I wish Theology for Beginners (Not that you're a beginner but it's a very simple explanation) was online somewhere... hang on... FOUND IT! or at least parts of it.
Transubstantiation
by Frank J. Sheed
Besides the Real Presence which faith accepts and delights in, there is the doctrine of transubstantiation, from which we may at least get a glimpse of what happens when the priest consecrates bread and wine, so that they become Christ's body and Christ's blood.
At this stage, we must be content with only the simplest statement of the meaning of, and distinction between substance and accidents, without which we should make nothing at all of transubstantiation. We shall concentrate upon bread, reminding ourselves once again that what is said applies in principle to wine as well.
We look at the bread the priest uses in the Sacrament. It is white, round, soft. The whiteness is not the bread, it is simply a quality that the bread has; the same is true of the roundness and the softness. There is something there that has these and other properties, qualities, attributes- the philosophers call all of them accidents. Whiteness and roundness we see; softness brings in the sense of touch. We might smell bread, and the smell of new bread is wonderful, but once again the smell is not the bread, but simply a property. The something which has the whiteness, the softness, the roundness, has the smell; and if we try another sense, the sense of taste, the same something has that special effect upon our palate.
In other words, whatever the senses perceive-even with the aid of those instruments men are forever inventing to increase the reach of the senses- is always of this same sort, a quality, a property, an attribute; no sense perceives the something which has all these qualities, which is the thing itself. This something is what the philosophers call substance; the rest are accidents which it possesses. Our senses perceive accidents; only the mind knows the substance. This is true of bread, it is true of every created thing. Left to itself, the mind assumes that the substance is that which, in all its past experience, has been found to have that particular group of accidents. But in these two instances, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the mind is not left to itself. By the revelation of Christ it knows that the substance has been changed, in the one case into the substance of his body, in the other into the substance of his blood.
The senses can no more perceive the new substance resulting from the consecration than they could have perceived the substance there before. We cannot repeat too often that senses can perceive only accidents, and consecration changes only the substance. The accidents remain in their totality-for example, that which was wine and is now Christ's blood still has the smell of wine, the intoxicating power of wine. One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument. For all that instruments can do is to make contact with the accidents, and it is part of the doctrine of transubstantiation that the accidents undergo no change whatever. If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting.
The accidents, then, remain; but not, of course, as accidents of Christ's body. It is not his body which has the whiteness and the roundness and the softness. The accidents once held in existence by the substance of bread, and those others once held in existence by the substance of wine, are now held in existence solely by God's will to maintain them.
What of Christ's body, now sacramentally present? We must leave the philosophy of this for a later stage in our study. All we shall say here is that his body is wholly present, though not (so St. Thomas among others tells us) extended in space. One further element in the doctrine of the Real Presence needs to be stated: Christ's body remains in the communicant as long as the accidents remain themselves. Where, in the normal action of our bodily processes, they are so changed as to be no longer accidents of bread or accidents of wine, the Real Presence in us of Christ's own individual body ceases. But we live on in his Mystical Body.
This very sketchy outline of the doctrine of transubstantiation is almost pathetic. But like so much in this book, what is here is only a beginning; you have the rest of life before you.
Best explanation of substance and accidents I’ve ever read.
There's a false claim...It is our mind that perceives what the senses tell it...The mind knows the 'accidents' as well as the substance...Cut the spinal cord and your senses won't know anything...
Left to itself, the mind assumes that the substance is that which, in all its past experience, has been found to have that particular group of accidents. But in these two instances, the bread and wine of the Eucharist, the mind is not left to itself. By the revelation of Christ it knows that the substance has been changed, in the one case into the substance of his body, in the other into the substance of his blood.
So Jesus reveals to far less than half of Catholics (in their mind) that what they see, touch, taste, feel, ect., is not what they get...And those majority of Catholics who don't believe in your Eucharist just haven't been enlightened by God, I guess...
The senses can no more perceive the new substance resulting from the consecration than they could have perceived the substance there before.
And why not??? The bread isn't spiritual, it's physical...If it tastes like chocolate and the texture feels like cake, it's probably chocolate cake...If the texture turns to liquid and the taste is sweet and lemony, it's likely lemonade...
Jesus never said any of this bread changes in substance but not in 'accidents'...That's made up...And why would Jesus not change the accidents to fit the substance??? When Jesus turned water into wine, those at the wedding didn't drink a clear, tastless liquid...
It's all invented by human philosophers to try to justify some scripture that in no way fits this Eucharist philosophy...
So who says this stuff is so??? Jesus never said any such thing...This article itself admits that this idea was invented by Catholic humanist philosophers
Col_2:8 Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ.
We cannot repeat too often that senses can perceive only accidents, and consecration changes only the substance.
And again, senses don't perceive anything...It's the mind that perceives...If the substance changes, the 'accidents' must change...And of course there is no command nor suggestion from Jesus Christ that there is any consecration or transubstantiation that takes place...It is an invention...And not by God...
The accidents, then, remain; but not, of course, as accidents of Christ's body. It is not his body which has the whiteness and the roundness and the softness. The accidents once held in existence by the substance of bread, and those others once held in existence by the substance of wine, are now held in existence solely by God's will to maintain them.
With not a lick of evidence from scripture...
This very sketchy outline of the doctrine of transubstantiation is almost pathetic.
You can say that again...
Worshipping that cracker is idolatry.
However, in transubstantiation it is claimed that the bread is no longer bread even though the properties are the same. And which is not what the Lord's Supper accounts say, and is contrary to the plain and literal interpretation that RCs assert they hold to.
For plain and literal interpretation of "take eat, this is my body," and "Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, ye have no life in you," has no precedent in a miracle in which anything literally physical is somehow changed even though its properties remain the same. That would be like telling a person blind person they can now see even though they have no literal sight. Nor can the Eucharist cannot pass thru a wooden door like a mysterious changed resurrected body can.
Instead of finding a precedent and explanation in Scripture, Catholicism's explanation is basically found in pagan philosophy.
From a RC monk:
Neoplatonic thought or at least conceptual terms are clearly interwoven with Christian theology long before the 13th century...
The doctrine of transubstantiation completely reverses the usual distinction between being and appearance, where being is held to be unchanging and appearance is constantly changing. Transubstantiation maintains instead that being or substance changes while appearance remains unchanged. Such reversals in the order of things are affronts to reason and require much, not little, to affirm philosophically. Moreover, transubstantiation seem to go far beyond the simple distinction between appearance and reality. It would be one thing if the body and blood of Christ simply appeared to be bread and wine. But I don’t think that is what is claimed with “transubstantiation.”
Aristotle picked up just such common-sense concepts as “what-it-is-to-be-X” and tried to explain rather complex philosophical problems with them. Thus, to take a “common-sense” concept like substance–even if one could maintain that it were somehow purified of Aristotelian provenance—and have it do paradoxical conceptual gymnastics in order to explain transubstantiation seems not to be not so anti-Aristotelian in spirit after all...
That the bread and wine are somehow really the body and blood of Christ is an ancient Christian belief—but using the concept of “substance” to talk about this necessarily involves Greek philosophy (Br. Dennis Beach, OSB, monk of St. John’s Abbey; doctorate in philosophy from Penn State; http://www.praytellblog.com/index.php/2010/05/30/transubstantiation-and-aristotle-warning-heavy-philosophy)
And nowhere in Scripture is spiritual life obtained via literally eating anything physical, but obtaining spiritual qualities by eating flesh of departed loved ones was found among pagans.
In contrast, only the metaphorical interpretation easily conflates conflates with the rest of Scripture, and John in particular, both in its use of metaphorical language for eating and drinking and in the means of obtaining spiritual life.
One is occasionally startled to find some scientist claiming to have put all the resources of his laboratory into testing the consecrated bread; he announces triumphantly that there is no change whatever, no difference between this and any other bread. We could have told him that, without the aid of any instrument...If our scientist had announced that he had found a change, that would be really startling and upsetting. .
Yet RCs often invoke purported miracles of a host that has done just that, actually becoming physical flesh, and thus this priests argument is an argument against them.