Atomism & Transubstantiation

[bjorn]

A short question as one atheistic friend informed my that one lecturer at his university had insisted that atomism was received rather badly by The Church as it invalidated the dogma of transubstantiation.

I replied that I think this to a ertain degree may be another of those Warfare Myth, and have seen Michael Segre (possible from "In The Wake of Galilei") quoted on having found "no evidence that those who criticized atomism did so for any religious reason".

Finocchiaro's "Retrying Galilei" also makes a short comment about a myth about Galilei on this (propagated by Redondi, I think).

I also made the point that the Church today seems to accept both modern atom theory and transubstantiation.

Anyone having more to go on in this matter? Some truth to it, or busted?

[humphreyclarke]

It looks like the theory of Pietro Redondi, that Galileo’s defence of atomism is ‘The Assayer’ was the real cause of the trial, is based on slim evidence. According to Maurice Finocchiaro, it is an ingenious fabrication based on a new genuine document discovered in the inquisition archives. The document is unsigned and undated and its unclear what influence it had, if any. The overwhelming body of evidence and the conclusions of most scholars is that Copernicanism was the real issue at stake.

When Descartes defended atomism he simply said that as long as the surface texture of the bread and wine remained the same, they would continue to generate the same perceptions in us. As long as the real presence of Christ was confined within the surface boundaries, the transubstantiation could occur. This didn’t appease his critics in Catholic France because the Council of Trent had stipulated that all the bread was transmuted in an Aristotelian/Thomistic sense. Hence he was warned by Antoine Arnauld and Claude Clerselier’s efforts to promote his interpretation were censored by the archbishop of Paris. Descartes doctrines were then condemned by the royal authority and the University of Paris; this appears to have been mocked by some of Descartes followers who issued their own decree as a satire and were expelled from Angers. Of course, all of this needs to be understood within the wider context of the reformation, the revocation of the Edict of Nantes and the whole question of whether an ecclesiastical hierarchy was needed. Protestants for example, were ridiculing transubstantiation as the epitome of Popish mystification. Hence Gassendi and Descartes’s Christianised atomism was seen as a bit suspect in Catholic countries but it flourished in English science.

So again, when presented with science/religion conflict we need to ask ‘which science?’ and ‘which religion?’.

[James Hannam]

I understand that the Jesuits did try to stitch up the Assayer (it is, after all, an attack on them) but Urban scotched the enquiry.

There is some truth that atomism and the eucharist could cause trouble. The paradigm case was Nicholas of Autrecourt who had to recant in the 1340s when he specifically linked his atomistic doctrine to a denial of transubstantiation. He got kicked out the University of Paris but got a nice canonry in compensation.

There were not many atomists in the Middle Ages and you did need to explicitly make the point that atomism screws up the Aristotelian defence of transubstantiation to attract official attention. Thus only if you started to use natural philosophy to question religious doctrine would you get into trouble - although it must be said in the case of atomism - not that much trouble.

Best wishes

James

[bjorn]

And there were no extra rounds, discussions and fights about this later, e.g. in the 19th Century when a more "real" atomic theory was being propounded?

[humphreyclarke]

Doesn't look like it. Nothing worth mentioning anyway. I think it was only an issue during the reformation because of the perceived threat of protestantism. Having said that its important to emphasise that, during the row which erupted in France, the Jesuits were a key source of opposition to Descartes, but a significant number of Jesuits supported him. Gassendi appears to have got off pretty lightly despite also formulating an atomistic philosophy. There was no 'scientific' side and no 'religious' side. These are later projections from the modern era.

[sandwiches]

Is this a pot-boiler?
www.guardian.co.uk/books/2007/aug/04/featuresreviews.guardianreview10

Heavens above
Michael White's Galileo Antichrist depicts the struggle between science and faith, says Simon Callow

When it was discovered by the Holy Office that Galileo had, in an earlier work, The Assayer, espoused the atomic theory of matter, he was held by implication to have criticised the Eucharist. To question the mystical doctrine of transubstantiation was an even greater transgression than to assert the universe's heliocentricity, and Galileo was summoned to Rome to answer the charges against him. White is at his brilliant best in his account of Galileo's trial, quoting large sections of the transcript, including recently discovered documents that make clear the centrality of the issue of transubstantiation

[sandwiches]

Actually, found another review of White's book which possibly answers my question:
www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/non_fictionreviews/3667085/Done-in-by-Voldemort.html
Done in by Voldemort
Jane Stevenson reviews Galileo, Antichrist: a Biography by Michael White
No book so black and white would be complete without a conspiracy theory. The "antichrist" of the title refers to Galileo's denial of the principle of transubstantiation (which ultimately rests on Greek ideas about the nature of matter), on strictly rational post-Aristotelean grounds. According to White, this is why he was suppressed. It can't have helped, certainly, but nor did politics, nor Galileo's capacity to infuriate.

The THE review seems unimpressed with the theory about conspiracies and transubstantiation:
www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storyCode=310264§ioncode=22

An intriguing document dating from 1631, denouncing atomism as being contrary to the doctrine of the Eucharist, surfaced in the Vatican archives 25 years ago. Pietro Redondi, the scholar who uncovered that document, used it in a reinterpretation of the Galileo affair, claiming that Urban VIII, a former friend of Galileo, manipulated the proceedings so that Galileo would face charges only in connection with Copernicanism, while atomism charges would not be raised.
Although initial work for the trial may have been influenced by this document, the well-known facts of the Galileo affair remain unchallenged

[humphreyclarke]

I don't think White is an idiot. He seems to have written a couple of best selling novels complete with murders and sinister conspiracy theories, and I suppose you have to consider the best way to spin the story of Galileo for your readership when you are dealing in narrative history. Problem is that most modern historians reject the idea that the Galileo affair was a clash between something called 'religion' and something called 'science'. The protagonists simply do not line up how you would want them to. To have that as you central narrative is anachronistic and it oversimplifies what was a complex affair.

The atomism component is interesting and, as James points out, you can see the Jesuits trying to stitch up Galileo. There are actually two documents, one called G3 and the other which was tucked inside it.

www.metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/6112/Default.aspx

www.metanexus.net/magazine/ArticleDetail/tabid/68/id/2673/Default.aspx

These show that the matter was raised with higher authorities but it does not appear to have been a serious part of the trial. The article says:

In 1633 Urban desired that Galileo be condemned. At the same time, he did not want that the punishment would surpass certain limits. It would have been unnecessary, and Galileo had the sympathy of cardinal Francesco Barberini, the right hand of the Pope. Moreover, the Tuscan authorities pressed in favor of Galileo, and they obtained that Galileo could receive a very exceptional and benign treatment during the trial. To leave aside the accusation contained in G3 would enter within the logic of Urban VIII, but it seems much more likely that the accusation was not taken into consideration simply because it was too weak. In those decades these was a strong dispute around the issue of physical qualities regarding the Eucharist, but one thing is a philosophical and theological dispute, and a quite different thing is a decision of the ecclesiastical authority. On the contrary, the motion of the Earth had already been the subject of the 1616 condemnation of the Index, and now Galileo was personally involved in it, as it was easy to show that the publication of The Dialogue in 1632 was an explicit disobedience to the injunction of 1616.