Observations by a non believer

[hecd2]

I am having a language problem. Substance can be defined as having mass and occupies space; matter and also as essential nature; essence.

I am using “substance” in the sense that it is used when one claims that the consecrated Host takes on the substance of Christ’s flesh, soul and divinity and the consecrated wine takes on the substance of Christ’s blood, soul and divinity (and that both thereby lose the substance of bread and wine, although retaining their appearances).

Substance is being used according to a definition that you can find, for example here:
newadvent.org/cathen/05573a.htm

It does not, in this context, mean the same as matter.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[jmcrae]

I don’t accept the existence of miracles (for what to me are good reasons, but irrelevant to the thread).

My point was that if one accepts that miracles can happen, and that God can do anything He wants (that is neither a logical contradiction or against His nature) then, of course all one has to do is to assert that belief in order to justify one’s belief in transubstantiation. One doesn’t need a long paragraph of long words masquerading as a philosophical argument. I am not attempting to change your mind, nor are my or anyone else’s rational arguments of the slightest efficacy in this case. I am merely pointing out to what extent the Catholic belief in transubstantiation violates established philosophical, rational, and semantic concepts. This was in response to a poor analogy claiming that the change of substance in the consecration is no different from the change occurring to bread when it is eaten, digested and incorporated into the human body. The differences between the cases are, in fact, profound.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

Luckily, we aren’t basing our belief in the Eucharist on that, then.

What’s going on here is that, since the time of the Resurrection, those who are spiritually sensitive have been aware that Jesus becomes immanently present whenever the Consecration takes place, and remains present under the signs of the bread and wine. This has always been such a common and wide-spread experience that the Apostles never expressed any doubt in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and nor did any of their successors. In later times, and especially when the processes of scientific thought became available, attempts were made, and continue to be made, to explain this phenomenon. It’s true that the explanations fall short of convincing anyone who has never actually experienced the Eucharist - however, they aren’t really meant to, I don’t think. Rather, they are simply meant to make sense of the experience that everyone is already having - Jesus is really there - and the bread and wine are not - even though it looks and tastes like bread and wine.

 

[rvilbig]

1. When I hear people of faith use words like “faith” I have to ask what do they mean? I think they must really mean “hope”. … I submit, that when those professing religious beliefs say that they have faith, they really only hope.

The best explanation for the differences between Faith, Hope and Love that I have found is in the Spiritual Canticle of Saint John of the Cross, who writes that each virtue pertains to a different faculty of the soul. Faith pertains to the intellect; hope pertains to the memory; and love pertains to the will. For example, after receiving communion, my *intellect *is aware of God’s presence in my soul (Faith), my memory recalls the many graces God has given me (Hope), and my will commits to acting charitably toward my neighbor (Love). Hence, all three theological virtues are distinct and yet integrally part of the Christian life.

1. If water is H2O then it cannot be, at the same time NaCl. If it is two parts hydogen and one part oxygen then by definition it is water. Is that not so? I agree we can utter the words that that 2 plus 2 are 5 and we can say that a circle is round. But saying such things only are words strung together with out corresponding to the meaning of the words themselves . So, then, if bread is flesh and wine is blood when in fact the chemical composition belies that reality, how then can one rationally sustain the position that such is true? Faith makes it so? I submit that one merely "hopes"that somehow 2 plus 2 can make 5.

The doctrine of transubstantiation teaches us that the substance (matter and form) of the host becomes the Body of Christ, however, the accidents, or characteristics that are revealed to our senses, remain the same. So for example, if you looked at the host under an electron microscope, the electrons would bounce back as if they had interacted with carbohydrates, even though it is actually true Flesh. Also, as I wrote above, the theological virtues (Faith, Hope, and Love) are still a proper response to receiving the Eucharist, though there is no sensible reason for doing so. Nonetheless, masses have been said in which the transubstantiation was accompanied by the changes of the accidents, for example at Lanciano.

1. I am a cradle catholic–clearly,fallen away at this point—I have studied in earnest and believe myself to be well informed. At least, My conclusions are sincerely held. I try to lead an ethical life, albeit based on rational precepts. By what logic then can one (who views these dogmas of faith such as virgin birth, transubstantiation, the trinity, etc to be so much mystical nonsense) roast in all eternity. Isn’t it a bit like “the fox guarding the chicken coop” to say that if one is exposed to your version of the truth to be eternally damned if he departs from that version of the truth? That is certainly not in conformity with the ideal of justice–so how then can such anabsurd position be defended.

As Pope Leo XII taught, "Truth cannot contradict Truth (Providentissimus Deus), so if you have Truly found Truth elsewhere then these Truths cannot contradict the Faith.

Hope this helps,

-Ryan Vilbig
ryan.vilbig@gmail.com

 

[LogisticsBranch]

I don’t accept the existence of miracles (for what to me are good reasons, but irrelevant to the thread).

My point was that if one accepts that miracles can happen, and that God can do anything He wants (that is neither a logical contradiction or against His nature) then, of course all one has to do is to assert that belief in order to justify one’s belief in transubstantiation. One doesn’t need a long paragraph of long words masquerading as a philosophical argument. I am not attempting to change your mind, nor are my or anyone else’s rational arguments of the slightest efficacy in this case. I am merely pointing out to what extent the Catholic belief in transubstantiation violates established philosophical, rational, and semantic concepts. This was in response to a poor analogy claiming that the change of substance in the consecration is no different from the change occurring to bread when it is eaten, digested and incorporated into the human body. The differences between the cases are, in fact, profound.

Alec

This is something from the Catholic Church in my city. “WE, AS A PARISH, PROMISE…
to welcome you to our Sunday assembly regardless of your situation in life, whether your’re single, widowed, divorced, remarried, in an ecumenical or interfaith marriage, gay or lesbian, or sharing a home without marriage; whether you’re an immigrant or new comer; whether you’re fully able or disabled, healthy or sick, old or younger; whether you’re struggling with your faith or firm in your commitment. We’ll maintain an open door and an open heart to you, and we’ll offer you a share in the grace of Christ which fill this Church.”-- “To be Christ for Others As Christ is for Us”

Miracles don’t apply to transubstantiation as far as I am aware of. The Church as their own group of scientists that examine those claims from what I have learned. I think this is helpful. I like it. The supernatural in monotheistic religions:“The term supernatural literally means
“transcending the natural”. Generally, it involves the belief in forces that cannot ordinarily be perceived except through their effects. Sometimes it is used to characterize or explain events that people consider extraordinary.”

I’ve often noticed the extraordinary in the ordinary day. That statement reminds me of I another topic that seems to add dimension that thought. I wrote there, “My thought gives rise to this: Love = An individual’s motivational orientation that serves as a drive to action and can influence their productivity. This could be applicable to many things.” (Now I’m thinking about my Love for God. My gosh, I do think I’m onto something big in this extraordinary day! It’s awesomely incrediable the more I think about it. It’s as if a window opened and something is happening…GOD LOVES ME! . . .)
forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=474112&page=4

 

[Abu]

Hecd2
I don’t accept the existence of miracles….the Catholic belief in transubstantiation violates established philosophical, rational, and semantic concepts.

As a fact of life, miracles are part of reason based on observation.

Throughout much of his adult life Dr Alexis Carrel felt that Immanuel Kant had once and for all disposed of a rationally respectable belief in God, revelation, and – last but not least – miracles.

He went from being a skeptic of the visions and miracles reported at Lourdes to being a believer after experiencing a healing he could not explain. Alexis Carrel refused to discount a supernatural explanation and steadfastly reiterated his beliefs, For such an attitude toward Lourdes, Carrel was declared unwelcome in the medical establishment in free-thinking and anti-clerical Lyons. Their leaders had to eat humble pie upon Carrel’s return for a brief visit to France in 1912 with the halo of a Nobel Prize around his head. In a new edition by Real-View-Books, of *The Voyage to Lourdes *(1939) this realization is explained, with an introduction by Fr Stanley Jaki, winner of the Templeton Prize for 1987 for his work on science and religion, who was an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.
[ewtn.com/library/MARY/VOYLOUR.HTM]](http://www.ewtn.com/library/MARY/VOYLOUR.HTM])

The belief in Transubstantiation is neither against philosophical or rational concepts as Msgr John F McCarthy points out:
“4….Since the competence of modern science is restricted to the definition of order in the sequence of phenomena, it cannot exclude a priori a supernatural intervention of God by which there would be visible consequences of a divine intervention which in itself would remain invisible, e.g., in the assumption of a human nature by a divine Person or in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist.”
[LT80 - The Incomplete Response of Catholic Theologians to the Demythologizing of Rudolf Bultmann - Part I]]](LT80 - The Incomplete Response of Catholic Theologians to the Demythologizing of Rudolf Bultmann - Part I]])

On Anthony Rizzi’s, *The Science Before Science *(Baton Rouge, LA: IAP Press, 2004):
[See LT123 - Anthony Rizzi, The Science Before Science / Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ, The Life Of The Soul]
The dominant theme of this book is that sound philosophy is a science on a par with the empirical sciences and is actually a prerequisite for proper thinking even in the empirical sciences. Philosophy is that field of certified knowledge “that seeks and studies first principles of all things” (p. 4). A general problem that is treated throughout Rizzi’a book stems from the common attitude among empirical scientists that philosophical principles are foreign and even harmful to their field of study. But their very opposition to philosophy is itself an implicit philosophy (p. 9).

 

[Leela]

You know what’s funny? I’ll get an administrative warning for saying that Catholics believe that it is possible to eat God in the form of a cracker. But I can’t make any more sense of this thread than that.

 

[Abu]

Leela
Catholics believe that it is possible to eat God in the form of a cracker. But I can’t make any more sense of this thread than that.

Do you believe in a Creator who created the universe and mankind – God?

 

[grannymh]

From Post 79. I am not attempting to change your mind, nor are my or anyone else’s rational arguments of the slightest efficacy in this case. I am merely pointing out to what extent the Catholic belief in transubstantiation violates established philosophical, rational, and semantic concepts.

Alec,

May I respectfully ask for the precise, established concepts you are referring to in regard to transubstantiation (point three of the OP).

philosophical
rational
semantic

I regard the differences in our worldviews as important contributions to the understanding of the Catholic Eucharist. St. Thomas Aquinas emphasized that one needs to both understand Catholic doctrine correctly and to do science well. From an article in This Rock magazine catholic.com/thisrock/2008/0811fea4.asp

Blessings,
granny

“The shepherds sing; and shall I silent be?”
from the poem Christmas by George Herbert

 

[Charlemagne_II]

Leela

… Catholics believe that it is possible to eat God in the form of a cracker.

This kind of remark gives atheists a reputation for being smart-alecs.

 

[Iron_Donkey]

My point was that if one accepts that miracles can happen, and that God can do anything He wants (that is neither a logical contradiction or against His nature) then, of course all one has to do is to assert that belief in order to justify one’s belief in transubstantiation. One doesn’t need a long paragraph of long words …
evolutionpages.com

I think you are mistaking the goal of the “long paragraphs”. They aren’t to say that it’s possible - that God can do it; they are to convince Christians that the basic tenants of the faith imply that it’s happening. The goal is to show that Basic Christianity and Christian understanding of the universe => Transubstantiation is happening at Mass. Or in some arguments, it could be to say that Transubstantiation is possible within the framework of the beliefs of whoever the argument is aimed at (ie convincing a Protestant that it doesn’t violate the idea that Christ’s one Sacrifice was sufficient because the idea of the Eucharist isn’t a re-sacrifice, but rather a participation in the same Sacrifice).

These arguments aren’t really aimed at you.

At best I could convince you that all Christians should, if they’re rational and starting from the axioms they start from, believe in Transubstantiation. But this wouldn’t convince you that it’s happening because you don’t accept the axioms. This would still be cool from my point of view, but not really likely to change much, and not the best place to start a conversation.

I believe at the beginning it was posited that faith, that is believing something without proof, is irrational. I disagree. But if so, we would all be illogical. For example, one cannot prove that our experiences correspond to reality rather than a dream. For that matter one cannot prove that, even if we assume there is a reality, that such a reality follows logical rules (ie a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time). How would you go about it? In a logical universe, you couldn’t prove logic worked using logic because it wasn’t a known. In an illogical universe, discussing this sort of thing is just silly.

At worst, faith is alogical. A belief which is logical consistent is simply a belief. Catholicism is one such example (a claim that non-Catholics may dispute, but obviously I’m speaking from my own perspective here), but another example would be abstract mathematics. To do math, we essentially create logical systems in our minds and follow them through. Religion differs from math in that we claim that the system IS reality rather than just a system floating in our heads, but even that is just another axiom which is treated the same as all the others.

 

[momor]

Your argument, when stripped of its quids and its hics is that God is God and can do whatever miracle he wants.

Alec

Exactly and it is precisely the crux of the matter under discussion. As long as one demands that God must be limited to and defined by the known scientific boxes that exist that person can never ‘know’ God. It IS a matter of faith that transubstantiation miraculously takes place as the Church defines it. Maybe some day we will have scientific evidence to prove it, maybe not. It still will not convince the atheists who demand scientific proof of God and then use the same science as proof God doesn’t exist. If you don’t want to believe in God, there are all kinds of faithful rationalizations not to do so.

To show how illogical it is to take a scientific, evidence based position for God:
what so many atheists forget, IMO, is that the scientific principles they take for granted today would have been viewed as miraculous evidence for God 500 or 1000 yrs ago. If humanity survives so long, the atheists of today would probably ‘see’ God in the scientific discoveries that others will take for granted in 500 years. But even at the height of human scientific knowledge, whenever that may be, that knowledge will still fall astronomically short of any real knowledge of God. The human brain is not capable of acquiring the knowledge of God on it’s own. How can the created understand the Creator? The closest we can come is the infused (gift from God) knowledge spoken of so eloquently by St. Teresa of Avila.

 

[Charlemagne_II]

I have learned that there really isn’t any point in trying to reason with victims of scientism.They live, as was just pointed out, in their little boxed-in world with their little rules and regulations that give them the sort of comfort they are looking for … the comfortable ability to deny that there is a mystery to creation, or the human soul, or the God that made both.

Fear is at the heart of scientism … fear that the universe and its Creator are not truly fathomable by the pure rules of science. That is why atheists and victims of scientism come to Catholic Answers … to assuage those fears by assuring themselves that reason will always trump mystery.

It never can, of course. And thus the recourse to name-calling.

 

[hecd2]

As a fact of life, miracles are part of reason based on observation.

Throughout much of his adult life Dr Alexis Carrel felt that Immanuel Kant had once and for all disposed of a rationally respectable belief in God, revelation, and – last but not least – miracles.

He went from being a skeptic of the visions and miracles reported at Lourdes to being a believer after experiencing a healing he could not explain. Alexis Carrel refused to discount a supernatural explanation and steadfastly reiterated his beliefs, For such an attitude toward Lourdes, Carrel was declared unwelcome in the medical establishment in free-thinking and anti-clerical Lyons. Their leaders had to eat humble pie upon Carrel’s return for a brief visit to France in 1912 with the halo of a Nobel Prize around his head. In a new edition by Real-View-Books, of *The Voyage to Lourdes *(1939) this realization is explained, with an introduction by Fr Stanley Jaki, winner of the Templeton Prize for 1987 for his work on science and religion, who was an honorary member of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

As I have already pointed out, my unbelief in miracles is based on good reasons, but those reasons are off-topic and irrelevant to the thread. I have already acknowledged that a belief in the existence of miracles is sufficient warrant to accept the doctrine of transubstantiation. However, I am amazed that you would attempt to sway me by presenting a single anecdotal case, and moreover, one with so much controversy surrounding it.

a) neither case observed by Carrel is accepted as miraculous by the Church Herself
b) contrary to what you or your source says, Carrel himself did not accept that the cures were miraculous.

As matter of interest, whilst Carrel contributed hugely to various aspects of medical science, he also held disturbing eugenic views, recommending, for example the gassing of criminals and the insane; he died a Nazi sympathiser and collaborator, holding an official post in Vichy France.

The belief in Transubstantiation is neither against philosophical or rational concepts as Msgr John F McCarthy points out:
“4….Since the competence of modern science is restricted to the definition of order in the sequence of phenomena, it cannot exclude a priori a supernatural intervention of God by which there would be visible consequences of a divine intervention which in itself would remain invisible, e.g., in the assumption of a human nature by a divine Person or in the transubstantiation of the Eucharist.”

While what McCarthy says is correct, it does not support the conclusion that you ascribe to it. Of course science cannot a priori (or, indeed, a posteriori) exclude supernatural miraculous events. McCarthy’s statement is a truism, but it does not in any way insulate the doctrine from running counter to reason, metaphysics and common usage of language. It is no more than my statement “God is God and can do whatever miracle he wants” stated in different words.

On Anthony Rizzi’s, *The Science Before Science *(Baton Rouge, LA: IAP Press, 2004):
[See LT123 - Anthony Rizzi, The Science Before Science / Blessed Columba Marmion, Christ, The Life Of The Soul]

The dominant theme of this book is that sound philosophy is a science on a par with the empirical sciences and is actually a prerequisite for proper thinking even in the empirical sciences. Philosophy is that field of certified knowledge “that seeks and studies first principles of all things” (p. 4). A general problem that is treated throughout Rizzi’a book stems from the common attitude among empirical scientists that philosophical principles are foreign and even harmful to their field of study. But their very opposition to philosophy is itself an implicit philosophy (p. 9).I fail to see how this is relevant at all to what we are talking about.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Alec,

May I respectfully ask for the precise, established concepts you are referring to in regard to transubstantiation (point three of the OP).

philosophical

Definitions of a substance in Aristotelian philosophy, and as used in the same sense by the Church in talking about the substance of Christ being in the Eucharist include the concepts of separability from other things, durability and identity. Although the notion of substance has been controversial throughout the history of philosophy, the idea that a thing (the Host) can become another thing entirely (ie change its substance) while remaining completely unchanged in its accidents or properties is problematic for the concepts of separability, durability and identity.

rational

Transubstantiation violates reason and, in particular, the rule of non-contradiction. A proposition cannot be true and false simultaneously (at least according to classical metaphysics); but transubstantiation demands that the consecrated Host is the substance of Christ, form and matter, and therefore true Flesh, while bearing all the accidents of bread. If it is bread, then it cannot be flesh, and if it is flesh, it cannot be bread. It violates reason to claim that a thing that displays all the properties of one substance is, in fact, another.

semantic

Well, this is obvious. We use the token “bread” to signify food products made from cereals, water and other ingredients (not wishing to get into a debate about what is bread, biscuits, crackers etc). After consecration, the Host patently retains all the properties that justify that token, and has none of the properties that justify the use of the token “flesh”. It is a clear violation of semantic convention (although it is only a convention, it’s fundamentally important to communication that we understand what tokens mean). Nor is it like the case where we use the word bread to mean money - in that case, although we are using a token with one meaning to mean something else, we do so in the full knowledge that money is not made of or the same as bread. The semantic conventions applied to the word are extended but without implying any change in the underlying reality.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

I think you are mistaking the goal of the “long paragraphs”…These arguments aren’t really aimed at you.

On the contrary, they were written in direct response to my statement: "That, of course, is not the case with the Eucharist, which demonstrably remains bread and not any other form of matter, and so I, and others are rationally justified in claiming that it is just bread and nothing else. To claim otherwise seems to me to do violence to the fundamental concept of essences or classes of thing, and to violate the separable and identical properties of the Host.

At best I could convince you that all Christians should, if they’re rational and starting from the axioms they start from, believe in Transubstantiation. But this wouldn’t convince you that it’s happening because you don’t accept the axioms.

I’d be interested in how you start from a set of axioms and derive the set of Catholic doctrines like a mathematical system. This includes the doctrine of transubstantiation. What axioms could you possibly start from which would lead, through reasoning, to the specifics of transubstantiation (and be consistent with other Catholic beliefs)?

I believe at the beginning it was posited that faith, that is believing something without proof, is irrational. I disagree. But if so, we would all be illogical. For example, one cannot prove that our experiences correspond to reality rather than a dream. For that matter one cannot prove that, even if we assume there is a reality, that such a reality follows logical rules (ie a statement cannot be both true and false at the same time). How would you go about it? In a logical universe, you couldn’t prove logic worked using logic because it wasn’t a known. In an illogical universe, discussing this sort of thing is just silly.

Well yes, the existence of a consistent reality is an axiom, but one that is necessary both for normal life and for pursuing knowledge. The axiom comes before the reasoning, but axioms should be self-evident: no-one can claim that of the doctrine under discussion.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[hecd2]

Exactly and it is precisely the crux of the matter under discussion. As long as one demands that God must be limited to and defined by the known scientific boxes that exist that person can never ‘know’ God. It IS a matter of faith that transubstantiation miraculously takes place as the Church defines it.

Of course it’s a matter of faith. Nevertheless it is one that violates reason, its own philosophical terms and common semantics. That is all I’m saying. I haven’t mentioned science once in this thread.

Alec
evolutionpages.com

 

[davidv]

{snip}
Transubstantiation violates reason and, in particular, the rule of non-contradiction. A proposition cannot be true and false simultaneously (at least according to classical metaphysics); but transubstantiation demands that the consecrated Host is the substance of Christ, form and matter, and therefore true Flesh, while bearing all the accidents of bread. If it is bread, then it cannot be flesh, and if it is flesh, it cannot be bread. It violates reason to claim that a thing that displays all the properties of one substance is, in fact, another.
{snip]

I beg to differ. As taught by the Church there is no contradiction. After consecration the host is no longer “bread” eventhough it looks like it. The consecrated host is the substantial presence of Jesus, it is not bread.

 

[Leela]

I beg to differ. As taught by the Church there is no contradiction. After consecration the host is no longer “bread” eventhough it looks like it. The consecrated host is the substantial presence of Jesus, it is not bread.

What is this “substance” that the properties of bread are supposed to adhere in? It sounds made up. How could there be more to bread than the properties that make bread bread rather than something else? This sort of substance talk probably made a lot more sense when scientists talked about the ether and phlogiston and before all that modern “wave-particle” business. Now substance just sounds like an old wive’s tale.

 

[jmcrae]

What is this “substance” that the properties of bread are supposed to adhere in? It sounds made up. How could there be more to bread than the properties that make bread bread rather than something else? This sort of substance talk probably made a lot more sense when scientists talked about the ether and phlogiston and before all that modern “wave-particle” business. Now substance just sounds like an old wive’s tale.

Aristotle spoke of prototypes in Heaven that are the substances of the material things on earth. One of his examples was that, there are many kinds of chairs, which are not made of the same stuff, nor even the same shape or size, and yet, all of them are recognizable as chairs - you look at any chair, and the word “chair” comes into your mind - the reason is that all of them share in the substance “chair” which is a spiritual essence that recognizably differentiates them from tables, floors, lamp stands, and beds - even though one chair may look a great deal more like a bed than another chair, which in its turn looks a great deal moe like a table, and there are some chairs with many outward features in common with carpets - yet, we class all of them together into the classification “chair” because that is what their substance is.

Now, with regard to the Eucharist, St. Paul affirmed that the true Christian, when he sees the bread and wine of the Eucharist, discerns Christ - that is, he looks on them and what comes into his mind is not “bread and wine” but rather, “Christ.”

Thus, the substance of Eucharistic bread and wine is neither bread, nor wine, but Christ. Alive and whole. Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity.

 

[grannymh]

Definitions of a substance in Aristotelian philosophy, and as used in the same sense by the Church in talking about the substance of Christ being in the Eucharist include the concepts of separability from other things, durability and identity. Although the notion of substance has been controversial throughout the history of philosophy, the idea that a thing (the Host) can become another thing entirely (ie change its substance) while remaining completely unchanged in its accidents or properties is problematic for the concepts of separability, durability and identity.

Please, I need a clarification. Above, it is said; “concepts of separability from other things, durability and identity.” In an earlier post, it is said: “to violate the separable and identical properties of the Host”.

It seems to me that separability is being used differently. One concept signifying one thing separate or outside of the other. But the reference to the Host confuses me as I am not sure what properties you are referring to as being both separable and identical within the Host.

A further explanation would be helpful because as I start writing my response, I realize that I came to the concept of transubstantiation from a different perspective than what I read on CAF. Note: it would not bother me if there were two separate usages of separability. I need to understand one of them in relationship to the Host, itself, as being bread.

The other thing which seems different to me is the comment regarding Aristotelian philosophy. It was my understanding that some of Aristotle’s thought was adapted and thus changed more or less rather than being used in the same sense. In addition, somewhere I read that the concept of transubstantiation preceded Thomas Aquinas.

Thank you.

Blessings,
granny

Human life is sacred.