Catholicism and Circular Reasoning: Take Two

[Perplexity]

Sarpedon:

I:

My argument doesn’t say that the DOF “is the only basis for arguments” nor does this premise say that if a Catholic wants to show the papacy to be member of the DOF, and must appeal to the DOF in order to do so, then s/he reasons circularly. Neither am I claiming “support for the papacy” must be based on the DOF, rather I’m saying “support for the papacy being a member of the DOF” must make some appeal to the DOF. Your argument (Aquinas’) doesn’t say anything about the papacy being a member of the DOF and therefore doesn’t need to appeal to the DOF.

The idea here is that denying #2 is like saying you can show the King of Spades is within a particular deck of 52 cards without appealing to the deck itself. I don’t think Catholicism is opposed to #2, or that #2 says Catholics beg the question here.

II:

You said a good God wouldn’t deceive, and you conceded that the Christian God will deceive. Therefore, either the first claim is false or the second one is. Both cannot be.

You may reformulate the first to say “A good God wouldn’t deceive…unless it desires to and would act justly in doing so.” However, this would mean the previous argument has been defeated, and that you’d have to offer further reason to accept the new formulation.

So the question I’ll post to you is this:

Are you inferring that a good God would deceive justly in some cases from our general knowledge of the nature of a good God, or from the fact that the Christian God will deceive? If the former, how so? If the latter, then non-Christians shouldn’t accept your argument.

III:

You reject religious experiences as viable candidates for God’s communication because of their subject nature but provide no reason for why their subjective nature renders them unlikely candidates. For me, (and many, many others), your reasoning here is far from obvious, and religious experiences seem like prime candidates for God’s communication. For no being besides God can elicit the highest magnitude of certainty in humans, nor can any non-God being guarantee the veracity of a claim like God itself can. What better way for God to communicate in a way which guarantees no deceit or misunderstanding than for God itself to communicate with an individual? I think the ‘religion hypothesis’ is very unlikely given God’s nature, and seems ad hoc.

Philosophy of Religion is booming right now. Arguments for and against God are constantly being proposed every year. Most of these theist arguments (if not all) come from non-Aristotelian, non-Thomist philosophers. I’m not doggin Thomism or Aristotelianism, but, I agree with Theist philosopher of religion, Richard Swinburne’s analysis:

“There have been many versions of the cosmological argument given over the past two-and-a-half millennia; the most quoted are the second and third of Aquinas’s five ways to show the existence of God. However, Aquinas’s ‘five ways’, or rather the first four of his five ways, seem to me to be one of his least successful pieces of philosophy.” - Swinburne, Richard. The Existence of God. 2nd ed. Oxford: Clarendon, 2004. pp. 135-36. Swinburne is a Christian philosopher and an Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oxford, being professionally involved in Natural Theology for half a century.

I obviously think the 5th way is just as unsuccessful.

I’ll address the First Way in the next post.

Follow this link to see one of my arguments that some Catholic teachings are inconsistent.

 

[levinas12]

I apologize for going off the tracks …

but your notion of epistemic circularity has reminded me of so many other circles …

starting with Parmenides who says we can never escape the “Same” …

and then there’s Odysseus who left home in order to return home (all of which is replicated in every baseball game) …

the movement of the heavens in Greek astronomy (down to Ptolemy) … and then with some “modifications”, Galileo,etc … and with some more “modifications”, in the 20th century, the curvature of space and the loops of string theory …

Hegel’s Absolute Spirit who goes full circle to “come back to itself” in Absolute Self-Consciousness …

Heidegger’s hermeneutic circle (if only we can find the right way to enter it) …

Spengler’s cycles (and Yeats’ gyres) …

And even logic itself … now considered to be one massive tautology (like the snake in the Laocoon) …

Finally, on the theological front, Jesus moves in a big circle … from heaven to earth, and back to heaven again, attracting all of creation back to the Father …

 

[Perplexity]

I’ll actually be addressing the First and the Second ways since they share a common problem which serves to defeat them.

Aquinas makes the same fatal error in both arguments:

First Way

“But this cannot go on to infinity, because then there would be no first mover, and, consequently, no other mover; seeing that subsequent movers move only inasmuch as they are put in motion by the first mover; as the staff moves only because it is put in motion by the hand.”

Second Way

“Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go on to infinity, because in all efficient causes following in order, the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause, whether the intermediate cause be several, or only one.”

Objection:

“Unfortunately this argument is unsound. Although in a finite ordered series of causes the intermediate (or the earliest intermediate) is caused by the first item, this would not be so if there were an infinite series. In an infinite series, every item is caused by an earlier item. The way in which the first item is ‘removed’ if we go from a finite to an infinite series does not entail the removal of the later items. In fact, Aquinas (both here and in the first way) has simply begged the question against an infinite regress of causes.” - Mackie, J. L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. p. 90

Also, Aquinas’ arguments aren’t logically valid. Of course, through some reconstructive surgery you can formulate them validly, but only by adding to them, which leads me to my next point.

As Fergus Kerr [1] notes in After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism, the five ways have many different powerful and persuasive interpretations. He notes, frequently, that the neo-thomist’s have introduced new readings of the arguments utilizing metaphysical principles. This is contrasted by the French interpretation heralded by theologians like the Jesuits Marcel Chossat (1862–1926) and Henri de Lubac (1896-1991). The prestigious Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique describes this position clearly:

“As for the argument of the prime mover such as Saint Thomas understood it, it is a long time since it has been taught, even in the Thomist camp. . . If the argument is taken in the sense in which Saint Thomas borrowed it historically from the Arabs, it is not conclusive, and the criticism offered by Scotus is decisive . . . The Neo-Thomists, by adverting to metaphysical considerations . . . actually abandon the physical argument of the prime mover, just as do all the other members of the Thomistic school . . . [The argument has only] survived in the ranks of Protestant scholasticism, among certain philosophers and well-intentioned apologists’.” [2]

Here’s an example of a neo-Thomist attempt to defend Aquinas’ arguments, this one by appeal to the PSR, or principle of sufficient reason:

“There are two reasons why St. Thomas rejects an infinite regress of caused causes, moved movers, or contingent beings, and neither of them has anything to do with an infinite regress into the past or a necessary beginning of the world’s existence. The first reason…is that so long as we adduce only caused causes to account for an effect, we do not account for it merely by increasing the number of these causes, even if we increase this number to infinity. Caused causes are themselves effects, and an increased number of them, instead of explaining what needs to be explained, only adds still more requiring explanation.” - Gerrity, Benignus. Nature, Knowledge and God; an Introduction to Thomistic Philosophy. Milwaukee: Bruce Pub., 1947. p. 486.

Of course, Thomas says nothing about a need for explanation…makes no plea to the PSR.

These are different arguments which require their own analysis. As far as Aquinas’ arguments go, though, they should not be accepted.

[1] Kerr, Fergus. After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Malden (Ma.): Blackwell, 2008.

[2] Dictionnaire de Théologie Catholique, vol. 4 (Paris: Letouzet et Ané, 1939): col. 932–5. As cited by Fergus Kerr, After Aquinas: Versions of Thomism. Malden (Ma.): Blackwell, 2008. p. 53.

 

[Perplexity]

Instead of answering this outright, I would ask you: How do you know anything? How do you know Aristotle existed? How do you know Russia exists? You’ve heard about these but not seen them first hand. You know through witnesses which means they existed historically. Using logic as you do cannot be reliable because it’s just a result of the neurons and your material brain telling you something that you think is true but may not be because, logically, there can’t be truth… In a naturalist world, you can’t know truth. After all, it’s just the evolution of your physical brain trying to convince other physical brains of your truth.

I’m not sure what this has to do with my argument, but it seems important to address:

Naturalism doesn’t preclude substance or property dualism. It only requires that all real things are either composed of or are ontically grounded in those ‘objects’ studied by the hypothetically complete empirical sciences. Nor does it require any theory of truth, although it precludes some. I’m an emergent dualist, so I don’t think our minds are physical. I’m not sure what theory of truth you’re presupposing here but I doubt it’s the same theory I hold to.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

…In an infinite series, every item is caused by an earlier item…

No series of ewes equals a lamb, no series of cars equals a factory, and no series of contingent beings equals a necessary being.

 

[levinas12]

Of course, Thomas says nothing about a need for explanation…makes no plea to the PSR.

You’ve done some very good research on this … but I’m not so sure that the PSR does not figure in Thomas’ original argument … there is a “vertical” aspect to the causes which sounds a bit like the PSR … what Aquinas assumes is that there is not an infinite number of simultaneous “vertical” causes … he has no philosophical problem with the eternity of the world … which would involve an infinite number of evanescent time units (no actual infinity) …

Macke may be projecting Cantor back into Aquinas …

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I’m not sure what this has to do with my argument, but it seems important to address:

Naturalism doesn’t preclude substance or property dualism. It only requires that all real things are either composed of or are ontically grounded in those ‘objects’ studied by the hypothetically complete empirical sciences. Nor does it require any theory of truth, although it precludes some. I’m an emergent dualist, so I don’t think our minds are physical. I’m not sure what theory of truth you’re presupposing here but I doubt it’s the same theory I hold to.

Empiricism is always a logical contradiction as Russell pointed out more than a hundred years ago. Science is an empirical method and not the philosophy of empiricism itself, the efficacy of science does not justify the acceptance of a logical contradiction as valid. As theory of knowledge, empiricism is irretrievably false. Its been dead since the 50’s.
**
Bertrand Russell:**
I will observe, however, that empiricism, as a theory of knowledge, is self-refuting. For, however it may be formulated, it must involve some general proposition about the dependence of knowledge upon experience; and that any such proposition, if true, must have as a consequence that itself cannot be known. While, therefore, empiricism may be true, it cannot, if true, be known to be so.

 

[Perplexity]

No series of ewes equals a lamb, no series of cars equals a factory, and no series of contingent beings equals a necessary being.

Why think because (x) is a non-empty set, then (x) is an object?

For example, suppose there is some irreducible physical ‘stuff’ out of which all ‘material’ things are composed of. Then, my body is composed of a finite number of these things. This finite amount of stuff forms a set. These ‘particles’ have pre-existed their current formulation which I call my ‘body’, perhaps in disparate ways. Regardless, these particular ‘particles’ have probably taken all sorts of forms. Why think each of this set’s formations is an object? Why not just regard it as a set?

 

[levinas12]

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.

Be careful about arguing that Catholicism is “irrational” … and not just because this is a Catholic forum … but because you may be opening a much larger topic … about the “rationality” of reason … I had mentioned on an earlier posting Russell’s paradox about sets which are members of themselves and sets which are not members of themselves … I don’t think this paradox has been adequately resolved … but there are a whole host of other set theoretic paradoxes and mathematical aporias … e.g., see the following:

plato.stanford.edu/entries/paradoxes-contemporary-logic/#DifInvOrdCarNum

Remember that Kant himself, one of the founding fathers of the Enlightenment, “dared” to “criticize” reason …

I am not saying that logic is not useful … and I’m not addressing whether your argument is formally valid … or whether your premises adequately reflect the Catholic “position” … I probably should be addressing all of this …

But it could be that you’ve opened Pandora’s box.

 

[Perplexity]

levinas: Thanks for the contributions. I enjoy your posts. I’ll have to chew on them a bit more before I respond though.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Why think because (x) is a non-empty set, then (x) is an object?

The empty set (x) is an object, thus all sets (x+1) are objects.

 

[Sarpedon]

My argument doesn’t say that the DOF “is the only basis for arguments” nor does this premise say that if a Catholic wants to show the papacy to be member of the DOF, and must appeal to the DOF in order to do so, then s/he reasons circularly. Neither am I claiming “support for the papacy” must be based on the DOF, rather I’m saying “support for the papacy being a member of the DOF” must make some appeal to the DOF. Your argument (Aquinas’) doesn’t say anything about the papacy being a member of the DOF and therefore doesn’t need to appeal to the DOF.

Are you admitting that since my and Aquinas’ argument don’t refer to the papacy as under the DOF, your argument therefore does not apply in this case? That’s exactly what I’m saying.

The idea here is that denying #2 is like saying you can show the King of Spades is within a particular deck of 52 cards without appealing to the deck itself. I don’t think Catholicism is opposed to #2, or that #2 says Catholics beg the question here.

That’s a faulty analogy because an individual card and a deck of cards are roughly equal epistemologically. The Magisterium is not to the DOF as a card is to deck. The Magisterium is the source and originator of the DOF. The same relationship does not exist between cards and deck- neither originates the other. A deck is only a set of cards, and it does not originate the cards in the first place.

A better analogy is this- the Magisterium is to the DOF and an artist is to his/her art. Obviously, we can talk about the artist without talking about the art.

Are you inferring that a good God would deceive justly in some cases from our general knowledge of the nature of a good God, or from the fact that the Christian God will deceive? If the former, how so? If the latter, then non-Christians shouldn’t accept your argument.

The is the former- I do not see why deceiving those who have already made a choice for sin is necessarily irrational. God’s nature results in Him being rationally good, but deception of those perishing in sin is not automatically evil. I think this ties in to Aristotle’s view of virtue and vice- vice obscures the capacity for knowledge of virtue. In this vein, once individuals are “perishing in sin” they have effectively lost the ability to rightly discern what is virtuous. One could even argue that God deceives these individuals in some way at these end times in order to keep them from doing something even worse to themselves.

For no being besides God can elicit the highest magnitude of certainty in humans, nor can any non-God being guarantee the veracity of a claim like God itself can. What better way for God to communicate in a way which guarantees no deceit or misunderstanding than for God itself to communicate with an individual? I think the ‘religion hypothesis’ is very unlikely given God’s nature, and seems ad hoc.

The problem, though, is that religious experiences are uneven. Not everyone receives subjective religious experiences, and you are a case in point. Therefore, it is irrational to think that God would use a method that doesn’t apply evenly across the board. This is why it makes sense for God to use a philosophical and codified framework like Catholicism as His medium- because the philosophy of Catholicism is available to all who have reason, which is the whole human race. As such, Catholicism is universally accessible and spans all limitations like race and class.

Furthermore, it is not necessary to engage in scholastic philosophy to access Catholicism. Not everyone can think that way, and St. Thomas acknowledges this. Catholicism is not limited to scholastic philosophy- you also have the mysticism, social work, theology, personal example, and personal experiences. All of these methods of knowing God are valid, while still subsisting under the rigorous doctrinal framework of the church. This flexibility in meeting people wherever they are is the key to the success of Catholicism, and why Catholicism works so well.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

Be careful about arguing that Catholicism is “irrational”… …

Since validity doesn’t say anything about the truth of an arguments premise’ or conclusions, I don’t see how he gets there. I think its a conclusion he would like to reach but not one that actually follows from the argument.

 

[Sarpedon]

Follow this link to see one of my arguments that some Catholic teachings are inconsistent.

Hence, so long as it is merely possible for someone to die in the state of original sin alone then it’s not necessary that every person be given the grace(s) necessary and sufficient for their justification. But if God desires the salvation of all men, then it is necessary that every person be given the grace(s) necessary and sufficient for their justification.

There are two levels here, the human and divine. Human beings do not deserve salvation because we have no naturally right to it- we did not create ourselves, and our existence is sustained by another. Therefore, human beings have no right to salvation. On this human level, it is indeed possible to die without receiving grace- because we are not owed grace.

On the divine level, however, God does desire the salvation of all humans, even though they do not deserve salvation. Because of this, God offers salvation to all. On this divine level, then, we can posit that graces are in fact given to everyone.

There is no contradiction here. On a human level, dying in original sin is very possible. On a divine level, it is not possible.* The first statement concerns the nature of man, and the second the act of God. Not only are two different subjects involved, but two different states- nature and act. Dying in original sin is possible by the nature of man, but not by the act of God.

*The Church has not definitively ruled on the fate of unbaptized infants, but speculation as to their extra sacramental salvation is permitted and theologians are encouraged to consider the question.

I have to go to work now so I’ll address the rest later, possibly not until tomorrow.

 

[jochoa]

(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]

Your arguments are valid as presented, however if the Word alone is not enough for acceptance and belief, the Catholic can use further research to understand the belief.
Many institutions have a single head authority responsible for understanding and interpreting its subject and dictating the direction and guidelines of the institution. Examples include a parent of a household, a head coach of a sports team, a president of a government, etc.
It is a universal principle that has been revealed by God and throughout history to be the Best method to achieve a goal as a team. ← Which is why the Universal Church employs it.

Arguments?

 

[Sarpedon]

“Unfortunately this argument is unsound. Although in a finite ordered series of causes the intermediate (or the earliest intermediate) is caused by the first item, this would not be so if there were an infinite series. In an infinite series, every item is caused by an earlier item. The way in which the first item is ‘removed’ if we go from a finite to an infinite series does not entail the removal of the later items. In fact, Aquinas (both here and in the first way) has simply begged the question against an infinite regress of causes.” - Mackie, J. L. The Miracle of Theism: Arguments for and against the Existence of God. Oxford: Clarendon, 1982. p. 90.

Aquinas spent a lot of time on this topic of regression. It’s a good deal more complicated than this source implies. I’m going to quote from Etienne Gilson’s book “The Christian Philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas.” Gilson and Jacques Maritian are probably the two most prominent Thomistic philosophers of the 20th century, so Gilson is eminently qualified to interpret his source. Any emphasis and brackets are mine. Gilson has endnotes for the things he says, and I can provide them if you are interested.

I should also point out that when Aquinas says “motion” he only means “movement from potency to actuality.” In other words, the motion from, say, being potentially hot to actually hot. This is metaphysical motion, not physical. Aquinas never means physical motion like dominoes falling down on each other.

To start, here is a basic summary of Aquinas’ approach to examining the question:

One can also note in the preceding demonstrations [of the first proof] the absence of any allusion to any beginning of motion in time. The proof does not consist in showing that present motion requires a prime cause in the past, which would be God. It aims simply at establishing that, in the actually given universe, the actually given motion is unintelligible without a first mover who, in the present, is the source of movement [of course, meaning potency to actuality] for all things. In other words, the impossibility of going back to infinity does not refer to an infinite regression in time, but in the present instant in which we are considering the world. We can put this in another way by saying that the structure of the proof would be the same if we admitted the hypothesis of the eternity of the world. St. Thomas knows this and explicitly says so.

If, however, we accept the Catholic dogma that the world and motion took their beginning in time, we are in a much more favorable position to demonstrate the existence of God. For if the world and motion had a beginning, the need for affirming a cause producing motion and the world becomes self-evident. Whenever something new occurs, there must be a cause for what is new, for nothing can of itself pass from potency into act or from non-being to being. Such a demonstration is relatively easy. The demonstration is not at all easy if we hypothetically concede the eternity of the world and of motion. Yet it is this kind of demonstration, difficult and obscure as it is, which St. Thomas has preferred to give. He held that to demonstrate the existence of God by the need of a creator to make motion and all things appear in time is not, from the strictly philosophical point of view, a convincing demonstration, because it cannot be proved by simple reason, as we shall see later on, that the world had a beginning. (64-5)

 

[Sarpedon]

In this proof [the first proof], two propositions must be established; first, that everything is moved by something else, and secondly, that we cannot go back to infinity in the series of movers and things moved.

Aristotle proves the first proposition by three arguments. [omitted for brevity, we can certainly discuss or examine this aspect]

It remains to prove our second proposition, namely, that it is impossible to go back to infinity in the series of movers and things moved. Here again we find Aristotle giving three reasons.

The first is as follows: If we go back to infinity is the series of movers and things moved, we must affirm that there is an infinite number of bodies, for whatever is moved is divisible, and consequently is a body. Now every body which moves something moved, is moved at the same time that it moves. Therefore this entire infinity of bodies which move because moved must move simultaneously when one of them moves. But since each one of them, taken by itself, is finite, it must move in finite time, therefore the infinity of bodies which must move at the same time it moves, must move in finite time. Now this is impossible. It is therefore impossible to go back to infinity in the series of movers and things moved.

Here Aristotle proves that it is impossible for an infinite number of bodies to move in finite time. What moves and what is moved must exist together, as can be demonstrated inductively by running through all the species of movement. But bodies can only exist together by continuity or by contiguity. Since, therefore, all these movers and things moved are necessarily bodies, they must for a single mobile whose parts are continuous or contiguous. Thus, something infinite is moved in a finite time.

The second reason proving the impossibility of infinite regression is this. When a series of movers and things moved are ordered, that is, when they form a series where each one moves the next, it is inevitable that, if the first mover disappeared or ceased to move, none of the rest would any longer be either a mover or moved. It is the first mover, indeed, which confers the power of moving on all the others. Now it we have an infinite series of movers and things moved, there will no longer be a first mover and all are intermediate movers. Therefore, if the action of the first mover is wanting, nothing will be moved and there will be no movement in the world.

 

[Sarpedon]

The third reason is the same as the preceding one, save that the order of the terms is reversed. We begin with the higher term and reason thus. The instrumental moving cause can only move if there exists some principal moving cause. But if we go back to infinity in the series of movers and things moved, all will be at the same time mover and moved. There will therefore only be instrumental moving causes, and, since there will be no principal moving cause, there will be no movement in the world.

The same conclusion can be established indirectly, that is by establishing that the proposition “whatever moves is moved” is true neither by accident nor by itself. If indeed whatever moves is moved, and if this proposition is true by accident, then it is not necessary. It is therefore possible that none of all the things that move is moved. But the adversary himself that admitted that what is not moved does not move: if therefore it is possible that nothing is moved, it is possible that nothing moves and that, consequently, there may be no motion. Now Aristotle holds that it is impossible that at any moment whatsoever there be no motion. Our point of departure is, accordingly, unacceptable. Consequently, the proposition “whatever moves is moved by another” is not true by accident.

The same conclusion can again be demonstrated by an appeal to experience. If two properties are accidentally joined in a subject, and if we can find one of them without the other, it is probable that we can also find the second without the first. For example, if we find white and musician in Socrates and Plato, and if we can find musician without white, it is probable that we could also find white without musician. If, then, the properties mover and moved are accidentally joined in some subject, and if we find somewhere the property of being moved without the property of mover, it is probable that we could find a mover which is not moved.

The proposition “whatever moves is moved” is not therefore true by accident. It is true by itself? If it is true by itself, there arises still an impossibility. Whatever moves can either receive a movement of the same kind as it gives or of a different kind. It if it a movement of the same sort, then it follows that whatever causes alteration will be altered, whatever heals will be healed, whatever instructs will be instructed and this under the same relation and according to the same science. But this is impossible, for if he who instructs must be in possession of the science, it is equally necessary that he who learns this science not be in possession of it. If, on the other hand, it is a question of a motion that is not of the same species, so that what imparts a motion of alteration receives a local motion, and what moved according to place receives a motion of increase, and so on, the result will be, since the genera and species of movement are in finite number, that it will be impossible to proceed to infinity. Thus there will be a first mover that is not moved by another.

We may say, perhaps, that after having run through all the genera and all the species of movement, we must return to the first genus and close the circle. Thus, if what imparts local motion is altered, and if what causes alteration is increased, then what gives increase will in its turn be moved locally. But we would always come to the same conclusion. What moves according to a given species of movement would be moved according to the same species. The only difference is that it would be moved mediately rather than immediately. In both cases, the same impossibility forces us to affirm a first mover whom nothing exterior causes to move.

(pgs 60-63 for this whole set)

 

[Perplexity]

Are you admitting that since my and Aquinas’ argument don’t refer to the papacy as under the DOF, your argument therefore does not apply in this case? That’s exactly what I’m saying.

Yes, exactly. I think your/Aquinas’ arguments can be defeated evidentially; but, strictly speaking it’s not an objection to my argument.

That’s a faulty analogy because an individual card and a deck of cards are roughly equal epistemologically. The Magisterium is not to the DOF as a card is to deck. The Magisterium is the source and originator of the DOF. The same relationship does not exist between cards and deck- neither originates the other. A deck is only a set of cards, and it does not originate the cards in the first place.

A better analogy is this- the Magisterium is to the DOF and an artist is to his/her art. Obviously, we can talk about the artist without talking about the art.

We’re not speaking about the magisterium though, but the papacy.

"And this infallibility which the Divine Redeemer willed his Church to be endowed in defining doctrine of faith and morals, extends as far as the deposit of Revelation extends, which must be religiously guarded and faithfully expounded. - Lumen Gentium, n. 25.

“For the Holy Spirit was not promised to Peter and his successors so that by His revelations they might propose new doctrine but that by his assistance they might jealously guard and faithfully explain the revelation or deposit of the faith handed down by the apostles.” - Vatican Council, De Ecclesia, chap. 4.

So if the magisterium defines anything infallibly, that thing must be contained within the DOF.

The magisterium has defined the papacy infallibly.

Therefore, the papacy must be a member of the DOF.

The is the former- I do not see why deceiving those who have already made a choice for sin is necessarily irrational. God’s nature results in Him being rationally good, but deception of those perishing in sin is not automatically evil. I think this ties in to Aristotle’s view of virtue and vice- vice obscures the capacity for knowledge of virtue. In this vein, once individuals are “perishing in sin” they have effectively lost the ability to rightly discern what is virtuous. One could even argue that God deceives these individuals in some way at these end times in order to keep them from doing something even worse to themselves.

Ok, I’m down with this But, that’s why I said if we grant that ‘God wouldn’t deceive’ tout court, we’d have to reject the God of Christianity.

The problem, though, is that religious experiences are uneven. Not everyone receives subjective religious experiences, and you are a case in point. Therefore, it is irrational to think that God would use a method that doesn’t apply evenly across the board. This is why it makes sense for God to use a philosophical and codified framework like Catholicism as His medium- because the philosophy of Catholicism is available to all who have reason, which is the whole human race. As such, Catholicism is universally accessible and spans all limitations like race and class.

“it is irrational to think that God would use a method that doesn’t apply evenly across the board.”

So, if religious experience aren’t a method which apply evenly across the board because not everyone has one, then Catholicism doesn’t/didn’t apply evenly across the board, at least, at the inception of Catholicism, when it was inaccessible to most of humanity. To be consistent with your principle here is for atheism to win the debate; because, there is no alleged communication of God which can meet that criteria.

You can claim that no one dies without encountering God in some relevant sense so Catholicism does have some kind of universal extension. But, then I don’t see why we can’t say everyone will have a religious experience before they die and therefore RE’s have universal extension.

 

[Perplexity]

I. “If we go back to infinity is the series of movers and things moved, we must affirm that there is an infinite number of bodies…”

This is a red herring and should be rejected. No one is saying there are an actually infinite number of bodies all instantiated within finite time now, only a potentially infinite amount. That is, at no time t is there an infinite amount of bodies within finite time.

II. Is a notorious misunderstanding of infinity.

To say the amount of bodies regress infinitely is to say their regress had no beginning—not a beginning infinitely remote. That is, there is no first cause in an infinitely regressing series of bodies. He’s looking at this like a number line in which we start at the number 1 at the far left and continue from that point rightwards, infinitely. But, no one advocating the possibility of an infinite regress is gonna grant this. i.e., there is no beginning to this number line.

III. Seems to be exactly what Mackie is objecting to.

This is only true if there is no infinite regress. On an infinite regress there is no ominous principle moving cause.

IV. 1. If whatever moves is moved and God moves, then God is moved. 2. Whatever moves is moved. 3. God moves. 4. Therefore, God is moved.

“Thus there will be a first mover that is not moved by another” is inconsistent with your starting point. Now, you can change it to say ‘Almost all things which move are moved’ so as to exclude God, but then you can’t reach your conclusion.

Perhaps most importantly though, almost all of these bank on Aristotelian philosophy, something a lot of folks entertaining this argument aren’t gonna agree with. For instance…the idea of movement [the reduction of potency to act]. Nowadays we have 4 dimmensionalism and temporal parts theory to account for change.