Franco Burgersdijk on the Impossibility of Accidents Without a Subject: A Reformed Scholastic Critique of Transubstantiation

J. Neil Daniels

Nota Bene: A "Deep Dive" audio overview is available here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1S6E9xOuvm8RtHxfOJlSZBvcrZfOclVy4/view?usp=drivesdk

I. Introduction

The Protestant Reformation not only precipitated ecclesiastical and doctrinal schisms but also galvanized a new generation of theologians and philosophers to revisit and revise the intellectual foundations upon which Catholic sacramental theology rested. One of the most philosophically contested doctrines was that of transubstantiation, the claim that the substance of bread and wine is wholly transformed into the body and blood of Christ while the accidents (color, taste, shape) remain. Franco Petri Burgersdijk (1590–1635), a prominent Dutch Reformed scholastic and Aristotelian metaphysician at the University of Leiden, emerged as a central figure in articulating the Reformed critique of this doctrine using the very tools of scholastic reasoning championed by medieval Catholic theology. This essay explores Burgersdijk’s metaphysical dismantling of the doctrine of transubstantiation, focusing particularly on his rejection of accidents existing sine subiecto (without a subject), his critique of divine concurrence, and his defense of substance-accident ontology grounded in classical logic.

II. Biographical Sketch and Intellectual Context

Franco Burgersdijk (Latinized as Franciscus Burgersdicius) was born in De Lier, Holland, and educated at the University of Leiden during its golden age. A student of both logic and natural philosophy, he became known for synthesizing Aristotelian method with Reformed theology, a hallmark of the Protestant Scholastic tradition. Burgersdijk’s Institutionum Metaphysicarum (1640), along with his Collegium Physicum (1637) and Institutionum Logicarum (1626), became standard textbooks across Dutch and German Reformed institutions. His metaphysics, particularly as articulated in Book II of the Institutionum, served as a polemical weapon against Rome, turning Thomistic categories against the Catholic dogma of the Eucharist.

Burgersdijk stands within the broader Reformed resistance to transubstantiation alongside figures such as Bartholomäus Keckermann (1571–1609), Johannes Alsted (1588–1638), Clemens Timpler (1563–1624), and Gilbertus Jacchaeus (1578–1628). These thinkers, educated in the wake of Calvin and Beza, maintained allegiance to scholastic rigor while recasting metaphysical categories to reflect Protestant doctrinal commitments, especially the rejection of a miraculous, ontological transformation in the Lord’s Supper.

III. On Accidents Without a Subject

At the heart of Burgersdijk’s metaphysical critique lies the axiom that an accident cannot exist apart from a subject: the being of an accident is to inhere in something (esse accidentis est inesse).¹ In his section On Accidents Without a Subject, he writes that an accident cannot exist unless it is in a substance. If one were to assert the real existence of a “separated accident,” it would no longer be an accident but a substance, since what subsists in itself is a substance (quod per se subsistit, substantia est).²

Catholic theologians, notably Aquinas, sought to avoid this contradiction by invoking divine omnipotence: God miraculously sustains the accidents without their natural substrate. Burgersdijk grants that God is omnipotent but insists that even divine power cannot realize contradictions. “Things that involve a contradiction cannot be done by God” (ea quae contradictionem involvunt, a Deo fieri nequeunt).³ Thus, transubstantiation is not merely improbable but metaphysically incoherent.

Burgersdijk’s analysis mirrors Keckermann’s assertion that an accident cannot exist without a subject, not even by God’s absolute power, because it involves a contradiction. “For the being of an accident is to inhere; therefore, if it does not inhere, it is not an accident” (Keckermann: esse accidentis est inesse).⁴

IV. Extraordinary Concurrence and Divine Causality

In response to this foundational difficulty, Catholic apologists developed the notion of “extraordinary divine concurrence," a special divine action that sustains the appearances (accidents) of bread and wine after the substance is removed. Burgersdijk subjects this argument to careful scrutiny in On God's Extraordinary Concurrence. He asks whether this divine concurrence operates through material causality (which substances use to support their accidents) or through the causality of creation. He finds both options unacceptable.

First, he states that material causality implies imperfection and is unworthy of God. If God assumes the causal role of the missing subject, then God becomes a substrate for accidents, a metaphysical absurdity (Deum subiectum accidentium fieri).⁵ Second, if God conserves the accidents through creative causality, then He introduces a confusion of categories: creation, conservation, and substance are no longer meaningfully distinct. As Timpler wrote, “God cannot supply the causality of the subject, because this would make God the subject of accidents, which is unworthy and impossible.”⁶

V. Migration and Mutual Inherence of Accidents

Burgersdijk further undermines Catholic sacramental ontology by denying two related notions: first, that accidents can migrate from one subject to another, and second, that accidents can serve as the subject of other accidents.

Regarding migration, he asserts that what depends upon a subject for its being cannot be moved independently of that subject. “An accident... cannot be moved unless in and with the subject” (accidens... non potest moveri nisi in et cum subiecto).⁷ What appears to be the migration of odor, for instance, is in fact the movement of the substrate, imperceptible though it may be to the senses. Johannes Alsted articulates the same idea: “Accidents do not migrate... what seems to migrate is moving with its subject” (quod videtur migrare, cum subiecto suo movetur).⁸

As for the idea that one accident can be the substrate of another, Burgersdijk replies that this is metaphysically impossible. Since every accident exists in a subject, to say that one accident is the subject of another is to say that a subject exists in a subject, which is a contradiction. “If one accident were the subject of another, then the subject would exist in a subject, which is absurd” (subiectum in subiecto existeret, quod absurdum est).⁹ When, for example, heat increases in the moistness of water, the proper subject is the water, not the moistness.

Jacchaeus confirms this: “Heat and moisture in water are not subjects for each other, but the water underlies both” (calor et humiditas in aqua non sunt sibi invicem subiecta, sed aqua utrique subest).¹⁰ Thus, Catholic efforts to assign independent or hierarchical roles to accidents are metaphysically confused.

VI. The Inability of Accidents to Act

The Thomistic account of the Eucharist posits not only the continued presence of the accidents but their action: taste, texture, and color are said to persist and function. But Burgersdijk explicitly denies that accidents act apart from their substances. “Accidents do not act; rather, substances clothed with accidents act” (accidentia non agunt, sed substantiae accidentibus vestitae agunt).¹¹ Accidents modify and serve the actions of substances but possess no independent agency. Even the generation of new accidents requires a substance acting as agent. Therefore, no accident can produce effects without being in a real, existing substance.

This argument undermines the Catholic claim that the Eucharistic accidents, detached from their substances, can be perceived, distributed, or metabolized. Without a substance to act, the accidents lack the ontological capacity to perform.

VII. On Real Distinction and the Category of Substance

In On Real Distinction, Burgersdijk invokes the classical principle that real distinctions are based on actual separability: “Everything that can be separated is distinguished by its nature” (omne quod separari potest, ex natura sua distinguitur).¹² For something to be truly distinct in being, it must be separable in reality. But accidents, by definition, cannot be separated from substance and continue to exist. Therefore, the notion of “separated accidents” is a contradiction in terms.

He also cautions against conflating real distinction with conceptual distinction. For example, Alexander may cease to be Philip’s son, but he would not cease to be Alexander. This distinction is one of reason, not of nature. Catholic appeals to conceptual distinctions to justify transubstantiation, he argues, conflate what can be thought with what can be. As a result, the metaphysical coherence of the sacrament is compromised.

VIII. Protestant Scholastic Consensus

Burgersdijk's conclusions were not isolated but reflected a broad Reformed Scholastic consensus. Keckermann, Alsted, Timpler, and Jacchaeus all rejected the possibility of accidents existing without a subject and denied that such a view could be salvaged by divine power. They agreed that potentia Dei absoluta does not extend to logical impossibilities.

Moreover, these metaphysical objections supported the confessional stances of Reformed theology. Calvin insisted that Christ is spiritually, not physically, present in the elements (Institutes 4.17), and the Belgic Confession explicitly rejects transubstantiation (Article 35). Richard Muller notes that Reformed Scholastics did not reject metaphysics but rather used it to refine and defend biblically grounded theology.¹³

IX. Conclusion

Franco Burgersdijk’s metaphysical critique of transubstantiation is among the most precise and philosophically rigorous rejections of the doctrine within the Reformed tradition. By demonstrating that the notion of accidents without a subject is a contradiction and that divine power cannot instantiate contradictions, Burgersdijk preserves both theological orthodoxy and logical coherence. His work exemplifies the Protestant Scholastic use of Aristotelian logic not to uphold Roman Catholic dogma, but to deconstruct it. In doing so, Burgersdijk reclaims metaphysics for the service of biblical theology, making him a paradigmatic figure in the Reformed intellectual tradition.

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Endnotes

1. Franco Burgersdijk, Institutionum Metaphysicarum (Leiden, 1640), II.XVII.

2. Ibid.

3. Ibid.

4. Bartholomäus Keckermann, Systema Physicum (Hanover, 1610), Lib. I, Cap. 2.

5. Burgersdijk, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, II.XVIII.

6. Clemens Timpler, Metaphysicae Systema Methodicum (1604), Cap. 5.

7. Burgersdijk, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, II.XIX.

8. Johannes Alsted, Metaphysica (1613), Lib. 1, Cap. 6.

9. Burgersdijk, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, II.XX.

10. Gilbertus Jacchaeus, Institutiones Physicae (1624), Lib. 2, Cap. 4.

11. Burgersdijk, Institutionum Metaphysicarum, II.XXI.

12. Ibid., II.VI.

13. Richard A. Muller, Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics, Vol. 1: Prolegomena to Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 330–335.

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For Further Study 

Alsted, Johannes. Metaphysica. Herborn: Christophorus Corvinus, 1613.

Burgersdijk, Franco. Institutionum Metaphysicarum Libri Duo. Leiden: Elzevier, 1640. Burgersdijk's Institutionum Metaphysicarum Libri Duo is available on the Internet Archive. You can view and download the full text at the following URL: https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_WyRjE81epGsC

———. Collegium Physicum. Leiden: Elzevier, 1637.

———. Institutionum Logicarum Libri Duo. Leiden: Elzevier, 1626.

Jacchaeus, Gilbertus. Institutiones Physicae. Geneva: De Tournes, 1624.

Keckermann, Bartholomäus. Systema Physicum. Hanover: Antonius, 1610.

Muller, Richard A. Post-Reformation Reformed Dogmatics: The Rise and Development of Reformed Orthodoxy, ca. 1520 to ca. 1725. Vol. 1, Prolegomena to Theology. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003.

Timpler, Clemens. Metaphysicae Systema Methodicum. Steinfurt: Holwein, 1604.