Anonymous ID: fee302 Dec. 30, 2020, 3:08 a.m. No.12235479   🗄️.is đź”—kun   >>5515 >>5540

>>12235469

https://onepeterfive.com/substance-accidents/

A Short Philosophical Primer

 

As the distinction between “substance” and “accident” is fundamental to the Church’s teaching on transubstantiation, anyone seeking a deeper understanding of the sacred mysteries will do well to spend a little time on what these terms refer to.

 

The distinction between substance and accident, in spite of the technical sound of the terms, is founded on everyday experience. While modern usage often restricts the meaning of “substance” to elements or chemicals and “accident” to an unintended and usually harmful event, their philosophical meaning is much wider. The word “substance” refers to any individual being, anything that exists in and of itself — e.g., a man, a horse, a plant, a stone — having its own proper nature (in contrast to a bench, for example, which, though it has a definition, does not have its own proper nature, but is the result of art putting together different natural substances). The term “substance” derives from its function: it is “that which stands under” (Lt. substantia, Gk. hypostasis), in contrast to the “accidental” (Lt. accidens, Gk. katasymbebekos), “that which befalls, happens to, belongs to” substance. A substance exists in itself as opposed to what exists in a substance. Color, shape, weight, knowledge, virtue, fatherhood, sonship are examples of things that exist in a substance and not in themselves. Color, shape, and weight truly exist, but they exist as belonging to something that is colored, shaped, or weighted. We never see whiteness, but rather a white horse or a white chair; we never see justice, but rather a just man or a just law [i]. When we say someone is six feet tall, we mean that his size is a quantity of his substance; he is six feet tall. Fatherhood is not something that exists apart from someone who is a father; “being a father” belongs to one person in relation to another. Knowledge has existence only in the mind of him who possesses it; it is an accident inhering in his soul.