History and Philosophy of Transubstantiation III: Descartes on Transubstantiation

The doctrine of transubstantiation has puzzled philosophers and theologians alike since at least the time when Berengarius expressed his confession of faith in 1059 and 1079. Berengarius’s vivid expression of the bread and wine in the Eucharist as “the true body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ… [and] truly handled and broken by the hands of the priests and ground by the teeth of the faithful.” The account from the New Testament was not clear from the beginning as to whether it meant ‘This bread is my body’ or ‘This is my body and not bread,’ as seen in Christ’s own words: “Hoc est corpus meus.” However, the Eucharist would not be seen as problematic until the Iconoclast era in the 8^th century, when worshipping of images was rendered heretical. This was because unless the bread is the real body of Christ, the Eucharist would just be a worshipping of a piece of bread, which is idolatrous. A theory that could explain how it is possible for the body of Christ to be really present in the Sacrament was henceforth contrived, which came to be known as the doctrine of transubstantiation. Thus the appropriateness of this doctrine, that the Eucharistic bread is converted into the body of Christ, as well as how such a conversion would take place came to be a concern for theologians. The need for an explanation of this doctrine arose from the scholastic view that properties such as colour, taste and smell are not essential to something’s being what it is. And these non-essential properties, i.e. accidental qualities, are said to be dependent on the substance in which they inhere. In other words, accidental qualities cannot subsist without a substance. That is, there cannot be any self-subsisting accidents. But if transubstantiation is true, the substance of Christ is to be found in what appears to be a piece of bread instead of the bread substance in it. In this way, the bread is said to possess the accidental qualities of the bread, i.e. appearance, while possessing the substance of Christ’s body.  But because the scholastic philosophy could not admit accidents without substance, an alternative view came to be held that proposes the body of Christ be present simultaneously with the substance of the bread. This view, known as consubstantiation, could explain why the accidental qualities of the bread would still remain intact after the consecration. This position was tolerated by the Church at least by the time of Aquinas, who was the first to label consubstantiation heretical and impossible. Thomas’ objection also included that it would be idolatrous if any substance of the bread remained when the host was being worshipped. But still, the difficulty attached to explaining how accidental qualities could remain without substance troubled later theologians. During the time of Reformation, Luther argued that there was nothing heretical about believing in consubstantiation, and that in fact it would make more sense to hold that view.

In response to the growing threat of the Reformists, Descartes was compelled to explain how his ‘new philosophy’ could deal with the difficulty posed by transubstantiation in favour of the belief of the Roman Catholic Church. In this paper, I argue that Descartes had no choice but to admit the doctrine of transubstantiation as propounded by the Church, and suggest that Descartes saw the debate rather trivial yet he had to provide a way to rationalize transubstantiation in order that he not be associated with the Reformists and accused of idolatry. I will then show that Descartes’ metaphysical physics cannot consistently be held as a coherent explication for the possibility of the doctrine of transubstantiation.

First, what exactly is transubstantiation and what are the core issues Descartes had to deal with? As briefly mentioned above, the doctrine of transubstantiation requires that the accidental qualities of the bread and wine be separated out from the substance of the bread and wine. In other words, it requires subsistent accidents – qualities that can exist independently of the substance in which they inhere. As Luther and Reformists would argue, following the early theological explanation of the Eucharist, if the body of Christ were present in the bread in the same form as when he was resurrected and ascended into the heaven, i.e. in the form of glorified body, then because such a body is said to exist in a different dimension from that of bread or of wine or any other non-glorified bodies, accepting such a theory would eliminate the need for explaining how the bread qualities could still remain, since the bread substance has never left and the substance of Christ is coexistent with it. But following the Scholastic teaching, earlier Thomas Aquinas had already labeled consubstantiation both heretical and impossible, arguing for the alternative view of transubstantiation where the substance of the bread had to be converted into that of Christ. He reasoned by the method of elimination, and on the basis of the scripture. First, he thought it was impossible because in consubstantiation, if the body of Christ were present where there is the substance of bread, a change must take place. But since there can be no change in the bread substance, the substance of Christ must be changed at least spatially so that it could be present by means of spatial motion. But for this to take place, the body of Christ must move simultaneously to different places, which is altogether impossible as it would mean the presence of contrary motions in a single body. Secondly, if indeed Christ had meant that ‘this bread’ was his body, suggesting that there is a still substance of bread present at the time he pronounced these words, then he would have said “Hic est corpus meum,” using the masculine noun, which implies Hic refers to another masculine noun, “panis,” and not as he actually said “Hoc est,” which is a neuter noun, referring merely to that which he points at, suggesting the complete absence of the bread substance. This is crucial because if he meant that the bread was still present with his own body, rather than it had changed into his body, he would have used the masculine noun to refer to the bread as his body. Note that Aquinas was silent on the metaphysics of accidents without substance in favouring transubstantiation. Instead, he merely expressed that “[t]he accidents of bread and wine must remain, because to eat flesh and blood directly would be revolting, [and] also lead to contempt from unbelievers.” So the metaphysical problem of the accidents without substance remained troublesome for the Roman Catholics who held transubstantiation as an article of faith.

Descartes’ metaphysics, however, does not include the vocabulary of an accident without substance nor does it include the convenient concept of glorious bodies – everything in the world must be the substance or modes of either mind or body. Some theologians defended the more difficult stance that there are accidents without substance. Yet, as Descartes  himself recognizes, this argument is flawed, for he says “this task [of explaining how accidents can remain without substance] presented so many difficulties that this alone should have told them that they had strayed from the true path.” Descartes’ objection against those who defend real qualities is straightforward. If, as the Council of Trent affirms, “the whole substance of the bread is changed into the substance of the body of Our Lord Christ while the species of the bread remains unaltered”, then by insisting that some accidental qualities remain as self-subsistent real qualities, i.e. real accidents, those theologians are saying nothing but “that the whole substance of the bread changes but nevertheless a part of that substance called a ‘real accident’ remains,” which is to say that this real accident is an accident by name only and it actually is something that can subsist by its own, i.e. substance. Although this does not lead to a verbal contradiction, it certainly leads to a conceptual contradiction.

Because accepting the notion of glorious bodies necessarily attaches him to the Reformists’ view and because accepting real accidents would mean admitting modes and qualities could exist without the substance of either mind or body, making them substances themselves, Descartes had to contrive a new way of conceiving this Sacrament. How could he effectively approach this issue? He immediately recognizes two major problems to be resolved in the letter found with the manuscript containing the letter to Clerselier, namely, “[H]ow it can come about that all the accidents of the bread remain in a place where the bread is no longer present, and where another body is taking its place [and] how the body of Jesus Christ can exist within the same dimensions where the bread was.” The two issues here are 1) the perception problem: the remaining accidents seemingly without the substance, and 2) the mechanics of transubstantiation: the body of Christ existing within the same dimension as the bread. He cannot opt for subsistent accidents, since accidents are modes of substance and they cannot remain the same when their substance undergoes changes. He cannot argue with the Reformists either, since glorious bodies are bodies without local extension that exists in their own dimension, separate from the dimension of the bread. Neither alternative accords with his philosophy, which admits of no subsistent accidents or bodies without extension. Here Descartes ingeniously lays his eyes on the fact that we perceive everything solely from our senses’ coming into contact with the surfaces of objects. The surface, he explains, is not merely the external shape of a body but also any gaps found even in between the particles of flour that make up the bread. The surface of the bread, in other words, is not simply the figure of the bread that makes us perceive it as bread, but is what immediately surrounds its individual particles. Further, it is not in any way a part or an accident of the substance or of the surrounding air. It is nothing but the boundary common to the individual particles in the bread, and as such it “has no absolute reality except a modal one.” So it is a mode, but a mode of what? If it is of the bread, since transubstantiation takes away the whole substance of the bread, its surface as a mode must also disappear. Descartes distinguishes three surfaces, namely i) the surface of the bread, ii) the surface of the surrounding air, and finally iii) the surface intermediate between the air and the bread. In this way, he explains that there is a surface that does not belong either to the bread or to the air that surrounds it, but is simply a surface in between the air and the bread, and by that he means the surface [i.e. mode] does not change with either the bread or the air, but only with the shape of the dimensions which separates one from the other, that is to say, with the dimensive points at which two substances meet. He observes that because this surface intermediate between the bread and the air that surrounds it belongs neither to the bread substance nor the air substance, when the substance of the bread (or of the air) has been changed, this surface intermediate between the two substances would still remain numerically the same. He draws upon a mundane example of the Loire river in explicating numerical identity from the fact that we call the river the same river, even though the water that flows, the air that touches the water or the earth that surrounds it is no longer the same as ten years ago. That is, he argues that we identify something to be the same as before merely by looking at the surface and not the substance, which we cannot see. He further observes that transubstantiation occurs naturally in our everyday life in the form of nutrition. That this is the case is obvious, he argues, because clearly the individual particles that constitute a human body as an adult are different from those constituting a human body in infancy. Just as with circulation of blood, “nutrition takes place by a continual expulsion of parts of our body, which are driven from their place by the arrival of others” and hence, “there is no longer in [our bodies] any part of the matter which then belonged to them… so that they are numerically the same only because they are informed by the same soul.”

In this way, Descartes was able to, at least somewhat intelligibly, answer how transubstantiation is possible: that the surface intermediate is dimensively independent from the surface of the bread or the air, allowing the change of the underlying substance of the bread without a change in its appearance. But this solution brings about new problems. For Descartes’ view seems to imply the denial of real presence. This is because since in order for a natural transubstantiation or the example of the Loire river to be compatible, there must be the substance of the human body intact in the former case, and the continuity of the same substance, “water”, in the latter case both before and after the ‘transubstantiation’ takes place. By drawing a parallel example of the nutrition with the Sacramental transubstantiation, Descartes implied that the substance of the bread remains and it changes into the substance of Christ only by the word of the institution, i.e., by faith alone. Consequently, it made Antoine Arnauld, an advocate of Descartes though with some reservations, worry that he “came too close to denying the real presence of Christ’s body in the host.”  Descartes now turns to the second issue about the mechanics of transubstantiation, i.e. how to explain the quantification of Christ’s body that has supposedly taken place. Christ’s body is supposedly dimensive – that is, it cannot be measured or located with coordinates in which place it actually exists. But if Christ’s body is contained under the same dimension as the bread’s, Christ’s body has been quantified, that is, his body becomes somehow measurable  – but just exactly how much body does Christ have to be quantified? Descartes explains that the substance of the bread is converted into Christ’s body not by means of annihilation of the bread substance and addition of the new substance of Christ, but simply by means of “the soul of Jesus Christ inform[ing] the matter of the host.” In this way, the soul of Christ is supernaturally joined with the particles of the bread and wine by the power of the words of consecration alone, accounting for the fact that “the body of Christ is present only once in the whole host… and yet whole and entire in its parts, when it is divided; because all the matter, however large or small… is taken for a whole and entire human body.” Descartes responds that it is neither fitting nor necessary for this Sacrament to have Christ’s body with the same quantity, shape and matter as when He ascended into heaven, possibly at the same time dismissing the charges often raised against the Catholic theologians that it is, to say the least, blasphemous to actually eat the flesh of Christ in the Sacrament. In other words, Christ’s body is separated out from its own dimension, thus it makes no sense to talk about quantity, shape or matter as we conceive them in the bread: it exists extra-dimensionally, and thus it possesses no local extension. This argument may be good enough for transubstantiation, but certainly not for res extensa, since here is a case for a body without local extension. Descartes’ claim is that “the essence of matter is extension and a body just is its dimensions,” so it follows that “[o]n Cartesian principles a body is inseparable from its extension.” This leads us to another problem: since body cannot be distinguished from its local extension, how is it that Christ’s body can really be present in the sacrament without its own proper extension, i.e., without that which individuates it as Christ’s body? Even though Descartes himself seemed to be aware of this problem, he ultimately did not answer this question.

How is it possible for the body of Christ to be separable from its own dimension? For if it is possible, it undermines the very foundation of Cartesian metaphysics – that body just is dimension and the extension is its essence. This eventually unanswered question would haunt Cartesians even after Descartes’ death. Arnauld had once held the view that “Cartesians were better off acknowledging the inexplicability of this matter.” He eventually became the major proponent of Cartesian philosophy, but he never seemed to be fully satisfied with this aspect of Cartesian metaphysics, and rather simply accepted that “philosophical conclusions reached by reason alone are not intended to place any limits on what may be believed about the infinite power of God” and that “Descartes’ natural philosophy was not evidence that, on the issue of the Eucharist, he departed from the Catholic faith.” Even for such a fervent supporter of Cartesian metaphysics, he clearly recognized the incompatibility of Descartes’ philosophy with the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.

There is one more serious problem with Descartes’ philosophy of the mystery of transubstantiation. In the letter to Mesland, dated May 2^nd, 1644, Descartes states, “there is no doubt that at least one mode which belongs to bread remains in the Blessed Sacrament, since its outward shape, which is a mode, remains.” This is conspicuously opposed to what he later wrote to Mesland in 1645 that the surface is responsible for the appearance of the bread and that the surface neither belongs to the bread nor to the air surrounding it, as well as also in 1647 in Objections and Replies that the surface is not a part of the substance and that it is only the boundary common to the particles, having absolutely no reality except a modal one. This change of view clearly tells us that Descartes had not yet formulated the explication of transubstantiation as of 1644 yet, contrary to what Vlad Alexandrescu proposes. The facts that Descartes was still uncertain as to the explication of transubstantiation according to his own philosophy in the 1640’s, his own reluctance to talk about transubstantiation as much as possible as shown in a number of letters, and when he did talk about transubstantiation, he was never able to give an answer on record such a crucial problem as how the body of Christ can exist in the place where the bread once was without its proper extension according to his philosophy, show that Descartes’ awareness that his philosophy could not explain rationally how transubstantiation is possible, nor did he think it important that his philosophy must be able to explain it. It seems evident that Descartes wished he would not have to talk about transubstantiation if he could, but when he had to, he was compelled to make sense out of his own metaphysical system, which was less suited for explaining the doctrine. As a result, we see in his statements some inconsistencies, as shown above, particularly when he confuses surfaces with modes of the substance of the bread. These inconsistencies are, I believe, enough evidence to show that Descartes never really did offer a coherent explanation for transubstantiation but was only impelled to make sense out of the doctrine at his inconvenience as necessities arose.

McCue, James. F, “The Doctrine of Transubstantiation from Berengar Through Trent: The Point at Issue” The Harvard Theological Review, vol.61:3 (Jul., 1968), 385-430. Although the issue had been debated much earlier, this seems to be the time when it rendered the doctrine of transubstantiation problematic for many theologians, scandalizing the Berengarius’s so-called ‘Butcher Theology’.

Ibid.

Leslie Brubaker and John Haldon, Byzentium in the Iconoclast Era c.680-850: A History (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011),  9-68.

McCue, “Doctrine of transubstantiation,” 401

Ibid.

Ibid., p416. Luther, for instance, argues that “[i]n red-hot iron, the two substances, fire and iron, are so mingled that every part is both iron and fire. Why is it not even more possible that the body of Christ be contained in every part of the substance of the bread?”

McCue, “Doctrine of Transubstantiation,” 402

This position was first argued by Albert the Great, and was popularly debated especially in the 16^th century. McCue, “Doctrine of transubstantiation,” 397, 401 and 420. Italics mine.

David Crownfield, “The Seminal Trace: Presence, Difference, and Transubstantiation” Journal of the American Academy of Religion Vol.59:2 (Summer, 1991) 361-371. See also Aquinas Summa Theologia Q75, 7.

Julian Bourg, “The Rhetoric of Modal Equivocacy,” Journal of History of Ideas Vol.62:1 (Jan., 2001) 121-140. Although Vlad Alexandrescu, in his article “Descartes and Pascal on the Eucharist” shows that in the manuscript found in the 19^th century, recopied by Leibniz, on an observation made by Descartes, if legit, Descartes held the belief that there are glorious bodies and that such bodies are “capable of penetrating other bodies, invisible, or diaphanous, impassible and capable of all other properties which are attributed to the glorious bodies”, Descartes’ metaphysics never mentioned anything resembling to it elsewhere at all and it seems to undermine his own metaphysical allegiance that mind and body are the only two substances in the world and that they cannot interact with one another except through the pineal gland. It may be surmised that it is not the glorious body of Christ itself that goes into the Eucharist, as Thomists have it, but rather, it is the power of the soul of the glorious body of Christ that exercises ‘embodiment’ of his body in the Sacrament. But as this is an area of study that requires further research, and as this seems to be the only instance where Descartes wrote about glorious bodies, and also because this does not help us understand why Descartes would contrive such an intricate metaphysical explanation as to how transubstantiation is possible, I shall disregard what Descartes says about glorious bodies in this newly discovered manuscript for the purpose of my present paper.

See Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Volume II, trans. John Cottingham, Robert Stoothoff, and Dugald Murdoch (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2008) 172-178. “The theologians who first attempted to give a philosophical account of this topic were so firmly convinced that accidents… were something real and distinct from a substance… they supposed that the ‘forms’ of the bread were real accidents of this sort; and they became wholly occupied with explaining how these accidents could exist without a subject.”

Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” 176

Accidents. Descartes interprets it as ‘form’, which then he argues is nothing but a surface of an object. See Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” 176.

Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” 176.

This may also involve consubstantiation, since if the real accidents are turned into a part of substance, because the whole substance of bread is supposed to be changed into the substance of Christ, and because a part of the substance seems to remain without undergoing a change, it would mean that there still is a part of the substance of bread when the substance of Christ is present under the form of bread.

The letter to Clerselier is dated March 2^nd, 1546, in which Descartes gives a brief exposition on how God can bring about and replace the substance A with the numerically same substance B. This letter has neither addressee nor the date on which it was written, but comes immediately after the aforementioned letter to Clerselier.

Descartes, Correspondences, in The Philosophical Writings of Descartes Volume III: The Correspondence, trans. John Cottingham, Robet Stoothoff, Dugald Murdoch, and Anthony Kenny (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 284

See Descartes’ letter to Mesland, dated February 9^th, 1645, “…By ‘surface’ I do not mean any substance or real nature which could be destroyed by the omnipotence of God, but only a mode or manner of being, which cannot be changed without a change in that which oe through which it exists.”

Steven M. Nadler, in his article “Arnauld, Descartes, and Transubstantiation: Reconciling Cartesian Metaphysics and Real Presence”, notes Arnauld’ claim that “the opinion that extension is the essence of matter is not in itself contrary à la foi de ce mystère [de l’Eucharistie]. It is a philosophical position that in no way determines what may or may not be an article of faith.” Nevertheless, it is clear that Descartes’ own philosophical view is that extension is the essence of matter/body.

See Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” “what affects our sense is simply and solely the limit of the dimensions of the body which is perceived by the senses. For contact with an object takes place only at the surface…”

See Descartes, “Fourth Set of Replies,” 174.

Ibid.

Descartes, To Mesland, February 9^th, 1645, in “Correspondence,” 241-244, “This surface intermediate between the air and the bread does not differ in reality from the surface of the bread, or from the surface of the air touching the bread; these three surfaces are in fact a single thing and differ only in relation to our thought.”

A technical term used by Aquinas; a “dimensive quantity”, for instance, refers to that in which substance is contained by dimension. See Aquinas, Summa Theologica, Q.76 Art.5. “Christ’s body is not in this sacrament as in a place, but after the manner of substance, that is to say, in that way in which substance is contained by dimension.” If the body is in a place, then it has to move out of the dimensive quantity occupied by itself, which is problematic since then there would be an empty space or a duration of time there is void in the dimensive quantity when a change is taking place; but if the body moves out with its dimensive quantity, replaced by another dimensive quantity, then “the substance of Christ’s body succeeds the substance of bread in [the] sacrament.” Italic mine.

Descartes, To Mesland, February 9^th, 1645, in “Correspondence,” 241-244.

Ibid.

Ibid.

It belongs neither to the dimension of the bread nor of the air.

Steven M. Nadler, “Arnauld, Descartes, and Transubstantiation: Reconciling Cartesian Metaphysics and Real Presence” Journal of History of Ideas Vol.49:2 (Apr. – Jun., 1988): 229-246. Also ‘by the word of institution’ or ‘by the faith alone’ dangerously reminds us of Luther’s argument against Catholics.

Just like the soul of a thing, it shares no locative space, i.e. it does not exist in the same dimension as material bodies such as bread, which actually is located in a place.

Descartes Correspondence, February 9^th.

Ibid.

Ibid.

As this was the initial charge brought against the Catholics at the time of Berengarius. See my introduction paragraph.

Steven M. Nadler, “Arnauld, Descartes, and Transubstantiation,” 234

Ibid., see also Arnauld’s letter to Descartes, “You maintain that an extended body cannot, in any manner, be distinguished from its local extension. You will do me a large favor, then, by telling me whether you have contrived some means of reconciling this doctrine with the Catholic faith, which obliges us to believe that the body of Christ is present in the holy sacrament without its local extension.” (XXXVIII, 73)

It can be surmised that he was aware of the problem of the body without its own dimension by the letter without the addressee that we have earlier seen, for there he explicitly recognizes the problem as “how the body of Jesus Christ can exist within the same dimensions where the bread was.” See also my footnote 10.

See Descartes’ letter for Arnauld, dated June 4^th, 1648, “Since the Council of Trent was unwilling to explain how the body of Christ is in the Eucharist, and wrote that it was there ‘in a manner of existing which we can scarcely express in words,’ I should fear the accusation of rashness if I dared to come to any conclusion on the matter; and such conjectures as I make I would prefer to communicate by word of mouth rather than in writing.” However, 3 years earlier, he was eager to explain to Mesland how surfaces account for the appearance of the bread with the substance of Christ’s body on basis that “since the Council does not lay it down that ‘we cannot express it in words’, but only that ‘we can scarcely express it in words.” Italics mine.

Steven M. Nadler, p.238

Descartes to Mesland, May 2^nd, 1644. Italics mine.

“[by] the surface intermediate between the air the bread, we mean that it does not change with either [the substance of bread or that of air], but only with the shape of the dimensions which separate one from the other… it is by that shape alone that it exists, and also by that alone it can change.”

“Finally we must note that the surface of the bread or wine or any other body should not in this context be taken to be a part of the substance or the quantity of the body in question, nor should it be taken to be a part of the surrounding bodies. It should be taken to be simply the boundary that is conceived to be common to the individual particles and the bodies that surround them; and this boundary has absolutely no reality except for a modal one.”

Vlad Alexandrescu says in his article, “Descartes and Pascal on the Eucharist,” that “we may take for granted that Descartes formulated early enough a theory of the Eucharist that would be in simultaneous agreement with both his physics and his metaphysics,” suggesting that Descartes had his theory concerning the Eucharist in the 1630’s.

Some of the signs of reluctance can be gathered from the following letters: [To Vatier, February 22^nd, 1638] “Transubstantiation… is very easily explained by [my philosophy]. But I see no sign that the conditions which could oblige me to do so will be fulfilled, at least for a long time…”, [To Mesland, May 1645] with regard to the letter in which Descartes wrote a lengthy response for explicating the transubstantiation about 4 months prior. “You may do what you please with my letter, but since it is not worth keeping, please simply destroy it, without bothering to return it to me.”, [To unknown addressee, March 1646] “…I do not need to look for any new explanation; and even if I could find one, I would not wish to divulge it, because in these matters the most common opinions are the best.”