Classical Theism, Philosophy, and Religion Forum » Roman Catholicism and Transubstantiation

Mark · 7/21/2015 3:27 pm

John West wrote:
Okay. On scholasticism, a substance is also the ground of properties (which are real). So the relevant distinction here isn't between form and matter, but between substances and properties.

I’m still pretty new to scholastic thought (and in fact my purpose in joining this forum was to be around those who were more facile with it), so my understanding of scholastic thought on substance could be way off. I’m happy to be wrong if you can help me see where I’ve made a mistake. Does substance ground all properties? It would seem odd to me that it would ground properties related to the material makeup of the thing in which it is instantiated.

John West wrote:
Do you think identical twins[1] are (at least in principle) possible?

Yes, so far as intrinsic qualities go. But if their extrinsic qualities were also identical, then no, I don’t think they could be numerically distinct. Why?

Scott wrote:
I'm still failing to see what's supposed to be "overly specific" about the doctrine of transubstantiation.

If you have no trouble with the Real Presence itself (the consecrated Host* has become, and really is, the body and blood of Christ even though it looks, smells, tastes, etc. like bread), then I don't know what new problem arises when the exact same claim is expressed in the language of substance and attribute.

I think what’s problematic is that, as you’ve pointed out, the Eucharist is a mystery, so we don’t know exactly what that means. I know there are degrees of mystery and that mystery doesn’t mean we know nothing, but at the end of the day the Real Presence goes beyond our ken. Thus, when Christ says that the bread is his real body, why not leave it at that? If you make a more specific claim than that (i.e. give a concrete metaphysical explanation) then you to give an explanation for how that claim impacts our philosophical paradigm. And there seem to be a lot of problems on that front, as Jason pointed out.

Scott wrote:
The claim that the substance of the Host is Christ's body/blood even though its attributes are those of bread adds nothing new whatsoever as far as I can see; it just is the doctrine of the Real Presence, stated in language that unambiguously rules out metaphorical/symbolic interpretations but has no other function or purpose, certainly no "explanatory" one.

Well, aren’t there other views of the “Real Presence”? For example, the Lutheran view of the Real Presence is that Christ is literally in the elements, and that participants consume his body and blood literally, but they don’t believe that the bread or wine ever cease to be bread or wine. But the Catholic view seems to reject this (though it is ostensibly no less literal?) in favor of another specific view of what it means for Christ to be really present in the Eucharist.

Do you dislike substance/attribute analyses generally? If so, what do you propose to substitute in which the same problems don't simply reappear under other names?

Can’t we just say that the host is Christ’s flesh, as he did? Does that need to be parsed out? (I mean that as a sincere question, not as a sarcastic one.)

Last edited by Mark (7/21/2015 3:28 pm)

Mark · 7/21/2015 3:44 pm

This thread has become a little too full, I think. Perhaps it should be split?

Scott wrote:
For the record, I'm afraid most of this is simply wrong. A consensual and otherwise valid marriage between two baptized spouses has been ratified[/url]; it's valid, period, whether or not they "consummate" it*. And an unconsummated marriage is not allowed to be "ended without a divorce" (i.e. by a decree of nullity) merely because it hasn't been consummated; [url=http://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P44.HTM]what is allowed is its dissolution, which is most assuredly not a declaration that the marriage never existed.

Sorry, I suppose I should have examined what the canon law actually says before making claims about it (as a non-Catholic, I probably shouldn’t assume my impressions are equal to reality).

But my imprecision notwithstanding, in what sense are unconsummated couples married? They’ve had a ratified wedding, yes, but they’re not bound indissolubly and they’re not bound physically. Thus they have neither commitment nor physical union. But both of those seem vital elements of marriage? What is marriage if “spiritual marriage” can be a real marriage? It seems to me very unclear what function it provides, and why it would not be permitted for numbers greater than two, for close relations, or members of the same sex.

Scott wrote:
The "sexual union" is not, in short, a "necessity" for marriage, and the Church has blessed "spiritual marriages" for as long as it has existed. The marriage of Mary and Joseph is the very examplar and type of such marriage.

Do you think you could provide a link in the common law for spiritual marriages as well? That would be helpful.

Scott wrote:
It's understood, though, that such marriages require a special vocation and are "fruitful" in ways other than physical reproduction. Alexander is thus right in spirit though not in detail.

What are the implications of this for same-sex marriage? Would the catholic church allow for same-sex spiritual marriages? (Also, I was doing some further reading after looking through the links you provided and found that the common law until recently said explicitly that the aim of marriage is procreation and the education of offspring; wouldn’t that be at odds with the spiritual marriage view?)

Scott · 7/21/2015 4:14 pm

Mark wrote:
This thread has become a little too full, I think. Perhaps it should be split?

I don't think that will be necessary; I'll just post one more brief reply and bow out of the marriage discussion.

What makes a spiritual marriage a marriage is basically that the two spouses are exchanging a right to have sexual relations. In vowing abstinence/continence, they're voluntarily refraining from exercising that right. But if they didn't have that right in the first place, such a vow would be pointless and silly, as they'd be "vowing" not to do something they had no business doing anyway. (There's nothing special or unusually praiseworthy about e.g. a promise not to commit murder.)

Such marriage thus isn't available to same-sex couples or polygamous groups for the same reasons that marriage itself isn't: the exchange of that right is either physically or morally impossible in such cases. (It's just as impossible -- and this example may make the problem more obvious -- for a man to enter into a "spiritual marriage" with a woman who's already married to someone else.)

In short, before you can have a "spiritual marriage," you have to be able to have a marriage.

(Sorry, no link to canon law; the current version doesn't specifically address spiritual marriage as far as I know, though the parts to which I've already linked obviously allow for it.)

On the Real Presence, too, I'll post one more brief reply and then bow out:

Mark wrote:
[W]hen Christ says that the bread is his real body, why not leave it at that? If you make a more specific claim than that (i.e. give a concrete metaphysical explanation) then you to give an explanation for how that claim impacts our philosophical paradigm.

As I've said a couple of times now, I don't think the doctrine of transubstantiation is a "more specific claim." As metaphysical commitments go, the claim that there are things and they have properties strikes me as a pretty tame one, and the Lutheran account of the Real Presence is as committed to it as the Catholic; moreover, I don't agree that the Lutheran account is a legitimate and defensible "alternative" interpretation of Christ's words.

Last edited by Scott (7/21/2015 8:57 pm)

John West · 7/21/2015 4:38 pm

I want to add a comment to this:

Scott wrote:
As I've said a couple of times now, I don't think the doctrine of transubstantiation is a "more specific claim." At metaphysical commitments go, the claim that there are things and they have properties strikes me as a pretty tame one, and the Lutheran account of the Real Presence is as committed to it as the Catholic; moreover, I don't agree that the Lutheran account is a legitimate and defensible "alternative" interpretation of Christ's words.

No one is claiming[1] that they hold a substance/attribute analysis of reality because of transubstantiation. They hold a substance/attribute analysis of reality because they think it's the correct analysis of reality. So, the substance/attribute analysis of the Host is just a matter of consistency.

The substance-less alternatives are a bundles-of-tropes theory, a bundles-of-universals theory, and nominalism. The bundles theories state the Host is just properties, and nominalism states the Host is a singular ontological blob. With the exception of the bundles-of-tropes theory, all these hold up poorly under scrutiny (and, in fact, people doing work on the problem of universals generally hold that the final battle will be between trope theories and substance/universals theories[2]).

If people want to dismiss themselves from the conversation, they're welcome to do so. But these aspects of reality don't just go away.

[1]And, possibly, no one is claiming anyone is claiming.
[2]There is one resemblance nominalist whose taken seriously, but he has to bring in Lewis's extreme modal realism to make his theory work.

Scott · 7/21/2015 5:22 pm

(Okay, I'll bow out after one more more brief reply. But at least this part is still on the thread topic.)

John West wrote:
The substance-less alternatives are a bundles-of-tropes theory, a bundles-of-universals theory, and nominalism.

Any one of which, by the way, would make nonsense of Christ's words in instituting the Eucharist. If, for example, bread (as either of the bundle theories would have it) just is its properties and these differ from those which "are" Christ's body, then a bundle of bready properties (whether tropes or universals) is very obviously not Christ's body but mere bread.

I'll leave the corresponding point about nominalism as an exercise for the reader.

Last edited by Scott (7/21/2015 6:26 pm)

John West · 7/21/2015 7:16 pm

Hi Mark,

Mark wrote:
Yes, so far as intrinsic qualities go. But if their extrinsic qualities were also identical, then no, I don’t think they could be numerically distinct. Why?

I mentioned it to establish that more than one substance can ground all the same properties (leaving aside Cambridge properties).

Given a robust theory of universals[1], identical properties can also be instantiated on more than one kind of particular. For instance, it's possible an apple's specific red and a fire truck's specific red are the exact same red[2]. This possibility follows directly from what universals are. In other words, if a robust theory of universals is correct, the same property can be instantiated on not just more than one substance, but more than one kind of substance.

Distinct kinds of particulars can both instantiate more than one property at once, too. It is, for example, easy to think of two distinct kinds of particulars instantiating both the same colour and the same mass. Another example is their instantiating both the same colour and shape. So distinct kinds of substances can also instantiate more than one of the same properties at once.

I touched on whether a substance can instantiate and ground all the properties of another substance of a distinct kind here. I'll add that we already hold to the existence of one “entity”, God, that grounds all existence[3]. So, we have that more than one substance can ground identical properties, more than one kind of substance can ground identical properties (like Hosts and something else), and that a substance can ground all the properties of another, distinct kind of substance (whether this is possible in the case of the Host and the substance of the flesh and blood of the Son of God, specifically, is a slightly different question but is, I think, plausible).

That leaves the questions: “Since properties are grounded and dependent on substances, how is it possible for a substance to go out of existence and another substance to 'keep and carry' its properties? Shouldn't the properties go out of existence with their ground?” My only answer here is that we can deductively prove that God can do everything logically possible that's not against His Nature. There at least doesn't seem to be a logical contradiction in God “attaching” properties to a new substance or changing the substance “underneath” the properties (to another that can ground them).

Mark wrote:
Does substance ground all properties? It would seem odd to me that it would ground properties related to the material makeup of the thing in which it is instantiated.

My view is that substances ground all properties (but not all predicates). I may, however, be open to the possibility that the Ground of All Being, God, could in principle directly ground coherent bundles-of-tropes (or bundles-of-universals, in my case) in a substance/attribute (or, more correctly, “mixed”) universe. I'm not sure. If I say God couldn't, then I'm committed to the view that bundles-of-tropes theories aren't just false, but necessarily false. I'm not sure I'm prepared to claim bundles-of-tropes theories are necessarily false. I'm still working on this one.

If, however, it is possible for God to directly ground coherent bundles-of-tropes (or bundles-of-universals) in a substance/attribute universe, the final two questions raised above can be reduced to “Can God attach properties from one substance to another able to ground them?”

Mark wrote:
I’m still pretty new to scholastic thought (and in fact my purpose in joining this forum was to be around those who were more facile with it), so my understanding of scholastic thought on substance could be way off.

It's good to understand the specifically scholastic senses of the notions involved—often different in important ways from the senses we've inherited[4]. Honestly, I think chunks of this thread can be chalked up to a lack of facility with the notions involved.

Either way, that was my experience with transubstantiation. I looked back at it after having—for completely independent reasons—studied scholasticism for a while and thought, “That makes way more sense than I thought it did.” It may even be worth revisiting this later.

[1]A robust theory of universals just means a theory where a sufficient number of universals are instantiated. Not, say, one, instantiated on two of the same kind of things.
[2]That is, the same universal instantiated on two distinct particulars.
[3]On the basis of good, deductive proofs too.
[4]One example that should probably be mentioned is that scholastics argue that substances can't exist without instantiating at least one property.

Last edited by John West (7/22/2015 8:17 am)

Jason Grey · 7/21/2015 7:31 pm

John West wrote:
Consider causes and effects. If it's possible for God to interfere with (ie. stop from happening) causes' effects, then we have no way of knowing whether any given cause will bring about its effect. This includes effects like feeling when we touch objects, hearing because of sound, and seeing when light strikes our eyes. By the same reasoning, it would also entail radical skepticism about our sensory perception of the world around us.

Hi John,

I think you may be using the term "radical skepticism" as something that sounds bad to describe something entirely non-problematic. You seem to be saying that anything short of a godlike Cartesian certainty about natural phenomena entails "radical skepticism" about our sensory perception.

All it seems to entail is that there is no case in which we can have absolute certainty of the reliability of our sense perceptions.

Nor does it have anything particularly to do with the Divine omnipotence.

It seems to me, we do not and never will have absolute certainty about our sensory perceptions because:

1. We might be dreaming, or
2. Hallucinating, due to drugs or mental illness, or
3. Have been placed inside a virutal reality simulation, or
4. Live in a quantum universe where events happen only probablistiaclly so that, if I touch a "solid" table, it is not certain, but only very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very probable that the quantum forces will block my hand's quantum forces and stop it passing through, or
5. Our sensory perceptions of their very nature tend to decieve us in some cases (blindspots, optical illusions, etc.,), or,
6. Our sensory perceptions are dependent on environmental factors (light, acustics) which we cannot control and which will often if not always be less than optimal, or
7. Our sensory perceptions are being interfered with by an interfering factor X of which we are totally unaware, but which I can't see any way of logically ruling out.

I'm sure other people can think of other reasons to think that we will never be able to have absolute, 100% certainty about our sensory perceptions.

Since this is the case and this entails "radical skepticism," radical skepticism, so understood, is certainly true.

Here is my radically skeptical position: "Things exist with intelligible natures and the human intellect is sufficient to grasp theses natures to a great degree, indeed to such an extent we can formulate accurate concepts and laws on the basis of our grasp, ones so well grounded that we are entirely warranted to believe them to be true, although we must admit that there are times when things don't go as we expect, at which point we assume that something has gone awry, and we try to see what, in which attempt we sometimse succeed and sometimes do not."

In effect, the way you seem to be using the term, everyone is already, and has to be, a "radical skeptic," since no other position is tenable. No one, as far as I know, attempts to defend the proposition that one is both absolutey certain of at least some sensory experiences and that this certainty is warranted.

Could you tell me how saying that things will happen according to their natures unless, very improbably, God interferes is more conducive to any bad form of skepticsm than saying that the universe is quantumly probabalistically so that things will happen according to their natures, unless, very improbably, the quantum dice fall another way?

If I've got it wrong and you don't mean to call every position which rejects the possibility of absolute certainty in our knowledge of natural cause and effect "radical skepticsm," what do you mean by the term? And why would the divine omnipotence lead to it in any special way more than the myriad of other reasons to think our expectations about nature won't always be fulfilled?

John West · 7/21/2015 7:38 pm

Hi Jason,

Jason Grey wrote:
And why would the divine omnipotence lead to it in any special way more than the myriad of other reasons to think our expectations about nature won't always be fulfilled?

I'm on my way offline, but the short answer to your second question is that I don't think it does. I deny the first conditional of the dilemma for the reasons I stated. This should also, I hope, go some way to showing why I reject the notion that God's omnipotence does in fact lead to radical skepticism. The purpose of my dilemma was to show that if God is deceitful (ie. such that He just banged around transubstantiating everything), then we don't need anything nearly as spectacular as transubstantiation for the kind of skepticism Mark mentioned in the line I later quoted.

It would be interesting to discuss the points you list (I consider at least a few untroubling; ie. at least one is I think, at bottom, tied up with a Humean analysis of the laws of nature I reject) in a separate thread. Didn't Daniel ask questions about some epistemological claims you made anyway?

Last edited by John West (7/21/2015 7:46 pm)

Jeremy Taylor · 7/21/2015 8:55 pm

Mark wrote:
This thread has become a little too full, I think. Perhaps it should be split?

Unfortuntely, I don't think Boardhost supports thread splitting. Or at least, I have found no such feature, at least in the basic version.

Scott · 7/21/2015 9:06 pm

John West wrote:
There is one resemblance nominalist whose taken seriously, but he has to bring in Lewis's extreme modal realism to make his theory work.

Rodriguez-Pereyra?