Hadjadj on the Eucharistic origins of modern science

"one can assume [(faire l'hypothèse)] . . . that the ultimate [(la plus grande)] attention to the real, including material [reality], that modern science inaugurated in [the process of] outstripping Greek science, resulted from the deepening of Eucharistic dogma:  one 'passed in Latin Christianity from a logic of the symbol to a logic of the real' when 'the effect of the consecration of the bread and wine was defined as transsubstantiation' (at the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215)."

     French mathematician and 2002 Fields Medalist Laurent Lafforgue, citing p. 14 of L'agneau mystique:  le retable des frères Van Eyck (Paris:  Oeuvre, [2008]), by Fabrice Hadjadj, in "Le Christ est la vérite, fondement d’un enseignement catholique," an address to the annual session of the Alliance des Directeurs et Directrices de l’Enseignement Chrétien, 19 November 2009, p. 14, translation mine.  Here is what Hadjadj himself  says, on pp. 17-18 of The adoration of the mystic Lamb:  the Ghent altarpiece, painted by Jan and Hubert Van Eyck, trans. unspecified (Paris:  Magnificat, 2015):

Why . . . is it here, in Latin Christianity, that the modern history of painting begins?  Why is it in the work of the Van Eycks that the transition from Eastern symbolism to Western realism takes place?  I would like to propose a thesis that links the oil of painting to the oil of the sacraments.  It goes like this:  The development of Eucharistic dogma is at the origin of the shift in Latin Christianity from a logic of symbol to a logic of the real.  The Fourth Lateran Council, in 1215, defined the effect of the consecration of the bread and wine as 'transubstantiation':  only the accidents of bread and wine remain, because the reality that is suddenly there on the table is the true Body and true Blood of Christ in glory.  It's a matter not merely of symbolic presence, but primarily of a real, even substantial presence.  Whether the priest unfolds the consecration in a sweeping and hieratic liturgy, or his movements are restrained and his words barely audible, the real presence is equally there.  That does not depend on an actor’s performance.  That does not propose a symbolic efficacy.
     But what happens in the scientific revolution of the thirteenth century, just after the definition of this dogma?  Medieval symbolism no longer suffices.  The search is on for the real beyond sensible appearances.  With that, experimentation begins.  With that, above all, Aristotle is re-adopted, along with his philosophy of substance, which, counter to Platonic idealism, restores intelligibility even to matter and grants coherence to the beings of this world.  If things are nothing but illusions or symbols without real existence, if the real is only God, then transubstantiation has no meaning.  In order for it to make sense, the bread must have its own substance, and this substance be replaced by another, miraculously.  Finally, for the miracle to take place as a miracle, nature must have a normal course, that is to say, laws:  the exception proves the rule.  Thus the double aspect, both miraculous and substantial, of the Eucharistic consecration leads to a deeper attention to the order of nature and to the thickness of things.
     This explanation of the faith before long achieves aesthetic representation. . . .

It could be argued, I suppose, that Hadjadj's understanding of "the [prior] logic of symbolism" (according to which "things are nothing but illusions or symbols without real existence") is too simplistic.