Arguments, Fallacies, and Scandals | Essential Apologetics

Class date: 5/6/18

Begin with prayer

“Sound Arguments” article

Scandals of one kind or another often figure into fallacious arguments or replies to arguments.
1. Examples:
  1. Crusades
  2. Inquisition
  3. sex abuse scandal
  4. Galileo case
  5. grossly immoral lives of certain Popes
2. The accuracy of claims about these topics varies, but often older events tend to be more exaggerated or even flat-out wrong
3. KEY point: Even if typical claims about the involvement of the Church in all of these (and other) scandals were completely true,
  1. they would only show that the Church is composed of sinners (which we should all know!)
  2. and that some of those sinners have held high positions in the Church
  3. it would say nothing about the truth of the Catholic Faith.
  4. Why? (Because these things run counter to what the Church says is true and good)

Nevertheless, it's helpful to know something about these topics, or at least to know where to get the information if you need it. They often show up in fallacious arguments or responses. If time is short, take votes on topics.
1. Crusades
  1. were defensive military expeditions – and we Christians lost
  2. intended to recover the Holy Land from Muslims
  3. Holy Land + the countries around became Christian by conversion – the early Church had no political or military power and was busy being persecuted by Roman Empire
  4. but they became Moslem largely by armed conquest and persecution
  5. large numbers of European Christians traveled to the Holy Land on pilgrimage and were all too often attacked, even killed
  6. Byzantine Emp. also attacked
  7. Emperor asked the Pope to send help
  8. Many common claims are false:
    1. not colonial or commercial ventures
    2. not intended to force or even convert anyone
    3. not racist (many who remained in the Holy Land married locals; medieval historian Regine Pernoud observes that they didn't care about their color, only that they were Christians)
  9. Problems: though by and large the Crusaders behaved in a manner in keeping with their lofty mission, there were several occasions on which they absolutely did do wrong
    1. For example, the sack of Constantinople – but what is not true about this disgraceful episode is the claim that the Pope (Innocent III) approved. In fact he forbade the Crusaders to go there or fight with any Christian kingdom.
    2. Nor is it true that they came up with this brilliant idea themselves. Rather a claimant to the Byz. throne, Alexius Angelus, talked them into helping him. But it turned out he wasn't wanted, the population revolted against him and his new “friends,” the Crusaders were really ticked, and you can guess the rest.
  10. What about the argument that “religion causes war”?
    1. most wars for political reasons (territory, power, wealth)
    2. Early Christianity spread by conversion, but Islam spread by conquest and persecution
    3. atheism also spread by revolution, war, and persecution (e.g. Russian, Cambodian)
    4. thus, not “religion” per se, but what people / groups believe that is key
    5. “It is surely not news, except to someone so ignorant that he probably wouldn’t be interested in these books in the first place, that religious conflict has often been murderous and that religious people have committed hideous atrocities. But so have secularists and atheists, and though they have had less time to prove their mettle in this area, they have proved it amply. If religious belief is not synonymous with good behavior, neither is absence of belief, to put it mildly. ... In fact, one can write the history of anything as a chronicle of crime and folly. Science and technology spoil everything: without trains and IG Farben, no Auschwitz; without transistor radios and mass-produced machetes, no Rwandan genocide. First you decide what you hate, and then you gather evidence for its hatefulness. Since man is a fallen creature (I use the term metaphorically rather than in its religious sense), there is always much to find.”
      – Theodore Dalrymple, “What the New Atheists Don’t See”
2. Inquisition
  1. first, what's loosely called “the inquisition” took place over 6 centuries and spread over half of Europe – it wasn't a single institution or event
  2. from the beginning, there have been those who distorted the Christian message, e.g. St Paul + St Peter warn in the Bible about false teachers = heretics, essentially
  3. this one is really, really hard for the modern mind to fathom, but here goes...
    1. to the people of those times, heresy was as bad as treason (a capital crime)
    2. or maybe worse because it threatened not just this life, but the eternal destiny of souls
  4. heresies often had social / political ramifications as well – some were seriously dangerous to the existence of society itself, e.g. Albigensians
  5. revival of Roman law beginning in ~ late 13th c. led to harsher penalties
  6. legal procedures were much fairer than secular courts of their times, e.g.
    1. accusations were about actions, not merely beliefs
    2. the accused could list any known enemies, and their evidence would not be used
    3. false accusations were punished
    4. if the accused were convicted, he had the right of appeal
    5. there are stories of people in secular prisons who did something so that they could get transferred over to the inquisition instead ...
  7. there were real abuses, but #'s have been vastly exaggerated – over a period of several centuries, some 5,000 - 20,000 were executed, not “millions” as is often claimed
    1. around the same time-frame, e.g. England just after Ref. some 800 executions a year, Mass illegal, Catholics persecuted
    2. Luther, Calvin, Zwingli all executed people they considered heretics
    3. some 30k “witches” were burned at the stake in England, perhaps 100k in Germany – hardly any in Catholic countries
    4. and even in the 20th century, atheists have persecuted, imprisoned, “re-educated,” and executed “heretics” (aka “dissidents”)
    5. Atheist Sam Harris (in The End of Faith): “The link between belief and behavior raises the stakes considerably. Some propositions are so dangerous that it may be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live.” Errm ...
3. Galileo
  1. So many misunderstandings, so little time
  2. Often portrayed as “Science v. Religion” or “Enlightened Scientist v. Idiot Church”
  3. Reality is that science grew out of Christian understanding of the world as being reasonable + Greek philosophy – and Church supported it just as it did the Arts
    - just think about it – why did sci/tech develop and flourish in W. civ. in a way it didn't anywhere else?
    - Muslim science, which is spoken of more and more in glowing terms, did make imp devs in math, e.g. algebra (beg with the number system they got from India) but much sci in Islamic countries was actually done by non-Muslims.
  4. back to Galileo – quick recap of story
    1. not medieval but Renaissance
    2. the Pope asked Copernicus to make a more accurate calendar (date of Easter)
    3. he came up with a heliocentric model, perhaps inspired by Aristarchus, and his book is dedicated to the Pope (i.e. he was not hassled about this)
    4. his model (which Galileo adopted) had circular orbits with epicycles to correct for "retrograde" apparent movement of planets
    5. the data at the time was insufficient to decide whether this model was more accurate than Ptolemy's – scientists disagreed
    6. What got Galileo in trouble was his attempt to teach the interpretation of Scripture, which he wasn't competent to do (whether his interp. was right is a diff. story)
    7. AND writing a book in which he puts the Pope's argument into the mouth of a fool (Simplicio = simpleton). He made many enemies by shooting off his mouth like that.
    8. much more ... St. Robert Bellarmine defended him ... there was a forged document
  5. Key points:
    1. early Protestants condemned the heliocentric model
    2. the Church had not previously had a problem with less-literal interpretations – but at this time, right in the midst of the Protestant upheaval – there was an attempt not to scandalize the Protestants, so as not to create more obstacles to reconciliation
    3. besides, as I said, the scientists were divided on the question, and in fact, neither model then in use was entirely correct (Kepler's came later)
    4. the circular orbits were because they thought the heavens “perfect” ... so the Copernican change is not so much a demotion of the earth as of the heavens
    5. Galileo was placed under “house arrest” (which I think was a mistake) but was never tortured, imprisoned, or executed – and he died a faithful Catholic
    6. It was a disciplinary decree, so infallibility is not involved – in fact, Robert Cardinal Bellarmine wrote that if the data ever did come in to prove Galileo's assertion, then we'd have to rethink the interpretation of certain Scripture passages. In the next centuries, Pope Benedict XIV (1757) granted an imprimatur to G's works, and they were explicitly removed from the Index (1822).
    7. There's a funny PS to the whole calendar story. Once Copernicus had figured out the math, the Catholic countries adopted the new calendar, involving a jump of 10 days at the time of the death of St. Teresa of Avila (Oct 4, 1582 to Oct 15). However, Protestant countries refused to adopt the new Gregorian calendar until the lifetime of George Washington, almost 2 centuries later (1752, to be precise) – which is why his birthday had to be shifted from Feb 11 to Feb 22.
4. Abuse scandal
  1. need to honestly acknowledge that this scandal involved hideous sins that are an abomination, and especially in priests
  2. it has badly wounded the Church
  3. her leaders (bishops) made serious, even sinful, mistakes in handling / hiding
  4. now so much improved that the Catholic Church is one of the safest institutions for children in the US
  5. Celibacy is often blamed, BUT:
    1. similar cases have been reported across society, e.g. in public schools, Hare Krishna's
    2. not that long ago, rash of televangelists caught in adultery
    3. they were married – yet no one blamed scandals on institution of marriage
    4. clearly not caused by either marriage or celibacy, but by individual's sins
    5. we don't judge marriage by those who break vows
    6. neither should we judge celibacy in that way
    7. Both are best judged by the example of those who are faithful
  6. See Fr. Robert Barron's article (Resources) for more.

So what's the bottom line?
1. It's often argued that any or all of these scandals show that the Catholic Church is not the true Church. This is a ____________ fallacy? (Non sequitur. Possibly a red herring.)
2. When it's brought up during an argument about another topic, it's often a red herring.
3. Even if all the claims were true, it doesn't prove anything about Christianity or about the Catholic Church. The truth is still true even if people who know it don't follow it, and a lie is still a lie even if everyone believes it.
4. Scandals only show that the Church contains sinners as well as saints. Jesus Himself said as much in the parable of the wheat and the tares (Mt. 13:24-30) and in the one of the net containing good and bad fish (Mk. 13:47-48)