Transubstantiation, substance and accident

[Captain_Amazing]

In a recently closed pit thread/meltdown, the topic of transubstantiation and its illogic was brought up. The conversation was not civil, there was very little exchange of ideas, and there was just a lot of bad feeling. So, I’m starting this thread here, because I want to have a civil conversation about the idea, and hopefully we’ll be able to, and hopefully, someone will explain it to me.

It’s my understanding that transubstantiation is the Catholic belief that at some time during the mass service, when the priest prays over bread and wine, that bread and wine becomes the body and blood of Jesus. More specifically, it becomes the body and blood of Jesus in “substance”, while still remaining bread and wine in “accident”. I also know that, in philosophy, the “substance” of a thing is what it is…it’s the nature of the thing, while the “accidents” of a thing are the traits that thing has. So, for instance, in “substance”, I’m a man, while my “accidents” are that I’m 6 foot tall, grey haired, bipedal, have a body temperature of 98.6 F, and so on. I also understand that the accidents of a substance can change. I can have a fever, I can dye my hair, shrink, lose my legs, and I’m still a man.

But all that being said, it’s been a long time since I took any philosophy classes, and so this is where it goes over my head. I don’t understand how you can have a substance independent of its accidents. To take the eucharist as an example, both my Catholic friend and I would agree that the Eucharistic host before and after the priest blesses it are identical in its accidents…it has the same chemical formula, tastes like bread, looks like bread, etc. So how can it change substance? There’s no way to tell consecrated host from unconsecrated host, right? So, if that’s the case, how can it change its substance?

I’m sure everyone knows the old saying, but it seems like the Catholic chuch’s doctrine is saying, “It looks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, but it’s a turkey”.

[wolf_in_second_hand_clothing]

To me it all seems like a bunch of Doublethink. Of course, I would consider the concept of the Trinity to share that distinction.

[Der_Trihs]

@Captain Amazing

To take the eucharist as an example, both my Catholic friend and I would agree that the Eucharistic host before and after the priest blesses it are identical in its accidents…it has the same chemical formula, tastes like bread, looks like bread, etc. So how can it change substance? There’s no way to tell consecrated host from unconsecrated host, right? So, if that’s the case, how can it change its substance?

Simple : It can’t. It’s a physical object, and if it undergoes no physical changes, then it has not changed. I’m sure some believer will be along to claim it changes in some way that “mere” science can’t detect - but I claim that it doesn’t, and lacking evidence, the logical onus is on the person claiming something exits to provide evidence for it.

Especially given that when religious claims have been subject to scientific scrutiny, they’ve almost universally been proven wrong. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume any religious claim is wrong, simply because it’s a religious claim.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

Say it with me, Der Trihs: faith. People believe all kinds of things that cannot be demonstrated scientifically. That is the very nature of faith- it defies the demand for proof. Otherwise it would be a fact.

[What_Exit]

@Airman Doors

Say it with me, Der Trihs: faith. People believe all kinds of things that cannot be demonstrated scientifically. That is the very nature of faith- it defies the demand for proof. Otherwise it would be a fact.

But what is faith other than collective “Let’s Pretend”?
There can be no proof and as we know it has no more real value than any other superstition or piece of folklore and myth. If it is what gets you through the night more power to you, but don’t condemn **Der Trihs ** for trusting scientific study, logic and reason above Faith. If you do not have faith, you cannot have faith in faith.

Jim

[dropzone]

Don’t ask me. I’ve already admitted to being a Memorialist (it’s all symbolic) and my wife denies ever having been a Transubstantiationist (it’s how you describe) and has gone over to being a Consubstantiationist (the Eucharist has dual natures: both fully Jesus’ flesh and blood AND plain ol’ bread and wine like Jesus is fully God and fully human. To some (most? all?) of you this is a silly play on words but wars have been fought over it, like the “distinctions without a difference anybody else can see” between Shi’a and Sunni Muslims.

[Polycarp]

Well, try this. Plato (philosopher, not a religionist in any sense) proposed the solution to the Greek paradox of “How can you have an unchanging Reality in a world in which all things are in flux?” was that each thing of a given nature in some way participated in an ideal Form of that thing. A dog is a dog, not because it has four legs, a furry coat, barks, and a waggable tail, but because it in some way is an Earthly representation of the unchanging cosmic concept of Dogness. You could perform a laryngectomy, amputate legs and tail, and shave the dog, and it would remain a dog, because even though the accidents have changed, it retains its inner “dogness.”

Now, suppose you were in some way able to change that inner nature. Clearly, from our shaven quadruple-amputee mute dog, accidents and inner nature are not necessarily interconnected. So the accidents would remain the same, but the inner nature, the “substantia,” would change.

This is what Aquinas posited, and the Council of Trent made dogmatic for Catholics, as regards the Eucharist.

To be 100% accurate, it is not considered a power of the priest to be able to work this supposed miracle, but rather it is the act of the Holy Spirit, being faithful in responding to prayer offered in accordance with God’s will – to wit, the Prayer of Consecration (Canon of the Mass) said by the priest. There are three schools of thought as to when the event happens: When the priest repeats the Words of Institution first spoken by Christ, “This is my Body”/“This is my Blood of the New Covenant”; when the priest recites the Epiclesis, in essence “God, we pray that you send down your Holy Spirit on these gifts, accepting them and making them the Body and Blood of your Son Jesus Christ”; and as a product of the whole long prayer, not localized in time to any one moment.

I offer the above not as argument for the validity of that belief, but in hopes of improving clarity as to what is believed.

Note that there are numerous Christians who believe in the Real Presence – Christ is somehow imparted to the believing communicant through his reception of the consecrated bread and wine, being present in it in a mystical but quute real way – who do not subscribe to the Aquinas transubstantiation theory.

[Airman_Doors_USAF]

@What Exit?

But what is faith other than collective “Let’s Pretend”?
There can be no proof and as we know it has no more real value than any other superstition or piece of folklore and myth.

You’re absolutely right. For you it has no more validity than any of those. But for those who believe it does have validity.

If it is what gets you through the night more power to you, but don’t condemn **Der Trihs ** for trusting scientific study, logic and reason above Faith. If you do not have faith, you cannot have faith in faith.

If that’s the way you want to look at it, that’s fine. But this:

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume any religious claim is wrong, simply because it’s a religious claim.

is unnecessarily inflammatory and utterly disrespectful.

[StarvingButStrong]

Then…should a vegetarian who belongs to a religion that believes in transubstantiation (it’s not just Catholics, Lutherans preach it, too) refuse communion?

[What_Exit]

@Airman Doors

@Der Trihs

As far as I’m concerned, it’s a good rule of thumb to assume any religious claim is wrong, simply because it’s a religious claim.

is unnecessarily inflammatory and utterly disrespectful.

True, very true on the inflammatory, but not so true on the utterly disrespectful.

He has said far more disrespectful things about God, the US and Soldiers. This is an honest statement or witnessing of his ‘beliefs’. Your reaction is probably a little hair triggered by experience with many of his previous posts. If I or another milder poster said it, you would still disagree with it and might be insulted by it, but you probably would not find it utterly disrespectful.

As I question everything, I have to question anyone who is sure any religion is wrong. I can make a pretty good argument that there can be a creator; I just do not have the faith to believe my arguments. So I cannot support Der Trihs’ statement, just the fact that Transubstation sounds like one of the biggest crackpot concepts in religion. If a Scientologist had this idea, we would be joyfully bashing them for their silliness.

Jim

[Der_Trihs]

@Airman Doors

Say it with me, Der Trihs: faith. People believe all kinds of things that cannot be demonstrated scientifically. That is the very nature of faith- it defies the demand for proof. Otherwise it would be a fact.

Which is why if something requires faith to believe, it’s most likely wrong.

@Polycarp

Well, try this. Plato (philosopher, not a religionist in any sense) proposed the solution to the Greek paradox of “How can you have an unchanging Reality in a world in which all things are in flux?” was that each thing of a given nature in some way participated in an ideal Form of that thing. A dog is a dog, not because it has four legs, a furry coat, barks, and a waggable tail, but because it in some way is an Earthly representation of the unchanging cosmic concept of Dogness. You could perform a laryngectomy, amputate legs and tail, and shave the dog, and it would remain a dog, because even though the accidents have changed, it retains its inner “dogness.” < snips rest >

The problem is, evolution destroys that argument by showing there is no underlying Form for dogs, because dogs are just one more transient step between pre-dogs and post-dogs. IIRC, that was a historical reason for some of the hostility towards evolution by the religious leadership; they had decided that a creatures’ nature was shaped by some divinely ordained Form, and therefore evolution was impossible.

@Airman Doors

is unnecessarily inflammatory and utterly disrespectful.

It’s only inflammatory if you are looking for a reason be be inflamed, and it’s disrespectful because I do not believe that religious beliefs deserve respect.

@StarvingButStrong

Then…should a vegetarian who belongs to a religion that believes in transubstantiation (it’s not just Catholics, Lutherans preach it, too) refuse communion?

Logically, that would depend on why they are vegetarian, whether they personally believe that transubstantiation is more than a metaphor/myth, and whether they put communion or vegetarianism higher on their personal moral scale. In other words, it would be a matter of personal opinion.

[Polycarp]

I suspect you don’t RC, since there is essentially no overlap between churches that reject evolution and churches that accept any form of the Real Presence, much less transubstantiation itself.

[dropzone]

@StarvingButStrong

Then…should a vegetarian who belongs to a religion that believes in transubstantiation (it’s not just Catholics, Lutherans preach it, too) refuse communion?

Pssst! Luther preached Consubstantiation which isn’t (exactly) like Transubstantiation. People have died over the difference.

Since one is not eating the physical* body of Jesus (that to which your physical body reacts, or the “accidents”) one shouldn’t have a problem. However, as I mentioned in the other thread, this is one of the questions that risks the wrath of both Sister and Father for the sin of Wiseassedness.

[Larry_Borgia]

I’m not a Catholic so perhaps I’m speaking out of turn, but I suspect for a lot of Catholics what physically or metaphysically happens to the wine and wafer isn’t that important. What’s important is that the ritual gives them a sense of spiritual closeness–we could call it a “communion” even–with Jesus Christ; A sense of spitiual depth similar to that which the disciples felt during the last supper.

[dropzone]

Careful, Larry! You’re treading close to Memorialist territory, which is a heresy!

[Larry_Borgia]

@dropzone

Careful, Larry! You’re treading close to Memorialist territory, which is a heresy!

Well, like I said, this isn’t really my territory.

[Der_Trihs]

@Polycarp

I suspect you don’t RC, since there is essentially no overlap between churches that reject evolution and churches that accept any form of the Real Presence, much less transubstantiation itself.

I was speaking historically, during Darwin’s time, not about which churches reject evolution now.

[marshmallow]

So Jesus doesn’t mind that you’re chomping on his metaphysical flesh and drinking his metaphysical blood? Seems like it’d be a pain in the metaphysical ass! But why would one want to be a metaphysical cannibal, anyway? It seems there’d be easier ways to become spiritually close, whatever that means. And Jesus has to keep regrowing his flesh…sorta nasty and I bet it gets all infected…ewww.

I guess it’s a big step up from the real cannibals of old.

@Der Trihs

It’s only inflammatory if you are looking for a reason be be inflamed, and it’s disrespectful because I do not believe that religious beliefs deserve respect.

Do you like Sam Harris too?

[Der_Trihs]

@mstay

Do you like Sam Harris too?

Been a while, but I think I agreed with a fair amount of what he said.

[Revenant_Threshold]

A question; how would you describe the substance of a dog, aside from to that it is the substance of a dog? Usually we describe things on the basis of attributes - a dog is a dog because it was born to another dog, has a waggy tail, barks, etc. But these are all accidents. Is it possible to describe substance without relying on accidents?