Thoughts on Infallibility (Part I): Preliminary Logic and Syllogisms

Introduction

The disputes between the Catholics and the Protestants often come down to a dispute on the claim that the Church teaches authoritatively in a binding manner which can be free of error. This article deals with logic and syllogisms which express these things.

I do not claim these syllogisms are the only ones. Rather this is my own take on the topic.

I start with logic, rather than Scripture, not because I think Logic is greater than Scripture, but because before we look at Scripture we need to be aware of certain assumptions which people hold uncritically and see if it is reasonable to hold them.

This will be multi-post, but the posts will not necessarily come one after the other

Preliminary Notes

1. This article is not meant to address all issues of infallibility. Nor is it intended to prove it to the non-Christian audience. Rather it presumes the reader accepts the existence of God (for a reader who does not accept the existence of the Triune God is therefore not a Christian). It intends to look at the Christian dispute over whether or not God can grant His Church the ability to teach without error in certain circumstances.
2. Obviously if one does not believe in God, it follows he or she won’t believe God can make His Church infallible either, so it's a moot point for the unbeliever to begin with.
3. These are my own thoughts on the subject, and not the official teaching of the Church on infallibility.  So if you find some point of disagreement, don't go announcing how you "disproved the Church teaching."

Non Christians are of course welcome to read this, but please spare me the “you didn’t prove God exists!” comments. Christians don’t need to prove God exists before discussing theological issues among themselves any more than physicists have to prove the existence of matter before starting work on a scientific project… it’s an essential premise. (No recognition of the existence of God as a precondition, no discussion of Christianity. No recognition of the existence of Matter as a premise, no discussion of Physics)

Definitions

There are some terms which need to be defined.  These definitions come from the OED (no, I didn't alphabetize them.  Windows Live Writer can be a pain in this way):

• Infallible: incapable of making mistakes or being wrong.
• Fallible: capable of making mistakes or being wrong.
• Inerrant: incapable of being wrong.
• Personal: of, affecting, or belonging to a particular person.
• Inspired: fill with the urge or ability to do or feel something
• Interpret: explain the meaning of (words, actions, etc.)
• Error: a mistake, the state of being wrong in conduct or judgment.
• Literal: taking words in their usual or most basic sense; not figurative
• Symbol: a thing that represents or stands for something else, especially a material object representing something abstract.
• Plain: easy to perceive or understand; clear
• Sense: a way in which an expression or situation can be interpreted; a meaning.
• Contradictory: Logic (of two propositions) so related that one and only one must be true.
• Contrary: Logic (of two propositions) so related that one or neither but not both must be true.
• Syllogism: a form of reasoning in which a conclusion is drawn from two given or assumed propositions (premises); a common or middle term is present in the two premises but not in the conclusion
• Essential: central to the nature of something; fundamental
• Arbiter: a person who settles a dispute.

Now these terms can have deeper meanings in the theological sense, but these at least give a basic understanding of the terms

The first set of syllogisms:

Because we Believe God protected the writers of the books of Scripture from error, we must recognize that God protected the Church from decreeing error when it proclaimed what was contained in Scripture.

This set of syllogisms (#1-4) assumes that Christians believe in the authority of Scripture (again, the denial of this makes one a heretic at the very least). Because Christians believe God is all powerful and He made scripture inerrant, these are elements of common ground we share even if we disagree on other issues. So let’s use this as a starting point.

Syllogism #1

1. For [something to be unable to err], it must be [all knowing and all powerful] (All [A] is [B])
2. [God] is [all knowing and all powerful] (All[C] is [B])
3. Therefore [God] is [unable to err] (Therefore All [C] is [A])

A Christian which denies this is seriously deficient in their faith.

If God is not all knowing, there can be things He does not know and thus can err. If God is not all powerful, there can be things He cannot access and thus He can again err (also known as inerrancy).  Now we accept that God is all powerful and all knowing and is this inerrant.  How does humanity fit into this?  Let us move on to the second syllogism.

Syllogism #2

1. [Inerrancy] requires being [all knowing and all powerful] (All [A] is [B])
2. [Man] is not [all knowing and all powerful.] (No [C] is [B])
3. Therefore [man] is not [inerrant]. (Therefore no [C] is [A])

This is important to remember here. No man can claim to be free of error on his own, because man is not free from error. So a person who claims to be unable to err must either get his ability from a greater [all knowing and all powerful] being or else be lying or deceived.

Syllogism #3

1. Christians believe that the [Bible] was [inerrant] (All [B] is [A])
2. The [Bible] is something [written by man] (Some [C] is [B])
3. Therefore Christians believe something [written by man] can be [inerrant] (Therefore Some [C] is [A])

However, since we already went through the fact that man is not inerrant, it follows that for something created by a man to be inerrant, the ability to be inerrant has to come from a being which is inerrant (which Christians call God), and is not independent of God.

With this done, we need to take a brief look at the history of the canon of Scripture.

Logic and History

We need to start with the Christian recognition that the Bible neither contains books that were not inspired, nor excludes books that were inspired. So if we are to say the Bible is complete and inerrant, it means that nothing within the Bible is present wrongly and nothing is excluded wrongly from the Bible.

However, there were disputes in the past. Not over everything of course. The Gospels, the Epistles of Paul, 1 John and 1 Peter were all generally recognized by faithful Christians. However, some thought that Hebrews, James, 2+3 John, Jude and Revelation were inspired and some rejected this. The decision was made by the Church in the 4^th century was considered to have settled the matter.

Now, remember that if the Bible is to be considered inerrant as a whole and in its parts, the decision had to have been protected from error. Otherwise we could not know the Bible was inerrant as a whole and in its parts.

Since the list of books approved for the Bible was composed in the late 4^th century AD, and recalling that it takes a being that is [all knowing and all powerful] to make something inerrant, we can’t say that God was only involved in making something inerrant at the time of composition of Scripture.

Remember if the list of Scripture is not inerrant, we cannot know whether or not the books in the Bible belong there. If we can’t know if the books within the Bible belong there, we can’t know it is unable to err. Therefore if we believe the Bible is inerrant, we must accept that the list of books in Scripture is inerrant.

So that brings us to syllogism #4 which will continue to advance the issue.

Syllogism #4

1. The Church [decreed] [the list of scripture] (A is part of B)
2. 2. This [list of scripture] is [inerrant] (B is part of C)
3. 3. Therefore the Church [decreed] something [inerrant] (Therefore A is part of C)

We then must recognize that the Church was free of error at least once, and that the cause of infallibility is God then we need to recognize that God can will the Church to be free of error in certain types of teachings.

Now of course, we haven’t yet reached the concept of establishing the Church is infallible as she claims, but we have demonstrated with logic that the Church can be protected from error by God when it teaches something essential for salvation (in this case declaring what makes up the Bible).

Those who wish to claim the Church was only inerrant here and not elsewhere need to establish their point just as Catholics need to establish that the Church was kept free of error more than once.

The Second set of Syllogisms: On the need for a single arbiter of Scripture

Some argue that “Scripture must be interpreted by Scripture” and appeal to the “plain sense of scripture.” The problem is that some appeals to these issues lead to contradictory readings of Scripture.

In theological terms this expression is used traditionally to refer to the “literal” or supposedly “plain” sense of Scripture, which holds that the biblical texts need not be studied and interpreted, but rather simply applied and followed. So theoretically, if you and I both read a passage, we should get a meaning which is similar

(Let me remind the reader, that when things are contradictory, only one of them can be true: “It is either white or not white”. When things are contrary, they can’t both be true but both can be wrong: “It is either black or white” is wrong if it is orange)

Since the personal interpretation of Scripture often contradicts or is contrary, we can make the following syllogisms:

Syllogism #5

1. [Plain sense] of Scripture is something which is [apparent to all]
2. Some [Readings] of Scripture are not [apparent to all]
3. Therefore Some [readings] are not [plain sense] of Scripture

So here is the problem. When two people interpret Scripture in a way which is contrary or contradictory, they can’t both be right (and if the reading is “contrary” both could be wrong). So who is authoritative to determine who is right and wrong when it comes to the reading of Scripture?

This isn’t merely a sense of Catholic vs. Protestant or Protestant vs. Protestant. We have had in history things like Trinitarian vs. Arian, Trinitarian vs. Nestorian, Trinitarian vs. Modalist, and so on. In all of these cases, the heresies appealed to Scripture in order to claim that the Church was in error when teaching in favor of the Triune God.

So we can see that there is a problem with the personal reading of Scripture: the person who reads Scripture with an error in what he or she believes about God can, as a result, read Scripture wrongly if their interpretation is wrong.

So let’s look at Syllogism #6:

Syllogism #6

1. Every [Personal Interpretation] is [Individual] (All A is B)
2. All [Individuals] [can err](All B is C)
3. Therefore [Personal interpretation] [can err](Therefore all A is C)

[Edited to fix a fallacy of the undistributed middle which slipped by me]

Since we believe God is truth, and truth does not contradict truth, it follows that whatever God inspires will not contradict other things He inspires. Thus as Christians we reject Islam as contradicting what was revealed about Jesus. We don’t believe that the Old Testament contradicts the New Testament however.

“The Holy Spirit inspired this interpretation” is the common explanation for the individual who believes in "the Bible alone." Now we know that, in many cases, both sides in a dispute can claim that their personal interpretation is inspired, and both may even believe it, but they hold contrary positions and it is possible both are wrong, and we know both can’t be right.

This then is the problem with the claim that personal interpretation is inspired by the Holy Spirit.  Things which are contradictory cannot be true in the same sense at the same time. Yet we have several differences based on the personal interpretation of Scripture. Such differences can be based on:

• Understanding of differing languages
• Understanding of historical context
• Understanding of genre
• Understanding of ways of expression

Others exist. However, the personal interpretation of a “KJV only” person who reads literalistically will be different from a person who is aware of these differences. (It often happens that the “inspired” personal reading is actually the fallible personal understanding of the individual, who thinks that because it makes sense, it must be inspired without concern for context)

Since contrary and contradictory interpretations of Scripture cannot both be true, it seems to follow that we need some sort of authority which is protected from error when teaching about that which pertains to salvation and can determine which interpretations are false and which are right.

So let’s add a seventh syllogism to our list:

Syllogism #7

1. Things [Inspired by the Holy Spirit] are not [contradictory] (No [A] is [B])
2. Some [Personal Interpretation] is [contradictory] (Some [C] is [B])
3. Therefore some [Personal Interpretation] is not [Inspired by the Holy Spirit] (Therefore some [C] is not [A])

(You can also use the same syllogism with "contrary" since it is possible for both options to be wrong, while Christians believe that the Holy Spirit does not err)

So we know some personal interpretation may be right, but do not know which ones are.  This, by itself, means we are in the same situation as having an inerrant Bible and not knowing what books belong within the Bible: If we can’t know which books go in it, how can we know if it is inerrant. Likewise, if we can’t know whose personal interpretation is inspired, how can we know whether an interpretation is true or not?

In other words, if you have an inerrant Bible and an interpreter who can err, the Biblical Interpretation can err. This would strip the Bible of being authoritative to us. We can use an analogy of a person starving, and the food being on the other side of a fence which we cannot reach through or climb over to benefit from the food. Likewise, if we can’t have a definitive source on who decides which is true and which is not, we can’t ever know if an interpretation is true or not, and we cannot benefit from the truth.

Conclusion

So from these two sets of syllogisms, we can see certain things emerge:

• We have an example of the Church being protected from error in one instance of defining a truth necessary for salvation.
• Since personal interpretations and appeals to a plain sense are contradictory or be contrary, we cannot appeal to these in a general sense to being inerrant.
• In order to know whether an interpretation of the Bible is true or not, we need an authority which can make an inerrant decision as to whether an interpretation is correct or not.

We need to keep these things in mind when we approach the next few articles: On Scripture, History and what the Church claims about herself.

Morality Immaterial to Law? Thoughts on Legal Positivism

Introduction

Generally there are two approaches to law and the authority it holds:

1.   Law supposes the existence of that which is just and morally right, and depends on this to bind.

2.   Law is based on the power of the state to decree, and those who are subject are bound to obey.

With recent debates on abortion, on the nomination of Kagan to the Supreme Court and other issues of Law, I've noticed that there has been a number of comments (whether knowingly or not) which reflect the position known as Legal Positivism.  Certain laws are considered as being obligatory to obey whether or not one would argue that they are just or not.

What is Legal Positivism?

This position, attributed to John Austin (1790-1859), was described as:

“The existence of law is one thing; its merit and demerit another. Whether it be or be not is one enquiry; whether it be or be not conformable to an assumed standard, is a different enquiry.”

In other words, whether a law is or is not a law is entirely a separate question from whether a law is good or bad.  The only source of law is "positive law" which is simply "man made laws" and denies the concept of Natural Law.

The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy describes the premises of this system as:

According to Bentham and Austin, law is a phenomenon of large societies with a sovereign: a determinate person or group who have supreme and absolute de facto power -- they are obeyed by all or most others but do not themselves similarly obey anyone else. The laws in that society are a subset of the sovereign's commands: general orders that apply to classes of actions and people and that are backed up by threat of force or “sanction.”

It is a dangerous belief.  If you separate law from the legitimacy of said law, you can, in effect, justify anything: Sharia, Nuremburg Racial Laws, Slavery and so on.  Obedience to the law becomes required, because government is the authority which determines what we can and cannot do, and opposing a law on the grounds it is unjust becomes irrelevant.  "Abortion is to be permitted because it is legal" is one of these types of allegations.  Because the Supreme Court decreed that abortion is a right, it is considered immaterial whether or not it should be a law.

Of course we don’t have to invoke the Nazis.  We can look at what we do in America.  For how many years did the government refuse to change laws on lynching or slavery or segregation?

Stare decisis: What’s mine is mine.  What’s yours is up for grabs

We already have the legal concept of Stare decisis (Lat. "to stand by that which is decided." The principle that precedent decisions are to be followed by the courts).  The problem is the assumption is based on the assumption that the prior interpretation of the law by the court is valid.  See Planned Parenthood v. Casey as an example of this.  It assumes Roe v. Wade was a valid decision, and therefore must be followed. 

Such reasoning begs the question that Roe v. Wade was right (which is very much disputed in America).  Before arguing that because it was decreed a right we cannot challenge it (which is often the appeal of the supporters of abortion rights), we should remember the Dred Scott ruling and Plessy vs. Ferguson were also assumed right and later overturned.  Essentially it showed that merely because something was accepted as a law, does not make it binding on these grounds, and that the courts can make mistakes.

However, under Legal Positivism, If it wasn't a valid or wise decision, then it is too bad.  It's a law and must be obeyed.

What Legal Positivism Ignores (and Martin Luther King Jr. was aware of)

The problem is, when one traces the origin of the law, the question arises: Why was it enacted to begin with?  If an unjust law was enacted in the beginning, why are we bound to follow it?

Legal Positivism is then a sense of begging the question.  The concept is: we must obey a law because it is a law.  The so-called Nuremberg Defense ("I was just following orders") assumes legal positivism.  [This is sometimes called the defense of Superior Orders].

Any change of laws becomes binding under this theory so long as the law is followed in the enactment of these laws.  Thus we see a problem.  If the justness or unjustness of a law is irrelevant to the following of the law, then we cannot sanction people like Martin Luther King Jr. when he organized against laws he felt unjust.  Nor can we approve of his defense, given in Letter from a Birmingham Jail, where he stated:

You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court's decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: "How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?" The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that "an unjust law is no law at all."

Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority.

Instead, "Bull" O'Connor using his police dogs and fire hoses to break up demonstrations was merely undertaking an exercise in upholding the law.

(Hopefully, you’re instead asking yourself what gave the state the right to pass this law to begin with).

The Double Standard

Most people don't consistently advocate Legal Positivism of course.  Only when they run afoul of the law does it matter.  When one believes a law is unjust they generally want to overturn it, claiming it is an immoral and unjust law.  However, under Legal Positivism, one has no legal basis for doing so.  The best one can do is to say "if you don't like it, vote to change the law."  If the law comes from a source from where there is no appeal (the US Supreme Court decisions or from a totalitarian decree), or if the state has disenfranchised you from the right to vote, there is nothing you can do to change said law.

The practical effect of Legal positivism in America is a double standard.  When a party is in power, they point to a law and say "It must be followed because it is a law."  When out of power, they say "This law is unjust and must be changed."  What is ignored is what gives a law its power.  If it is the state, then it follows that rights and restrictions come from the state because of the assumption that law must be obeyed because it is law.  However, if the rights of the human person do not come from the state, then they cannot be removed by a decree of the state.

Thus we have the abortion debate in a nutshell.  Those who believe in abortion rights tend to argue from the position of legal positivism, while those who oppose abortion rights tend to argue that the rights of the human person come from outside the state, and the state has no authority to remove human rights from any human persons.

Conclusion: When Law and Justice Stand In Opposition

Any opposition to a law which says “This is wrong” is a judgment on moral grounds.  Such opposition assumes there is a higher standard to which law must conform if it is to be considered binding.  Generally, we believe that a law must be just (morally right and fair to all) to be obeyed. 

This means we have to practice what we preach.  If one claims that they have to accept abortion as a right because the state has decreed it to be a right, it is a package deal meaning there is no way to refuse anything else the state wishes to decree.  On the other hand, if we want to invoke a higher standard for judging the law, we must remain consistent and recognize such a standard always holds us accountable for our behavior.

In both cases, it falls to the proponent to show that their view of the law is justified.  Unfortunately, all too often we see people deny (without logical proof) that there are moral absolutes outside of us and then conclude the contrary view is true: that there is no moral standards by which the law is judged.

Not believing [A] does not disprove [A].  Nor does it make [B] automatically true.

Thought for the Day: Why We Should Oppose the idea of Rights Being from the State

On another site, there was a debate on abortion, and an individual claimed that there are no intrinsic rights, only rights provided by the state.  Therefore the state could legalize abortion because the unborn was not a human person.

Interesting… but terrifying.  Why?

Because under this kind of reasoning we would see…

1. In Nazi Germany the right to exterminate "lesser peoples" would have been allowable… after all, they decided Jews and Slavs were non-persons, and rights come from the state.
2. In the South, Bull Connor would have done no wrong in enforcing segregation laws, as the State Government considered they had no rights
3. Apartheid in South Africa would not have been wrong because the government decided non-whites had no rights
4. There would be nothing wrong with Medieval Spain oppressing Jews and Muslims with the Inquisition, as the government decided they had no rights.
5. The Bill of Attainder (punish a person by decree of law without trial) would be legal… because it is the government law [This is forbidden by the Constitution of the United States btw, but was legal in England in that era]
6. The overthrow of the Constitution and the imposition of Sharia Law would be permissible as the state provides the rights.

I could list many other examples, but this idea is a dangerous one and ought to be opposed.  Most people would recognize that the above examples did or could happen, and they are generally viewed with revulsion.  Yet the key to these barbaric examples is the idea that rights are from the government, and not from any other source.

Thus there is nothing good about being democratic and nothing bad about being totalitarian if we accept this standard.  Merely that some governments would be more careful with rights and others would be more free with them.  However, if we accept that rights merely come from the government, then there is nothing to appeal to if we don't like a totalitarian government.

I think I will close this with a quote of Benito Mussolini:

Everything I have said and done is these last years is relativism, by intuition. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, that all ideologies are mere fictions, the modern relativist infers that everybody has the right to create for himself his own ideology, and to attempt to enforce it with all the energy of which he is capable. If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories, and men who claim to be the bearers of an objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than fascism. (From his essay Diuturna)

—Benito Mussolini

If there are no absolutes, no moral norms… if the state decides what is a right and what is not, then there is no basis to complain when a government does things we would call unjust.

It is only when one accepts the moral absolutes which those who oppose abortion invoke that there is a basis to opposing the examples of injustice given.

Reflections on the Fallacy of Bifurcation

There is an unfortunately common fallacy out there which is known as the fallacy of bifurcation.  Essentially, this fallacy demands a choice between two options (Either [A] or [B]) but fails to consider that more options than these can exist.  So long as any other option could exist, one can't accept this premise as valid.  So long as the premise lists fewer options than actually exist, it is a fallacy to claim choices are limited to the ones limited.

Contraries and Contradictaries

With Contradictory positions, if one is true, the other must necessarily be false.  With contrary positions, both can be false in the sense that there can be an option not considered.

Now of course, some premises are mutually exclusive: "Either some sort of divine [Exists] or [Does not exist]," for example is mutually exclusive, and thus the statement is concerning two contradictory positions.  If there is some sort of divine, the claim there is none is false.  "The unborn is either [a person] or is [not a person]," is another sort of mutually exclusive proposition.  If it is not a person, then what is it?

A Contrary position can have two statements which disagree, but other options exist, such as, "Either the [Muslim concept of Allah] is true or [there is no God]" (if God exists and is not what Muslims believe about Him, this is an alternate to atheism)

Violating the Law of Non-Contradiction

Thus an Either-Or argument can only be accurate if it involves contradictory statements which allows no other possibility.  A thing cannot be and not be at the same time and in the same way.  So if a thing is a triangle, it cannot be a circle, because a circle has no sides and no angles, while a triangle has both.  However, if I say "all shapes are either triangles or circles," I overlook the possibility of squares, rectangles, ovals, parallelograms, blobs and many other options.

Conclusion

Thus, when we see those sorts of challenges where a person says "Either [A] or [B]" we need to remember that it is only true if [A] and [B] are the only options.  If Option [C] is available, this "Either-or" ignores reality.  Therefore before accepting the choice, one has to ask whether other options exist.

Thus arguments like "If [you are good], God will [Reward you with prosperity]" or "If [God exists], let Him [Strike me down for insulting Him]" or "If the Church [Doesn't support Traditionalists] it [supports Modernists]" are all guilty of the fallacy of bifurcation.  All of them ignore the potential of another option which would make the argument invalid.

Fallible Collection of Infallible Scripture? Reflections on an Assertion of Sproul

Read more »

On Obedience and Dissent Within the Catholic Church (Part II)

Read more »

Thought for the Day: Trolls

I really wonder what trolls hope to accomplish when they post links to anti-Catholic articles in the comments for the blog.  If it's to sway me, I'd say it fails completely. The link leads to a blog which sounded like completely irrational hatred filled with four letter words, spewing venom at the leaders of the Church.  If it was intended to intimidate me or cause me to lose hope it also failed.  If this is the best the individual can argue, its hardly worth bothering with.

The only sense I can make of it is that the author holds an irrational hatred for certain things and feels the need to attack people who defends what the author hates and slanders.

Just remember if the author sounds like Todd Unctuous… or worse, makes him sound reasonable compared to the author, the author isn't doing their faction much good.