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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: I went to a catholic mass for the first time
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
Gamaliel, I'd like to try to respond to various points scattered amongst your last several posts. Not sure how well I'll do. As to adoring the Consecrated Host, I think the thing to bear in mind is that what we are doing is adoring the Reality behind the outward form of bread. We aren't adoring a disc of baked wheaten flour: "Humbly I adore Thee, Verity unseen, Who Thy glory hidest, 'neath these shadows mean...What the Truth has spoken, that for truth I hold".
However, I would be the first to agree that the primary purpose of the Eucharist is to consume - take into ourselves - Christ's life-giving Body and Blood. All else is secondary and can become potentially both excessive and obsessive (not that any religious practice can't so become).
Regarding the nature of what we receive in the Holy Communion, we receive the Risen, Ascended and Glorified Christ. That isn't the same thing as cannibalising the body of a first century CE itinerant Jewish rabbi. Scripture makes it clear that post-Resurrection, the properties of Our Lord's physical being had changed. He evidently could change appearance and could pass through solid walls/doors, though he was tactually perceived to be solid matter and evidently not a disembodied ghost; moreover, he demonstrated the capability of consumming food. After a number of days and appearances to His disciples, He left our mundane world in even this post-Resurrection localised presence and entered more completely into the Godhead (this is very hard to express succinctly without skirting close to some errors regarding both the Trinity and the Incarnation) in a manner that his disciples described in perceptual terms as ascending.
Thus, I believe that in the offering of the Eucharist the bread and wine become through the Word and by the operation of the Holy Spirit, the very Body and Blood of Our Lord, yet not the ordinary flesh and blood of a 1st Century male Jew. He is there in His entirety, but none the less in his Post-Resurrection and Post-Ascension entirety, having a character that we can't really understand.
I can see how this could be viewed also as "spiritual presence", but I find that a bit airy-fairy. The Church as a whole - the vast majority of the Church through the ages - has believed that the consecrated Elements are more than just a means of transmission of Christ's "ghostly" presence, but rather undergo a transformation in which they really do become the Christ, fully and truly present, irrespective of what theories we employ to explain the continuing physical presence of the "accidents".
A further aspect of this is that Christ's Presence in the Sacrament of the Eucharist isn't temporally tied to the act of receiving Holy Communion or to the celebration itself. Christ continues to be present under the forms of bread and wine consecrated in the Eucharistic celebration, so that we reserve the Sacrament, take it to the sick and home-bound, and adore the Presence in the Eucharistic species. It's instructive to know that during the early centuries of repeated waves of persecution when the Church was an underground institution, Christians carried little silver boxes on their persons that contained the consecrated Bread. In many cases they were more likely to make their communions from this reserved sacrament than at an actual - and proscribed - celebration of the Eucharist. To be caught by the persecuting authorities at a proscribed Eucharist would likely constitute a death sentence; and to be caught in possession of one of these little boxes containing Our Lord's sacramental Body could also likely entail death (see Dom Gregory Dix' "The Shape of the Liturgy"). The point is, Christians believed the continuing Real Presence of the consecrated Elements from very early times.
To get back to those sesame seeds on top of the consecrated bun, I'd just say they are a bit of extraneous stuff that really shouldn't be there. They're a bad idea, but I don't think they'd invalidate the bun as matter for consecration into the Body of Christ. Still, Wonder Loaf just entails a lot of preservatives and strange agents to create that soft and sticky white bread that would seem way too artificial to be reverent matter to use in the Eucharist (unless one really couldn't obtain anything else for some catastrophic reason).
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
Thanks Lietuvos, that is certainly helpful. Perhaps I'm dim, but I hadn't quite apprehended the Risen and Ascended aspects in connection with the eucharist - although I'm well aware of them cognitively in relation to Christian doctrine etc.
That has been a helpful insight.
Does Wonder Loaf still exist? I've not seen any, nor, mercifully, eaten any for years.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras:
Regarding the nature of what we receive in the Holy Communion, we receive the Risen, Ascended and Glorified Christ. That isn't the same thing as cannibalising the body of a first century CE itinerant Jewish rabbi.
Not to beat a dead horse, but in light of recent discussions, thank you for expressing it so clearly.
quote:
(this is very hard to express succinctly without skirting close to some errors regarding both the Trinity and the Incarnation)
You've done an admirable job. Again, thanks.
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"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
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Lietuvos Sv. Kazimieras
Shipmate
# 11274
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Posted
I feel sure I've seen Wonder Loaf in the UK at least as recently as 2006 or 2007. It's not the sort of bread I'd ever buy, so don't really keep an eye peeled for it either. In the US I'm pretty sure that the equally execrable Wonder Bread ("a rose by any other name...") is still made, and certainly other local white breads of the same genre.
I think in regard to the Eucharist, there has been a lot of folk piety over the centuries that hasn't contributed to a very helpful understanding of the Real Presence: things like pious stories of bleeding Hosts and injunctions to children not to chew the Baby Jesus. That sort of thing.
I'd say instead: imagine the Second Person of the Trinity, now for us eternally in the hypostatic union of the Christ, infusing Himself into the Bread and Wine in such a way as to completely possess, fill, overshadow and transform these things.
Posts: 7328 | From: Delaware | Registered: Apr 2006
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Frankenstein
Shipmate
# 16198
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by redunderthebed:
1) How you can get blessing from the father of the church i thought god was the only one that can bless you.
Sorry if this point has already been answered but the blessing reads:
Priest: May almighty God bless you,
the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit
It is a calling on God to bless us.
-Edited to fix broken code
Gwai,
Purgatory Host
[ 02. January 2013, 17:00: Message edited by: Gwai ]
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It is better to travel in hope than to arrive?
Posts: 267 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jan 2011
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
...I can see what Liet' is saying and why he'd eschew the archaic technicalities of transubstantiation, but unless I'm missing something I can't see how it's a million miles from whatever the Cramnerian position was/is ...
As I understand it, the Cranmerian position is that the consecrated elements signify the body and blood, but are not themselves changed in any other respect, and that we, by God's grace, receive the body and blood in a spiritual sense as we consume the bread and wine, but the latter are not themselves the body and blood. So, if you like, the ritual action of communion creates the opportunity for the operation of God's spiritual action, should He happen to so desire; in other words, they are the outward and physical sign of an inward and spiritual grace.
So the important distinction is that the bread and wine are not themselves 'God', but are a sign of God's presence and God's grace. At least, that is how I understand it, and I don't think that is too far from a default middle-of-the-road Anglican position.
Whether that make a MoR Eucharist a different service in intent from an Anglo-Catholic Eucharist, or whether I should refrain from receiving at Anglo-Catholic churches, I'm not sure.
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Gamaliel
Shipmate
# 812
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Posted
I'm sure Wonder Loaf and equally non-bread-like material is still on sale here ... it's just that I've not seen it because I wouldn't eat bread of that kind. Just as I don't drink keg beer but always go for cask ales.
Anyway ... the main issue is that you've made a significant point, Lietuvos and I appreciate it.
@Holy Smoke - yes I think that is the default Anglican position but it's still a bit more 'realised' than the memorialist one ... it's rather like a 'receptionist' one as I understand it.
I'm not sure it should debar you from receiving at an Anglo-Catholic church, though, Holy Smoke ...
Intriguingly, whilst I've attended RC and Orthodox services I've never attended a full-on, nose-bleed high Anglo-Catholic one. The liberal-catholic Anglican parish here uses incense and so on but it's very laid-back ... catholic-lite.
I must go to a full-on Anglo-Catholic service one of these days.
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Let us with a gladsome mind
Praise the Lord for He is kind.
http://philthebard.blogspot.com
Posts: 15997 | From: Cheshire, UK | Registered: Jul 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
The debate between Trisagion, Lietuvos and Gamaliel is very interesting. Please keep it up. But to me, it explains why for now I'll prefer to stick with Queen Elizabeth I.
In some curious way, dogmatic assertions that 'it happens this way', or worse, 'unless you believe it happens (or in some churches doesn't happen) this way, you're faith is defective' can take away from the meaning of the service.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
@Holy Smoke - yes I think that is the default Anglican position but it's still a bit more 'realised' than the memorialist one ... it's rather like a 'receptionist' one as I understand it.
Yes, I suppose the difference is that it is that it involves God in an active role, as you were, rather than us doing something in God's name. But I think that's also true to a certain, in fact to a great extent in any Anglican service - there is a sacramental component to the Daily Offices, even if they are not 'official' sacraments, or even so-called sacraments - this again is something I feel is central to the mainstream Anglican idea of church, and this is why some Anglicans will regularly attend Matins or Evensong even when they could attend Eucharist if they so desired, because, attended regularly, Matins or Evensong mean as much to them in spiritual terms as a Eucharist.
quote:
I'm not sure it should debar you from receiving at an Anglo-Catholic church, though, Holy Smoke ...
No, I'm not sure either... one has a sense of Anglican first, Anglo-Catholic second. Even the most self-conscious party church is still a parish church, and has parishioners, and its primary duty is to be the parish church for those parishioners, and for anybody else who might chose to attend - students, tourists, stray Roman Catholics, or whoever. So Trisagion's point about the RCC deliberately chosing to exclude people with the 'wrong' eucharistic theology cannot possibly apply; there can never be an absolute guarantee that everybody attending a particular service and receiving at that service has the same attitude and belief towards the elements, as there is, at least in theory, in a Roman Catholic church. At the most, it can expect people to behave with reverence, and to respect each others' beliefs, which is a very different thing. One would not, for example, expect someone to object because they saw me last Sunday in the local Protestant gaff.
quote:
Intriguingly, whilst I've attended RC and Orthodox services I've never attended a full-on, nose-bleed high Anglo-Catholic one. The liberal-catholic Anglican parish here uses incense and so on but it's very laid-back ... catholic-lite.
I must go to a full-on Anglo-Catholic service one of these days.
Well I'm not sure if I have - not a really, really high service, where I really would feel uncomfortable... Quite honestly, they feel just as laid-back and Anglican as any other service; they just have a few extra Catholic bits, and generally speaking, excellent music and (sometimes) traditional language. Nothing really objectionable.
![[Devil]](graemlins/devil.gif)
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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moonlitdoor
Shipmate
# 11707
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Posted
What keeps me from a Catholic understanding of the eucharist is not that Christ's body and blood are there, but that bread and wine are no longer there. That doesn't make much sense to me whether I start from intellectual understanding or experience. Christ's risen body is not part of our normal material world I suppose so it's not surprising that one does not detect it the way we sense material things. But the absence of bread and wine should be detectable all right, and if one doesn't believe in the idea of essences and accidents, I don't get how something can have every conceivable appearance of being something and yet not be it.
I was interested in what Gwai said about seeking an explanation for experience, but am I the only one who still does experience the bread and wine as well as Christ ? I mean like noticing whether I like the taste of it. Do you Gwai or others look for the explanation to cover that part of the experience as well ?
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We've evolved to being strange monkeys, but in the next life he'll help us be something more worthwhile - Gwai
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gwai:
I can answer for myself, but I suspect my understanding is not properly Catholic either, so I'm not sure its what you are asking about. Regardless, I'd say that the bread and wine are present, but not relevantly so. They were the relevant bits up until the blessing, and after that are not.
Would, then, the bread not cause problems for a coeliac?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Fair enough.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
Well, bearing in mind this is a bit Thomist and so western and so a bit suspect for MT, since it the physical properties (accidents) of bread (or some of hem) to which the coeliac's body reacts and since they remain unchanged, then it would remain problematic.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
Well, bearing in mind this is a bit Thomist and so western and so a bit suspect for MT, since it the physical properties (accidents) of bread (or some of hem) to which the coeliac's body reacts and since they remain unchanged, then it would remain problematic.
While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
@OP ... and all I got was this load of old Thomism. Talking of cats:
[deleted potential copyright infringement]
[ 04. January 2013, 02:39: Message edited by: RooK ]
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Fr Weber
Shipmate
# 13472
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by the giant cheeseburger:
Well done for being courageous enough to work out your own faith rather than just swallowing one institution's version of things.
As for answering some of your questions (but from a non-denom point of view)...
[list=1]
[*]True, they should be more transparent about the fact they are merely acting as a messenger communicating to you about God's blessing which is true regardless of whether they communicated it or not. It's exactly the same as the reason that evangelism is important - it's the truth so it needs to be told otherwise people won't hear it.
I'm not sure how much more transparent it could be.
"The blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, be amongst you and remain with you always."
It seems abundantly clear to me that the blessing being conferred is not the personal blessing of the priest or bishop, but of God.
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"The Eucharist is not a play, and you're not Jesus."
--Sr Theresa Koernke, IHM
Posts: 2512 | From: Oakland, CA | Registered: Feb 2008
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
There has been so much of deep interest in this thread, especially in the discussions of the meaning of the Eucharist.
Earlier there was mention of an agreement between Anglican and French bishops about the circumstances in which Anglicans could receive communion in French Catholic churches.
I have been looking for the original document and not found it, but here are three references to it:
http://archive.catholicherald.co.uk/article/1st-february-1991/3/guide-to-ecumenical-twinning
http://europe.anglican.org/ecumenical-information-and-links/agreements-and-partners#four
In the link above, item 4 on the page refers to the twinning and exchanges booklet that was mentioned in the Catholic Herald article.
http://anglican.cz/response-apostolic-constitution/
( I am not endorsing this--or any--of the sites I'm linking to here!
Catholics may find a couple of comments on this anglican.cz one a bit off-putting.)
Actually I'm not sure that this booklet introduces a much wider permission for Anglicans to communicate in Catholic churches in France than do the Catholic canons quoted upthread by Ingo.
Except this: according to the Catholic Herald journalist, the booklet says the Anglican must have "an unambiguous faith regarding the real presence."
Since I haven't seen the original booklet itself, I don't know if this was the exact wording. If it is, then it would seem to allow Anglicans who believe in the Real Presence, but not necessarily the transubstantiation version of it, to communicate in French Catholic churches, provided the other conditions are met. Because it doesn't specify that the Anglican must have the transubstantiation understanding of the Real Presence; just an "unambiguous faith" regarding it.
If this is so, then doesn't this represent a departure from the norm (as I understood it) that to take communion in a Catholic church you must believe not only in the Real Presence, but in the specific transubstantiation understanding of it?
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Pondering.
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
Cara,
There seems to be (have been?) some agreement, at least among American bishops (RC & Episcopalian), that the positions are not substantively that different. See the "Five Affirmations on the Eucharist." I know nothing about this document or its history, and would be interested in more info. But here's a quote:
quote:
We affirm that Christ in the eucharist makes himself present sacramentally and truly when under the species of bread and wine these earthy realities are changed into the reality of his body and blood. In English the terms substance, substantial, and substantially have such physical and material overtones that we, adhering to The Final Report, have substituted the word truly for the word substantially in the clarification request by the Vatican Response. However, we affirm the reality of the change by consecration as being independent of the subjective disposition of the worshipers.
Seems—at least to my uneducated reading—to elide the importance of the "substance" terminology in a common understanding.
Any of the better-informed have thoughts on this document?
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
Very interesting, Bostonman, thank you. There is a lot of information online about the Anglican Roman Catholic International Commission and the various ARC groups in different countries--I have only glanced at it so far.
As the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity approaches, I plan to do a bit more reading into the current state of ecumenical affairs.
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Pondering.
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Craigmaddie
c/o The Pickwick Club
# 8367
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.
I think that without the substance-accident distinction it is very difficult to maintain the continued existence of the same thing from moment to moment in light of the constant changes at the molecular level.
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Via Veritas Vita
Posts: 1093 | From: Scotchland, Europeshire | Registered: Aug 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Craigmaddie:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
While I don't accept the substance/accidence distinction, it does have an admirable internal consistency, which shows quite clearly on this particular point.
I think that without the substance-accident distinction it is very difficult to maintain the continued existence of the same thing from moment to moment in light of the constant changes at the molecular level.
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Sergius-Melli
Shipmate
# 17462
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
Cara,
There seems to be (have been?) some agreement, at least among American bishops (RC & Episcopalian), that the positions are not substantively that different. See the "Five Affirmations on the Eucharist." I know nothing about this document or its history, and would be interested in more info.
A very interesting sentence at the end of all that which is worth holding in mind and considering in-line with other issues:
quote:
...records its conclusions that the eucharist as sacrifice is not an issue that divides our two Churches.
Posts: 722 | From: Sneaking across Welsh hill and dale with a thurible in hand | Registered: Dec 2012
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.
Modern science gets along entirely without any metaphysics at all but we might not want to do so.
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
Posts: 3923 | Registered: Nov 2003
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.
Modern science gets along entirely without any metaphysics at all but we might not want to do so.
Maybe more precisely, modern science gets along by making a commitment to methodological naturalism without necessarily making a commitment to either metaphysical naturalism or metaphysical supernaturalism. In other words, science gives its explanations by proceeding as if what it explains is entirely reducible to material phenomena, but this is logically compatible with either metaphysical position.
Regarding the point about the identity of objects, this means that science can proceed in its explanations without making any metaphysical claims about the identity of objects at all. In some cases, it's a useful scientific shorthand to say that I'm a particular entity that behaves in certain ways. On other levels, like the molecular or quantum-mechanical, this is a pretty meaningless idea... the boundary between my skin and the keyboard isn't so obvious.
So the fact that science gets along without it doesn't really mean it isn't necessary to an idea of identity. Now, whether the substance–accident distinction in particular, or merely something similar to or parallel to it, is necessary, I can't answer. But, you know, there has been work done in the philosophy of identity since Aristotle.
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Craigmaddie
c/o The Pickwick Club
# 8367
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Posted
The fact of constant Heraclitean change in all material objects, taken by itself, can only lead to a rejection of identity insofar as there is no-thing that survives each subsequent change. If we are to assert any kind of perduring identity then there would have to be a part of a thing that is affected and a part that is unaffected by these changes*. Thus, the substance-accident distinction does not seem unreasonable.
*Of course, there is also the question of the destruction of a substance.
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Via Veritas Vita
Posts: 1093 | From: Scotchland, Europeshire | Registered: Aug 2004
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
You've completely lost me, I fear. Are you referring to the changes that occur during transubstantiation? Modern science manages to get along just fine without the substance/accident distinction.
Modern science gets along entirely without any metaphysics at all but we might not want to do so.
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction. It is a physical/scientific distinction from a now-defunct scientific theoretical framework.
quote:
Originally posted by Craigmaddie:
The fact of constant Heraclitean change in all material objects, taken by itself, can only lead to a rejection of identity insofar as there is no-thing that survives each subsequent change. If we are to assert any kind of perduring identity then there would have to be a part of a thing that is affected and a part that is unaffected by these changes*. Thus, the substance-accident distinction does not seem unreasonable.
If you go this route you are going to have to come up with a definition of "substance" and "accident" which is amenable to modern science, but is more than obfscatory synonyms of "the thing that doesn't change" and "the part that changes."
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
[ 10. January 2013, 08:49: Message edited by: Chesterbelloc ]
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Holy Smoke
Shipmate
# 14866
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
Would it be fair to characterize it as a change in 'meaning' and 'significance'? I think Macquarrie talks in those terms, giving some sort of ontological reality to the 'meaning' of an object. Could one call it a change in the object's 'mental body', for example, as opposed to it's physical body?
The other area of difficulty is the notion of eucharist as sacrifice. Notwithstanding the question of propitiation, which I don't think is absolutely central to the question (others may disagree - someone talked about pleading with Jesus to God, for example), is there any essential difference between eucharist as 'sacrifice', and eucharist as 'making present' Christ's sacrifice?
Posts: 335 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2009
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Cara
Shipmate
# 16966
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sergius-Melli:
quote:
Originally posted by Bostonman:
Cara,
There seems to be (have been?) some agreement, at least among American bishops (RC & Episcopalian), that the positions are not substantively that different. See the "Five Affirmations on the Eucharist." I know nothing about this document or its history, and would be interested in more info.
A very interesting sentence at the end of all that which is worth holding in mind and considering in-line with other issues:
quote:
...records its conclusions that the eucharist as sacrifice is not an issue that divides our two Churches.
Re the Eucharist as sacrifice, see this quote, highlighted by Sergius-Melli, from the agreement between RC and Episcopalian bishops that Bostonian pointed us towards.
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Pondering.
Posts: 898 | Registered: Feb 2012
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Craigmaddie and Chesterbelloc, please could you explain what you mean by 'perdure' in this context? Is it a specific liturgical usage I've never encountered before, like 'to confect'? The only context in which I've encountered the word is technical to a particular discipline and I'm not sure whether you are using it with the same meaning. It may fit or may not.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
I'm not Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie, but while we await their response, Enoch, you may find this article (which covers perdurantism in context) to be helpful.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Trisagion
Shipmate
# 5235
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?
Ever read any St Thomas?
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ceterum autem censeo tabula delenda esse
Posts: 3923 | Registered: Nov 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Trisagion:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?
Ever read any St Thomas?
Yes.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
The substance/accidence distinction is not a metaphysical distinction.
Actually, that is precisely what it is. It is exactly an ontological distinction between the physical matter (and some other attributes) of objects and their perduring (broadly non-physical) identity as existing entities.
No, it is not. It is a distinction between what physical matter is at heart, and how it looks/feels/tastes/etc. Ever read any Aristotle?
Yes.
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.
You've just said all of physics is metaphysical.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
I'm not Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie, but while we await their response, Enoch, you may find this article (which covers perdurantism in context) to be helpful.
Many thanks for the link. I've certainly never heard of perdurantism before. To me, the distinction between perdurantism and endurantism does sound a bit like a different sort of urantism.
Could Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie please explain what they are getting at for me, in simple terms that an ordinary person could understand.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.
You've just said all of physics is metaphysical.
Nope. See this distinction for starters. quote:
Prior to the modern history of science, scientific questions were addressed as a part of metaphysics known as natural philosophy. Originally, the term "science" (Latin scientia) simply meant "knowledge". The scientific method, however, transformed natural philosophy into an empirical activity deriving from experiment unlike the rest of philosophy. By the end of the 18th century, it had begun to be called "science" to distinguish it from philosophy. Thereafter, metaphysics denoted philosophical enquiry of a non-empirical character into the nature of existence.
Now I must go and greet a dinner guest.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Chesterbelloc
Tremendous trifler
# 3128
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Enoch:
Could Chesterbelloc or Craigmaddie please explain what they are getting at for me, in simple terms that an ordinary person could understand.
I'll give it a go, Enoch.
What I mean is that, to take the case of the Blessed Sacrament, all the physically discernable qualities of the elements - how they looks, taste, feel, what the microscope would show, how they would affect the human digestive system, how they would come out in a mass spectrometer, etc. - remain precisely the same. Those are what I'm calling the accidents. I think we can all agree that the accidents do not change. Those "survive" (we can say perdure, but it might be misleading) through the process of consecration.
And yet after consecration we say that there is no longer bread or wine on the altar but only the actual "underlying" reality of Christ's Body and Blood - despite the appearance, there really is flesh and blood, and Christ in his full divine identity, present. The "underlying reality" is what I'm calling the substance.
It's not just, to answer Holy Smoke, that the meaning of the symbols changes for us - it's not mere "transignification" which is essentially an inter-subjective phenomenon - it's that the actual flesh and blood, body, soul and divinity of the second Person of the Trinity becomes truly present without disturbing the accidents of bread and wine.
But this is not the realm of regular physics or even what regularly occurs metaphysically - it's a genuine miracle. We do not know how it happens, but we can say to some extent [/I]what has happened - what was bread and wine and appeared as such is no longer, though still appearing as such. That's a metaphysical statement, because it is not explicable or discernable in purely physical terms - because all the physical properties remain the same. If it is no longer bread and wine but rather, in actual fact (not mere subjective significance/meaning) Christ, and yet all the physical properties of bread and wine remain, then something real but not physical has changed. There has been a "substantial" change, as we say in the lingo.
The idea of a "substance" which underlies the physical properties of a thing could almost have been invented just to explain this very phenomenon - if it hadn't existed it would have been necessary to invent it, you could say. But, as it happens, it wasn't - Aristotle already came up with it centuries before.
And this is why the accident/substance distinction is a meta-physical one.
Caveat: I am a mere devout layman, IANA theologian.
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"[A] moral, intellectual, and social step below Mudfrog."
Posts: 4199 | From: Athens Borealis | Registered: Aug 2002
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
That's a good, succinct explanation. The RCC embraces it. It is up to the individual to decide if he/she believes it. Presumably if one is an RC, one is expected to believe that it happens that way. It would not be a stumbling block to me to push the Real Presence to that point. A few other aspects of the Roman Catholic Church do block me, but not that one.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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sonata3
Shipmate
# 13653
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
[
quote:
Originally posted by Angloid:
There is a joint statement of Catholic and Anglican bishops in France to this effect.
If this were true, it would only be a regulation relevant to France - and I would appreciate a link to that supposed statement. Furthermore, I am doubtful that the French bishops have the power to declare a blanket permission. The relevant canon law that binds them is
quote:
Can. 844 §1. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments licitly to Catholic members of the Christian faithful alone, who likewise receive them licitly from Catholic ministers alone, without prejudice to the prescripts of §§2, 3, and 4 of this canon, and ⇒ can. 861, §2.
§2. Whenever necessity requires it or true spiritual advantage suggests it, and provided that danger of error or of indifferentism is avoided, the Christian faithful for whom it is physically or morally impossible to approach a Catholic minister are permitted to receive the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick from non-Catholic ministers in whose Churches these sacraments are valid.
§3. Catholic ministers administer the sacraments of penance, Eucharist, and anointing of the sick licitly to members of Eastern Churches which do not have full communion with the Catholic Church if they seek such on their own accord and are properly disposed. This is also valid for members of other Churches which in the judgment of the Apostolic See are in the same condition in regard to the sacraments as these Eastern Churches.
§4. If the danger of death is present or if, in the judgment of the diocesan bishop or conference of bishops, some other grave necessity urges it, Catholic ministers administer these same sacraments licitly also to other Christians not having full communion with the Catholic Church, who cannot approach a minister of their own community and who seek such on their own accord, provided that they manifest Catholic faith in respect to these sacraments and are properly disposed.
See the bits that I have put in italics. I consider it unlikely that the French bishops can claim grave necessity for say an English tourist who happens to find himself in France on a Sunday with no Anglican church in the vicinity. I bet that this is limited to French residents who have serious, long-term problems with accessing an Anglican church close to where they live. Furthermore, unless French Anglicans are all Anglo-Catholics to the bone, I do not see how an individual check on the beliefs and dispositions can be avoided. Anyway, let's have the actual document, so we can see what they really said.
I regret that I do not have the specifics of the French Catholic Bishops' statement, but "Called to Witness and Service," aka "The Reuilly Common Statement," an agreement between the British and Irish Anglican Churches, and the French Lutheran and Reformed Churches (2001), notes that "Mutual eucharistic hospitality has been offered to inter-church families in the Diocese of Strasbourg. Anglican churches have had many links at different levels with the Roman Catholic Church in France as well as in England. Many of these have been fostered by the national Anglican-Roman Catholic committees (ARCs). French ARC and English ARC produced jointly the report "Twinnings and Exchanges," which led to eucharistic hospitality being offered to individual Anglicans when they are in France (para. 14)."
There have also been joint Mennonite-Catholic celebrations of the eucharist at a Catholic monastery (approved by the Abbott), and, of course, the admission to communion of Brother Roger of Taize.
I am Lutheran, my wife is Roman Catholic, and we have tried to navigate these differences for some 32 years. I am well aware of what the RCC teaches, and largely avoid receiving at Catholic celebrations. But when, on a couple of occasions, priests who are friends of her (very large) Catholic family have invited me to receive, I have done so.
I do not wish to violate the discipline of the Catholic Church, but at the same time, I hear so many variations as to what that discipline is.
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"I prefer neurotic people; I like to hear rumblings beneath the surface." Stephen Sondheim
Posts: 386 | From: Between two big lakes | Registered: Apr 2008
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
quote:
Originally posted by mousethief:
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
It's a matter of ontology - including what physical matter is "at heart", the distiction between appearance and reality, etc. - and therefore it's by definition a metaphysical question. It's textbook metaphysical.
You've just said all of physics is metaphysical.
Nope. See this distinction for starters.
No, I know the difference. But you don't appear to. Your description above covers Physics as it is now practiced. It's about what matter is at heart, and it explains the difference between appearance and reality. Your definition or description or whatever it is says nothing about METHOD, so your link is irrelevant.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Bostonman
Shipmate
# 17108
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
what was bread and wine and appeared as such is no longer, though still appearing as such.
One of the troubling things about this, of course, is that unless we accept the substance–accident distinction a priori, this statement is almost meaningless. In what sense can something that behaves in every way like bread—and also, I would add, behaves in some ways like the Body of Christ—no longer be bread? Well, in the sense that its substance is no longer the substance of bread. But that's sort of begging the question, if you see what I mean.
Point being, I'm interested in knowing what problem was supposed to be solved by introducing the whole concept of transubstantiation in the first place that couldn't be solved without the substance–accident distinction? I understand why it has been maintained by RCs, of course, but my question is more historical in nature. Transubstantiation tries to explain the sense in which the bread is no longer present, while for all intents and purposes the bread is still present. Why on earth should we need such convolution?
[NB: this is entirely sincere, and not meant to be sarcastic. I truly apologize if it offends anyone. I'm really just very curious about the whole thing, having grown up in a low-low-low post-post-post-Reformed tradition and slowly moving upwards.]
Posts: 424 | From: USA | Registered: May 2012
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Chesterbelloc:
What I mean is that, to take the case of the Blessed Sacrament, all the physically discernable qualities of the elements - how they looks, taste, feel, what the microscope would show, how they would affect the human digestive system, how they would come out in a mass spectrometer, etc. - remain precisely the same. Those are what I'm calling the accidents. I think we can all agree that the accidents do not change. Those "survive" (we can say perdure, but it might be misleading) through the process of consecration.
And yet after consecration we say that there is no longer bread or wine on the altar but only the actual "underlying" reality of Christ's Body and Blood - despite the appearance, there really is flesh and blood, and Christ in his full divine identity, present. ...
The idea of a "substance" which underlies the physical properties of a thing could almost have been invented just to explain this very phenomenon - if it hadn't existed it would have been necessary to invent it, you could say. But, as it happens, it wasn't - Aristotle already came up with it centuries before. And this is why the accident/substance distinction is a meta-physical one.
Actually, this is somewhat misleading. There is no way Aristotle would have recognized transubstantiation as anything but total bollocks. Because Aristotle was doing metaphysics, or more properly, natural philosophy very close to observations of nature (there was no distinction between philosophy and science in the modern sense). Perhaps knowing that Aristotle would have slapped them around the face with this stuff, the Church has not officially adopted Aristotelian terminology either. In particular, her official pronouncements say "species" not "accidents". That one usually interprets this in an Aristotelian fashion, and for solid historical reasons, is true - but in principle there is space there to say something else.
The "modern" equivalent to what the Church did with Aristotle's metaphysics is just the first paragraph Chesterbelloc provided. Again, that paragraph is really a piece of metaphysics, though more implicitly than Aristotle's metaphysics. It talks about the relation of sense data to "reality" and that (in the modern sense) is metaphysics, epistemology, etc. - philosophy.
Why does the Church continue to use this "outdated" language? Well, it's never become outdated in the Church. There is an unbroken history of consistent use of these perfectly appropriate terms, and why should the Church change that? It's like asking sailors to use "left" and "right" instead of "port" and "starboard". Furthermore, "transubstantiation" is likely as snappy as any new word one could come up with ("desenserealisation"?). Finally, if we read Chesterbeloc's paragraph again, then there's lots of stuff there that we do not need to know about (if we are only interested in the Eucharist). We do not need to know about mass spectrometers to understand what is being said there. But if we pare down what Chesterbelloc said to a level where absolutely everybody can understand this, at the level of observing the world with our senses basically without technological aids or learned physical theory, then we have basically arrived back at where Aristotle was. So what we end up saying will remain pretty much "Aristotelian", we will just re-state the distinctions he made in our own words (to then abuse them to describe the Eucharist). So we may as well stick with Aristotle, what's the point of reinventing the wheel?
The usual complaints against Aristotelian metaphysics are just nonsense. If you believe in something like the first paragraph Chesterbelloc wrote, then you believe in transubstantiation. That's then just one peculiar (but traditional) way of expressing what you believe. It does not force any philosophy down your throat that you do not already hold. Really. It's just a particularly convenient and time-honored way of saying this.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Enoch
Shipmate
# 14322
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Posted
Thank you Chesterbelloc. The notion that the two conditions, bread and wine, and body and blood of Christ are perdurable does make sense according to the previous usage I've encountered, and could even be helpful if the word wasn't so obscure, indeed more so than chopping up accidents and substance too precisely.
I'd still say though that the consecrated elements are simultaneously both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ, and go with Queen Elizabeth in accepting the Lord's word for it as to precisely how.
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Brexit wrexit - Sir Graham Watson
Posts: 7610 | From: Bristol UK(was European Green Capital 2015, now Ljubljana) | Registered: Nov 2008
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