Transubstantiation as explanation

[christismylord]

But there is no underlying source of being that differs between bread and wine.

But I never said that bread and wine are different. I said that both are different than Christ’s soul and divinity. God chose to have bread symbolize the body and wine symbolize the blood. Why? Who knows, I don’t know the mind of God, but it may be that they resemble these things by their image, which is how we perceive them. God knows we perceive them differently even though He created them from the same underlying materials.

I suppose with the knowledge we now know, we could use Aristotle’s “substance” and “accidents” theory in different ways:

1. We could interpret the word “substance” slightly differently than they used to, in that we recognize the underlying makeup of matter is the same, but the number of protons is different in the elements, and the arrangement and composition of material in mixtures is different, so in that way they have a different created nature.
2. Keeping the original intended perception of a truly different makeup, we can recognize that the “substance” of created matter is different than the “substance” of a human soul or spirit which is immaterial and certainly different than the uncreated divinity and spirit of God (also immaterial)

Both ways of thinking accept the theory of transubstantiation in the Eucharist.

 

[BartholomewB]

The OP is making a very good point. Historically, Aquinas adopted Aristotle’s terminology of “substance” and “accidents” as part of his larger project for ironing out the apparently irreconcilable differences between Aristotelian philosophy and the Catholic faith. Nowadays we no longer use these terms, as Aristotle did, to explain the phenomena of the material world.

If we are trying to explain to a nonscientist why we see the flash of lightning before we hear the thunder, or how a cow turns grass into milk, or why a can goes rusty if we leave it out in the rain, we no longer explain those things in terms of “substance” and “accidents”. But Aristotle did, which is why Aquinas decided he needed to explain the Eucharist, too, using the same Aristotelian terminology.

When we try and use the terms “substance” and “accidents” to explain the Catholic doctrine of the Eucharist to a nonbeliever, we run into the difficulty that we first have to explain what the two words themselves mean. The trouble is that in our present-day world these terms are now used only in connection with the Eucharist.

 

[Vico]

Vico:

In Aristotle’s metaphysics there is one category for substance and nine categories for accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation, action, and being acted on. The accident is a property with no necessary connection to the essence of the thing.

Is there any support for this categorisation in light of our understanding of nature today?

Example from Quantum Physics comparison to form and matter: subatomic particles can’t separate out electrons one from another and still maintain their individuation – an electron is that which is known by its properties as an electron – so this is like a form of Aristotle. The electron can take various quantum states (these are described by Schrodinger’s wave equation) which can be likened to matter of Aristotle.

 

[BartholomewB]

Are there actually physics books in which the author uses the terms “substance” and “accidents” to explain individuation and quantum states? I don’t think so.

 

[Michaelangelo]

But I never said that bread and wine are different. I said that both are different than Christ’s soul and divinity.

So the bread and wine has the same substance. Yet you said earlier:

“The word “substance” refers to any individual being, anything that exists in and of itself.”
“…and the substance is their source of being.”

So how is the “individual being” and “source of being” of bread and wine different while they, at the same, time share the same substance?

God knows we perceive them differently even though He created them from the same underlying materials.

Did god create bread and wine? When?

I suppose with the knowledge we now know, we could use Aristotle’s “substance” and “accidents” theory in different ways:

1. We could interpret the word “substance” slightly differently than they used to, in that we recognize the underlying makeup of matter is the same, but the number of protons is different in the elements, and the arrangement and composition of material in mixtures is different, so in that way they have a different created nature.

A proton is as much a composition of more fundamental things as a piece of bread is. What you perceive as differences in composition only exists on a large scale. But this perception only exists because you do not have access to the fundamental level. The smell of bread does not exist outside your brain. I can mix the chemical components of the aroma of bread and whiff it under your nose and you detect bread without any bread being there at all. If you could “zoom” in on that cloud of bread aroma to the level of individual molecules there would be no bread aroma at all. So where is the being of the aroma?

1. Keeping the original intended perception of a truly different makeup, we can recognize that the “substance” of created matter is different than the “substance” of a human soul or spirit which is immaterial and certainly different than the uncreated divinity and spirit of God (also immaterial)

Outside the realm of philosophy there is no support for the existence of a “soul, spirit or substance”. I see them as word constructs without any observational support. But I’m willing to learn otherwise. It is just that I don’t see more words constructs being sufficient as support.

Both ways of thinking accept the theory of transubstantiation in the Eucharist.

Since when is there a need for the church to formulate a “theory” for this? Especially when the church begins and ends the whole “theory” with “it’s a miracle”?

 

[christismylord]

So how is the “ individual being ” and “ source of being ” of bread and wine different while they, at the same, time share the same substance?

It’s not.

Did god create bread and wine? When?

Exactly 34 BC. (Hahaha this is funny, I did not mean He created them, rather that He knows how we perceive them and He made the particles they are made of)

So where is the being of the aroma?

I’d say aroma is an proper “accident” of the bread. There are two kinds of accidents: accidents generally so called non-proper accidents and proper accidents, also known as properties. Non-proper accidents can come to be and pass away in the same substance, as a a piece of cloth can be dyed green or red and still be a piece of cloth. A proper accident, on the other hand, is rooted in and flows from the nature of a substance so that it is always present when the substance is present

Since when is there a need for the church to formulate a “theory” for this? Especially when the church begins and ends the whole “theory” with “it’s a miracle”?

Just to try to explain it as best we can, which we cannot entirely, because it is a miracle

 

[Vico]

Are there actually physics books in which the author uses the terms “substance” and “accidents” to explain individuation and quantum states? I don’t think so.

Do you mean Quantum Physics textbooks? Quantum uses neither Aristotle nor modern materialism. At least one author has analyzed the application of Aristotle metaphysics to Quantum. There is a long list of references here:

Kožnjak, B. Aristotle and Quantum Mechanics: Potentiality and Actuality, Spontaneous Events and Final Causes. J Gen Philos Sci (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10838-020-09500-y

 

[BartholomewB]

Quantum uses neither Aristotle nor modern materialism.

That’s an instance of what I was saying in my post #23. In our present-day world the terms “substance” and “accidents” are now used only in connection with the Eucharist. In the last few minutes I’ve been looking to see what terminology the authors of the CCC use to explain the Real Presence. The word “substance” appears a few times, and “transubstantiation” occurs at least one time, in paragraph 1376, but I didn’t find the word “accident(s)” anywhere. Am I looking in the wrong place? The relevant paragraphs, unless I’m mistaken, are #1373 to 1381:

https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P41.HTM

 

[Vico]

Vico:

Quantum uses neither Aristotle nor modern materialism.

That’s an instance of what I was saying in my post #23. In our present-day world the terms “substance” and “accidents” are now used only in connection with the Eucharist. In the last few minutes I’ve been looking to see what terminology the authors of the CCC use to explain the Real Presence. The word “substance” appears a few times, and “transubstantiation” occurs at least one time, in paragraph 1376, but I didn’t find the word “accident(s)” anywhere. Am I looking in the wrong place? The relevant paragraphs, unless I’m mistaken, are #1373 to 1381:

Catechism of the Catholic Church - IntraText

Those terms are used in modern times in topics that you are not studying, apparently, such as metaphysics.

Transubstantiation is not about change of the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist, but rather of the substance, so substance is really the term needed and used in the Catechism. The accidents are the species, the visible form of each element.

Merriam-Webster defines accident (noun) as:
3. a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance

 

[po18guy]

I think you have. The Church explains how it can look and taste like what it was, but in substance - Sacramentally - be of quite a different nature. The Apostles understood this. I wonder why we fail so often…?

To look at me you would never guess that I have two separate adult DNAs in me. And not parental - but mine and that of a stem cell donor. So, I am the accidents (appearance) and my blood/immune system is now the substance. Bad analogy, but the best I could come up with on the run.

Anyway, read the word: Transubstantiation.

What else would you call it?

 

[tweedlealice]

I don’t know? Trans means ACROSS. Substantiation means SUBSTANCE. The Holy Spirit, when the words are spoken: “THIS IS MY BODY”. THIS IS MY BLOOD ,etc.” changes the Spirit or Essence of the bread & wine to Jesus’s body & blood.
Google: EUCHARISTIC MIRACLES.
You’ll understand

 

[Aulef]

What is the definition of substance you have in mind? Because what the Church teaches was already said by @Vico

 

[Vico]

Etym. Latin trans- , so as to change + substantia , substance: transubstantiatio , change of substance.

 

[Michaelangelo]

In the Eucharist: the substance of the bread and wine changes, but the accidents remain the same. That is, what they are is now different, but what they are like is not.

The substance (very essence and being) of the bread and wine, by transubstantiation, are changed into the substance (very essence and being) of the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus.

Again, I just quote what you stated earlier in the thread. In the first quotation you claim that the substance of the bread and wine is what they are. Thusly, since bread is not the same as wine, they must have different substances. So bread has one substance and wine has another substance. Ok?

In the next quotation you state that the very essence and being of the bread and wine changes. Again, bread is bread and wine is wine. So they can’t share the same essence and being (whatever that is).

My question remains the same: do you have ANY support for the existence of something that is the essence, being or substance of for example bread and wine? You use the terms as an explanation without explaining the meaning of the terms. According to what I quoted from you the bread and wine can’t share the same substance. Yet if one took a peek at a random neutron from the bread and a random neutron from the wine, one would not be able to tell them apart. So where and what is the substance that differs between them? How is it detected? If you claim it exists you have to be able to back that claim up with some observational support.

Exactly 34 BC. (Hahaha this is funny, I did not mean He created them, rather that He knows how we perceive them and He made the particles they are made of)

I’d say aroma is an proper “accident” of the bread. There are two kinds of accidents: accidents generally so called non-proper accidents and proper accidents, also known as properties. Non-proper accidents can come to be and pass away in the same substance, as a a piece of cloth can be dyed green or red and still be a piece of cloth. A proper accident, on the other hand, is rooted in and flows from the nature of a substance so that it is always present when the substance is present

But the aroma is not part of the bread. The molecules in the aroma have left the bread and interacted with your sensory organs. And I can recreate the aroma without any bread at all. Do you even understand how the aroma is generated in the first place?

And regarding the example with the cloth. Where is and what is the being or substance that make the cloth a cloth? I’m asking because that being has to be separate from the dye. And the dye has to have a being or substance of its own. So at what point does the being or substance of the dye become the accident of the cloth?

Just to try to explain it as best we can, which we cannot entirely, because it is a miracle

Is there something wrong with a simple we don’t know?

 

[Michaelangelo]

Michaelangelo:

Vico:

In Aristotle’s metaphysics there is one category for substance and nine categories for accidents: quantity, quality, relation, habitus, time, location, situation, action, and being acted on. The accident is a property with no necessary connection to the essence of the thing.

Is there any support for this categorisation in light of our understanding of nature today?

Example from Quantum Physics comparison to form and matter: subatomic particles can’t separate out electrons one from another and still maintain their individuation – an electron is that which is known by its properties as an electron – so this is like a form of Aristotle. The electron can take various quantum states (these are described by Schrodinger’s wave equation) which can be likened to matter of Aristotle.

Excuse me? I might be a bit slow here. But I fail to see anything resembling those categories with your example with the electron.

 

[Michaelangelo]

Transubstantiation is not about change of the visible form of each of the elements of consecrated bread and wine in the Eucharist, but rather of the substance, so substance is really the term needed and used in the Catechism. The accidents are the species, the visible form of each element.

Merriam-Webster defines accident (noun) as:
3. a nonessential property or quality of an entity or circumstance

I repeat my question once more. Have what is described as the substance of, in this case bread, been observed to exist? Because a proton from a piece of the bread can’t be told apart from a proton from the wine. So how is substance verified to exist to begin with? If it can’t be verified to exist how can it be a term needed to explain something that is still at the end of the day explained with *it’s a miracle"?

 

[Bithynian]

why the church continues to use this explanatory model

For a few reasons:

(1) It was at the Reformation that the Eucharist was first subject to great controversy vis-a-vis the particular theological claims about it. In contradistinction to the other models offered by the Reformers (which often integrated Hellenistic philosophy to some extent or another), the Catholic Church determined that the language of substance, accidents and transubstantiation was most orthodox.

(2) It’s important to maintain continuity with early Christian thought, regardless of how socio-culturally idiosyncratic their epistemological frameworks may have been. We still use the terms ‘substance’ (Gk: οὐσία ousia) and ‘person’ (Gk: ὑπόστασις hupostasis) to describe the Trinity, even though Neo-Platonic thought has exited currency for about 1,300 years. Even the Nicaeno-Constantinopolitan Creed has highly characteristic Neo-Platonic statements, ‘light from light’, to explain the relationship between the persons of the Trinity.

(3) Attempts have been made to align understandings about the Eucharistic presence alongside those of post-Enlightenment naturalism, for example Schillebeeckx’s ‘transignificantion’ (and/or ‘transfinalisation’). Most of its claims were rejected by Pope Paul VI in his encyclical Mysterium Fidei. Part of the Pope’s objection was that despite the Eucharist ‘surpassing the laws of nature’, the sacramental presence could not be reduced to something other than a real, substantial physical presence (as though it were just a change in the recipient’s cognition of what the sacrament was and now is).

 

[Michaelangelo]

I think you have. The Church explains how it can look and taste like what it was, but in substance - Sacramentally - be of quite a different nature.

To “explain” this miracle using a term like substance, one must start with explaining what substance is. I hear all kind of explanations about being and essence and other terms (which in turn aren’t explained). But I still have not been presented with a straight answer to how one detects this substance so how is it even verified to exist to begin with. If it can’t be verified to exist, how can it be used as an explanation for something?

The Apostles understood this. I wonder why we fail so often…?

Really? Where is your sourcde for this information?

To look at me you would never guess that I have two separate adult DNAs in me. And not parental - but mine and that of a stem cell donor. So, I am the accidents (appearance) and my blood/immune system is now the substance. Bad analogy, but the best I could come up with on the run.

There is no way to tell a proton of a water molecule in your plasma from a proton of a calcium atom in your skeleton. So how can one be part of your substance while the other one isn’t?

Anyway, read the word: Transubstantiation.
What else would you call it?

It is sooo not my job to figure out what to call it. Aristole and Aquinas already did and the church continues to use it. I’m just asking why because I’ve so far not been presented with verification of the existence of a substance.

 

[christismylord]

My question remains the same: do you have ANY support for the existence of something that is the essence, being or substance of for example bread and wine? You use the terms as an explanation without explaining the meaning of the terms. According to what I quoted from you the bread and wine can’t share the same substance. Yet if one took a peek at a random neutron from the bread and a random neutron from the wine, one would not be able to tell them apart. So where and what is the substance that differs between them? How is it detected? If you claim it exists you have to be able to back that claim up with some observational support.

Does Aquinas say anything other than that bread and wine both differ from Christ’s soul and divinity? So, we don’t care if bread/wine have different or same essences from each other, only that each of them differs from the divinity of God which is present after consecration.

The difference between bread and wine (and any matter) is that the protons, neutrons, and electrons that make them up are different in number and arrangement. Can we agree on this?

So they don’t have a different “what they are made of” because they are made of the same stuff - protons, neutrons, electrons. They have different properties because their makeup and arrangement of subatomic particles differs.

All we are trying to say is that they both differ from Christ’s soul and divinity…so when transubstantiation happens, although the so called “accidents” (perceivable properties) of the food remains the same, it is actually something else (the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ) In simple terms: looks, feels, smells, and tastes like bread/wine—but it’s actually Jesus’s body, blood, soul, divinity. That’s all we believe.

And besides, Aquinas’s attempted explanation is not an infallible Church dogma, so even if he’s wrong or right, it doesn’t matter, it’s one man’s curious attempt at understanding the nature of a miracle. We don’t know exactly how it happens, we only know that it does.

 

[po18guy]

Where’s the source for your misunderstanding? Attack that first.

1 Corinthians 11 has a clue.

Otherwise, do not feel like arguing today.