Recently at Public
Discourse, John
Finnis defended the thesis that the Catholic Church could adopt the
position that capital punishment is intrinsically immoral. Naturally, I disagree with him. My reply to Finnis has now been published
at Public Discourse.
At First Things, Catholic
theologian Steven A. Long criticizes
the “magisterial irresponsibility” of the recent change to the Catechism.
Also
at First Things, and in an interview with Patrick
Coffin, philosopher Michael Pakaluk discusses the relationship between the
controversy within the Church over capital punishment and the sex abuse scandal.
Catholic
World Report hosts
a symposium on capital punishment and the change to the Catechism.
Dr. Feser,
ReplyDeleteWhat do you make of Steven Long's argument that the new addition to the catechism has merely prudential import and is not a category 3 magisterial statement (as some have implied it is)?
John D.,
DeleteAs I've said below to the Son of Ya'Kov, if we give this new text, and the teaching behind it, any greater authority then we've lost everything. And why should we? We dismissed what Pope Francis is replacing as the erroneous opinion of Pope Saint John Paul II, and it was less erroneous and far better documented.
This is also why I've said the sky isn't falling. Pope Francis is an awful pope and should resign, but that's not the end of the world. A change in the ex cathedra et cetera teaching of the Church would be. I am,
Didymus
Re: "if we give this new text, and the teaching behind it, any greater authority then we've lost everything."
DeleteI actually don't think that's the case. If the new teaching does turn out to have greater authority than Dr. Long says, then I think we could harmonize it with past teaching and interpret it in a way so that it does not entail that the DP is intrinsically immoral.
However, if Dr. Long is right, then disagreeing with the new teaching (after giving it its due consideration) could not possibly be a case of dissent.
Of course, as Feser has argued in previous blog posts, per the norms set out in Donum Veritatis it is possible to disagree with even a category 3 magisterial statement. However, such a position is not fun, it's a trial, it's rough, and if it is done flippantly or in the wrong spirit it very well could be an instance of dissent .
So, if Dr. Long is right, then we don't need to worry about being labeled "dissenters" for we'd only be disagreeing with a prudential judgment.
Mr. DeRosa,
DeleteThanks for your response.
I don't think we could be labelled formal dissenters for informally dissenting from Pope Francis' opinion, no.
But it isn't harmonious to say, "The just use of this power [capital punishment], far from involving the crime of murder, is an act of paramount obedience to this Commandment which prohibits murder, and it is inadmissible because it is an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person." That's nonsense. It requires more than the normal mental gymnastics we must perform to harmonize Pope Francis with his predecessor Pope NameOneAnyOne. Unless we're going to say he's really just being ambiguous, like always, and by attack he means support and by abolition he means the widespead use of and by she he means himself. I am,
Didymus
It would be interesting to see you taking a detailed look at Doctrine of double effect some time.From what I see, this seems to be one of the most discussed and criticized aspect of Aquinas and Catholic philosophy in contemporary literature.
ReplyDeleteIts just one of those principles that are very intuitively plausible but difficult to justify.
I was recently reading Ezio Di Nucci's eight arguments against DDE, his books Ethics without intentions discusses them too, specially interesting is what is called "closeness"Problem".
Finnis is the first person I've come across who engaged with what you actually argued and whose response has not been idiotic beating around the bush. He deserves respect.
ReplyDeleteFinnis is the first person I've come across who engaged with what you actually argued and whose response has not been idiotic beating around the bush.
DeleteNot exactly. From five different places in Ed's essay:
--"Finnis says nothing in reply to most of the points we make there."
--"Finnis also never explains why we should dismiss...etc"
--"Finnis says nothing in response to my criticisms."
--"And yet Finnis says nothing in response to this argumentation."
--"What does Finnis have to say in response to these points? Nothing."
Quote"Some actions are inherently wrong, and some are wrong only because of circumstances. In this essay, I will not address the question whether capital punishment is wrong under modern circumstances. My topic is rather whether the death penalty is wrong inherently and in principle, under all circumstances."END QUOTE
ReplyDeleteThe above is the sole issue regarding Capital Punishment. The rest is irrelevant. I am for Capital Punishment & I think abolishing it would be a mistake. But in terms of going with a lesser evil vs a greater one I would consent to see CP banned all across the world and for all time rather then have the impression given the Holy Church has changed Her unchangeable doctrine in this matter.
Son of Ya'Kov,
DeleteYou've said this before, but I don't understand how it works.
It appears that the Church has changed Her unchangeable teaching because Pope Francis is teaching something that unambiguously contradicts what was taught before, not because we're refusing to go along with him. Even if we do play along and ban capital punishment always and everywhere, it's not going to shut up the other popes, the councils, the doctors, the fathers, the martyrs, the apostles, the evangelists, the priests, the prophets, the kings, the patriarchs, Moses, or Our Lord Jesus Christ. Lending some sort of modernist's sensus fidei to all this will only make it worse. It makes the Rock look like particularly weak sand.
Our only choice is to dismiss this teaching of Pope Francis as his opinion, prudential but not prudent, like we did Pope Saint John Paul II's before his. If it's just his opinion, and not some teaching ex cathedra et cetera, we're okay. It's not great optics, but it's a million times better than the optics of playing along. I mean, that's really the choice, isn't it? Either Pope Francis is wrong, or the Church is. If we've got to go along with evil – which is what you're suggesting, ultimately, denying just punishments and all – then I'd rather fudge history later on, maybe say Pope Francis was senile, or that he was manipulated by courtiers, or that he was an antipope because of conclave shennanigans. IF we've got to go along with evil, that's surely a lesser one. I am,
Didymus
Son of Ya'Kov,
DeleteAnd I should say, I'm not swinging for you here at all. And I think you're absolutely right to worry about the optics. The unchanging nature of the Church's teaching was a huge reason for my conversion. If it appeared that the Church had changed Her teaching, I'd probably still be some kind of evangelical. I am,
Didymus
Changing the CCC does not change the Church's teaching. When the CCC was issued the Church said it is not in itself an infallible document and no Catechism is otherwise no catechism could be revised or changed.
DeleteSo there is your first error.
Technically Pope Francis is not "wrong". The language he uses is ambigious and thus doesn't teach anything. It's like watching a theologian from the Council of Trent argue with a Lutheran heretic over Romans 3.
The interpretation is at issue and ambigious texts are subject to different interpretations.
If the Pope doesn't at least issue an Encyclical or formal decree that clearly teaches something then he has caused confusion but he hasn't formally taught error.
As Steven A. Long's balanced analysis pointed out the term "inadmissible" is a term of prudence & not the same as "intrinsically evil". He goes on to point out how the language over human dignity can lend itself to the heterodox interpretation but it's hardly definitive now is it?
As for baning CP well the Church teaches CP is not intrinsically immoral. She has never taught you must have a death penalty for Capital crimes. That is the error of Kant and it has no place in our doctrine.
That the Pope can come to the edge of error never suprises me but my Faith is affirmed in that has not crossed the line and in principle never can.
The worst here is the Church is given the appearance of teaching error but if you dig you see that is not the case. But the simple minded and ignorance can be mislead which is why this change was very bad.
Till the McCarrick thingy I thought this was the plausibly worst thing Pope Francis has done. Mind you I never worried about Amoris as I just held Cardinal Muller's interpretation.
You can still take confort in the fact the Church is unchanging and a future Pope will clean up Pope Francis' mess.
That is how it has always been and that is what will continue to happen till the Second Coming
But Protestantism in all it's forms is a dead end religion of men. However laudible any particular Protestant's faith in Our Lord.
Son of Ya'Kov,
DeleteThank you for your response.
Not my first error – there have been plenty of those before – but I think we misunderstand each other. I agree that the Church's teaching cannot change, at all, nevermind mind like this. But if it appears to be changing, and it does appear that way, then Pope Francis is to blame, not the rest of us. And going along with it, getting rid of capital punishment throughout the world, will only reinforce that appearance, not fight it. The only way to stop that nonsense right in its track is by resisting this change and dismissing it as the ambiguous, if not erroneous, opinion of Pope Francis. And if he makes it more official, removing any and all ambiguity, then we've got to come up with other excuses then, but still not go along with it. Even if he puts on a crown and gloves and signs an encyclical clearly teaching that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, in his own blood, and anathematizes anybody who disagrees... we still can't go along with it. Then we've got to pull out the senility card, or papal court shenanigans, or whatever else. And it is erroneous, it is wrong, even if it's not Wrong.
And I still think it's unfair to ascribe such mighty ambiguity to Pope Francis' words. If I said that the Church taught something was inadmissible because it was an attack on the inviolability and dignity of the person, and that the Church was working for it's abolition worldwide, I wouldn't mean that this something was in fact an act of obedience to one of the Ten Commandments. But that's the challenge for the Harmonizers: harmonizing the catechism of Pope Saint Pius V with the catechism of Pope Francis, not with the catechism of Pope Saint John Paul II. No amount of ambiguity can allow us to read the new text thus: “Consequently, the Church teaches, in light of the Gospel, that “the death penalty is admissible because it supports the inviolability and dignity of the person”, and she works with determination for its use worldwide.”
And thank you for your kinds words about Protestantism. However silly I might find Pope Francis, he's dead serious compared to that mess. There is no danger of me going back. No, I'm at a greater risk of becoming a sedevacantist than a Protestant.
Didymus
Son of Ya'Kov,
Delete“She has never taught you must have a death penalty for Capital crimes.”
Is this really the case? I find the Church's teaching on this point ambiguous. I'm not being facetious, not at all. I've always understood that certain crimes, capital crimes, demand capital punishment, but maybe that's outside, beyond, greater than, or whatever, the Church's teaching, strictly speaking. At the very least, I'd think that one'd think we must have the death penalty before actually executing anybody. And we've done that, God ordered it done, the Pope did it in the Papal States, &c. But maybe that is beyond the Church's traditional teaching, strictly speaking. I can't find anything that says it Officially. I am,
Didymus
A Sedevacantist is a Protestant only with Rosary Beads and more High Church then his low church brothers.
Delete>Is this really the case?
Absolutely! The Church has never taught Kant's view that you must have a death penalty. She merely teaches the DP is not intrinsically immoral and that retributive justice is moral and can be satified with the DP.
> I find the Church's teaching on this point ambiguous.
Which by definition proves me right since it is clear the Church has not ever clearly taught Kant's error.
> Even if he puts on a crown and gloves and signs an encyclical clearly teaching that the death penalty is intrinsically evil, in his own blood, and anathematizes anybody who disagrees... we still can't go along with it.
Do notice it has not come to that. Indeed Pope Francis is doing everything short of that. Thus the Holy Spirit is doing His Job and always will.
Son of Ya'Kov,
DeleteThank you for your response. Very good. I am,
Didymus
The Church has never taught Kant's view that you must have a death penalty.
DeleteTrue … in one way, and importantly incomplete in another way.
The Church has never taught that we must always put into practice as a penalty a punishment that most fully represents the proportionate just punishment due for a crime.
But she has taught that (1) justice is one part of the common good to which the state is ordained. If a state were not to be ordered to achieving justice, it would be a defective state to that extent. There are, however, many other goods present within the common good that is the state’s end than justice alone.
And she has taught that (2) the justice made present in just punishments justly applied to those who violate the law is an important part of the justice to which the state is ordered.
And she has taught that in addition to (a) the primary end of achieving justice, just punishments also have wholesome secondary effects which are licitly desired and aimed at in applying just punishments, including: (b) manifesting the uprightness of the moral order; (c) teaching citizens the particulars of that moral order, including the relative weight of minor and major goods and evils; (d) deterring particular men from offending just laws by fear of specific penalties; (e) inculcating virtue in generally biddable citizens by discouraging casual indifference to the moral order in its particular obligations; (f) reforming offenders by displaying directly to their own person the evil effects of their evil acts; and (g) safety for the body public by restraining those who would not otherwise leave society in peace. Some of these wholesome secondary ends occur precisely on account of the proportionality of the just punishment.
Hence it is also true that implicitly, the Church has taught that unless there is some alternative good to be achieved through the restraint of punishment to something lesser than the proportionate punishment, it generally belongs to the civic order that the government should seek to apply proportionate punishments to criminals. To say it another way (in the negative): it would be defective if the state were to habitually and by design seek to employ punishments disproportionate to crimes (disproportionate by way of deficiency), except where the state is attempting thereby (through the less-than-proportionate punishment) to achieve some other goods more valuable than the goods lost through the deficiency, and whose achievement could not be gained in the presence of the proportionate punishment.
Succinctly: all other things being equal, the state normatively employs proportionate punishments. To put it in the negative: the restraint of penalties to something less than proportionate should be the exception, not the norm.
While the latter statement could theoretically allow for a situation where the state generally applies proportionate punishments in most types of cases, and restrains the severity of punishment ONLY with respect to cases deserving of death, and still characterize this as “the state’s use of less-than-proportionate punishments is the exception.” But when the “exception” is applied across the board in ALL type X cases, we can hardly avoid saying that “it is thus NOT the norm in X cases.” There is no principled reason why capital cases must stand apart from other cases for the norm of “apply proportionate punishments” as a categorical matter. And indeed, before JPII, the Church’s teaching quite clearly implied (if not stated explicitly) that the matter of choosing to restrain the use of punishments to less-than-proportionate should be on a case-by-case basis (distinctly the role of judgment, not that of law), which would seem to preclude just that sort of categorical abnegation of the just deserts in a whole class of crimes.
In light of that prior teaching, the Church could (consistently) insist on not only not using the DP, but on even the abolition of the DP as a legally permitted category of punishment, only if the Church could (and did) also teach that on a categorical basis, the goods to be achieved in NOT using the fully proportionate punishment are always and certainly greater than those to be achieved by the fully proportionate punishment, and that those greater goods cannot be achieved when the fully proportionate punishment is used. Not only has the Church NOT TAUGHT such a thesis, she hasn’t even proposed an argument for the thesis. The most one can say, at this point, is that JPII attempted to propose the BEGINNING of such an argument by reference to the final good mentioned above, (g) safety from the further depredations of this criminal. Since this is manifestly incomplete as to the full range of goods achieved by reason of the proportion in just punishment, such a limited scope could not even in theory form a full argument for the thesis. (Not to mention, of course, that his was only a prudential estimate of the conditions for safety, and a hotly contested one at that.) Francis didn’t even do as much as JPII on the subject, all he did was offer nebulous empirical claims and then treat them as if established facts, and then build a “conclusion” that would not even have followed even if they had been established facts.
DeleteIt is not a complete stretch to say that a total ban on the DP, as a matter of fixed and universal law rather than as an exception determined case by case, was before now so rightly understood to be inconsistent with Church teaching on the principles of justice and punishment, and nothing the Church has explained so far has altered that understanding. Which is to say: we should have the DP on the books as a lawful penalty, even if we never actually use it. So, saying “the Church has never taught that we must use the DP in each case where the crime is deserving of death”, while true, is not the same as the position that “the Church’s teaching is perfectly compatible with abolishing the DP in law.”
Tony,
DeleteYes, thank you. That's what I was thinking about, but couldn't quite put into writing. The Church demands justice and justice may demand death, put very, very, very simply, more or less. Thank you. I am,
Didymus
Dr Kelley Ross on his web Site on the Kant-Fries school has a critique on the Catholic Catechism that I forgot but it was more about contradictions in basic principles rather that on any specific changes.
ReplyDeleteFeser, in his Public Discourse response to Finnis writes:
ReplyDelete“The principle implicit in this, Finnis claims, is that it is always wrong to intend to cause the death of a human being...This is far-fetched. Finnis himself admits that the passage is ‘confusingly worded’ and that what he attributes to it is there only ‘implicitly.’”
“Only” implicitly? To so say is to imply oneself that truths conveyed by implication are weak. But is this implication of Feser’s true?
What would Feser respond to the critic of his Five Proofs book who protested that what he attributes to a hot cup of coffee, turned cold, sitting on a desk, namely, God’s existence, is there “only” implicitly? Would Feser respond that his five proofs were weak? “Far-fetched”?
Feser’s implying that truths communicated by implication don’t amount to much, proves not that, but only that Feser’s implication is false. And its falsity is also reflected in its self-refuting character: if implication were as weak a method of argument as Feser implies, then why did he use it in attempting to fault Finnis for finding it legitimate?
Because, so far from being weak, implication is one of the strongest forms of argument going. Why? Its use signals to its hearer that whatever point there is to make, is so obvious that anyone can see it; so obvious, that is, that the point’s truth need not even be expressed.
That God leaves His existence implied in the existence of the things He created; is that not another way of His saying, “The fool in his heart says, ‘There is no God.’”?
Teaching by way of implication is so effective, our corporate media scribblers have leaned on it for over forty years, employing false implication to dress as rational their promotion of, for example, abortion or homosexuality. Its utility for them lies precisely in its ability to suggest their agenda so obviously right, that it is... no agenda at all! Hence, no need for them to demonstrate these acts’ worthiness: “It’s all so obviously right!” their bastardly use of implication teaches. What a diabolically clever way to manipulate your reader into thinking you’ve a point.
Now, Feser does not charge Finnis with seeing an implication that isn’t, in fact, there ( false implication). On the contrary, he owns the veracity of Finnis’ own finding that the Catechism passage carries the implication that it is always wrong to intend to cause the death of a human being.
And so it does.
By means of one of the strongest arguments by which a truth can be conveyed: implication.
That Feser apparently missed his own admission of the validity of Finnis’ major in the very act of attempting to refute it, is an oversight not without venerable precedent: Even Homer nods.
You are equivocating on "implies".
DeleteTeaching by way of implication is so effective, our corporate media scribblers have leaned on it for over forty years, employing false implication to dress as rational their promotion of, for example, abortion or homosexuality. Its utility for them lies precisely in its ability to suggest their agenda so obviously right, that it is... no agenda at all! Hence, no need for them to demonstrate these acts’ worthiness: “It’s all so obviously right!” their bastardly use of implication teaches.
DeleteFelix, while "teaching by way of implication" may well be effective at times, this is surely a bad example thereof. For this does not consist in teaching properly so called, it consists in a fraudulent pseudo-teaching: it convinces the hearer to not ask for reason to be involved, and to assume without rational basis a conclusion that has no rational basis. They convince the hearer to SET ASIDE B following from A due to some cause thereof. This is hardly what happens in REAL implication, which properly speaking per se depends upon the existence of some cause of B following from A.
But what you have done is to support Feser's thesis, in that there is more than one sense of the term "imply". On the one hand, when A causes B, the existence of B implies A as a valid rational connective. Logically useful. On the other hand, when a con-artist engages in his conniving tactics, he uses logical fallacies to make it APPEAR, to the careless hearer, that C implies A even though there is no valid logical connective to it. He uses any of the logical fallacies known to the science of logic as erroneous attempts to reason, such as begging the question, to lead the unsuspecting and naive hearer to affirm conclusions that have no reasoned basis, imagining that he has given some basis for it. The reason this works is that some sets of premises DO IN FACT imply certain conclusions, implicature is in fact a real facet of the universe. Feser is not implying (heh!) that there is no such thing as valid implicature, of course.
I think that the "only 'implicitly' " line is tied to the later point that Finnis claims "the proposition in question is 'unambiguously” there in the Catechism." Feser is pointing out the difficulty in a point being BOTH "implicit" and "unambiguous". Admittedly, in that context the word "implicit" could be a less-than-perfect foil, precisely because it is possible for a proposition to be both implicit and perfectly clear. But Feser surely does NOT think that's what Finnis makes room for, given what he brings out: "Finnis himself admits that the passage is 'confusingly worded' and that what he attributes to it is there only 'implicitly.' " To be charitable, I think Feser reasonably takes Finnis to be using "implicitly" to mean more like "hiddenly" or "without being obvious", which can be said equally of LOGICALLY VALID implicature or of INVALID attempted implicature. Feser's argument rests on the obscurity, not on the character of logical connection in the meaning of "imply".
"Now, Feser does not charge Finnis with seeing an implication that isn’t, in fact, there ( false implication). On the contrary, he owns the veracity of Finnis’ own finding that the Catechism passage carries the implication that it is always wrong to intend to cause the death of a human being."
DeleteIt's as though you didn't read the paragraphs that followed, an excerpt from which says: For when the 1992 Catechism does explicitly address capital punishment at no. 2266, it explicitly characterizes it as a “penalty” or “punishment,” and explicitly says that public authorities have a “well-founded” “right” to inflict this punishment. So, no. 2263 can’t mean what Finnis says it means, because if it did, the authors of the Catechism would not have gone on to say what they do in no. 2266.
Greg: Respecting your bald and baseless charge against me of equivocation: to lodge a charge is not at all the same thing as proving it. You clearly do not like to see Feser criticized. I like him better because I would rather see him criticized than wrong.
DeleteTony: If, as you suggest, Feser takes Finnis’ use of “implicitly” to mean something other than “there in unexpressed form” we just have a new problem worse than the first, namely, that Feser is so lacking in reading comprehension as to render his judgment in these matters nil. One should not be passing judgment on texts composed of words one does not understand, even though this is standard operating procedure for time-serving scribblers, professors and politicians who are richly rewarded for their ignorance.
William: If Feser goes on to contradict his own admission that Finnis is correct that the Catechism passage implicitly teaches that it is always wrong to intent to cause the death of a human being, that impacts my argument not at all. But it does show that Feser’s rebuttal lacks integrity and backfires on him.
"If Feser goes on to contradict his own admission that Finnis is correct that the Catechism passage implicitly teaches...etc"
DeleteI don' mean to be unkind, but you can't read. Feser makes no such admission.
Felix Culpa
DeleteIt is so refreshing to see a poster who does not deblaterate.
My question is this:
Is this Catechism issue a question of Christianity or Churchianity?
You clearly do not like to see Feser criticized.
DeleteI am not sure what makes you think that, as I criticize him myself from time to time, including on the topic of capital punishment. You're perhaps projecting your own emotion-laden response onto me.
"Implication" at least has these senses: material implication, material implication under some interpretation, insinuation. There is no point in considering implication in such a variety of contexts as you have without pausing to consider the polyvalence of the term.
Feser argues that the existence of a created thing, when considered in light of various first principles, materially implies the existence of God.
On the other hand, to argue that the Catechism teaches some proposition or another is an interpretative enterprise. There are sentences in the Catechism which you could interpret as materially implying that intentional killing is always wrong, and there are certain tendencies in the way the Catechism is written which encourage that reading. It's hard to read Finnis's "unambiguously" otherwise than as trying to assert that that's plainly the only and best interpretation available. But that's simply to hedge. As others have pointed out, the Catechism also calls capital punishment punishment and refers to it as a means, and it still contains some qualifications about innocence.
And that even is different from what our "corporate media scribblers" do, which is just insinuate, not create arguments or interpret texts.
The "effectiveness" of what they do is simply persuasion sans truth. So their effectiveness is not to be reproduced by honest people. And anyway, the Catechism does not effectively insinuate what Finnis attributes to it, because Finnis's reading is extremely rare and is held by few who do not endorse his ethical theory. Overwhelmingly people have read the JPII teachings on the death penalty and taken away that the death penalty is not intrinsically immoral but is not to be used in contemporary circumstances.
I don't know where you're getting the view that Feser anywhere conceded that the passage does implicitly contain what Finnis attributes to it. In replying to Finnis he comes to say:
The most that Finnis is entitled to say is that, read out of context, the passage might arguably be interpreted the way he interprets it.
Feser's "read out of context" here indicates that he thinks Finnis's reading is mistaken. And he goes on to point out why it is bad.
Actually Felix Culpa...
DeleteYou may have spotted the problem with your response to Tony...
I read the Steven Long article in which Prof Feser states Long criticises the amendment...
Fact is Long doesn't... his main point is:
Cardinal Ladaria suggests the addition to the Catechism must be a prudential development; otherwise, it would contradict, not develop, previous teaching.
William: A sneer is not a refutation: neither is evidence-free contradiction. That these impotent fallacies are all you have to lob, reinforces what is clear: you are thinking with your will; not your intellect. Well, willing so won’t make it so.
DeleteGreg: I’ll leave it to you then to explain what prompted you to engage in baseless aspersion-casting. Leveling reason-free accusations is consistent with an emotional knee-jerk response. I didn’t project that on you; your own words did.
As to your innocence of where I’m “getting the view that Feser anywhere conceded that the passage does implicitly contain what Finnis attributes to it.” that would be not from what “he comes to say” but from what he already said and which words I quoted at the outset of my original post. Allow me to draw your attention to those words once more: Feser writes:
“This is far-fetched. Finnis himself admits that the passage is ‘confusingly worded’ and that what he attributes to it is there only ‘implicitly.’”
Please note that Feser here calls Finnis’ finding an admission. Feser, through the word “admits” implies that such an implication is weak. He reinforces this suggested downgrading of its importance through his use of the word “only”. How possible for Feser to paint as weak; as “only” something he never conceded to be there in the first place?
Baldly and baselessly denying your opponent’s evidence has nothing going for it. Why not take your own words about the media to heart and observe that “effectiveness” without truth isn’t worth the powder to blow it up. As the Scriptures put it: “Like a eunuch longing to take a girl’s virginity, so is he who uses force to argue cases.” (Sirach) In argument too, willing so won’t make it so.
Philip: Thank you for introducing me to the word deblaterate.
“Christianity or Churchianity”? A distinction without a difference?
I haven’t followed the Long/Feser exchange so unable to speak to it.
I’ll leave it to you then to explain what prompted you to engage in baseless aspersion-casting.
DeleteThere's no great mystery here. I only needed a sentence.
Your reading of that sentence is inept. The verb "admits" is not factive. Just as one can believe p when p is false, one can admit p when p is false. It is no contradiction to say "The person who admitted to committing the crime, it turns out, didn't do it."
It's true that in context we often understand attributions of admissions to imply that they are truthful, and Feser obviously does agree that the passage in question is confusedly worded. But here context makes it abundantly clear that Feser does not concede that the passage implicitly teaches that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.
Feser talks about what Finnis "admits" to emphasize that his interpretative claims are already pretty weak given the strong conclusion he'd like to draw, but nevertheless, Feser is going to reject even those weak claims:
The most that Finnis is entitled to say is that, read out of context, the passage might arguably be interpreted the way he interprets it.
If, according to Feser, the claim Finnis attributes to the passage can only be found there when you read it out of context, then it can only be coaxed out by bad exegesis: it isn't there even implicitly.
Now this is far more attention than your sputtering deserves, so have a good night.
Felix Culpa
DeleteYour comment on the Feser statement is correct if "Early Church" is defined as the Church of Acts, i.e.
Romans 12:17-21,
1 Thessalonians 5:15,
1 Peter 3:9
It would appear that these verses implicitly admit that it is always wrong to intend to cause the death of a human being.
“There is no great mystery here. I only needed one sentence.”
DeleteGreg’s meaning here is conveyed through implication. Let’s draw it out. He is implying my alleged equivocating was so obviously there; so plain for all to see, that there was no need for him to adduce evidence of it.
Greg intuits the power of implication.
Like the media do.
And for the same reason.
For like the media scribblers (whose tactics Greg claims to reject) he has set himself the task of defending the indefensible. Hence, his resort to the forced use of implication to argue his case. He would subpoena its power to witness to something he claims to have, but which is not there, namely, a basis for his charge of equivocation. So, he wrenches implication out of its place in argument’s toolbox to fashion, like the makers of The Emperor’s New Clothes, a “there” that isn’t, in fact, there. And we who need it pointed out to us, are plainly too stupid to see what is obviously in full view; too unfit for the high office of his notice.
And this, all the while denying the clear “there” of Feser’s owning the veracity of Finnis’ finding of an implicit “No” to intentional killing within the Catechism.
Now, this is not the response of a man for whom “the truth will do” (as St. Thomas More so succinctly put it). It is the response of a man who now sees a truth he missed and wishes it were not there. And he begins to turn his mind to how he might make that truth disappear. He begins to think with his will in the matter and not with his intellect. So he heads for the tall grasses of academic jargon, and flings fallacies behind him as so many obfuscations to get his reader off the scent. With these, he digs a pit to bury that truth...
and falls into it himself. Thank you, Greg, for your flawless illustration of how the media traffic in the use of false implication. But remember: imitation is the highest form of flattery.
Why not fall into the arms of the truth instead and rest safe there? “All that I took from thee, I did but take, not for thy harms, but that thou mightst find it in my arms.” (The Hound of Heaven)
“It's true that in context we often understand attributions of admissions to imply that they are truthful, and Feser obviously does agree that the passage in question is confusedly worded. But here context makes it abundantly clear that Feser does not concede that the passage implicitly teaches that capital punishment is intrinsically wrong.”
No, what the context of this paragraph within the larger essay makes superabundantly clear, as I noted in my original critique, is that Feser did not intend to make the concession he did, in fact, make. And he should rejoice he made it because:
1. It is true.
2. He is capable because he recognized its truth.
3. It’s no skin off his nose to give it his assent; but an excellent opportunity (masked as a crisis) to witness to the virtue of humility in an age dying for lack of it.
“The most that Finnis is entitled to say is that, read out of context, the passage might arguably be interpreted the way he interprets it.”
It is an enormity, and smacks of desperation, to assert that Finnis read it out of context. All the man did was provide context for his reading and convincingly at that.
The most that Feser is entitled to say is that the Catholic Church has not yet officially taught that the death penalty is inherently wrong.
Textbook example of begging the question there. Until you've established that the death penalty is evil, it's no good quoting Scripture which commands us not to repay evil with evil and assuming that this prohibits the death penalty!
DeleteSue Sims
DeleteYes, I had anticipated that argument from "evil". However, my next post to Felix Culpa offers a "legal" precedent that the Finnis position is implicitly correct...
Felix Culpa
DeleteThe case of Gilles de Rais (you may be aware of it) firms the Finnis position ecclesiastically.
Gilles de Rais had two trials. The first trial was Secular and condemned him to death for his crimes.
The second trial was Ecclesiastical and concerned re-establishing his relationship with God. It did not condemn him to death nor did it ever consider doing so.
Felix Culpa
DeleteThe case of Gilles de Rais (you may be aware of) may provide ecclesiastical support for the Finnis position concerning the death penalty and the church.
Gilles de Rais had two trials. The first trial was Secular and sentenced him to death for his crimes.
The second trial was Ecclesiastical and concerned re-establishing his relationship with God. A capital sentence was never considered by the Ecclesiastical Court.
Philip says
DeleteYour comment on the Feser statement is correct if "Early Church" is defined as the Church of Acts, i.e.
Romans 12:17-21,
1 Thessalonians 5:15,
1 Peter 3:9
Potentially valid, if what he means is "the Early Church consists in a Church that ONLY has those 3 verses and nothing else."
One of the errors in attributing the position of "the Early Church" the seeming stance against such "evils" as the death penalty is that the verses cited equally stand against ALL punishments of any and every sort.
Such a position would make all human society intolerable. Not only would civil society fall apart, even parents could not punish children to teach them right from wrong. Moral sense would altogether fail, and humans would live like brute animals. Even David Bentley Hart recognized the requirement in consistency in taking those verses as being against the death penalty as implying a stance equally against all punishment, though he (unsurprisingly) was unable to solve the disastrous result it leads to.
I have no clue what the de Rais two trials means to the validity of the death penalty: of course the ecclesiastical court never considered death, that was not its role nor scope of authority. A man who is really guilty of murder, confesses his sin to a priest and is absolved, and who embraces his coming death penalty as God's justice, can be reconciled with God and go straight to heaven at the moment of death. Nothing about the validity of the death penalty is implied by the forgiveness of his mortal sin and his recovery of sanctifying grace, nor by the perfection of his soul in contemplating his just punishment soon to come, and his embrace of the justice in it as something beloved of God.
St. Thomas quite clearly dealt with the SEEMING problem of biblical admonition "do not return evil for evil" and the strong obligation of civil authorities to punish malefactors: due punishment is "evil in a sense" but taken as a whole "doing good" properly understood. A judge who judges uprightly intends what is "an evil in a qualified sense" out of love for the criminal and wills the good of both the criminal and society. This, of course, extends also to God who punishes uprightly and loves and desires the good.
Tony
DeleteYour reply is helpful with respect to determining what "Early Church" means.
Joan of Arc was a compatriot of Gilles de Rais. Joan of Arc was tried by an Ecclesiastical Court; unlike Gilles de Rais, this court condemned to her death.
Later, she was acquitted by the Pope and made into a martyr.
Implicit in your reply is the fact that an Ecclesiastical Court has also a Civil Court jurisdiction.
This suggests that the term "Early Church" as used against Finnis is referring to the time of Theodosius The Great when Christianity was made into the State Religion of Rome and not to the Church of Acts.
The root of the confusion occurs with Biblical dispensations; which is the reason Prof Feser cites verses in the Old Testament.
Tony
DeleteFact is you are correct when you state:
One of the errors in attributing the position of "the Early Church" the seeming stance against such "evils" as the death penalty is that the verses cited equally stand against ALL punishments of any and every sort.
However, James would say that this is not an error:
James 2:
8 If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well:
9 But if ye have respect to persons, ye commit sin, and are convinced of the law as transgressors.
10 For whosoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all.
11 For he that said, Do not commit adultery, said also, Do not kill. Now if thou commit no adultery, yet if thou kill, thou art become a transgressor of the law.
12 So speak ye, and so do, as they that shall be judged by the law of liberty.
13 For he shall have judgment without mercy, that hath shewed no mercy; and mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
This is reason most transgressions in the Tanach result in the death penalty. However, Christ did say that His dispensation was final and everlasting(James is referring to Christ's dispensation)...so, does that mean Christ's Dispensation replaces the Mosaic Dispensation, i.e. the dispensation Feser is citing?
If you reject the "Early Church" being the Church of Acts and instead say it is the Church at the time of Theodosius then you blur State/Church and your position must be prudential.
I am not out to convince you... that would be impossible...
Tony
DeleteWhat your argument against capital punishment (like Feser) amounts to is Corban, i.e. it is not a evil for humans to kill; if it is done in Corban.
Christ speaks of this in Mark 7:11
Implicit in your reply is the fact that an Ecclesiastical Court has also a Civil Court jurisdiction.
DeleteNo, that's not implicit in my reply. That's rejected in my reply. And the court that condemned Joan of Arc to death was not using its due authority properly, for crying out loud, it was an out-and-out abuse.
Your reply is helpful with respect to determining what "Early Church" means.
Only by negation, because I only REJECTED that "the Early Church" means only the Church's 3 verses that you cited, and not other versus that. I could have gone on to cite other parts of what the Early Church believed and did, but I didn't actually do that: such as Peter who quite explicitly approved of civil punishments (1 Peter 2:14) and himself inflicted the death penalty on Ananias and his wife, and St. Paul who in the very next verses of Romans quite clearly approves of the civil authority's role in punishing malefactors as doing God's work for which they have been given authority.
What your argument against capital punishment (like Feser) amounts to is Corban,
I wasnt't giving an argument against capital punishment, so I can't see how my argument "against capital punishment" could be any sort of anything at all. And my argument isn't "Corban" because I (as does Feser) argue FOR God's own directives and against "traditions of men" when they stand against God's own directives.
All in all, being as charitable as I can, I find your comments somewhere between irrelevant and incoherent. But feel free to not try to convince me of anything, because I can be easily and readily convinced by a well-reasoned argument, and this seems to impossible to you.
Tony...interesting...
DeleteYour reading of Acts 5 is that Peter actually killed Ananias...interesting...
Your response concerning Peter & Paul's position regarding civil authority confirms that you take to mean that "Early Church" is NOT the Church of Acts. When Peter & Paul wrote the Church had no civil power to offer change.
Tony, your position is Corban; for you are arguing for the tradition of the civil court (men) being above James 2:11 for example...
As Felix Culpa has pointed out... the admission of not killing is implicit... He is correct... a well-reasoned argument that would change your position is again... Corban!
Though Tony... your reasoning in a strange way is cohesive, i.e.
DeletePeter is the first Pope, right?
So, it does make sense that he would also be the first killer (i.e. inflicted the death penalty) of the Church...setting the precedent...
And Tony...
DeleteYour understanding of Corban is incorrect.
For example under the Mosaic Law a child cannot break the commandment to dishonour his parents. However, should the child pronounces Corban first, (i.e. this is for your own good) he may dishonour his parents without punishment, i.e. stoning.
Similarly for "Thou shalt not murder"... If one pronounces Corban first, then one may break that commandment without consequences.
This is what Christ meant in that verse.
Remember... another word for prudential is politic and politic is simply Corban...
You see Tony... when you state:
DeleteI can be easily and readily convinced by a well-reasoned argument
Christ's point is that we are in a fantasy of rationality and understanding...your fantasy for reason is a fantasy of reason, fantasies for a good argument that are fantasies of good arguments...
Phillip,
DeleteIf you wish to provide a reason for how you read the passages I noted, you have to use reason. If, instead, you wish only to insist on your own particular reading without reason, then you are merely demanding something from your own authority, which is naught.
Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. 1 Peter 3:15
I try to follow Peter's admonition and give a reason for the hope that I have. That I use reason itself in giving a reason is, I hope, a necessary and self-evidently proper thing, not "fantasy" as you put it. If all reason is fantasy, then St. Peter tells us to engage in fantasy.
Naturally, if you have set yourself against reason in understanding the Gospel and Acts and the Epistles, then you will arrive at a different reading of them than mine, which uses reason. I do not wish to debate with someone who rejects reason even though the apostles direct us to use reason. So good day and goodbye.
Finnis has always been way overrated as a thinker.
ReplyDeleteDear Dr. Feser,
ReplyDeletewhat do you think about the official 2016 translation of the Catholic Church in Germany (Neue Einheitsübersetzung 2016) translates the bible passage you selected as title of your book into German in a way, that does not imply that the blood of killers will be shed by other men?
http://www.bibelwerk.de/Bibel.12790.html/Einheits%C3%BCbersetzung+online.12798.html
1980 Translation, Gen 9, 6:
"6Wer Menschenblut vergießt, dessen Blut wird durch Menschen vergossen. Denn: Als Abbild Gottes hat er den Menschen gemacht."
~ is rather equivalent to official US version:
http://www.usccb.org/bible/genesis9:35
"6* Anyone who sheds the blood of a human being,
by a human being shall that one’s blood be shed;
For in the image of God have human beings been made."
https://www.bibleserver.com/text/EU/1.Mose9
2016 translation, Gen 9,6:
"6 Wer Blut eines Menschen vergießt, um dieses Menschen willen wird auch sein Blut vergossen. Denn als Bild Gottes hat er den Menschen gemacht."
!= to official US version, as there is absolutely no indication that the shedding of the blood of the killer will be done by a human.
The 2016 german translation would be even completely unsuitable as title of your book.
What do you make of that?
Is it realy possible, that the hebrew texts are inconclusive by whom this shedding of blood will be done?
Given the state of the Catholic Church in Germany, even more, the state of the bishops, I would not put much trust in any document that is produced under their auspices.
DeleteIn any case, if translating is the issue, then one must necessarily have recourse to (a) the Vulgate, (b) the Greek Septuagint, and (c) the Hebrew. There is no point to going to the German, and certainly not to a most recent German version. It can hardly claim any greater authority than the English.
I would also point out the interesting feature that in Exodus 22:2, "If a thief is caught breaking in at night and is struck a fatal blow, the defender is not guilty of bloodshed;" I don't know if the Hebrew uses the same term. But if so, it sheds (ha!) some light on the meaning of "shedding blood", which implies guilt and does not refer merely to taking a life. Hence the act of just execution would, also, be distinguishable from "bloodshed".
This web site for the interlinear comparison of Hebrew and English
Deletehttps://biblehub.com/interlinear/genesis/9.htm
clearly shows a separate Hebrew word for "by man" in the text.
Carn: what do you think about the official 2016 translation of the Catholic Church in Germany [...] Is it realy possible, that the hebrew texts are inconclusive by whom this shedding of blood will be done?
DeleteThe Hebrew texts are conclusive; it seems to be the Vulgate, following the Septuagint, that leaves out the "by man": "Quicumque effuderit humanum sanguinem, fundetur sanguis illius : ad imaginem quippe Dei factus est homo."
The Cambridge Bible commentary notes:
6. The sentence reads like a line of poetry, Shôphêk dăm hâ-âdâm Bâ-âdâm dâmô yis-shâphêk. LXX seems to have misread bâ-âdâm (= “by man”), rendering ἀντὶ τοῦ αἵματος αὐτοῦ = “for his blood” (b’ dâmô): while in the Latin it is omitted altogether.
Different translations follow different versions. The Nova Vulgata includes the complete phrase: "6. Quicumque effuderit humanum sanguinem, per hominem fundetur sanguis illius"
Now, killers who go unpunished by man sometimes die peacefully in their beds, so although we can speak of their nevertheless being punished by God, it seems to me unreasonable to describe that as God's shedding their blood — therefore even the lesser translations still imply that it must be man who is doing the shedding.
@Tony Mr. Green
DeleteThanks for the feedback; so in Hebrew it is clear, while somehow in Greek and Latin translations it got left out.
I cannot help to think, that the "struggle" regarding the death penalty will also include a consistent ignoring of the Hebrew by opponents of the death penalty; i suspect they will always go with the Latin and/or Greek versions without ever mentioning, admitting or adressing what the verse says in Hebrew.
This is as far as i see the usual inner Chruch pattern today; never reply in substance or even acknowledge that there is actually some substance in the argument of the other side.
"What the diseased body part analogy does is to explain why the state should actually exercise that right, given that in this life retribution isn’t by itself sufficient reason to punish." Have followed the argument, and agree with it. But am wondering if this is a precising way of putting it. The State's "exercising" here must be premised on the principle that retribution is sufficient to punish. What am I missing?
ReplyDeleteIf "in this life retribution isn’t by itself sufficient reason to punish," what other reason makes an execution justifiable? It seems to me that if retribution isn't by itself sufficient reason to execute someone, what else could possibly justify it?
ReplyDeleteI believe the point is that you also must have the authority to do the punishing. Not just anyone can punish anyone deserving of punishment. Since God has that authority and will guarantee punishment, why would we need that authority and need to punish? The diseased body part analogy serves to explain our justification to punish.
DeleteThat statement on its own can seem strange, but in the context of other things said, it is clearer.
There is a political theory aspect to this issue as well as Finnis notices:
ReplyDelete"Catholic tradition judged it intrinsically immoral for me to form an intention to kill while defending myself or others against an aggressor, but also judged it morally permissible for public officials to act on such an intention while defending the common good."
But, in the Lockean or liberal political theory, the state possesses only those powers that are surrendered to it by the people. But the people possess no right to kill an evil-doer and hence neither does the State.
Many people believe that they have the right to punish a criminal that offends them. If someone tries to burgle their house, they have the right, not only to defend themselves, but actually to punish the burglar. But how can a man be a judge and executioner in a matter in which he himself is a party?
In the correct political theory, the right to punish is reserved only to the political community and is NOT derived from any individual right to punish offenders. But I doubt Finnis accepts the notion of community rights that do not derive from individual rights.