From: ricko@ee.uts.edu.au (Rick Jelliffe)
Subject: Re: Transubstantiation, Catholic ritual, Creation/Evolution, etc.
Organization: University of Technology, Sydney, Australia
Date: Mon, 7 Sep 1992 05:23:54 GMT

jhb@maths.su.oz.au (John Brownie) writes:

>In <ripng.1.715534116@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au> ripng@halls1.cc.monash.edu.au (PAUL NG) writes:

>>That is why when we take communion, the bread and 
>>wine "become" the body and blood of Christ, the bread is still bread (you 
>>can chew it and not damage Christ's body in any way, for example) and the 
>>wine is still wine (its taste and smell should make that clear, as opposed 
>>to human blood) but in much the same way as when an art critic calls a white 
>>dot on a white canvas "art", or a carpenter calls a flat piece of wood 
>>mounted on four wooden stakes a "table", the bread and wine become "FOR US [
>>those gathered in His name for the Mass]"...the body and blood of Christ.  
>>It isn't and doesn't become the body and blood of Christ if you don't 
>>believe in Christ.  The fact that this is "Aristotelian" is irrelevant; the 
>>point is, it makes sense.  

>You miss my point.  Without the Aristotelian view of reality behind it,
>transubstantiation doesn't make sense.  If you don't conceive of things
>as having accidents and substance, then transubstantiation is a
>meaningless concept.

Yes of course. But the theology of transubstantation merely expresses
(rather well I think) the doctrine of the Real Presence, which you can
know from Jesus' words, sacred tradition, and mystical experience.  

When St Thomas renovated Aristotle's metaphysics, he was regarded as
faintly heretical. It was not until (50+) years after his death that
his reworking was seen for what it is: one of the most brilliant
achievements in Christian thought ever. It should be noted that
he formulated it largely as part of an evangelical effort: the Moslems
had taken over large parts of the Mediteranean, and were a constant 
threat of extinguishing Christianity.

A lot of Moslem theology had reworked Aristotle, (whose works informed
the theological thought in New Testament times but had subsequently
been lost) and St Thomas wrote his Summa Contra Gentiles (one of his
two great works of systematic theology) in order to convert intellectual
Moslems, and show the general Moslem world that Christianity was not
just a form of polytheism, nor worshipped physical things.

It is one of the biggest excercises in cross-cultural communication
ever attempted. He found common ground (the parts of Aristotle that
are not antagonistic to Christianity) and showed how Christianity was
intellectually respecatble, (thereby confounding the wisdom of the world).

The system he (and successors) developed is now used as the intellectual basis
of much Catholic thought, it has proved so useful. I guess my favorite 
quote from St Thomas is his commentary on Logos, that "Reason is the 
mind of God made manifest", which helped me out of mental illness. 

It is interesting that most notions discussed in Thomistic metaphysics
are again relevant to the modern world: when computer scientists and
modellers developing object-oriented languages try to decide about 
classes, inheritance, objects etc, they are dealing in exactly the same
area. This is just starting to be acknowledged now, and a few papers
presenting formal ontology for computer languages are appearing. The
latest edition of (I think) Yourden & Constantine?? Object-oriented Analysis
explictly says that a truly systematic approach to the subjest
would start with Aristotle  (rather than just the hopeless "oh this
sounds like a good idea" approach computer scientists currently take).

To deny that it is good that Aristltle be hijcked by Christian thought is 
like denying that the Unknown God should have been used in Acts for
evangelism. Whatever is good belongs to Christianity.

-ricko
Newsgroups: aus.religion