Aquinas on Transubstantiation

Aquinas on Transubstantiation by Reinhard Hutter

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Reading this book made me think of The Far Side cartoon where the person is talking to his dog but all the dog hears is her name and the word “food.” I think I'm the dog. This book is very dense, but occasionally the author, Reinhard Hutter, says something I think I understand, which makes me feel like I'm getting the gist of the narrative, despite the fact that I certainly am not.

That said, let me see if I can pick my way through the main points of this slender book.
In the introduction, Hutter discusses the understanding of faith – Intellectus Fidei. Metaphysics is the “privileged instrument of the intellectus fidei.” Faith preserves the human intellect from deception but does not operate “contra intellectum” or as an “intellectually blind faith.” Metaphysics explores the mystery of the Eucharist by establishing and defending metaphysically its intrinsic, logical possibility. (p. 8.)
Chapter 1 – Mysterium Fidei: the Mystery of Faith proposed in Sacred Scripture.

In the prior chapter, Hutter cautioned that metaphysics must preserve the “utterly simple, literal sense of the received dominical words “This is my body which is given for you.'” In this chapter, Hutter looks at those words. Hutter does this through Aquinas's writings, namely S.T. III, q. 75, in which Aquinas adduces three reasons to affirm the salvific reality of Christ's true body in the Eucharist, i.e., the order of salvation, love and faith. For Hutter, the dominical words, taken in a literal sense, are the primordial point of departure for sacred theology. (p. 12.) Hutter dispenses with the idea of a lengthy reconstruction of the original Aramaic in favor of the “crucial theological point” that such an approach would dismiss the church's understanding, which would eliminate “tradition” in favor of whatever the most current modern reading was on hand. The gist of Hutter's argument in this chapter seems to be the unfashionable point that there is no way to access what the truth is about Christ, His sayings, and His teachings, other than “by way of Christ's body, the church and her teaching.” (p. 15.) Thus, the mystery “that to flesh, bread is transformed” is a mystery and true because that is what the Church has received, understood, and passed on as tradition.

Chapter 2 – Dogma datur Christianis: The truth is given to Christians by Tradition and the Magisterium.

Hutter's process is a “resourcement” in “Thomas's procedure of holy teaching (sacra doctrina).” (p. 18.) [“Dogma datur Christianis” means “this truth to Christians is proclaimed.” (p. 19.)] Hutter examines four encyclicals written on Eucharistic theology over the last 130 years to conclude that the Church's teachings remain constant and reject that the word “transubstantian” can serve as a “Mere signifier in a quasi-nominalist sense,” open to various interpretations that do not affirm the true body in the Eucharist. (p. 25.) Moreover, these teachings show that Trent presupposed a “prephilosophical common knowledge of substance and hence draws on the abiding metaphysical principle of substance.” This is obviously going to lead us into the deep Aristotelian weeds on the subject of “substance.”

Chapter 3 – Eucharistic Conversion and the Categories “Substance” and “Quanity.”

Naturally, Edward Schillebeeckx took the position that “modern science had shaken neo-scholastic speculations about the concept of substance to their foundations” because that's the kind of non-scientific nonsense he would say. Better philosophers of science, e.g., Michael Polanyi, disagree. (p. 27.) We quickly get into those Aristotelian weeds with a quote from Thomas's commentary on Aristotle's Physics III. We learn that the “categories” are substance plus nine accidents, such as quantity, quality, relation, time, place, posture, having, action, and passion.) (p. 31.) A primary substance subsists in itself (ens in se) while accidents exist only in another (ens in alio.) (p. 31.)

Is bread a substance or an artifact.(p. 33.) Artifacts – artificial things – are not substances. Bread would seem to be artificial, which means that it is an accident, which would mean that bread would not have a substantive form to replace with Christ's body. While some artifacts are not substances, e.g., a knife, the fact that something is made by a human does not per se make it an artifact. (p. 37.) Bread could come about by natural processes, and, therefore, is not per se an artifact, which makes it a substance.

Quantity is also an accident, but every substance composed of matter and form has quantity. (p. 37-39.) In order for a substance to itself, “that is this material substance, it requires dimensive quantity, the specific order of parts outside of parts.” (p. 39.) A fish, say a salmon, would not be much of a fish if it was crushed into a thimble.

“The terminus of Eucharistic conversion is the substance of Christ's body in its present state”. (p. 40.) At the Last Supper, Christ was present in his natural mode; He is now present in his Glorified mode. (p. 40.) Christ's body and blood are accompanied (concomitari) by all that is really associated with them in his everlasting glorified state – soul and divinity (also body and blood.) (p. 40.) “Because of real concomitance because of the integral subsistence of the risen Christ in heaven, nothing less than the whole person of Christ is in the Eucharist. (p. 40.) The body, blood, soul and divinity are really united and are distinguished from each other only by an operation of the human mind, it is misguided to drive a wedge between substantial and personal presence. (p. 41.)

Concomitance is the key. The Eucharist has the substance of the body, while blood, soul and divinity are present by concomitance. Likewise, the dimensive quantity of Christ's body is also present by concomitance. Christ's body is in the Eucharist after the manner of substance, not after the manner of dimensions; the glorious body of the risen Christ preexists and remains unchanged now in Heaven under its proper appearances.” (p. 42.) Christ is not bilocating; “rather the postconsecretory species are indicating may substantial presences of the one Christ in heaven.” (p. 42.) The Eucharist is a presence of Christ's body in a place, but not by way of place or dimension. (p. 43.) Aquinas explains that the conversion of bread terminates at the substance of the body of Christ, but substance is prior to dimension. The actual body of Christ in Heaven has dimensions, but the Eucharist does not since it is pure substance (although comparable to the actual body.) (p. 43.)

At this point, I start feeling giddy with the contemplation of the substantial weird.

Aquinas goes on to affirm that the substance of Christ's body is present on the altar by the power of the sacrament while its dimensive quantity is present concomitantly. The dimensive quantity is in the sacrament not according to its proper manner but after the manner of substance. (p. 44.) Another way to put its that substance of Christ's body is not there locally in its proper form, but only as a sacramental species. (p. 44.)

Chapter 4 – This is my body: Faith preserves the intellect from deception.

I don't know about you, but I had never considered the Eucharist to be a kind of folded up hologram. It seems difficult to rally around the “true body” view when the substance of the Eucharist would be unrecognizable pure substance if we could see it directly. Hutter is attentive to this concern and seeks to avoid the reception of Thomism as a “crude, nonsacramental realism.”

This raises the interesting point that we could never see the substantive form hidden by the appearance of breach. “Under normal epistemic conditions, substantial being is not sensible.” (p. 61.) Substantial being is “intelligible.” Thus, the Eucharist functions as a sign signifying what it really is. “Directed by the dominical words, the intellect perceives the substance.” (p. 62.) The character of the Eucharist abides from beginning to end. “The truth is given to Christians through the Word of truth himself and received n faith by hearing alone.” (p. 64.) Faith is of things unseen. (p. 65.)

Chapter 5 – You are my friends: Christ's Eucharistic Presence, Central Token of Christ's surpassing friendship.

Aquinas points out that Christ declared His disciples His friends (John 15:13) and Aristotle said that it is the nature of friendship to live together with friends. (p. 66.) The Eucharist ties together the mystical body of Christ (the Church) with the sacramental body because the sacrament is Christ. (p. 66.) The reality of the sacrament is the unity of the mystical body. (p. 67.) “Christ's mystical body is united through Christ's sacramental body by way of the bond of charity that unites each member the head.” (p. 67.) Hutter also writes “Hence, it is clear that the unity of the mystical body ensues from the true, personal, though sacramental presence of Christ, the head, to whom each member is joined by faith and charity.”

I am sometimes in controversy with a Protestant philosopher who makes a scene about not being permitted to take Catholic communion. My general sense is that he is being hypocritical because he does not have faith in the personal and sacramental presence of Christ in the Eucharist, and, in fact, probably views that belief as idolatry (except he charitably thinks that Catholics are deluded in this belief.) He argues that closed Catholic communion tears apart the one body of Christ. I think that the body of Christ was torn apart before that point, namely in the denial of Christ's “dominical words.” I have no interest in going through the essentially empty symbolism of Protestant “Lord's Suppers” and don't understand why people who deny the reality of the personal and sacramental presence should be scandalized by not being permitted to pretend that they are engaging in such empty symbolism when they are given the sacramental Body of Christ.

Moreover, if Hutter is right (and he is), then the mystical body of Christ is only composed of those who have faith and charity that comes from “living” with Christ through His personal and sacramental presence in the Eucharist. Those who don't share the real Eucharist are not living with Christ as friends. Although they may actually love and follow Christ, they are not “living” with him in the way that the dominical words command. Consequently, they are not part of the mystical body and have no share in the sacramental body until they join the mystical body in faith and charity.

This at least is the traditional Catholic understanding that the Eucharist makes the Church.

There is a lot in this book. It is dense but short – about 80 pages with 30 pages of endnotes. I think it repays the effort to comprehend and understand what it is teaching.