[lit-ideas] Re: Geary's Infallibility
- From: Mike Geary <gearyservice@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2013 16:40:47 -0500
I've not put much stock in Papal infallibility for lo these last 50 years.
However if not forced thereby to live without infallibility -- the Supreme
Court is infallible when it issues a decision regarding the
Constitutionality of any question brought before it. It's word is final
and as such is without error. That does not mean that it cannot reverse
itself in a later ruling. Infallibility, it turns out, doesn't mean "free
from error" but "we have spoken, eat shit if you don't like it."
I am infallible in this opinion.
J Michael Geary
On Thu, Sep 26, 2013 at 9:01 PM, <Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx> wrote:
> We are discussing Papal's (and indeed Popper's) infallibility.
>
> The Wikipedia entry reads:
>
> "a dogma of the Catholic Church which states that, in virtue of the
> promise of Jesus to Peter, the Pope is preserved from the possibility of
> error
> "when, in the exercise of his office as shepherd and teacher of all
> Christians, in virtue of his supreme apostolic authority, he defines a
> doctrine
> concerning faith or morals to be held by the whole Church".
>
> In a message dated 9/24/2013 12:59:51 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
> _omarkusto@yahoo.com_ (mailto:omarkusto@xxxxxxxxx) comments:
>
> "This seems to be tautologically true in the context of Catholic faith
> since the Pope is considered to be the supreme authority who defines the
> Catholic doctrine, hence he cannot, by definition, err on doctrine. The
> only
> instance that could conceivably falsify this would be if two Popes issued
> contradictory statements on matters of doctrine, or if the same Pope
> issued
> different statements at different times."
>
> I'm not so sure I'm ready to use 'tautological' to issues having to do with
> morals. Perhaps
>
> "Every man should do his duty" is ETHICALLY tautologous.
>
> But it seems best to restrict 'tautological' to assertive vacuities like
> "It is raining or not".
>
> Or not.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Speranza
>
>
>
>
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