Problem with Transubstantiation

[Aloysium]

Jesus did not explain how it is that the bread became His body
He said that the bread and wine at the last supper were His body and blood
and so they were then, and in the Eucharist

in order to explain this, the church fathers drew on Aristotelian concepts
which do not mesh with current ideas regarding matter

the bread (with all its physical properties) is the body of Christ

the problem if you see this as metaphorical,
when you touch the Host, you are touching bread
but the reality is that you are touching Christ

 

[rom422]

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.

I will avoid stating it that way, though. Instead of saying that Christ’s Body is not fully present in the Eucharist, I would say: “The proper accidents of Christ’s Body are not fully present in the Eucharist.” And instead of saying that Christ’s Body is not properly present in the Eucharist, I would say: “Christ’s Body is really present without Its proper accidents in the Eucharist.”

BH, I know in what sense you made those statements, and I do not disagree with you. However, on account of the seriousness of this matter, I am just proposing that we adopt a language that would have less risk of being interpreted by others the wrong way.

St. Thomas had always known that Christ’s Body (with all its proper accidents) is already in Heaven, so it exists without Its proper accidents in the Eucharist. Which is why He talked very briefly about it. The main effort of his writings on the Eucharist - some of which may also be found in Book 4 of the Summa Contra Gentiles - seems to be focused on explaining how the conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ was metaphysically possible.

 

[Arthropod]

Transubstantiation is unique only to the Eucharist. Christ did not say that it was bread and His body. He said it was His body. That’s it. John 6 makes this painfully clear. St Paul declaring if we eat unworthily, we profane the body of Christ, expounds upon this teaching even further.

I don’t believe the context of John six makes it nearly as clear as you would try to make it. The people who were questioning him had just got a free lunch, and they wanted another one, and Christ was pointing them in a different direction. He equates eating with believing.

35 And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.

In light of this, I don’t see any compelling reason why his words after that about eating and drinking should be understood in a physical sense.

Furthermore, viewing it physically means that Christ later contradicts himself:

63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

So either Christ is supporting the protestant position, or he is saying “You must eat my body and drink my blood physically, then you will have eternal life. But it also profitith nothing, it is a totally useless thing to do.”

Question: if the RC position is as painfully clear as you say it is, how do you explain Augustine’s (painfully clear) views on the subject, remembering Augustine is a canonised saint and a doctor?

“They said therefore unto Him, What shall we do, that we may work the works of God?” For He had said to them, “Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth unto eternal life.” “What shall we do?” they ask; by observing what, shall we be able to fulfill this precept? “Jesus answered and said unto them, This is the work of God, that ye believe on Him whom He has sent.” This is then to eat the meat, not that which perisheth, but that which endureth unto eternal life. To what purpose dost thou make ready teeth and stomach? Believe, and thou hast eaten already.

As for taking things out of context, how about you read Justin Martyr’s Apology to the emperor. Specifically chapters 65, 66, and 67. Then come talk to me about ‘out of context’.

newadvent.org/fathers/0126.htm

As for requiring me to explain what the Fathers meant, a real, physical event can also carry symbolism with it. Just as baptism is a literal washing away of sin by the Holy Spirit, so it is also symbolic of being made physically clean, as with water washing away dirt. Now you explain to me the quotes I presented. Also, explain what Justin meant when he said the bread literally ‘transmutes’ into the body of Christ. I am very curious to learn your interpretation.

Ok, having read that section, I conceed that Justin Martyr believed in transubstantiation. (This is actually the first time anyone has given me a concrete quote in favour of transubstantiation, as I do not believe that a reference to “the body and blood of our Lord” cuts the mustard.)

I don’t understand how there could be anything symbolic about transubstantiation. The substance is changed, it is the literal body of Christ, so Christ is in you, literally. Where is the symbol / figure?

 

[Arthropod]

Ok …you are on right track here…with the ( wood: chair) idea.

Now, lets take bread, of the Eucharist. (Wheat: Bread)

The wheat (with its gluten molecules) REMAINS…able to cause allergic reaction in recipient…but, the wheat & gluten is no longer just ordinary Bread. Thus, it is TRANSMUTATED…becoming Supernatural Christ (body, blood, soul, divinity). Both the body that suffered on Cross, and that SAME body that was resurrected and now INVISIBLE to our eyes.
We see the ordinary bread …but, receive the Supernatural Bread of Life…if we receive ‘rightly’ in faith, and properly disposed to receive Christ, via the Mystery OF FAITH !

This is an interesting idea that I have never thought of before, but I still don’t believe this is compatible with church teaching.

Unless I have misunderstood you, you are saying that the wheat and gluten molecules that make up the bread, cease to do so, and make up the body of our Lord instead, although nothing changes at a molecular level. Correct?

Nothing has changed at the molecular level, it is just that someone has come along and changed the name. Its like if I took a piece of scrap metal and said it was a horse. A real, living, biologial, horse. Just one that is exclusively composed of Fe molecules. NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
It is like if I took a rock and said it was a computer (just a computer made exclusively of innanimate silicon dioxide molecules).
Or if I took a horse and said it was a cammel (just a cammel made up of horse cells).
Or if I took two men and said it was a marriage (just a homosexual marriage).

I thought tranSUBSTANCEiation meant a substantial change, not a name change.

 

[rom422]

Seriously, though, how can you say transubstantiation occurs (meaning the substance changes into something else) when it can be scientifically proven otherwise?

Unfortunately, Arthropod, science does not go deeper than accidents. Therefore, it will not be able to prove **nor disprove **that transubstantiation has taken place.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

I will avoid stating it that way, though. Instead of saying that Christ’s Body is not fully present in the Eucharist, I would say: “The proper accidents of Christ’s Body are not fully present in the Eucharist.” And instead of saying that Christ’s Body is not properly present in the Eucharist, I would say: “Christ’s Body is really present without Its proper accidents in the Eucharist.”

Rom422 I agree with your sentiments.
The difficulty is the world has changed and this arcane manner of restating things requires the “pagan” listener or potential-convert to have a near degree in Aristotelian philosophy to make sense of it. Probably not good modern day apologetics.

If Aristotelian geek-speak is off the table then we need to think of other ways of commmunicating “the facts”.

No doubt the Eucharistic teaching is hard to accept/believe for many even when understood correctly. I am humbly suggesting that to start out by saying that “Jesus’s body is fully present” in the Eucharist (or the Aristotelian “accidents” “explanation” above) is a mind twister that suggests more than a miracle . Those english words, in their usual definition, suggest (to the modern scientifically formed mind) an impossible logical contradiction more powerful a difficulty than Jesus ever intended the faithful to intellectually shoulder in faith.

For most people “full bodily presence” requires sensibility of that body. If it isn’t sensible then it isn’t “fully” there is it? For english speakers “a lack of the proper mode” means a lack of “fulness”.

I don’t know what the solution is, new wine new wineskins?
How that plays out I do not know. All I know is that the transliterated Latin words of Trent into modern English no longer seem to shed as much light on the matter as they did in the past. Even the Gospel of John makes more sense than a logical contradiction.

Maybe I have missed something .

 

[rom422]

Nothing has changed at the molecular level, it is just that someone has come along and changed the name. Its like if I took a piece of scrap metal and said it was a horse. A real, living, biologial, horse. Just one that is exclusively composed of Fe molecules. NOTHING HAS CHANGED.
It is like if I took a rock and said it was a computer (just a computer made exclusively of innanimate silicon dioxide molecules).
Or if I took a horse and said it was a cammel (just a cammel made up of horse cells).
Or if I took two men and said it was a marriage (just a homosexual marriage).

I thought tranSUBSTANCEiation meant a substantial change, not a name change.

Even at the molecular level science will not be able to get to the level of substance. Substance is not something you perceive by your senses or by your instruments. It is something you grasp by your mind. Therefore, in any talk regarding the Eucharist, the appropriate tool is philosophy rather than the empiriological sciences.

Strictly speaking, transubstantiation can neither be proved nor be disproved by science or by philosophy. In the case of the Eucharist we believe that transubstantiation takes place because our Lord said so. As believers, we accept it to be true on God’s word. But as philosophers, the best we can do is to show that it is not impossible.

 

[Arthropod]

Unfortunately, Arthropod, science does not go deeper than accidents. Therefore, it will not be able to prove **nor disprove **that transubstantiation has taken place.

I can give you a piece of bread and ask you what it is. You can do every scientific test imaginable on it to work out it is a piece of bread. We know it is a piece of bread because it as the properties of a piece of bread. I can give you two pieces of bread, one that just came out of mass and one that didn’t, and you will have absolutely no way to tell them apart.

Yet you claim there is a change of substance?

 

[rom422]

I can give you a piece of bread and ask you what it is. You can do every scientific test imaginable on it to work out it is a piece of bread. We know it is a piece of bread because it as the properties of a piece of bread. I can give you two pieces of bread, one that just came out of mass and one that didn’t, and you will have absolutely no way to tell them apart.

Yet you claim there is a change of substance?

Yes, because our Lord said so. There is no way for you to say that our claim is false as long as you are only looking at the accidental properties of the bread. Because our claim is not that there was a change in accidental properties. Our claim is that there was a conversion of substances.

Therefore, if you really want to show that transubstantiation in the Eucharist does not take place, then the way to do it is to go back to the Holy Scirptures and show that we misunderstood our Lord. But that would be a different debate.

 

[Aloysium]

I can give you a piece of bread and ask you what it is. You can do every scientific test imaginable on it to work out it is a piece of bread. We know it is a piece of bread because it as the properties of a piece of bread. I can give you two pieces of bread, one that just came out of mass and one that didn’t, and you will have absolutely no way to tell them apart.

Yet you claim there is a change of substance?

the word substance is referring to two different things
you mean the chemical structure
what others are referring to is the fact that it is Christ’s body

i’ve reconciled this to something simple:
the Host is the body of Christ

that’s as far as my intellect goes
it’s another of thing that goes into my list of mysteries,
which includes my being here right now

 

[rom422]

Rom422 I agree with your sentiments.
The difficulty is the world has changed and this arcane manner of restating things requires the “pagan” listener or potential-convert to have a near degree in Aristotelian philosophy to make sense of it. Probably not good modern day apologetics.

If Aristotelian geek-speak is off the table then we need to think of other ways of commmunicating “the facts”.

Well, I am not that quick to abandon the language and concepts carefully refined by our great philosophers and theologians. When you try to explain a mystery of faith to the layman, you may use the language of the Church Fathers, which are not heavily laden by Aristotelian terminologies. But when you want to explain it to the academic world - even the modern world - then there is no reason why the language of Aristotle should not be used. I agree, many today are not familiar with Aristotle’s concepts and vocabulary. What that means is that we need to spend more time explaining these concepts to them. When it comes to transubstantiation, I feel that the metaphysics of substance and accidents is a great tool that helps in untangling the knots that lead to misunderstanding. If metaphysics is a valid intellectual discipline, then it certainly has a right to its own scholarly jargon. We don’t complain when a mathematician talks about “the tangent to a spiral,” or when a doctor talks about performing a “frontal lobotomy,” so why should we not allow our metaphysical discourses to use terminology like “substance” and “accidents”? I think these concepts are great. Do they still make sense in the modern world? Absolutely. But you need to do a lot of explaining. If we yield to the temptation of abandoning our vocabulary because they seem to be archaic, then you run the risk of stating important doctrines imprecisely or even falsely.

No doubt the Eucharistic teaching is hard to accept/believe for many even when understood correctly. I am humbly suggesting that to start out by saying that “Jesus’s body is fully present” in the Eucharist (or the Aristotelian “accidents” “explanation” above) is a mind twister that suggests more than a miracle . Those english words, in their usual definition, suggest (to the modern scientifically formed mind) an impossible logical contradiction more powerful a difficulty than Jesus ever intended the faithful to intellectually shoulder in faith.

For most people “full bodily presence” requires sensibility of that body. If it isn’t sensible then it isn’t “fully” there is it? For english speakers “a lack of the proper mode” means a lack of “fulness”.

This is a perfect example. To say that “Christ’s Body is not fully present in the Eucharist,” could be interpreted as saying that Christ is not wholly present in the Eucharist. That would be heresy. Of course, you could avoid the heresy by explaining what you mean by “not fully present.” But if you will spend time explaining what “not fully present” means, then you might as well spend that time expaining the distinction between substance and accidents. From my experience, even high school kids understand these concepts quite easily

I

 

[Arthropod]

the word substance is referring to two different things
you mean the chemical structure
what others are referring to is the fact that it is Christ’s body

i’ve reconciled this to something simple:
the Host is the body of Christ

that’s as far as my intellect goes
it’s another of thing that goes into my list of mysteries,
which includes my being here right now

Please define bread! What is bread apart from its material chemistry?

 

[Arthropod]

Yes, because our Lord said so. There is no way for you to say that our claim is false as long as you are only looking at the accidental properties of the bread. Because our claim is not that there was a change in accidental properties. Our claim is that there was a conversion of substances.

What exactly do you mean? I certainly agree that transubstantiation as defined by the RCC requires a change in substance, and not just accidental properties.

Therefore, if you really want to show that transubstantiation in the Eucharist does not take place, then the way to do it is to go back to the Holy Scirptures and show that we misunderstood our Lord. But that would be a different debate.

I believe you have misunderstood our Lord, also, transubstantiation is not the universal teaching of the fathers.

There are some things that God cannot do by definition. God cannot make 2+2 equal five. God cannot make a circle with corners. (I bet you can’t guess what I am going to say next . . . ) God likewise cannot make a piece of bread into something else while it retains all the properties of bread.

 

[Aloysium]

Please define bread! What is bread apart from its material chemistry?

i am not a philosopher but i would assume that the substance of bread, it’s essence is that it is something that feeds the body; the amount of bread, that it burns to coal, becomes soggy in water, these and other properties are accidents to it’s essential nature of being nourishment for the body

the Host is nourishment for the soul; i am not a theologian either, and thinking gives me a headache - i prefer to pray

 

[Verbum_Caro]

God likewise cannot make a piece of bread into something else while it retains all the properties of bread.

. . . that looks like a statement that could be a candidate for unpacking/explanation/proving. Care to explain what you mean further?

(For instance, I’ve a question about the “it” that retains all the properties of bread)

VC

 

[rom422]

What exactly do you mean? I certainly agree that transubstantiation as defined by the RCC requires a change in substance, and not just accidental properties.

What I mean is that the Catholic Church claims that the conversion takes place in the level of substance. She does not say that accidental properties are changing at the same time when transubstantiation takes place. Therefore, you should not expect the Consecrated Host that came after mass to look and taste any different from the one before mass. The conversion is in the level of substance. The original substance of bread is converted into the Body of our Lord. We cannot prove this. We only believe it. The point, however, is that you can’t disprove it either - at least not by science or philosophy alone.

I believe you have misunderstood our Lord, also, transubstantiation is not the universal teaching of the fathers.

I have not misunderstood the Holy Scriptures. In my next post I am going to show you why the eating and drinking referred to in John 6 should be interpreted in the physical sense rather than figuratively. I will also comment on some texts you made on an earlier post.

Not all the Church Fathers used the language of scholastic philosophy to explain the mystery of the Eucharist. Scholastic philosophy is a later development. However, this does not mean that the Church Fathers deny the reality of transubstantiation. On the contrary they speak of the conversion of the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is what the scholastic philosophers defend by their doctrine of transubstantiation.

There are some things that God cannot do by definition. God cannot make 2+2 equal five. God cannot make a circle with corners. (I bet you can’t guess what I am going to say next . . . ) God likewise cannot make a piece of bread into something else while it retains all the properties of bread.

The things that God cannot do by definition are those that contain an intrinsic contradiction. Such is the case of a circle with corners. But there is no intrinsic contradiction in the fact that a substance changes while the accidents remain unchanged. It is true that accidents require a subject in which to inhere. Normally, the substance is the subject that supports those accidents. But God is powerful. He can produce the effect of secondary causes even in the absence of those secondary causes. If the role of a substance is to provide support to the accidents, then God can also provide that support even without the substance. How then would it be intrinsically impossible for God, if He is really omnipotent, to conserve the accidents of bread when the substance of bread had disappeared and been converted into the Body of Christ? I see no intrinsic contradiction nor impossibility here.

 

[rom422]

Arthropod:

In Post # 62 above you said:

I don’t believe the context of John six makes it nearly as clear as you would try to make it. The people who were questioning him had just got a free lunch, and they wanted another one, and Christ was pointing them in a different direction. He equates eating with believing.

I don’t know about our Lord equating eating with believing, but it is true that He was pointing them in a different direction. He was now showing Himself as the Bread of Life which, unlike the manna that the Jews ate in the desert, does not merely fill a temporary need, but gives eternal life. Then you made this quote:

*John 6:35: “And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst.” *

And you said:

In light of this, I don’t see any compelling reason why his words after that about eating and drinking should be understood in a physical sense.

Why not? Christ’s listeners certainly understood Him literally when He said: “I am the living bread, which came down from heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give, is my flesh for the life of the world” (John 6:51-52). In fact, they wondered about His speech, saying: “How can this man give us his flesh to eat?” (John 6:53) Did Christ correct them and say, “Oh no, I didn’t mean that.” On the contrary, he reiterated His teaching with unsurpassed clarity:

*John 6:54 Then Jesus said to them: Amen, amen, I say to you: Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, you shall not have life in you.
55: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath everlasting life: and I will raise him up at the last day.
56: For my flesh, is meat indeed: and my blood, is drink indeed:
57: He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, abideth in me, and I in him.” *

Christ’s claim was so clear that the listeners found it shocking. “This saying is hard, “ they said. The Evangelist then tells us: “After this many of his disciples went back: and walked no more with him” (John 6:67). Now, did Christ run after them and say, “Hey wait! You misunderstood me. Don’t go away.” No, that is not what we read in the gospels. On the contrary Christ faced His apostles and asked them: “Will you also go away?” He did not retract His words. On the contrary, He challenged their faith in Him.

From this we see evidence that even Christ expects us to interpret His words literally. Reading John 6, I see very compelling reason why his words about eating His flesh and drinking His blood need to be taken in the physical sense. Holy Scripture DOES NOT support the protestant claim that Christ’s words are to be taken only figuratively. It didn’t say it. It didn’t even hint it.

In the same Post you went on and said:

Furthermore, viewing it physically means that Christ later contradicts himself:

63 It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

So either Christ is supporting the protestant position, or he is saying “You must eat my body and drink my blood physically, then you will have eternal life. But it also profitith nothing, it is a totally useless thing to do.”

So you think that “the flesh” in the quoted text means Christ’s flesh, and that it does not profit anyone to eat it? Be careful, Arthropod. Christ does not refer to His flesh as “the flesh.” He always spoke of His flesh as “my flesh.” What the cited text actually means is this: It is the spirit that quickens; (dead) flesh profits nothing. But Christ’s flesh is not dead flesh; it is a living flesh, which means that it is animated by the Spirit. What He had asked us to eat was not His dead body, but His living flesh. In Holy Communion we receive the living Body and living Blood of our Lord.

Did I misunderstand our Lord? No, Arthropod, and I’m not walking away either.

 

[Blue_Horizon]

Well, I am not that quick to abandon the language and concepts carefully refined by our great philosophers and theologians. When you try to explain a mystery of faith to the layman, you may use the language of the Church Fathers, which are not heavily laden by Aristotelian terminologies.

Yes I agree. I think that is a better way to go. However, given that every age has found the imagination and wisdom to adapt ancient truths to modern minds - that is what I am suggesting. I am sure wise minds can do better than merely repeating English transliterated Latin clauses from 400+ years ago.

But when you want to explain it to the academic world - even the modern world - then there is no reason why the language of Aristotle should not be used.

I am not really talking about elite or professional audiences who may or may not have any interest in Catholicism. I was really coming from an evangelising/apologetic angle re your every day lay persons enquiring/joining the Church in a parish setting. I myself would not be bothered trying to deeply explain our deepest mysteries to professionals who are only speculatively interested or simply curious…

To say that “Christ’s Body is not fully present in the Eucharist,” could be interpreted as saying that Christ is not wholly present in the Eucharist. That would be heresy.

I suppose I am suggesting its important to understand how our sincere enquirers use the English language. As others opine, I would never get up in front of my RCIA group and start by saying “Christ is not fully present in the Eucharist” . Not because it is heresy but because it seems to contradict the classic transliteration of a well known Latin dogma from Trent.

However if someone in the group stood up and said this (even if they used the word “wholly”) I would start by agreeing and then clarify how I think they are using those English words by continuing, “Yes, we obviously do not see Jesus’s body so in a sense he is indeed not completely with us.” One could then go on to explain what is really meant by “wholly” bodily present wrt the Eucharist.

But if you will spend time explaining what “not fully present” means, then you might as well spend that time expaining the distinction between substance and accidents From my experience, even high school kids understand these concepts quite easily .

Good luck with that, especially within the tight time constraints of an RCIA course .

 

[Blue_Horizon]

That is interesting. Perhaps we can find some other texts that speak to it.

If you know of something that would be terrific.

I think, as you identified “exists in another” but further, in another as in a subject.

Very good. I have not spent time teasing this out to see what additional insights this might bring. Would you like to develop this further in the context we are speaking of? e.g. If Jesus’s bodily accidents “act in the manner of a substance” then why cannot we we just subsume them into His substance and stop calling them accidents? Or, is Aquinas in effect positing the existence of a substance/accident relationship between principles within “substance” itself. That is, can “parts” be distinguished within the subject (i.e. Jesus “substance” itself). Probably not, but it is very dificult to understand exaclty what he meant by Jesus’s accidents acting “in the manner of a substance.” Maybe they are no longer really “accidents” in the strictest sense?

I don’t see, at this point, any reason to posit that material accidents must mediate the substance to our intellect in order for it to fit in the category of “accident”.

I agree it doesn’t need to actually do this. But if you are saying that even the potentiality to interact with the sensible cosmos need not be there (even if only detectable via scientific instruments) then I am not yet convinced. Any examples?

The problem, though, in the Eucharist is that the “accidents” that we are speaking of aren’t just “un-sensed” (like the redness of an apple in a shoebox) but that they are unable to be sensed at all, since they are present in an unheard of manner: “substantially present”.

Yes, this is exactly the point I am making re glorified eyes. Very difficult. Singularities are hard to philosophise about .

But, to my way of thinking sensible accidents are only called sensible because our senses are ordered towards that kind of being.

I think what you are saying could be interpreted a number of ways. I think “sensible accidents” means we are talking about material substances not spiritual substances (which also have accidents, as in a subject). In the Eucharist we of course are talking about a material substance Jesus’s body) so sensibility would seem intrinsic to the defintion of his bodily accidents even if glorified?

Do you think Aquinas would say that it is present? Or at least, it is present objectively regardless of the limits of your ability to sense it?

This of course is the BIG gulf between scholasticism and “modern” scientific man called the enlightenment. Too big a question to answer here. I think Aquinas’s vision is bigger than the “logic” of Scholasticism, but its hard for us to guage when he goes beyond the normal limits of his scholastic vocab. That he had 4 secretaries he verbally dictated to simultaneously doesn’t help either!

Provisionally, I would be slow to surrender the idea of all the intrinsic accident being there.

Agreed, always good to stay with the “literal” sense so to speak unless good reason to go elsewhere.

This is because, to me, the notion of a body requires at least an internal kind of relation/position so that we can, even conceptually, distinguish one part from another (i.e. eyes go on head, feet on legs). Without that, I’m not sure “body” makes much sense.

Agreed. But, as above, if accidents do not have to be even potentially sensible then I am not at all sure Aristotle would call them accidents any more. Can they then be located into substance in some way? In this context I often wonder about disembodied souls. The soul obviously must have a metaphysic “body” principle that will organise matter into a body even when no matter or dimension is present. A principle supporting dimension and parts even though neither can exist in any way in a disembodied soul. I am not sure if this helps the present discussion!

I think Aquinas mentions this kind of internal dimension. . . or maybe Cajetan?

Yes I think you are absolutely right. There appears to be a dimensive aspect that conceptually preceeds any spatial realisation of dimension. Whether we have crossed the line between substance and accident with this non-sensible “dimension” I am not sure. I have never found writers in this area clearly explain the concept, though it does at first pass seem to belong to the primary accident (quanitity) in some strange fashion.

 

[brb3]

Verbum Caro…

Ur the expert.

Define for us Consubstantiation, then Transubstantiaion …regarding SUBSTANCE — as either (Molecules, atoms,elements, subatomic particles ) or otherwise ( if you wish). Bring in the Metaphysics ( if u wish ) … into your answer.
Then, define the word MYSTERY for us …and how it fits into the Catholic teaching on Transubstantiation.