Catholicism and Circular Reasoning: Take Two

[Perplexity]

LukeK: Thanks! These are the kinds of objections which we can sink our teeth into, and clearly discern whether they succeed or not. Thanks for bearing with me. Let’s consider each objection on its own.

Premise 1:

(1) If the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church. [Premise]

Objection to Premise 1:

“(1) is false because the authority of the Church only comes as an intrinsic constitutive result of the Catholic’s belief in Jesus.”

Response to Objection 1:

It seems to me like your objection interprets premise (1) to be asserting or implying the following, which you consider to be false:

“The authority of the Church doesn’t just come as an intrinsic constitutive result of the Catholic’s belief in Jesus.”

Hence why your objection is simply a negation of this.

I’m not sure why you interpret premise 1 to be asserting this, I don’t think it does, so I have no other response at the moment then to say I’m not convinced premise 1 means the same thing you do.

Premise 2:

(2) If the Catholic presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God. [Premise]

Objection to Premise 2:

“(2) is false because the Papacy specifically does not have authority over God’s fundamental revelation of himself to humanity through Jesus. That authority belongs to the assent of the individual, who constitutes the Church.”

Response to Objection 2:

This objection seems to interpret premise (2) to be asserting or implying that the papacy has the authority over God’s fundamental revelation of himself to humanity through Jesus; an authority which belongs to the assent of the individual.

This of course follows given your understanding premise (1). However, as I said I have no reason to share your understanding of premise (1), and therefore, neither do I in this case.

I think the next logical step is would be for you to explain why you think premise (1) asserts or implies “The authority of the Church doesn’t just come as an intrinsic constitutive result of the Catholic’s belief in Jesus.”

 

[Perplexity]

warpspeedpetey: There seems to be a lot of confusion here.

Here’s your new objection:

“Your argument concludes we are committing a fallacy while committing the same fallacy.”

The fallacy my arguments are trying to show Catholics commit is ‘begging the question’, therefore, your objection says my arguments commit the same fallacy; that is, they beg the question.

This objection is different from what you were first arguing for, since it doesn’t say my arguments are trying to refute circularity, they merely conclude that a fallacy occurs. I can only assume you’ve conceded the original objection has been defeated.

As to the above objection:

I can prove that my argument relies on no fallacy. This is not a grey area.

However, in order for my arguments to commit “the same fallacy” [begging the question], which is what you need them to do, one of their premises must presuppose their respective conclusion.

You’ve offered absolutely no argument that my premises presuppose their conclusion. Therefore, you’ve given us no reason to think my arguments beg the question.

Rather, you’ve tried to show that they rely on a logical principle which is circular. I see no reason whatsoever why I can’t grant this and not concede that my arguments beg the question.

As for whether A=A is circular, I am now at a loss of words as to how you’re understanding ‘circularity’. It’s an understanding I’ve never seen in logic before. Would you mind defining ‘circularity’ as it allegedly occurs in the Law of Identity?

Most importantly though, you need to show that my arguments beg the question, but showing that they rely on a circular logical law doesn’t accomplish this.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Here’s your new objection:…

…Self refutation is the problem I have been talking about the entire time. You argue that we rely on a circularity, while you do so yourself. There is still no point in attacking the premise’, when I can refute the entire thing by pointing out it self refutes and therefore forms a logical contradiction.

…I see no reason whatsoever why I can’t grant this and not concede that my arguments beg the question.

Because begging the question is a variety of circularity.

…Would you mind defining ‘circularity’ as it allegedly occurs in the Law of Identity?

Reflexive relation.

 

[Perplexity]

Okay warpspeed lol.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Okay warpspeed lol.

Are we in agreement then?

 

[Perplexity]

Are we in agreement then?

No. I’m just not sure where to go from here. I feel very uncomfortable saying we’ve come to an impasse. It’s logic, it’d be like saying whether 2 + 2 =4 is anyone’s guess.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

No. I’m just not sure where to go from here…

Well, it might be profitable to consider that even if you completely blew me away with amazing arguments, in the end both your argument and our belief could be correct without contradiction. So I am not sure that it even matters if there is anywhere else for you to go with this one. As they say, no plan of battle ever survives contact with the enemy. lol

 

[Luke_K]

LukeK: Thanks! These are the kinds of objections which we can sink our teeth into, and clearly discern whether they succeed or not. Thanks for bearing with me. Let’s consider each objection on its own.

Premise 1:

(1) If the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church. [Premise]

Objection to Premise 1:

“(1) is false because the authority of the Church only comes as an intrinsic constitutive result of the Catholic’s belief in Jesus.”

Response to Objection 1:

It seems to me like your objection interprets premise (1) to be asserting or implying the following, which you consider to be false:

“The authority of the Church doesn’t just come as an intrinsic constitutive result of the Catholic’s belief in Jesus.”

Hence why your objection is simply a negation of this.

I’m not sure why you interpret premise 1 to be asserting this, I don’t think it does, so I have no other response at the moment then to say I’m not convinced premise 1 means the same thing you do.

Because you use the word presuppose, as if I need to believe in the authority of the Church pre my belief in revelation. If I expand your explanation of this premise from the OP, it says,
If a Catholic identifies ‘x’ as a member of the Deposit of the Faith, then he believes the Church has the authority and responsibility for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith.

Based on that expansion, I guess I do not disagree. But then I must say that your choice of the word “presuppose” is terrible for the point you are trying to convey.

So, if I’m understanding your argument, then I only have a disagreement with (2). The authority of the Church regarding the DoF does not rest exclusively with the Papacy. The Papacy has no exclusive or specific authority over God’s basic revelation of Jesus to humanity. The Church does have authority over that revelation, but only because the Church is by definition the community of believers. Therefore, when I “presuppose” the authority of the Church regarding the revelation of God in Jesus, I do NOT presuppose the Papacy. You’ll notice in Matthew that Jesus instituted the Papacy directly following Peter’s confession of faith in Jesus as God’s revelation!
Matthew 16:13-20:

When Jesus went into the region of Caesarea Philippi he asked his disciples, "Who do people say that the Son of Man is?"
They replied, "Some say John the Baptist, others Elijah, still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."
He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter said in reply, "You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God."
Jesus said to him in reply, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah. For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my heavenly Father.
And so I say to you, you are Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of the netherworld shall not prevail against it.
I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven. Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven."  Then he strictly ordered his disciples to tell no one that he was the Messiah.

If I regard the early records of Jesus’ message as historically accurate (NOT divinely inspired), and because I have personally accepted Jesus as God’s revelation, then I can conclude from natural reason that one of Jesus’ actions was to institute an infallible Papacy.

 

[fhansen]

A few months ago, I began a thread entitled ‘Epistemic Circularity’ in which I tried to offer an argument that Catholicism entails epistemic circularity. Trouble was, I couldn’t get the bloody thing to be logically valid and still say what I wanted it to. I was almost content to leave it logically invalid and propose it as an ampliative argument [a logically invalid argument whose premises still afford strong evidence of the conclusion].

However, I believe I’ve finally discovered a way to explicate my intuitions about this alleged circularity in a logically valid way. Thus far, I’ve presented the argument to numerous Catholics. They’ve all granted the premises and accepted it as logically valid, yet none of them have accepted the conclusion(s). We’ll see how it runs here on the forums. I think it’s important to note one more thing before getting into it. Some of the terms in the premises are vague, and many, if not all of the Catholics I’ve gone over this with so far have sought to introduce all kinds of distinctions. I welcome these suggestions, and thus far the argument works fine with these numerous distinctions.

It comes in two parts:

Argument 1:

(1) If the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church. [Premise]

(2) If the Catholic presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God. [Premise]

(3) Therefore, if the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God. [From (2), (3) Modus Ponens]

Argument 2:

(1’) Only if the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation can s/he show that the papacy is a truth revealed by God.

(2’) If the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God.

(3’) Therefore, only if the Catholic presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God can s/he show that the papacy is a truth revealed by God. [From (1), (2) by Modus Ponens]

Faith in God or the Church or any of the truths she proposes is a “growing thing” -sort of organic like the growth of a mustard seed. So a Catholic starts out believing incrementally, beginning with simple truths such as “God exists”. The reason for that faith, as well as any that may follow, can’t necessarily always be supported with reason alone even if reason doesn’t contradict it. IOWs faith, generally speaking, may be a deeper response from a deeper part of ourselves-and even from a knowledge-that already exists inside us. Tenets involving papal infallibility, which addresses the real need for authoritative guidance on matters of faith, fall into place as a Catholic comes to recognize that need. So faith in the Church, alongside faith in God, grows. And this is sometimes called the “sensus fidelium”. It’s actually a coming-to-agree with the Church, rather than a presupposition.

 

[Perplexity]

LukeK: Thanks for the response. I’ve given quite a lot of thought to your comments about my use of the word ‘presuppose’ and have realized a better way to express that idea. I’d like to explain what I mean by that and address your objections to the argument.

I. ‘Presuppose’ was the best word I knew of to convey the idea I had, but it certainly seems like a poor choice now, given the ambiguity it has fostered.

By ‘presuppose’, I don’t mean your belief in the authority of the Church temporally precedes your belief in revelation. I mean to convey an idea of ‘dependence’ between the beliefs.

Because Catholicism is ‘holistic’ it claims that each of its dogmas are true. Each. Catholics are not free to deny some teachings of the Church and remain Catholics.

Among these are (i) that the Church was given the authority [/infallibility] to guard and teach the Deposit of Faith [DOF], and (ii) that there is a Deposit of Faith. We can infer from this that if the Church had no authority (if it were false that it has authority), then it would also be false that there is a DOF. It would also follow that transubstantiation, purgatory, etc. etc. were false. Catholicism is an all or nothing deal. Likewise, if there is no DOF, then the Church has no authority. We can expose a relationship of dependency either way we word it.

So, in order to be Catholic one must believe that “if the Church had no authority (if it were false that it has authority), then it would also be false that there is a DOF.” If you reject these, sure you could just adopt a different version of Christianity, but you couldn’t still be Catholic.

Of course, Catholics may have numerous reasons for believing there is a DOF, but, it’s still the case that in order for such a person to be Catholic, they must also believe that if the RCC were wrong about its understanding of its authority, then all these Catholic truths would fall as well.

This is the dependency relationship premise (1) explicates, and expresses by the word “presuppose.”

II. Keep in mind that by ‘presuppose’ I have in mind this ‘relationship of dependency between beliefs.’

You’ve identified ‘the Church’ in this argument as the community of believers and interpret ‘its’ authority accordingly. I can understand why you interpret it like this. I won’t ask you to reject this belief at all. [It’s certainly the teaching of the Church. http://www.usccb.org/catechism/text/pt1sect1chpt2.shtml#art2”]CCC #84.] Instead, I just want to point out that you also believe ‘the Church’ refers to other things, like the magisterium or a physical building, depending on the context. I have the magisterium in mind, in this argument. Its authority does certainly depend upon the truth of the papacy.

 

[tonyrey]

Pardon me, but I’m not sure what conclusion you’re trying to reach with your argument here.

If you are trying to conclude that Catholics have no basis for defending Catholicism because any defense they give presupposes a faith in the Church, I will have to beg to differ with you. Not all Catholic arguments presuppose the authority of the very Church they are trying to defend per se. We have the less subjective reality of history to back up our claims. (I say less subjective here because history, like any “science” is subjective in varying degrees; one’s picture of history can be quite different depending on the interpreter.)

Also, logical arguments aren’t necessarily always a good justification for believing one way or another, are they? We believe what we believe based on faith (guided by reason), not based on conclusions gathered from logical arguments. After all, can you give a logical argument defending logical arguments?

The only possible answer is…“No” !

 

[tonyrey]

The way you’re using ‘logical’ and ‘coherence’ is very strange to me. Propositions are either true or false. They’re true only if their truth-conditions are met. Offering a cogent alternative to how the Church arose is not a truth-condition of any of my premises. Therefore, the offering of such an explanation doesn’t imply whether the premises’ truth-conditions are met, and is therefore irrelevant to whether they’re true or false.

It is not a truth-condition of any of your premises because your premises are restricted to one part of the picture. Your argument may be coherent within its limited domain but not correspond to reality as a whole. Since the teaching of Christ and the origin of the Church are overlooked in your argument it has no existential significance.

**The whole of science consists of circular reasoning **because it cannot justify the premises on which it is based…

 

[babylonsfalling]

The question of the proper interpretation of Matthew 16:18 would come down to, in large part, looking at and understanding the context in which those statements of Jesus were made. Where they were at the time, what they were observing, etc. Thus, when viewing these things, the statement does not make sense any other way than being understood as indicating Jesus’ Church was founded with Peter at its head, as its leader on Earth. I’ve heard plenty of Protestant interpreting of this verse that attempts to explain it away, and none of it made much sense. The question is: in the whole context, what is the most clear, likely, and reasonable message to be taken from this? Answer: the one the Catholic Church teaches. Anytime you find mental gymnastics required to NOT interpret something in the fairly obvious way to which it lends itself, you should be asking yourself some hard questions.

The meaning of that verse is extremely self evident to anyone reading it with an objective mind. The problem for some non Catholics is that they’ve made it part of their religion to automatically oppose Catholicism, even when it clearly means opposing the Bible as well, as in the case of Matthew 16:18. Verses concerning the Real Flesh and Real Blood are another example of how they will throw out Scripture if it clearly supports Catholic theology.

What I don’t understand is their apparent ignorance of their own behavior once they get into trying to DIS-interpret self evident meanings. They seem to think nobody notices their histrionics or the fact that their histrionics end up discrediting THEM in the midst of their attempt to discredit Catholicism.

 

[JDaniel]

JDaniel: Thanks for your response.

I take your main contention with premise one to be the following:

“This premise limits the ways in which a Catholic can believe in Revelation to the “authority of the Catholic Church” ONLY.”

I’ve clarified my understanding of premise 1 numerous times throughout the thread as this objection seems to reoccur.

Perplexed:

Not very well, I expect.

Premise 1 merely states that because this person is a Catholic, s/he believes that the Deposit of Faith was entrusted to the RCC, and this same Church has preserved, protected and proliferated this Deposit. That is, without the Church, there would be nothing to which the Deposit was entrusted to etc. That’s it. That’s all Premise 1 is about. These are the beliefs a Roman Catholic holds to, and presupposes when appealing to said Deposit.

Again, now you have limited the limitation. In essence you are saying that since the Church was the only entity around, in those days, then it could be the only place where the deposit of history could be made. IOW: if there’s only one historian, there’s only one history. Of course, that’s true. But, what if there were two historians? Or, three, or four? Furthermore, what if there were multiple people that the early Church consisted of? If there were multiple people, and they promulgated a relatively singular report, then the idea of a true, singular bloc (spoken or written), such as the Church, takes on a different perspective. Either there was a certain uniformity of the diverse events to the history we’ve received, or, we’re back to that large-scale conspiracy.

Premise 1 isn’t concerned with what brought this person to this belief. Premise 1 doesn’t mind whether the Catholic believes these things because of x, y or z. The only thing that matters is that the person is in fact a Catholic, and therefore does hold these beliefs.

Likewise, if one reads a couple of books on South American history, one will probably harbor a relatively uniform belief system regarding the true history of South America. Particularly if one was not privileged to actually be a witness to said history. And, if in fact it is the actual case that that is the sole reason the Catholic holds his beliefs. (Kind of a brain-washing?)

I’d rather stay away from getting into whether the RCC has the best claim to the early Church history. It’s not relevant to the argument and would take the conversation far afield. But, it certainly is an interesting topic.

More than that. In order to adhere to your logic, one would have the presume more than history.

Thanks again for your reply.

Thank you for your thoughtful response.

God bless,
jd

 

[levinas12]

A few months ago, I began a thread entitled ‘Epistemic Circularity’ in which I tried to offer an argument that Catholicism entails epistemic circularity.

Would “'epistemic circularity” also apply to Protestants? To Jews? To Moslems?

More generally, would “epistemic circularity” apply to any religion based upon an historical “happening” of divine revelation?

 

[Perplexity]

Would “'epistemic circularity” also apply to Protestants? To Jews? To Moslems?

More generally, would “epistemic circularity” apply to any religion based upon an historical “happening” of divine revelation?

Levinas: Epistemic circularity is a property of arguments. I’m not very competent with ‘other’ religions, to be honest. All I can say is it would apply to them if they utilized or banked on an epistemically circular argument.

 

[levinas12]

A few months ago, I began a thread entitled ‘Epistemic Circularity’ in which I tried to offer an argument that Catholicism entails epistemic circularity.

What I meant was whether a similar argument could be made that, e.g., Protestantism and Judaism, entail epistemic circularity. In each of these belief systems, the vehicle of divine revelation is itself “part” of divine revelation.

On this basis, it would seem that an “epistemically circular” argument could be constructed vis-a-vis any religion based on an historical “vehicle” of divine revelation, whether it be the papacy or scripture or some other historical/institutional “filter”.

P.S. Although your argument with respect to Catholicism is different in many respects, it reminds me of the reflexivity in a number of logical paradoxes, e.g., Russell’s argument regarding sets that are members of themselves.

 

[CTuck]

It’s good to see someone not of the faith holding us to what we believe, someone of different view able to say," Don’t believe in the teachings of the Church, eh? Well, then you’re not catholic." Now if only we could make you one, lol. (In good humour.) I thank you for your desire to find truth, and I will be thinking of my own response. Farewell.

 

[Sarpedon]

(1’) Only if the Catholic appeals to God’s revelation can s/he show that the papacy is a truth revealed by God.

This premise is incorrect. Papal authority can be deduced from reason alone, as follows:

1. The existence of God. St. Thomas lays out a very strong argument that is rarely understood by atheists. For example, in the text St. Thomas directly acknowledges the possibility of the eternity of the world and provides his own response to that argument. The first cause argument works even if the world is eternal. Furthermore St. Thomas identifies the “which came first- the chicken or the egg” argument as being weak. He says that while some people try to prove God by positing Him as the start of physical causation, this is weak because it addresses the wrong kind of causation. In contrast, St. Thomas identifies metaphysical causation as the proper way to prove the existence of God. Thus, whenever you hear an atheist argue something like “If the world must be created by God, then where did God come from?” you know they are completely ignorant of the true nature of the argument. St. Thomas answered this objection in his writing 700 years before it became fashionable to use it online.

I know that this isn’t your topic, but the principle of God’s existence is the first step in proving papal authority. I’d highly recommend reading Etienne Gilson’s The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas if you haven’t already, for the kind of in-depth analysis you can’t get online.

1. The goodness of God. This is very easy to prove. In the way that St. Thomas proves the existence of God, God has to be a certain type of being. Among other things, God cannot increase or decrease in any grade of being. Because of this, God cannot “experiment with us” (He already has all knowledge), or “play” with us (He is already perfectly happy). God cannot gain anything from us, yet we exist. God can’t act irrationally in creating us randomly. Because of this, God must create us without regard to His self. This is a selfless act. We can only conceive of selfless good- we cannot conceive of selfless evil. Such selfless evil has no parallel in actual real things we can refer too. Thus, we must conclude that God is acting out of selfless goodness.

We have been able to prove God’s existence, and from God’s existence and our own existence, we can prove the goodness of God. Thus, we now consider how this good God would act.

1. A good God would make His will known to us. A good God would not deceive us, or abandon us. Thus, there must be some sort of communication between God and His creation, stemming from His goodness. Religion and/or philosophy are the only reasonable possibilities for this communication- nothing else purports to be the word of God.

By simply examining religions, however, we can rule some off right away. The true religion must have some method of definitively proclaiming God’s word with certainty. This is obvious. Thus, the true religion must have some sort of structure of authority to proclaim truth. This structure must work- an authority structure that fails to convey its certainty is a failure, and not in keeping with God’s nature.

 

[Sarpedon]

Many religions, such as Greco-Roman paganism and Hinduism, lack any central authority structure at all, and exist however practitioners practice them. This is not acceptable. Some religions, such as Islam and Protestantism, have only scriptures and multiple equal leadership figures (pastors/imams). Thus, there is no definitive word on doctrine. This is why Islam can’t outlaw violent Jihad (no authority exists to outlaw it definitively), and Protestantism has splintered into 30,000 differing theological sects. Both of these religions fail to proclaim a unified, codified truth to the world.

Buddhism denies the law of non-contradiction, and that’s absurd. Mormonism has a central leadership, and has definitive doctrinal statements issued for the church and for the whole world. This is what we would expect from a good God- clear, definitive exposition of religious communication. The problem with Mormonism is that it’s openly contradictory. The proclamations are not consistent. Case in point: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Vision#Discrepancies_cited_by_critics

So, this has knocked a lot of religions out. What about Catholicism? Catholicism has an extremely centralized and codified structure. This structure clearly and definitively teaches doctrinal truths, and condemns errors as heresy. For example, the teaching structure of the Church allows the Church to definitively condemn pedophilia as damning, no questions asked. Church Councils, Papal authority, and the ordinary magisterium all function to define and teach a narrowly codified set of doctrine. Catholicism is unique in this regard, and the teachings are consistent with one another. Our initial conclusion is that for a religion to be the true mouth of God, it must have a clear and well functioning way of conveying that message. Catholicism is the only religion we observe that actually functions in this way.

This does not rely on revelation. First we use philosophy (not theology) to examine God and his goodness. Then, we use philosophy to think about what this necessitates. Finally, we look around empirically to determine what religion actually fits with what we know to be true through reason.

This is why your argument is invalid. Your argument assumes that we can only accept papal (magisterial) authority based on revelation, while in reality we can use reason to establish the veracity of magisterial authority. As a consequence, once we have accepted the authority of the Church through philosophy, this gives us a reason to trust her pronouncements and engage in theology based on revelation.