Frithjof Schuon Archive

Regarding the question of transubstantiation, which I address briefly in Logic and Transcendence, the Oriental character of the words in question can be seen in their use of ellipsis: Christ did not say, “I am like a vine, like a door”, but he said, “I am the vine, the door”; likewise he did not say, “This conveys divine power in the same way my body conveys divine power”, but he said, “This is my body”.

One should not reproach a science for not being what it does not want to be or for not providing what it does not want to provide. In this respect one should not criticize modern chemistry insofar as it studies the phenomena it intends to study, for on its limited plane it remains within adequation and is not exceeding its strengths; nor can one blame it for remaining within the strictly human perspective in relation to matter, for it need not go beyond this point, and indeed no physical science needs to do so.