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The real presence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 April 2012

H. E. BABER
H. E. BABER*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcalá Park, San Diego, CA 92110, USA e-mail: baber@sandiego.edu
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Abstract

The doctrine that Christ is really present in the Eucharist appears to entail that Christ's body is not only multiply located but present in different ways at different locations. Moreover, the doctrine poses an even more difficult meta-question: what makes a theological explanation of the Eucharist a ‘real presence’ account? Aquinas's defence of transubstantiation, perhaps the paradigmatic account, invokes Aristotelian metaphysics and the machinery of Scholastic philosophy. My aim is not to produce a ‘rational reconstruction’ of his analysis but rather to suggest a metaphysically innocent alternative that will ‘save the phenomena’ of religious belief and practice.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , March 2013 , pp. 19 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

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References

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