Transubstantiation

In a discussion about the cult leader Jim Jones, I had a throw-away thought on the meaning of the sacrement of communion. I got some interestings reponses.

Transubstantiation, or the doctrine of the 'real presence' in the Holy Eucharist, is one of the dividing points between Roman Catholics and Anglicans, who explicitly rejected it in the Thirty-Nine Articles of Faith. There is no claim on the part of the Romans that any physical changes in the bread and wine are detectable, in fact, the claim is that they could not possibly be. It is then a doctrine for which there is no evidence, only an interpretation of scripture, which cannot be verified. During the Oxford Movement Hurrell Froude questioned John Keble, who as the author of the immensely popular book of sentimental verse, The Christian Year, had written for the 5th of November (Guy Fawkes Day)

O come to our Communion Feast:
There present in the heart,
Not in the hands, th'eternal Priest
Will His true self impart.

Froude asked how he could be certain of the word "not" at the beginning of the third line, but Keble retained the verse as he wrote it— until he heard it had been quoted by a bishop he disliked. Thirty years after Froude's early demise, on his own death bed, Keble asked that "not" be replaced with "and" in Froude's memory, and it has been printed "and" ever since.

Yes, the particular article in question reads: "Transubstantiation (or the change of the susbtance of Bread and Wine) in the Supper of the Lod, cannot be proived by Holy Write; but is repugnant to the lain words of Scripture, overthroweth the nature of a Sacrement, and has given occasion to many superstitions."

My objection comes down to my view that truth propositions must be placed into the subjunctive-- if it can be proved, it must be proved; conversely, if it cannot be proved or disproved, it cannot be rejected. Thus, I can accept as an article of faith that angels exist. But, if you say that angels are on my roof, I better hear the flapping of celestial wings before I believe. I will be happy to accept a person's faith but not to the extent that that faith conflicts with normal experiences-- in this case wine being really God's blood.

Few things outside mathematics can be proved or disproved in the sense of absolute certainty. In many legal contexts the preponderance of evidence is enough to settle an issue. So first it would be wise to reduce the requirement to a substantial accumulation of evidence. Still, should we say of propositions for which there can be no possible evidence for or against that they cannot be rejected? Perhaps that makes some logical sense—namely that we cannot declare them true or false—but as a practical matter, it could force consideration of a host of propositions that are meaningless, insignificant, or problematic.

Maybe the word "prove" should be removed from argumentation altogether for the reason that you suggest. It is possible that the question of whether or not the wine is the blood of Christ falls into what Ludwig Wittgenstein calls the silent category: "Whereof on cannot speak, thereof one must remain silent" as it is neither true or false by definition nor emperically verifiable making it to use your statement "meaningless, insignificant, or problematic." The logical positivist premise of this closes down of course entire areas of potential understanding that embrace the realm of values, paradox, contradiction, mysticism, and non-Aristotelian thinking. Because some of life's most delightful experiences fall into this category, I think it's a mistake to embrace the narrow epistimology of the strict empericist, so long as we balance it with rigorous independent thinking and awareness. Otherwise, the alternative may well be the madness of those who sipped from the Jonestown joy juice tub.

Many people misinterpret the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, as it uses terms that have changed in meaning over time. But to dismiss the Sacraments as ineffectual and/or inconsequential is to remove oneself from Christian theology, tradition and practice, IMHO.

"The theory of transubstantiation was never made official in the medieval church, but got weighty backing even before Aquinas’ time when it was used in documents of the Lateran Council of the Church in 1215. It was based on Aristotle’s discussion of the nature of existence. Aristotle divided the being of a particular object into substance and accidents. Take a sheep, for instance: its substance, which is its reality, its participation in the universal quality of being a sheep, is manifested in its gambolling on the hills, munching grass and baaing. Its accidents are things particular to the individual sheep at which we are looking: the statistics of its weight, the curliness of its wool, or the timbre of its baa. When the sheep dies, it ceases to gambol on the hills, munch grass and baa: its substance, its ‘sheepiness’, is instantly extinguished, and only the accidents remain – its corpse, including its weight, curly wool or voice box – and they will gradually decay. They are not significant to its former sheepiness, which has ended with the extinguishing of its substance in death. It is no longer a sheep.
. . .
In the Mass, substance changes, accidents do not – why should they? They are not significant for being. Through the grace of God, the substance of bread is replaced by the substance of the Body of Christ. It is a satisfying and reverent analysis: as long, that is, as one accepts Thomas’ scientific or philosophical premises of the language of substance and accidents, affirming the conception of universal realities which are greater than individual instances, such as the reality of being a sheep or being bread, rather than particular instances of sheep or bread."

MacCulloch, Diarmaid – Reformation [Penguin 2003, pp25-26]

Accepting the division that Aristotle suggested, I still have trouble understanding how the essence of God is somehow the essence of wine-- the non-sheepiness, as it were. Regardless, I'm skeptical about many things including the necessity of the sacraments.

Catholics recognize confirmation, penance, orders, matrimony, and extreme unction as sacraments, in addition to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Many Protestant churches recognize only baptism and the Lord’s Supper (or what my boy calls “that thing you do at church with the blood and flesh”). Some apostolic churches have a third sacraments—holy sealing-- the passing of the Holy Spirit by the laying on of the hands by church elders. But on what authority are there any ordinances? Doesn’t Jesus command us to do much more than just these acts? Because sacraments are done without exception within the context of the institutional church, I believe that the observance of any sacraments is a form of sacerdotalism—an attempt by the clergy to mediate between me and God by imposing on me requirements that have nothing to do with my faith in God. I think we can affirm our faith with baptism and the Lord’s Supper, but it isn’t and shouldn’t be an obligation.

That there exists no relation of the faithful to/in the communion of the faithful that is the ecclesia is a very unChristian attitude, IMHO. As is the notion that sacraments are ineffectual and uneccessary.

You may be right on both counts. As a practical matter, however, I see many church goers who believe that their sect is the true church and all others are outside of the ecclesia, as someone from the Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) once informed me. As an idealistic matter, I think it would be more positive for people to see oneness in the humanity of other rathers than in the dogmas of others.