Catholicism and Circular Reasoning: Take Two

[warpspeedpetey]

A few months ago…

I assume you know that this argument could be true and our beliefs could be true simultaneously without contradiction. So I have to wonder what the point of the argument is? It seems like you mean to imply that our beliefs are unjustified whether they are true or false because we were not personally witnesses ourselves. If that is in fact the case, I can only point out that the same situation exists for every historical event you did not witness. Yet, I would bet that you are not terribly uncertain about other historic events. Only those related to Faith. Is this the case?

 

[Perplexity]

The truth of Catholicism and the truth of Revelation are** interdependent** and they both reflect the teaching, life, death and Resurrection of Jesus. Any refutation of Catholicism is flawed unless it provides a cogent, alternative explanation of how the Church originated…

tonyrey: Thanks for the reply.

A sound argument is a logically valid argument whose premises are all true. An argument is logically valid if when its premises are true, its conclusion must be true. Validity doesn’t tell us whether the premises are true. Both of my arguments are logically valid [they have the logical form ‘Modus Ponens’ (1)] so the only thing that matters in discerning them is whether their premises are true. If they are, you must accept the conclusion or be irrational.

None of my premises are falsified if I don’t provide a cogent, alternative explanation of how the ‘Church’ originated, therefore, the existence of such an explanation is irrelevant to their truth.

So, I don’t think you’ve offered a reason to reject any of the premises. As far as I can tell, and (as far as I know) every other Catholic I’ve presented this argument to, the premises must be accepted by a Catholic.

(1) Modus Ponens is the logical form: (Premise 1) If p, then q. (Premise 2) p (Conclusion) Therefore, q. Where p and q represent sentences. This is a structure in which we can plug sentences into.

 

[Perplexity]

I assume you know that this argument could be true and our beliefs could be true simultaneously without contradiction. So I have to wonder what the point of the argument is? It seems like you mean to imply that our beliefs are unjustified whether they are true or false because we were not personally witnesses ourselves. If that is in fact the case, I can only point out that the same situation exists for every historical event you did not witness. Yet, I would bet that you are not terribly uncertain about other historic events. Only those related to Faith. Is this the case?

warpseedpetey: Thanks for the reply,

The conclusion of the 2nd argument, if true, would mean that the Catholic cannot demonstrate that the papacy is a truth revealed by God without begging the question, and therefore, couldn’t provide a rational argument that the papacy is a truth revealed by God.

But of course all the other dogmas of the Church are, ultimately, accepted as such because the magisterium is infallible/authoritative. However, the magisterium has no infallibility/authority unless the papacy is a truth revealed by God.

So, if my argument succeeds (which, I’m absolutely confident it does), a Catholic cannot provide a rational argument for Catholicism, and non-Catholics are justified in believing Catholicism is irrational.

 

[davidv]

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]

I say your argument is unsound based on the fact that premise 1 in argument 1 is false.

Few, if any, Catholic has direct access to God’s revelation. God’s public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. Any claim a Catholic today makes on God’s revelation is rooted the acceptance that the Church has guarded and protected that revelation as it was handed on to the apostle’s successors.

 

[Perplexity]

I say your argument is unsound based on the fact that premise 1 in argument 1 is false.

Few, if any, Catholic has direct access to God’s revelation. God’s public revelation ended with the death of the last apostle. Any claim a Catholic today makes on God’s revelation is rooted the acceptance that the Church has guarded and protected that revelation as it was handed on to the apostle’s successors.

Interesting objection davidv, thanks for your response.

I apologize for the ambiguity. I clarified what I meant by God’s revelation, identifying it as “the Deposit of Faith.” In the words of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum n. 10, “Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church.” Catholics do have access to these.

**Edited Addition

Actually, davidv, upon reading you closer, I think your objection to the premise is actually the correct interpretation of the premise. You could virtually reword the premise in your words:

“Any claim a Catholic today makes on God’s revelation is rooted the acceptance that the Church has guarded and protected that revelation as it was handed on to the apostle’s successors”

 

[davidv]

Interesting objection davidv, thanks for your response.

I apologize for the ambiguity. I clarified what I meant by God’s revelation, identifying it as “the Deposit of Faith.” In the words of Vatican II’s Dei Verbum n. 10, “Sacred tradition and Sacred Scripture form one sacred deposit of the word of God, committed to the Church.” Catholics do have access to these.

My point stands. These documents can only be trusted if they accurately reflect the orignal revelation. Which gets back believing that the Church was able to protect and guard the original revelation and is who she claims to be.

 

[tonyrey]

tonyrey: Thanks for the reply.

A sound argument is a logically valid argument whose premises are all true. An argument is logically valid if when its premises are true, its conclusion must be true. Validity doesn’t tell us whether the premises are true. Both of my arguments are logically valid [they have the logical form ‘Modus Ponens’ (1)] so the only thing that matters in discerning them is whether their premises are true. If they are, you must accept the conclusion or be irrational.

None of my premises are falsified if I don’t provide a cogent, alternative explanation of how the ‘Church’ originated, therefore, the existence of such an explanation is irrelevant to their truth.

So, I don’t think you’ve offered a reason to reject any of the premises. As far as I can tell, and (as far as I know) every other Catholic I’ve presented this argument to, the premises must be accepted by a Catholic.

(1) Modus Ponens is the logical form: (Premise 1) If p, then q. (Premise 2) p (Conclusion) Therefore, q. Where p and q represent sentences. This is a structure in which we can plug sentences into.

Logical coherence is far less important than correspondence to reality!

 

[Perplexity]

My point stands. These documents can only be trusted if they accurately reflect the orignal revelation. Which gets back believing that the Church was able to protect and guard the original revelation and is who she claims to be.

Sorry davidv, I added an additional reply after posting my reply. I think rather than objecting to my premise, you’re simply offering the correct interpretation of it.

"**Edited Addition

Actually, davidv, upon reading you closer, I think your objection to the premise is actually the correct interpretation of the premise. You could virtually reword the premise in your words:

“Any claim a Catholic today makes on God’s revelation is rooted the acceptance that the Church has guarded and protected that revelation as it was handed on to the apostle’s successors”

"

 

[Perplexity]

Logical coherence is far less important than correspondence to reality!

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.

 

[davidv]

Sorry davidv, I added an additional reply after posting my reply. I think rather than objecting to my premise, you’re simply offering the correct interpretation of it.

"**Edited Addition

Actually, davidv, upon reading you closer, I think your objection to the premise is actually the correct interpretation of the premise. You could virtually reword the premise in your words:

“Any claim a Catholic today makes on God’s revelation is rooted the acceptance that the Church has guarded and protected that revelation as it was handed on to the apostle’s successors”

"

Based on my understanding your original wording and this rewrite I cannot accept that they are the same. Your first version states that the Catholic position is an appeal to authority. The second does not. Accepting the accuracy of eye witnesss testimony is not an appeal to authority.

 

[Perplexity]

Based on my understanding your original wording and this rewrite I cannot accept that they are the same. Your first version states that the Catholic position is an appeal to authority. The second does not. Accepting the accuracy of eye witnesss testimony is not an appeal to authority.

davidv, in post 2 of this thread I interpreted premise 1 just as you have. Here is what I said:

"Q1. In these arguments, what do ‘appeal’ and ‘presuppose’ mean?

A1b: When I say a Catholic presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church in appealing to God’s revelation, I mean:

(i) the Catholic believes the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and

(ii) the RCC had(s) the authority to do so."

Again, I apologize for the ambiguity. But, far from objecting to this premise, you’ve merely articulated what I said in a better way.

 

[davidv]

davidv, in post 2 of this thread I interpreted premise 1 just as you have. Here is what I said:

"Q1. In these arguments, what do ‘appeal’ and ‘presuppose’ mean?

A1b: When I say a Catholic presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church in appealing to God’s revelation, I mean:

(i) the Catholic believes the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and

(ii) the RCC had(s) the authority to do so."

Again, I apologize for the ambiguity. But, far from objecting to this premise, you’ve merely articulated what I said in a better way.

If so, how is premise 2 different from premise 1, other being more specific in highlighting a particular revelation? What is the unstated assumption regarding the papacy? IOW why this aspect instead of say, the Incarnation?

If they are in fact the same, then the argument is no longer in valid form.

 

[Luke_K]

Argument 1:

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

I disagree with this. The Catholic does not presuppose the teaching authority of the Church universally for all revelation. The would-be Catholic first personally accepts the revelation of God to humanity through his Son Jesus, and then concludes that Jesus founded a Church with infallible authority. If you look at my religious affiliation, you’ll see that I am Catholic because I am a follower of Christ. I am not a Catholic because I’m a Catholic.

 

[Jonesboy]

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]

Correct me if I’m wrong, but that seemed a lot of kerfuffle for asking whether revelation identifies the Papacy, God, or both.

 

[Perplexity]

If so, how is premise 2 different from premise 1, other being more specific in highlighting a particular revelation?

I’m not sure what your objection is here, but for one thing premise (2) doesn’t say anything about appealing to God’s revelation.

What is the unstated assumption regarding the papacy? IOW why this aspect instead of say, the Incarnation?

If they are in fact the same, then the argument is no longer in valid form.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, I guess. I can arbitrarily designate any belief I wanted to. But, yes if the premises are the same, it’s no longer modus ponens. However, this argument is definitely Modus Ponens.

I’ve interpreted the premises in the second post of this thread. So, if we substitute my interpretation of the premises with the premises themselves, we can clearly see that the argument is valid, and the premises are true. [for a Catholic]:

(1) If the Catholic identifies (x) as a member of the Deposit of Faith, then s/he presupposes that the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and the RCC had(s) the authority to do so. [Premise]

(2) If the Catholic presupposes that the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and the RCC had(s) the authority to do so, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is an essential aspect of the ‘blue-print’ of the Church, without which, there wouldn’t be a Catholic Church to have any authority to presuppose. [Premise]

(3) Therefore, if the Catholic identifies (x) as a member of the Deposit of Faith, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is an essential aspect of the ‘blue-print’ of the Church, without which, there wouldn’t be a Catholic Church to have any authority to presuppose. [From (2), (3) Modus Ponens]

Remember these conditionals are ‘material’ so the only implication they’re claiming between the antecedents and the consequents is the following: It is not the case that the antecedent is true and the consequent is false.

 

[Perplexity]

I disagree with this. The Catholic does not presuppose the teaching authority of the Church universally for all revelation. The would-be Catholic first personally accepts the revelation of God to humanity through his Son Jesus, and then concludes that Jesus founded a Church with infallible authority. If you look at my religious affiliation, you’ll see that I am Catholic because I am a follower of Christ. I am not a Catholic because I’m a Catholic.

Luke: Thanks for your response. The first premise isn’t about why someone is Catholic. It doesn’t matter how one becomes Catholic, in the first premise. It’s just that, if this person is in fact a Catholic, then by definition they presuppose the authority of the RCC in appealing to God’s revelation.

 

[davidv]

I’m not sure what your objection is here, but for one thing premise (2) doesn’t say anything about appealing to God’s revelation.

I’m not sure what you’re getting at here, I guess. I can arbitrarily designate any belief I wanted to. But, yes if the premises are the same, it’s no longer modus ponens. However, this argument is definitely Modus Ponens.

I’ve interpreted the premises in the second post of this thread. So, if we substitute my interpretation of the premises with the premises themselves, we can clearly see that the argument is valid, and the premises are true. [for a Catholic]:

(1) If the Catholic identifies (x) as God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes that the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and the RCC had(s) the authority to do so. [Premise]

(2) If the Catholic presupposes that the RCC is responsible for producing [albeit instrumentally], protecting and proliferating the Deposit of Faith, and the RCC had(s) the authority to do so, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is an essential aspect of the ‘blue-print’ of the Church, without which, there wouldn’t be a Catholic Church to have any authority to presuppose. [Premise]

(3) Therefore, if the Catholic identifies (x) as God’s revelation, then s/he presupposes that the papacy is an essential aspect of the ‘blue-print’ of the Church, without which, there wouldn’t be a Catholic Church to have any authority to presuppose. [From (2), (3) Modus Ponens]

Remember these conditions are ‘material’ so the only implication they’re claiming between the antecedents and the consequents is the following: It is not the case that the antecedent is true and the consequent is false.

What do you mean by “producing…” in premises 1 and 2? If you mean that the Church creates revelation, then you have created an invalid strawman.

Also premise 2 is inaccurate in defining the authorities in the Church. Each bishop is the authority of his local church. This authority is not dependent on the papacy.

It still seems to me you are the one creating the circularity, not the Church.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

…begging the question and therefore, couldn’t provide a rational argument that the papacy is a truth revealed by God…

Since begging the question isn’t irrational, I don’t see how you can make the leap to the claim that it prevents us from making a rational argument.

 

[Luke_K]

Luke: Thanks for your response. The first premise isn’t about why someone is Catholic. It doesn’t matter how one becomes Catholic, in the first premise. It’s just that, if this person is in fact a Catholic, then by definition they presuppose the authority of the RCC in appealing to God’s revelation.

You ignored my point. Premise 1 is false, because a Catholic does not presuppose the authority of the RCC universally for all revelation. The Catholic personally accepts the revelation of God in the person of Jesus, who therefore has divine authority, and from that the authority of the RCC in all other matters.

 

[Perplexity]

What do you mean by “producing…” in premises 1 and 2? If you mean that the Church creates revelation, then you have created an invalid strawman.

Also premise 2 is inaccurate in defining the authorities in the Church. Each bishop is the authority of his local church. This authority is not dependent on the papacy.

It still seems to me you are the one creating the circularity, not the Church.

davidv: I’ve addressed most of this in the second post of the thread, I should’ve included that post in the first

By producing, if you notice, I say “[albeit instrumentally]” as in a secondary cause; but, the “producing…” part isn’t necessary for the argument. We could replace it with a phrase like “the Deposit of Faith was entrusted to the Catholic Church” in the words of Dei Verbum, and the Catechism etc. So, I most definitely do not mean the RCC created revelation.

I’ve also addressed the objection that the authority of the Church being presupposed in premise 1 isn’t dependent on the papacy.

If you note, I said no bishop would have ordinary jurisdiction or infallibility unless the papacy is a truth revealed by God. As Lumen Gentium, n. 21 [and Mystici Corporis, etc.] teaches, a bishop can only licitly exercise his authority if he has received the right to do so from the pope.

Since the authority which the Catholic presupposes is necessarily licit, then s/he must believe those bishops received this from the pope. But, if the papacy isn’t a truth revealed by God, then bishops don’t have licity. Therefore, the Catholic presupposes that the papacy is a truth revealed by God when s/he presupposes the authority of the Catholic Church.