b. Second Argument

291. Again, in the case of one of the sacraments, namely the Eucharist, the causality does not seem to be possible, whether we are speaking of the full sacrament, namely the now consecrated Eucharist, or of the sacramental consecration itself, which is the way to the sacrament.

For, if one speaks of the first way, the species of bread does not seem to be an instrumental cause that reaches the effect, that is, the real existence here of Christ’s body, or that reaches any disposition for the effect.

The same is also plain about the consecration, because the spoken words do not reach transubstantiation (which is the term of the consecration), for transubstantiation only happens by the infinite virtue of God, and this infinite virtue is equally or more manifest here than it is in creation. Nor does it reach any disposition preceding transubstantiation, because the disposition would be either in the bread or in Christ’s body. But it cannot be so in either way. For it cannot be in Christ’s body since then it would not be a disposition; nor can it be in the bread, because since the disposition would be a necessitating factor for transubstantiation it would exist in the same instant as transubstantiation does, and so in that instant there would be bread. For when the disposition exists, then the subject of it exists also at the same time. Therefore the bread where the disposition is would exist in the same instant as the transubstantiation does, which is contradictory. Likewise, it seems a pure fiction that the bread would be really altered by the words ‘for this is my body’ more than it would be altered by other spoken words, as ‘this bread is white’ and the like, since sound does not have an active virtue for causing a real alteration in bread.