Tipple and Biscuits

You've probably noticed that I'm an atheist who's interested in the psychology of religion. I'm also the kind of person who has an idea, writes it down in a short article just to make it clear and to check the logic, and then can't decide whether the idea is new and interesting, or old and painfully obvious. Or obviously wrong because it misses some crucial point.

Well, you tell me, because here's an idea I had today:

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If you ask an average Christian believer, "what is the difference between Protestant and Catholic", they probably won't know the answer. They might identify as one or the other, or as one of the numerous other variations, or simply call themselves a generic "Christian", but although they will feel that their variant on Christianity is the true one, they're probably a bit vague on what distinguishes it from any of the others, and indeed exactly what it is they believe.

Even fiery Christians who believe passionately in the levitical laws about sex and adultery, or idolatry and the correct forms of worship, quietly ignore the biblical passages praising child murder, slavery, genocide...and indeed adultery. Fervent creationists are largely unaware that the creation story they learned in childhood is a bodged blend of the two incompatible creation stories in Genesis. They also tend not to accept that the earth is flat and eating prawns is punishable by death.

If you ask a more educated Christian about the Protestant/Catholic devide, they'll tell you it's something about Transsubstantiation - the transformation of communion wine into the blood of Christ, and communion wafers into his flesh. Protestants say it's a metaphor - though of what is a little unclear. Catholics say it really happens, though it doesn't really happen "enough" to make them vampires and cannibals when they drink the wine and eat the wafers. Or if it does, it doesn't count because although the flesh of Christ was human, he was entirely divine, and eating divine flesh isn't cannibalism. Or something.

Of course, the real differences between Protestant and Catholic doctrines are tied up with theological debates over penance, grace, salvation, faith, property etc. And the real differences between Protestant and Catholic people are economic. But the debate over Transsubstantiation is the peripheral issue that everyone can understand.

So, who's right about the wine and wafer - Protestants or Catholics? The answer of course is that they're both wrong.

The question "Does the wine really turn into blood?" is the kind of philosophical question asked by someone who feels that it's necessary to place their religious beliefs within a larger, rational framework. It's a question of someone who wants their faith justified by reason - someone who feels (but doesn't explicitly admit) that faith needs to be supported by rational thought. In effect, someone who acknowledges that faith is irrational, and reality is rational.

Therefore, not an average believer.

What matters about the words of the Communion ritual is not whether they're true or false, meaningful or meaningless - it's that they get said at all, in the right situation. The words could be a recipe for cheesecake, for all their literal content matters. The ritual requires that they are said, and their semantic content is irrelevant. A linguist would say that the words "This is my body, this is my blood", spoken in church by someone wearing the right robes at a certain point in a specific ceremony, have pragmatic value, not semantic value. Or that the priest is performing a perlocutory act.

It doesn't matter whether the wafers really are - or aren't - transformed into human (or divine) flesh which exactly resembles the wafer - what matters is the act of eating them. And a similar remark for the wine.

There is, however, one small detail that needs addressing. If a Catholic priest served real blood in the chalice, the worshippers would riot in disgust. If he gave them baked human flesh in the wafers, he'd be excommunicated. And crucified (so to speak) in the press.

So it does matter that the wine isn't actual blood. The ceremony requires that wine (and not orange juice) be in the cup, and that the worshippers know it's wine, and that the priest tells them it's blood, and that they drink it. And if they're Catholic, that they believe that it is blood, and that it still tastes reassuringly like wine.

So for the Catholic at least, the liquid in the cup simultaneously both is and is not wine, both in the same literal sense. This is not a paradox, or a religious mystery. It is only a problem for the philosopher who needs to think in clear distinct terms. Our Catholic pseudocannibal must be vague, blurred, indistinct and confused on this issue while they drink.

The confusion is an integral part of the ceremony. The ambiguity is not an error, just as the ambiguity in some poems is not a correctable mistake by the poet. The consciousness of one who sincerely practices religious ritual cannot, by definition, go beyond a certain level of sharpness and clarity. And that is why philosophical theology is impossible, because by definition it tries to go beyond that level.