Bodies are not solids. They are, rather, extensively distributed instantiations of the forms of their substances. E.g., my body is distributed across vast empty spaces and times, that distinguish my foot from my heart and my eye at age 14 from my eye at age 50. All the particles participant in me partake my body, but they do so, not on account of proximity in time or space, but on account of formal similarity, and so of participation. Their spatiotemporal relations hang upon their formal agreements.
Local extensive proximity supervenes formality; is indeed a type thereof.
So the substantial Presence and action of Jesus in widely distributed eucharistic hosts is no big deal; no bigger, anyway (and, NB, no less), than the substantial presence and action of Kristor in widely distributed atoms of his body. So likewise the Body of Jesus as present and active in every member of his Church is no big deal. So likewise the integrity of the Mystical Body – which is, of course, the Church, the Body of Jesus – of all the Saints in Heaven and on Earth, is again no big deal (hey there, Zippy, and you too, Lawrence and Tom! (see you soon!)).
That's it. That's what makes this notion a Philosophical Skeleton Key. What follows is no more than a riff thereupon.
No comments:
Post a Comment