What is the proper understanding of Transubstantiation?

[Gorgias]

I’d say that once the “appearances” of the bread and the wine change, the old “beings” proper are no longer there. What you have are new beings.

Sometimes yes, sometimes no. If the beings are “protons” or “electrons”, or even “atoms” or “molecules”, then I’d say that they were always there and merely continue on. If the ‘beings’ are “flour” or “water”, then we’d have to think about how “flour” and “water”, as opposed to “bread”, interrelate.

I’d disagree when you say that “substance” is a term that’s being used in its sense in philosophy. The Wikipedia page on Transubstantiation states

To be fair, Wiki isn’t an authority, but just a community expressing their opinions on what others have said.

The Wiki editor’s take on the etymology and ecclesial use of ‘ousia’ and ‘substantia’ is novel, inasmuch as it implicitly claims that Trent doesn’t draw upon Aquinas (who himself drew upon Aristotle).

 

[Richca]

Richca,

Your statement that “…both substance (which I understand to be matter, not the substantial forms of bread and wine…” is not at all comprehensible to me and I request for more clarification.

Thank you.

Thank you for your reply. I’m going to tackle presently the above statement that you would like more clarification on in which I was referring to the teaching of St Thomas Aquinas in his treatise on the eucharist in the Summa Theologica. The statement comes in the context of a question he proposes in Question 77, article 5 ‘Whether Anything Can Be Generated from the Sacramental Species’, and more specifically from the reply to obj. 3. Aquinas answers in the affirmative. By sacramental species, he is referring to the accidents of the bread and wine which remain after the transubstantiation of the bread and wine at Mass. As I said in a previous post, these accidents remain miraculously by divine power without a substance to inhere in since the substances of the bread and wine are no longer there but they have been converted into the substances of the body and blood of Christ, and these accidents do not inhere in the substances of the body and blood of Christ. Without the substance, these accidents are there without matter since matter is a substantial component of material substances or beings. The other substantial component of material substance is the substantial form. The substance/s of the bread and wine, the substantial form and matter, have been changed into the substance/s of the body and blood of Christ, form into form and matter into matter.

One of the difficulties of the question Aquinas proposes is how can anything be generated from the sacramental species (accidents of the bread and wine) that are without matter? That the incorruptible and glorified body and blood of Christ are changed into anything is out of the question.

Aquinas answers then that the creation of matter by God when Christ’s body and blood are no longer present when the appearances of bread and wine are no longer present is tenable. This creation of matter would take place obviously sometime after the consecration at Mass such as when we receive communion and Christ’s body and blood are present for maybe 15 minutes before the breakdown of the appearances of bread and wine by our body. Instead of adding miracle upon miracle and at different times, Aquinas prefers to place all the miraculous at the consecration and transubstantiation of the bread and wine. Aquinas prefers then the answer that God bestows on the dimensive quantities (which are accidents) of the consecrated bread and wine a miraculous property that they can pass or turn into both ‘substance’ as well as retain their own nature of quantity and dimensions. By ‘substance’ here (reply to obj. 3), I believe Aquinas means matter so that the dimensive quantities of the consecrated bread and wine can be miraculously converted into matter as well as retain their own nature of quantity.

 

[afthomercy]

otjm,
It is true that God exists outside time, however we creatures whom He has put within time for reasons best known to him, cannot help but see him as acting sequentially. For example, when I go to 8:00 am Mass, the bread and wine on the altar which up till 8:25 am were just that, now at 8:26 am, post Consecration, have become the Body and Blood of Christ. Here we clearly see God ‘waiting’ for the priest to complete the Words of Institution before He acts.
Jesus also spoke in a time dimension when He said “My hour has not yet come” (Jn 2:4). Another time He told his disciples that “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority” (Acts 1:7)
So I feel that there is nothing fundamentally wrong in thinking of him as “ideating”.

 

[otjm]

So I feel that there is nothing fundamentally wrong in thinking of him as “ideating”.

I try to operate on facts, not feelings. I understand your perspective, but it does not align with Church teaching - not that such is a moral issue (it is not) - but that it altogether too readily lends itself to difficulties dealing (particularly) with the chaos of living. We suffer enough due to out own choices, choices of others, and matters completely beyond anyone’s control (e.g.the recent eruption which killed a number of people). It is all too easy to fall into one of many traps, such as deciding God does not care; or failing to understand that we are challenged to grow through the suffering we encounter. God can certainly act “in time” - we often call those incidents miracles.

Thinking of God “ideating” is to think of God as changing as humans change. and that is to think of God as a being who can “pull away” from us. Or, as someone once said: “if there is a distance between you and God, who moved?”

The lack of feeling the presence of God (as Mother Theresa experienced for a long, long time) is a challenge many cannot face; they give up on God.

But who moved?

 

[afthomercy]

otjm,
There is a theological perspective and there is an anthropological perspective. What you say (God is unchanging/unfeeling/constant) is true from the former, but it is from that latter that we relate to God and He, us. Take Exodus 3:7 "The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering.”

But maybe that’s the subject of another thread…?

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

What is a “being”?

God is not a being.

God is being

So when the created beings of bread and wine become being itself, God the Son,

there is a huge difference between a created being and being itself.

That is as far as my thinking is stretching at this point , with the need to meditate on this fact for quite some time until clarity is revealed.

 

[afthomercy]

Richca,
While I ‘chew on’ your statements, kindly have a go at these questions:
Before the consecration, assume that there are 100-nos hosts to be consecrated and 25 ml of wine on the altar. How many beings would you count them to be?
Post-consecration, how many beings are there? And if the no. has changed, then why?

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

Richca,
While I ‘chew on’ your statements, kindly have a go at these questions:
Before the consecration, assume that there are 100-nos hosts to be consecrated and 25 ml of wine on the altar. How many beings would you count them to be?
Post-consecration, how many beings are there? And if the no. has changed, then why?

Again

Bread - the wafers , and the wine are created beings. This is before Transubstantiation. How many wafers, or how many ounces? Depends on how many are used.

Immediately at Transubstantiation, the Eucharist is not a created being.
The Eucharist IS being, Is being itself.
The Eucharist is God the Son at His death and Resurrection.
God is not a created being, God is not A being.
God is being itself,

Therefore the Eucharist is being itself.
How many beings itself? God is being, one being. Part of the mystery of the Eucharist.

 

[Gorgias]

How many beings would you count them to be?

Do you mean “beings” or “objects”?

Post-consecration, how many beings are there? And if the no. has changed, then why?

Same number of objects. Depending on what you mean by “beings”, I’d say “same number of those, too”, since we went from n pieces of bread to n pieces of Eucharist.

 

[Richca]

Post-consecration, the substantial being of the 100 hosts of bread and the 25 ml of wine no longer exists as the whole substances of the bread and wine have been changed into the whole substances of the one body of Christ and his blood. Only the accidental being of the 100 hosts and 25 ml of wine remains.

 

[Dovekin]

Before the consecration, assume that there are 100-nos hosts to be consecrated and 25 ml of wine on the altar. How many beings would you count them to be?
Post-consecration, how many beings are there? And if the no. has changed, then why?

The number of hosts and the amount of wine are “he dimensive quantity” or part of the accidents of the bread and wine. These do not change with transubstantiation.

Before the consecration there are 100 pieces of bread, 25 ml of wine. After the consecration, there are 100 pieces, each one consisting of the whole body and blood of Christ. There 25 ml of the body and blood of Christ, each drop of which contains the whole body and blood of Christ. Even though there are 100 pieces, 25 ml each of which is the whole Christ there is only one Christ present in all of them. There is a substantial unity among the diverse pieces and drops. And there is a substantial unity among those who share in the dimensive quantity by Holy Communion.

 

[afthomercy]

I began this thread with the poser “What is the proper understanding of “Transubstantiation?”. For getting to the answer, it is a pre requisite to get a grip on “substance”.

I think we’re all agreed that post consecration, the many beings on the altar give way to one being (“The Being”, if you prefer). This change was ostensibly triggered off by a movement in the substance and this brings the focus very strongly onto that term. Anything that moves catches the eye. Now that the substance has moved, we have become aware of it and are trying to pin it down/understand it. In trying to understand something, it helps to analyse in what way it deviates from the rule (“Exception proves the rule” – Cicero).

The rule is that every being stands on two distinct legs, viz. existence and substance. The exception to the rule in the case of The Being is that it has no substance other than its existence. So this begs the question as to what makes it possible for The Being to defy the rule?

Let me give it a go:

In the case of The Being, He, being uncreated, doesn’t owe his existence to anybody outside of himself. In the case of all other beings, they owe their existence to an ‘outside player’, viz. The Being. In other words, all (created) beings have two factors in common, viz.: (a) the fact that they exist and (b) they have been conceptualized by somebody outside themselves. In the case of The Being, factor (a) is true but factor (b) is null. That’s why it is valid to say that in God (and only in God), existence and substance meet. If God had a substance distinct from his existence, then He wouldn’t be God, because it would imply that there is somebody outside of him who knows him completely!

And therefore, I come to a very sweet and simple explanation for “substance” of a being: It is the CONCEPT in the mind of God concerning that being. How God defines me in his mind constitutes my substance. First He conceptualizes me and then He gives me existence. "BEFORE I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations. (Jeremiah 1:5)” . A hat is a combination of many diverse beings, such as cardboard, felt, glue, etc., but the sum of their individual substances does not add up to the substance of the hat. A car is composed of about 30,000 components (beings), but the sum of their substances does not add up to the substance of the car. The hat and the car derive their respective substances not from the beings that go into their makeup, but directly from the mind of God. When God says that “Indeed, the very hairs of your head are all numbered… (Lk 12:7a)” it means that God has a distinct concept for every strand of hair. Same with each grain of sand on the seashore - that’s what gives them their respective substances and makes them distinct beings.

Is everybody with me up till here?

 

[OurLadyofSorrows]

I think we’re all agreed that post consecration, the many beings on the altar give way to one being (“The Being”, if you prefer).

Again, God is not ‘the being’

God Is Being.
God is Being itself.
God is not one being. God is not a being.

God is Being itself.
Bishop Barron talks really clearly about this in one of his episodes on his Catholicism series. I will see if I can find it when I have some time. They are all on youtube I think.

So this begs the question as to what makes it possible for The Being to defy the rule?

So this sentence is theologically wrong. As God is not ‘The Being’

 

[po18guy]

The proper understanding, as I see it, it to revel in the utter mystery of it all. Full understanding leaves nothing to be desired. If we love God, we desire Him. Desire means that something is mysterious, incomplete in our realization or intellect. Therefore, God remains a mystery, which engenders desire.

 

[Gorgias]

In the case of The Being, He, being uncreated, doesn’t owe his existence to anybody outside of himself.

No. Not true.

We’re talking about the “Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity” of Christ, as present in the Eucharist, right? So, we’re talking about the Incarnate Christ, no?

If so, then Jesus also owes his incarnate existence to his mother, who conceived him in her womb.

(I’m also not really ‘with’ you in calling bread and wine “beings”, but I’ll let that go, for the moment…)