[lit-ideas] Geary's Infallibility
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 26 Sep 2013 22:01:11 -0400 (EDT)
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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