why would the two be mutally contradictory?

If they believe in the Real Presence, but consider talk of accidents to be semantic confusion, are they heretical?

Even in the East, the doctrinally state that it is Christ present in the Eucharist. But they too will acknowledge that the visual appearance is that of bread or wine, that the physical mass of the Eucharist is not that of a fully grown adult male.

So what is the significant distinction then between how the Churches teach on the subject? Both confess that the underlying reality is Christ, while the physical appearances are bread and wine.

The Eucharist is a Mystery in both Churches, but Mysterion does not mean that we can know NOTHING about what is revealed, only that we cannot have the full totality of knowledge about the object revealed. And neither Church makes any claims about totality of knowledge. Rather, we make the same claims about what has been revealed, the underlying reality and the physical appearence.

And it is not like the Eastern Churches have never used those terms doctrinally either. The teaching of the Trinity as Three Hypostates in one Ousia

So even in the Eastern Churches, one must accept the Aristotelian conception of ousia\substance vs appearances\accidents to correctly discuss Trinitology.

 

[JuanFlorencio]

In the Catechism, we are told:

In looking for explanations for what this means, the apologists always turn to Aristotle and I believe he was influential on the development of this doctrine based on my limited understanding of Church thinking at the time.

In a non-religious context I had studied a bit of philosophy and I concluded, along with, I think, most modern philosophers , that his philosophy wasn’t useful. We don’t need to be sidetracked into debating the merits of the theory of accidents. What I’m curious to know is if the Faithful must accept it or a substantially similar philosophy.

I’ve read that in Eastern Rites as well as the Orthodox Churches, that the doctrine of Real Presence is accepted while leaving exactly what that means to be a mystery. Something like “the nature of what is occurring is unknowable”, which is similar the understanding I had as a child.

In contract, everything I’ve read about the doctrine in the Latin Rite returns to the Aristotelian explanation and when I read Luther’s comments on rejecting transubstantiation, he specifically singles out Aristotle as being used to introduce a doctrine he rejects.

So what is faithful Latin Rite Catholic required to believe? Are they allowed to say “this is a mystery” or must they think it terms of accidents and substances? If they believe in the Real Presence, but consider talk of accidents to be semantic confusion, are they heretical?

Interesting!

I don’t think there are so many Catholics in the world who know aristotelian philosophy nor semantics. So, they don’t even have the ability to discuss if accidents are objective or a semantic confusion, or something else. It was so too during the first centuries of Christianity: the first christians did not know Aristotle. Also, the sacred writers of the New Testament did not use aristotelian language to convey our Lord’s message and facts. Still, they were able to say something; and the first christians who listened to their message were able to understand something too and acted accordingly. There were corrections in view of such actions and some of those corrections were expressed using a selection of available terms. This spiral movement has been present along the centuries.

Now, you read the paragraph and as the aristotelian language has become inappropriate to you, you are doubtful about the meaning of the paragraph; but at the same time you know the biblical texts and a lot of modern terminology (by the way, what will happen in the future with such terminology?) and tend to think that the same thing could be conveyed using a different, more appropriate language.

Now, if you ask someone who is acquainted with aristotelian philosophy about the meaning of the quote you have presented, it seems quite natural to me that he will offer you an explanation based on Aristotle, because some aristotelian technicisms are certainly there. Further, it seems to me that he will think this language is the most appropriate to say what is said, and he will have his reasons. But is Aristotle for him the origin of the core message? Does he pretend that what is said in the paragraph can be deduced from first aristotelian principles? It would be ridiculous. I think the answer is “no”. Aristotelian philosophy does not “explain” any mistery. The core of the message will come for him, as for anyone else, from the tradition of the church and the biblical texts. In other words, it will be for him a matter of faith.

If the question behind your post is “can I be a catholic if I reject aristotelian philosophy?”, who could say? I think you still need to tell what is your substitute for it. Yours could be a better terminology to respond to certain questions, or more deficient, or equally deficient; who knows? You need to work very hard. What I am sure of, is that whatever your terminology is, a christian mistery will remain a mistery.

 

[carefullytread]

Hi Brendan,

Why would the two be mutally contradictory?

The question of the thread is what requirements does the doctrine of transubstantiation put on the ontology of a believer.

In particular, the dogma of the Real Presence is looser than the transubstantiation. Transubstantiation implies the Real Presence, but many believers have of the Real Presence have rejected or, if we go back in history, did not know the doctrine of transubstantiation. So Real Presence does not imply transubstantiation.

Given that transubstantiation is stricter requirement on the believer, does it impose a particular type of philosophical restraint? I used Aristotle’s name in the title of the thread, but that’s because substance theory is closer associated with him. Clearly the Church does not say one much follow Aristotle, but it may or may not require that one accept some form of substance theory.

So even in the Eastern Churches, one must accept the Aristotelian conception of ousia\substance vs appearances\accidents to correctly discuss Trinitology.

Any discussion of the Trinity is a discussion of the Divine and not a discussion of the physical. The dogma of the Trinity does not have similar implications on one’s ontology about “What bread really is”.

You are right that in both the Eastern and Western Churches there is a mystery about the dogma of the Real Presence. But the Western Church is more specific in defining the requirements of the believer.

As you say, a mystery doesn’t imply we know nothing. And over the course of this thread, I have become more inclined to accept that what the Western doctrine says we know enforces a serious constraint on the ontology of a believer in this matter, one that’s much more binding than the Eastern Churches’.

 

[Brendan]

Hi Brendan,

The question of the thread is what requirements does the doctrine of transubstantiation put on the ontology of a believer.

In particular, the dogma of the Real Presence is looser than the transubstantiation. Transubstantiation implies the Real Presence, but many believers have of the Real Presence have rejected or, if we go back in history, did not know the doctrine of transubstantiation. So Real Presence does not imply transubstantiation.

How so?

For example
From Orthodox Dogmatic Theology by Protopresbyter Michael Pomazansky

In the Mystery of the Eucharist, at the time when the priest, invoking the Holy Spirit upon the offered Gifts, blesses them with the prayer to God the Father: “Make this bread the precious Body of Thy Christ; and that which is in this cup, the precious Blood of Thy Christ; changing them by Thy Holy Spirit” — the bread and wine actually are changed into the Body and Blood by the coming down of the Holy Spirit. After this moment, although our eyes see bread and wine on the Holy Table, in their very essence, invisibly for sensual eyes, this is the true Body and true Blood of the Lord Jesus, only under the “forms” of bread and wine.

What Fr Michael is stating here is exactly Transubstantiation. The essences (substance) of the bread and wine no longer exist, “the bread and wine actually are changed into the Body and Blood by the coming down of the Holy Spirit”

And what are seen by the eyes are bread and wine.

Yes, the Latin Church refers to that as a change(trans) in substance\ousios, but that is a negligible difference of terms. One is just the Latin form of the Greek.

The only times where I have seen Real Presence not involve a change of substance is in Lutheran theology, in that the bread and wine remain, but the presence of Christ is “in, through and around” the bread and wine.

But both the Eastern and Latin Churches would consider that to be heretical.

Clearly the Church does not say one much follow Aristotle, but it may or may not require that one accept some form of substance theory.

Given the quote above, it seems that Orthodoxy requires the same belief.

Any discussion of the Trinity is a discussion of the Divine and not a discussion of the physical.

FYI, ‘physical’ are accidents in Western theology. It is anything that can be measure by physics. The appearance, the taste, the chemical composition, the mass (no pun), volume etc…

So when we speak of substance, we are referring to the Divine. We state that Christ is present Sacramentally, that He is present Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity. But we make no claim that is Presence is physical.

You are right that in both the Eastern and Western Churches there is a mystery about the dogma of the Real Presence. But the Western Church is more specific in defining the requirements of the believer.

Again, I have seen nothing to indicate that what you say is true. All Orthodoxy requires a belief that the bread and wine are no longer present, other than by appearances. And a denial that that the Eucharist is, as Fr Michael stated " bread and wine actually are changed into the Body and Blood" would be considered to be heretical

As you say, a mystery doesn’t imply we know nothing. And over the course of this thread, I have become more inclined to accept that what the Western doctrine says we know enforces a serious constraint on the ontology of a believer in this matter, one that’s much more binding than the Eastern Churches’.

Please show me in what way the Eastern Church is less constraining

 

[thenobes]

…
In the Council Trent, again here, and in the quote from the Catechism that I provided earlier, the Church is making a definite statement to which the Faithful must assent. And this statement is one that is only coherent within certain ontological frameworks.

You could broadly call them substance theory and I think I did a disservice to the thread by putting Aristotle in the title. Aristotle’s is the most famous example of ideas like this and they closely associated with him, but substance theory does not imply one follows Aristotle specifically.

I do not think substance theory need be an impediment to understanding transubstantiation. It can be modified thus to accomodate the Church’s teaching.

First, if matter has no adfixion to a spiritual organizing principle, which principle, in the case of the Eucharist, would be the soul of Christ, then the substance is matter and the form thereof. However, with such an adfixion, and thus a living entity being produced, then the substance consists of matter adfixed to the organizing principal. The form of the matter no longer is relevant. A human soul adfixed to matter is ipso facto a human body with human blood. Regardless of the outward form.

In the case of the Eucharist a miracle occurs which maintains the appearance of bread and wine, although by the adfixion of matter to Christ’s soul, it is actually His Body and Blood.

peace
steve