Q. I'm waiting for the place you begin speaking about transubstantiation.
A. One moment... Three more ideas we need to fix in place before we can speak on transubstantiation.
Q. First idea...
A. That by nature, each noun or "substance" has its own "appropriate" accidents. "Appropriate" in that from our human experience, this particular set of accidents almost always come with this or that substance. So an egg for example has certain range of features that always accompany it: size, shape, weight, colour, smell, brittleness, etc. So too with all other nouns or substances.
Q. Nothing new there... That's all common human experience.
A. That's the beauty of Aristotle's philosophy! It syncs so seamlessly with precisely that common human experience.
Q. Lol! I like the way you get excited about such small things Anyway. Second idea?
A. That changes in accidents don't usually affect a change in the substance. So for example if we change the location of a chair, the chair still remains as thoroughly a chair as it was before it was moved. Or as a little girl grows up and matures into a young lady, her appearance, ideas, loves, joys, sorrows, experiences change a lot. Her "accidents" change a lot. But she remains the same person. She maintains her singular identity. Her "substance" remains the same.
Another way of putting it is if substances are nouns, then accidents are all the other parts of speech. The other parts of speech tell us more about the nouns. And if we twiddle or altogether change an adjective or verb etc, the noun itself doesn't change. Whether the shirt is green or blue, it is still a shirt; whether it is here or there it is still a shirt; whether it is wet or dry it is still a shirt.
Now, the third idea...
Q. Let's hear it...
A. There is an extent to which if we change the accidents, then even the substance changes.
Simple example: if we burn a shirt to ashes, the shirt slowly disintegrates and altogether stops existing, with its accidents. In its place, ash begins to exist - with its own "appropriate" accidents.
But because of the direct physical link between the shirt and its ashes, philosophers say that the substance of the shirt has transFORMED into the ashes. The shirt had what philosophers call the potency to become ashes. That potency was actualised or made to exist.
Now we can shift to speaking about the miracle of transubstantiation.
Q. Finally!
A. Firstly, bread and wine have their own appropriate accidents: smell, taste, colour, weight, shape and so on.
According to normal human experience, we expect that if their substance transformed into anything else, then the accidents would correspondingly change.
Now in the miracle of the transubstantiation, Jesus did TWO things. First He didn't just transform the substance of bread and wine - transformation implies physically acting on an object to change precisely its form into something else. For example as we mentioned earlier: you burn your shirt - burning being a physical action - it transforms into ashes. Jesus didn't transform bread and wine, He didn't just change their form. He changed their very substance. From bread and wine to His Body and Blood - something physically impossible and physically unrelated. There is no physical action by which you can get to change bread or wine into human flesh and blood. It's like a car changing into a flower! That's the first part of the miracle.
To be continued...
Enjoy the remainder of the 12 days of Christmas!
18thDecember 2016