Philosophy Now Forum

Dr Faustus wrote: ↑Wed Feb 19, 2025 9:46 am

godelian wrote: ↑Sat Feb 15, 2025 4:21 am Imagine the opposite:

There are no infallible documents.

Fine.

Now let's create a document that contains only the statement above. This document cannot be infallible. Therefore, the only statement that it contains must be false. Therefore, the claim that there are no infallible documents must be false.

Hence, by contradiction, we must conclude:

There are infallible documents.

While I certainly object to the infallibility of an organization such as a church, or of a person such as the Pope, I do not object to the infallibility of particular documents.

This was exactly Martin Luther's position during his trial in front of His Imperial Majesty, Charles V, in 1521:

Unless I am convinced by Scripture and plain reason - I do not accept the authority of the popes and councils, for they have contradicted each other - my conscience is captive to the Word of God.

The prosecutor of the Holy Apostolic Church answered that there are no infallible documents:

The Bible itself is the arsenal whence each heresiarch from the past has drawn his deceptive arguments.

Christianity does not believe in the existence of infallible documents but in the existence of infallible Popes. As demonstrated above, this particular belief is in violation of the very rules of logic. That is why Christian doctrine cannot possibly be closed under logical consequence.

To be completely rigorous, by contradiction we must conclut that there exist at least one document that is not infaillible.
But I agree with you there are many document that are infaillible.
A=A
B=B
C=C
D=D
...=....