I want to add a brief addendum to my post on misunderstandings regarding the Real Presence.
Sometimes one will hear zealous Catholics who are trying to be orthodox declare that Christ is "physically" present in the Eucharist. But this is, at best, misleading, depending on what you mean by "physical." Merriam-Webster defines "physical" as: "having material existence: perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature."
As you can see, there are two very clear problems with calling Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament "physical." The first is that this Presence is not perceptible through the senses. And He is not merely imperceptible through an accident of circumstances (too small, blocked by something else, etc), but by the very manner of the Presence, which is by definition meta-physical. The other caveat is "subject to the laws of nature," which of course the Presence is not. It is miraculous, really, a suspension of the normal metaphysical order by God.
Christ's Presence under the accidents of the bread and wine is "substantial." One should avoid saying that it is "physical," as this is misleading. If anything, the accidents themselves might be said to be "physically present." But Christ is present under them in the manner of a substance.
Sometimes one will hear zealous Catholics who are trying to be orthodox declare that Christ is "physically" present in the Eucharist. But this is, at best, misleading, depending on what you mean by "physical." Merriam-Webster defines "physical" as: "having material existence: perceptible especially through the senses and subject to the laws of nature."
As you can see, there are two very clear problems with calling Christ's presence in the Blessed Sacrament "physical." The first is that this Presence is not perceptible through the senses. And He is not merely imperceptible through an accident of circumstances (too small, blocked by something else, etc), but by the very manner of the Presence, which is by definition meta-physical. The other caveat is "subject to the laws of nature," which of course the Presence is not. It is miraculous, really, a suspension of the normal metaphysical order by God.
Christ's Presence under the accidents of the bread and wine is "substantial." One should avoid saying that it is "physical," as this is misleading. If anything, the accidents themselves might be said to be "physically present." But Christ is present under them in the manner of a substance.
5 comments:
Commenting on this and your previous post here. . . you're addressing one of the things I've always found annoying about what the Church teaches about the Real Presence: too damn many nuances, caveats, and distinctions on the part of her philosophers. That's how people like Schillebeekx can come up with stuff like "transignification," itself a rehash of Calvin's own "localiter circumscriptus" theory, simply by attempting to play the nuances. I also wonder if this playing on subtleties may also have something to do with the fact that Eastern heresies generally don't deny the Real Presence (the East doesn't over-philosophize it), while in the West, the Real Presence is often the first thing they attack.
Don't get me wrong, because I hold Transubstantiation to be more than a dogma, but an absolute fact, as absolute as the fact I'm using a keyboard to type this. I do, however, believe in and teach a "physical, localized" presence, because a) it's easier for people to understand "pysical presence" than a mile-long list of distinctions (if they're interested in the latter, they can always look it up), b) it more clearly separates us from the Reformed and Zwinglian traditions when it comes to this subject, and c) most importantly, Jesus didn't say "this is a metaphysical-nuanced-form of my Body," any more than he said "this is a symbol of my Body." He said very simply, "this is my Body," and I let it rest at that. Beyond those clear words, everything we can say about the Real Presence is little more than guesswork and speculation.
Okay, now I've probably made myself look like a proto-Protestant of some sort, but far from it. What I'm really saying is that in hyper-philosophing the Real Presence, I think the Western Church has done the Blessed Sacrament a huge disservice, and that those endless distinctions are what turns people away, not so much as the idea that Christ's presence is physical (which IMHO is more of a comfort than a scandalization).
As for those who can't handle the notion of a physical presence, I'd liken them to the disciples in John 6, the ones who couldn't handle Jesus' own teaching on the Eucharist and so they walked away.
Over-philosophizing can be a problem, to be sure.
But I think this distinction, at least, can be helpful in refuting skeptical empiricists who deny the Real Presence on the basis of a "lack of physical evidence."
There isn't going to be any exactly because the accidents don't change, because Christ's presence is mediated by the accidents. The Presence is made "physical and localized" only through the accidents of bread and wine.
I also think it helps to emphasize that the Presence is not just some mundane "fact," but rather is a Mystery of Faith; Christ is on the altar in an altogether miraculous fashion, not just like some coffee cup sitting on a nightstand or other such purely contingent arrangement of matter.
"Transignification" may be understood properly, and may be helpful in convincing philosophers who are more phenomenological in their way of speaking about the universe, but I indeed wouldn't mention it to the common man, as he's bound to misunderstand it and take it as a denial of the real, substantial presence of Christ.
"But I think this distinction, at least, can be helpful in refuting skeptical empiricists . . ."
Oh, so you're talking about adjusting the argument with an eye to convincing others of our truth? I agree that it's good to be conciliatory in phrasing, but I'd counter that anybody who uses the "lack of physical evidence" card in reference to the Eucharist, is bound to use that in references to other truths of the faith.
The Presence is made "physical and localized" only through the accidents of bread and wine.
So what if the accidents don't change? The bottom line is not whether the accidents change, but that either Jesus is in the room with us (i.e. localized presence) in a way that he's not already present in all creation, or Our Lord was a liar when he instituted the Eucharist.
Without going over the arguments from the Reformation period and saying why they're all wrong, I'll just say that the "metaphysical presence" argument is just as problematic, because while the physical and the spiritual are certain realities, the metaphysical (or at least our understanding of it) is a man-made concept; hence we attempt to constrain Jesus' presence into the confines of man-made concepts. It also comes off as saying "Well, we agree with you that he's not physically present, but we still don't agree with you because we're saying we still just don't want to agree with you."
Now, if you cut out metaphysical and spiritual-only presence (the Church condemns the latter), what remains is physical. And there might be another way we don't know about, either; Jesus is God and can do whatever he wants, so whether we understand may not be the important thing.
I also think it helps to emphasize that the Presence is not just some mundane "fact," but rather is a Mystery of Faith . . . not just like some coffee cup sitting on a nightstand or other such purely contingent arrangement of matter.
You misunderstand me. I said that the Real Presence is an absolute, but I never have, and never will, call it a mundane one. Perhaps the analogy was a bad one, but people these days (including Catholics) are more likely to believe in the existence of their keyboards and cups of coffee than they are in the Real Presence, and that's just plain sad.
"Transignification" may be understood properly, and may be helpful in convincing philosophers who are more phenomenological in their way of speaking about the universe. . .
If I recall correctly, transignification is an outright denial of the Real Presence, more along the lines of Calvin's and Zwingli's theology than along the lines of Catholic teaching. I'm skeptical that something like this could be used as any kind of a tool, especially since existentialist-minded philosophers aren't exactly known to be open-minded to any sort of orthodox teaching, anyway. And it would scandalize the "regular people" who wouldn't understand it, too.
In all, I think that any attempt to play subtleties in discussing the Eucharist is a betrayal of a core article of the Faith. As I mentioned before, Jesus himself experienced people's reaction in John 6, and there will always be people who don't believe. So on this particular subject, I hold that the only acceptable stance is one of "He said it, we believe it. Period." This is a place where Jesus didn't compromise on his teaching, and neither should we.
Ultimately, we may have to agree to disagree on this one. I'm a big fan of dialogue, but Real Presence is the one subject(in all theology-land) where I'm a hard-liner with very little room for compromise or flexibility.
"So what if the accidents don't change? The bottom line is not whether the accidents change, but that either Jesus is in the room with us (i.e. localized presence) in a way that he's not already present in all creation, or Our Lord was a liar when he instituted the Eucharist.
He is indeed present in a manner in a localized way that He is not already present in all creation, namely through His association with the accidents of bread and wine, which include the location of the church. But He is NOT present in the same manner as, say, He was to the Apostles while on earth as His own inherent location, nor present in the same inherent manner in which He is in Heaven currently.
"Now, if you cut out metaphysical and spiritual-only presence (the Church condemns the latter), what remains is physical."
But the metaphysical cannot be cut out. It is evident that the accidents don't change, so it is of the faith that "something" is there which does not. There is an underlying absolute reality to things beyond their relative properties.
Now, it is indeed a change between a material substance (the substance of the bread or wine) and another material substance (the substance of the body or blood of Christ), and not merely spiritual. But "material" is not necessarily physical.
We may just be disagreeing on terminology; I have not seen this underlying objective reality traditionally called "physical" in Catholic philosophy, as physical implies matter sensible under its own accidents and subject to the laws of nature, not miraculously mediated by others.
It is dogma, remember, that the accidents remain inhering in no subject, rather than in Christ's substance, which is nevertheless associated with them, present under them.
"but people these days (including Catholics) are more likely to believe in the existence of their keyboards and cups of coffee than they are in the Real Presence, and that's just plain sad."
But also very understandable. As their keyboards and coffee cups are concretely sensible, under their own inherent accidents (as is the natural order). The miracle of the Real Presence, on the other hand, requires the eyes of Faith. Exactly because that presence is not observably "physical" in the way your coffee cup or keyboard is.
"If I recall correctly, transignification is an outright denial of the Real Presence"
No. Some people have taken it that way, but Paul VI only condemned it "IF it is taken to deny transubstantiation." I don't think Schillebeecx himself did take it that way. He didn't believe it was a denial of transubstantiation or mutually exclusive, he was just trying to speak to a world of empiricist philosophies that speak (no necessarily invalidly) of "bundles" of phenomenological properties rather than substances with accidents.
To Schillebeecx himself, I believe, saying that these bundles of properties ("accidents" in aristotelianism) "mean" or "signify" something...was absolutely equivalent to saying they "are" something, at least when it comes to the mind of God (which determines the objective reality/meaning of things).
Sadly, I think many people took it to mean that the Eucharist was "just symbolic" as if it were some sort of play acting or metaphor...when really, in the original system, it was meant to simply be another analogy of Being EQUIVALENT TO transubstantiation, not exclusive of it.
"This is a place where Jesus didn't compromise on his teaching, and neither should we."
Jesus didn't use Aristotelianism, though, and we shouldn't feel constrained to any one philosophical framework either.
There are very real debates over what exactly "the meaning of 'is' is," it's why the subject of Ontology exists at all. The Church definitely allows theologians to discuss it.
"I'm a hard-liner with very little room for compromise or flexibility."
Well, so am I, trust me. That's why I think precision on these dogmas and the terminology used to describe them is very important, why these distinctions matter.
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