What errors does the dogma of transubstantiation exclude? The answer, at least in the presumptuous judgment of this non-Catholic Pontificator, is clear. It excludes any opinion that does not or cannot affirm that the consecrated elements are, really and truly, the body and blood of the risen Jesus Christ. This is a down-to-earth interpretation of the dogma and does not require an elaborate scholastic metaphysic. Indeed, contemporary Catholic theologians are clear that no council can impose on the Church a particular school or system of philosophy. Thus Aidan Nichols:
Aidan Nichols:
It may be said at once that the Church’s teaching office has no authority to impose a philosophical system, such as Aristotelian Thomism (essentially, a Platonized Aristotelianism modified by the introduction of the notion of creation), on all Catholic divines…. We must distinguish, then, between, on the one hand, the vital systematic philosophical exposition of a natural truth vital to revelation, and that natural truth itself–apprehended, we might say, spontaneously and pre-philosophically by human beings in various cultures or situations. (
The Holy Eucharist
, pp. 114-115)
In other words, the dogmatic definition of Trent only requires a commonsense, pre-philosophical ontology. In this context substance answers the question, What is that object? What was the bread and wine before the consecration? Bread and wine. After the consecration? Body and blood. The dogma says no more and no less than this.
Catholic theologians are also clear that the Tridentine dogma does not seek to explain the “how” of the eucharistic transformation. Thus the 1971 ARCIC agreement on the Eucharist:
ARCIC:
The word transubstantiation is commonly used in the Roman Catholic Church to indicate that God acting in the eucharist effects a change in the inner reality of the elements. The term should be seen as affirming the fact of Christ’s presence and of the mysterious and radical change which takes place. In contemporary Roman Catholic theology it is not understood as explaining how the change takes place.
Let me propose a practical test on whether a proposed eucharistic opinion satisfies the Catholic dogma: May the Christian direct his adoration to the Blessed Sacrament? Or to put it bluntly, may he pray to that object on the altar that appears to be bread?
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wrong more than once in my life. Still, as much as I love the Wesleyan hymns (I sing in the choir), I love them as music, not as theology. I am ill at ease because, having written some poems in my life, I know that meaning is often sacrificed just to make the lines scan!
