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Infallibility

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 October 2008

A. P. Martinich
A. P. Martinich
Affiliation:
Associate Professor, The University of Texas at Austin
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Extract

It has often been charged that the doctrine of papal infallibility is either false or incoherent. These charges stem, I believe, from a misunderstanding of the logical character of infallible papal utterances, a misunderstanding shared alike by friends and foes of the doctrine. In this paper, I shall argue that the doctrine is both coherent and correct. I devote section I to uncovering some of the sources of this misunderstanding and thereby defending what might be called my negative thesis, namely, that infallible papal utterances are not statements. In section II, I continue defending my negative thesis, not now as an end in itself, but rather as a means of advancing my positive thesis that infallible papal utterances are declarations and have the same logic as other declarations. The latter thesis requires a discussion of the difference between statements and declarations. Section III contains a formal speech act analysis of successful and non-defective statements and declarations with some additional explanatory notes. In section IV, I speak rather generally about the task of philosophical theology in the light of the results and procedures of sections I–III.

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Type
Articles
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Religious Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 1 , March 1980 , pp. 15 - 27
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1980

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References

page 15 note 1 Enchiridion Symbolorum Definitionum et Declarationum De Rebus fides et morum, ed. xxxii, ed. Denzinger, Henricus and Schönmetzer, Adolfus (Freiburg: Herder, 1963) (hereafter: DS), 3073–4Google Scholar; translated in The Teaching of the Catholic Church, ed. Rahner, Karl (Staten Island, N.Y.: Alba House, 1967) (hereafter: TCC), p. 229.Google Scholar

page 16 note 1 For example, McGrath, Philip, ‘The Concept of Infallibility’, in Truth and Certainty, ed. Schillebeeckx, Edward and Iersel, Bas van. Concilium vol. 83 (New York: Herder and Herder, 1973), pp. 65–76.Google Scholar

page 16 note 2 DS 3902, 3903; TCC, p. 195.Google Scholar

page 17 note 1 Tanquerey, A., A Manual of Dogmatic Theology, I, tr. Byrnes, John J. (New York: Desclee Company, 1959), p. 114.Google Scholar

page 17 note 2 The Catholic Encyclopedia, VII (New York: The Encyclopedia Press, 1913), 790 b.Google Scholar

page 17 note 3 DS 2803; TCC, p. 186.Google Scholar

page 18 note 1 DS 3903; TCC, p. 196.Google Scholar

page 18 note 2 Ott, Ludwig, Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, 4th ed., tr. Lynch, Patrick (Rockford, Illinois: Tan Books and Publisher, Inc., 1960), p. 200.Google Scholar

page 18 note 3 In this sense of ‘evidence’ the self-presenting states of incorrigible utterances do not count as evidence.

page 18 note 4 Austin, J. L., in How To Do Things With Words, 2nd ed., ed. Urmson, J. O. and Sbisa, Marine (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), p. 137CrossRefGoogle Scholar, says: ‘[T]here are things you cannot state have no right to state - are not in a position to state. You cannot now state how many people there are in the next room; if you say “There are fifty people in the next room”, I can only regard you as guessing or conjecturing (just as sometimes you are not ordering me, which would be inconceivable, but possibly asking me to rather impolitely, so here you are “hazarding a guess” rather oddly). Here there is something you might, in other circumstances, be in a position to state; but what about statements about other persons’ feelings or about the future? Is a forecast or even a prediction about, say, persons' behavior really a statement?' See also Searle, John, Speech Acts (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1969), p. 66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

page 19 note 1 Lindbeck, George A., Infallibility (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1972), pp. 15–16Google Scholar. See also Küng, Hans, Infallible?: An Inquiry (Garden City: Doubleday & Co., 1971), pp. 124–5Google Scholar, and McGrath, Philip, ‘The Concept of Infallibility’, passim.Google Scholar

page 19 note 2 Lindbeck, George A. in The Infallibility Debate, ed. Kirwan, John J. (New York: The Paulist Press, 1971), p. 128.Google Scholar

page 21 note 1 Searle, John, Speech Acts, p. 66.Google Scholar

page 21 note 2 For more about institutional speech acts, see my ‘Sacraments and Speech Acts, II’, The Heythrop journal, XVI (1975), 405–17Google Scholar, and Searle's, John ‘A Taxonomy of Illocutionary Acts’, in Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, VII, ed. Gunderson, Keith (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1975), 349–50Google Scholar. For the relation between language and conventions, see Strawson, P. F., ‘Intention and Convention in Speech Acts’, in Logico-Linguistic Papers (London: Methuen, 1971), pp. 149–69.Google Scholar

page 23 note 1 Lindbeck, George A., in The Infallibility Debate, p. 141Google Scholar; see also p. 129.

page 24 note 1 Summa Theologiae II–IIGoogle Scholar. q. I, art 10, c. See also Ibid. art II, ad 3; Summa Contra Gentiles IV. 76.Google Scholar

page 24 note 2 A New Catechism, tr. Smyth, Kevin (New York: Herder and Herder, 1967), p. 366.Google Scholar

page 24 note 3 Lindbeck, George A., in The Infallibility Debate, p. 148Google Scholar; see also p. 140.

page 24 note 4 DS 3050–3051; TCC, p. 221.Google Scholar

page 24 note 5 DS 3071; TCC, pp. 228–9.Google Scholar

page 25 note 1 DS 3060; TCC, p. 225.Google Scholar

page 26 note 1 For the development of this kind of condition see Grice, H. P., ‘Meaning’, Philosophical Review, LXVI (1957), 377–88CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Searle, John R., Speech Acts, pp. 42–50Google Scholar; Grice, H. P., ‘Logic and Conversation’, in The Logic of Grammar, ed. Davidson, Donald and Harman, Gilbert (Encino, Calif.: Dickenson Publishing Company, Inc., 1975), pp. 66–74Google Scholar; and Martinich, A. P., ‘Referring’, Philosophy and Phenomenological ResearchGoogle Scholar (forthcoming).

page 26 note 2 For this criticism of my treatment of the sacraments in ‘Sacraments and Speech Acts’ see Brinkman, B. R., ‘“Sacramental Man” and Speech Acts Again’, The Heythrop Journal, XV (1975), 418–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar; for my reply see ‘Unspeakable Acts: A Reply to Brinkman’, Ibid. XVII ( 1976), 188–9.Google Scholar

page 27 note 1 Summa Theologiae I. I, 7Google Scholar, c; for a different kind of example of conceptual clarification in philosophical theology see my ‘Identity and Trinity’, The Journal of Religion, LVIII (1978), 169–81.Google Scholar