The Myth of Atheistic Ethics

Following upon the argument of the previous article, an insightful reader offered a clarification that by accidental is meant: “arising from specific experiences accumulated as an ethos over time,” and by arbitrary is meant: “concerning the dynamic of human to human interaction based on personal encounter.” Using these senses for the terms, which amount essentially to subjectivism, it can be observed that if ethics arise from specific experiences accumulated over time, i.e. accidentally, then ethics is essentially non-different from prejudice or personal taste, and can never escape subjectivism. Subjective ethics are no ethics. These accidental ethics can also never have any certainty, because when ethics is based on experience, then, hypothetically, an entirely different set of experiences could produce an entirely different ethics where the selfsame action, say theft, is both wrong and right depending on whether or not one has had a bad or good experience of it. Moreover, if ethics arise from the dynamic of human to human interaction based on personal encounter, i.e. arbitrarily, then ethics is again essentially non-different from prejudice or personal taste, and likewise cannot escape subjectivism. According to this scheme, ethics is made impossible.

One could perhaps also say more about the transfer from experience to ethical prescription, as to why, for example, a subjective experience y of action x ought to mean that action x is wrong. If action x causes suffering, what ethical principle renders the cause of suffering to be translated as ethically wrong? For example, giving birth causes suffering, so according to this reasoning then sex is ethical wrongdoing. At this point the very means of our survival is a fortiori unethical. Homework causes many people suffering, therefore it must be wrong. Taxation causes suffering, therefore it is wrong. The person who disagrees with another person causes suffering, therefore the one who disagrees is wrong. Eating vegetables causes suffering, therefore it is wrong to eat them. The consequences become absurd, and so it is nonsense to state that the foundation of ethics could be the experience of suffering, or even any experience. Suffering in and of itself does not determine whether or not something is ethical.

An atheist may also attempt to escape subjectivist ethics by pointing to the objective actions of nature in order to develop an ethic, but animals can be found to eat their young, cannibalize their own kind, commit tribal warfare and genocide, enslave, rape, and any number of other things. There would be almost no way to exclude any possible action on these terms, and so the actions of nature cannot provide a foundation for a system of ethics. Nature itself causes suffering, sometimes for the sake of survival and sometimes with no apparent cause, and so if nature’s actions justify an action, then nature itself would therefore justify causing suffering to others, either with or without apparent purpose. Moreover, the decision-making process of animals, driven by instinct and desire, would as a consequence of the appeal to nature become the ethical foundation for humans choosing according to the same principles of instinct and desire, and so subjectivism would not be escaped by appealing to the objective world in this way, either, but established as a foundation for ethical action.

Concerning historic atheism, one would not have to dig deeply into history in order to find examples of ethical disparities between individual atheists such as Ayn Rand, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Richard Dawkins, and atheist governments such as the Soviet Union and China, but the question at hand is the issue that they had no truly objective means or canon to establish an ethical system beyond the opinions of the individuals and leaders themselves. In other words, arbitrariness is bound up with atheist ethics, and also with the atheist authority structures which would seek to impose the arbitrary ethical system. What is the guarantee of ethics in any of these systems? Is it, say, because of Rand’s wit, Sartre’s sensualism, Dawkin’s evolutionary philosophy, or Stalin's might, or because of a subjective experience of displeasure, a majority of people's opinion, or something else? Having no canon and nothing but subjective opinion loosely based on reasoning and personal experience, it is clear that these independent atheists found no meaningful or lasting agreement amongst themselves, discovered no transcendent self-evident ethical principle or authority, and so again in no way to escape subjectivism, either the subjectivism of the individual or the group.

In light of the foregoing, the great problem for the atheist is shown to be centered on induction’s inability to generate reliable ethical principles. In essence, where induction means “the inference of a general law from particular instances,” if an ethical prescription is not given from a non-arbitrary authoritative source, then any number of experiences will not discover an ethical principle. For example, as shown above, it is not at all clear that the experience of displeasure could serve as a foundation for an ethical system, and would, on the contrary, produce many absurd conclusions.

The conclusions of inductive reasoning can be disproved by a single contrary instance. For example, if a person states, “all blackbirds are black,” and then one non-black blackbird is found, then the statement “all blackbirds are black” is proved wrong. Thus if one inductively reasons according to the principle of displeasure to the wrongness of theft, all that needs to be found is one instance of theft which does not cause displeasure and the wrongness of theft goes up in smoke. Further problems with displeasure as the foundation for ethics arise, too, for if one, say, steals from a person and they are unaware of it, then the law of displeasure has not been violated, and the action cannot be considered unethical. Or, if one does not “care” that person z stole item x, then the law of displeasure has not been violated and the action cannot be considered unethical, but ethical!

To conclude, atheism lacks both a canon and an authority, cannot escape the arbitrariness of subjectivism, and cannot through the accidents of inductive reasoning develop a certain ethical system. Without a transcendental authority that reveals a true ethic together with ethical prescriptions, ethics is rendered impossible. Hopefully, atheism will decline as people realize that it is morally bankrupt.

An Accidental Virtue: Why Atheist Ethics are Necessarily Arbitrary and Accidental

A common claim of atheists is that they “don't need ‘a book’ to tell them how to be a good person.” The purport of this claim is that the distinction between good and evil, right and wrong, and virtue and vice, are in some sense self-evident and readily accessible to reason. If, however, this claim is examined more closely, then its emptiness will become clear.

In order to make this problem more clear, the concept of canon will prove illuminating. It is not a word which is often heard in day to day speech, and so deserves a brief explanation. One standard definition of the term canon is “a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged.” It comes from the Greek, kanon, and calls to mind a measuring stick like a ruler or “any straight rod or bar; rule; standard of excellence.”

The notion of canon is important, especially in things requiring measurement, for without an objective standard of measure, a canon, there is no way to have any certainty regarding the true dimensions of any object of inquiry. An additional consequence of having no accurate measurement means that one will also be unable to squarely fit any additional pieces together. Thus if one wants, say, to lay the foundation for a house, fit a pipe, or build a bridge, one must have an objective canon, a fixed measure or criterion by which to ensure that the construction does not fall apart.

A similar situation obtains in ethics. For example, if there is an ethical prescription, say, against theft, meaning the forbidding of a claim to ownership of any property that is not rightfully one’s own, i.e. to not steal, then this prescription serves as a canon, a criterion, a measure by which to evaluate whether or not an act can be regarded as theft. Without this objective canon, however, nothing is objectively ethical, and therefore it would be impossible to measure whether or not an action was ethically forbidden and thus wrong. It is the criterion which makes this evaluation possible. In other words, a canon is the organizing principle that makes ethics possible.

An additional factor impacting the concept of canon is that of authority. This is made obvious in the differences between the US standard and the metric systems. For example, when people design parts for a machine, they will measure according to one or the other system. When a system is chosen and put in place, the various manufacturers can produce size-matching products. Although in this example the systems of measure are each equally valid, it is clear that uniformity of measure is what makes complex integration of many machine parts feasible, and that the imposition of this measure by an authority that makes its feasibility actual. In other words, the canon becomes effectual because it is established by an authority (whether this be initiated by an academic institution, scientific academy, or governmental organization, etc.).

Without an authority there is no foundation upon which to establish the consistent criterion requisite for effectual compatibility. No authority means no canon; no canon means no organizing principle. The problem, therefore, for the atheist, is that there is neither an objective criterion nor authority, and therefore no possibility for establishing any stable, non-arbitrary ethical system.

Atheism can equally produce anything from a principle of hedonism to total permissiveness to one of eugenics-inspired genocide to one of killing all humans in order to preserve the environment, and anything inbetween. But within atheism there is absolutely no authority that can be appealed to which states one is objectively right and the other objectively wrong. The appeal will be to reason, desire, force (alas), precedent, survival, democratic processes, various philosophers, studies, aesthetics, psychology, or any number of other things, but canonically none of them will agree with each other or be able to establish a certain foundation or principle of integration for ethics.

Christianity, however, as regards ethics, has an explicit, unquestioned authority in the Lord Jesus Christ, and as such He establishes both the canon and the authority for determining what is right and wrong. For example, if a man hates his enemy, one can immediately point to Christ who stated unequivocally to love one’s enemy (Matthew 5:44; Romans 13:9; 1 Corinthians 13; Galatians 5:4; 1 John 2:9, 2:11, 4:20). The atheist, however, has no fixed reference to point to. He may point to this or that atheist philosopher, idea, or ruling authority, either individual or collective, perhaps a Hegel, a Rand, or a Stalin, a survival of the fittest, but ultimately they all will prove arbitrary starting points for ethical thinking, each unable to escape the ethical subjectivism which ultimately destroys all ethics. He can compel conformity, certainly, but virtue remains unknown.

Of course, very many atheists have claimed that they have a system for distinguishing right from wrong, and for identifying virtue, but without a canon these are by nature arbitrary and accidental virtue. Atheism, when it comes down to it, cannot determine whether it has produced virtuous or vicious acts, and, what is worse, there is no mechanism that in principle can inform them. It could be moral to kill inferior races, to lie to further a political cause, to destroy humanity in order to save the planet, to sterilize those deemed undesirable, or the opposite, they cannot really know. They will borrow ethical momentum from Christian civilization, of course, and arbitrarily claim it as self-evident, but without Christ these borrowed virtues will lose their center and become increasingly distorted, grotesque caricatures.

And so atheists are incorrect when they state they don’t need an authoritative source for being a good person. Without an authoritative source there is no objective canon, and with no canon there is no ability to truly distinguish right from wrong. They philosophically cannot know what a good person is or does, and so any virtue they practice is necessarily arbitrary and accidental. Virtue is not self-evident, and therefore the atheist’s claim to have it while having no means to certainly identify it and distinguish it from vice is empty.

See the following article for continued analysis.

A Female Priesthood: How We Know it is Wrong

Many can be heard to say, “I don’t need anyone to tell me murder is wrong!” And yet, as anyone knowledgeable in history will know, this ethical principle has not been universally held or recognized.

Now, what does this have to do with why women are not permitted to be priests? A lot, and the answer shall be made clear.

Returning to the groundwork of the argument, it is known that approximately eleven million non-combatants did not spontaneously die in Germany during World War II. They were murdered. Likewise, tens of millions of people in Russia, China, and elsewhere, were also murdered in the early and mid 20th Century. Going further back in history, the Mongol hordes are thought to have murdered tens of millions of people as they swept like a furious storm through the steppes of Eurasia. What is more, there have been numerous cultures who had "practices" such as cannibalism and human sacrifice.

Instances of the consistent practice of murder throughout history and across the entire planet are innumerable. It is a sad tale, but why mention it? Well, clearly these people did not heed what some appear to claim to be the nigh universal intuition that murder is wrong, that harming others is unethical, that chattel slavery, rape, and genocide are wicked evils. These wicked people lived (and still live) in the same world as those who state that they do not need to be told that murder is wrong, and yet still they murdered and saw no problem with it. It is therefore fair to say that the intuition maintaining that murder is wrong is not universally held, is not self-evident, and is not entirely obvious. In fact, it is possible that few people really know why murder is wrong, and likely attribute it to some innate ethical knowing, a moral instinct that all people share (which clearly all people do not).

The statement that people do not need to be taught that murder is wrong is, frankly, a lie. Too many people treat it as self-evident, but this is a confusion based on the fact that in our current society most people typically agree that it is wrong. But this only underscores the fact that people do need to be taught that murder is wrong, and moreover there need to be laws that announce it, and that prevent and punish for it. Those who state that they do not need to be taught that murder is wrong, that it is self-evident, are self-deceived by their conditioning, because they have been taught that murder is wrong, and having been taught that it is wrong they got the idea that it is wrong.

The philosophy of natural law certainly can, of course, inform us that murder is wrong, for God does write this on our hearts, and many cultures have come to agree with this truth, but with seared consciences not everyone is sensitive to this or receptive to the reasoning, and always evil geniuses are ready to spin reasons why the murder of certain people is okay, whether they be of a certain faith, race, territory, group, or age. For example, today millions are murdered in abortion clinics, and yet so-called civil society promotes this form of murder in the mainstream media and even frames it as a practice born of enlightened thinking. Apparently these people also need to be taught that it is wrong to murder unborn human beings.

Quite simply, it is God who, through His divine and revealed command against it, teaches us that murder is wrong. We are informed that it is wrong. It did not magically or spontaneously appear as an intuition that murder is wrong; it was not a long chain of syllogistic reasoning that convinced humanity; it was not the result of pragmatism that caused us to agree that murder is wrong. Some might think that it is more pragmatic to kill undesirables. In fact, apes kill other apes and they don’t get in any trouble, and apparently do not feel remorse. Nature kills all the time. Time itself kills all. Only the fittest survive. Many people reason similarly that lying and stealing are justified, and thus pragmatist arguments built of autonomous human reasoning might make these all together sound acceptable. Communist countries killed millions on this very basis.

It is clear that moral knowledge was not the result of the sustained brilliance and authority of human reasoning. We had to be told by God in order for it to become clear. God revealed His will that murder, lying, and stealing are wrong, and therefore it is clear. It is His will that we are obeying when we agree that these are wrong, and the fact of their wrongness has no other ontological foundation than the divine, revealed will.

Coming to the point of whether or not women should be ordained to the priesthood, the principle is the same: It is God’s will that only men be priests. It is thus not an issue of pragmatism or human reasoning. It is not an issue of women’s ability or inability. It is not a matter of culture (as this has been maintained since the Temple period and throughout the entire history of the Church and throughout all cultures). It is also not a matter of dragons who will fly in to eat any women that are found in the altar such that, in order to protect them, we must not ordain them. These are all red herrings. God wills that men be priests, and so the Church obeys, just as she obeys His will not to murder, lie, or steal.

It must be noted that famous and public Orthodox Christians are currently promoting the issue of why women might be ordained. One well-known nun has publicly stated:

“Women can be priests. We don't want them to be priests.' Because you see, God can do anything, and the Church, by divine authority, can do anything, but, the Church doesn't want to - and that's a legitimate reason.”

As if the Church’s wish is arbitrary, this nun frames the issue as the Church basing its decision on what it wants, not what God wants. God, according to her reasoning, grants divine authority to the Church, and so the Church with divine authority can say no, but the Church’s no, according to this reasoning, is disjointed from God’s will, and so the Church simply enforces its own wish, albeit authoritatively. She states it is the Church that doesn’t want to ordain women, which presupposes that the Church’s desire is somehow autonomous, not rooted essentially in God’s will, and that its autonomy being given divine sanction and authority can make what it wants binding.

The problem is, she has changed who said what. A more accurate thing to say is that God almighty wills that women not be ordained, and that the Church is simply obeying what He has revealed in, to, and through the Church, and that with divine authority the Church is simply preserving what He has willed to reveal through the Church’s unchanging praxis of male ordination, which itself can be traced back to the founding of the Levitical priesthood. The Church, in other words, is not a merely human institution, but the very Body of Christ, and as such her will is not her own, but reflects His divine will.

She concluded:

“Nowadays some people who are at pains to argue against females in priesthood- whereas I don't think there's a big problem, we should just say honestly, ‘We don't want women to be priests. As Church, we don't want that.’ That's fine, you know, that's fine, but we shouldn't say that we couldn’t have women as priests.”

Actually, the Church cannot have women priests, quite simply because God forbids it, and we can know He forbids based on His unchanging will regarding this matter, from the founding of the male Levitical priesthood through to the Apostles, through the post-Apostolic Fathers, through ante-Nicene Fathers, through the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, through the Middle Ages, through the Fall of Byzantium, through to this very day. The Church, in fact, never made the decision not to ordain women, because it was never up to her. The decision was made by God and she simply perseveres in it.

To conclude, it may not be evident to many people why ordaining women is wrong, but when the foundations of morality are examined, we find that God is the only real foundation for any moral claim. Even the wrongness of such things as lying, stealing, and murder, as history has shown time and again, are not self-evident. Many cultures have made a living on doing those very things. It is made evident by God, however, that lying, stealing, and murder are wrong, because He reveals His will. In the case of lying, stealing, and murdering, these were condemned in the Ten Commandments. In the case of the male priesthood, this is revealed in the Old Testament Levitical priesthood, in the Apostolic continuation of this in the Church, and in the Church’s two thousand year liturgical Tradition. In continuity with Scripture, this liturgical Tradition is a mode of God’s self-disclosure, a self-disclosure which also bespeaks of His will. Since, in obedience to this revealed will of God, the Temple and the Church have always had an only-male priesthood, therefore it is simply the divine obligation of the Church to continue in this.

A Heap of Stones: The Unsustainable Paradox of Catholic Papal Apologetics

Attempting to demonstrate the error of the Roman papacy is very tricky, for almost every claim against it there are counterclaims upon counterclaims. In these counterclaims one finds quotes from Church Fathers and Ecumenical Councils, and appeals to Scripture and to logic. One grows weary (and lighter in the wallet) attempting to keep track responsibly, but for an Orthodox Christian the problem is relatively plain to see. Trying to point it out to a Roman Catholic, however, is almost like trying to point out a dolphin jumping out of the water a little ways off shore that, for whatever reason, the other person just never seems to be able to see. There is a paradox, however, which could provide an image of the type of problem that seems to be at work. This paradox is called the Sorites Paradox.

The Sorites Paradox is sometimes also called the Paradox of the Heap, and it refers to how a single stone is not a heap of stones, and how, if one more stone is added, it is still not a heap. Now, if two stones are not a heap, then adding only one more stone will not make it a heap, either. And if that is not a heap, adding still one more stone won’t make it one. Eventually, so the paradox goes, one has an enormous heap of stones, but, due to the one-by-one method of adding, the obvious fact of the heap is denied. Nothing to see here, there is no heap.

Returning to the centuries-long developments of the Roman papacy, I contend that they are a heap of stones. Yet, because each single stone receives its own rationalization and its own justification, the mountain of stones is denied, and so the Roman Catholic will seek in some way to say that nothing has changed regarding the Roman patriarch; it is essentially the same as St. Peter left it... and yet to plain sight the heap created over the centuries is utterly unlike that which came before. In short, the whole has departed through the sum of its minor changes, hence there is a schism separating them from the Orthodox Church.

Much like the tiles of the mosaic St. Irenaeus used in his argument against the gnostics in Book I Chapter 8 of Against Heresies, the Roman Catholics have rearranged a series of legitimate “tiles” to create an unjustified papacy. In Irenaeus’ example, the image of a king had been rearranged to create the image of a dog or a fox. The point from this example to keep in mind here, however, is that the tiles are proper; their problem is therefore not in whether the tiles are proper, but whether they are in their proper place. Regarding the Roman apologists, the Patristic quotes are real Patristic quotes, the Scripture verses are real Scriptures verses, the Ecumenical Council statements are real Ecumenical Council statements, but their apologists have shifted them to create an image of a pope that is so unlike what an orthodox patriarch looks like that it can be astonishing.

Apologetics here is difficult, though, for entering into the forest of qualifications, the thicket of views, one is easily led astray, tile by tile, stone by stone, for each rearrangement, each addition is seemingly justified by Patristic citations, Councils, Scripture, and logical argument, and so by degrees one receives a heterodox Papism, something that looks utterly unlike the early, Orthodox Roman patriarchate that existed during Rome’s Orthodox period. Tile upon tile, stone upon stone, changes and additions which are typically classified as clarifications, if not “doctrinal developments,” the Orthodox notion of papal primacy has by degrees transformed into papal supremacy. It is for this reason that it is likely fruitless to try to assemble more quotes and citations, for no amount of quoting has ended this schism. Several doctoral degrees together with knowledge of several languages is required to sort this out, if one sought to go that route, but even then success is far from guaranteed.

For the sake of this article, papal primacy refers to the Orthodox doctrine of the Patriarch of Rome’s place of primacy of honor and authority, being the highest court of appeal, but restricted in its governance and jurisdiction to its traditional geographic territories. The position of highest authority is, so to speak, relational rather than positional, which is to say it is not “over top of” the other patriarchates as, say, a conductor or autocrat, but “together with” the other patriarchates as, say, first chair or speaker of the house (under the mystical Presidency of Christ), and as such its relational authority is mediate with that of the other patriarchates and, thus, necessitates concert in order to be exercised aright.

Papal supremacy, on the other hand, here refers to the heterodox doctrine of the Patriarch of Rome’s immediate, universal jurisdiction and unilateral authority over the other patriarchates, including such doctrines as ex cathedra infallibility being an ontological mark, so to speak, or guaranteed charism, of the Patriarch of Rome. This authority structure expresses a top-down model, as a conductor or autocrat, or CEO, an authority exercised unilaterally over the other patriarchates.

Perhaps the two biggest problems, from an Orthodox perspective, are so-called Papal Infallibility and Immediate Universal Jurisdiction. Concerning the first of these, as Vatican I states of Papal Infallibility:

We teach and define that it is a dogma Divinely revealed that the Roman pontiff when he speaks ex cathedra, that is when in discharge of the office of pastor and doctor of all Christians, by virtue of his supreme Apostolic authority, he defines a doctrine regarding faith or morals to be held by the universal Church, by the Divine assistance promised to him in Blessed Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer willed that his Church should be endowed in defining doctrine regarding faith or morals, and that therefore such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable. So then, should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject this definition of ours: let him be anathema.

— Vatican Council, Sess. IV, Const. de Ecclesiâ Christi, Chapter iv

And from Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium:

This Sacred Council, following closely in the footsteps of the First Vatican Council, with that Council teaches and declares that Jesus Christ, the eternal Shepherd, established His holy Church, having sent forth the apostles as He Himself had been sent by the Father; and He willed that their successors, namely the bishops, should be shepherds in His Church even to the consummation of the world. And in order that the episcopate itself might be one and undivided, He placed Blessed Peter over the other apostles, and instituted in him a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion. And all this teaching about the institution, the perpetuity, the meaning and reason for the sacred primacy of the Roman Pontiff and of his infallible magisterium, this Sacred Council again proposes to be firmly believed by all the faithful.

To comment on these, it seems plain that nowhere is there such a remarkable promise explicitly given anywhere in Scripture or in the Church Fathers. Scripture does not indicate that Peter is “over the other apostles.” He certainly was not “over” the Apostle Paul in Galatians 2:11, and I do not see any modern Catholic bishop having such potential scope, for “such definitions of the Roman pontiff are of themselves and not from the consent of the Church irreformable,” and “should anyone, which God forbid, have the temerity to reject” this notion of infallible papal supremacy, he is considered “anathema.” Luckily, this doctrine had not been fully “developed,” lest St. Paul perhaps be anathematized for “opposing Peter to his face” (although Peter was not likely acting ex cathedra) and regarding him as “standing condemned.” Peter likewise did not seem to be “over” James in Acts 15:13-29 when James gave the authoritative judgment concerning the situation that was then at hand.

In these situations, Scripture does not seem to “institute in [Peter] a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion.” But to a Catholic apologist this plain fact of Scripture will not be so plain, and so the critique will die the death of a thousand qualifications. Nothing in Scripture, however, gives any sense that a single member of the Church by virtue of office can stand in her place as an infallible representative of the whole Church. But the Vatican Councils have given voice to the shifting of the mosaic’s image such that the Catholics are become the Church of Peter, and any number of qualifications will likely also dismantle Scriptural teachings, such as that from St. Paul to the Corinthians when he infallibly teaches:

you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, ‘I am of Paul,’ and another, ‘I am of Apollos,’ are you not mere men? What then is Apollos? And what is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, even as the Lord gave opportunity to each one. I planted, Apollos watered, but God was causing the growth. So then neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but God who causes the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:3-7)

But, perhaps to give the Roman Catholics a chance to exercise their exegetical ingenuity, St. Paul does not mention only himself and Apollos, but also Peter: “Now I mean this, that each one of you is saying, ‘I am of Paul,’ and ‘I of Apollos,’ and ‘I of Cephas,’ and ‘I of Christ.’ Has Christ been divided? Paul was not crucified for you, was he? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul?” (1 Corinthians 1:12-13) Clearly, although chief of the apostles and in possession of great, if not unique, authority, St. Peter is not thereby “a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion.” His identity is not treated as a rallying point of unity, and certainly not as grounds for disunity, much less schism, for Christ has not been divided up according to Paul, Apollos, and Peter, but, carefully placing one stone after another, no heap will be found.

It seems clear to Orthodox teaching and to reason that the Holy Spirit does not give the charism of infallibility positionally, or to the occupants of chairs merely by virtue of being selected (infallibly?) to sit in it (by whom?). Of course, at certain moments any Christian can speak infallibly. But to guarantee that a human being will speak infallibly is self-evident hubris. St. Athanasius taught with infallibility regarding the divinity of Christ. St. Basil taught with infallibility concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit. St Maximus also taught with infallibility regarding Christ's two wills. St Gregory Palamas taught with infallibility regarding the distinction between God's essence and energies. But to say this infallibility can be guaranteed to a person on condition that they are the Patriarch of Rome is not an issue of faith, but an elaborate ruse, an idol. Infallibility is, and in principle cannot be, a possession of the human will. Human beings do not possess infallibility as a trait of their person or position. The Papist doctrine of infallibility, however, is a claim about a position, the infallibility of a man based on his occupancy of a certain office.

It should be obvious that no Scriptural promise looks anything like Papal infallibility, or supremacy for that matter. Even the promise that Peter’s faith will not fail is not a promise that he has infallible teaching accuracy and authority, nor is Christ’s naming him Peter, nor His command to feed His sheep, an assignment of supreme governance and visible point man for the global Church, much less that any of this applies ontologically to his “successors.” The Roman Catholics have invested so much of themselves into the authority and identity of the pope, his infallibility and supremacy, that the pope becomes the logo, so to speak, of the Roman Church, a virtual stand-in. He both represents Christ and the Church in his person. Stone by stone, however, there is no heap.

One of the problems is that there is a fundamental distinction between a developed explanation of doctrine, on the one hand, and the development of doctrine itself, on the other. The former is a refinement of language, a clarification of expression, while the latter is a new product that is purported to be genetically present in or based on the older. This distinction could certainly be contentious, but the so-called Novus Ordo comes to mind as a more obvious case in point. Infallibility ought to be another obvious example. Infallibility belongs to the Church as Mystery, in her totality. Councils may express this, even patriarchs may, but the promise is to the Church qua Church.

Does the Apostle Peter’s authority as represented in Scripture look anything like the modern papist version? i.e. immediate universal jurisdiction? Did Peter claim infallibility for himself? Did Paul claim it for him? Did Peter carve the wood and build the chair his successors were to sit on, and lay hands on it such that whoever sits in it receives a guarantee of the charism of infallibility? Where in Scripture is any office, much less anyone, promised perfect, perpetual infallibility based on possession of said office? The judges? The sons of David? Were there no false prophets in Israel? No unfaithful high priests? Did Jesus say anything about Peter being “instituted... a permanent and visible source and foundation of unity of faith and communion”? Are these merely superficial differences, or do they point to a more fundamental shift, even a departure from what the Ancient Peter looked and acted like? A “total makeover” from how the Ancient Church related to his primacy, the answer to all of these questions seems only too obvious. If, however, a person adds slowly one stone upon another, carefully considering each one, they might just convince themselves into denying that a very large heap of stones stands before their very eyes, and that Pope Francis is the virtual twin of St. Peter.

To shift again to the metaphor of the mosaic, each subtle argument shifts a tile, inch by inch, until there is a completely different image, from Peter the chief Apostle to a Universal Patriarch of the planet, of the very galaxy, the infallible CEO of Christ’s Church. These are clearly not the same role, and only by entering into a vortex of qualifications and proof texting can a person get there while at the same time thinking it is legitimate. Sure, each tile of the mosaic is a correct tile, and one can argue the rightness of the tiles all day; the problem is, it’s just not arranged aright.

Contra Descartes: The Vicious Circle of "I Think, Therefore I Am"

The 17th Century philosopher and “father” of modern philosophy in the West, René Descartes’ argument, “I think, therefore I am,” is familiar to many. It is bound up with the historic beginnings of a major turn in philosophy, a destructive but influential and pervasive departure from the more Christian and Classical philosophy which persisted for millenia. Intended as a counter to radical skepticism, it seeks to discover an incontrovertible foundation for epistemic certainty. Rather than providing an antidote to radical doubt and skepticism, however, Descartes’ argument, “I think, therefore I am” (in Latin: cogito ergo sum; in the original French: je pense, donc je suis), is instead a logical fallacy. It is circular reasoning, a petitio principii, a begging of the question, an assuming of the desired conclusion in the premise. A vicious circle, at best it is a tautology.

The initial premise, “I think,” is enthymematic (an enthymeme is “an argument in which one premise is not explicitly stated”); it tacitly asserts the desired “am.” When it states, “I think,” it is implicitly saying, “I [am] think[ing],” thus inserting being prior to proving being. To make such an argument is thus to self-destructively assert an epistemological certainty for the very being he is trying to prove, the very conclusion the argument is attempting to accomplish. In short, viciously circular, it is saying “I, therefore I.”

The statement itself can be read in more than one way. Two primary ways would be either as an ontological statement or as an epistemological one. Neither way avoids the difficulty it is entangled in. For example, reading it in an ontological key, since Descartes axiomatically presupposes being as a certainty, vis a vis “I [who am] think,” then certainty of being cannot be reached as the conclusion of the argument such that he can say, “therefore I am.” That is simply restating, or making explicit, the implicit premise as the conclusion. If, however, it is read in an epistemological key, then the circularity yet remains, for to claim “I think” is enthymematically to assert “I [am epistemologically certain I] think.” In essence still restating the implicit premise in an explicit form as the conclusion, he is stating, “I know, therefore I know,” which is facile and self-defeating since the purported enterprise of the cogito ergo sum is to discover an indubitable foundation for certain knowledge. If certain knowledge is assumed within the initial premise, then it cannot become the certain conclusion without also becoming viciously circular.

To say “I am not” is absurd. Quite simply, there is no additional act which gets added to the “I” which “proves” said “I.” The “I” is presupposed in all acts, for “I” means ‘being in the act of personal existence,’ or ‘being existing,’ and, as such, “I” is the necessary foundation of all action. As such, no additional or subsequent act “proves” the “I,” only reveals it relative to and through some particular act. To reveal, however, is not the same as to prove. Only an “I” can even attempt to prove, and so the attempt alone has already presupposed the I’s existence, thus rendering proof unpersuasive and without warrant.

The “I” reveals itself in and through its acts, rendering the acts signs of the "I." In this sense, thinking is no different from breathing or knowing or even doubting, for in each of these acts an “I” is necessarily presupposed. In this light, Descartes’ statement could equally be, “I breathe, or know, or even doubt, therefore I am,” which ends up tautologically breaking down to, “I am, therefore I am.” Instead of referring for proof to something the "I" does per accidens, which is to say one of its innumerable potential acts, the "I" instead reveals itself principally via the fundamental act of existing, and consequently by various and sundry doings. It is perhaps worth mentioning that existence does not cease with the cessation of thought, as in dream or deep sleep. In this sense, it could perhaps be said, "I am, therefore I think." In short, one does not prove an I, one is an I.

Recasting the cogito in a more explicitly epistemological light will not help, for to say the certain fact of his thinking enables him to have certain knowledge that he exists is really unremarkable since the ability to think, know, and be aware is precisely what makes self-knowledge realizable. It is epistemic certainty he is after, and as such the question can be posed: How does Descartes really know he is thinking? Is there no possible reason for skepticism? For example, philosophers such as Siddhartha Gautama and David Hume arguably find nothing persuasive in the assertion that there really is a self at all, that, “acts without an agent,” what is commonly called “I” is “nothing but a bundle of different perceptions.” In other words, thoughts do not necessarily prove a thinker, for Gautama and Hume seem to say, "There is thinking, but I am not," and so it is dubious for Descartes to certainly assert “I think” simply because thinking is present, especially when it is theoretically possible to deny substantial reality to the supposed self. Moreover, since selves can be argued on rational grounds not to exist, it may be possible to render thoughts as impersonal reactions within a fundamentally impersonal environment, therefore not proving the existence of personal being at all. Thus, Descartes has not found epistemic certainty in his assertion, “I think,” for it is entirely possible to rationally doubt that there is a thinking “I.” In assuming the "I" in the "I think" premise, it seems suspicious to find a certain "I am" in the conclusion, as if he seeded the sought outcome in his initial sowing.

Moreover, another elephant in Descartes’ room is that thinking is not exactly the same as knowing. Thus, if one were to hypothetically exclude knowledge of thinking from the cogito’s premise, to say in effect, “(While not knowing that) I think, therefore (I know) I am,” it is noteworthy that the "therefore" does not necessarily follow, for not all acts of thinking imply acts of true knowledge. People can think untrue thoughts. If excluding knowledge from the premise, it presumes that certain knowledge can be a consequence, product, or result of uncertain thinking, or that thought necessarily converts to certain knowledge, which has yet to be demonstrated. If he says, "I think," then thinking of what? Swans? Daffodils? Thinking itself? By thinking of thinking he is certain of being? It seems inescapable that by stating "I think," he actually means "I know I think," which again inserts epistemic certainty into the premise.

Knowledge, of course, could also be cast, more Platonically, as anamnesis, a concept which is akin to recollection, recognition, and remembering, and not so much to thinking per se. And so how thinking converts into certain knowledge again remains untouched. To say thinking proves a thinker is facile, at best, or flat out wrong if one were to agree with Gautama or Hume, as mentioned above. To say knowing proves a knower is equally facile, again if not dubious. Perhaps it would be accurate to state that “he thinks, therefore he thinks he is,” but how he actually gets to certain knowing from thinking remains undisclosed and unproven.

What is worse, he has to somehow be epistemically certain that he is thinking, which as noted above inserts the desired epistemic certainty in the premise. If the truth or falsity of any particular thought is treated as irrelevant, merely the existential fact of thinking, then it again becomes tautological. In other words, if he knows he is thinking, then he already has the certainty he seeks and thus cannot arrive at this certainty as a conclusion without falling again into viciously circular reasoning. Whether interpreting the stress as being on the ontological or the epistemological view of the cogito, both emphases necessitate an epistemic certainty in the premise in order to assert either the certain being who is thinking, or the certain knowledge that said being has. In other words, he must know that they are, in truth, thinking, and not, say, sitting, wondering, or whistling.

Existence, which is to say being, is presupposed in all acts, including acts of thinking and reasoning about existence, and thus existence (implicit in acts) cannot become a premise of its own proof. Likewise, knowledge is presupposed in all assertions, including assertions about knowledge, and so knowledge (implicit in assertions) also cannot become a premise of its own proof. On the one hand, if seeking to find certainty for existence via thinking, then one has to assume the certain existence of the thinking agent, and so one can never arrive at certain existence as a conclusion because it was already enfolded in the premise. On the other hand, if seeking to find certainty for knowledge via thinking, then one has to assume that one is certainly knowing that thinking is happening, and that a being is doing it, and so one can again never arrive at certain knowledge as a conclusion because it was already implicit in the premise. Descartes’ argument therefore fails both as ontology and epistemology due to its intrinsic, self-defeating circularity.

To conclude, the phenomenon of self-awareness of personal being is an overwhelming fact for a person, which as a fact is not proven so much as submitted to and subsequently employed in all acts, including acts of knowledge and proof. Just as one does not look into a mirror to prove one sees or has eyes, much less that one exists, likewise one does not resort to an extrinsic logical proof in order to establish certain knowledge that one exists or that one can know things with certainty. The use of knowledge in generating assertions inescapably presupposes the reality of knowledge prerequisite to asserting. Assertions thus are a consequence of knowing, and are not knowing’s ground, as a wave does not wet an ocean, nor a leaf give birth to a tree.

One must presuppose epistemic certainty as a criteria and guide in order to prove that knowledge of x or y is certain, for the persistent multiplication of ignorance does not of itself produce certain knowledge as if sui generis, for even denying certainty is a type of certainty - a certainty of uncertainty. Likewise, one must presuppose epistemic certainty if one is reasoning on its behalf, for without it there would be no reasoning; there would be no rational criteria by which Descartes could know that his epistemic certainty was in fact certain if there was no rational substructure to which he implicitly and at all points was relying upon and being guided by in his acts of reasoning. And so, in sum, Descartes failed at the start; he has not proven anything, merely fallen victim to vicious circularity.