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Thursday, March 11, 2010

"Hasty generalizations"

I'm reposting a comment I originally made over at Beggars All in response to a Catholic disputant:

Alex said...

“The double standard requires that we only focus on the short comings of the perverse members of the Catholic Church who violate her teachings...and to further the violence towards intellectual honesty, we are also required to fallaciously attribute such immoralities to the entire Church via hasty generalizations and faulty moral reasoning despite said Church's opposition to those very immoralities.”

Except that Alex is comparing the incomparable. In Protestant theology, Protestant doctrine is separable from the Protestant organizations (e.g. denominations, seminaries, colleges) which institutionalize its doctrine. If, say, a Protestant institution were corrupted, that wouldn’t logically reflect on Protestant theology inasmuch as there was never a one-to-one correspondence in Protestant theology between our doctrines and the particular organizations which institutionalize our doctrines. Protestant institutions come and go. The theological tradition is portable.

By contrast, Catholic theological tradition is inseparable from its institutional identity. The “one true church.” Hence, everything sticks to the Roman church.

If the Roman Church has policies which promote various forms of abuse, then that indicts the institutional church. Likewise, if the Roman Church, in the face of abuse, engages in a cover-up, then that also indicts the institutional church.

5 comments:

  1. Steve Hays: "Protestant institutions come and go. The theological tradition is portable.

    By contrast, Catholic theological tradition is inseparable from its institutional identity. The “one true church.” Hence, everything sticks to the Roman church."


    This argument does seem to have a logic and consistency to it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Speaking of consistency, then the flip side of the argument should also probably apply. If some local Catholic institutions do "good", then that "goodness" sticks to the Roman church as well.

    Some recent examples:

    o A Catholic school in Denver, I believe, denied the admittance of a young girl because she has two lesbian mothers.

    o In Washington D.C. the Catholic diocese made changes in its benefit packages for employees because of the district approval of same-sex marriage.

    There are some others, but I can't remember them off the top of my head.

    Just want to be fair and just.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TRUTH UNITES... AND DIVIDES SAID:

    "Speaking of consistency, then the flip side of the argument should also probably apply. If some local Catholic institutions do 'good', then that "goodness" sticks to the Roman church as well."

    Since I was arguing on Catholic assumptions rather than my own, the "flip side" doesn't follow.

    ReplyDelete
  4. "Since I was arguing on Catholic assumptions rather than my own, the "flip side" doesn't follow."

    As one of the Simpson characters says:

    D'oh!

    ReplyDelete
  5. "Since I was arguing on Catholic assumptions rather than my own, the "flip side" doesn't follow."
    I didn't follow that. Could you explain a bit more?

    ReplyDelete