Papal Bull: The Ineffability of Infallibility

If the first duty of a philosopher is to write well, the traditionalist Catholic Edward Feser (born 1968) is a very dutiful man, as any visit to his erudite and interesting blog will reveal. But if the first duty of a philosopher is to reason well, Feser (pronounced “Fazer”) has abdicated his duty on two very important topics. Or so I shall try to argue here at TOO.

Elephants in the room

The first topic, which I’ll address in the current essay, is that of infallibility, the divinely bestowed ability of Popes and church councils to avoid all error when proclaiming truths of the Christian faith under certain carefully specified conditions. The second topic, which I’ll address in a later essay, is that of the relationship between Jews and Christendom — or between Jews and Western civilization, as a secularist might put it. These two topics are epistemological elephants in the room of Feser’s scholarship: very large, very important, but also very neglected.

It’s perfectly understandable that Feser hasn’t addressed the Jewish question. He has a family and doesn’t want the Anti-Defamation League and its allies to cast him into poverty and opprobrium. But what is at work when a traditionalist Catholic philosopher neglects the topic of infallibility? “There is no royal road to geometry,” the ancient Greek mathematician Euclid once told Ptolemy I of Egypt (323–283 BC). That is, there is no quick and easy way to master the complexities of a vast and varied subject. But there is a royal road to theology, if traditionalist Catholics are right. One simply sets out the proof of Papal and Ecclesial infallibility, and everything else follows. If the Church claims infallibly that God and the afterlife exist, that Christ was born of a virgin and rose from the dead, that His mother Mary was taken physically into Heaven at the end of her earthly life, then no further proof of these claims is necessary and we have trodden a royal road to theological truth.

Epistemological dynamite

Of course, a dutiful scholar will set out proofs for those who do not accept infallibility, but one would expect any philosopher who believed in infallibility to make it central to his scholarship. It is, after all, the most powerful tool a philosopher could possibly wield. Those who love truth — philosophoi, “lovers-of-truth” in Greek — can attain truth with absolute certainty. Infallibility is epistemological dynamite capable of demolishing mountains of ignorance and doubt, of toppling the sturdiest citadel of atheist arrogance and unbelief. So why does the traditionalist Catholic Edward Feser not make the infallibility of the Pope and the Catholic church the central and most constantly reinforced part of his scholarship? It’s the royal road to huge truths like the existence of God and resurrection of Christ, not the winding and uncertain path that unbelievers in infallibility have to tread.

Well, I don’t know why Feser doesn’t make infallibility central to his scholarship. But I think that he would find it very difficult to do so. In my opinion, infallibility is not epistemological dynamite, but epistemological bullshit. If you’d like some evidence of that, please watch as the Catholic Encyclopedia of 1910 tackles the topic of “Infallibility”:

It has been urged that neither a fallible individual nor a collection of fallible individuals can constitute an infallible organ. This is quite true in reference to natural knowledge and would be also true as applied to Church authority if Christianity were assumed to be a mere product of natural reason. But we set out from an entirely different standpoint. We assume as antecedently and independently established that God can supernaturally guide and enlighten men, individually or collectively, in such a way that, notwithstanding the natural fallibility of human intelligence, they may speak and may be known with certainty to speak in His name and with His authority, so that their utterance may be not merely infallible but inspired. And it is only with those who accept this standpoint that the question of the Church’s infallibility can be profitably discussed.

(“Infallibility,” The Catholic Encyclopedia, New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910)

Alas, infallibility is not a royal road to theology after all. Certain truths have to be “antecedently and independently established” — which raises an obvious question. Are those truths certain? Because if there is any uncertainty, however slight, in the chain of reasoning, then infallibility is not established. It’s obvious that one must have an infallible argument for infallibility, isn’t it? Well, no, not according to the Catholic Encyclopedia: “Once we come to believe in and rely upon authority we can afford to overlook the means by which we were brought to accept it, just as a man who has reached a solid standing place where he wishes to remain no longer relies on the frail ladder by which he mounted.”

Bullshit from beginning to end

In other words, once you have accepted the authority of the Catholic church, you will accept Her claim of infallibility and forget the fallibility of your own acceptance of Her authority. Indeed, your acceptance of the Church’s “active infallibility” rests secure on the “passive infallibility” bestowed on you by God. Or so the article says. Well, Edward Feser has often assailed the philosophical ignorance and rhetorical absurdities of New Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. And rightly so, in my opinion. But what would Feser say of a New Atheist who reasoned (and waxed rhetorical) like the author of that article on “Infallibility” in the Catholic Encyclopedia? The article is bullshit from beginning to end. It can’t be otherwise, because the whole notion of a “proof” for infallibility is absurd.

Indeed, infallibility isn’t (and can’t be) a valid philosophical claim. It’s a cratological and political claim made in what might be called an epistemological arms-race. In its competition with other religions and ideologies, the Catholic Church has claimed an exclusively privileged relationship with God and His son Jesus Christ. It is the one true Church, founded by Christ “to be absolutely universal” and accepted by all human beings, “unless inculpable ignorance should excuse them,” as the Catholic Encylopedia puts it. These absolutist claims have to be based on infallibility, because what good are they if they are not completely certain? Christianity has not existed for so many centuries by admitting room for doubt. But then nor have Islam and Judaism, both of which also claim infallible means to establish absolute truths about God and His design for mankind.

Magisterium versus mathematics

And so we have the spectacle of competing and contradictory infallibilities, not only between the three Abrahamic faiths but within each of them. Within Christianity, Protestant fundamentalists have an infallible Bible to set against the infallible Pope and Magisterium of Catholics, while the Orthodox believe only in an infallible Magisterium, not in an infallible Pope. I personally think that the Catholic church has the best claim to infallibility, rather as, of a pentagon, a square, and a triangle, the pentagon has the best claim to circularity. But the contradictions don’t end within Catholicism, because Catholics disagree in their interpretation of infallible Papal and conciliar statements.

It’s instructive to compare this disunity in theology with the unity of mathematics, which is the only field of scholarship where fallible human beings could reasonably claim infallibility and the ability to know things with absolute certainty. But the first point to arise from the comparison should be this: that mathematics, unlike theology, has never claimed infallibility. It doesn’t need to, because its proofs are irresistible to those who understand them (if not unquestionable). As noted above, the Greek mathematician Euclid told Ptolemy I that there is no royal road to geometry. He also told the human race that there is no end to the prime numbers, or numbers like 3, 7, and 19 that are evenly divisible only by themselves and 1. I would suggest that every sane human being who has understood his proof has accepted it. Cast into modern form, it might run something like this:

Suppose that P, the set of prime numbers, is finite. Suppose further that we multiply all primes in P together, then add 1 to create the number N. Now ask: is N evenly divisible by any prime in the finite set P? No, because any division by a prime or multiple of primes in P will necessarily leave a remainder of 1. Therefore N must either itself be prime or be divisible by one or more primes not in P. This contradicts our supposition that P is finite, therefore P is infinite and primes never end.[1]

For a simple example of the proof, suppose that P = {2,3,5}. Then 31 = (2*3*5) + 1 and 31/2 = (3*5) + 1; 31/3 = (2*5) + 1; 31/5 = (2*3) + 1. So 31 is either itself prime or divisible by one or more primes not in {2,3,5}. In fact, 31 is itself prime.[2] If you are sane and understand this proof, I think you will find it impossible to resist. The proof is, in effect, “infallible.” But mathematicians don’t use that term. There’s no need for it, because mathematical proofs, unlike theological ones, are convincing across all barriers of race, religion, culture, and history. I’d suggest, then, an interesting paradox: that any claim of infallibility is an infallible sign that the epistemology in question does not possess it.

Intensely difficult and abstruse

Mathematics is the only human epistemology with any solid claim to infallibility, which is precisely why mathematics doesn’t claim it. And although mathematical proofs can’t be resisted by those who understand them, that doesn’t mean mathematical proofs can’t be questioned. Euclid and other ancient Greek mathematicians offered proofs that are still accepted today, but they did not set those proofs on secure foundations. Some apparently simple mathematical notions turned out to be far more subtle and complex than they appeared. The philosophers Bertrand Russell and Alfred North Whitehead devoted many pages of their intensely difficult and abstruse Principia Mathematica (1912) to a proof of the proposition that “1 + 1 = 2.” As the English physicist Arthur Stanley Eddington once remarked: “We used to think that if we knew one, we knew two, because one and one are two. We are finding that we must learn a great deal more about ‘and’.”

As Edward Feser knows, philosophers are still working on the foundations of mathematical proof. He also knows that none of those philosophers have turned to theology for help in achieving the certainty they seek, although theology has been claiming to have infallible proofs for centuries. Why have philosophers neglected the riches of theology? It’s very simple: because those theological proofs of infallibility are fatuous. And I don’t in fact believe that any sane and intelligent believer can accept infallible claims to the required absolute degree. Whether believers have the honesty to admit this is another matter.

Full-fat fatuity

I don’t think they could have the honesty, because accepting a theological claim like infallibility automatically corrupts the intellect and morals. Nevertheless, here’s an attempted proof of the fatuity of infallibility. I’ll use what must be, for a traditionalist Catholic, an absolutely certain historical fact, namely, that the body of the Virgin Mary was taken physically into Heaven at the end of her earthly life. Catholics don’t know for certain when or where or how Mary ended that life, but they are supposed to know, with absolute certainty, that she was physically assumed into Heaven thereat. This is because Pope Pius XII dogmatically defined the Assumption as historical fact on November 1, 1950 by exercising papal infallibility in the apostolic constitution Munificentissimus Deus (Latin for “Most Generous God”). The Assumption of Mary is, therefore, more certain than such widely accepted historical facts as the assassination of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 and the sinking of the Titanic in 1912. Those two secular facts admit of some degree of uncertainty, however slight; the Assumption of Mary admits of none. It was infallibly proclaimed by the Pope and is therefore absolutely certain.

So, at least, traditionalist Catholics like Edward Feser must believe. But let’s suppose, adapting the plot of Isaac Asimov’s short-story “The Dead Past” (1956), that an evil scientist invents a chronoscope that allows any historical scene to be observed in minute detail, no matter how distant in time and space. Let’s further suppose that the evil scientist is (as one would expect) a militant atheist and that he kidnaps Edward Feser in order to subject him to a philosophical ordeal. The scientist then informs Feser that, in addition to the chronoscope, he possesses a weapon that will inflict slow and painful death on the entire human race if he, Feser, fails to choose a certain historical fact from the following list:

1. The Virgin Mary was physically assumed into Heaven at the end of her earthly life.
2. Abraham Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth in 1865.
3. The Titanic struck an iceberg and sank in 1912.

Having made his choice of fact, Feser will then see it proven true or false on the evil scientist’s chronoscope. Let’s further suppose that the evil scientist is completely convincing in his rhetoric and that he has demonstrated the chronoscope’s validity to Feser’s complete satisfaction. In short, Feser sincerely believes that the fate of the entire human race, including himself and his family, rests on his choice of an incontrovertible historical fact from the list above.

Psychologically impossible

I’d like to ask: Would Feser or any other traditionalist Catholic choose fact #1, which is, for traditionalist Catholics, the only completely certain fact on the list and therefore the only one guaranteed to save the human race? I suggest that he and they wouldn’t, if the fate of the human race did indeed rest on their choice. I don’t believe it’s psychologically possible for a sane, intelligent human being to believe in the Assumption of Mary with the same degree of certainty as he believes in the other two historical facts. Even if it were psychologically possible, I think Feser would have to choose 2 or 3 on moral grounds, because he would have to accept that the proof of infallibility is not secure. But I doubt that Feser and other traditionalist Catholics can admit this.

Now try some variants on the thought-experiment. If Feser were forced to choose a fact at random by picking a number from a hat, would he be indifferent as to which number he drew? If he were permitted to discard his first choice and make another, would he do so if he did not draw number 1, in hope of drawing that number on his second attempt? I suggest that he wouldn’t: he would be extremely relieved to draw number 2 or 3. If he drew number 1 and could not make a second choice, he would be very worried about what he would see on the chronoscope after the evil scientist entered the coordinates for the end of Mary’s earthly life.[3] Or let’s suppose that the evil scientist tells Feser that at least one of the facts on the list is false and that, to save the human race, he must make a choice of fact that will be proven false on the chronoscope. Which choice would Feser or another traditionalist Catholic make now?

Wriggling for a way out

I suggest that, on moral grounds, he would have to choose number 1. In other words, I suggest that Feser, as a sane and intelligent human being, does not and cannot genuinely believe in Papal infallibility and the literal physical Assumption of Mary. Therefore, I would expect any traditionalist Catholic presented with the thought-experiment above to begin wriggling for a way out.

How could it be otherwise? Infallibility is an absurdity that must and will corrupt the intellect and morals of anyone who accepts it. Perhaps traditional Catholicism compensates its adherents in other ways. I certainly hope so, but I assume that the ineffability of infallibility will prevent me ever finding out for myself.

Notes

1. It’s worth pausing to reflect on the astonishing nature of this proof, which allows human beings, in a sense, to overcome infinity. Primes never end. How astonishing it is that we can prove this! And so simply!
2. 31 = (2*3*5) + 1 and 31 is prime. Also prime are 211 = (2*3*5*7) + 1 and 2311 = (2*3*5*7*11) + 1. But 30031 = (2*3*5*7*11*13) + 1 = 59*509, where 59 and 509 are primes not in the set {2,3,5,7,11,13}.
3. Although I believe that Jesus and Mary probably existed, I think their existence is less certain than the existence of Julius Caesar or Spartacus.