Think About It

The doctrine of transubstantiation is central to the Catholic faith. It is the belief that during the consecration at Mass, the whole substance of the bread and wine used for Communion changes into the substance of the body and blood of Jesus Christ. Presently, only about thirty percent of Catholics believe this doctrine is true. Most are either unfamiliar with it or reject it outright, believing instead that the Eucharist is merely a symbol that represents the body and blood of Jesus.

Why is there such a big disconnect between what the Catholic Church teaches and what its members believe?

Many of those that reject the doctrine have difficulty reconciling it with science. The bread and wine do not change shape. If you put them under a microscope their molecular structure does not change. It is an irrational belief that violates the laws of science.

Ah, the never-ending battle between science and religion. A battle, which we all know, must always be won by science. Well, maybe not.

Science and religion look at creation and try to explain it but from different perspectives and with different vocabularies. They both pursue the truth, and ultimately, if they are honest and sincere in their pursuit, they might just arrive at the same place.

The conflict between science and religion has been historically rooted in the way they each view creation. The Church contends that the universe was created, and that God is the causeless first cause, which brought it into existence. Science, on the other hand, has contended that the universe itself has always existed. Certainly, things within the universe change, stars explode, and new planets form, but the universe itself has always existed. Subsequently, science had no need for a creator, and that was their position for over a thousand years. That was, until the twentieth century.

In 1915, Albert Einstein published his theory of general relativity and set off a revolution in science that eventually produced the Standard Model of Cosmology, which states that the universe exploded into existence about 13.75 billion years ago with the Big Bang. There are theoretical physicists who continue to develop theories that eliminate the need for a beginning, but so far, they have all fallen apart because the math does not work. Science is running out of theories. We are rapidly approaching the point where it is almost impossible to explain the existence of the universe without a beginning and without a first cause.

But you cannot get something from nothing. Where did it come from? What was the first cause that ignited the Big Bang? That unfortunately, is a question that science may never be able to answer because science can only explain the things it can observe, measure, and test. The first cause that ignited the Big Bang, whatever it is, exists outside of space and time, which makes it unobservable, and therefore for science, unknowable. However, religion has an answer. The spark that ignited the Big Bang is the word of God (the Logos). God said, “Let there be light” and the universe exploded into existence. God brings forth and sustains creation with his word and will.

We use the present tense “wills” creation into existence because God is not confined by the flow of time. For us, there is always a past, a present, and a future. For God, there is only his ever-present now. This is impossible for the human mind to comprehend because we are limited by the constraints of our space and time, but God is not. All that ever was, is, and ever will be, is known by God in his ever-present now.

If we live in a universe that is continually willed into existence by God, wouldn’t the universe have to exist within the mind of God? Well, some scientific theories indicate that possibility.

Quantum physics studies energy and matter at the most fundamental level of creation trying to understand how the basic building blocks of reality fit together. Its goal is to develop one elegant equation that explains how everything in the universe works. A daunting task made even more difficult by paradoxes and phenomenon that seemingly defy reality. Paradoxes and phenomenon that can only be reconciled by the existence of a universal consciousness that some scientists theorize emerged during the first moments of creation in a Big Wow.

If God is the metaphysical consciousness that wills the physical universe into existence, wouldn’t there have to be an intersection, a point where the metaphysical and physical meet? And wouldn’t that intersection be at the very fundamental level of reality? So, is quantum physics looking at the mind of God willing creation into existence?  Could be!

It is interesting that a 2009 Pew Center Study on Science and Religion found that sixty-six percent of young scientists believe in God or a higher spiritual reality. Think about that, two-thirds of the young people who study this stuff for a living believe that there is indeed “a man behind the curtain.”  It is quite possible that science has finally arrived at the point that Astrophysicist Robert Jastrow wrote about.

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance, he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

It appears that we now live in a world where science is moving towards religion while the rest of the population is moving away from it. Talk about your paradoxes.

So, science is evolving, and an ever-increasing number of scientists are willing to concede that the universe had a beginning and possibly a creator, but what does that have to do with the doctrine of transubstantiation?

Science may change but the doctrines of the Church do not because they remain fixed upon the divine truth. The Church has never wavered from its teachings on transubstantiation. Century after century, council after council, and encyclical after encyclical, the Church has reaffirmed that Jesus Christ is truly present, body, blood, soul, and divinity, in the Eucharist.

But how? How is the substance of bread and wine transformed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ?

We need to remember that Jesus is the Second Person of the Trinity, both fully Man and fully God. When he consecrated the bread and wine at the last supper, he did that at a specific moment in history as a man. However, as God he consecrates the Eucharist outside of time in perpetuity. When a Priest initiates the consecration, he is not simply a man reciting the Eucharistic Prayer. He is acting “In persona Christi,” in the person of Christ. It is Jesus who consecrates the bread and wine, joining it to his eternal consecration by his word and will. The same word (Logos) that speaks creation into existence changes the substance of the bread and wine into the body and blood of Jesus Christ.

Think about it. Is it reasonable to dismiss the doctrine of transubstantiation because it violates the laws of science while science is still trying to figure out what those laws are and how they work? But it is unreasonable to believe that the God who wills creation into existence also wills himself into the substance of the bread and wine used for Communion?

But transubstantiation cannot be true because it would require a miracle – Right?

Exactly, a miracle that occurs at each and every Mass with the Consecration of the Eucharist.

Creation is a miracle because it does not have to be here, but it is. And life is a miracle because it does not have to exist, but it does. It is like Einstein said.

There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.