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Discussion – Infallibility*
In Defence of Infallibility
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 24 October 2008
Extract
Patrick McGrath has argued that my defence of papal infallibility does not succeed. His basic strategy is to establish that, contrary to my arguments, infallible papal utterances are statements and not merely declarations. He wants this result in order to go on to show that the Pope, in possession of no priviliged epistemic access to the world, is not infallible. I agree that the Pope has no priviliged epistemic access; so that is not in dispute. What is in dispute is the fundamental question of whether infallible papal utterances are statements or declarations. I want to show that McGrath's arguments against my position do not work. If I am successful, then the Pope's infallibility is secure.
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- Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982
References
page 81 note 1 McGrath, Patrick, ‘Statements, Declarations and Infallible Utterances: A Reply to Professor Martinich’, Religious Studies, XVI (1980), 469–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; my article is ‘Infallibility’, Religious Studies, XVI (1980), 15–27; page references to the articles will be embedded in the text.Google Scholar
page 81 note 2 Anyone who finds my use of the phrase ‘infallible papal utterance’ question-begging or tendentious may substitute ‘purportedly infallible utterances’.
page 83 note 1 Searle, John, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 83 note 2 Grice, H. P., ‘Utterer's Meaning and Intentions’, Philosophical Review, 78 (1969), pp. 165–8.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
page 85 note 1 McGrath, goes on to claim that ‘To assert that Pius IX created the fact that Mary was immaculately conceived or Pius XII the fact that she was assumed into heaven is to imply that the Immaculate Conception took place in 1852 and the Assumption in 1950…’ (p. 472).Google Scholar There is no such implication. What was made in 1852 and 1950 were declarations, not facts; the facts are a-temporal; see Vendler, Zeno, ‘Facts and Events’, in Linguistics in Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1967), p. 144.Google Scholar