what are the essential qualites of a wafer?
I bought scott hands reason to believe. I have to say that for me, insofar as i favor a deeply philosophical orientation, his book is a disappointment. But it depends on what you looking for. Its not a philosophy book. I think his defense of the five ways is weak, since he fails to address those atheists who challenge the objective underlying logic in so far as objective knowledge is concerned. I think it best serves perhaps as an apologetics for why one should think that the catholic faith has the fullness of truth. Edward fesser on Aquinas is a better direction, although even he fails to address the popular attack on logic that is occurring today. People fail to realise that Aquinas’s five ways are worthless as a path to true objective knowledge of God if we do not first defend the logic upon which it is grounded. It seems that Christian philosophers have yet to face or seriously come to terms with the challenge coming from quantum physics in reference to the law of excluded middle and the law of contradiction. Am i the only Catholic attempting to write a serious defense of objective logic in light of quantum physics?Richard Purtill’s - Reason to Believe, so far is proving to be a great book on this topic. Possibly the best yet out of the several that have been mentioned (that I’m familiar with).
He’s a professional philosopher - faithful Catholic. Much, much deeper than the Godless Delusion, and at the same time, readable for a layman. (My opinion subject to change because I just started it.)
I’ll revise my opinion on Scott Hahn’s “Reasons to Believe” (I wonder who coined that first) … it’s “OK”. Very much a beginner’s book and written in a lightweight style. Excellent for someone who knows nothing about Catholic apologetics, but not of much value for anyone who already has a background. He’s excellent on Mary and the Saints.
Well, if you type “quantum physics excluded middle” into Google, one of your posts on CAF comes up 2nd in the list (of 40,000). So, you’re certainly carving out a unique spot there.
Ok, I’ll be careful with my recommendations … first, I’m only 50 pages into it. He does a good job on some basic atheistic attacks (accusation that belief in God is “nonsense”, that faith is “wishful thinking” … more that I haven’t read). He shows the self-refuting quality of materialism.
There are several articles referring to quantum (non-Boolean) logic in the series of articles from the conferences called by Pope John Paul II on Scientific Perspectives on Divine Intervention:
i’m still wondering what it could possibly mean to say that the essence of the bread and wine change during a ritual at mass.
By determining whether everything is created by God!
this answer is is a nonsequitur.
On the contrary. If nothing is created by God transubstantiation would hardly occur spontaneously!Rocinante;7235691 [QUOTE said:
If you believe in God you cannot deny miracles - and therefore transubstantiation - are possible. Not only is it possible but if you take Jesus at His word it is certain. If you don’t accept His divinity it is not surprising you can’t make sense of it.
It means, that even if they still look, taste, feel, and smell link bread and wine, they are not. It is as simple, and as mysterious, as that.
Essence and accidents are used in the Aristotelian sense. Have you explored these?
yes. i picked up on that, but i’m trying to figure out how it could apply to transubstatiation. it doesn’t seem to work.
Yes. However, it might be valuable to consider that bread is a composite essence, i.e., the various ingredients and methods used to combine them, whereas Jesus is not.
I believe that transubstantiation is a philosophical explanation, and not a theory (at least not in scientific terms).
I believe this is unanswerable, at least completely, as the only way we humans know things is through their accidents.
Not quite. Jesus made himself present at a particular time and place and revealed many of His attributes by words and deeds.
Not so, our only access to a thing’s essence is through its accidents.
Therein lies the core of your confusion. The host is no longer bread. “properties of jesus-ness” were not added. The essence of bread was replace by the essence of Jesus.
No. See above.
Not so. I believe you have confused accidents (physical properties) which are observable and essence which cannot be observed.
The problem seems to be related to the difference in types of essence between bread and Jesus. In the case of bread we have the accidents of a recipe that combine certain ingredients in a certain way to produce an object that we name bread. We have no equivalent for Jesus.
i understand that essences can’t be observed. but can they be known? i assumed that you think we can know and in fact do know bread, but you say we only know its accidents. i disagree, and i think artistotle would too, though i’m no expert. i think we know bread and know chairs and know cows and know when we don’t have bread or a chair or a cow. we recognize the absence or presence of bread-ness, cow-ness, and chair-ness.
I did not say essenses are unknowable, just not completely knowable. Please reread my post.
Forget about terminology. You agree that if God exists miracles are possible and therefore He can change bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Jesus. We cannot understand how this possible any more than we can understand Creation. It is not inconceivable that the Son of God is personally present in bread and wine consecrated by a priest if one believes He is already present in everything!
I’m late to this, but i can vouch from my personal experience with new Age ideas and writings that Ken IS basically New Age/Occult-oriented, albeit (surprisingly) with a slight tilt to the right.
we aren’t talking about some Protestant notion of communion where god is present somehow in the sacrament in the usual sense that god is always present. we are talking about the bread and wine actually being in some literal sense the body and blood.
protestants are either right or wrong. same with catholics. what their view is on what happens doesn’t affect what happens. the question is, what would it even mean for the catholic view on what happens to be true? your answer seems to be that even it if seems to make no sense, god could still do it because god can do anything. but we probably agree that god can not do anything that contradicts itself. god can’t make a burrito so spicy that even he can’t eat it, but that does not discount omnipotence. it just means that we are talking nonsense. what i am arguing is that to say that the bread not just symbolizes the body of jesus but actually becomes the body of jesus is such a contradiction. the bread is still bread since anyone would experience it in every way as bread. it has not lost any of its bread-ness or we would notice the absence of breadness and not experience it as bread.