Why was Galileo persecuted?

[ribozyme]

While I was doing a query on a creationist website for “transubstantiation” I found this:

Redondi, P., In: Galileo Heretic, R. Rosenthal (transl.), Penguin Books, London, 1989. Pietro Redondi has argued forcefully that Galileo’s views of astronomy were not the real issue in the trial. Rather it was his natural philosophy and advocacy of atomism (which threatened the Eucharistic doctrine of transubstantiation) that brought the charge of heresy. Officially made a Catholic article of faith at the Lateran Council of 1215 and classically formulated by Thomas Aquinas (1225–1274), transubstantiation had been reaffirmed in the Council of Trent (1551) and was a fundamental doctrine of the Counter-Reformation.

Source: creationontheweb.com/content/view/1536

Hmm… if that is true, why didn’t the Catholic Church get upset about John Dalton’s ideas, NMR spectroscopy, etc.? I never heard any Catholic apologist give critiques of atomic theory.

So how do you people reconcile transubstantiation with atomic theory? Also, is this interpretation of Galileo’s persecution correct?

 

[RyanL]

So how do you people reconcile transubstantiation with atomic theory?

Accidents and substance. What’s to reconcile?

Also, is this interpretation of Galileo’s persecution correct?

Short answer - no.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[ribozyme]

Accidents and substance. What’s to reconcile?

Short answer - no.

God Bless,
RyanL

I could assure you that if you examine a piece of the so-called “Body of Christ” and ordinary unconsecrated communion waffer with 1H NMR spectroscopy or 13C NMR spectroscopy the control would have the same chemical shifts as the consecrated bread. Well, I can’t support this with peer-reviewed articles because I doubt any serious chemistry journal would publish such a absurd study.

Ignore that above, as I simply meant to say that there is no empirical difference between consecrated bread and unconsecrated bread (whether it could be discernable with our eyes or whether we have to use sopisticated chemical techniques to elucidated molecular structure.)

 

[RyanL]

…there is no empirical difference between consecrated bread and unconsecrated bread (whether it could be discernable with our eyes or whether we have to use sopisticated chemical techniques to elucidated molecular structure.)

Yup. :yup: That’s what the Church teaches (by empirical I’m assuming you mean materially discernible). What’s to reconcile?

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[mlchance]

I could assure you that if you examine a piece of the so-called “Body of Christ” and ordinary unconsecrated communion waffer with 1H NMR spectroscopy or 13C NMR spectroscopy the control would have the same chemical shifts as the consecrated bread.

Which only shows that you have no idea what the doctrines pertaining to the Eucharist really mean.

– Mark L. Chance.

 

[LSK]

While I was doing a query on a creationist website for “transubstantiation” I found this:

Source: creationontheweb.com/content/view/1536

Hmm… if that is true, why didn’t the Catholic Church get upset about John Dalton’s ideas, NMR spectroscopy, etc.? I never heard any Catholic apologist give critiques of atomic theory.

So how do you people reconcile transubstantiation with atomic theory? Also, is this interpretation of Galileo’s persecution correct?

Catholics believe (and have always believed) that the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord becomes present in the Eucharist even if the appearance of the species remains the same. We do not refute science, we believe that since God is the Author of ALL TRUTH then He can step outside of the rules whenever HE wishes to - and He blesses us with this at every Mass or anytime the bread and wine are properly,validly consecrated.

As for Gallileo, I have read many articles that proclaim either side. The Church horribly persecuted him, the Church merely asserted controls over faith and morals, blah blah blah. The result of this is that I have concluded that those who were in charge of stuff back then did the best they could with what they had at the time. History shows that Gallileo was not tortured or beaten up for ideas he presented.

The Church has always promoted science and reason - but believe that it is important that one have well formed consciences and solid faith, for without faith reason can become stagnent and science can verge upon license as opposed to freedom.

 

[buffalo]

TRANSUBSTANTIATION FOR BEGINNERS

 

[buffalo]

The Church has historically been the biggest backer of scientific advance.

Galileo was not condemned for his science.

The Swan’s Song of Galileo’s Myth

… The Holy Inquisition, therefore, acted correctly in condemning Galileo. That action was consistent with its mission of guarding the integrity of the Catholic Faith. It was justly defending the Catholic Theology and Philosophy attacked by Galileo Galilei.

In a speech delivered in Parma, Italy, March 15, 1990, even Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger endorsed the opinion of philosopher P. Feyerabend against Galileo. Ratzinger stated: “At the time of Galileo the Church remained much more faithful to reason than Galileo himself. The process against Galileo was reasonable and just” (17).

more…

 

[ribozyme]

Accidents and substance. What’s to reconcile?

Short answer - no.

God Bless,
RyanL

Hmm… that article did not refute the notion that Galileo’s ideas are threatening to the dogma of transubstantiation.

I did not post this thread to say the church was unjust in their treatment of Galileo, but rather question the motives behind their treatment. Was it based on the superficial fear that their cosmology was wrong, or it assailed an integral pillar of the Catholic faith (i.e. transubstantiation). I am interested in arguments against the latter proposition.

I

 

[JPrejean]

I am interested in arguments against the latter proposition.

There aren’t any, because there isn’t any reason to think it is true in the first place. Transubstantiation does not deal with the material properties of the bread and wine at all; those are all accidents. Indeed, the doctrine of transubstantiation explicitly maintains that if you test any material property of the Body and Blood at all, you will find exactly what you would find with any ordinary bread or wine. As the Fathers all maintained, the change in substance can be perceived only by faith, not by any form of fleshly perception (including spectrometers).

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

While I was doing a query on a creationist website for “transubstantiation” I found this:

Source: creationontheweb.com/content/view/1536

Hmm… if that is true, why didn’t the Catholic Church get upset about John Dalton’s ideas, NMR spectroscopy, etc.? I never heard any Catholic apologist give critiques of atomic theory.

So how do you people reconcile transubstantiation with atomic theory? Also, is this interpretation of Galileo’s persecution correct?

Redondi is on my list of books to read - but very low down, after lots of other more pressing stuff ​

As for the affaire Galileo - have you read Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers”, which has a long section on it; or Santillana, “The Crime of Galileo” ? You might also read Pierre Duhem, who has a fair amount to say on the origin of Galileo’s physical ideas - and for the earlier mediaeval background to Renaissance science, Roger Ariew’s translation of selections from Duhem with the title “Medieval Cosmology”.

As for the atomic thing, it’s discussed by the late Father John McKee, in his book “The Enemy Within the Gate”. I can’t find the immediately relevant passages, off-hand - but, the Catholic dogma is unaffected by atomic ans sub-atomic physics, basically for this reason: the dogma teaches that the whole substance of the Eucharistic Gifts - the Bread & Wine offered in sacrifice - is converted into the whole substance of the Body and Blood of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

A “substance” is not a solid, tangible, thing - that is the everyday sense of the word; not the sense it has in the theological discussion of the sacraments, such as the Eucharist. A substance is a thing that exists without having to be a property of a thing so as to exist - for example, hair is a substance, while redness is a property of that substance - there can be hair that is not red, and redness cannot exist except as a property of a thing. As we are talking about metaphysics, and not chemistry, the two don’t collide: talk about the redness of red hair & the distinction between the substance & the properties (“accidents”, in technical terminology), is not affected by the fact that colour exists in a spectrum - metaphysics & chemistry may consider the same things, but, under incommensurable aspects; which is why there is no collision

“Substance” is the crucial word - the appearances of bread and wine remain after the consecration (which is effected by the power of the Holy Spirit of the same Christ, working through His minister the human priest); so what is seen, tasted, touched, has all the appearances of bread & wine - including toxicity, if they are poisoned. What has changed, is the reality to which the appearances properly belong - that-which-was-bread - has ceased to exist, so only the properties of bread endure.

And it is the reality which is the thing that changes - not the properties. The substantia “stat sub”, “stands under” the accidents - they manifest what it is, that stands under them, which would otherwise be unknowable. The substance of bread can’t be discovered by chemical analysis, neither can the substance of anything: they can be known, but not directly - only by their effects, such as taste, colour, chemistry, electro-magnetism - for the objection is answered by noting that the phenomena on which the objection is based, are themselves further accidents of the Gifts. As the appearance of the bread remains, it is to be expected that its sub-atomic properties will do so - & those properties are not properties of substance as substance*; they are properties of the substance particularised & known as bread.

As for NMR spectroscopy - that deals with appearances; not with substance. The same applies to Heisenberg’s Uncertainty principle - quantum mechanics has no bearing on substance, so the Church is not concerned with it. The same applies to Anton van Leeuwenhoek - what the dogma is about, and what these men investigated, are not the same aspects of reality.

If any of this is wrong, someone please correct it.

substance as substance* - what is called “substantia prima”, undifferentiated unindividualised substance which has not received any form.

Hope that helps ##

 

[ribozyme]

Hey, Gottle, I found this rather intersting bit on transubstantiation in one of Dawkins’ work…
Richard Dawkins:

Any impulse to solve mysteries could be serious inimical to the spread of a mind virus. It would not, therefore, be surprising if the idea that mysteries are better not solved'' was a favored member of a mutually supporting gang of viruses. Take the Mystery of Transubstantiation.’’ It is easy and non-mysterious to believe that in some symbolic or metaphorical sense the eucharistic wine turns into the blood of Christ. The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, however, claims far more. The whole substance'' of the wine is converted into the blood of Christ; the appearance of wine that remains is merely accidental,’’ inhering in no substance'' (Kenny, 1986, p. 72). Transubstantiation is colloquially taught as meaning that the wine literally’’ turns into the blood of Christ. Whether in its obfuscatory Aristotelian or its franker colloquial form, the claim of transubstantiation can be made only if we do serious violence to the normal meanings of words like substance'' and literally.’’ Redefining words is not a sin, but, if we use words like whole substance'' and literally’’ for this case, what word are we going to use when we really and truly want to say that something did actually happen? As Anthony Kenny observed of his own puzzlement as a young seminarian, ``For all I could tell, my typewriter might be Benjamin Disraeli transubstantiated…’’

Anything you could say to falsify the hypothesis that my computer is transubstantiated by Bill Gates?

 

[Ghosty]

Hey, Gottle, I found this rather intersting bit on transubstantiation in one of Dawkins’ work…

Anything you could say to falsify the hypothesis that my computer is transubstantiated by Bill Gates?

The term “substance” was not redefined by the Church. On the contrary, it was redefined later to mean something more “tangible” than what it was originally used to mean. Remember, in the Latin and Greek philosophies the spiritual side of things, or at least the intangible, were the more “real” as opposed to the material. Material in those philosophies is an airy, changing thing that is defined by the intangible “form” or substance.

Peace and God bless!

 

[Liberian]

Ribozyme,

Given that transubstantiation deals with the change in what Aristotle called a thing’s “substance” with no change in the thing’s “accidents,” it matters not one whit whether those accidents include atoms or some continuous form of matter. Atomism is totally irrelevant to the question.

I believe somebody else has pointed you to an article about why Galileo was persecuted by the Church. It had very little to do with his scientific theories and a whole lot to do with his publicly ridiculing the Pope.

• Liberian

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Hey, Gottle, I found this rather intersting bit on transubstantiation in one of Dawkins’ work…

Any impulse to solve mysteries could be serious inimical to the spread of a mind virus. It would not, therefore, be surprising if the idea that mysteries are better not solved'' was a favored member of a mutually supporting gang of viruses. Take the Mystery of Transubstantiation.’’ It is easy and non-mysterious to believe that in some symbolic or metaphorical sense the eucharistic wine turns into the blood of Christ. The Roman Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, however, claims far more. The whole substance'' of the wine is converted into the blood of Christ; the appearance of wine that remains is merely accidental,’’ inhering in no substance'' (Kenny, 1986, p. 72). Transubstantiation is colloquially taught as meaning that the wine literally’’ turns into the blood of Christ.

*## The word “literally” should be avoided like the plague - it muddies the issue by pandering to the tendency people have to be imprecise where precision is both possible & necessary. The letter is not involved in this discussion. Besides, “literally” often means “really” in a non-technical sense - & although transubstantiation does mean that Christ is really Present - in a technical sense of the word - He is also substantially & truly Present. And “substantially” is being used here technically, as is “truly”. The metaphysics of transubstantiation has its technical terminology, just as the positive sciences do. *

*I think Dawkins is out of his depth in talking about this topic - let the cobbler stick to his last. *

Whether in its obfuscatory Aristotelian

That remark is uncalled-for - those who use this terminology do so knowing what they mean by it. If that is supposed to be an argument against it, I can’t say I’m very impressed. And I really hate it when I come across unbelievers who stoop to such silliness; if a position has no merit, let it be argued against in a reasonable fashion, not be called rude names - for who is convinced by those ? This is a difficulty I have with Dawkins - he has little understanding of some of the POVs he so vigorously detests. For an athiest, that seems odd. *​

*Anyhow - if he reads Paul VI’s 1965 Encyclical on the Holy Eucharist Mysterium Fidei, he may be better equipped to understand what he criticises. The Pope succeeds in being accurate, clear, precise, just as his office & his letter required him to be; & free of the imprecision that is all too common in discussions of this kind of topic. *

or its franker colloquial form, the claim of transubstantiation can be made only if we do serious violence to the normal meanings of words like substance'' and literally.’’ Redefining words is not a sin, but, if we use words like whole substance'' and literally’’ for this case, what word are we going to use when we really and truly want to say that something did actually happen? As Anthony Kenny observed of his own puzzlement as a young seminarian, ``For all I could tell, my typewriter might be Benjamin Disraeli transubstantiated…’’

Not at all, because the consecratory act & words determine the substance - that is, limit its teleogically, so that what-is-consecrated, is converted into that Substance-in-Particular - and no other - which is the Substance of the Body of the Glorified Lord, Whom His Spirit makes Present sacramentally (see my precious post). *​

*It is in order to safeguard the determination of the priest’s intention in the consecratory act, that at Mass the priest lays the unconsecrated hosts on a piece of cloth called a corporal. Apart from any other considerations, it seems reasonable to assume that no priest ever consecrated a typewriter. The consecration is not magic - he can’t consecrate any old thing and make it into any old thing. *

…continue…]

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

…cont’d & ended]

*And as the True Priest offering these Transubstantiated Gifts of His Body & Blood is Christ, Jesus Christ can be trusted to re-enact the mystery which He instituted in His Church. That is why it is possible to speak of “the intention of the Church” which the priest is presumed to have in saying the words of consecration. But this post lacks room for a discussion of intention. *

*I’m sorry, but if Dawkins & Kenny are going to distort the Catholic teaching, they are going to find it nonsensical. One would hope Kenny at least would know better. *

I hope that helps I realise this is rather technical - I know how overawed I feel at times as a non-scientist when reading threads on scientific topics ##

Anything you could say to falsify the hypothesis that my computer is transubstantiated by Bill Gates?

I did drop a hint at the end of the first post in which we discussed transubstantiation , yes - see also the one of which this is a continuation.​

In addition, the objections you mention confuse substantia prima - which is without form - with individuated substance: the substance of the Eucharistic Gifts is individuated, both before & after the consecration; & transubstantiation gives a new “form” (more technical vocab, I’m afraid ) to the substance in which the accidents inhere. ##

 

[Gottle_of_Geer]

Ribozyme,

Given that transubstantiation deals with the change in what Aristotle called a thing’s “substance” with no change in the thing’s “accidents,” it matters not one whit whether those accidents include atoms or some continuous form of matter. Atomism is totally irrelevant to the question.

• Liberian

Precisely - that should help to clarify things nicely. ​

 

[Trelow]

Where would the miraculous hosts who’s accidents have become flesh fall in all of this?

 

[corvidae]

That would be a miracle on top of a miracle.
The substance changing and the accidents staying the same is one miracle, although a fairly common one.
The accidents changing to that of flesh and blood would be another miracle.

A lone Raven

 

[tdgesq]

I think that the more serious issue that Dawkins in an oblique way is trying to get at is the implications of transubstantiation for human knowledge. If the accidents of a thing do not always conform to its substance, then it seems that the reliability of the of senses and all empirical knowledge could be brought into question. The substance along with the accidents are what allow me to apprehend the computer screen that sits in front of me. I have resolved this issue regarding transubstantiation to my own satisfaction, but am wondering what some of you hardcore Thomists have to say.