Transubstantiation: a dialogue with Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI

 

Image courtesy Ole Möystad

According to "The Divine Economy” by Paul Seabright (2024), “A total of 31 percent of US Catholics believe in transubstantiation (the doctrine that during Mass, the communion bread and wine become literally, not symbolically, the body and blood of Jesus Christ).

"It's hard to know whether all these people interpreted the doctrine in the same way. But the idea that anyone who is not a Catholic might believe this was considered so unlikely that the survey did not ask any non-Catholics," (p.285).

Transubstantiation is one of the most mysterious concepts of Catholic theology. In the past, disputes over its nature have frequently proved lethal. But how can we understand the concept in the first place?

I asked ChatGPT to adopt the persona of Pope Benedict XVI. In this persona I wanted an intellectually rigorous and scholarly defence of the doctrine of transubstantiation, as expressed in a dialogue with myself.

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My first question to the Pope Emeritus is to point out that the dogma of transubstantiation, interpreted literally, conflicts with the laws of physics.

Pope Benedict XVI: My dear friend, I appreciate your inquiry and the sincerity with which you approach this profound mystery. The doctrine of transubstantiation, as you rightly point out, raises questions when considered from the perspective of empirical science and the laws of physics. However, I would urge you to consider the context within which this doctrine operates.

The doctrine of transubstantiation does not propose a change that is accessible to physical senses or scientific instruments. It is crucial to recognize that the change we speak of in transubstantiation is not a material or physical transformation, but rather a change of substance - a change at the level of what mediaeval scholastics referred to as the "essence" or "substance" of the bread and wine.

I respond:  “But how can something change in its substance without any observable change in its physical properties? Isn't substance inseparable from its physical properties, according to modern science?”

Pope Benedict XVI: This is indeed a subtle distinction and one that requires us to step beyond the confines of purely physical or empirical analysis. In the scholastic tradition, "substance" is understood as the underlying reality that gives a thing its true identity, while "accidents" are the properties that can change without altering the essence of the thing.

In transubstantiation, the Church teaches that the substance of the bread and wine becomes the Body and Blood of Christ, while the accidents - what we perceive with our senses - remain unchanged. This means that what is fundamentally "there" in the Eucharist is now Christ, even though all sensory evidence suggests that it remains bread and wine.

Modern science, rooted in a materialist understanding of reality, focuses exclusively on the observable, the measurable - what Aristotle would have called "accidents." However, metaphysical realities, such as substance, are not subject to empirical measurement or observation. This is why the doctrine of transubstantiation does not conflict with the laws of physics, because it operates in a realm beyond what physics can measure or comprehend.

I reply: “But if this change is undetectable by any physical means, how can we know it truly occurs? Isn't this belief then based solely on faith?”

Pope Benedict XVI: You touch on the heart of the matter, which is indeed the role of faith. The doctrine of transubstantiation is a matter of divine revelation, something given to us by Christ Himself, especially in the words He spoke at the Last Supper: "This is my body... This is my blood" (Matthew 26:26-28). The Church, in her faith, trusts these words of Christ and the authority He conferred upon His apostles and their successors.

Faith, however, is not contrary to reason. While the change in substance is not detectable by the senses or by science, it is rationally coherent within the framework of metaphysical principles that the Church has developed over centuries. The distinction between substance and accidents, for instance, allows us to understand how a reality can be present in a new way without altering its physical properties.

Faith, therefore, supplements reason by opening us to truths that transcend the natural order - truths that are revealed by God and which point to the deeper realities of existence that cannot be captured by empirical science alone.

I say, “This attempt to glue together modern science, grounded in empirical research, with mediaeval metaphysics (substance and accident) seems arbitrary and tendentious. Isn't it the case that the paradigm of modern secular science replaces the mediaeval worldview in toto? Don't we simply know better now, both theoretically and methodologically?”

Pope Benedict XVI: Your concerns are valid, but it's important to understand that modern science and mediaeval metaphysics serve different purposes rather than conflicting. Science, grounded in empirical observation, excels at explaining the physical world, but it is inherently limited to what can be measured. It doesn't address deeper questions about existence, purpose, or ultimate reality - areas where metaphysics and theology operate.

The mediaeval distinction between substance and accident wasn't arbitrary; it was a serious attempt to explore the deeper aspects of being. Science describes how things function, but metaphysics asks why things exist and what their ultimate meaning is. To claim that science has replaced metaphysics overlooks the fact that they address different levels of reality.

Rather than seeing science as replacing the mediaeval worldview, we should see them as complementary. The Church integrates scientific understanding within a broader metaphysical framework, recognizing that the mysteries of faith, like transubstantiation, transcend empirical observation and require a different kind of knowledge - one that includes both faith and reason.

I conclude thus: “Thank you Pope Emeritus. It is clear that transubstantiation is entirely within the world of faith and not the world of science. Therefore all the talk of ‘lab testing’ is a category error. I suppose the right paradigm is the postmodern one, whereby certain truths are socially-created, and transubstantiation is indeed such a concept - only defined within the interlocking conceptual ontology of the Catholic Church.”

Pope Benedict XVI broadly agrees, but perhaps he is just being polite.