Catholic Transubstantiation

[Hegel]

I was raised a Catholic. Not one ane more, but during my childhood it was frequently told to me that the bread and wine actually turns into the body and blood of Jesus. Another thread on this forum brought this to mind. How do the Catholics justify transubstantiation, when there appears to be no phisical difference? I had to know so I went down to my local university library, and looked into the New Catholic Encyclopedia, the second edition, and behold there the answer was, and IT MADE SENSE. So here it is, for all those puzzled by this confusing belief.

The best way to discribe transubstatiation is to use the Platonic system of the world. This isn't exactly what the Catholics use, but it gets the point across much better. According to Plato there is the world of ideas which holds all the perfect forms for things, including the perfect form of Jesus Christ, bread and wine. The real world is just a pale reflection of these things that we, as a series of pale reflections can interact with. Well in comes transubstatiation. The priest takes ordinary reflections of bread and wine, and asks God to change them. So God move the reflection from being a reflection of bread and wine in the world of ideas, to a reflection of Jesus Christ that LOOKS like bread and wine in this world.

Very simple. Bread and wine stays bread and wine, but they change into a reflection of Jesus Christ on earth, instead of reflection of ideal bread and ideal wine on earth.

Make sense? Not at all? Ask questions, I think I may not have explained it very well, but it seems to make sense to me.

[Stimpson J. Cat]

Makes perfect sense to me.

Except for one minor detail...

I fail to see how this differs from saying the following:

There is a fantasy world with Jesus in it, as well as bread and wine. We will choose to believe that the bread and wine in the real world correlate, in some indescribable way, with the bread and wine in our fantasy world. We will then choose to believe that God (who also exists in our fantasy world) can somehow cause the bread and wine in the real world to correlate with Jesus, instead of the imaginary bread and wine.


Dr. Stupid

[c4ts]

What we have here is a confusion between metaphor and reality. Plato's cave was a metaphor for how ideas interact with the perceivable world. Our ideasl, beliefs, attention to detail (etc...) obscure our view of reality, so that we cannot see an idea for what it really is. Instead we just get a flickering phantom. The only way to see an idea for what it is, is to be free of these things and think for ourselves, with the help of philosophy. That's what the metaphor is about, not God being able to change things right from under our noses because we can't see what he's doing. There really is no world of ideas, it just seems that way to us because we don't have access to the truth all the time.

[Yahzi]

Originally posted by Hegel
Make sense?
No.

The words you typed are clear and understandable. The concept, however, is just stupid.

If we were to apply your example to anything other than religion, it would become obvious how stupid it is. Imagine suing someone because you ordered a new car, but in fact only the pale reflection of a new car was delivered - its actual essence was that of an old, beat up used car. Imagine being sued by someone over this kind of issue. How would you defend yourself against such a lawsuit? Can you imagine the outrage you would feel at even having to show up in court over such an idiotic claim?

The principal is that reality is what is real. If Platonic thought is correct, then it is impossible to separate the thing from its essence. This is the entire nature of religion: to take an ordinary object, and then add in or cross out a few select properties at will. It is a word game of definitions, and nothing more.

Saying God does in a miracle is just as stupid as saying God can use a miracle to make a square circle with 3 corners. Why not just say that the host becomes the literal body of Christ, but God uses a miracle to make it look, taste, and respond to all scientific investigation as if it were merely a cracker?

[c4ts]

Originally posted by Yahzi



The principal is that reality is what is real. If Platonic thought is correct, then it is impossible to separate the thing from its essence. This is the entire nature of religion: to take an ordinary object, and then add in or cross out a few select properties at will. It is a word game of definitions, and nothing more.


Don't let one poor example represent the whole of Platonic thought. Just because a few sophists want to play word games with what virtue is doesn't mean Plato is doing that too. Rather, he is trying to prevent that sort of thing.

[arcticpenguin]

Yes, it makes sense. That does not mean it is true.

That explanation requires a separate world of "essences", for which there is absolutely zero evidence.

[c4ts]

But doesn't the essence of something come from what it appears to be, and its relation to other things?

[Brown]

Well, some churches hold that God is "present" in the bread and wine. They do not necessarily hold that the bread changes into flesh or that the wine changes into blood (although some do).

If God is everything, then God is in the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe. God is present in all of our meals, and in communion, the key idea is to remember this fact. ("Do this in remembrance of me" is what Jesus is quoted as saying.)

Now, having said that, there's a lot about communion that doesn't make sense to me. I've read Luther's Catechism, and it still doesn't make sense. I've asked a minister to explain it to me, and his explanation still doesn't make sense. I will not go into details on this point, because that's not what this thread is about. What I will say is that the defensible "God is in the food we eat, the water we drink, the air we breathe" position does not appear to be the official position of the churches. Rather, they take a more mystical view of the sacrament.