Middle-sized Objects, Hylomorphism and Transubstantiation

Abstract

The fundamental philosophical problem with transubstantiation, is to give a plausible account of the concept of substance that it deploys. Aquinas admits that Aristotle’s concept of substance does not naturally fit the role (ST III 75 art. 4) and neither does a modern ‘chemical’ concept. I argue that emphasis on the teleological nature, from a Divine perspective, can solve these problems, without falling into the unorthodoxy for which ‘transignification’, as found in Rahner and Schillabeeckx, has been condemned. It also liberates the doctrine from a theory of natural objects, which credits physical nature with the possession and transmission of teleology, and replaces it with one that makes teleology in the physical world the product of God’s design, not part of a natural scientific hierarchy.