Transubstantiation

[Ghosty]

Hi, Ghosty. I had a question about your last paragraph. Did you mean that an essence can exist either “in our mind” or else could be perceived “by our mind”? If so, I understand the distinction, but does this mean an essence can have two different ways of existing? I understand how an essence could be perceived by our mind, but how would an essence exist “in” our mind? Thank you.

An essence can exist in our mind by being immaterially held there, and can then be utilized, or analyzed, or picked-apart further to make other “ideas” that can have the same things done.

The essences don’t exist in our mind precisely the same way they exist in their proper manner, but they do really exist. Treeness exists as a tree in a different manner than “treeness” exists in our mind, as the first is existing materially and properly (proper, because “treeness” as a definition includes materiality, and in an actual tree it has this), the second is existing immaterially and intellectually. It has the same properties, for the purpose of definition, in the physical tree and in the mind, and that’s why we can immediately recognize “treeness” in a pine tree; what we see matches our idea, the intellectually-held essence of “tree”, and identifies these two things as being the same.

Our minds, being immaterial, can actually hold the knowledge of ALL possible matter (and of anything that can be composed of matter), but can’t physically hold ANY matter. Think of immateriality not as “nothingness”, but more like “no boundaries”. A material thing can only be one thing, because it’s bound by its hard matter to hold one shape, whereas an immaterial thing has the same properties of existing and being, but without the limitation of being bound up by hard matter.

Now, as a side note that goes back to the topic of the thread, in transubstantiation a miracle occurs in which the substance of Christ replaces the substance of bread, but without “taking on” the accidents of that bread. This means Christ’s flesh doesn’t become composed of wheat, nor does Christ become a little circle that can be easily chewed up, but rather He remains intact with a new corresponding set of accidents. So when we touch the wafer we are touching Christ, but not because Christ is a wafer of bread; He remains a whole, functioning Incarnated Son of God, with body and blood and soul and Divinity. We eat Him by eating the wafer, but He is not bound by the accidents, nor attached to them, in the same way that a pine tree is bound by the accidents of “brown” and “ten feet tall”. When we lift the wafer, we lift up Christ, but He is not being raised a foot off His Throne when we do so. This is also why we are able to say that we receive the whole Christ in just the smallest fraction, or even with only just the wafer or just the cup.

It’s a miracle precisely because it is outside the normal operation and existence of physical things to exist with accidents, but without having a direct and binding “shaping” of themselves by those accidents; they are really connected such that interacting with the accidents is interacting with Christ, but they are not connected in the manner which is normal and natural for substances and accidents to be connected.

Peace and God bless!

 

[cpayne]

Thank you–very helpful.

 

[JimG]

Actually, everything that physics and chemistry deals with would be considered “accidents.” All we can perceive of any object is what is perceptible by our senses, or by extension, our scientific instruments.

In transubstantiation, the accidents remain. Consequently, no change can be perceived by our senses.

Even in scientifc experiments, we do not come into “direct” contact with anything. We use our senses and extensions of our senses to perceive objects. By definition, we perceive accidents. We might see how objects are perceived by our natural vision, by x-rays, by infrared rays, by MRI imaging, etc; in each case, we are using various extensions of our senses to perceive the accidents relating to an object without ever directly perceiving its substance.

 

[Ghosty]

Actually, everything that physics and chemistry deals with would be considered “accidents.” All we can perceive of any object is what is perceptible by our senses, or by extension, our scientific instruments.

In transubstantiation, the accidents remain. Consequently, no change can be perceived by our senses.

Even in scientifc experiments, we do not come into “direct” contact with anything. We use our senses and extensions of our senses to perceive objects. By definition, we perceive accidents. We might see how objects are perceived by our natural vision, by x-rays, by infrared rays, by MRI imaging, etc; in each case, we are using various extensions of our senses to perceive the accidents relating to an object without ever directly perceiving its substance.

This is a very important point, and one easily forgetten when we get too set in our modern approach.

When my eyes see a brown, crumbly, circular object, and scientific tools see sugars and wheat flour, our mind sees “cookie”. Cookie is the substance, and no scientific tool can detect “cookie”, and neither can any of our senses.

It is this very distinction between what our senses perceive, and what our mind understands, which lead to our knowledge of the distinction between substance and accidents.

Peace and God bless!

 

[mathematician]

This is a very important point, and one easily forgetten when we get too set in our modern approach.

When my eyes see a brown, crumbly, circular object, and scientific tools see sugars and wheat flour, our mind sees “cookie”. Cookie is the substance, and no scientific tool can detect “cookie”, and neither can any of our senses.

It is this very distinction between what our senses perceive, and what our mind understands, which lead to our knowledge of the distinction between substance and accidents.

Peace and God bless!

There is no distinction. A wafer of unleavened bread consists some percentage of certain carbohydrates, some percentage of certain proteins, some percentage of water, and various other chemicals. If you have got all those things, then by any standards what you have got is bread. A nebulous extra something called “essence” serves no purpose [edited by Moderator].

 

[JimG]

The point is that humans can only know external objects by means of our senses and our sense perceptions, whether natural or extended by scientific instruments. We can never get at the object itself except through sense perception. Our sense perception is not the object itself.

A Thomist would call sense perceptions “accidents” or “appearances.”

It should be noted that sense perception is considered even in Thomistic philosophy to be an accurate way to know reality. Things are intelligible through their appearances to our senses. The only exception is in the case of the Eucharist.

Consequently it is true from a natural standpoint that no distinction can ever be observed before and after consecration of the bread or wine. What appears by every measurement or observation to be bread before the consecration will appear to be bread after the consecration, clear down to its observed molecular structure.

Catholic belief about transubstantiation is even more startling than one might at first expect. It is believed that even though all the appearances of bread remain—everything perceptible and measurable—the underlying object in which those appearances had inhered is gone, replaced by Jesus in his fullness, but not observable because of the remaining appearances of the bread and wine, which do not inhere in any object—not even in Jesus. (He has his own appearances, which are not those of bread and wine.)

Consequently transubstantiation can never be proved in any scientific or even philosophical way. We only believe it because we take Jesus word’s “this is my body” quite literally.

 

[Ghosty]

There is no distinction. A wafer of unleavened bread consists some percentage of certain carbohydrates, some percentage of certain proteins, some percentage of water, and various other chemicals. If you have got all those things, then by any standards what you have got is bread. A nebulous extra something called “essence” serves no purpose [edited by Moderator].

Essence is not a nebulous extra, though. We don’t just know “some percentage of certain carbohydrates, some percentage of certain proteins, some percentage of water, and various other chemicals,”, but rather we know those things AND we know “a wafer of bread”. Those are two distinct but intimately related realities (which is why, under normal circumstances, when you have one you have the other).

The materialist philosophical position is utterly unable to account for the knowledge of “wafer” and “bread”, which is why it’s an insufficient approach to reality since we DO have real knowledge of “wafer” and “bread”.

The materialist worldview not only can’t account for this distinct knowledge, it can’t even account for where this knowledge would reside since this knowledge is demonstrably (at least to all available theories and tests) immaterial. This thread isn’t about the philosophy of the mind, so I won’t go into it hear; I’m just pointing out that there is a whole realm of daily, common-sense and empirically verifiable human experiences (ones we actually tend to take for granted, such as this very knowledge of substances apart from their accidents) that aren’t accounted for by a materialistic worldview. Dr. John Searle’s (ironically a materialist himself) studies on this make for a better introduction to the issue.

Peace and God bless!

 

[cpayne]

Were you the one I had a discussion with one time trying to figure out why Searle is a materialist?

 

[Ghosty]

Were you the one I had a discussion with one time trying to figure out why Searle is a materialist?

I think so. It’s a great mystery, on par with the topic of this thread.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Bean61]

Thomas Aquinas wrote wrote the Summa Contra Gentiles as a means for the laity to understand their faith.

I don’t believe scientist of today use the words that Thomas used in order to study in their fields. Some of the actual words may be the same, however the definitions of those words would be quite different.

Transubstantiation, as far as I know, cannot be proved by scientists of today using any vocabulary that have. It is a mystery. A mystery can be solved or attempted to be solved. It should certainly be studied. However, for now we must take it on faith.

 

[Alethiaphile]

Substance and accidents don’t even have anything directly to do with modern theories of matter. The modern materialist approach touches only on what would be called accidents (and only a few of those, such as quantity and place and physical motion), and doesn’t address substances at all, and there’s nothing about it that overides the traditional definitions and approach.
Peace and God bless!

I do not believe that molecular structure is an “accident”. You have effectively deprived the notion of “substance” of any meaningful content. Joe

 

[Alethiaphile]

I will expound a little on my previous post. The Aristotelian/Thomistic notion of “substance” is supposed to explain how something can chamge into something else. For example, grass, when consumed by a cow, ceases to be grass and becomes part of the cow (well, part becomes manure, if you want to get technical). It undergoes a change of substance. Substance is composed of form and matter; in substantial change, the form changes; only the prime matter remains constant. The substance is precisely what changes when “grass” becomes “cow”. Now Aquinas had no way of observing molecules, but we know that when grass is consumed by a cow, it is precisely the molecular structure that changes, because of the external force of the cow’s chewing, enzymes, etc. The molecular structure of the grass is broken and reformed. Therefore, molecular structure corresponds to Aquinas’s notion of substance.
Ghosty, concerned about preserving the doctrine of trnasubstantion from the reaches of science, wants to render “substance” into an ethereal, scientifically unknowable thing. Aquinas believes that substances are knowable; the only thing not knowable is prime matter, which has to be deduced. Joe

 

[Bean61]

I think so. It’s a great mystery, on par with the topic of this thread.

Peace and God bless!

Ghosty,
I hacked my way through Thomas Aquinas’ definitions of essence and subsance. It wasn’t easy at all. Your above explanations were excellent.
Thank you.

 

[rwoehmke]

Substance and accidents don’t even have anything directly to do with modern theories of matter.
Peace and God bless!

The concepts of substance, accidents, prime matter etc. are philosophical concepts about reality.

The concepts of substance, matter, etc. in science have little if anything to do with the same terms in philosophy. Accidents being observable properties would probably be equivalent, but that is about as far as most of us could stretch it.

We are talking about two very different ways of discussing reality. It is usually the science guys that get tripped up on this.

 

[SeekingCatholic]

Essence is not a nebulous extra, though. We don’t just know “some percentage of certain carbohydrates, some percentage of certain proteins, some percentage of water, and various other chemicals,”, but rather we know those things AND we know “a wafer of bread”. Those are two distinct but intimately related realities (which is why, under normal circumstances, when you have one you have the other).

The materialist philosophical position is utterly unable to account for the knowledge of “wafer” and “bread”, which is why it’s an insufficient approach to reality since we DO have real knowledge of “wafer” and “bread”.

This is rather begging the question, I’m afraid. It assumes “wafer” and “bread” exist as separate ontological realities, rather than as mere human categorizations arising from the only real reality of percentages of carbohydrates, proteins, water, etc. It assumes real “knowledge” of these things rather than mere post hoc classifications.

The materialist worldview not only can’t account for this distinct knowledge, it can’t even account for where this knowledge would reside since this knowledge is demonstrably (at least to all available theories and tests) immaterial.

No, clearly the brain is involved in category judgments. And, this knowledge did not arise from a vacuum, but it was learned. The brain can be modeled as a very efficient Bayesian classifier, with training data used in the learning process.

 

[cpayne]

The brain can be modeled as a very efficient Bayesian classifier, with training data used in the learning process.

By what? What does the modeling of the brain? Pure sense experience?

This may seem a bit off the subject of the thread, but really it is not. Humans also are substances with incidental qualities just as much as is anything else; the difference is that humans are rational substances.

 

[Ghosty]

Therefore, molecular structure corresponds to Aquinas’s notion of substance.

No, it certainly doesn’t correspond. Aquinas, based on Aristotle, said that such forms can exist in the intellect just as they can exist in matter, and in fact are abstracted from the matter and into the mind. The molecular structure is not abstracted from the matter, so it can’t correspond. Furthermore, substances, even material ones, all have an immaterial aspect in the mind, and there can even be wholly immaterial substances such as angels. If any matter corresponded to substance then this could not be possible.

Read the Summa and you’ll see that “substance” is what is apprehended by the mind, and relates to form (though isn’t identical in meaning). It makes the matter “what it is”, and that includes making the molecules what they are; if the molecules were the substance then they would not be matter at all, since matter is what is informed, not the form itself.

Substance is composed of form and matter; in substantial change, the form changes; only the prime matter remains constant.

Prime matter doesn’t exist at all in any material thing. Prime matter isn’t what science would call “matter” at all, but is rather “pure potential for receiving form”. Every material thing that material science deals with already has a form, including plasma, and therefore can’t be prime matter. Again this is dealt with in the Summa, and in other basic Aristotlean texts.

Whether one agrees with the definitions or not is one thing, but we can’t misuse the definitions and apply them to things that they don’t correspond to.

This is rather begging the question, I’m afraid. It assumes “wafer” and “bread” exist as separate ontological realities, rather than as mere human categorizations arising from the only real reality of percentages of carbohydrates, proteins, water, etc. It assumes real “knowledge” of these things rather than mere post hoc classifications.

It’s not begging the question because this isn’t the question at hand. It would be begging the question if we were asking whether or not substances are real or imagined, but we’re not; we’re defining the Thomistic meaning of substance and transubstantiation, which is necessarily based on philosophical realism. So it’s not begging the question, rather it’s a presupposition of the topic at hand.

What you’re talking about is the debate between nominalism and realism, which is something a bit different, and better suited to another thread. I’m firmly convinced of the Realist position, and I’d be glad to discuss it, but I’d rather not take this thread any further off-topic.

Peace and God bless!

 

[SeekingCatholic]

It’s not begging the question because this isn’t the question at hand. It would be begging the question if we were asking whether or not substances are real or imagined, but we’re not; we’re defining the Thomistic meaning of substance and transubstantiation, which is necessarily based on philosophical realism. So it’s not begging the question, rather it’s a presupposition of the topic at hand.

You’re defining the Thomistic meaning of substance and transubstantiation, but the thread itself is not only about definitions but about transubstantiation and modern theories of matter, which do not assume philosophical realism, and raise serious questions about what substance really is, or if it even really exists. This is not a presupposition of the thread.

So this very much is the question at hand. You did more than define the Thomistic meaning of substance. You made claims as to what the materialist philosophical position was unable to account for. The materialist philosophical position does not take the same presuppositions as philosophical realism, so when you use those presuppositions to “refute” materialist philosophy you are guilty of begging the question, unless you can prove those presuppositions to be correct. Once you bring this to the table, you can be challenged.

What you’re talking about is the debate between nominalism and realism, which is something a bit different, and better suited to another thread. I’m firmly convinced of the Realist position, and I’d be glad to discuss it, but I’d rather not take this thread any further off-topic.

That’s fine, but then your arguments about materialist worldview and philosophy stand refuted for this thread.

As for not taking the thread off-topic, you raised the issue yourself with the response to the following post:

The difficulty is that something is a hydrogen atom if and only if it consists of a single electron orbiting a nucleus consisting of a single proton, and perhaps a neutron. There is no room in there for, “Well it has got the accidents of hydrogen, but it 's essence is helium.”

Similarly something is a piece of flesh if and only if it consists of the proteins which constitute a piece of flesh. If it consists of the proteins which consitute a bit of wood, then it is a piece of wood, and not a piece of flesh.

to which you wrote:

I don’t see how either of these examples deal specifically with the question of substances. I don’t see how a hydrogen atom could be “helium in essence”, and the second example deals only with accidents.

Well I do see how they deal with the question of substances, and they also deal with nominalism vs. realism.

Exactly why couldn’t a hydrogen atom be transubstantiated, such that it would have the accidents of hydrogen but the substance of helium? That’s because we have defined a hydrogen atom as precisely that atom with only one proton in the nucleus, and a helium atom as that atom with two protons in the nucleus. “Transubstantiation” of hydrogen into helium would merely mean changing the definition of helium so as to include a certain proportion of atoms with one proton in the nucleus.

Why couldn’t a piece of flesh be transubstantiated into a piece of wood, or a piece of wood transubstantiated into a piece of flesh. Precisely because we have defined flesh and wood as materials with those certain molecular and atomic properties. You say this deals only with accidents, but we have defined the “substance” based on those accidents.

Now you would say, not so, we know the substances through the accidents. Except we don’t, in the case of the Real Presence. I take a host to you and don’t tell you whether it was consecrated or not. The accidents are clearly present. Tell me the substance. You can’t do it. You have to allow an exception to the rule. So there could therefore in theory be other exceptions; we could be fooled a good part of the time in fact as to what the accidents are “telling us” the substance is. There is no philosophical refutation of this. Asking why God would change the substances is a theological argument. He may have good reasons for doing so we are unaware of.

On the other hand, there are no problems if we simply expand the definition of “flesh” to include those hosts which are consecrated.

 

[Ghosty]

You’re defining the Thomistic meaning of substance and transubstantiation, but the thread itself is not only about definitions but about transubstantiation and modern theories of matter, which do not assume philosophical realism, and raise serious questions about what substance really is, or if it even really exists. This is not a presupposition of the thread.

It is a presupposition of the teaching of transubstantiation; there is no doctrine of transubstantiation without the presupposition of Thomistic realism. Frankly I’m suprised that’s even in dispute.

We can’t discuss transubstantiation without presupposing realism, otherwise the terms used in defining it have no meaning, and what’s more we won’t be using the correct meanings when we begin to define them.

So this very much is the question at hand. You did more than define the Thomistic meaning of substance. You made claims as to what the materialist philosophical position was unable to account for. The materialist philosophical position does not take the same presuppositions as philosophical realism, so when you use those presuppositions to “refute” materialist philosophy you are guilty of begging the question, unless you can prove those presuppositions to be correct.

I simply said that the materialist position can’t account for certain things we experience; I didn’t use realist presuppositions to support that claim, though I did use those experiences to explain the realist terms and definitions. Realism does account for these things, but whether the Realist position is correct is another question and another thread.

That’s fine, but then your arguments about materialist worldview and philosophy stand refuted for this thread.

You’ll have to explain to me how they stand refuted, since all I’ve claimed is that the materialist position doesn’t deal with the same things that transubstantiation deals with, namely underlying substances, and therefore there is no need to reconcile modern science with transubstantiation. The question of nominalism doesn’t even enter into that.

Exactly why couldn’t a hydrogen atom be transubstantiated, such that it would have the accidents of hydrogen but the substance of helium?

I suppose it could if such a miracle cause it to occur, but there is no reason to believe it would. In any case, we have no testimony from God that such a miracle occurs, and since such a miracle would be hidden from our senses by definition it’s moot point.

Now you would say, not so, we know the substances through the accidents. Except we don’t, in the case of the Real Presence. I take a host to you and don’t tell you whether it was consecrated or not. The accidents are clearly present. Tell me the substance. You can’t do it. You have to allow an exception to the rule. So there could therefore in theory be other exceptions; we could be fooled a good part of the time in fact as to what the accidents are “telling us” the substance is. There is no philosophical refutation of this.

Yes, there is a perfectly sound philosophical refutation of this position: it is not useful to assume something for which there is no evidence, no testimony, and no necessity. If wood is transubstantiated into flesh, we won’t know, can’t know (barring revelation), and there’s no reason to believe that’s the case.
You can go around coming up with unprovable, unobservable hypotheses all day (invisible, weightless faeries carry every rain-drop to the ground, for example), but that’s not philosophy.

We know about the truth of the Eucharist only because it’s Revealed to us by God, not because of any natural knowledge. By definition it escapes the bounds of philosophical inquiry since it is beyond natural experience, though we can use philosophical and natural terms to discuss it. We didn’t make it up based on Thomistic realism, but rather we utilized the language of Thomistic realism in order to express vaguely, in human terms, what is happening.

 

[Bean61]

The Eucharist is the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Jesus Christ.

I agree with Ghosty, for all intents and purposes, 100%. Thomas Aquinas described Transubstatiation in a way that probably couldn’t be argued with.

Saint John Chrysostom, The Golden Mouthed Doctor of the Eucharist lived approximately 900 years before St. Thomas and spoke quite a bit about the Eucharist.

St. John says that: "…it is not man that causes the things offered to become the Body and Blood of Christ, but he who was crucified for us, Christ himself, The Priest, in the role of Christ, pronounces these words, but their power and grace are God’s. This is my body, he says. This word transforms the things offered.

What St. John says about the conversion: "Be convinced that this is not what nature has formed, but what the blessing has consecrated. The Power of the blessing prevails over that of nature, because by the blessing nature itself is changed…Could not Christ’s word, which can make from nothing what did not exist, change existing things into what they were not before? It is no less a feat to give things their original nature than to change their nature.

The Council of Trent declares: "…that by the consecration of the bread and wine there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the body of Christ our Lord and of the whole substance of the wine into the substance of his blood. This change the holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called transubstantiation.

We don’t have to be a nuclear physisist to understand this. To attempt to explain this by means of quantum mechanics or anything else is simply not true. The universe was made by God and He will decide.