Truth in Incarnation and Eucharistic Repetition: Proportion Between Things and Mind

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

An interesting piece.

Line 46: I suggest adding the word "merely."  See also John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae 5, where catechesis is ultimately about encountering the person of Jesus Christ.  Note that lines 233-234 assert that "truth is more than a set of ideas or factual knowledge."  Unless line 46 adds "merely," it will be in tension with lines 233-234.

Line 85: Can you offer a concrete example of this "truth in motion"?

Line 301: Appears to have a footnote that has no corresponding citation that I could find.

Lines 324-326: The argument here is similar to the application of the analogy of being to propositional knowledge of God.  The comparison might be useful.

Lines 356-359: I don't think this is a sentence.  In any case, I do not know what it means to assert that "Christ's life and identity are strictly identical."  Repeating "identity / identical" clouds things.

I am curious to know why this paper about John, truth, and Eucharist makes no reference to the Bread of Life discourse in John 6 ("true food" and "true drink").

Author Response

Comment 1: Line 46: I suggest adding the word "merely."  See also John Paul II, Catechesi Tradendae 5, where catechesis is ultimately about encountering the person of Jesus Christ.  Note that lines 233-234 assert that "truth is more than a set of ideas or factual knowledge."  Unless line 46 adds "merely," it will be in tension with lines 233-234.

Reply: I have added the word 'merely' as suggested.  It is now in Line 63.

Comment 2: Line 85: Can you offer a concrete example of this "truth in motion"?

Reply: Additional comments on 'truth in motion' is added in Lines 103-104.  Here it is suggested that Jesus as a living, moving being was truth.

Comment 3: Line 301: Appears to have a footnote that has no corresponding citation that I could find.

Reply: This was a footnote left over and unnoticed from an earlier version where footnotes were used.  I have deleted the footnote.

Comment 4: Lines 324-326: The argument here is similar to the application of the analogy of being to propositional knowledge of God.  The comparison might be useful.

Reply: I have added an extra sentence to make this comparison in Lines 346-347.

Comment 5: Lines 356-359: I don't think this is a sentence.  In any case, I do not know what it means to assert that "Christ's life and identity are strictly identical."  Repeating "identity / identical" clouds things.

Reply: I have done some re-writing here and it now appears in Lines 380-387.

Comment 6: I am curious to know why this paper about John, truth, and Eucharist makes no reference to the Bread of Life discourse in John 6 ("true food" and "true drink").

Reply: I have added some comments connecting with John 6.  These comments are in Lines 384-387.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Overall. The presentation of Ford’s and Pickstock’s definition of “non identical repetitions,” which are manifestations that symbolize by signs able to connect particularity and universality in a way that the past can connect the present and the future, is very incisive and is indeed a recent development that is quite applicable to eucharistic theology. The author holds that truth is an ontological relationship between knower and known that in the case of the Eucharist unites the recipient’s participation (308) in the divine life of God and the incarnate Christ (235). More specifically it forms a proportion between things and mind, such as when bread and wine manifest in a real manner what they symbolize to the communicant and what the mind comes to see as the body and blood of Christ.” (Pickstock) (119-121) Pickstock calls this a ‘“philosophical” participation and “theological” revelation, where the reality of gift ‘reveals more than itself’ and ‘calls us back to the source of the giver’.” (336-337). Excellent.

The paper gives an incisive summary at the end. Sacramental poetics embrace the participatory vision of divine truth, here interpreted by language that operates propositionally in the mind not only with signs but also with material and “creaturely” things that point beyond themselves. (Davison) (345-348). Davison also argues for the idea of participation as the basis of a realist analysis (308), advancing a metaphysical perspective which downplays the subjective knowing of the epistemological approach and its subjective framework, and so employs the notion of proportion among material things as such, and, in the case of the Eucharist, bread and wine. The latter case non-identically repeats the presence and identity of Christ. (309-310, 328).

Suggested revisions.

First, would be helpful first to lay out more clearly the initial basic definition(s) of truth generally you are referring to here. There are several typical modes of truth: what is real; what representationally conforms to a reality or thing and thus has a relationship to it; what expresses itself accurately or genuinely; or what is unveiled or unconcealed (aletheia). Being clear on how these various modes do work in some contexts will help make Ford’s and Pickstock’s account more compelling in how it functions specifically in the context of the eucharistic action.

Second, there is a very direct critique of transubstantiation that is assumed. It holds that the life and identity of Christ, his nature, are to be found in both his literal body and blood and in the signs of the Eucharist (361). But the author argues instead that the signs of the Eucharist, the bread and wine, can never be strictly identical with his literal body and blood in the sense that bread cannot turn into or be strictly identical with flesh and wine cannot turn into or be strictly identical with blood (362-365). Helpful would be to give a brief sketch of how the theory of non identical repetitions differs significantly from transubstantiation.  This would clarify more the novelty of the new approach

Thirdly, the following statement of paradox needs more clarification: “The paradox of course is that the symbol is not the symbolised in a strict or numerical sense, and so bread and wine is not literal flesh and blood, but a real presence nonetheless in that the symbol operates in what David Ford calls a non-identical repetition.”

Author Response

Thank you for your positive reaction to the paper.  Changes in the article are written in red and the amended article is attached.

Comment 1: First, would be helpful first to lay out more clearly the initial basic definition(s) of truth generally you are referring to here. There are several typical modes of truth: what is real; what representationally conforms to a reality or thing and thus has a relationship to it; what expresses itself accurately or genuinely; or what is unveiled or unconcealed (aletheia). Being clear on how these various modes do work in some contexts will help make Ford’s and Pickstock’s account more compelling in how it functions specifically in the context of the eucharistic action.

Reply: I have added additional material at the beginning of the article in Lines 28-46.

Comment 2: Second, there is a very direct critique of transubstantiation that is assumed. It holds that the life and identity of Christ, his nature, are to be found in both his literal body and blood and in the signs of the Eucharist (361). But the author argues instead that the signs of the Eucharist, the bread and wine, can never be strictly identical with his literal body and blood in the sense that bread cannot turn into or be strictly identical with flesh and wine cannot turn into or be strictly identical with blood (362-365). Helpful would be to give a brief sketch of how the theory of non identical repetitions differs significantly from transubstantiation.  This would clarify more the novelty of the new approach.

Reply: I have made some clarifying comments on transubstantiation and compared it to the approach of non-identical repetition.  This is in Lines 394-401.

Comment 3: Thirdly, the following statement of paradox needs more clarification: “The paradox of course is that the symbol is not the symbolised in a strict or numerical sense, and so bread and wine is not literal flesh and blood, but a real presence nonetheless in that the symbol operates in what David Ford calls a non-identical repetition.”

Reply: I have additional comments on the question of paradox.  These are in Lines 144-147.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The author has indeed made revisions.  

• The discussion of theories of truth in lines 28-46 requires footnotes.  In the author's judgment, which thinkers are associated with which theories?
• The author adds an important "merely" in line 63, but the discussion still omits mention of Catechesi Tradendae 5.  Perhaps the author is not writing with Catholic readers in mind, which is fine.  However, CT 5 offers authoritative support for the author's claim.
• In lines 123-128, the author draws attention to the words of institution.  Fair enough.  However, Orthodox churches place emphasis on the invocation of the Spirit.  Should this be acknowledged?  Note also that there are Catholic critiques of a "moment of consecration" theology, though specific names escape me at the moment.
• The paragraph that begins with line 133 makes a good point by drawing on Mobley.  However, Karl Rahner's essay "The Theology of the Symbol" made much the same claim decades before Mobley.  If I am reading the bibliography correctly, the author cites only two sources published before the year 2000.  I suggest either expanding the bibliography to include earlier texts OR stating at the outset that the essay will examine only 21st century publications and explain why the author is choosing that path.
• The mention of paradox in line 144 is good.  However, the Council of Trent itself, which cemented "transubstantiation" in Catholic teaching (which this essay mentions in line 395), also proclaimed: "For neither are these things mutually repugnant,-that our Saviour Himself always sitteth at the right hand of the Father in heaven, according to the natural mode of existing, and that, nevertheless, He be, in many other places, sacramentally present to us in his own substance, by a manner of existing, which, though we can scarcely express it in words, yet can we, by the understanding illuminated by faith, conceive, and we ought most firmly to believe" (Session 13, Chapter 1).  The author may not be writing for a Catholic readership.  However, the Christian tradition has long acknowledged the difficulty of explaining Real Presence.  Along the same lines, the Berengarian controversy in the eleventh century was precisely about whether the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ were the "real" Body and Blood of Christ.
• The paragraph beginning in line 330 offers a discussion of the limits of propositional truth with mentioning the analogy of being, a principle in Christian theology that dates back centuries (to Thomas Aquinas certainly, and as far back as Augustine of Hippo).
• Lines 389-393 assess the "strict identity" of the flesh and blood of Jesus of Nazareth and the sacramental Body and Blood of Christ.  Fair enough.  Yet the Christian tradition (cf. Henri de Lubac) speaks of a "triple body" of Christ: (1) the historical Jesus, (2) the sacramental body, and (3) the ecclesial body.  Whether the author wants to acknowledge this point is up to the author.  As written, however, the essay does not take into account Augustine's maxim (Serm 272) that what is on the altar is "the mystery meaning you."  Early centuries of Christianity very closely associated (2) and (3).  After Berengar, in particular, Christianity began to associate (1) and (2).  I am not asking that this essay become an exploration of the history of Eucharistic theology.  I think it would be wise for this essay to state that it is examining the connection between (1) and (2) and setting aside the question of (3).

Author Response

Minor editorial matters have been attended to as requested by the Editor.

Thanks,

Brian Douglas

Author Response File: Author Response.docx