(Dialogue With Apolonio Latar III)
The subject matter of this dialogue is what I posted to this weblog on the problem with apologetics methodology (and some who consider themselves "apologists") circa
Hey Shawn,
Hi Apolonio:
To tell you the truth, I have not been following the atomic bomb debate you had with others.
I understand. That subject was dealt with to death last year. I also had to publicly revisit it in January when attempts to reconcile with Dave resulted in him again taking public private stuff. The only thing I could do at that point was rip to shred his final facade of credibility on the issue and show how what he was claiming in January is what he expressly denied he was doing in August and September of last year. Essentially, he vindicated everything I said all along and my intuition viz. what fueled this was proven correct by Dave back in January of this year.{1} But that is neither here nor there for the main reason for the paper is to show problems of a general nature which by logical extension affect a lot of issues that these sorts discuss: a problem that essentially makes them impotent to have any real value in the arena of ideas.
The latter is not something that pleases me at all because to varying degrees I like Dave and Mark and most of the others who have these problems as well. (Including Stephen Hand.) Nor are they the only ones who have this problem either -I have seen it with Dale Vree, Karl Keating, and others -even (and on exactly one issue that I can recall) the esteemed Jimmy Akin. However, I have been adequately persuaded that the problem I noted in one of Jimmy's papers (in an email from earlier this year which you may not remember me sending to you and some others) was him oversimplifying a concept for the benefit of his reading audience. This is a far cry from what Dave and Mark have been doing.
I would say this though. I would say this though, as a person who is leaning towards the idea that the bomb was unnecessary, I would say that it seems to me that there is no magisterial teachings on this issue.
And you would be right to view the magisterial status of the issue as you do.
There may have been a Vatican statement, but I don't know if that was magisterial. I still have to look that up. I do know that there are well-known Catholics who believed it was immoral.
This is true. However, I have argued that no one who is familiar with all the factors that go into the equation can rationally conclude this. That does not mean (of course) that they would have to support the idea to use the bombs. My argument all along was through the utilizing of military statistics, the known Japanese mindset, the other alternatives being far more conducive to escalading deaths and casualties, the nationwide conscription element, and considering the MAGIC intercepts, the issue of proportionality factored into the mix, etc. that the usages of August 6th and 9th fit the objective criteria for double effect. Obviously I am not going to claim that my position is the only viable one but notice how people such as Dave and Mark do this very thing in their public statements.
I talked to a Catholic philosopher who believed it was.
And I talked with a Catholic philosopher who reviewed my double effect arguments and said they were sound ones.{2}
And Elizabeth Anscombe is well-known for her protest against Truman at Oxford. Apart from the Vatican statement, the best authoritative source would be USCCB, but I don't think that works since there is a debate on the authority of conferences itself.
Conferences are not magisterial in and of themselves but only constitute authentic magisterial teaching when they either (i) reiterate teachings of a pope or council or (ii) hold a plenary synod and receive recognitio by the pope of the latter's judgments and directives.{3} Furthermore, this is a subject that it would be darn near impossible to render a magisterial judgment on anyway because so many of the factors involved fall outside the Church's competence.
If I were to argue that the atomic bomb was unnecessary, and therefore immoral by applying Catholic moral principles, I would probably argue by showing how Truman knew that the Japanese was going to surrender (and there are also other things).
I would welcome such an argument and not just because I could debunk it. At the very least, it would be an argument which is something that the other side did not provide last year.
It seems to me that Truman believed this as he said in his diaries. Now, we can debate on this, but the crucial part here is whether Truman believed this. If he did, then the atomic bomb was unnecessary. That is how *I* would argue for it.
That would be a viable approach to take certainly.
I don't think showing moral theologians or philosophers will cut it.
To posit the opinions of an authority as if they are an argument in and of themselves (without prior consideration of the merits of the arguments whereby said authorities arrivded at their conclusions) is a classic argumentation fallacy. In short, you are right.
And since I don't know of any magisterial definitive teaching on this, that is how I will argue. Having said that, that means there is a difference between magisterial teachings and applications of that. And to simply quote the catechism for a particular action cannot be done.
Agreed.
One must show there is a link between the a magisterial teaching and the action. Suppose Sally does X. And the magisterium says that Y is wrong. In order for one to quote the magisterium properly, one must show that X is Y. Suppose that Sally took a rubber band from Billy. To quote the magisterium saying that stealing is wrong does not necessarily mean that Sally's action is wrong. One must show that the act of taking a rubber band from Billy was stealing. Same with the atomic bomb. So I agree with you, Shawn, with this remark:
"The end result is various apologists claiming magisterial sanction for certain doctrinal applications and parroting sections of the catechism where general principles are espoused as if they are one and the same ."
You also say this,
"A persuasive argument could be made that the persons referred to above lack not only a solid foundation in utilizing reason and logic apart from their dependence on the Catholic magisterium[...] but also a proper spiritual disposition which would serve to humble them adequately. However, to write on that subject[...] would be to make this paper longer than it is already so that will be left for possible future projects either by this writer or by others as the circumstances may require."
This is a very strong claim. You and I have (coincidentally) seen the root of the problem of radical traditionalists being a spiritual problem. But I don't see it with this.
My main argument in the paper is that it is a defect of the rational faculties which is where these people go astray. This would not be a problem of course if they had the spiritual disposition of avoiding dogmatic insistence on areas where they lack a significant degree of knowledge. And I do see this as a spiritual problem: one of not only imprudent zeal but also of a defect in authentic charity.
It seems to me that the Catholic apologists you have spoken of simply want to be obedient to the Church and sees the atomic bomb events as intuitively wrong.
There is more to this than just the bombing issue Apolonio. They do the same stuff with just war theory, with the death penalty, with certain applications of Catholic social teachings, with the Iraq war, and with a host of other things as well. If they claim the mantle of "Catholic apologist" than they place a restriction on themselves and as long as they claim it, they are out of line dealing with anything that does not fall under Catholic doctrine properly speaking and treating non-magisterial stuff as magisterial. I see in this tendency an intellectual dependence on authority outside of which they do not adequately function.
I have noticed this for a long time but because I played the Catholic Kayfabe card{4} fairly liberally, I did not directly say it. However, since the professional apologists seem to not give a care about these problems (and actually defend those who manifest these defects against those who would legitimately criticize them), I refuse to go without comment on these matters any longer.
I don't see it *necessarily* as a spiritual problem itself.
Not by itself of course. But the latter is a problem. However, as I want my paper to be a broader indictment than it explicitly is, the focus is on the rational angle since the same defects are present in various pseudo-"progressivist" sorts in the secular sphere. The principle in other words has a broader application than I provide it in this paper -a point I note in one of the last footnotes of the piece.
Sadly, I believe you're going to have to make the paper longer.
I cannot do that though because it is a companion piece to something Greg wrote. My argument is that there is a noticeable trajectory of problems in apologetics in general and that the crucial point of sorts was 9/11 for the reasons I noted in the piece.
I think if you left it with simply that, then they will respond by taking you into account for it.
Let them do it. As long as they address the primary points I dealt with, I have no problem with the ancillary point being addressed too. However, if the ancillary is addressed without focusing on the primary threads of the piece, I will simply dismiss them as unworthy of the discipline of the dialogue.
And I think they may be justified by doing so. If someone claims that you need a spiritual disposition because of a certain argument, you may say "I do need a better spirituality, but not because of that!"
That is not what I am saying. My point is not their positions but how they arrive at them and the presumptions behind their positions as they espouse them. As it is, Pete Vere happens to disagree with me on not a few of those issues and I know Ian McLean and I disagreed on the war (we keep avoiding a long-planned public dialogue on that but I digress). But you do not see me criticizing them for lacking those virtues and you will not either. Nor would you and I disagreeing on the atomic bomb usages result in me criticizing you for lacking a proper spiritual disposition. But the difference between you and those I have made the argument on is in how you have approached this subject in your email. In other words, your proper disposition is stamped throughout what you have said through implication both in what you have said and what you have not said. The same is not the case for Dave, Mark, and Stephen.
So it seems that I'm going to say what you didn't want to do and that is, that you should make it longer so you can argue for that particular position.
I may write a followup piece clarifying certain points if that seems necessary to do.
I would also say this.
Do Armstrong and Shea lack a solid foundation of utilizing reason and logic or do they lack to apply those foundations when it comes to the subject of the bombings?
In their case, I believe it is a problem with areas where there is not a sure magisterial judgment as a rule. There may be some exception of course (Dave did fine on the Iraq war issue for example - to my knowledge they both argue on the death penalty issue adequately enough) but the problem appears to be an integrated one of sorts as a rule.
It seems to me that in some cases, Shea and Armstrong knows how to argue logically and reasonbly. They may very well be good in arguing against sola scriptura by showing how it is self-contradictory, but not good in arguing against the bombings.
The difference of course is that arguing against sola scriptura is easy for a Catholic in that they have obvious magisterial support for their positions. And even if you work from other areas in seeking to argue against it (such as from basic logic, etc) there is still the knowledge they have that the Church has clearly spoken on this issue. In other words, it gets back to intellectual dependence on an authority. This is not necessarily Shea and Armstrong's fault of course because most people fall into this category either completely or on certain select issues. With the latter it involves the subject of foundational presuppositions but to go into that is another essay (or book) altogether.
I think you need to counter the argument that Shea and Armstrong simply lack the application of their foundations in utilizing logic and reasoning to a specific argument. Someone can argue this way and I think you should expect it.
Let them try it if they like. I can defend any position I have taken and always have been able to with reason and logic as well as the knowledge of a subject that I happen to have at a particular point in time. That is one reason why I rarely misstep in argumentation but another reason is an elementary one: I am careful with subjects I am less knowledgable about if they are discussed at all. These guys by contrast treat the subjects where their knowledge is thin with the same bold punditry that they do those issues where they are formidable in their knowledge. And by doing that, they cast a pall of sorts over the areas where they are good sources of information because there is a lack of differentiation if you will.
For logically, someone from the outside can say "if they are so obviously illogical and argumentably vapid on Issue X, why should they be trusted on Issue Y???" and that is a difficult argument for them to deal with. As a result, those who do value reason and logic end up dismissing these people as a bunch of fideistic sophists and you and I both agree that is a scenario which we do not want to see. (For Mark and Dave have done some very good work over the years and it is tarnished by their general approach to non-magisterial issues.)
Also, I have not read what Mockeridge or Krehbiel said on this issue so I can't comment. As for your thesis on 2001, I just can't see it. Maybe because I have left the apologetics arena, but I just can't see it.
Well, you are not the only one who has left that arena but I have long suspected that something is amiss. The 9/11 hypothesis is one that came to me in a flash and the more I have pondered it (with other knowledge I already had, etc), the more it made sense.
I do agree that the root is a spiritual problem, however. What I don't see (yet) is that the persons you have spoken are examples of having this problem.
Have you been paying attention to their stuff in the past year and a half by chance??? The trajectory is there but (admittedly) is best seen in hindsight from the points where they go kukoo for Cocoa Puffs backwards.
Personally, my theory is that apologists don't understand the distinction between doctrine and theology.
If you noticed, I dealt with that in the paper also. I saw (and see) it as a seed that was planted early on and grew mostly undetected except for some minor flashes here and there. But after 9/11 we have seen a lot come into the open and have seen apologist sorts fall left and right -either completely or on certain issues.
And I think one may apply this lack of distinction when it comes to moral doctrine and moral theology.
Agreed.
One may speak, theologically, that the bombing is okay, and he may be wrong theologically, but not doctrinally. But I think you need to say more on the link between 9/11 and the decline in apologetics.
I may do that in time. The theory that I mentioned is not an old one by any stretch and the more I ponder it (having explicitly sketched it out for the first time in the upcoming essay), the more I will probably say on it as times and circumstances seem to dictate.
Hope that helps.
As usual, you have conducted your correspondence well Apolonio -showing proper respect for the discipline of the dialogue as well as providing food for the party you are in dialogue with (i.e. me) to ponder over. Hopefully, this note provides a similar service for you.
Notes:
{1} Like the sun rising in the east, Dave privately proved that my intuition on the matter was correct. I had opined privately for months that what drove his hysterical overreactions against me was him having a hornets nest in his skivvies for for what Ian and I did two years earlier with our joint rebukes of him and Tim Enloe for their public pissing matches. Two threads were posted at the time -on this weblog and also on Ian McLean's weblog. Here they are for those who may have forgotten:
An Appeal to the Warring Houses of Montague and Capulet: A Joint Declaration With SecretAgentMan (circa January 19, 2004)
A Clarification Viz. Certain Points of Our Previous Joint Declaration (circa January 23, 2004)
To his credit, Tim gave every indication after that point of trying to let it be but (by his own admission) was goaded into returning fire when provoked publicly by Dave.
{2} I am not sure if he agreed with my actual position but that is another subject altogether: my interest was in the solidity of my arguments not his opinion on the matter which was not asked for and consequently was not given.
{3} I dealt with this subject in a blog posting commentary on certain portion of canon law circa April of 2003.
{4} To understand why I use the term kayfabe, a bit of consideration of where this term came from may be of assistance. For that, I defer to wikipedia and something I noted in a private email from last week:
Kayfabe is often seen as the suspension of disbelief that is used to create the non-wrestling aspects of promotions, such as feuds, storylines, and gimmicks , in a similar manner with other forms of entertainment such as soap opera or movie.[LINK]
The "Kayfabe" element in Catholic circles is the tendency to circle the wagons and defend actions and attitudes displayed by Catholics which would be condemned by those same persons if non-Catholics did them. Likewise, various non-Catholics (such as the Reformed sorts, the Fundys, the Orthodox, the Infidels, etc) have their own kind of "kayfabe" where they allow amongst their ranks stuff they would not tolerate elsewhere. And (of course) part of "kayfabe" is presenting the illusion of unity when there is actually discord.
I am on record opposed to the airing of dirty laundry as a rule but every rule admits of exceptions. Sometimes this becomes necessary and the kinds of antics Greg and I deal with above --and their either complete ignoring of or promotion by those who should know better-- makes this a necessary thing to do (since those who should be doing something about this have been grossly negligent in their responsibilities for too long now). [Excerpt from an Email Correspondence (circa August 7, 2006)]
