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PaperclipPerfector  10mo ago (text post)   26353 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 8, 2024

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I'm one of those knuckle-dragging, science-denying, embarrassment to the family Neanderthals that believes transubstantiation and that the consecrated Host really is the body and blood of Christ.

Cue Flannery O'Connor: "If it's a symbol, then I say to Hell with it"

I was once, five or six years ago, taken by some friends to have dinner with Mary McCarthy and her husband, Mr. Broadwater. . . . She departed the Church at the age of 15 and is a Big Intellectual. We went at eight and at one, I hadn't opened my mouth once, there being nothing for me in such company to say. The people who took me were Robert Lowell and his now wife, Elizabeth Hardwick. Having me there was like having a dog present who had been trained to say a few words but overcome with inadequacy had forgotten them. Well, toward morning the conversation turned on the Eucharist, which I, being the Catholic, was obviously supposed to defend. Mrs. Broadwater said when she was a child and received the Host, she thought of it as the Holy Ghost, He being the "most portable" person of the Trinity; now she thought of it as a symbol and implied that it was a pretty good one. I then said, in a very shaky voice, "Well, if it's a symbol, to hell with it." That was all the defense I was capable of but I realize now that this is all I will ever be able to say about it, outside of a story, except that it is the center of existence for me; all the rest is expendable."

It's not a symbol, it's not a birthday party, when the words "This is my Body" are said, it truly becomes the body of Christ. I'm irredeemable, I'm deplorable, I'm mired in peasant superstition 😁

when the words "This is my Body" are said, it truly becomes the body of Christ.

What does this mean? I hear Catholics saying it all the time, but they’re just guessing the magisterium’s password. The Council of Trent said it, so you say it. If you take the literal phrase, “when the words ‘This is my Body’ are said, it truly becomes the body of Christ,” and interpret it using the norms of 21st century English, one would come to the conclusion that if you take a consecrated host, grind it up, and run a polymerase chain reaction on it, you’d end up with a vial full of Jesus DNA instead of grain DNA. Someone has claimed to have done this experiment. Maybe you think such trivialities are missing the point. I invite you to tell me, what is the point? Does the process of transsubstantiation change the host on the molecular level? the subatomic level? the quantum field level? If there are no physical effects, then in what way is this not a purely spiritual change?

Maybe you think such trivialities are missing the point.

Pardon me for laughing, but yes, I do. Anyone who got their hands on a consecrated Host and did this is engaging in (technical) blasphemy (see our good old pal PZ Myers), and if they managed to get an unconsecrated host, it wouldn't be any different than ordinary bread. But even back when I was younger (not dumber since I've never been very smart) I knew that putting the consecrated wine through a HPLC machine wouldn't show anything up, and it wasn't meant to do so. There's little other testing of the sort that science (or perhaps I should say instead, Science!) does; take the notion of testing if someone is in love by measuring hormone levels and so forth. You could indeed do it, but I think most people wouldn't find it a very satisfactory way of determining the question.

To quote Chesterton:

"The method," remarked the other, "has been guaranteed by some of the greatest American men of science."

"What sentimentalists men of science are!" exclaimed Father Brown, "and how much more sentimental must American men of science be! Who but a Yankee would think of proving anything from heart-throbs? Why, they must be as sentimental as a man who thinks a woman is in love with him if she blushes. That's a test from the circulation of the blood, discovered by the immortal Harvey; and a jolly rotten test, too."

Next point:

If there are no physical effects, then in what way is this not a purely spiritual change?

The theology has been much argued about, and the formal language is an effort to use Aristotelian logical terms of the time. Luther, for instance, didn't like such because he felt it wasn't mystical enough, and his attempt at a formulation wasn't much better, as the fall-out between the Reformers over what was going on and was it a sacrament or only an ordnance and so forth demonstrated.

I can only give you the unsatisfactory "the accidents remain the same, the essence changes". It's certainly much easier and seems much more sensible to regard it as a ceremony or a symbol, and if you really need to be mystical about it that something 'spiritual' happens to the recipient who takes it in faith.

But that's not good enough. Yes, I know it sounds crazy and ignorant and science-denying and superstitious and all the rest of it. But if you strip the mystical out of religion, why are you even bothering with a religion? You just want - and end up with - a nice, polite, New England Transcendentalist debating society and ethics club.

I’m not Catholic, don’t know one whit of Catholic theology, and what I am about to say is therefore pulled directly out of my ass. But one possibility — to me — is that when the Eucharist is consecrated, Jesus consciously experiences sense data through Eucharist in some way analogous to how normal humans experience sense data through their bodies. So when you touch the Eucharist, Jesus feels it as if you’re touching his body. This concludes my exercise in developing what is most likely a new brand of heresy.

I’ve dabbled myself in theorizing about whether pantheism is a valid subset of omnipresence, so this didn’t come across as heretical so much as edge-case theoretical.

It's based on Ancient Greek philosophy that was ignorant of all of modern physics and chemistry. There is no point trying to analyze it rationally it is an attempt by smart, but ignorant, people to make sense of an irrational dogma. At some point you have to just give up. The Christians, Buddhists, Muslims or whoever will just make up knew more elaborate excuses on command. They have the truth of their dogma as a fixed prior and can always reason around any objection to it's truth.

Acerbic but pithy summation! 😀

I think context of Jesus and his disciples as Jews needs to be considered too. Ancient Jewish laws on blood follow strict guidelines (you cannot consume the blood of an animal or you become like an animal) and figure prominently in covenants (the blood of Abraham lives on in his descendants). So when Jesus says these words at the last supper, he is initiating a new covenant on the basis of his blood. So even though it has the appearance of ordinary wine, spiritually it must be transformed into the blood of Jesus to be part of this new covenant with God.

So when these words and this ritual are repeated (Do this in memory of me), this new covenant of Jesus continues.

I'm pretty sure that this isn't the ordinary belief. I know Aquinas, at least, thought that Jesus was substantially, but not locally present.

I think they have to believe that the whole Christ is in every part of it.

No need to beat yourself up so much. It’s perfectly legitimate to believe the Eucharist to be Christ’s literal blood and body. Many modern ‘rational materialists’ believe things just as ridiculous on their face, like the Big Bang or the origins of life.

We silly materialists also “believe in” things like quantum theory which, to quote Feynman:

[…] it is often stated that of all the theories proposed in this century, the silliest is quantum theory. Some say that the only thing that quantum theory has going for it, in fact, is that it is unquestionably correct.

Big Bang

Theory of expansion of universe was formulated by Catholic priest and met, at first, with very strong opposition from "rational materialists" who saw it being too similar to biblical story of creation.

"Big Bang" name itself was coined as derogatory nickname.

Nevertheless, rational people, whether materialists or idealists, accepted it because the evidence is overwhelming.

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