Transubstantiation: What Is the Body of Christ?

Transubstantiation is the doctrine of the Catholic Church which teaches that the substance of the bread in the sacrament of communion is changed into the substance of the Body of Christ (and the substance of the wine into the substance of the Blood of Christ). Nevertheless the “outward characteristics” of the bread and the wine (the “eucharistic species”) remain unaltered --- which means that “transubstantiation” is not the same as “transmaterializion.” The theological term “substance” is also critical to the Christian idea of the Trinity, where three distinct “persons” of God are said to be “consubstantial” as the One. John Hamer of Toronto Centre Place will look at the development of these theological terms and propositions and consider what Catholics and other Christians mean when they talk about the “Body of Christ.”
Join the livestream to participate in the discussion and to ask questions to our lecturer during the Q&A.
Browse our catalogue of free lectures at www.centreplac...
Your generous support allows us to offer these lectures at no cost. Please consider a making donation (tax deductible in the US and Canada) at www.centreplac... ️

[@jas_nah]

I was not expecting a genuine philosophical breakdown of star trek transporters tonight but I am so here for it

[@FinanSmith]

Replicators

[@KingoftheJuice18]

I believe you meant, "Beam me up, John!" 😉

[@KingoftheJuice18]

@@FinanSmith It's both.

[@FinanSmith]

Barely you klingon

[@FinanSmith]

C U Next Tuesday

[@fastballflakes5385]

Was unable to watch in realtime tonight but having caught up, I can confidently say that this week was another fantastic Hamercopia of Knowledge. Thank you again to John and Centre Place for everything they do

[@maxsonthonax1020]

Every time. 😎

[@jenniferhixon1438]

We love these lectures! Safe travels.

[@NameName-lu6vd]

Especially liked this lecture-in ecumenical ministry and it helps make sense of the ongoing friction about the ritual/sacrament/practice. Thanks

[@Steve-u9k4p]

Superb lecture, thank you.🙏

[@The_Jolly_Roger]

Love the Star Trek analogies!! Great lecture.

[@pebystroll]

Thanks so much for your fantastic work

[@JohnFBurrows]

Happy Tuesday !!!

[@IrrippiOntor]

"Get in line in that processional Step into that small confessional There the guy who's got religion'll Tell you if your sin's original If it is, try playin' it safer Drink the wine and chew the wafer Two, four, six, eight Time to transubstantiate..." - Tom Lehrer; the Vatican Rag 1965

[@nathangale7702]

Great work as always. I'm very much looking forward to your lecture on the Holy Ghost. I always tell people that my favorite part of the Trinity is the Holy Ghost, because the concept comes off as superfluous, but nearly all Christians agree that the Holy Ghost is God.

[@garymensurati1631]

Excellent. Thank you 🙏

[@tamjammy4461]

Thanks again for an interesting take on this.. It'd be interesting to see how ordinary modern Christians think about this subject, though my suspicion is that most probably just dont.

[@aresaurelian]

Excellent. This points to what the soul is. And this is the honest opinion.😊

[@exoplanet11]

Great talk! I understood transubstantiation better after I looked up the Catholic Church's official position on people who are (violently) allergic to alcohol. The church advises them NOT to drink the sacrificial wine (when available) in Mass. At first this seemed hypocritical: hasn't it been changed from alcohol into blood? But the answer is no: its material composition is unchanged, but its "substance" (in a spiritual sense) is changed, according to this doctrine.

[@rickmcentee9204]

Thanks. So much opposition to the concept is based on misunderstanding what Catholics actually believe.

[@WhoeverNevermind]

Let's goooooooooo!

[@BK_Beloved]

Hey John, can you do the different christologies of each gospel as well as Paul’s? Looking forward to that! Thanks!

[@edwardTisk-ix8nj]

Aloha Peeps!

[@arthurgulick1064]

Yy hjrkthjrj🎉tkttetkrtrytt🎉🎉hkt🎉🎉🎉hhkrjr🎉🎉hmt🎉heet🎉

[@shanejohns7901]

Pigeons can and are trained to tap an electric switch/signal whenever they see the bright orange color used most often in naval emergency equipment. It's done to take advantage of their very excellent vision to aid in naval emergency searches. The pigeons obviously don't know the 'word' 'orange'. But they are certainly trained to respond to that color when they see it. And they excel at it. How can you argue that such a pigeon doesn't at least know what 'orangeNESS' is?

[@davioustube]

Thanks!

[@frederickanderson1860]

Matter cannot be destroyed or created,it can be transformed into another form.

[@randyallen2966]

Thanks boss

[@adamnoturfuknbusiness2367]

good one

[@frederickanderson1860]

Perfect example of transformation is the caterpillar turned into a butterfly.

[@placeswelive5388]

He was hammered when he said that. We are required to drink 4 cups of wine at Passover Seder (which is what "Last Supper" is). I have heard worse after the fourth cup.

[@germansassarini1372]

Starting to listen to this episode ( huge fan btw). Had to comment that a materialist worldview ( I have one) does not imply the view that a strar trek slyle teleportation means that the originsl person is destroyed. Of course it is in the sense that the atoms are all diferent, but we change atoms anyway. A person (and let me say I'm speaking from a marxist perspective) can't be understood as a group of molecules, rather as a social being. No need for an ontological substance.

[@frederickanderson1860]

Its like the metal into gold example the magic of alchemist.

[@randyallen2966]

Damn we got into star trek fast 😂

[@StopMotionConvoy]

If Transformers can have an electronic soul then so can data. But it's unclear if the humans in the Transformers franchise have a soul.

[@tedwalford7615]

We have forms, so God has form. But God's form is not of this matter; it is spirit. Similarly, our real form is spirit, not this temporary material dress. Liberated souls, as Jesus Christ, have no attachment to matter or things material, so they exist in their original, pure, nonmaterial spiritual forms, or "bodies." - So transubstantiation of material bread and material wine is not a conversion to material flesh and blood. Rather that which is offered to the Lord, and found acceptable by Him, is transmuted, by His mercy, into spirit. The Lord, by his merciful will, manifests Himself into and as the form of the offerings so that we, who cannot directly see God, may nevertheless personally associate with Him by accepting the sacrificial remnants, formerly matter but now a spiritual manifestation of the Lord Himself.

[@ryanrevland4333]

It's interesting that these Platonic ideas enter into Christianity at the same time the Greeks do.

[@rickmcentee9204]

Not like the replicator... "Substance" is used in the Aristotelian sense of the distinction between "substance" (platonic form/ultimate identity) and "accidents" (the material/mollecules). So it's still cellulose and fermented grape molecules if examined under a microscope (not human cells) but on a higher, spiritual level, it manifests the "real presence" of the body and blood of the Christ. This was defined at the Council of Trent.

[@GizmoFromPizmo]

It seems that we get lost in the weeds when we try to pick this stuff apart so much. Why do people chase down these rabbit holes? Jesus is the divine Son of God. Let's just stop there. The bread and the wine are the body and blood of Jesus. Let's just stop there. We are saved by grace but only if we believe it. Let's just stop there. When we try to pick these things apart, we wind up in a quagmire (diggity) and we miss the goal.

[@jussikankinen9409]

What about the puppies eat bread from ground when woman asked to help her daughter

[@dancahill9585]

I have no idea what the "substance" of Body of Christ means. I also have no idea what the "substance" of Blood of Christ means. I do understand what the "Substance" of Christ means. So the Transubstantiation idea just seems like nonsense. I can much easier understand the consubstantiation idea of Luther.

[@winstonbarquez9538]

John 6:66 showed the same effect on many of the disciples of Jesus when they heard these words.

[@GizmoFromPizmo]

When did the clergy takeover the church by making it impossible for the average grunt Christian to take the Lord's Supper? In other words, when did it become necessary that a "miracle" take place before someone could eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink His blood? We don't see anything in the New Testament about it requiring a miracle and so that had to come along later - as the clergy was subjugating the normal Christians under their boot.

[@toonmoene8757]

Is it just me, or has the word "transsubstantiation" three S-s ?

[@GizmoFromPizmo]

The Didache breaks canon and is not accepted on that basis alone.

[@jussikankinen9409]

Human brain is not like hard disk

[@thishandleistacken]

That seems to be slowly being proven correct. For example check out the new results releasee in the past week or so of Roger Penrose's proposal for quantum processes being integral to consciousness through microtubules. Anton Petrov has a really good video on it. As someone who has had unexplainable mystical experiences (sober or not, including a near death experience that was utterly transformative) and cross compared those experiences with the writings of mystics throughout time as well as friends and family to me it seems clear we are more than the random firing of neurons... rather, through what I have experienced and learned, we are instead in our truest nature what caused the evolution of neurons to arise in the first place. As all our atoms come from the stars, as do those of the Earth, and all the atoms in the stars come from the unity of The Big Bang wherein general relativity and quantum mechanics were also unified before the separation of the 4 fundamental forces. It's utterly incredible that humanity has gone from 500 years ago not even knowing the Earth orbited the Sun and not the other way around to having telescopes and other complex instruments which allow us to study the fractions of a second after the Big Bang, the Planck Era, study the Cosmic Radiation Background which is a record of the energy released by the Big Bang, study Gravitational Waves which are caused by black holes colliding and meging and which literally stretch and shrink space-time and so so much more. There's a lot in Star Trek we can't do but funny enough a lot we can do they could not (original few shows, I can't get into the new ones). We are inexorably linked to Unity, which we may call God, and through It to all space-time which is constantly being expanded and filled by quantum processes like virtual particles of the quantum foam. I don't think we will ever be able to "scientifically" describe God but I think we are fast approaching a time where in science becomes that which brings people closer to God and to mysticism rather than pushing them away from it. The difference will be that instead of science making people atheists and anti-science people turning to blind superstitions and dogmas we will finally have the language and evidence to speak of these things with a unified cause between those of all religions since all religions come from the same human attempts to mystically explain the same phenomenon: consciousness and reality, subject and object, the beginning of the world, the meaning of existence and so on

[@Entropicalli]

John's a trekkie

[@marklanahan7289]

Ive watched some shite on here butvthis is next level. You need a social like pal.

[@davidwright8432]

Your entire discussion of Star Trek technology, alien 'soul-equivalents' etc completely misses the point of 'transubstantiation'. You need to go back to the word 'substance' as used in Catholic medieval philosophy (and earlier). Thomas Aquinas is one of the go-to guys on this. The word 'substance' comes from two Latin words: 'sub', or under, as in 'submarine' - under the ocean - and 'stantia' under, or giving support to. So, something underpinning the apparent bread and wine changes, not in a way that induces chemical change, but change in MEANING. The meaning of what's in front of our eyes - bread and wine - is changed to mean, the flesh and blood of Jesus. The idea of chemical change wasn't even a faint idea in the middle ages - tho the great alchemical goal was to 'transform' lead into gold, nobody knew how. As a Catholic kid, every time in Catechism or sermon I heard of 'transubstantiation' as 'change into', method unspecified, I simply refused this (as it was said) 'holy miracle'. Wholly credulous, rather. And I was right! Not that I now subscribe to Catholic (or any other religious) teaching.

[@charlesmendeley9823]

I basically agree, except that the real origin is Aristotelian philosophy. We are talking about the "substance" vs. "antecedents". So when the "regular bread" is changed into the body of Christ, it still looks and tastes like bread, because the antecedents stay the same, but the substance or essence changes into the body of Christ. Using "meaning" is not far off. Usually, terms such as "idea" are used.

[@TboneWTF]

LOL. it's sad and worrisome that ANY belief is based on magic and the supernatural. I blame the lack of a proper education on this fallacy.

[@GizmoFromPizmo]

"All of the denominations of Christianity", is a supposition that departs from the faith. The Apostle Paul asked the rhetorical question, "Is Christ divided?" (1 Cor. 1:13) Christianity doesn't have any denominations. There is one body and one faith (see Eph. 4:4-5). Catholicism has given herself to the devil. The Book of Hebrews admonishes against doing that. Heb. 13:9 - Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them that have been occupied therein. Strange and divers doctrines would include everything we never read about in the apostle's writings. Whether it's transubstantiation, apostolic succession, the perpetual virginity of Mary, Mary's defacto deification, or any of the other myriad strange doctrines of this fringe pagan cult. Catholicism is a mystery religion and all mystery religions lean heavily on the doctrine of "because I say so" and not "thus saith the Lord".

[@TboneWTF]

Christianity is a religious belief just as all religions that believe in the supernatural are.

[@JoseGomez-n4k]

Catholicism is the one true Church

[@TboneWTF]

​@@JoseGomez-n4k LOL. I believe there are many Muslims and Hindus that would disagree with you.

[@TboneWTF]

​ @JoseGomez-n4k LOL. I believe there are many Muslims and Hindus that would disagree with you.

[@TboneWTF]

​ @JoseGomez-n4k LOL. I believe there are many more popular denominations that would disagree with you.