BH,
Well, there isn’t a question really of something possessing two sets of accidents because after the consecration the accidents of bread inhere in no substance whatsoever. So, we can take those accidents out of the equation.
As to Christ’s intrinsic accidents, Aquinas says they still adhere in Christ, but are undetectable to our senses because they are present in the manner of a substance and not in the manner of ordinary accidents.
It is a great question. I think there might be a tendency to think that because we speak of “the substance of Christ’s” body that this means only the substance is present. . . But this isnt really what the doctrine necessitates. It is clear, however that we don’t perceive Christ sensibly so that leads to questions how Christ is present (substance + accidents), a question which I think Aquinas answers.
VC
Thanks VC. I have never really had the impression that Aquinas himself was particularly ecstatic re his explantion of the visible absence of the proper dimensive accident of Jesus’s body in the Eucharist (it is essentially mediated by that of the bread - though one obviously cannot say Jesus’s body is fragmented or multiplied in the division or multiplication of the consecrated hosts themselves). He appears to only touch on this question extremely peremptorily in ST III, 76,4,o1 and even then almost by accident in answering a slightly different objection. I have not found any other reference in all his works to this question.
His explanation by reason of concomitance looks capable of a number of valid interpretations re substance/accidents.
I suppose the point comes when one has to ask oneself whether an explanation goes beyond a miracle and into the realms of logical contradiction of the terms/philsophy used in the first place.
Whenever a miracle is excluded a material “accident” always assumes the intrinsic “function” of being the means by which substances communicate their “sensible species” to sensible substances. it is hard to know if this flows by logical necessity from the definition of an “accident” as that “which exists in another” and hence makes a substance capable of moving from potency to act.
I suppose the question I am asking is, is it a contradiction in terms to say accidents may be present but function in the manner of a substance? Are they still accidents? Would it be less difficult, and still valid, to say that Jesus accidents are not really there?
Actually, I believe it is perfectly true to say that Jesus’s bodily accidents are not
properly there (which is what concomitance is essentially saying).
Maybe it comes down to how “hard” we treat the word “properly”. If something does not exist in its proper mode can it be said to be “present”? I see a white crystalline cube and recognise it as sugar. But I do not see its sweetness. I infer its sweetness. Does that “sweetness” really exist if I can never get that cube into my mouth but am locked into the 2D world of sight only? Yes it exists in a theoretical sense, but is it fully “present” if that presence is but an inference of the mind (faith/reason).
Would a glorified person (e.g. Mary) see Jesus’s body sensibly in the Eucharist should she one day appear and kneel at mass with us? I do not think so. She may well “see” Jesus but this would probably be primarily through an operation of her graced soul overflowing into bodiliness - not via sensible species communicated through the eyes of her glorified body.
So, in the above sense, some would say Jesus’s body is not
“fully present” in the Eucharist and there may be a grain of truth to it even if it appears to contradict literal dogmatic statements from Trent. Perhaps it would be more acceptable to say Jesus’s body (ie the accidents including dimension) are not
“properly present” in the Eucharist. This is afterall what the principle of concomitance (and Aquinas) actually says.
Perhaps there are other acceptable explanations consistent with Aquinas. What if only the primary accident (quantity) of Jesus’s bodiliness was properly present? Sensible spatial dimensive-ness requires at least the first two accidents (quality and quantity) to exist as Aristotle and others affirm. This of course is but a musing.
Partly the problem may be secular use of modern English language - which signifies/identifies things by their mechanical functionality/appearances (accidents) rather than the inferred substances.
For most English speakers “not properly present” and “not fully present” amount to pretty much the same thing I suppose.
Anyhow, the above are just a few things I have mused upon over the years.
