tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post3073689276474387904..comments2024-03-28T19:56:42.305-05:00Comments on Alexander Pruss's Blog: A variant of the genetic fallacyAlexander R Prusshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-22116438065009118852009-08-22T23:28:06.274-05:002009-08-22T23:28:06.274-05:00We don't hold that the Marian doctrines were e...We don't hold that the Marian doctrines were explicitly believed by the early Church, but only that they are implicit in the early Church's beliefs. What is this implicitness? Perhaps it is entailment?<br /><br />Typological interpretation was one of the main approaches, if not THE main approach, to the Old Testament from rather early on. Indeed, the NT tells us that all of the OT tells us about Christ. A reasonable way to understand that is typology.Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-60683680738710140622009-08-22T20:03:48.904-05:002009-08-22T20:03:48.904-05:00What I meant was something like, “cannot be justif...What I meant was something like, “cannot be justified by argument other than an irreducible appeal to authority.” <br /><br />Here’s how I see the difference. The Protestant epistemology is basically “Scripture and plain reason” in Luther’s words, plus scholarship. Now you could argue that this is self-refuting or that they are inconsistent about it, but there you go.<br /><br />The Catholic epistemology has the Magisterium, irreducibly, as a kind of collective epistemic organ. That is, the Church is willing to endorse claims which could not be justified by appeal to Scripture or an open-minded scholar with all the relevant information that the rest of us have. And this is okay, by Catholic lights, because the Church is in some respect guaranteed against error, so that if the Magisterium does go ahead and endorse some claim it doesn’t really matter if there is any other evidence for it. <br /><br />I am out of my area of expertise here, but I’ll try to give examples. Catholics believe that the Eucharist is the genuine body and blood of Christ. I think Scripture can be interpreted different ways here. But there is a pretty good textual case to be made that the early church believed this widely, and that no one had a “memorial” view of the Eucharist. So there is good evidence that this is the original understanding of the church, and that is good evidence, or should be, for the Protestant also that it is true. (And it would be interesting sometime to figure out exactly where Catholic dogma and the Westminster Confession diverge.)<br /><br />Some Marian dogmas, on the other hand, have much less of a textual case to be made for them. These seem to be ideas that became widespread some centuries after the apostolic age (or so I understand). Any appeal to Tradition on their behalf, then, is going to be a selective use of evidence—my understanding is that a secular scholar who looked at the evidence we have would not conclude that belief in the Marian dogmas was widespread in the early church. (Indeed, I have a colleague in my department who fits that description.) Any appeal to the Bible relies on tendentious typological interpretation, which seems to have arisen late also. But none of this is an obstacle to Catholic belief in the Marian dogmas, since the justification for that can just rest on a bare appeal to authority.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-87667268770929993742009-08-22T15:21:51.507-05:002009-08-22T15:21:51.507-05:00In the Protestant use, "cannot be justified b...In the Protestant use, "cannot be justified by argument" means something like "cannot be justified by argument not making reference to the Tradition"?Alexander R Prusshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05989277655934827117noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3891434218564545511.post-26217945223352618682009-08-22T13:43:14.521-05:002009-08-22T13:43:14.521-05:00I agree with you that there are lots of ways to go...I agree with you that there are lots of ways to go wrong with the sort of reasoning you analyze here. But I also tend to think there is a fairly reasonable argument in the neighborhood, if we stay out of the realm of psychology. How about this schema:<br /><br />10. The only, or principal, argument that is offered for p is A.<br />11. But [insert reasoning here] A is not a good argument. <br />12. So the only or principal argument offered for p is not a good argument. <br />13. If there were a good argument for p, it would be offered by p’s proponents often and principally.<br />14. So there is no good argument for p.<br />15. So the belief in p cannot be justified by argument.<br /><br />That, I think, is roughly how many Protestants think about some of the more controversial Catholic doctrines.Heath Whitehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13535886546816778688noreply@blogger.com