Topic: What is ‘transubstantiation’?

Source of this posting:  Being a Eucharistic People: Some Political Implications by Phillip Leach

Date originally posted: January 31, 2002

Moderator who originally posted this source: P.Leach

Question:  What is ‘transubstantiation’?  How does it differ from ‘consubstantiation’?  And do we, as Catholics, have to believe in ‘transubstantiation’? 

Answer: 

We Catholics believe that Jesus Christ is REALLY present – body, soul, humanity, and divinity – in the Most Holy Eucharist.  “Transubstantiation” is a word which describes our belief.   

Look toward the end of page 4 to see some comments about ‘consubstantiation.’ 

The following is an explanation of “transubstantiation” and Real Presence, taken from a little book that I wrote a number of years ago; maybe this discussion will be helpful: 

            REAL PRESENCE -- As Catholics we believe in the Real Presence of Christ our Risen Savior in the Eucharist.  We believe that                                    

            "In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist `the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ, and therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.'  `This presence is called "real"...because it is presence in the fullest sense: that is to say, it is a substantial presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely present.'"                      (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1374) 

The following is a collection comments taken from St. Thomas Aquinas' writing regarding the Eucharist with special reference to the "real, substantial Presence" of Christ in this Sacrament. 

"That Christ's true body and blood are present this sacrament can be perceived neither by sense nor by reason, but by faith alone, which rests on God's authority....

"...the mystery invites an act of complete faith, accepting both the divinity and humanity of Christ: `you believe in God, believe also in me.'  Faith is of things unseen; Christ's Godhead was hid, and in this sacrament so also is his manhood."  (Summa Theologiae, 3a. lxxv.1) 

"Admit that Nature can transform one thing into another, then with greater reason should you admit that God's almighty power, which brings into existence the whole substance of things, can work, not as nature does, by changing forms in the same matter, but by changing one whole thing into another whole thing.

...God is the creator of substance and accident; he can preserve accidents though their proper subject has been changed into something else, for his omnipotence can both produce and keep in being the effects of secondary causes without those causes."  (de Rationibus Fidei, 8) 

"Christ's true body, present in this sacrament, does not come there by local change, for it is not confined there as though in a place.  We must conclude, then, that the presence starts from the conversion of bread and wine.  This conversion, unlike natural changes, is wholly supernatural, effected by God's power alone.  Wherefore Ambrose says that it is clear that the Virgin mothered Christ miraculously, and what we consecrate is the body born from the Virgin: why then seek natural laws ruling Christ's body?...

"Every efficient cause acts because it is active and actual.  A created cause is limited in its activity, since it is of a determinate kind; that is why its action bears on a determinate actuality.  The determinate existence of a thing is defined by its form.  Therefore no physical cause, or created cause can act except by changing forms.  For this reason the deepest changes, according to the laws of nature, are transformations.  But God is infinite actuality, and therefore his activity covers the whole of reality:  he is not restricted to the production of substantial changes, when diverse forms succeed one another in the same material subject; he can change a whole reality, in such a way that the whole substance of this is changed into the whole substance of that.

"Such is the activity of divine power in this sacrament.  The whole substance of bread is converted into the whole substance of Christ's body, the whole substance of wine into the whole substance of his blood.  This is not a transmutation or transformation; it is not catalogued under the ordinary physical processes, but is given the special name transubstantiation."  (Summa Theologiae, 3a.lxxv.4) 

As Catholics we believe that all language `predicated' or used about God is metaphorical and, therefore, incomplete.  Since God is infinite and since all our concepts and words are finite, no concept or word that we use to talk about God can be totally reflective of Who God is.   

Nevertheless, God does reveal God's Self to us, and God creates us in such a way that we are able to receive that Self-Revelation of God.  So, we say that we know something about God and that what we know can and should be expressed in human language.  At the same time we must say that we, as limited, finite human beings, can never know everything about God nor can we express perfectly who God is. 

Some language that we use about God is `privileged' because it has been used by wise and holy people over a long period of time to express some of what God has revealed about Himself.  We can say, for example, that "God is love" even though we know that, having said this important thing about God, we have not said everything that needs to be said about God. Still, knowing and saying that "God is love" is a vitally important part of our Catholic Christian tradition.

Another word that has a special, privileged place in our tradition is the word which St. Thomas Aquinas used in the quotation above; the word is "transubstantiation."  While it does not exhaust what we believe and know about the Eucharist, it is important, privileged, and helpful as we try to know more about our belief in Christ's Real Presence in the Eucharist. 

In order to understand "transubstantiation" we need to know a little about philosophy -- particularly St. Thomas' own philosophy and the way St. Thomas understood the great ancient philosopher Aristotle. 

Basically St. Thomas believed that Aristotle taught that every thing that "has being," that is, every thing that "is," every thing that is "created," can be said to have three `kinds' of "being." 

Esse is that kind of "being" which simply makes every thing that exists to exist.  This kind of being is something like "essential being."  So every thing in creation has esse, and as long as every thing exists, it has esse. 

Substantia is that kind of "being" which makes one type or class of thing from another type or class of thing.  So every chair, for example, participates in the substantia of "chair-ness" while every duck-billed platypus participates in the substantia of "duck-billed platypus-ness."  As long as a thing exists its substantia remains the same. 

Accidens is that kind of "being" which differentiates one particular thing from another particular thing.  For example, chair may have arms while another reclines; these differences are due to the accidens.  One duck-billed platypus may have blue eyes while another duck- billed platypus may have brown eyes, again, due to accidens.  This kind of being accounts, according to St. Thomas, for all the changes in the physical world. 

So, we can say that, according to St. Thomas, substantia remains the same and accidens accounts for changes in the created world.  And he contends that this is so for every single circumstance except the Eucharist. 

In the Eucharist, by the power of the Holy Spirit, the accidens of bread and wine remain the same (contrary to the laws expected in the natural world) while the substantia of "bread-ness" and "wine-ness" change into the Body and Blood of Christ.  This miracle is called tran-substantia-tion. 

St. Thomas goes on in language that should be familiar to us based on the foregoing. 

"It is evident to the senses that all the accidents of bread and wine remain after consecration.  Such is the reasonable course of divine Providence, for it is abominable to eat human flesh and drink blood.  That is why Christ's body and blood are offered to us under the species of what we are accustomed to take, namely, bread and wine."  (Summa Theologiae, 3a.lxxv.5) 

As a Eucharistic people we are committed to the reality of really being in the Presence of the Second Person of the Trinity when we are in the Presence of the Eucharist.  Because the Triune God is present throughout all of creation, we might say that our belief in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist puts us squarely in the midst of creation.  The Real Presence of our God in the Eucharist demands that we be aware of our kinship with all that is created.  (Being a Eucharistic People: Some Political Implications, pages 3-6) 

“Consubstantiation” is a word that is often used to describe what many or most Lutherans believe about (their) Eucharist.  Essentially, “consubstantiation” postulates that while the accidens of bread and wine remain even after the Eucharist is consecrated, they also believe – which Catholics do NOT believe – that the substantia of the consecrated elements remains BOTH bread and the Body of Christ as well as wine and the Blood of Christ.  Hence, the “con-“ prefix which suggests that “with” the substantia of bread is also the substantia of the Body of Christ and “with” the substantia of wine is also the substantia of the Blood of Christ.  “Consubstantiation” requires that a person believe in a miracle, namely, that the substantia of bread can also be simultaneously the substantia of the Body of Christ, and the same with the substantia of wine and the Blood of Christ.  “Consubstantiation” does not, then, ‘solve’ the problem of having to believe in a miracle in order to believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist.  Nor does “consubstantiation” remove Eucharistic doctrine from dependence on Saint Thomas’ understanding of Aristotle.