Transubstantiation and Celiac Disease

[Matthew_Holford]

Correct. I hope I didn’t imply anything different.

Maybe, maybe not. You did mention science in post 34. Perhaps you weren’t saying it explains transubstantiation.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Maybe, maybe not. You did mention science in post 34. Perhaps you weren’t saying it explains transubstantiation.

I certainly did not intend to imply that. Only God ( i.e. God speaking through the Church) can explain transubstantion. When the Church explains transubstantion it is speaking for God. So we have to realize that terms like " substance, " " accident, " " species " must be understood as having the meaning God intended. We have to realize that our human understanding of these things ( as defined by science, metaphysics or common sense ) may not have the same exact meaning. And even in our human understanding, using human categories, there is a divergent range of meanings for these terms. " Substance " in metaphysics is one of the most difficult concepts to grasp - and how many really understand it?

So when all is said and done all we know is what has been defined by the Church. See post # 27 above. In the end we are left with the categories of Faith. Bread and wine have been changed into the Body and Blood of Christ and what we see and sense and are even able to measure are appearances only - the " veil " beneath which the real Substance of Christ is hidden but which is actually there. Every act of consecration is a Miracle as any of the other Miracles workde by Christ but more marvelous.

 

[LaMusicaSenior]

Transubstantiation is a philosophical term for what we believe goes on during the consecration. The bread and wine’s substance, it’s “is-ness”, or what it actually is as opposed to what it is observed to be, is being changed/transformed from the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus. In all scientific studies that would be done on the consecrated host and blood, it would show results saying it is bread and wine, but it is actually Jesus.

To understand this, consider your own self. You have a body and soul. If your soul and consciousness were swapped with someone else’s, you would be you, but in someone else’s body. On all scientific tests, it would say you were the other person, but what you really are is you!

This differs from the Lutheran teaching of consubstantiation in the fact that their belief is that nothing is transformed, but that Jesus is added to the substance bread and wine, so it is one physical thing with two substances, one being Jesus and the other being the bread or wine. Continuing with the example before, it would be as if your soul and consciousness were stuffed into someone else’s body while they were still in it. So you both would be possessing the same body.

Both teach about the Real Presence, but one involves a transformation, the other involves an addition.

^^^ This.

I’m not the OP but THANK YOU for putting it into a metahpor - you have no idea how much that helped me understand this!

 

[Linusthe2nd]

For those still interested.

On substance and accident.

saintaquinas.com/primer.html Starts three paragraphs down.

Clincher. Prime Matter and Substantial Form

Now that we understand the difference between a substance and an accident as well as the ten categories of being, we can attempt to further understand what exactly a substance really is. Aristotle believed that a substance is composed of prime matter and form. Prime matter is not the same thing as physical matter (the kind we usually think of as composed of atoms). Instead, prime matter should be thought of in terms of potency and actuality. Prime matter is nothing more than pure potency. It is the substantial underlying reality of all things, and as such, has the potential to become anything. Prime matter (since it is substantial) has no physical appearance, quality or quantity. Prime matter cannot even be thought of separate from form. Form is what allows prime matter to become substance. For instance, all of the elements on the Periodic Table (such as iron, gold, silver, mercury, etc.) can be thought of as comprised of prime matter. The thing that differentiates the elements from each other is their form. Silver and gold are composed of the same prime matter but have different form. Form and prime matter constitute the substance of any object, and the substance of that object is inhered with accidents that give the substance a physical character

End Quote.
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So all you can see or measure or analyze scientifically are accidents. It is the accidents which remain after the consecration. And by a miracle of God they adhere in no substance, they adhere to nothing at all. The substance of the bread and wine have become the substance of the Body and Blood of Christ. Before the consecration what you see is the species of bread and the species of wine. After the consecration you see the accidents of each species. Nor do the accidents adhere to the substance of Christ for he has his own proper accidents. Besides, just the thought of such a thing is unbecoming.

What we have to believe as Catholics is that the substances of the bread and wine have been changed into the substances of the Body and Blood of Christ. And by concomitance the entire Christ, Body and Blood, soul and Divinity are present behind ( as a veil) the appearances of both the bread and wine. And if one were to break off a chip of the host or take a single drop of the " wine " the entire Christ would be present. Futher, the entire Christ remains until the " accidents " are digested or other wise destroyed.

Catholics are not free to believe in other doctirne of the real Presence.

 

[DarkLight]

Catholics are not free to believe in other doctirne of the real Presence.

What exactly is the doctrine of the real presence? Say I believe that the wafer is truly the body of Christ and not bread, but I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a “bread substance” or prime matter or anything like that.

 

[Gorgias]

What exactly is the doctrine of the real presence?

CCC 1374 says:

The mode of Christ’s presence under the Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments as “the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the sacraments tend.” In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” “This presence is called ‘real’ - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence as if they could not be ‘real’ too, but because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.”

I would assert that this is the “doctrine of the real presence”.

Say I believe that the wafer is truly the body of Christ and not bread, but I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a “bread substance” or prime matter or anything like that.

I’ll have to re-read my Aquinas, but I thought he wasn’t big on the notion of “prime matter”.

In answer to your question, I would say that your issue is with “transubstantiation”, not “real presence”.

Are you the same person that you were when you were 14? When you were 5? There are differences in your appearance between then and now – for instance, the exact cells in your body then aren’t there now… but you’re still you, aren’t you? Then you believe that there’s something that underlies your physical self. In other words, you believe that there’s a ‘substance’ to you that transcends your physical composition.

On the other hand, you would agree that, if I knew what your physical characteristics were, then I could distinguish you from, let’s say, a rock or a tree or another person, right? Then you believe that there are physical characteristics that you have that are associated with you… but which aren’t you, properly speaking. (After all, even if I recognized you in a crowd today, that doesn’t mean that I would have recognized you in a crowd when you were 5, right?) OK, then… you believe in ‘accidents’.

So, the Catholic explanation is merely that the accidents – the physical characteristics – stay the same (all our senses experience ‘bread’ and ‘wine’), but that the ‘real presence’ (that is, the substance) changes from bread/wine to Jesus. Do you have a problem with it, expressed in this way?

 

[Linusthe2nd]

What exactly is the doctrine of the real presence? Say I believe that the wafer is truly the body of Christ and not bread, but I don’t believe that there is such a thing as a “bread substance” or prime matter or anything like that.

Of course I am just saying what Catholics have to believe. I can’t speak for the Church, nor can I or any catholic alter the meaning of words like " substance, " " accident, " or " species, " as used in Defined Dogma. Christ was not present before consecration, whereas He is present after the consecration. What was " bread " and " wine " has now been changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. Before the consecration what you saw was real bread and real wine, what you see after the consecration are not bread and wine but only what looks like bread and wine. In other words what you see are not bread and wine but a sort of " veil " ( my interpretation only ) covering the real, physical, but glorified body and blood of Christ, in the same exact form He now has in heaven. In this case the " veil " looks like bread and wine, it tasts like bread and wine, smells like the same, can be tested by science and tests the same as bread and wine, but no longer is bread and wine. What you see are " appearances " only. Christ Himself is hidden behind these " appearances."

I think, at the very least, you would have to believe what I have just said. But again, I cannot speak for the Church. You have to remember that we are talking about a miracle here. He Who made the Universe and keeps it going for His own ends and purposes can certainly do the things the Church says He has done and does tens of thousands of times each day around the world. It is He who took human form and reality and became man through Mary, who healed the sick and infirm, who feed thousands with a few loaves and a few fishes, who changed water into wine at the marriage feast, who said " this is my Body, this is the cup of my Blood…"

The excert of the Encyclical Mysterium Fidei of Paul Vl quoted by Vica in post 27 is a restatement of the Dogma of the Real Presence. Catholics should study it carefully.

vatican.va/holy_father/pa…terium_en.html

As human beings we communicate with each other trusting in the ability of our human intellect and reason to make correct judgments based on our intellectual processes and using our particular languages. If we do not trust ourselves to make judgements based on our God given abilities and to communicate accurately about these judgments and realities, then nothing intellectually, scientifically, philosophically, spiritually, ontologically is possible to know or to communicate.

 

[DarkLight]

My mistake in phrasing. I’m asking what the doctrine of transubstantiation is, as opposed to the explanations of it. Like I said, I believe that the wafer isn’t bread. I just don’t believe mere physical things like bread and wine have “essences.” People are a different issue - our continuity lies in our soul and not our body.

 

[curlycool89]

Thank you all for your imput…great answers…

Now allow me to play the devil’s advocate…

Bread being an inanimate object are not its accidents (i.e. it physical makeup) in fact its essence? What else is there to bread? If so, are we not back to consubstantiation if after the Consecration the accidents remain?

Ah yes. The old metaphysical question.

It was questions like this that lead Berkeley to develop idealism because “substance” is something that we cannot actually know or observe.

If we were to describe an object in the Aristotelean metaphysical system (and in many other systems, this just happens to be the one we mostly use), you would list all the sensible properties (it’s white, flat, texture, ect.) and then also add “and there is a substance”. The substance is the sort of thing that holds the properties, but doesn’t have any properties unto itself. Properties (accidents) are things that depend on something else, they do not exist as a separate thing, which is why we say that there is a substance that holds the properties.

From what I understand the substance/accident distinction is not doctrine, though it is the most common explanation of the doctrine. It’s a pretty big metaphysical commitment to make.

That is true (from my understanding). In the early days of Christianity, the language of philosophy (by and large Greek philosophy) was adopted to explain some of the mysteries of the faith. They are tools to explain things by analogy (if you will), but they themselves are not dogma.

Just trying to nail this down…

So what would be examples of the substance or essence of bread?

What would be examples of the accidents of bread?

That’s the issue, isn’t it? Substance is not something we can describe; substance is simply the “what-it-is”, which in this case is Jesus Christ (and not bread).

The accidents are all the properties.

It’s not something we can prove to you, only something we can explain by analogy.

As a philosopher, my main concern is that this explanation relies on a particular theory of objects that is extremely controversial. It originated with Aristotle and was popular in medieval times when Aristotle was the main philosophical text that most scholars had access to. Church doctrine forcing me to accept a metaphysical theory on the nature of all objects? That seems a bit too much. I would be careful of confusing the explanation with the doctrine. There are other ways of explaining it out there.

You are not forced to accept Aristotle’s metaphysics, it’s just how we explain it. If you can explain it using Kantian metaphysics, then I wouldn’t see that as a problem (but I don’t think it won’t work in idealism because there’s no external stuff).

Most realist metaphysicians do subscribe to some sort of “substance theory” where properties are dependent things and require some sort of underlying “stuff” to hold the properties (substance or substratum or what-have-you), so I wouldn’t say that holding that there are properties and something that holds them is controversial.

People are a different issue - our continuity lies in our soul and not our body.

I’d be careful, that explanation is a little too Cartesian/Platonic

 

[Linusthe2nd]

My mistake in phrasing. I’m asking what the doctrine of transubstantiation is, as opposed to the explanations of it. Like I said, I believe that the wafer isn’t bread. I just don’t believe mere physical things like bread and wine have “essences.” People are a different issue - our continuity lies in our soul and not our body.

I don’t think the explanation I just gave you would require you to believe or know or think that physical things like bread and wine had " essences. " However you must realize that if you reject " essences " you in effect make science impossible, indeed you may make human thought and communication impossible. If you are Catholic and wish to remain one in good standing you are required to believe what the Church teaches about transubstantion. And as I have just said that may not actually entail believing in a certain definition of " substance, " " accident, " " species, " or even of " essence."

It would absolutely require that you believe that the bread and wine have been changed into the real Body and Blood of Christ. The term " transubstantion " has been adopted to describe that change. Just call it a change in reality if you will, a change from real bread and real wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. And in this case what you see after the consecration would be " appearances. "

Now I really don’t know if you are Catholic or not, or perhaps you are an agnostic or an atheist who is attempting to force Catholics to prove the Real Presence. Well that is impossible, you know that. The Church has said that it is a matter of Revelation and is not something that can be proven but must be accepted on Faith. But surely you realize the Church has to use some human language to speak about this and other items of strict Revelation. If human categories of speech do not meet your standards then it will be impossible to speak to you about this or anything else. Surely you can see that.

 

[DarkLight]

I’d be careful, that explanation is a little too Cartesian/Platonic

Not necessarily. There’s all sorts of theories of souls out there, any one of which would work here. You can easily hold that the soul can’t naturally exist apart from the body, or even an emergent view where it is in some sense a product of the body. I tend to favor the former - the soul is the essential piece of what makes an individual human being that person and not some other person. But that doesn’t imply that the soul is independent of the body. There’s a reason we believe in the physical resurrection, after all!

I don’t think the explanation I just gave you would require you to believe or know or think that physical things like bread and wine had " essences. " However you must realize that if you reject " essences " you in effect make science impossible, indeed you may make human thought and communication impossible. If you are Catholic and wish to remain one in good standing you are required to believe what the Church teaches about transubstantion. And as I have just said that may not actually entail believing in a certain definition of " substance, " " accident, " " species, " or even of " essence."

It would absolutely require that you believe that the bread and wine have been changed into the real Body and Blood of Christ. The term " transubstantion " has been adopted to describe that change. Just call it a change in reality if you will, a change from real bread and real wine into the Body and Blood of Christ. And in this case what you see after the consecration would be " appearances. "

Now I really don’t know if you are Catholic or not, or perhaps you are an agnostic or an atheist who is attempting to force Catholics to prove the Real Presence. Well that is impossible, you know that. The Church has said that it is a matter of Revelation and is not something that can be proven but must be accepted on Faith. But surely you realize the Church has to use some human language to speak about this and other items of strict Revelation. If human categories of speech do not meet your standards then it will be impossible to speak to you about this or anything else. Surely you can see that.

I’m a philosopher who is becoming Catholic. I’m not asking for “proof” in the sense that you are probably thinking, of scientific proof. I am asking, as someone who deals in philosophy and the nature of things, what the revelation exactly is. From my view, these are not just “human” categories, they are a very specific set of technical terms that belong to one school of philosophy. I am interested in developing good explanations which don’t depend on a specific metaphysical theory, particularly one that is very old and problematic. I am quite familiar with the Aristotelean definitions of “substance” and “accident”, which are the ones that Aquinas and Thomistic though after him use, and I think they are a poor explanation of how ordinary matter behaves. Basic matter is capable of a multitude of rearrangements; terms like “bread” or “chair” are simply terms for certain arrangements of matter that we use for certain functions. Trying to apply them too strictly leads to major confusions about when even ordinary matter is the same thing or not.

 

[Linusthe2nd]

Not necessarily. There’s all sorts of theories of souls out there, any one of which would work here. You can easily hold that the soul can’t naturally exist apart from the body, or even an emergent view where it is in some sense a product of the body. I tend to favor the former - the soul is the essential piece of what makes an individual human being that person and not some other person. But that doesn’t imply that the soul is independent of the body. There’s a reason we believe in the physical resurrection, after all!

I’m a philosopher who is becoming Catholic. I’m not asking for “proof” in the sense that you are probably thinking, of scientific proof. I am asking, as someone who deals in philosophy and the nature of things, what the revelation exactly is. From my view, these are not just “human” categories, they are a very specific set of technical terms that belong to one school of philosophy. I am interested in developing good explanations which don’t depend on a specific metaphysical theory, particularly one that is very old and problematic. I am quite familiar with the Aristotelean definitions of “substance” and “accident”, which are the ones that Aquinas and Thomistic though after him use, and I think they are a poor explanation of how ordinary matter behaves. Basic matter is capable of a multitude of rearrangements; terms like “bread” or “chair” are simply terms for certain arrangements of matter that we use for certain functions. Trying to apply them too strictly leads to major confusions about when even ordinary matter is the same thing or not.

O.K. I would like to help you more but I don’t think I can as regards the terminology. As
regards the Revelation you should read John 6: 26-70. For the Dogmas related and some explanation read Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma by Dr. Ludwig Ott and the Catechism of the Catholic Church. Good luck.