Is the Host the body and blood of Christ even at the atomic level?

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Shakuhachi said:
So then, what is the substance of bread? The mental construct or the thing we eat?
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Well, when @Richca answered you, he said some things that I’m not entirely certain that I agree with. In particular, he kinda touched upon issues that are raised by the question you just asked.

In any case, although I’d say that the substance of bread isn’t its physical attributes, we nevertheless wouldn’t say that ‘substance’ is merely a construct. When we eat bread, we eat the substance of bread (and experience it through its physical accidents). We do not merely say that there’s a mental construct which we cannot experience in this world. The way you phrased up the question makes it sound like a discussion on the medieval conception of ‘universals’, and that’s not really what we’re talking about here…
 
I am not sure if it is or not. It’s been a very long time since I came anywhere near scholastic philosophy and the technical definitions. I will have to go back up and reread that explanation.

To my own thinking, “bread” is a term defined as baked wheat, water. So there is a link between this thing in our hands and this idea in our minds. What a thing is… is determined by our identification of it. We make it what it is. I did think the transubstantiation explanation was based on universals.

But through 'tis discussion I came to realize that we ar not just talking about the body of Jesus. The Son is “consubstantial with the Father”. We receive the Father also…by means of the Holy Spirit. According to my current thinking, anyway.
 
Shakuhachi said:
To my own thinking, “bread” is a term defined as baked wheat, water. So there is a link between this thing in our hands and this idea in our minds.
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True. But, ‘substance’ isn’t another way of saying ‘universal’ or even ‘mental concept’. Those are two different notions. So, even though there’s a link between the physical object and the idea of the object (or even the type of object), that’s not what we’re discussing here at the moment.
What a thing is… is determined by our identification of it. We make it what it is.
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No, I disagree with that one. “What a thing is” isn’t a subjective determination; it’s an objective one. I don’t make that bread ‘bread’. It is ‘bread’ on its own, without my participation or perception.
I did think the transubstantiation explanation was based on universals.
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I’ve never heard it discussed in that way.
But through 'tis discussion I came to realize that we ar not just talking about the body of Jesus. The Son is “consubstantial with the Father”. We receive the Father also…by means of the Holy Spirit. According to my current thinking, anyway.
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No… that’s another less common, but still occasionally encountered misunderstanding, at least in the way you’ve described it here. Only Jesus has “body, blood, soul”, so you aren’t receiving God the Father in that way. Here’s a quote I found from Fr Vincent Serpa:
As for identifying the Trinity with the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, we must recognize that the Eucharist is the body and blood of Jesus only. The Father and the Holy Spirit are spirits and do not have bodies. They did not become incarnate. While the whole divine economy is the common work of the three divine persons, the Catechism tells us: “each divine person performs the common work according to his unique personal property.” (#258) So while Jesus is one with the Father and the Holy Spirit and co-equal with them, we only speak of the Eucharist, and therefore the Real Presence , in terms of HIS body. The indwelling presence of the whole Trinity is a spiritual presence and not an incarnate one.
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But what makes it his body is the substance. The same substance as the Father.
 
Shakuhachi said:
That is an excellent explanation. Thank you. I just don’t believe it. I do believe Christ is truly and uniquely present but I leave it as mystery.
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This may seem like the dumbest question ever but I am seriously wanting to know and so I respectfully ask: is it possible to state what you stated above and still be Catholic?
 
Gorgias said:
No, I disagree with that one. “What a thing is” isn’t a subjective determination; it’s an objective one. I don’t make that bread ‘bread’. It is ‘bread’ on its own, without my participation or perception.
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Well, it is kind of both. What is bread? You can give me a definition which is a mental idea. When it corresponds to an object that is what it is, we recognize it. But then again what is the substance? The qualities that make it bread? Not so in Eucharist.
 
Perhaps not. Good thing I am anonymous. And still kicking it around in my head.
 
Shakuhachi said:
Perhaps not. Good thing I am anonymous. And still kicking it around in my head.
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I hesitated to ask but I have enjoyed your (name removed by moderator)ut on this thread because your thoughts have resonated with me. Thanks.
 
Wesrock said:
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Shakuhachi:
But what makes it his body is the substance. The same substance as the Father.
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The human body and human blood and human soul are not consubstantial with the Father.
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Correct. The substance of Christ’s body is not the same thing as the divine substance. They’re distinct.
Shakuhachi said:
Well, it is kind of both. What is bread? You can give me a definition which is a mental idea.
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The definition – and the mental idea – isn’t “bread”, though. The substance is.
But then again what is the substance? The qualities that make it bread? Not so in Eucharist.
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The substance isn’t the physical accidents, so … no.
 
“Gorgias said:
Shakuhachi said:
To my own thinking, “bread” is a term defined as baked wheat, water. So there is a link between this thing in our hands and this idea in our minds.
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No, I disagree with that one. “What a thing is” isn’t a subjective determination; it’s an objective one. I don’t make that bread ‘bread’. It is ‘bread’ on its own, without my participation or perception.
I love my wife’s home made bread, now if tomorrow she sets a cup of wheat beside a plate of bacon and eggs and expects me to accept it as bread there may be a small problem.

It seems to me that bread does not exist on its own, it needs human participation.
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Wannano said:
It seems to me that bread does not exist on its own, it needs human participation.
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We don’t exist on our own – we needed God’s participation. That doesn’t mean that the nature of everything in the universe has a fluid definition of its ‘substance’, or that this definition is itself subjective. 😉
 
If not the mental idea nor the physical accidents, what is the substance? What makes bread bread? Nothing is left.
 
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Thank you. I feel a bit on the fringe for challenging the current teaching on transubstantiation.
 
Shakuhachi said:
If not the mental idea nor the physical accidents, what is the substance? What makes bread bread? Nothing is left.
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What is bread? That is the central question. It is what looks like bread, something that can be eaten and shared. The “nothing” you have left is what changes.

Transubstantiation is used because it is a paradox. Normally, substance is what persists through changes. I am still me despite many, many years of growth from child to man. With transubstantiation, what normally persists changes, and what normaly changes persists. The substance changes, the accidents persist. We use the word to convey the mystery, and if you do not have the questions you are asking, it is not doing its job. What we know is that Christ has given his life for us, and that we can eat his body and blood to sustain us, as we eat bread and wine. We eat and share the body and blood of Christ (which cannot exist apart from his soul and divinity).

Scientific ideas of substance do not apply here. Bread is not just a collection of atoms. That could be flour and water as easily as it could be bread. We do not eat and share wheat grains, made of the same elements. Bread has a history that transforms what God has given into what human hands have made. And Christ transforms what human hands have made into the body that made him human, the body he became so we could have life.
 
CradleCath0lic said:
This is one of those things that I consider a “low commitment belief.” That means, I really don’t have to do anything differently because I believe in it. So if the Church says it’s so, I have no problem with it. Sure, fine! I would do everything the same if the Church said it was only symbolic of the Body and Blood.
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I have thought about your statement here quite a bit and realize I must be of a different nature than you. To me if something in my life is of great importance I want to own the idea as my own and that is only accomplished by researching it and coming to believe in it with personal conviction. As I understand Catholicism, the Eucharist is the ultimate experience of the Christians spiritual life. Something that supreme and effectual would have to be something I really believed in fully and personally.
 
"Remember: if you can’t distinguish it as ‘bread’ or ‘wine’ with your naked eye, it isn’t the Real Presence."

Are you saying blind people with poor taste buds can not partake of the Real Presence?
 
Shakuhachi said:
Thank you. I feel a bit on the fringe for challenging the current teaching on transubstantiation.
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I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong but I think the current Catholic teaching of Transubstantiation itself originated in or around the 12th Century.
 
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