One of my favorite words. Excerpted from my comments here on PZ Myers’ desecrating consecrated wafers from Catholic mass:
Transubstantiation, scientifically, must be a claim with an empirical nature: ie. it either is true that the substance is changed or it isn’t.
By using the word ‘appearance’ to include taste, texture and every other perceivable or scientifically testable quality, the Catholic church has cleverly made it impossible to verify that the ’substance’ - which is something entirely apart from everything about it! - has changed. What the hell is substance, then, if it isn’t the type and formation of the bloody molecules? What is it if it’s not every perceivable description of the object? It’s completely and utterly preposterous of course, but that doesn’t stop the Catholic church insisting upon it.
Wine is not wine but blood, but it will still, under the closest of examination, seem and be exactly like wine. Cracker is not cracker but flesh, but it will still, under the most careful, thorough, microscopic, scientific scrutiny, seem and even be exactly like cracker. Substance is not substance but sub-sub-metastance. Can’t we call bullshit about something so blatantly absurd?
Eating Jesus is a particularly bizarre concept, and people like PZ Myers are exacting an overdue level of honesty and brutal irreverence about it and other religious ideas that can only help us all move beyond such mysticism.
Well….does he understand that those substances, while indeed being what they are, are being used as symbols? I realize a cracker is still a cracker…. but it represents Christ’s body. I think his understanding may be skewed…
Or it’s very possible my understanding of the Catholic understanding of communion is wrong too.
Ryan, their position is an attempt to occupy the best of both worlds. On one hand, they don’t want to admit that the bread and wine are only being used as an aid to remembrance (”Do this in memory of me…”); on the other, they won’t be able to substantiate a claim that the bread and wine are, in a real, verifiable sense, the body and blood (which would also be gross).
How to occupy the best of both worlds? Claim that substance is different than, well, substance. Claim that substance changes, but doesn’t change verifiably. Claim that substance is something other than taste, smell, texture, touch, molecular structure. It’s garbage.
Of course, the sensible doctrine would claim it’s a symbol to aid reflection.
Well gosh, I learned something new today. That *is* a rather odd claim.
I asked a Catholic friend of mine if she believes that the Eucharist *literally is* the body of Christ and she said “Yes.”
Yep, it’s the orthodox Catholic belief. And yet they don’t believe you can perceive, in any human way, the change, even though it’s supposed to be a literal change. Brilliant.