More on Loyola’s “white is black” passage

It seems I touched a nerve, judging by the word count so far (here, and here). First, let me make clear that I have no interest in mocking Catholic doctrine. I’m a non-catholic (and so non-Catholic) Christian, and am in sympathy with the Catholic tradition in many ways. I’m going to avoid some well-worn Catholic-Protestant battle areas here, and try to stick to what I think is so interesting and yet so wrong-headed about Loyola’s implicit mysterianism. Ed is concerned to rebut claims by “skeptics” that Loyola here issues a “jarring call to irrationalist dogmatism”, but to me that is a red herring.

Ed thinks I’m misreading the controversial passage. I don’t think he’s made his case, and I also think he’s also missing the epistemic point I was making.

• By “tradition” I meant whatever beliefs the Hierarchical Church asserts to be mandatory for Catholics. I’m well aware that Catholics don’t consider all widespread Christian, even Catholic traditions mandatory.
• Loyola’s discussion is not merely about the infallibility of the Church’s judgement or pronouncements. It does assume that, but the notorious passage occurs as a rule for the proper formation of beliefs. So Loyola is on the topic of individual epistemology – he’s giving a rule which in his view will lead us only to correct beliefs. So in my view Ed is mistaken when he asserts that “What is at issue [in the black is white passage] is the epistemological status of the Church’s pronouncements themselves.”
• Is Loyola’s claim hyperbole? It’s a short and pithy – excellent writing. And it is hypothetical, as the Church has not said (yet 🙂 ) said that black is white. I take it that Loyola picked a case involving sense perception, because he had in mind to defend a controversial claim that seems to be contradicted by sense perception. Ed takes it to be obvious hyperbole because Loyola would be assuming, in Ed’s words, that the “Church does not claim special expertise or authority in purely secular matters”, I take it, like color perception. I’m not sure what Ed is confident that color perception is and must be a “purely secular matter”, or why he think Loyola assumes the believer to be in a position to specify where the Church’s authority to pronounce ends. While Ed would like the quote to be mere hyperbole, I’m not sure that it is. But I don’t think it matters, if Loyola’s point really is that authoritative church teaching trumps the (apparent) sense perception that the thing the priest is putting in your mouth is just a wheat product, and not a human body.
• I’m not sure that Loyola has in mind disputes about transubstantiation. That is plausible, but in any case, I disagree with his implicit claim that Church testimony should trump any other evidence. I see no hint of exceptions, and no hint that this can be confined to “spiritual” matters – however that might be spelled out.
• Now about one’s senses deceiving one: I agree with Ed that this is not a very helpful metaphor for understanding what is supposed to be going on, according to Catholics, with consecrated-wafer perceptions. We have to distinguish epistemic seemings from mere visual (etc.) sensations. These two, I think, have only recently been clearly separated by philosophers – see the paper “What are Seemings?” here by my colleague Andy Cullison. Here’s one way to see the distinction. Suppose there was an alien race, populated in part by little creatures called “Oogs” that look just like the white disk above. Now, imagine that an inhabitant of this planet (not an Oog, but some other inhabitant of that planet) with eyes like ours comes to earth and attends a mass. He’ll have the same visual sensations of the wafer that we will, yet it will not epistemically seem to him that there’s a wafer before him. Instead, it seems to him that the priest has captured one of the inhabitants of his home planet – he’ll think, “They eat Oogs here!” and take pity on the (imagined) little victims. The point of this example is (only) that sensory seemings and epistemic seemings can come apart, and are different. This is not easy to recognize, as normally they go together. But see Andy’s paper for more or this distinction.
• Now imagine two friends attending a mass, and observing wafer consumption – call them Believing Bob and Doubting Dan. Perceptually, their sensations are the same. But they, both being humans, are not like the alien above – it seems to each, and it seems equally strongly to each, that the things being put in mouths by the priest are (merely) little flat breads. They possess equal evidence for this claim. And yet, Bob sincerely says, “What each communicant eats is in fact the body of our Lord”, while Dan says, “As best I can tell, Jesus has not been eaten here.” How can this be? I think it is helpful to imagine how each would evaluate the following inconsistent tetrad:

1. Whatever the Catholic Church requires its members to believe is true.
2. The Catholic Church requires its members to believe that a properly consecrated wafer is the whole body of Jesus.
3. That wafer in the priest’s hand has been properly consecrated.
4. That wafer in the priest’s hand is just a wafer.

• Bob and Dan are equally aware that these four can’t all be true. From any three of them, it follows that the remaining one is false. (Go ahead – try it out – I’ll wait…)
• Moreover, Dan and Bob agree on this – that 2, 3, and 4 each seem to be true. Further, they both agree that they each seem strongly, and about equally strongly to be true. The difference is that because 1 seems true to Bob, Bob dismisses the seeming that 4 is true. He’s aware of it, but ignores it, as in his mind it has been trumped. Herein lies the rub.
• Suppose we rate strength of seemings from one to four, with four being the strongest – the way, e.g. 1+1=2 seems true to us. Now, let’s use a crude bar graph, made with X’s. Bob and Dan agree, then, in how 2-4 strike them. Let’s leave 1 open for the moment.

1. ?
2. XX
3. XX
4. XX

• We could go three X’s all the way down, but the point is that 2-4 are roughly on a footing, as far as strength of seemings goes. The strength isn’t maximal, but it is significant.
• As concerns 1, to Dan, it simply doesn’t seem true. So he believes 2-4, and denies 1.
• But Bob does believe 1 – it strikes him as true. How much so? Surely not with the strength of 1+1=2. At most, 1 will seem true at the next highest level.

1. XXX
2. XX
3. XX
4. XX

• But if this is how things seem to Bob, he is going against reason in his belief in transubstantiation. If the above is how things seem to him, he’ll have to suspend judgement about which of 2-4 are true. He ought to think, of course, that at least one of them is false. But he can’t tell which.
• What Bob needs, to reasonably believe in this instance of the Eucharistic Mystery, is for 2 & 3 to seem more strongly than 4 does, like this:

1. XXX
2. XXX
3. XXX
4. XX

• Here is a reasonable belief in the Catholic doctrine in question. If any one of 1-3 changes, so that it seems less strongly to Bob than does 4, Bob “falls out of” this epistemic situation – he’s then believing in spite of how things on reflection seem to him.
• Now back to my rotten wafer example. Here, I think that my friend Ed misses the point (see the end of his post). Yes, if the Bible clearly asserted that all Volkswagens were really poached eggs (sporting the non-essential features of a German car) then given our perceptions, or rather, our total evidence, understood as seemings, we would be unable to reasonably believe the Bible to be inerrant.
• The point is this. These kinds of seemings – ones resulting from multiple, close up, steady, firm sensations, are not easily trumped. Given habit and I suppose other factors, this is easier to see with hypothetical examples, hence my use of them. In any case, when this is recognized, Bob’s epistemic situation may switch to this:

1. XXX
2. XXX
3. XXX
4. XXX

• or to this

1. XX
2. XXX
3. XXX
4. XXX

• Now if I understand him, Ed would say: “But I’m not like Bob. You see, to me, it doesn’t seem that we’re in the presence of a mere bread product. I’m careful about what I infer from sensory sensations, and it only seems to me that I’m in the presence of the ‘accidents’ of bread – whiteness, brittleness, disc-shape, etc.”
• Ed has a point. If 4 turns out not to seem true at all, or to seem more weakly the each of 1-3, then indeed, his belief in the Eucharistic miracle is reasonable. Moreover, I assume that he’s accurately reporting his belief.
• But we can rule out the first scenario just given – I think that Ed should agree that it does seem to him that the wafer is just a wafer – he does feel the push to believe that, although in the case described he does not believe it. Suppose the priest turned to him and said “When you weren’t looking, someone handed me this wafer, which they just brought in – it hasn’t been consecrated at all.” In this situation, Ed would immediately form the belief that the thing in the priest’s hand was mere bread. Why? Because that’s how it has seemed to Ed all along, only before this surprising turn of events, this seeming was trumped by the seemings of 1-3 above. Take away 3, and now 4 is no longer ignorable, no longer trumped.
• So I think Ed ought to concede to 4 having at least two X’s – that is, that it seems true in the situations we’re assuming, and fairly strongly, and not minimally so. Now go back to the original, more normal scenario (where the priest doesn’t make the surprising statement). If this is right, does 1 really seem to be true more strongly than 4 does?
• Frankly, for a host of reasons 1 doesn’t seem to me to be true.
• But if 1 did seem true to me, I’d be worried that upon careful reflection, it  seems true more strongly than does 4.