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Wednesday, July 24, 2019

Quantum transubstantiation


Our Episcopal church in Waco used leavened bread for communion. One day, the bread was particularly dry, and so it was crumbling as people were receiving communion with crumbs falling on the ground. People ignored the crumbs that were accumulating on the ground; some crumbs may have even been walked on by people. The crumbs remained there until the end of the service. After the service, Lindsay, a friend of ours, and I went up and picked up the crumbs. We weren't sure if Christ was really present in the full sense at that point, but we thought that if he was, then just leaving him on the ground to be walked on was irreverent. From this experience, I could see that the Anglican and Episcopal lack of clarity on the nature of the eucharist had important practical ramifications. I was, for that reason, attracted to the Catholic Church's claim that God has provided a clear teaching on the presence of Christ in the Eucharist and a corresponding clear standard for how the Eucharist should be treated. Faith and Reason: Philosophers Explain Their Turn to Catholicism 
(Ignatius 2019), 237. 

Although he uses that as an argument for Catholicism, it generates a conundrum for transubstantiation. It isn't just a 1-1 match between Jesus and the wafer, but Jesus and each particle composing the wafer. By that logic, how far down does the fissioning process extend?

Wafer = Jesus

Crumbs = Jesus

Molecules = Jesus

Atoms = Jesus

Quarks = Jesus

1 comment:

  1. In medieval times, priests would have to pick up crumbs and eat them, or lick up the spilled wine if it was spilled after “consecration”. At least they were consistent with things in those days (even if they didn’t understand the physics of it).

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