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For I received from the Lord what I also delivered to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took bread, and when he had given thanks, he broke it, and said, “This is my body which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” In the same way also he took the cup, after supper, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me.” For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death until he comes.
Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord bin an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some ehave died.
St. Paul

How can what appears to be bread, actually be Christ's body? The Church Fathers grappled with this great mystery, and various lines of thought existed within the Church until the thirteenth century, when the Church solemnly defined the doctrine. The Aristotelian terms, substance and accidents, rediscovered by the Scholastics, made a coherent definition of the doctrine possible.

Church Fathers on Transubstantiation

How can what appears to be bread, actually be Christ's body?

If the scripture teaches transubstantiation, then we must believe that Christ ate His own flesh and blood, and will continue to do so, even in heaven. Check your chronology. It is not your friend:

1) He gives thanks, breaks the bread, declares it is His body: “And when he had given thanks, he brake it, and said, Take, eat: this is my body, which is broken for you: this do in remembrance of me.(1Co 11:24)

2) After “he had supped,” He offers the cup, which He calls His blood: “After the same manner also he took the cup, when he had supped, saying, This cup is the new testament in my blood: this do ye, as oft as ye drink it, in remembrance of me.” (1Co 11:25)

3) After calling it the blood of the covenant, with the cup still in hand, He calls it “this fruit of the vine” which He would not drink AGAIN until reunited with the Apostles in heaven, either indicating He was about to drink it, or had just drank it: “for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. I tell you I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom.” (Mat 26:28-29)

Notice also that he continues to call it “the fruit of the vine” even after it had supposedly been transformed.

Furthermore, you do not have a sacrament of “living water,” which is necessary to drink in order to possess eternal life:

Joh 4:14 But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

Joh 4:15 The woman saith unto him, Sir, give me this water, that I thirst not, neither come hither to draw.

The scripture does not teach transubstantiation, and neither did Augustine and many other Church Fathers.

Except that Aquinas appears to invert the standard use of substance vs accidence in his novel formulation. In Greek philosophical parlance, substance was what something continued to be in essence, even though the actual constituents changed. Accidence describes those changing constituents.

For example, you are composed of billions of cells. They change constantly, but you are still recognized as you. So, loosely, your cells are the accidence, the changeable thing flowing through you, and your nature of being you, the constant, is the substance.

Aquinas inverts the changeability factor, by making the substance that which changes, whilst taking the accidence, the flow of change, and making it that which stays the same. The whole thing is a horribly convoluted mess.

Before Aquinas tried to infuse it with Aristotelian respectability, it appears the first person to propose it in terms of the radical realism of the modern view was the 9th Century monk Radbertus. See http://www.ccel.org/ccel/schaff/hcc4.i.xi.xxi.html So the doctrine, in it’s fully articulated form, was a novelty, and as a result Radbertus was hard pressed to explain how his new view was consistent with Augustine’s clear treatment of the Eucharist as a sign and not the thing signified. Obviously, he eventually won enough adherents to bring it mainstream.

But no, the whole doctrine as rendered by Radbertus through Aquinas through Trent is really incoherent. I think a great many Protestants simply reject the unnecessary addition of complexity and take Christ at His word that the purpose of the Lord’s Supper was primarily as a memorial. If He had intended it to be used primarily as a direct means of ingesting the corporeal Christ to obtain salvation, He would have said so. But in the institution of the service, He never said that. He said “do this in remembrance” of Him. So that is the primary, instituted reason. And THAT is coherent, as it reconciles well with the metaphorical presentation in John 6, as well as preserving the locus of salvation in the entire Gospel narrative, not in corporeal consumption of Christ, but in believing in His teaching and His crucified and risen person.

Peace,