Thread 41065177

Good arguments for, good arguments against

Something weird is going on with Catholicism.

Islam has two big problems: there are no good reasons to believe it and lots of good reasons not to. Catholicism suffers from half those problems.1

I think there really are a great many powerful arguments against Catholicism. Dustin Crummett https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fEKpYouT1wU has a good video going over some of the problems, but to summarize some of the issues:

1 Catholics are committed to a really implausible view https://wollenblog.substack.com/p/catholic-sexual-morality-a-new-theory about sexual ethics, according to which homosexuality, masturbation, and contraception are immoral on account of being intrinsically disordered. The backdrop natural law view that this relies on is about as implausible as any view in all of philosophy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dPen831EkYg

2 They’re similarly committed to a categorical prohibition on lying. This is insane! Lying is great and you should do it all the time! https://www.catholic.com/magazine/online-edition/the-lowdown-on-lying

>>41065177 (OP)
3 Catholics probably have to believe in an eternal hell, which strikes me as very implausible. https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/popes-creeds-councils-and-catechisms.html

4 Catholics are committed to scriptural inerrancy. https://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/2020/08/popes-creeds-councils-and-catechisms.html I think the bible is riddled with clear errors concerning morality (e.g. pretty much the entire book of Joshua, stuff about slavery), authorship (it seems to affirm the false doctrine of mosaic authorship), and more. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLe1tMOs8ARn3Uy9dvxyqhBvEldBgkqtN5 When reading the Bible, it seems riddled with nutty holdovers of a barbaric and prescientific age, as well as contradictions and duplicate stories. https://benthams.substack.com/p/50-lifetimes-to-babylon?utm_source=publication-search

5 Catholics must believe in divine simplicity which I think is very implausible https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhke5_tk6N0 (it might be that they can believe some more watered down version of it, but various authoritative teachings seemed to have in mind a more aggressive version of the doctrine).

6 The Catholic Church in Exsurge domine https://www.papalencyclicals.net/leo10/l10exdom.htm which I think there’s a good case to be made for Catholics being infallibly committed to because of a bit at the end which I’ll include in a footnote 2—condemned as an error Martin Luther’s notion “That heretics be burned is against the will of the Spirit.” But plainly this is not an error if Christianity is true! I know there’s some controversy about whether exsurge domine is infallible, so I don’t want to make it the main point in my case, but it’s at least something of a problem for Catholicism.

>>41065181
7 As my friend Gavin Ortlund argues persuasively, https://www.amazon.com/What-Means-Be-Protestant-Always-Reforming/dp/0310156327 Catholic teachings about Mary and icons don’t go back to the apostles and were made up hundreds of years later. The Catholic Church claims only the authority to interpret and develop scripture and apostolic teachings, not make up entirely new teachings out of whole cloth—so if these teachings are made up later, as the historical record seems to suggest, that’s a big problem for Catholicism. Similar things seem true of the Papacy, but I haven’t looked into that one as much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TG6pnAjHX1k

8 It also seems like Catholic Church teaching on whether there’s salvation outside the Church and usury has flipped. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extra_Ecclesiam_nulla_salus

>>41065188
If I really racked my brain I could come up with more implausible things about Catholicism, but I’m currently just writing out a quick article during a break from studying for a psychology quiz so pardon the non-exhaustiveness of the list.

But as this hopefully illustrates, there are a lot of very strong arguments against Catholicism. These would ordinarily be enough for me to dismiss it as almost certainly false!

And yet the case for Catholicism also seems surprisingly good. I’m not talking primarily about the philosophical or a priori case for Catholicism, though that has some force. It does seem pretty likely that God would instruct us on how to live by constructing something like a papacy.

But the best case for Catholicism comes from all the miracles. My friend Ethan recently made the case at length https://motivacredibilitatis.substack.com/p/our-lady-of-fatima for the Fatima sun miracle, which specifically served to vindicate a Catholic teaching. The children who predicted the miracle and claimed to see appearances of the Virgin Mary said that she demanded that people pray the Rosary and that Orthodox Russia be consecrated to the Immaculate Heart of Mary (a distinctly Catholic thing).

>>41065191
Now, there are some other well-attested miracles that aren’t distinctly Catholic. Lots of healing miracles seem well attested (see Craig Keener’s book on this). https://www.amazon.com/Miracles-Credibility-New-Testament-Accounts/dp/0801039525 These span all different religious traditions. But of the miracles that aren’t healing-based, the best attested ones seem to be Catholic or consistent with Catholicism. This includes the levitation of Joseph of Cupertino, https://benthams.substack.com/p/steelmanning-christianity?utm_source=publication-search the healing of Calanda, https://benthams.substack.com/p/god-best-explains-the-world?utm_source=publication-search and Our Lady of Zeitoun https://benthams.substack.com/p/steelmanning-christianity?utm_source=publication-search (this one was Oriental Orthodox but involved a Marian apparition, so it seems consistent with Catholicism). Ethan also tells me the evidence for other Catholic miracles—including Padre Pio, Lourdes, Eucharistic miracles, and so on—is good, but I haven’t looked carefully into the other ones.

So on the one hand we have a great many strong objections to Catholicism. On the other, we have a great many seemingly convincing miracles supporting Catholicism. What’s going on? Why do the Miracle evidence and other evidence point in such different directions? Why do the most convincing miracles seem to be Catholic? I can think of a few reasons.

First, maybe the Catholics just are more judicious in recording miracles. Pentecostals seem to think crazy miracles are happening roughly every three minutes in every Pentecostal Church, but they don’t tend to write them down. Catholics have better record keeping of their miracles than Protestants.

>>41065196
This can be a partial explanation, but it won’t explain everything. If there was a Protestant analogue of Marian apparitions, it would presumably be known. Maybe this can be combined with a weird feature of the Catholic psyche that leads to hallucinating Mary but that’s a weird extra auxiliary hypothesis.

Second, maybe God likes Catholicism and so uses miracles to spread it. This seems possible, but it makes God a bit of a deceiver in a way that might pose skeptical problems (and just seems on its face pretty unlikely). If you become convinced that God is constantly going around trying to convince people of Catholicism, you should become Catholic.

Third, maybe I’m just wrong about the objections to Catholicism. Maybe my philosophical intuitions are crowded in darkness, so I can’t see the true wickedness of loving couples having consensual homosexual sex. This is possible, but the objections to Catholicism that move me aren’t just philosophical—they’re also historical, for instance. So merely philosophical errors won’t be enough. And I trust my ability to figure out stuff about philosophy a lot more than I trust my ability to do amateur miracle detection.

Fourth, maybe on the other end I’m just bad at evaluating apparent miracles. Perhaps there are no such miracles and I am a credulous fool who thinks that miracles happen based on bad evidence. The problem is:

1 This won’t explain why all the miracles that seem best to me are Catholic. It would seem to predict a randomish smattering of miracle beliefs.

2 Lots of other smart people seem to share my assessment (e.g. Amos).

>>41065198

3 Some of the evidence for miracles is super straightforward and powerful. Take the Calanda healing, for example, wherein a guy allegedly regrew a limb after praying to Mary. For him not to have grown a limb, there are only two possibilities: a) he didn’t lack a limb at the earlier time and b) he didn’t have a limb at the later time.

Neither of these are plausible. The evidence against a) are:

1 We have dozens of eyewitnesses who said they saw him missing a leg.

2 We have five reports from doctors who said they amputated his leg! Other eyewitnesses reported seeing him in the hospital for five months (why would they have done that if no amputation had been carried out?), witnessing the severed leg, witnessing someone else carrying out the severed leg, witnessing the gangrenous leg not being successfully treated and so being cut off, and seeing Pellicer (the guy who allegedly regrew a leg) escorted out after the surgery. All of these were attested to under oath.

3 He applied for a beggars license multiple times! In Spain, at the time, if you applied for a beggars license and were faking your ailment, they would kill you. So you have to think he risked evading detection twice so that he would stop farming and instead be a poor beggar—and that he got away with it!

4 We have ten reports from people who said they examined his leg stump when he was missing his leg.

5 He would often sleep outside as a beggar and it would have been hard to cover up his missing leg so constantly.

>>41065203
The evidence against b) is that:

1 While Pellicer was alive, very shortly after the alleged miracle, there was a years-long trial where dozens of people, including secular authorities, examined the alleged miracle. Hard to see how they’d have overlooked the fact that he had a leg—especially because they felt around for his leg.

2 Lots of eyewitnesses reported the leg being the same one as the one they’d seen him have earlier. Hard to see how that would happen if there was no leg.

3 During the trial they dug up where the leg was supposed to be, but it wasn’t there. If he’d never regrown the leg then it would be expected to be there.

And similar things are true of the other miracle reports. There are lots of miracle reports that, if they didn’t describe miracles, would be thought of as among the best attested bits of ancient history. With the Calanda miracle, what in the world is supposed to be the naturalistic explanation? What explains why so many sincere people attested to something totally false? When you ask naturalists about this, the typical response is to mock the miracle by giving it some silly name (I don’t think God goes around performing exotic magic tricks for random 17th century farmers) or raising in principle objections (if God regrows limbs, why doesn’t he do that more often?) without giving any sort of explanation.

Now, I believe in God. I’m perfectly happy granting that God miraculously healed Pellicer’s limb. But the puzzling thing is how good the evidence is for some miracles like the Fatima miracle that seem to point specifically in the direction of Catholicism.

>>41065206
So what are we to do with this information? Honestly I’m a bit puzzled. On the one hand, Catholicism seemingly can’t be true, on the other hand, it has a lot of well-attested miracles. Would be curious to hear from others: what explains this odd discrepancy?!

1
Joke stolen from Apologetics Squared https://www.youtube.com/@ApologeticsSquared/videos who has a great YouTube channel about philosophy of religion).

2
"For, according to these errors, or any one or several of them, it clearly follows that the Church which is guided by the Holy Spirit is in error and has always erred. This is against what Christ at his ascension promised to his disciples (as is read in the holy Gospel of Matthew):

“I will be with you to the consummation of the world”; it is againstthe determinations of the holy Fathers, or the express ordinances andcanons of the councils and the supreme pontiffs. Failure to complywith these canons, according to the testimony of Cyprian, will be thefuel and cause of all heresy and schism. With the advice and consentof these our venerable brothers, with mature deliberation on each andevery one of the above theses, and by the authority of almighty God,the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and our own authority, wecondemn, reprobate, and reject completely each of these theses orerrors as either heretical, scandalous, false, offensive to pious earsor seductive of simple minds, and against Catholic truth. By listingthem, we decree and declare that all the faithful of both sexes mustregard them as condemned, reprobated, and rejected . . . We restrainall in the virtue of holy obedience and under the penalty of anautomatic major excommunication."

>>41065209
This seems to meet the requirements for an Ex Cathedra statements which are nicely summarized by Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papal_infallibility#:~:text=the%20Roman%20Pontiff%20(the%20Pope,is%20outside%20the%20Catholic%20Church.

According to the teaching of the First Vatican Council https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Vatican_Council and Catholic tradition, the conditions required for ex cathedra papal teaching are as follows:[12]

1 the Roman Pontiff (the Pope alone or with the College of Bishops) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/College_of_Bishops

2 speaks ex cathedra – that is, when (in the discharge of his office as shepherd and teacher of all Christians, and by virtue of his supreme apostolic authority) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostles_in_the_New_Testament he defines a doctrine:

A. concerning faith or morals, and

B. To be held by the whole Church.

The terminology of a definitive decree usually makes clear that this last condition is fulfilled, as through a formula such as "By the authority of Our Lord Jesus Christ and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and by Our own authority, We declare, pronounce and define the doctrine [...] to be revealed by God and as such to be firmly and immutably held by all the faithful," or through an accompanying anathema https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anathema stating that anyone who deliberately dissents https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissent is outside the Catholic Church

Article linked here https://benthams.substack.com/p/the-miracle-of-catholicism#_

>>41065214
Some of the comments under the article are pretty interesting

(Medical testimony) There was testimony from five witnesses to the amputation: the surgeon that performed it (Dr. Juan de Estanga,) a surgeon that assisted with the operation (Dr. Diego Millaruelo), the surgical assistant that buried the leg (Juan Lorenzo García), and the hospital priest that was there to ensure proper care (Fr. Pascual del Cacho), and a nurse/attendant (the name of this witness is unknown)

Estanga, Millaruelo, García, and Cacho treated Miguel Juan Pellicer for months in the Hospital of Nuestra Señora de Gracia after the amputation. Pellicer convalesced there for an extended period, becoming a familiar patient to the surgeons and assistants. After leaving the hospital, Pellicer became a well-known beggar that several of them encountered at the shrine of Our Lady of the Pillar in Zaragoza.

"Estanga speaks of Miguel Juan Pellicero “of whom he knows well” (“a’ quien bien conoce“). Estanga recalled that Pellicer applied oil of the lamps from the chapel of Our Lady of the Pillar to his stump, and suggested he not do that. So, Pellicer, and his medical case were clearly quite familiar to Dr. Estanga. He affirms he recognizes Pellicer, and well remembers his case. Thus, he is in perfect position to say Pellicer is one and the same person on whom he operated two and a half years earlier, and it was his leg he amputated." (https://romalocutaest.com/2024/05/17/the-historicity-of-the-miracle-of-calanda)

>>41065220
During the canonical inquiry, doctors and others confirmed that the leg bore two distinctive identifying marks: (1) A scar from a childhood accident (Pellicer had broken the leg years before), and (2) scars from sores and treatment connected with his time at the hospital. These marks uniquely identified the returned limb as the same leg amputated in Zaragoza.

Juan Lorenzo García swore that he personally buried the amputated leg in the hospital cemetery. The claim that the grave was excavated and found empty is an indirect inference from the proceedings of the investigation. The claim that his hospital stay was corroborated by hospital records is similarly indirect: We know that there would have been a hospital record available during the investigation, but it has not survived.

(Begging license) The source you cite is talking about how fake beggars were ubiquitous, but it does not say anything about the reliability of begging licenses. The ubiquity of fraud is precisely why thorough investigations were performed before granting licenses. The system was the antidote to that problem. Obviously, verifying whether a limb was amputated would have been conclusive and perfunctory.

Also, I think you are missing an important detail: Pellicer obtained the begging license shortly after discharge from the hospital. That correlates Pellicer to the amputation in a way that strains the hypothesis of misidentification beyond credulity.

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Reject sin and return to Christ, nigga

>>41065758
>>41065188
That's a great rebuttal to the first 8 points

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