Magic tricks are most often performed with a varied mix of showmanship and slight of hand deception in order to give the pacified audience an enjoyable and inward morsel of the unbelievable. How many audience members when leaving any magic show swear that what happened was truly miraculous? Do they not all know that what transpired before their eyes was specifically designed to fool their senses? Was not the whole atmosphere one of genuine expectation to witness the unreal? Not unlike a common magic show, the Catholic mass is grounded in showmanship, hidden props, and calculated deception. The only real difference being that men’s souls are being put on the line to witness not merely the magical or the simply unbelievable, they are being asked to applaud before that which is a logical impossibility.

All magicians make sure up front that their audience knows that the props they are using are genuinely real, supposedly without holes, secret compartments, or strings attached. This needs to be done at the onset in order to create a sense of wonder in the crowd when the trick is performed. The same is roughly true of Catholic transubstantiation. The church offers one very important claim about their understanding of John 6 in order to make the sacrament truly miraculous, yet still entirely reasonable. The church is adamant that the substance of Christ’s flesh replaces the substance, or essential nature, of the bread. Time and time again they announce that when the substance of the bread is removed it becomes non-bread. How very logical! One and only one substance is being claimed to exist, Christ’s real body. There are not two substances in one, swears the church. This is the great cloud of smoke on the stage blinding the audience, for it appears that what is being asserted without equivocation is the law of non-contradiction, A is not non-A, the flesh is not the bread. But, in reality, what is happening behind the opaque plume of smoke is the real assertion that A is non-A, the bread is the flesh. How the trick works is devilishly simple.

The whole ruse rests upon the logically grievous assertion that the substance of spatial concept X (let X= square, triangle, book, train, etc.) can be removed without X becoming spatial concept non-X. In essence, the church quietly proclaims that you can remove the shape of a sphere and still have a sphere in the palm of your hand. But if the substance of X is understood spatially, then any change of X’s substance must necessarily involve a spatial change to non-X. All thought would cease if it were the case that X had the shape of a sphere yet the substance, or essence, of a square. Yet this is exactly what the Catholic church teaches by necessary implication. It rightly believes that when the bread’s substance is removed it becomes non-bread. Yet one small problem arises—the bread remains, they forget to take it with them, the trick doesn’t work. And it is not just the “accidents” of the bread that remain, naked and husk-like without their substance. The very same substance that told the priest in the first place what spatial concept he was placing on the altar remains unchanged, unaltered. The logical form of the argument is as follows:

P1) In differentiating between spatial concept X and spatial concept non-X, the essential nature of spatial concept X cannot be understood apart from a spatial reference. (i.e., a sphere's shape)

P2) Any expulsion of spatial concept X's essential nature will necessarily involve a spatial change of concept X to concept non-X.

Therefore, Catholic transubstantiation, which asserts that spatial concept X can lose its essential nature without there being a spatial change of concept X to non-X is logically impossible.

The first premise cannot be denied, lest all concepts are the same and thought ceases. The second premise follows naturally and, when applied to Catholic transubstantiation, clearly shows that Catholics are saying A is non-A, a sphere is not a sphere.

So where do we go from here? Well, if the public knows the secret of a magician’s main trick, then it renders the magician all but useless, for the grandeur and luster of his act have been all but taken from him.

by Jason Walsh