The doctrine of Real Presence

In Roman Catholic theology, as well as in the Eastern Orthodox and some other Christian Churches, the Eucharist is a process by which Christ becomes really present. I will focus on the Catholic doctrine for the sake of simplicity. Without going into the complexity of the view, the idea is that as a consequence of the actions of the priest during the mass, the bread and wine once consecrated literally become the body and blood of Christ. To make it a little more precise, let's label the things on the altar A and B. A is what begins as the bread, and B is what begins as the wine. Before the consecration has happened, A and B are bread and wine. After the consecration, however, A and B are the body and blood of Christ.Footnote ³ Call this thesis RP (for Real Presence):

But things are more complicated than this makes it appear. First, both the bread and the wine each become both the body and blood of Christ; A is the body and blood of Christ, as is B. Moreover, not only are A and B each transformed into the body and blood of Christ, but they each are transformed into the whole of the body and blood of Christ.Footnote ⁴ This is captured by our thesis below:

A yet further level of complication is added by an additional claim. When A and B are distributed among those who consume them, it is claimed that each of the receivers receives the whole body and blood of Christ. A, which is bread pre-consecration, can be distributed by being broken into seemingly smaller pieces. B, which is wine pre-consecration, is distributed when individuals consume portions by having a sip. Thus we have the thesis:

These theses raise a number of philosophical problems. I shall consider the theses RP, RP1 and RP2 in turn.

1. 1. The most obvious problem is with RP and is twofold. On the one hand what is there on the altar after the consecration doesn't look like a body and some blood, doesn't act like a body and some blood, doesn't smell, taste, or feel like a body or some blood. How can it, then, actually be Christ's body and blood? On the other hand what is on the altar looks, acts, smells, tastes, and feels like bread and wine. How, then, can it not be bread and wine? One thought might be that it is both bread and wine and the body and blood of Christ, which would at least deal with the second aspect of this worry. But this view, known as consubstantiation, is explicitly denied in a Catholic setting. It is claimed that the post-consecration material ceases to be bread and wine; it is only Christ's body and blood.

   This has puzzled Christian theologians for some time. Drawing on Aristotelian metaphysics, Aquinas and others developed a theory according to which the accidents of the entities remain the same while the substance changes.Footnote ⁶ This is the interpretation known as transubstantiation, which attempts to address this twofold problem. There are, of course, reasonable questions about Aristotelian metaphysics and the theory of transubstantiation generally. There is also a need to try to understand this doctrine in a way informed by progress in philosophy since Aquinas and Aristotle. But this large task will not be addressed here. Instead, this article is restricted to two other problems that arise from the doctrine of Real Presence, and in particular from RP1 and RP2.

2. 2. RP1 raises a second issue. It states that the whole of the body and blood of Christ is present in the Eucharist. But it is possible (and in fact the case) that there are multiple consecrations. Suppose that the appropriate events happen in both London and Mumbai at the same time. This means that the body and blood of Christ is simultaneously present as a whole in both London and Mumbai. How is it possible for one thing to be simultaneously present as a whole in more than one place? How can all of the body and blood of Christ be present in different locations?

   In fact, this problem is apparent even if there is only one consecration at any time. For RP1 states that each of A and B are the whole body and blood of Christ. So Christ's whole body and blood are present at the same altar twice over; once in A and once in B.Footnote ⁷ Thus RP1 commits one to the view that Christ's body and blood can occupy different regions of spacetime in some way that vindicates the claim that the whole of his body and blood are present in each region.Footnote ⁸ This seems unusual to say the least. We are owed further explanation.Footnote ⁹

3. 3. The third issue is even more troubling, and is derived from RP2. It states that entities resulting from the distribution of A and B are also themselves the whole body and blood of Christ. That is, the entities consumed, which seem smaller than A and B and appear to be parts of A and B, are the whole body and blood of Christ. It is not immediately clear how to understand this. It is not simply like the case of water, where every part of some water is water (at least down to the molecular level). Rather, the object that is A is numerically identical with some object which we find after the distribution of A. This strange claim will raise issues of mereology; the relation of parts and wholes. It is unclear whether any objects can be this way, and therefore whether it's coherent to assert this of the Eucharist.

The three issues that have been introduced by no means exhaust the puzzling philosophical aspects of the theological claims encapsulated by RP, RP1 and RP2. But the latter two are topics that I hope to shed light on through contemporary metaphysics. In the next section, I begin with RP1.Footnote ¹⁰

Modelling RP1

To provide a way of understanding RP1, I first need briefly to introduce some metaphysical concepts. These concern the continued existence of material objects over time. Consider, for example, a tree, which begins life as an acorn, grows into a sapling, and then into an adult tree. Eventually, it dies and ceases to be. The tree comes into existence, continues to exist throughout its lifetime, and then perishes. Or consider a clock, which is carefully constructed by a clockmaker and then ticks away until one day it is taken apart. Likewise, the clock comes to be, exists for a period of time, and then ceases to exist. The world is populated by such objects. But there are competing philosophical theories to account for this phenomenon. A neutral term for existence through time is persistence. The tree, the clock, we ourselves, and many other things persist. The two ways to understand persistence are called endurance and perdurance.Footnote ¹¹ While the precise difference between these is a matter of detailed debate, the general idea is that an object endures if it is wholly present at each time at which it exists, and an object perdures if it exists through time by having different parts at different times. The perdurance account suggests that objects have temporal parts in the way that, for example, roads have spatial parts. Endurance theorists deny this, and claim that objects can have spatial but not temporal parts. To put it in metaphorical terms, an enduring object moves through time, whereas a perduring object is spread out across time.

Now, let's consider RP1 with these in mind. First it can be shown that perdurance accounts can provide the conceptual machinery to avoid the worry that RP1 has elicited. For the perdurantist, being really present somewhere will be a matter of having some relation to something located at that place.Footnote ¹² For instance, Jane's being really present in the football stadium is a matter of something located in the football stadium (Jane's temporal part) being related to Jane by the relation ‘being a temporal part of’. Now, the nature of this relation is up for discussion; one plausible candidate is some counterpart relation that holds among all temporal parts. But whatever the relation is, it should be able to hold of more than one thing at a time. For instance, consider what the perdurantist will want to say about Jane if she time-travels back to a period in which she previously existed. There will then be two distinct things at a time, one of which is older than the other. But both seem to be Jane, i.e. have appropriate temporal-part relations.

If this is so, the perdurance account gives one model for the Eucharist as described by RP1. RP1 states that A and B are each the whole body and blood of Christ, and therefore that Christ's body and blood is multiply located at a time. But if this is just a matter of certain relations holding then there is no reason why God couldn't coherently miraculously make these relations hold.Footnote ¹³ This is particularly clear if the relations are fundamental, but even if they are derived from some further relations or properties it is plausible that God could imbue A and B with the appropriate further relations or properties to ensure that A and B are indeed both the whole body and blood of Christ.

To an endurance theorist this will not be an acceptable interpretation of RP1. For the endurance theorist doesn't accept that any relation other than identity can be what holds between an object at one time and the same object at another time. Hence, to give a full account of RP1 we need a model for the Eucharist within an endurance picture. Luckily, it is quite simple to provide one. Being really present somewhere, for the endurantist, is a matter of being wholly present somewhere, i.e. it is simply a matter of being somewhere. So the body and blood of Christ, which is wholly present in A on the altar and in B on the altar (and in C in Mumbai, and …) is an enduring object multiply located in space at one time. But this can also be understood by appeal to the analogous situation of time-travel. Imagine you have an enduring object, say a pencil, which time-travels. Suppose the pencil is put in a time-travel machine by a scientist and is sent back to the previous week. In such a case you have a pencil which is wholly present at more than one spatial location at a time. This pencil will therefore give an analogue of the multiply located Eucharist.Footnote ¹⁴

Thus it seems that RP1 is explainable both in perdurance and in endurance terms, relying on an analogy with a time-travelling object. If you accept the metaphysical possibility of time-travel, therefore, you ought to accept the metaphysical possibility of multilocation and hence the metaphysical possibility of RP1, given that God can do at least whatever is metaphysically possible.

Modelling RP2

To explore the philosophical issues raised by RP2 it is necessary to be precise about what it claims. It says that A and B are the whole body and blood of Christ, and that when A and B are distributed each portion is also the whole body and blood of Christ. This is obviously unusual. Consider a typical example of distribution: a family stew, say, being divided into servings. You would not say that each of the servings is the whole stew; the servings are rather parts of the stew which together compose the whole of the stew. In order to show the conceptual coherence of RP2 I offer two ways that it could be satisfied. The first is simpler but requires numerous miracles. The second is more complicated but gives a more elegant account. Either, I take it, is sufficient to prove the possibility of an object behaving in the way the RP2 describes.

The first of the ways to conceive of an object satisfying RP2 is to appeal again to the notion of an object time-travelling.Footnote ¹⁵ This furnishes us with the concept of a single object multiply located at a time. What RP2 states is that during distribution the individual portions are in fact a single entity multiply located. Thus after A is broken into two equal portions, the left portion (A1) and the right portion (A2) are both identical with the whole body and blood of Christ. If the whole body and blood of Christ is labelled C then the following identities hold: A1=C, A2=C. By the transitivity of identity, A1=A2. But this is perfectly acceptable, as A1 and A2 can be related in the way that a time-travelling enduring particular relates to itself at that earlier time: they are strictly identical (though may have different properties).Footnote ¹⁶

So A1=A2. Furthermore, A1=A and A2=A. The results of the distribution (the portions) are identical with the whole pre-distribution entity. And, as noted in relation to RP1, A=B, so A1 and A2 are identical with B as well. Though these identity relations might appear strange, they are not formally inconsistent. This picture asserts that when one seemingly breaks A into pieces what you end up with is multiple instances or versions of the very same A, akin to the results of time-travel. You end up with an entity with additional locations at that time. Likewise when one distributes what was originally wine, B (paradigmatically by having a sip).

How this happens is manifestly unclear, however. One way to conceive of it is that at the point when A is seemingly divided A time-travels to exactly the same moment of time: it already exists at this time so it thereby becomes present twice over at that time. Both the time-travel and the non-time-travel versions of A would also have to shrink in size by a half.Footnote ¹⁷ This seems metaphysically possible, i.e. an omnipotent God who could bring about anything metaphysically possible could bring about such a state of affairs. It would require a huge number of miracles to produce such a result: every time consecrated material is distributed God would have to act repeatedly to ensure that this quasi-time-travel occurs. God would have to change the world in this strange way every time the consecrated host was apparently divided. This makes it much less plausible as a theory of what is actually supposed to happen. But this could happen, and hence RP2 is not metaphysically incoherent.Footnote ¹⁸ However, to underwrite this claim further I offer a second interpretation of what happens that is also consistent and requires less in the way of miraculous intervention.Footnote ¹⁹

This second interpretation looks more closely at the mereology involved, i.e. the relations of parthood that obtain. Rather than requiring a miracle every time A or B is divided, this approach only requires a single miraculous change from bread or wine to the body and blood of Christ in consecration, but posits that the body and blood of Christ has a complex and unusual mereological structure. Let's give some more detail. RP2 states that the portions that result from a distribution of A or B are all the whole body and blood of Christ. One way for this to be is for each part of A and B to be identical with the whole body and blood of Christ. In other words, A and B have parts and each of these parts is identical with the whole body and blood of Christ. So A has a right half and a left half, and each of these halves is identical with the whole body and blood of Christ. Furthermore, A itself is also the whole body and blood of Christ. This certainly sounds odd. But to see its coherence, imagine the following situation:

Consider a wall, which is made up of bricks.Footnote ²⁰ Call the wall W and the bricks b ₁ –b _n . Now imagine a time-travel machine that not only sends objects back in time but also significantly decreases their size. Thus if I put a pencil in this machine it will appear at some time in the past and significantly smaller. Now suppose that W is put in this machine at some time t. It is sent back in time to t* and is significantly reduced in size, say to the size of a brick. Let's call the brick-sized wall that arrives w ₁ .Footnote ²¹ After some time, and after t, suppose that w ₁ is then put in a converse machine and sent back to t, arriving at its original size. The operation is then repeated on W so that numerous other brick-sized objects identical with W arrive at the past time, t*. These are labelled w ₂ –w _n . So far everything seems plausible (if rather bizarre). As a final step, put w ₁ –w _n together at t to create a wall. The twist is the following: suppose the resulting wall is in fact W. The bricks which make up the original wall are actually the wall itself, having time-travelled and shrunk, i.e. w ₁ –w _n are in fact b ₁ –b _n .

This scenario may be extremely strange, but it seems conceptually possible. The consequence of such an odd occurrence would be that there is an object, W, which is multiply located at a time and whose locations at that time arrange it in the form of a large object composed of smaller objects. W seems to be composed of parts, each of which is W. This is akin to what is asserted in RP2 of the Eucharist: there is an object (the whole body and blood of Christ) which seems to be composed of numerous versions of itself.Footnote ²² The example is not quite perfect, though. In RP2 it is claimed that every part of A and B are the whole body and blood of Christ. This isn't true for W, as parts of W that are smaller than brick-sized are not wholly W. There are two options here to perfect the example, corresponding to the two ways the world could be. In the first place, the world could contain simples (objects which cannot be divided into parts). In the second place, the world could be infinitely divisible: at every level of magnification there would be complex objects which can be divided into parts. Let me give a version of the example for each option.

If the world is as described in the latter way, it is called gunky. Then one can simply iterate the example to accommodate the fact that every part of A and B are the whole body and blood of Christ: every brick b ₁ –b _n (which are all shrunken, time-travelling W) is itself made up of parts which are the brick itself sent back in time and decreased in size by an equivalent machine. And the same applies at the next level down, and so on, and so on. You would then have an object in which, no matter how closely you looked, you would still find the whole original object. Thus if the world is gunky one can use this as a model for the behaviour of the Eucharist.

If the world isn't gunky, i.e. if there are mereological simples, then the example can be adjusted accordingly. Take a mereological simple m ₁ . Put it in a standard time-travel machine repeatedly. Then collect m ₁ –m_n and arrange them in the form of a composite object O. What the precise status of O is to be is a matter of debate.Footnote ²³ But whatever our preferred interpretation of such cases, one can use exactly the same interpretation for the Eucharist according to RP2. For you can take the whole body and blood of Christ to be a mereological simple; A can then have a mereological structure just like O. When A is broken and distributed, each of the resulting entities will be the whole body and blood of Christ, and this will be true for every way of distributing A. And at the most fine-grained level you will reach analogues of m ₁ –m_n that can be all identical with one another and Christ's body and blood. Thus it has been proven that, whether the world is gunky or contains simple objects, time-travel can give models for how the Eucharist is supposed to be behaving according to RP2.

Though these models do not require frequent miracles, as with our first example, they do need strange parthood structures that make A and B into bizarre objects (and it isn't clear what the best way of understanding this is). Whether one prefers the miraculous approach or bizarre mereology is, I feel, a matter of taste. But either proves it is possible for an object to be the way that RP2 alleges that A and B are, and hence demonstrates that RP2 is conceptually coherent.