Non-local real presence of Christ

Aquinas’s account of location for material substance is as follows. Ordinary material substances have a special accident—one more fundamental than all other matter-related accidents—he calls “dimensive quantity”, but which I will just call “dimensions”. This accident makes the object have a specific shape and size. The substance is then in a place provided that its dimensions are “commensurate with” that place—namely, provided that the dimensions are fitted into the place.

We can now say that a substance x is present in a place z in virtue of the following two presentness facts:

1. x is present in its dimensions D

2. the dimensions D are present in place z.

Furthermore, in the ordinary case, we can have an account of what “present” means in (a) and (b). A substance’s being present in dimensions D is just the substance’s having the dimensions D as an accident. And the dimensions being present in a place z is just their being commensurate with z. (This last one would bear more analysis, but that’s not my interest here.) When we have (a) and (b) with “present” grounded in this way—by having and commensuration respectively—we have what St Thomas call “local presence” or what we might call “ordinary physical location”.

Now, in the Eucharist the following happens according to Thomas. The substance of the bread turns into the body of Christ. The accidents of the bread miraculously remain in existence, but are no longer the accidents of any existing substance (whether bread or Christ). In particular, the dimensions D of the bread remain (and are a subject for the other accidents). And Christ’s body is present on the altar (say) because of the following two presentness facts:

3. Christ’s body is present in the dimensions D which are formerly of the bread

4. the dimensions D are present on the altar.

The ground of (d) just like that of an ordinary case of (b): the dimensions are commensurate with the place. But since Aquinas insists that Christ does not take on the accidents of the bread, the ground of (c) must be different from the ground of the ordinary case of (a): Christ does not have D. (In particular, Christ is not round and thin when transsubstantiation happens in a western Catholic Church.) Instead, Thomas says about (c) that Christ is “substantially” in the “foreign” dimensions D, but is not a subject of these dimensions, i.e., does not have them. As a result, we have the same structure of presence as in the ordinary case—it is mediated by dimensions—but because the grounds of the substance’s presence in the dimensions are different, this is not ordinary physical location any more.

In my 2008 paper, I gave up on figuring out what is meant by “substantial presence”, and indeed suggested that the problem is insoluble, and we should go for a different solution, one on which Christ has ordinary physical location on the altar. That solution may well be right, but I want to try out a more Thomistic solution—though the full story does not fit with everything Thomas says.

Consider the relationship between Seabiscuit and his accident of swiftness. This relationship has two features which make for interdependence:

1. Seabiscuit’s swiftness ontologically depends on Seabiscuit, i.e., Seabiscuit ontologically sustains his swiftness

2. Seabiscuit is qualified by his swiftness.

In all ordinary cases, the relations of ontologically sustaining and being qualified by between a substance and an accident are coextensive. Seabiscuit sustains all his accidents and they all qualify him, and similarly for all substances. To have an accident is then for the accident to ontologically depend on one and for one to be qualified by it.

Expanded out this way, we have a richer story as to what grounds an ordinary substance being present in its dimensions: the substance ontologically sustains the dimensions and is qualified by them.

Now, Thomas’s denial that Christ is “subject to” the dimensions of the bread means one aspect of the ordinary relationship between a substance and its accident is absent here—Christ is not qualified by the dimensions. However, that still leaves the possibility that the other aspect of the relationship is present. In other words, we can suppose that miraculously Christ’s body ontologically sustains “foreign” accidents that this body is not qualified by. This ontological sustenance relationship makes Christ’s body be substantially in the accidents, including in the dimensions.

Thus, the expanded account is:

1. Christ’s body is present in the dimensions D formerly of the bread by ontologically sustaining these dimensions in the way that a substance sustains its accidents but without D qualifying Christ’s body and hence without D becoming its accident.

2. The dimensions D are commensurate with a place, just as in ordinary physical location.

The presence in (1) is a special case of a type of presence that Thomas recognizes in his account of divine omnipresence. Thomas says that God is present to all things “by his essence”, namely by directly being their cause. This causation is, of course, divine sustenance. Thus, Christ’s body’s being “substantially” in the dimensions by sustaining them ontologically is like God’s being “by essence” present to all things by sustaining them. This is a recognized and metaphysically serious mode of presence, and hence it plausibly counts as a real presence.

At this point, it may seem that I have solved the problem of what Aquinas means by the substantial presence of Christ’s body in the dimensions of (the former) bread. But there is one hitch. I think Aquinas disagrees with my account. When Aquinas discusses how the accidents of bread and wine can remain without their substances, his answer is not that the body of Christ sustains them, but that God sustains them, because anything that can be done by creaturely causes can be done by God. St Thomas’s phrasing very much sounds like he thinks the sustenance of the accidents is done directly by the power of God.

The account I am offering requires that God miraculously bestow on Christ’s body the power to sustain accidents foreign to it (without being qualified by them). I don’t see any good reason to think this can’t happen. We thus have an extension of Thomas’s account, but it is one that I think is compatible with other aspects of his metaphysics and theology.

I am still not completely convinced that I should abandon my account on which Christ’s body is present in the Eucharist by ordinary physical location. My account clearly makes Christ’s body by really present. The modified Thomistic account may do that, but it may not.

I want to end with a consideration in favor of the Thomistic view that Christ’s presence in the Eucharist is not ordinary physical location. Many Protestants think that Christ’s body is “spiritually present”, and historically the Reformed wing of the Protestant tradition has taken spiritual presence quite seriously—not just as symbol—while denying ordinary physical presence (I am grateful to one of my graduate students for pointing this out). An account of Christ’s real presence that makes Christ not be ordinary physically present thus has an advantage: it fits with the intuitions not only of many Catholic thinkers but also of many non-Catholic ones. Perhaps the modified Thomistic account just is what spiritual presence is, and hence we have a way of moving Catholics and some Protestants closer together through St Thomas.

More on A-theory and divine timelessness

Argument One:

1. If from x’s point of view there is an objective fact about what time it presently is, then x is in time.

2. If x knows an objective fact about something, then from x’s point of view there is an objective fact about it.

3. If the A-theory of time is true, then there is an objective fact about what time it presently is.

4. God knows all objective facts.

5. So, if the A-theory of time is true, then God knows an objective fact about what time it presently is. (3 and 4)

6. So, if the A-theory of time is true, from God’s point of view there is an objective fact about time it presently is. (2 and 5)

7. So, if the A-theory of time is true, God is in time. (1 and 6)

Note that no claim is made that if the A-theory of time is true, God changes.

Argument Two:

1. God is actual.

2. Everything actual is in the actual world.

3. If the A-theory of time is true, the actual world is a temporally-centered world (one where there is a fact as to what time is present).

4. Anything that is in a temporally-centered world is in time.

5. So, if the A-theory of time is true, God is in time.

Many will dispute 3, but if we think of worlds as ways for everything to be, then I think it is hard to dispute 3.

I wonder if a classical theist who is an A-theorist might be able to respond that, yes, God is in time but God is not a temporal being. Compare that by doctrine of omnipresence, God is in space, but God is not a spatial being. Still, I think there is a difference. For as the above arguments show, the claim that God is in time is more limiting than the claim that God is spatially omnipresent—it is a claim that God is at the one objectively present point of time (he was and will be at others, of course).

A new argument for presentism

Here’s an interesting argument favoring presentism that I’ve never seen before:

1. Obviously, a being that fails to exist at some time t is not a necessary being.

2. If presentism is true, we have an elegant explanation of (1): If x fails to exist at t₁, then at t₁ it is true that x does not exist simpliciter, and whatever is true at any time is possibly true, so it is possible that x does not exist simpliciter, and hence x is not a necessary being.

3. If presentism is false, we have no equally good explanation of (1).

4. So, (1) is evidence for presentism.

I don’t know how strong this argument is, but it does present an interesting explanatory puzzle for the eternalist:

5. Why is it that non-existence at a time entails not being necessary?

Here’s my best response to the argument. Consider the spatial parallel to (1):

6. Obviously, a being that fails to exist at some location z is not a necessary being.

It may be true that a being that fails to exist at some location is not a necessary being, since in fact the necessary being is God and God is omnipresent. But even if it’s true, it’s not obvious. If Platonism were true, then numbers would be counterexamples to (6), in that they would be necessary beings that aren’t omnipresent.

But numbers seem to be not only aspatial but also atemporal. And if that’s right, then (1) isn’t obvious either. (In fact, if numbers are atemporal, then they are a counterexample to presentism, since they don’t exist presently but still exist simpliciter.)

What if the presentist insists that numbers would exist at every time but would not be spatial? Well, that may be: but it’s far from obvious.

What if we drop the “Obviously” in (1)? Then I think the eternalist theist can give an explanation of (1): The only necessary being is God, and by omnipresence there is no time at which God isn’t present.

Maybe one can use the above considerations to offer some sort of an argument for presentism-or-theism.

Bilocation and the at-at theory of time

I was telling my teenage children about the at-at theory of motion: an object moves if and only if it is in one location at one time and in another location at another time. And then my son asked me a really cool question: How does this fit with the possibility of being multiply located at one time?

The answer is it doesn’t. Imagine that Alice is bilocated between disjoint locations A and B, and does not move at either location between times t₁ and t₂. Nonetheless, by the at-at theory, Alice counts as moving: for at t₁ she is in location A while at t₂ she is in location B.

My response to my son was that this was the best argument I heard against the at-at theory. My son responded that the argument doesn’t work if multilocation is impossible. That’s true. But there is good reason to think bilocation is possible. First, the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist appears to require multilocation. Second, God is present everywhere, but never moves. Third, there is testimonial evidence to saints bilocating. Fourth, the argument only needs the logical possibility of bilocation. Fifth, time-travel would make it possible to stand beside oneself.

(The time-travel case is probably the least compelling, though, as an argument against the at-at theory. For the at-at theorist could say that the times in the definition of motion are internal times rather than external ones, and time travel only allows one to be in two places at one external time.)

I’ve been inclining to think the at-at theory is inadequate. Now I am pretty much convinced, but I am not sure what alternative to embrace.

One might just try to tweak the at-at theory. Perhaps we say that an object moves if and only if the set of its locations is different between times. But that isn’t right. Suppose Alice is bilocated between locations A and B at t₁, but at t₂ she ceases to bilocate, defaulting to being in location A. Then the set of locations at t₁ is {A, B} while at t₂ it is {A}. But Alice hasn’t moved: cessation of bilocation isn’t motion. Nor will it help to require that the sets of locations at the two times have the same cardinalities. For imagine that Alice is bilocated at locations A and B at t₁, and then she ceases to be located at B, defaulting to A, and walks over to location A′ at t₂. Then Alice has moved, but the sets of locations at t₁ and t₂ have different cardinalities. I don’t know that there is no tweak to the at-at theory that might do the job, but I haven’t found one.

Pantheism and omnipresence

If a view falls short with respect to the main doctrine it's organized around, that view is seriously flawed. For instance, if Calvinism fell short with regard to sovereignty, it would be seriously flawed. For pantheism, the relevant doctrine is omnipresence. On its face, pantheism is designed to make omnipresence work out perfectly: if God is everything, then he is where anything is.

But is that enough for omnipresence? First, perhaps omnipresence should also imply that God is in the places where nothing other than God exists—in otherwise empty space. Whether pantheism can account for that perhaps depends on whether it's deflationary (God is nothing but everything) or inflationary (everything is God, in addition to what it ordinarily is, and there may be more to God than ordinary things—and hence in particular God might be where there is nothing ordinary). That said, perhaps this is not so serious. If substantivalism about space is false, then maybe there are no empty places, except in a manner of speaking.

More seriously, by making God be everything, God comes to be only partly present everywhere. Only a part of God is in this room where I am—a very small part and, at least on the deflationary variant, a very insignificant part. Yes, God is in the stone and the butterfly and the galaxy—but all of these are very small bits of God. Classical theists, however, have the doctrine of divine simplicity and so we can say that where God is, all of God is.