On Being a Catholic Philosopher

Trent and Alex,

I think Trent gives something like the usual answer to this question. It's true that everyone comes to philosophy with certain commitments, and some are less revisable than others. But let me press the question a little, since it is really interesting to me.
One problem is the difficulty in seeing how something like transubstantiation could not be on the quite revisable list of beliefs. So one worry might be how one could not suspend belief on something that is close to pure mystery as one can get. Another worry might be this: if there is nothing unphilosophical in firmly believing pure mysteries, then philosophy is just a doxastic free-for-all. But we don't think that it's a free-for-all (do we)? I wonder if there's a non-circular way to eliminate these worries. Thanks to both, in advance.

Mike,

I take it that your worry is that everyone could claim having supernatural guidance in their philosophical claims, and then philosophical debate would disappear. But, first of all, many philosophers are precluded from claiming supernatural guidance by virtue of the content of their philosophical claims--namely, they are naturalists. So it's not a free-for-all, since the naturalists don't get to play that game.

Secondly, even if every philosopher went around making such allegedly supernaturally based claims, nonetheless there would still be the question of which, if any, of these claims can be independently supported by reason, which, if any, can be shown to be coherent, and which, if any, can be refuted by arguments from mutually agreed on claims.

I am not sure what you mean by "pure mystery" in the case of the transubstantiation. If the basic doctrine is just that the bread and wine cease to exist and Christ's body and blood come to be present, that doesn't seem to be "pure mystery". On the contrary, it seems faiirly straightforward, just as straightforward as claiming that you're in this room and then come to be present in the next at the same time. Or, more precisely, it's fairly straightfoward what the claims say, though not straightforward to say what could make them true (but, then again, it's far from straightforward to say what makes true the everyday claim that I am in this room).

I would find it mysterious were someone tell me that an eggplant is possibly a dog. That there are worlds in which this very eggplant is a dog. In the same way I find it mysterious that this flour and bread is possibly God. That there are worlds in which this very bread is God. That is a puzzling (and fascinating) modal claim.

But Catholics do not claim that the bread or flour possibly God. They claim that the bread (and flour) ceases to exist, and God comes to be present. There may be a claim of transformation added (maybe to be understood in explanatory terms), but according Pope Paul VI the basic doctrine is simply the real presence of Christ and the real absence of bread and wine.

It would be puzzling but not mysterious to be told that where it looks like there is an eggplant might be a dog.

Alex,
I don't understand that. At t the thing in my hand is just bread, right? And I can speak truthfully about the modal properties of the bread. I can say that, at t, this bread has the modal property of being possibly God.
Similarly, I can say truthfully that there is a possible world in which this child is an adult. It has that modal property, despite being both a child and an adult in no world.
I can say truthfully that there is a world in which my car is just a pool of steel. It has the modal property of being possibly nothing more than a pool of steel. Though there is no world in which it is both a car and a pool of steel.
In the same way the bread has the modal property of being possibly God. Though there is no world in which it is both God and bread. So, noting that the bread is no longer present after consecration is not relevant to the bread's having the modal property of being possibly God.

The discussion also continues on Trent's blog: http://xcatholics.blogspot.com/2007/10/on-being-catholic-philosopher.html

Mike:

Is t before or after consecration? If after, there is no bread in the hand according to the doctrine. If before, there is bread in the hand, but it is false that this bread will be Christ.

It may be that you're assuming that if x becomes y, then x has the property of being possibly y. But that is false. Fido the dog one day will become a corpse. But it false that Fido has the property of being possibly a corpse. The corpse and Fido are numerically distinct entities. It is an essential property of Fido that he is a dog; but no corpse is a dog. Or, better, consider how the night will turn into day. it is certainly false that the night is an entity that has the property of being possibly day.

Since this has turned into a transubstantiation discussion, I'll ask a question that's always bugged me. My problem is not the Real Presence but the Real Absence. I assume that, if I (or rather, someone competent) were to examine a consecrated wafer scientifically, they would find all the normal carbohydrates that are in regular bread. Catholic doctrine claims that, appearances to the contrary, this is not bread. So it seems there are three options:

1. *Bread* is not simply a bunch of carbohydrates. No amount of scientific investigation, in fact, can tell us whether something is bread or not.
2. The science we might do would be systematically deceived; the carbohydrates would appear to be there, but really aren't.
3. Catholic doctrine is false.

I take it that #1 is the official answer, but it makes absolutely no sense to me. So I find myself at #3. But I'd be grateful for an explanation.

Maybe, though, you do think that Fido is the same entity that one day is a corpse. If so, then imagine that the corpse then rots, and turns into bits of wood (because a tree is growing there and draws up the rotting matter). Even if you say that Fido is the same entity as the later corpse, surely you will not go on to say that Fido's corpse is the same entity as bits of wood. For then we would get the really absurd view that possibly Fido is a bunch of bits of wood. So then run my argument with his corpse. Fido's corpse will become bits of wood, but it is false that Fido's corpse has the property of possibly being bits of wood.

Heath:

I think #1 is true. For one, for something to be bread, it may have to have the right history and may even need to be treated by us the right way--the details will depend on what the right story is about the individuation of artifacts. (E.g., if I use a bread as just a pillow, is it a bread any more? If I tried to make meatloaf, forgot add meat but added yeast by mistake and got out a loaf, is that bread?)

I also think that #2 is true to some extent, though "deceived" may be too strong. It is going to be a part of the dogma that the matter of the bread is entirely absent. Nonetheless, on the standard Catholic view, the causal powers of carbohydrates--which is what the scientific measurements would detect--are there, though these causal powers are not the powers of any substance. If one thinks that what science discovers are not substances but causal powers (which I think is plausible in the light field-theoretic approaches where it's hard to identify substances), then on the standard Catholic view "deceived" is too strong.

But it false that Fido has the property of being possibly a corpse. The corpse and Fido are numerically distinct entities.

Alex,

As far as I can see, you're just misreading the modal property. Fido does have the modal property of possibly being a corpse. He does not have the modal property, however, of possibly surviving becoming a corpse. Compare the familiar Goliath and Lumpl case. They both have the modal property of possibly being smashed. Lumpl has the additional modal property of possibly surviving being smashed. Goliath does not have that property.
You've got to defend the view that the bread has the modal property of possibly being God. The bread would not survive, of course, but it is, to say the least, difficult to believe it could be God.

For one, for something to be bread, it may have to have the right history and may even need to be treated by us the right way--the details will depend on what the right story is about the individuation of artifacts. (E.g., if I use a bread as just a pillow, is it a bread any more? If I tried to make meatloaf, forgot add meat but added yeast by mistake and got out a loaf, is that bread?)

Well, OK, although (as doubtless you're aware) this doesn't help in the case at hand, since the typical communion wafer will also satisfy those other sorts of requirements.

Re: your reply to #2: do you want to make claims about whether something is a substannce non-empirical, and (if I understand you correctly) claims like "here is some bread" also non-empirical?

Mike:

"Fido does have the modal property of possibly being a corpse."

If x has the property of possibly being an F, then there is a possible world w and a time t where x is an F at t.

What would a world w and a time t look like so that it be true at w at t that Fido is a corpse? Presumably w is a world that contains a corpse at t, the corpse that is Fido. Where did this corpse come from? Either from a dog or not. I find it deeply implausible to suppose that Fido could be identical with a corpse that did not come from a dog.

So, the corpse came from a dog. Hence there is a time t0 < t such that at t0 there is a dog, which at or before t becomes the said corpse. Who is this dog? It is either Fido or not. If not, then we have the absurdity that one dog, say Spot, could have a corpse, which would then be the corpse of a different possible dog, viz., Fido.

So the dog had better be Fido. Hence, in w we have Fido being a dog at t0 and a corpse at t. But this entails that the dog and the corpse are the same entity, which in turn entails that the dog has survived its turning into a corpse.

Goliath has the modal property of being such that he possibly is being smashed, where we say that x is being smashed at t provided that something is smashing x at t. But he does not have the property of being such that he possibly is smashed, where x is smashed at t provided that x had been smashed prior to t and is in pieces at t.

Tim:

Actually, #1 is relevant. For if what is on the scene after consecration is not the same entity as was present on the scene before consecration, but was invisibly changed or replaced, then the new entity has a different causal history from the old one.

I have no idea how to formulate empirical criteria for something's being a substance (as opposed to, say, a bunch of substances, or a part of a substance, or a trope of a substance, or...). Moreover, some observable substances, such as human beings, can survive unobservably (after death).

Let's be careful with how we are going to use "empirical". There are plenty of times when you can't tell whether something is a piece of bread just by looking. There are also plenty of cases in which almost no amount of "mere" sensory information is going to tell whether something is, say, a diamond or what have you. Our total evidence almost always includes non-sensory evidence gleaned from the wider context.

So ordinarily when I see what appears to be a piece of bread I may reasonably conclude "There's a piece of bread." But at Mass I cannot so conclude because the ceteris is not paribus, i.e. I've got evidence that my senses will be deceived in this case. There is a *great* prayer by Saint Thomas that talks about this actually. I'll see if I can find it.

Here's that Saint Thomas Aquinas prayer I mentioned.

Godhead here in hiding, Whom I do adore,
Masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more,
See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart
Lost all lost in wonder at the God Thou art.

Seeing, touching, tasting are in Thee deceived;
How says trusty hearing? That shall be believed;
What God’s Son hath told me, take for truth I do;
Truth Himself speaks truly, or there’s nothing true.

On the Cross Thy Godhead made no sign to men;
Here Thy very manhood steals from human ken;
Both are my confession, both are my belief,
And I pray the same prayer as the dying thief.

I am not like Thomas, wounds I cannot see,
But can plainly call Thee Lord and God as he;
This faith each day deeper be my holding of,
Daily make me harder hope and dearer love.

O Thou our reminder of Christ crucified,
Living Bread, the life of us for whom He died,
Lend this life to me then; feed and feast my mind,
There be Thou the sweetness man was meant to find.

Bring the tender tale true of the Pelican;
Bathe me, Jesus Lord, in what Thy bosom ran:
Blood that but one drop of has the world to win,
All the world forgiveness of its world of sin.

Jesus, Whom I look at shrouded here below,
I beseech Thee send me what I thirst for so:
Someday to gaze on Thee face to face in light
And be blest forever with Thy glory’s sight. Amen.

Mike, I still don't even get the problem, honestly.

"One problem is the difficulty in seeing how something like transubstantiation could not be on the quite revisable list of beliefs."

Can you put that differently, I'm not tracking what your worry is, I have my doubts that it's exactly what Alex said at the beginning.

Trent,

One complication is that while the Tradition says God is hidden in the Eucharist, it generally doesn't want to say that the appearances are deceptive. That is, in fact, one of the points of the subsistent-accident theory that Aquinas gives--what we see is (so the account goes) the accidents (whiteness, circularity, etc.), and our sight is undeceived because these accidents are indeed there.

I agree about the importance of context. And it's worth noting that while we get sensory hints at the presence of bread, we simultaneously get testimony to the contrary, namely the priest says that it is Christ who is present.

Alex, I take it that whether an appearance deceives is itself a matter of context. If I paint a mule to look like a zebra (and do it very well) and take it to a meeting of epistemologists and say "Look guys, my own cleverly disguised mule!" I don't think we'd want to say that there were any deceiving appearances. I think we can let the Angelic Doctor have a bit of poetic license though, can't we?

Alex,

What I have been saying is such a common view that I'm surprised there is a dispute. L.A. Paul talking recently about this problem, for instance, writes ('Coinc. as Overl.'). . .the statue can be destroyed while the piece of clay is preserved . . when the piece of clay is molded into a brick. But your analysis makes this claim gibberish. You write,

A. If x has the property of possibly being an F [at t], then there is a possible world w and a time t where x is an F at t.

Under this analysis, Goliath has the property of possibly being destroyed only if there is a world in which Goliath exists and is destroyed! That is a little too Meinongian for me. You'd want to say instead something like,

B. If x has the property of possibly being destroyed, then there is a possible world w and a time t where the actual x is destroyed [i.e. non-existent] at t

'The actual x' is obviously rigid, and need not (and in fact does not) pick out anything that exists in w at t. Obviously, this is only a necessary condition. Much more goes into the notion of being destroyed. But there is no doubt that the statue is possibly destroyed. (B) begins an analysis of this, but (A) can't hope to do so.

Trent,

I think I could rephrase it in this way. Given the choice between believing that Scripture has been misinterpreted on this particular point OR believing that this bread (this stuff, pointing) is possibly substantially (though not in point of accidents) God, isn't the most a reasonable person can believe that they are equally probable? It seems to me so, but I'd be happy to learn something. If they are equally probable, then the belief in transubstantiation is pretty revisable.

Mike:

It is true now that the Great Library of Alexandria is destroyed. This seems to be how we use the language.

If x will be F, then there will be a time t at which it will be true to say "x is F." Now this creates some oddity when F is an existence-negating predicate. One day Fido will be non-existent. But it seems correct to say, after Fido has died, that Fido is no more, i.e., that Fido doesn't exist (any more). This is not the attribution of a property to a non-existent entity, but to a pastly existent entity, just as when we say that Bucephalus is now dead. This all seems a fine use of ordinary language.

Yes, there is a possible world w and a time t where Goliath is destroyed! That is not, of course, a world where there never was a Goliath, but rather a world where there was a Goliath at some time prior to t, but at t he is destroyed, existing no longer.

Are you presupposing presentism? I think if presentism is true, then one cannot take "destroyed" to correspond to a possible property, just as one cannot take "non-existent" to correspond to a possible property. (It would be really odd if there was a property P such that it is possible that x will have P, but it will never be correct to say that x has P.) After all "will be destroyed" just means "will be made non-existent due to the disruption of an external cause", and if non-existence is not a property, neither is being destroyed a property.

So, if presentism is true, I will just restrict my principle to the having of a property P. x possibly has P iff there is a world w and a time t such that x has P at t at w. Well, now, being a corpse certainly seems a property. So if it's correct to say that Fido is possibly a corpse, then there is a world and a time at which Fido is a corpse. If, as the presentist holds, Fido can't be a corpse when he doesn't exist, there is no world and time at which Fido is a corpse. Hence it is not correct to say that Fido is possibly a corpse, although Fido will become a corpse. (We need a distinction here between Fido will become a corpse and Fido will be a corpse.)

Alex,

I hope this doesn't depend crucially on the metaphysics of time. Is there really such a worry about the claim that the statue is possibly non-existent? Why isn't this just a matter of getting the scope right, e.g., Goliath, the very object itself, is such that M(~(Ex)(x = Goliath). The mistake is with the wide scope reading, that's all.

Mike,

M(~(Ex)(x=Goliath)) typically means that there is a possible world that doesn't contain Goliath at all. But you can't infer that directly from the premise that Goliath will cease to exist, without some substantial premise such as that anything that ceases to exist could have entirely failed to exist. I find this premise plausible, but it is non-trivial.

But maybe you are relativizing your quantifiers to a time, so that M(~(Ex)(x=Goliath)) means that there is a world and a time at which Goliath doesn't exist. Then this trivially follows from the claim that Goliath will cease to exist (just take the world to be the actual world and the time to be a time after Goliath has ceased to exist).

And all that said, it still seems a clear mistake to infer from
(1) x will become an F
to
(2) M(x is an F).
And it seems that most cases of substantial change, i.e., change after which the initial entity ceases to exist and a new entity exists made out of the stuff of the initial entity, will be counterexamples to such an inference.

Alex,

Part of the problem is that we are talking about several things simutaneously. In my last post I was not talking about Goliath being destroyed or going out of existence. I was talking about Goliath as being possibly non-existent, in the same way I would talk about myself being possibly non-existent. So, yes, I want to say this is true because there is a world in which I do not, and never did, exist. And so it is perfectly fine to say I am such that M~(Ex)(x = Almeida). That expresses just what I mean.
I have so far said nothing about "becoming" vs. "being". I'm not sure what to say about that modality. I've talked about the property of possibly being destroyed and the property of possibly being smashed, and the property of possibly being non-existent. Concerning the property of possibly being destroyed at t, I've been anxious to point out that this can be true of Goliath only if Goliath is no longer surviving at t in w. Since Goliath is no longer surviving at t in w(the time at which it is true that Goliath is destroyed), 'Goliath' cannot refer to Goliath at t in w. It refers (maybe) to (if you will) some counterpart in w of the actual Goliath up until t.
But this takes us back to the modal properties of the bread. Do you want to say that this stuff is such that it's possibly substantially God? I'm trying to come round to this claim, since it seems false to me.

Dear Mike,

Thanks for the clarification.

No, I definitely don't want to say that the bread is possibly substantially God or Christ or Christ's body. Nor do I want to say that the bread will be God or Chirst or Christ's body. The Tradition says that the bread will become Christ's body, but that x will become y does not entail that x will be y, or even that x possibly is y.

Thanks Mike, I think I see the problem now. You will have to be charitable with the reply because it only gestures toward a much richer argument. First, I don't accept the doctrine of transubstantiation on just scriptural grounds. I think John 6 is pretty clear, but I accept it because it is a dogma of the Catholic Church and I am convinced that all dogma of the Catholic Church are of necessity true. So I can be no less confident in any dogma than I am that it is a dogma of the Church. Since I take myself to be well-justified about the former, it follows that I should have the same view about the latter.

The following argument is something like the thought process.

1. The Catholic Church is the Church Jesus founded to teach on his behalf.
2. If 1, then if the Church teaches something, it is true.
3. The Church teaches transubstantiation. 1,2 MP
4. Transubstantiation is true. 2,3 t/x

Premise 3 is not in question. There's some room for slippage in Premise 2 since one might construe the dogmatic authority of the Church, but I don't think there's much hay to be made there (though, I know, some would like to make it). So it comes to Premise 1. I'm quite convinced of 1, so I can only be slightly less convinced of 4. Now, many will want to tollens my ponens. What do I have to say to that?

So you might think that one's prior on Transubstantiation would be low and surely this is right. However, there is another dimension to credences: stability. Some credences are easier to move than others. I once had pretty darn low priors on, say, the existence of a sizeable infinity of spaceotemporally isolated concrete worlds where everything I could ever imagine actually takes place. Really low. Now it's quite high actually because I've seen good philosophical arguments for it. In general, I think priors on broadly metaphysical thesis ought not be fixed very firmly. We just don't know what to expect in metaphysics. It would be reasonable to say, but how could the kinds of arguments Lewis gives--a reduction of modal to non-modal language and a vindication of SQML--*ever* even *possibly* overcome the priors on such a thesis. Thus incredulous stares.

However, I don't think that's the right way to think about it. I think we ought to hold onto priors in metaphysics with a light hand. This contrasts, I think, with psychological intuitions which I think we know much better because much more directly (folk psychology that is). I think those credences can be held more firmly. Really I think the more removed something is from personal experience the less firmly the credences ought to be. My prior on, say, the special theory of relativity is going to be pretty darn low. Almost inexpressibly low. Yet they are raised quite high by fairly abstruse arguments. You can treat these as second-order probabilities or as some other kind of property of personal probabilities but I think the property is fairly intuitive and manageable.

STR and CMR explain some otherwise inexplicable stuff. But, for me at least, that the Catholic Church is who She claims to be explains a lot too, and that lot is much closer to me than semantics for modals auxiliaries or the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies. Those things are very remote and I don't have much reason to believe the data are that clear. I feel otherwise with the Church, the data are very near to me, they involve the beliefs and desires of persons and their testimony.

I'd love to work all this out at book length some day but, alas, all I can do for now is sketch the outlines with a blunt pencil. I hope you find it at least suggestive.

No, I definitely don't want to say that the bread is possibly substantially God or Christ or Christ's body.

No, I don't want to make the identity claim either. This is why I've been trying to ostend the bread. You do want to say (me pointing at the as yet unconsecrated item) this stuff is possibly substantially God. I don't know how you coould deny that. It does not make the identity claim you are worried about. It does make the claim that in some worlds the stuff ostended is substantially God, as indeed you believe it is. No?

No, I don't want to say that this stuff is possibly substantially God. Nor do I want to say that this stuff will be God, or Christ, or Christ's body. Only that it will become God, or Christ, or Christ's body.

I'm lost. Let O name the stuff that is at t substantially bread. You agree that (i) O is substantially bread at t.
You agree that (ii) O is substantially God at t+1. So, obviously, at t there is a possible world w and time t+1 at which O is substantially God. But if there is a world w and time t+1 at which O is substantially God, then O is possibly substantially God. I don't see how talking about O 'becoming substantially God' is in any way inconsistent with this conclusion.

Trent,

You're right, the argument is too complicated to assess blog-wise. I do agree that priors on important metaphysical positions are not worth much. True, too, that the assessment of one's metaphysics depends on how much good work it does (however bizarre initially).
There is one very interesting thing to note, though. If you're right in your argument above, then there are many more true, necessary a posteriori propositions than we might have thought. Certainly, no dogma is a priori knowable. And, for any proposed dogma D, if the Church teaches D, then D is necessarily true! That's a fairly rich source of the necessary a posteriori.

Mike:

No, I accept (i) but I deny (ii). Instead, I think: (ii) O will become Christ's body.

In becoming Christ's body, O perishes (just as Fido perishes in becoming a corpse, but with the difference that when Fido perishes, the old matter remains and is a corpse, but when O perishes, none of the old matter remains). Hence, it is never true that O is Christ's body.

In becoming Christ's body, O perishes (just as Fido perishes in becoming a corpse, but with the difference that when Fido perishes, the old matter remains and is a corpse, but when O perishes, none of the old matter remains). Hence, it is never true that O is Christ's body

I thought the accidents did not change? Isn't the view that O is accidentally the same but substantially different? But now you seem to be telling me that it is not the same even in accidents. I just can't get my mind around this view. Indeed, you seem to be telling me that the bread, "poof", just disappears and God "boink", just appears in its place. It's not change but replacement. On the other hand, I understood the view to be that there is a change in the substance of the bread, but not in the accidents thereof.

The accidents remain. But O is the stuff, not the accidents of the stuff, on your account. Thus, O has the accidents, but it is not identical with the accidents. (Think of the accidents as tropes.)

Furthermore, it is false on the standard view to say that the accidents after consecration are accidents of Christ. They are accidents but not the accidents of any existing substance. (That's strange, I agree. As an eternalist, I kind of like the idea that they are accidents of the pastly existing bread.)

So here is what basically happens on the standard Catholic view. We start with the substance S of the bread and its set of accidents A. Then S ceases to exist, but the members of A continue to exist. At the same time Christ's body comes to be present there, and the rest of Christ comes along with the body. The members of A are not the accidents of any existing substance after the consecration.

(Note: The Council of Trent does not say "accidents" but only "appearances".)

That's the basic metaphysics. There are some wrinkles added to that on different particular theories.

Thus, Aquinas additionally insists that Christ is present through one of the accidents in A ("the dimensions"), even though he doesn't take on this accident.

A difficulty with the view is what you've pointed out, namely how this is change rather than replacement. There are a couple of answers available:

1. Aquinas' answer. What makes it be change is that the accidents persist and Christ is united to one of them, though not in such a way as to have that accident.

2. The basic view is mistaken in denying that the accidents in A are not accidents of Christ. In fact, they are accidents of Christ. I don't think any Church Council has taught against this option, but the Tradition does seem opposed to it. Anyway, on this view, the accidents remain as Christ's accidents, and this differentiates this from a case of replacement. I think the view you were giving was a relative of this view. (I find #2 a not unattractive view, but I do not affirm it because I fear it may be unorthodox.)

3. What we have just is a species of replacement, but sometimes it is appropriate to use the language of "change" in cases of replacement. We say that night changes to day. Likewise, we might say that a beam of light changes from red to green. Well, there is nothing in the beam that remains across the change. But the language of "change" still seems appropriate. Likewise, we may say that during an election "the president was changed", i.e., it was changed who was president. Similarly, we might say that the occupant of a place was changed, meaning simply that it changed who the occupant of the place is. Alternately, we might say that a replacement is a kind of change provided that some features of the new item are in part explained by the old item's having the same features. On that account, because Christ's body is precisely where the bread was, and is there in part because the bread was there, then it follows we can say that the bread changed into Christ's body.

4. We might take change to be a primitive relation and simply affirm that it holds here.

Mike,

I think Alex has been extraordinarily, supererogatorily patient and clear here.... what we have is a case where

1. a is bread
2. b is God
3. a changes into b
4. a is not identical to b

That all fits. Your point about why this is not replacement is reasonable, but that is where some of the mystery/hand-waving (take your pick) comes in. It would be analogous to

1. a is a dog
2. b is compost
3. a changes into b
4. a is not identical to b

except that the dog and the compost share matter, while (I take it) the bread and God don't.

Alex,

This part seems *very* strange to me:

(Think of the accidents as tropes.) Furthermore, it is false on the standard view to say that the accidents after consecration are accidents of Christ. They are accidents but not the accidents of any existing substance. (That's strange, I agree....)

Surely you're aware that one of the main points of positing tropes is not to have to posit any underlying substance? And if you do posit a substance, there's no point in having accidents which can exist independently from the substance (isn't that what makes them accidents)?

Mike, I'm glad that we at least have some considerable common ground on this. I'm perfectly OK with your conclusion since I think we already learn that lesson from metaphysics as well as well as learning that there are all sorts of epistemic possibilities that turn out not to be metaphysical possibilities. Earl Conee point out that if God is a necessary being we get this problem of "vanishing possibilities". I make the same reply--that it's just the lesson of metaphysics that there are all kinds of apparently possible metaphysical impossibilities and a posteriori necessities--in my defense of the Ontological Argument on my philosophy page.

Nevertheless, I meant the modal to be epistemic. I think some dogmas are contingent, for example that Jesus is the incarnation of God the Son (perhaps this misses your point, I'm a bit of a discriptivist so I have a hard time tracking what people take to be a posteriori necessities, I recommend we let that pass) . And of course only a small portion of the Church's teachings are dogma. Finally, I'm inclined to think with Swinburne that the doctrine of the Trinity can be reasoned to a priori (conditional on there being a God and, unlike Swinburne, I am a defender of the Ontological Argument). So I actually think that an agent could infer the existence of the trinity from "scratch" so to speak. Of course it would have to be an ideal agent, so the only one who could actually do it would be God Himself and he already knows!

More seriously, perhaps Aristotle or Leibniz could have thought it up from scratch (Aristotle comes shockingly close in book lambda of the Metaphysics). Still, it ain't bloody likely. But in retrospect I think less ideal agents can see the plausibility of the line of reasoning. In a statement worthy of Yogi Berra "Some things are only knowable a priori after the fact." :-)

Heath,

I don't think the things that you outline in 1-4 are in question here. I take the problem to be twofold. Fist, given 1-4 it does look like one should say that a is possibly b, but this is something Alex wants to resist. Second, part of the point of the discussion is avoiding positions where we have to appeal to mystery/hand waving.

Matthew,

So long as a is not identical to b, there is no possibility of a being b. And if b but not a is F (divine, or compost), nothing follows about whether a is possibly F. That's all standard modal logic.

I don't mind the appeal to some mystery, though I grant that it is philosophically desirable to dispel what mystery we can. A lot of philosophical theology aims simply at showing an absence of incoherence. What I do object to is where positions are quite clear and quite clearly nonsensical or contradictory or untenable for some other reason.

I do apologize for what may have come across as a snarky tone, though.

I think Alex has been extraordinarily, supererogatorily patient and clear here....

Gee, I guess I apologize. It has not been clear to me, and it still is not clear that we don't just have replacement. If you look closely at the discussion, it was mainly about what it means to attribute certain sorts of modal properties to objects. Discussions sometimes get sidetracked in this way. As I noted in October 22, 2007 6:51 PM
this was part of the problem. It took some time to get clear, for instance, that we can attribute the property of possibly being non-existent without inconsistency. It took some time to get clear on several de re attributions.
I'm disinclined to pursue it further, but Alex later at October 23, 2007 12:54 PM claims that but when O perishes, none of the old matter remains. But how does the substance change have anything to do with the matter present? The substance is non-extended, the matter is extended. Again at we find at October 23, 2007 3:56 PM But O is the stuff, not the accidents of the stuff, on your account. But I pretty clearly was referring to the object, not the substance. All that aside, as I said, I'm not interested in pursuing it further.

I think Alex has been extraordinarily, supererogatorily patient and clear here.... what we have is a case where
1. a is bread
2. b is God
3. a changes into b
4. a is not identical to b

Since this post irritated me more than a little, I'll take the time to point up that the observation misses the current point in dispute. The point in dispute is how (1) and (2) might be true, despite it being false that A has the property of being possibly God. Alex affirms that, I deny it. Having that property does not entail there being a world in which the identity claim is true any more than having the property of possibly being non-existent entails there is a world in which you are identical to a non-existent object. That what's at issue here. I take this clarificatory effort as instantiating supereorgatory restraint.

Here is how the dispute seems to me. First, let me use “b is divine” instead of “b is God” to make clear that we are talking about predicating a property instead of an identity claim. Second, let’s confine the dispute to Catholics and memorialist Protestants (Lutherans and Reformed have both real God and real bread after the consecration, so that makes it more complicated).

Now start with just 1, 2, and 4. There is bread, there is God, and they are not the same, before or after consecration. We can add that no bread is possibly divine and nothing divine is possibly bread. This is all common ground.

The whole dispute arises when we consider adding 3, that some bready object becomes a divine object. But before getting that far…

The most common sense of “change” is when one object loses one property and gains another. Thus one piece of bread goes from being, say, fresh to moldy. In symbols: a loses its F property and gains a G property. If this occurs or can occur, it follows that the object a, even while F, is possibly G (all fresh bread has the property of being possibly moldy). It is also common ground between Protestant and Catholic, however, that this kind of change is not occurring, so none of that matters.

What the Catholic affirms and the Protestant denies is that a different relation, call it “changing into”, occurs. This is when one object, with one set of properties, “becomes” (neutral term) or “changes into” (stipulated term) a different object with another set of properties. In symbols, a with property F changes into b with property G. If this occurs or can occur, it does NOT follow that a is possibly G (less loosely, that it is possible that a is G). What DOES follow is that it is possible that a is changed into some different object which is G. We might put this loosely by saying that it is possible for a to become G. So the Catholic is committed to affirming that it is possible for bread to become divine, but not committed to affirming that it is possible for bread to be divine.

One might think that there is no such relation as “changing into”, that any case of such a relation would simply be a case of replacement of one object by another. After all, the first object does not survive the change-into. But there are uncontroversial cases which look like changes-into but do not look like replacements. Dogs die and change into compost. Since, I would think, “being a living creature” is an essential property, one which dogs have and compost lacks, this is change-into. Also, dog-sperm and dog-egg unite and develop, and change into a dog. Since “being a set of two distinct things” is an essential property, one which the set {dog-sperm, dog-egg} has and which dogs lack, this is change-into as well. So there is at least a prima facie case that change-into is a genuine relation.

One might also think that all cases of “changing into” are really cases of “change” in the more common sense. E.g., that there is some fund of underlying molecules that rearrange themselves from exemplifying the property of being a dog to exemplifying the property of being compost. If one takes this tack, however, some odd consequences follow: all proper names are names of quantities of molecules, there are no essential properties other than the essential properties of (say) molecules, etc. This is not a totally obvious tack.

So, AFAICT, there is a pretty clear locus of dispute, namely, whether at consecration something bready “changes into” (in the stipulated sense) something divine. And there is a decent prima facie case to be made that “changing into” is a genuine relation, so that the Catholic view is not, prima facie and on this ground at least, nonsensical or obviously false, and the modal properties implied by the Catholic view are what the Catholics say they are.

Having that property does not entail there being a world in which the identity claim is true any more than having the property of possibly being non-existent entails there is a world in which you are identical to a non-existent object.

No object has the property of being possibly non-existent. For x to have the property of being possibly P is for there to be some world in which x exists and has P. Because there is no object that can exist and be non-existent, no object has the property of being possibly non-existent.

I hope no one minds my interjecting a comment. Alex never says the substance of the bread changes into the substance of God. That would be heretical and also ridiculous. To emphazise, the substance of the bread changes into the substance of Christ's body and the divinity more or less just follows along. The substance (substantial form) of Christ's body is the soul and Aquinas seems to waffle on this point saying the substance of the bread only changes into the soul insofar as it (the soul) gives coporeality. If anyone can explain what this means please do so.

No object has the property of being possibly non-existent. For x to have the property of being possibly P is for there to be some world in which x exists and has P. Because there is no object that can exist and be non-existent, no object has the property of being possibly non-existent

Yes, the problem with negative existentials was to say truthfully that something does not exist, for instance, a unicorn. That looks contradictory too, yet we do want to make such assertions. So we say things like ~(Ex)(Vy)(Uy iff. (x = y)) or better, that ~(Ex)(Ux). I also want to say that I am such that I might not have existed. That seems true of me. Among the ways to express this, I think, is to say M(Vy)~(y = A), where 'A' rigidly designates me. So A (the actual A, that is) possibly does not exist. Or maybe better, (Ex)(x = A) & M(Vy)~(y = A).