Month: October 2015

Aumann Agreement in Real Life

entirelyuseless Ethics, Probability , ,

In an earlier post I discussed Robert Aumann’s mathematical theorem demonstrating that people with common priors who have common knowledge of their opinions cannot disagree about the probability of any fact.

As I said at the time, real human beings do not have a prior probability distribution, and thus the theorem cannot apply to them strictly speaking. To the degree that people do have a prior, that prior can differ from person to person.

A person’s prior can also be modified, something which is not meant to happen to a prior understood in the mathematical sense of Aumann’s paper. We can see this by means of a thought experiment, even if the thought experiment itself cannot happen in real life. Suppose you are given a machine that works like this: you can ask the machine whether some statement is true. It has a 100% chance of printing out a 1 if the statement is in fact true. If the statement is false, it has a 10% chance of printing a 1, and a 90% chance of printing a 0. You are allowed to repeat the question, with the responses having the same probability each time.

Thus if you ask about a false statement, it will have a 10% chance of printing a 1. It will have a 1% chance of printing 1 twice in a row, and a 0.1% chance of printing a 1 three times in a row.

Suppose you ask the question, “Are the Chronicles of Narnia a completely accurate historical account of something that really happened to various children from England?”

The machine outputs a 1. So you ask again. You get another 1. Let’s say this happens 10 times. The probability that this happens this many times with a false statement is one in ten billion.

In real life you would conclude that a machine that did this does not work as stated. But in our thought experiment, you know with absolute certainty that it does work as stated. So you almost certainly will conclude that the Chronicles of Narnia is an accurate historical account. The same will be true pretty much no matter what statement you test, given this result.

But it would be easy to compose far more than 10 billion mutually inconsistent statements. Thus it is logically inconsistent to assign a probability of more than one in ten billion to all such statements. So if you had a consistent and full prior distribution that you were prepared to stick to, then there should be some such statements which you will still believe to be false even after getting a 1 ten times from the machine. This proves that we do not have such a prior: the fact that the machine comes out this way tells us that we should admit that the prior for the particular statement that we are testing should be high enough to accept after the machine’s result. So for example we might think that the actual probability of the Chronicles of Narnia being an accurate historical account is less than one in ten billion. But if we are given the machine and get this result, we will change our mind about the original probability of the claim, in order to justify accepting it as true in those circumstances.

If someone disagrees with the above thought experiment, he can change the 10 to 20, or to whatever is necessary.

Although Aumann’s result depends on unchanging priors, in practice the fact that we can change our priors in this way makes his result apply more to human disagreements than it would in a situation where we had unchanging priors, but still diverse from other people’s priors.

Robin Hanson has published an extension of Aumann’s result, taking into account the fact that people have different priors and can reason about the origin of these priors. By stipulating certain conditions of rationality (just as Aumann does), he can get the result that a disagreement between two people will only be reasonable if they disagree about the origin of their priors, and in a particular way:

This paper presents a theoretical framework in which agents can hold probabilistic beliefs about the origins of their priors, and uses this framework to consider how such beliefs might constrain the rationality of priors. The basic approach is to embed a set of standard models within a larger encompassing standard model. Each embedded model differs only in which agents have which priors, while the larger encompassing model includes beliefs about which possible prior combinations might be realized.

Just as beliefs in a standard model depends on ordinary priors, beliefs in the larger model depend on pre-priors. We do not require that these pre-priors be common; pre-priors can vary. But to keep priors and pre-priors as consistent as possible with each other, we impose a pre-rationality condition. This condition in essence requires that each agent’s ordinary prior be obtained by updating his pre-prior on the fact that nature assigned the agents certain particular priors.

This pre-rationality condition has strong implications regarding the rationality of uncommon priors. Consider, for example, two astronomers who disagree about whether the universe is open (and infinite) or closed (and finite). Assume that they are both aware of the same relevant cosmological data, and that they try to be Bayesians, and therefore want to attribute their difference of opinion to differing priors about the size of the universe.

This paper shows that neither astronomer can believe that, regardless of the size of the universe, nature was equally likely to have switched their priors. Each astronomer must instead believe that his prior would only have favored a smaller universe in situations where a smaller universe was actually more likely. Furthermore, he must believe that the other astronomer’s prior would not track the actual size of the universe in this way; other priors can only track universe size indirectly, by tracking his prior. Thus each person must believe that prior origination processes make his prior more correlated with reality than others’ priors.

Despite the fact that Hanson’s result, like Aumann’s, is based on a particular mathematical analysis which remains much more rigid than real life, and in this sense cannot apply strictly to real life, it is not difficult to see that it does have strong analogies in real human disagreements. Thus for example, suppose a Christian believes that Christianity has a 98% chance of being true, and Islam a 1% chance. A Muslim, with whom he disagrees, believes that Islam has a 98% chance of being true, and Christianity a 1% chance. If they each believe, “Both of us believe in our religions because that is the one in which we were raised,” it is obvious that this disagreement is not reasonable. In order for each of them to be reasonable, they need to disagree about why they believe what they believe. Thus for example one might think, “He believes in his religion because he was raised in it, while I believe in mine because of careful and intelligent analysis of the facts.” The other obviously will disagree with this.

This particular example, of course, does not take into account the fact that belonging to a religion is not a matter of a particular claim, nor the fact that beliefs are voluntary, and both of these affect such a question in real life.

Nonetheless, this kind of disagreement about the origins of our beliefs is clearly a common phenomena in situations where we have a persistent disagreement with someone. In the end each person tends to attribute a particular source to the other person’s opinion, and a different source to his own, one which is much more likely to make his own opinion correct. But all of the same things should apply to these differing opinions about the origins of their beliefs. This suggests that in fact persistent disagreements are usually unreasonable. This corresponds to how people treat them. Once a disagreement is clearly persistent, and clearly will not be resolved by any amount of discussion, people think that the other person is being stubborn and unreasonable.

And in fact, it is very likely that one or both of the two is being stubborn and unreasonable. This will feel pretty much the same from each side, however; thus the fact that it feels to you like the other person is being stubborn and unreasonable, is not a good reason for thinking that this is actually the case. He is very likely to feel the same way about you. This will happen no matter who is actually responsible. Most often both partners contribute to it, since no one is actually perfectly reasonable.

The fact that belief is voluntary can be a mitigating factor here, if people recognize the moral influences on their beliefs. Thus for example the Christian and the Muslim in the above example could simply say, “It is not necessarily that I am more likely to be right, but I choose to believe this rather than that, for these personal reasons.” And in that case in principle they might agree on the probability of the truth of Christian and Islamic doctrines, and nonetheless reasonably hold different beliefs, on account of moral considerations that apply to them in particular.

The fact that people do not like to admit that they are wrong is a reason for a particular approach to disagreement. In the last post, we discussed the fact that since words and thoughts are vague, the particular content of a person’s assertions is not entirely determinate. They may be true in some ways, and not true in others, and the person himself may not be considering in which way he is making the claim. So it is much more productive to interpret the person’s words in the way that contains as much truth as possible. We have talked about this elsewhere. Such an understanding is probably a better understanding of the person in the first place. And it allows him to agree with you while excluding the false interpretations, and without saying, “I was wrong.” And yet he learns from this, because his original statement was in fact open to the false interpretations. There is nothing deceptive about this; our words and beliefs are in fact vague in this way and allow for this sort of learning. And cooperating in this way in a discussion will be mutually profitable. Since absolute precision is not possible, in general there is no one who has nothing at all to learn from another.

More on Thought and Language

entirelyuseless Ethics, Logic, Religion , , , ,

In the previous post we were considering the relationship of thought and language. There are other ways to notice the close connection. From time to time I have the experience (which I think is not uncommon for others as well) of thinking something, or perhaps being about to think something, but then being distracted before being able to internally verbalize the thought. Afterwards there is no easy way to recover the thought without going through the chain of imagination and thought that led up to that point. And if this is not done at the time, it may be impossible to ever recover the thought. This is perhaps most directly because memory depends on the imagination, and consequently we do not remember our thoughts without either some associated verbalization or the equivalent.

This can have various consequences. For one thing, thinking a thought is rather like speaking to oneself, and needs interpretation just as we need to interpret the speech of others. You might assume that you automatically understand yourself, since you are the one thinking the thought, but this is not necessarily the case. Each time you remember a thought, you are doing it through a verbalization, which is itself a vague expression which could be understood in more than one way. This implies that you may not even be thinking exactly the same thought each time.

This influences the way we learn or change our minds. Thus for example Thomas Talbott criticizes John Loftus’s book The Outsider Test for Faith:

By way of a partial answer to such questions, Loftus suggests that most religious people, even among the most intelligent and reflective, never (formally) convert to another religion or de-convert from their initially acquired religion viewed as a cultural phenomenon: “In most cases,” he says, “we rarely stray from what we were raised in but merely move around among versions of the same general religion…” (p. 83). My own informal impression, however, is that, depending upon how one might measure such things, many people travel a huge distance (in a host of different directions) over the course of a normal lifespan; and many observers, such as hospice workers who work with end of life issues, sometimes report great spiritual growth, as they interpret it, in the final days and weeks of a person’s earthly life. Beyond that, I see no reason to deny that even very small movements, as judged from the outside, can sometimes signify profound spiritual progress. Do I rest any argument of substance on such subjective matters, or expect to achieve universal agreement on them? Not at all. But I do suggest that one should not trivialize, as Loftus appears to do above, what it might mean to “move around among versions of the same general religion.”

Here is why. The Christian tradition, which is the religious tradition I know best, is so rich and includes so much diversity within it that the question of diversity between the Christian tradition as a whole and some other religious tradition, such as Islam, may have little or no coherent meaning. Put it this way: A cultural Christian has no need to embrace another religious or cultural tradition, at least not formally, in order to embrace religious views typically associated with some other tradition. Take, for example, the great Christian poet John Milton, who emphatically rejected the one substance theory of the Trinity, adopted the Arian view that Jesus Christ was on a lower ontological level than God the Father, and even set forth an elaborate biblical argument in defense of polygamy. He had no need, in other words, to embrace the Muslim religion as a cultural phenomenon in order to embrace a concept of God that was virtually identical with the Muslim concept; yet, C. S. Lewis and others (including myself) still consider him a great Christian poet. Similarly, those Christians who come to believe in reincarnation, as more than a few do despite their upbringing, have no need to embrace all the nuances of the typical Hindu understanding and certainly have no need to embrace all of the cultural trappings and conventions of some particular sect in the Hindu religion. My point is that moving “around among versions of the same general religion” may involve profound (and easy to overlook) changes in one’s religious outlook, changes that may be at least as momentous as converting to another religion (or even as adopting a kind of practical atheism). For as Loftus himself points out, “Worldviews are dynamic rather than static things, anyway. They are constantly changing with additional education and experience” (p. 97). So again I ask: Given such dynamism and so many dynamic opportunities for spiritual growth (however that should be construed) within any one of the great religious traditions, why should it even matter where one’s spiritual journey begins?

There are several reasons why things work this way. In the first place, belonging to a religion does not in itself signify a certain belief, but membership in a religious community. This implies that changing your mind about religious matters does not necessarily imply changing your religion, and it may be more reasonable not to change it, depending on various circumstances. But there is another reason. Due to the vice of pride and various other causes, we do not like to say, “I was wrong.”

Not only in religion but in almost every other matter, changes of opinion are significantly more frequent than the actual admission of having been wrong about something. One can avoid admitting this in various ways, some deliberate, some usually subconscious. Sometimes a person will say nothing for a while, then begin to voice the new opinion, hoping that no one notices that he has changed his mind, since this would be to admit that he was wrong. Occasionally a person may even assert that he always held the new opinion, and he may even believe this, perhaps since he now finds it difficult to imagine holding another position, and consequently difficult to remember doing so, since memory depends on the imagination. Or a person may wait until he leaves one social circle and joins another, before starting to say something new, so that no one notices the change of mind. Or again, one can voice the new opinion using the same words that were used to express the old opinion. In this case one may or may not even notice that one has changed one’s mind. Or one can change one’s mind gradually, in such a way that at each stage the same words are used, and it is actually reasonable to call it the same opinion, perhaps with a variation of degree or emphasis. But at the end it may no longer be reasonable to call it the same opinion, just as a color may be changed by imperceptible stages until a new color is present. The person himself, however, may still not recognize that he has ever changed his opinion at all.

The vagueness discussed in the previous post is closely related to all of this. The boundaries of a word are vague; thus there is a region where it is vague whether a person is bald or not. And likewise the boundaries of the vague region are themselves vague; at no level will complete precision be found. This makes it all the easier for an opinion to drift gradually and in an almost unnoticeable way over time.

The Cave

entirelyuseless Logic , , , ,

Book VII of Plato’s Republic begins with this conversation between Socrates and Glaucon:

And now, I said, let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: –Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

I see.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

You have shown me a strange image, and they are strange prisoners.
Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

True, he said; how could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads?

And of the objects which are being carried in like manner they would only see the shadows?

Yes, he said.
And if they were able to converse with one another, would they not suppose that they were naming what was actually before them?

Very true.
And suppose further that the prison had an echo which came from the other side, would they not be sure to fancy when one of the passers-by spoke that the voice which they heard came from the passing shadow?

No question, he replied.
To them, I said, the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.

That is certain.

The human situation with respect to truth is somewhat like Plato’s cave dwellers. I argued in the previous post that all human knowledge is imperfect and vague. A more precise argument to the same effect would be the following.

There are two basic ways that we can learn the meaning of words. In one way, by having the meaning of the word explained to us. This requires the knowledge of other words. In another way, by learning the contexts in which the word is used. This does not necessarily require the previous knowledge of other words. Thus for example we learn the meaning of the word “red” by seeing it used in reference to red things, without a necessity of explaining the idea of red using other words. Third, we might learn the meaning of some words by a combination of the above methods.

Defining a word by other words cannot lead to an absolutely precise meaning unless the other words that are used have an absolutely precise meaning, so such a definition cannot be a source of absolute precision. And unless one points to all possible cases in which a word might be used, which is a physical impossibility, experiencing the contexts in which a word is used will also never lead to an absolutely precise meaning. It is consequently unlikely that you can arrive at an absolutely precise meaning by any combination of these methods, and consequently unlikely that you can arrive at such absolute precision in any way.

Language and thought are very closely connected. There are perhaps not many real cases of feral children, but the experience we do have of such situations suggests that someone who does not learn a language is basically unable to think. This is perhaps not true absolutely, but it is surely true that such a child cannot think clearly. Clear thinking requires language. This at least suggests that perfectly clear thinking would require perfectly clear language. But this is impossible, by the above argument. Consequently perfectly clear thinking is impossible for human beings.

This argument does not refute itself. It it of course impossible to have a proof that there are no proofs. Likewise, if absolute subjective certainty is impossible, as I have suggested, then it is impossible to have such certainty about this very fact. There is no inconsistency here. Likewise, if all thoughts and all arguments are vague, then these very thoughts and this very argument is vague. There is no inconsistency here.

The Paradox of the Heap

entirelyuseless Logic, Metaphysics , ,

The paradox of the heap argues in this way:

A large pile of sand is composed of grains of sand. But taking away a grain of sand from a pile of sand cannot make a pile of sand stop being a pile of sand. Therefore if you continually take away grains of sand from the pile until only one grain of sand remains, that grain must still be a pile of sand.

A similar argument can be made with any vague word that can differ by an apparently continuous number of degrees. Thus for example it is applied to whether a man has a beard (he should not be able to change from having a beard to not having a beard by the removal of a single hair), to colors (an imperceptible variation of color should not be able to change a thing from being red to not being red), and so on.

The conclusion, that a single grain of sand is a pile of sand, or that a shaven man has a beard, or that the color blue is red, is obviously false. In order to block the deduction, it seems necessary to say that it fails at a particular point. But this means that at some point, a pile of sand will indeed stop being a pile of sand when you take away a single grain. But this seems absurd.

Suppose you don’t know the meaning of “red,” and someone attempts to explain. They presumably do so by pointing to examples of red things. But this does not provide you with a rigid definition of redness that you could use to determine whether some arbitrary color is an example of red or not. Rather, the probability that you will call something red will vary continuously as the color of things becomes more remote from the examples from which you learned the name, being very high for the canonical examples and becoming very low as you approach other colors such as blue.

This explains why setting a boundary where an imperceptible change of color would change something from being red to being not red seems inappropriate. Red doesn’t have a rigid definition in the first place, and assigning such a boundary would mean assigning such a definition. But this would be modifying the meaning of the word. Consequently, if the meaning is accepted in an unmodified form, the deduction cannot logically be blocked, just as in the previous post, if the meaning of “true” is accepted in an unmodified form, one cannot block the deduction that all statements are both true and false.

Someone might conclude from this that I am accepting the conclusions of the paradoxical arguments, and therefore that I am saying that all statements are both true and false, and that a single grain of sand is a pile, and so on.

I am not. Concluding that this is my position is simply making the exact same mistake that is made in the original paradoxes. And that mistake is to assume a perfection in human language which does not exist. “True,” “pile,” and so on, are words that possess meaning in an imperfect way. Ultimately all human words are imperfect in this way, because all human language is vague. The fact that logic cannot block the paradoxical conclusions without modifying the meanings of our words happens not because those conclusions are true, but because the meanings are imperfect, while logic presupposes a perfection of meaning which is simply not there.

In a number of other places I have talked about how various motivations can lead us astray. But there are some areas where the very desire for truth can lead us away from truth, and the discussion of such logical paradoxes, and of the vagueness of human thought and language, is one of those areas. In particular, the desire for truth can lead us to wish to believe that truth is more attainable than it actually is. In this case it would happen by wishing to believe that human language is more perfect than it is, as for example that “red” really does have a meaning that would cause something in an a definitive way to stop being red at some point with an imperceptible change, or in the case of the Liar, to assert that the word “true” really does have something like a level subscript attached to its meaning, or that it has some other definition which can block the paradoxical deductions.

These things are not true. Nor are the paradoxical conclusions.

The Liar

entirelyuseless Logic, Metaphysics , , ,

The paradox of the Liar is a logical problem that results from a sentence that implies that the very sentence itself is false, or at least that it is not true. Consider the following statement:

(1) Statement (1) is not true.

Is statement (1) true or not? We might reason about it as follows.

(2) If statement (1) is true, then statement (1) is not true, since this is what it says.

(3) But this is absurd, since statement (1) would then be both true and not true.

(4) Therefore (1) is not true.

(5) But this is just what (1) says. So (1) is true.

And so on. There does not appear any way to avoid the conclusion that (1) is both true and not true, which is a contradiction. Nor is it helpful to say that it is neither true nor not true, since the same contradiction will follow: if something fails to be not true, it is surely true.

Any statement whatever will follow from a contradiction, so if one accepts this contradiction, one will be forced to accept that every statement is both true and false.

A. N. Prior discusses the idea of an analytically valid inference:

It is sometimes alleged that there are inferences whose validity arises solely from the meanings of certain expressions occurring in them. The precise technicalities employed are not important, but let us say that such inferences, if any such there be, are analytically valid.

One sort of inference which is sometimes said to be in this sense analytically valid is the passage from a conjunction to either of its conjuncts, e.g., the inference ‘Grass is green and the sky is blue, therefore grass is green’. The validity of this inference is said to arise solely from the meaning of the word ‘and’. For if we are asked what is the meaning of the word ‘and’, at least in the purely conjunctive sense (as opposed to, e.g., its colloquial use to mean ‘and then’), the answer is said to be completely given by saying that (i) from any pair of statements P and Q we can infer the statement formed by joining P to Q by ‘and’ (which statement we hereafter describe as ‘the statement P-and-Q’), that (ii) from any conjunctive statement P-and-Q we can infer P, and (iii) from P-and-Q we can always infer Q. Anyone who has learnt to perform these inferences knows the meaning of ‘and’, for there is simply nothing more to knowing the meaning of ‘and’ than being able to perform these inferences.

A doubt might be raised as to whether it is really the case that, for any pair of statements P and Q, there is always a statement R such that given P and given Q we can infer R, and given R we can infer P and can also infer Q. But on the view we are considering such a doubt is quite misplaced, once we have introduced a word, say the word ‘and’, precisely in order to form a statement R with these properties from any pair of statements P and Q. The doubt reflects the old superstitious view that an expression must have some independently determined meaning before we can discover whether inferences involving it are valid or invalid. With analytically valid inferences this just isn’t so.

I hope the conception of an analytically valid inference is now at least as clear to my readers as it is to myself. If not, further illumination is obtainable from Professor Popper’s paper on’ Logic without Assumptions’ in Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society for 1946-7, and from Professor Kneale’s contribution to Contemporary British Philosophy, Volume III. I have also been much helped in my understanding of the notion by some lectures of Mr. Strawson’s and some notes of Mr. Hare’s.

He proceeds to draw some conclusions from this:

I want now to draw attention to a point not generally noticed, namely that in this sense of ‘analytically valid’ any statement whatever may be inferred, in an analytically valid way, from any other. ‘2 and 2 are 5’, for instance, from ‘2 and 2 are 4 ‘. It is done in two steps, thus:

2 and 2 are 4.

Therefore, 2 and 2 are 4 tonk 2 and 2 are 5.

Therefore, 2 and 2 are 5.

There may well be readers who have not previously encountered this conjunction ‘tonk’, it being a comparatively recent addition to the language; but it is the simplest matter in the world to explain what it means. Its meaning is completely given by the rules that (i) from any statement P we can infer any statement formed by joining P to any statement Q by ‘tonk’ (which compound statement we hereafter describe as’ the statement P-tonk-Q ‘), and that (ii) from any ‘contonktive’ statement P-tonk-Q we can infer the contained statement Q.

A doubt might be raised as to whether it is really the case that, for any pair of statements P and Q, there is always a statement R such that given P we can infer R, and given R we can infer Q. But this doubt is of course quite misplaced, now that we have introduced the word ‘tonk’ precisely in order to form a statement R with these properties from any pair of statements P and Q.

As a matter of simple history, there have been logicians of some eminence who have seriously doubted whether sentences of the form ‘P and Q’ express single propositions (and so, e.g., have negations). Aristotle himself, in De Soph. Elench. 176 a 1 ff., denies that ‘Are Callias and Themistocles musical?’ is a single question; and J. S. Mill says of ‘Caesar is dead and Brutus is alive’ that ‘we might as well call a street a complex house, as these two propositions a complex proposition’ (System of Logic I, iv. 3). So it is not to be wondered at if the form ‘P tonk Q’ is greeted at first with similar scepticism. But more enlightened views will surely prevail at last, especially when men consider the extreme convenience of the new form, which promises to banish falsche Spitzfindigkeit from Logic for ever.

His point is quite clear. Given the way the word “tonk” is defined, one cannot avoid drawing all possible conclusions. But this means the word “tonk”, defined in this way, is quite unacceptable in the first place.

If we define the word “true” by saying that “P is true” is a statement such that it necessarily follows from P, and such that P necessarily follows from “P is true,” and we consider this an acceptable definition, then the rules of logic will force us to accept all possible conclusions.

Like the definition of the word “tonk”, therefore, this definition of the word “true” is unacceptable, and in the same sense, namely that if the definition is accepted, all possible conclusions follow.

This explains why all solutions to the Liar paradox seem to fail, in the sense that in the end either they admit a contradiction, or they insist that we change the meaning of our language, as for example by talking about levels of truth and so on. For despite the consequences, the word “true” does basically have the meaning stated. The only real difference in comparison with the word “tonk” is that the latter word would never be used in any real language, because the consequences are obvious. In the case of “true,” the consequences are subtle and only follow in special circumstances, namely the kind that are found in the case of the Liar paradox, and so the word could be incorporated into human language, and basically with this meaning, before the implications were noticed.

Note that this is quite different from saying that the word “true” has an inconsistent meaning. The problem is even deeper than that. We could define the word “zrackled” to mean “white and not white in the same respect,” and the meaning would be inconsistent. The only consequence would be that nothing is zrackled, and no contradiction would follow. But if we said that “true” has an inconsistent meaning, and consequently that nothing is true, it would follow from the meaning stated that “nothing is true” is true, and consequently that “nothing is true” is not true. The problem is that we are attempting to define the word, at least in part, by certain rules of usage, and those rules themselves force a contradiction, and ultimately force one to draw all possible conclusions, as with the word “tonk.”

Quick to Listen to Reality

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Nostalgebraist writes about Bayesian updating:

Subjectively, I feel like I’m only capable of a fairly small discrete set of “degrees of belief.”  I think I can distinguish between, say, things I am 90% confident of and things I am only 60% confident of, but I don’t think I can distinguish between being 60% confident in something and 65% confident in it.  Those both just fall under some big mental category called “a bit more likely to be true than false. ”  (I’m sure psychologists have studied this, and I don’t know anything about their findings.  This is just what seems likely to me based on introspection.)

I’ve talked before about whether Bayesian updating makes sense as an ideal for how reasoning should work.  Suppose for now that it is a good ideal.  The “perfect” Bayesian reasoner would have a whole continuum of degrees of belief.  They would typically respond to new evidence by changing some of their degrees of beliefs, although for “weak” or “unconvincing” evidence, the change might be very small.  But since they have a whole continuum of degrees, they can make arbitrarily small changes.

Often when the Bayesian ideal is distilled down to principles that mere humans can follow, one of the principles seems to be “when you learn something new, modify your degrees of belief.”  This sounds nice, and accords with common sense ideas about being open-minded and changing your mind when it is warranted.

However, this principle can easily be read as implying: “if you learn something new, don’tnot modify your degrees of belief.”  Leaving your degrees of belief the same as they were before is what irrational, closed-minded, closed-eyed people do.  (One sometimes hears Bayesians responding to each other’s arguments by saying things like “I have updated in the direction of [your position],” as though they feel that this demonstrates that they are thinking in a responsible manner.  Wouldn’t want to be caught not updating when you learn something new!)

The problem here is not that hard to see.  If you only have, say, 10 different possible degrees of belief, then your smallest possible updates are (on average) going to be jumps of 10% at once.  If you agree to always update in response to new information, no matter how weak it is, then seeing ten pieces of very weak evidence in favor of P will ramp your confidence in P up to the maximum.

In each case, the perfect Bayesian might update by only a very small amount, say 0.01%.  Clearly, if you have the choice between changing by 0% and changing by 10%, the former is closer to the “perfect” choice of 0.01%.  But if you have trained yourself to feel like changing by 0% (i.e. not updating) is irrational and bad, you will keep making 10% jumps until you and the perfect Bayesian are very far apart.

This means that Bayesians – in the sense of “people who follow the norm I’m talking about” – will tend to over-respond to weak but frequently presented evidence.  This will make them tend to be overconfident of ideas that are favored within the communities they belong to, since they’ll be frequently exposed to arguments for those ideas, although those arguments will be of varying quality.

“Overconfident of ideas that are favored within the communities they belong to” is basically a description of everyone, not simply people who accept the norm he is talking about, so even if this happens, it is not much of an objection in comparison to the situation of people in general.

Nonetheless, Nostalgebraist misunderstands the idea of Bayesian updating as applied in real life. Bayes’ theorem is a theorem of probability theory that describes how a numerical probability is updated upon receiving new evidence, and probability theory in general is a formalization of degrees of belief. Since it is a formalization, it is not expected to be a literal description of real life. People do not typically have an exact numerical probability that they assign to a belief. Nonetheless, there is a reasonable way to respond to evidence, and this basically corresponds to Bayes’ theorem, even though it is not a literal numerical calculation.

Nostalgebraist’s objection is that there are only a limited number of ways that it is possible to feel about a proposition. He is likely right that to an untrained person this is likely to be less than ten. Just as people can acquire perfect pitch by training, however, it is likely that someone could learn to distinguish many more than ten degrees of certainty. However, this is not a reasonable way to respond to his argument, because even if someone was calibrated to a precision of 1%, Nostalgebraist’s objection would still be valid. If a person were assigning a numerical probability, he could not always change it by even 1% every time he heard a new argument, or it would be easy for an opponent to move him to absolute certainty of nearly anything.

The real answer is that he is looking in the wrong place for a person’s degree of belief. A belief is not how one happens to feel about a statement. A belief is a voluntary act or habit, and adjusting one’s degree of belief would mean adjusting that habit. The feeling he is talking about, on the other hand, is not in general something voluntary, which means that it is literally impossible to follow the norm he is discussing consistently, applied in the way that he suggests. One cannot simply choose to feel more certain about something. It is true that voluntary actions may be able to affect that feeling, in the same way that voluntary actions can affect anger or fear. But we do not directly choose to be angry or afraid, and we do not directly choose to feel certain or uncertain.

What we can affect, however, is the way we think, speak, and act, and we can change our habits by choosing particular acts of thinking, speaking, and acting. And this is where our subjective degree of belief is found, namely in our pattern of behavior. This pattern can vary in an unlimited number of ways and degrees, and thus his objection cannot be applied to updating in this way. Updating on evidence, then, would be adjusting our pattern of behavior, and not updating would be failing to adjust that pattern. That would begin by the simple recognition that something is new evidence: saying that “I have updated in the direction of your position” would simply mean acknowledging the fact that one has been presented with new evidence, with the implicit commitment to allowing that evidence to affect one’s behavior in the future, as for example by not simply forgetting about that new argument, by having more respect for people who hold that position, and so on in any number of ways.

Of course, it may be that in practice people cannot even do this consistently, or at least not without sometimes adjusting excessively. But this is the same with every human virtue: consistently hitting the precise mean of virtue is impossible. That does not mean that we should adopt the norm of ignoring virtue, which is Nostalgebraist’s implicit suggestion.

This is related to the suggestion of St. James that one should be quick to hear and slow to speak. Being quick to hear implies, among other things, this kind of updating based on the arguments and positions that one hears from others. But the same thing applies to evidence in general, whether it is received from other persons or in other ways. One should be quick to listen to reality.

Zimmerman’s Response to the Catechism

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As I suggested previously, it is possible that the statement on original immortality in the Catechism was directed against Zimmerman’s opinion. Whether or not the authors of the Catechism intended this explicitly, Zimmerman surely noted the conflict with his own views. Wishing to remain an orthodox Catholic, he substantially toned down his opinion in a subsequent work. He discusses the text of the Catechism in chapter 7 of his book Evolution and the Sin in Eden: A New Christian Synthesis:

Today the Church goes ones step further than Trent by the teaching in CCC 1008 and again in 1018 that physical death was brought about by original sin: “As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer ‘bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned'” (CCC 1018, cf. GS #18).

The CCC is “a sure norm for teaching the faith and thus a valid and legitimate instrument for ecclesial communion… This catechism is given to (the Church’s pastors and the Christian faithful) that it may be a sure and authentic reference text for teaching doctrine and particularly for preparing local catechisms” (Apostolic Constitution on the publication of the Catechism of the Catholic Church, John Paul II, October 11, 1992).

Despite the refusal of the Council of Trent to define the doctrine that Adam would have been immune from physical death if he had not sinned, the Church today proclaims it as part of its catechesis. Actually, Trent did not oppose the common belief, and only refused to make it binding once and for all.

The CCC’s inclusion of the doctrine is of great teaching value to dramatically emphasize the evil of sin, of disobedience to God. Death follows sin, so beware! Genesis certainly does the same by pairing death with sin. This is an excellent teaching aid, already begun in Genesis, now continued in our Catechism.

There may be theological reasons of great depth in the teaching that bodily death is a consequence of original sin, aspects of a truth which remains to be mined and discovered. Sin is moral corruption of the sinner’s soul, and corruption of the body through death may be mystically associated with sin in the eyes of God as well as of man.

While apparently accepting the teaching of the Catechism here, Zimmerman may be implicitly questioning it in the last paragraph, suggesting, “Perhaps the teaching is there not because it is true, but because of another truth that we haven’t yet made explicit.” In any case, he continues to recognize that there is some evidence against the claim, and consequently remains dissatisfied with the teaching of the Catechism:

Are we puzzled by the fact that our present cosmos is not designed for human life which is immune from physical death? One response to the puzzle can be that God already foresaw that Adam would commit original sin, hence there was no need for God to design the cosmos for a condition which would never become real. I confess that this solution, although proposed by some people, does not please me.

Other considerations remain to be solved. We note that the CCC does not state that Adam was already immune from physical death before he sinned. Nor does it teach that he enjoyed perpetual youth and freedom from various natural hardships during his life before sin. Many things remain unsaid and unresolved, if man’s natural condition of dying a biological death began only after original sin.

A number of reasons converge to indicate that man’s immunity from bodily death, as taught in GS 18 and the CCC, has the fuller meaning of eternal death of body and soul. The context of GS 18 is about man’s yearning for eternal life, not for mere biological continuity on earth. Furthermore, footnotes 14 and 15 of GS 18 refer to biblical texts that pertain to spiritual death invoked by evil deeds; they do not treat about biological death. Finally, the Council of Trent yolked together death from original sin and captivity under the power of the devil. But saints who die a bodily death in holiness are not captives of the devil. GS 18 and CCC 1008 therefore point more plausibly to eternal death than to temporal biological death. If that is correct, then neither Genesis, nor the rest of the Bible, nor Trent, nor Vatican II, nor the Catechism of the Catholic Church indicates with certainty that man was ever immune from natural biological death before original sin. However, I remain open for correction on this point.

Of course, his opinion here is not plausible at all, if he means to suggest that this might have been the actual intention of the authors of the Catechism. That intention was obviously to refer to biological death. However, the opinion is not necessarily completely unreasonable from the point of view of development of doctrine.

In any case, Zimmerman remains dissatisfied with the teaching. The teaching of the Church may prevent him from asserting as a positive opinion that man would have died even without sin; but it cannot prevent him from noticing that there is evidence in favor of this.

Gehringer vs. Zimmerman on Original Immortality

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Earlier we looked at a brief passage from a review by Joseph Gehringer of Zimmerman’s book on original sin:

Surprisingly, however, evolution continues to attract sympathetic attention in many orthodox Catholic publications. Even publications which are considered ‘conservative’ have been giving circulation to the erroneous claim that the Catholic Church has “never had a problem with evolution.” A recent editorial suggested that evolution was so probable – for philosophical reasons – that Catholics are almost obliged to accept it. Apparently the constant attacks on creationism in the secular media during the 1980’s have had their effect: Humani Generis has been forgotten and theistic evolution has become part of the new orthodoxy.

One of the clearest signs of this evolutionary trend is the appearance of a new book by Father Anthony Zimmerman, S.V.D., who is well-known for his work in Japan combating the twin evils of contraception and abortion. Fr. Zimmerman’s uncompromising position on these moral issues stands in strange contrast to his treatment of Scripture, Tradition, and dogma on matters related to human origins. On moral questions he relies upon the Magisterium as an infallible guide; on the question of Adam and Eve, he relies upon scientific theories as the most reliable guide.

Gehringer is criticizing Zimmerman’s apparent inconsistency, namely his appearing willing to follow the Magisterium on moral issues while appearing unwilling to follow the Magisterium on “the question of Adam and Eve.” Gehringer does not seem to notice, however, that this suggests that Zimmerman may have especially strong reasons for his opinions regarding the latter question, since he obviously prefers in principle to be faithful to the Magisterium. I would add the personal note that I have met Fr. Zimmerman in real life and I can testify that by any ordinary standard he is a devout, orthodox Catholic.

Gehringer criticizes Zimmerman’s treatment of tradition:

Tradition is divided into two types (page 208). Those teachings which Fr. Zimmerman accepts are called “Magisterial Tradition”; those he rejects are labeled “folklore tradition.”

As for dogma, under “Preternatural Gifts” in the Pocket Catholic Dictionary (by Rev. John Hardon, S.J.) we read: “They include three great privileges to which human beings have no title – infused knowledge, absence of concupiscence, and bodily immortality. Adam and Eve possessed these gifts before the Fall.” Because they do not fit into his scenario of a gradual, natural evolution, Fr. Zimmerman rejects the idea that Adam and Eve possessed these gifts. Although Vatican II refers to “bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned,” Fr. Zimmerman suggests this is a “doctrinal mistake,” adding: “I look forward to the day when the teaching Church will come to grips with tradition about … the supposed lack of physical death in the original Paradise. Is that a folklore tradition?” (page 208). Over and over, both the great theologians and the actual teachings of the Church are challenged and questioned. For example, “The pre-sin Adam of Augustine, then, is not a functional Adam at all” (page 149). And, “The Church has not made its own this belabored reasoning of Thomas” (page 146). On the other hand, Fr. Zimmerman gives us extensive excerpts (“delightful and informative”) from Lucy, the Beginnings of Humankind, by Johanson and Edey (pages 64-65).

Since the gift of bodily immortality to Adam is considered to be a “de fide” teaching of the Church, Fr. Zimmerman employs a variety of devices to try to convince the reader that this ancient dogma is actually a misinterpretation of Genesis. He claims the Church has erred on a related issue; he explains that the statements of the Councils do not mean what they have always been understood to say; he ignores relevant Scriptural and Magisterial statements; and he caricatures traditional interpretations, subjecting some to outright ridicule.

Making a distinction between “folklore tradition” and “Magisterial tradition” is indeed a bit strange. However, despite Gehringer’s implication, the Church has no list of “de fide” teachings. When Gehringer says that Adam’s bodily immortality is considered to be a matter of faith, he refers to the opinion of some theologians. And just as some theologians say that it is a matter of faith, other theologians, like Zimmerman, may say the opposite.

Gehringer goes on to criticize Zimmerman’s discussion of the various magisterial statements regarding the issue:

The Decrees of the Councils fare no better at Fr. Zimmerman’s hands. Canon 1 of the Council of Carthage, approved by Pope St. Zozimus, is quoted on page 188, but it is described as a “sentence” written by 200 bishops. By page 207, Fr. Zimmerman admits it was a Canon, but he argues that it was not “a positive doctrinal assertion,” only an “ad hominem argument about physical death directed against the heretics.” The old Catholic Encyclopedia, in the article on “Pelagius,” tells us that “these clearly worded canons (… death did not come to Adam from a physical necessity, but through sin …) came to be articles of faith binding the universal Church.” Yet Fr. Zimmerman dismisses it as an “ad hominem argument.”

In its Decree on Original Sin, the Council of Trent promulgated five canons. The first canon declares: “If anyone does not profess that Adam, the first man, … drew upon himself … death with which God had threatened him, and together with death captivity in the power of … the devil … anathema sit.” Fr. Zimmerman ignores what the canon clearly states, arguing that “Missing … is the explicit statement that Adam would not have died a physical death had he not sinned, which had been in an earlier version” (page 10).

Note Fr. Zimmerman’s use of the “Heads I win, tails you lose” type of argument. The Council of Carthage adopted a canon which stated explicitly that Adam was immune from physical death before he sinned; Fr. Zimmerman rejects this as an “ad hominem argument.” The Council of Orange adopted a canon which refers specifically to “bodily death which is the punishment of sin”; Fr. Zimmerman does not quote it, but dismisses it as “something commonly accepted.” The Council of Trent reaffirmed these earlier teachings in different words (“Adam … by his sin … drew upon himself the … death with which God had threatened him”); Fr. Zimmerman rejects this as not being an explicit declaration. Clearly, Fr. Zimmerman shows himself unwilling to accept this Catholic dogma, no matter how it is expressed.

Trent’s Canon 2 declares: “If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin … transmitted to all mankind only death and the suffering of the body but not sin as well which is the death of the soul, anathema sit. For he contradicts the words of the Apostle: ‘Sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men as all sinned in him'” (Rom. 5:12 Vulg; see Council of Orange II, Canon 2). Fr. Zimmerman begins by placing quotation marks around the word “death,” even though none appear in his source, Neuner and Dupuis No. 509. Denzinger-Deferrari also has no quotation marks around the word. Next he asserts that Trent explicitly accepted “death of the soul” but did not explicitly accept a lack of physical death, an obvious misinterpretation of the words of the Canon. In an effort to support his misinterpretation, Fr. Zimmerman omits the quotation from Holy Scripture and the reference to the Council of Orange, both of which make it quite apparent that the Council was speaking about physical death.

Father Zimmerman’s disregard for the rulings of the Magisterium is apparent from his handling of other solemn statements as well. On page 207 he quotes from Vatican Council II, “that bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned.” After first claiming that “this English translation misses precisions of the Latin,” he proposes his interpretation. “The living Adam would go directly from his living body to heaven, and then the body would die…. Adam wouldn’t die, but his body would die. In this way all the bases are covered….” In the Foreword, this book is hailed as a “unique piece of theological exposition.” Unique indeed! Who else would propose as a new Catholic dogma that “Adam wouldn’t die, but his body would die” in order to ‘cover all the bases’?

Gehringer’s discussion here is a bit unfair to Zimmerman, and in reality the interpretation of magisterial statements can be quite complex and not nearly as straightforward as Gehringer supposes. However, at least regarding the last point, it is clear enough that “Adam wouldn’t die, but his body would die” is a contradiction in itself, and that here at least Zimmerman’s position is entirely unreasonable.

I would make a number of points about this disagreement.

First, it is not impossible for someone to hold Zimmerman’s position, even without abandoning or modifying the Church’s teachings on its authority and infallibility. Earlier we noted most of the relevant magisterial statements. The canons of Carthage and Orange are decrees of local councils, and so would not be infallible in themselves. The council of Trent modified an original formulation of its canons that made bodily death as such a result of sin, and given this modification it seems impossible to prove that they intended to define this claim about bodily death absolutely. Gaudium et Spes is not intended to be an infallible document, and the statement about bodily death is made in the context of other statements like, “All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety,” where surely no one would complain that the Church was wrong in general, if it turned out that the endeavors of technology calmed someone’s anxiety. And regarding the Catechism, Cardinal Ratzinger stated in Introduction to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

The individual doctrines which the Catechism presents receive no other weight than that which they already possess. The weight of the Catechism itself lies in the whole. Since it transmits what the Church teaches, whoever rejects it as a whole separates himself beyond question from the faith and teaching of the Church.

This implies that unless the doctrine of original immortality is already understood to be infallible, the Catechism does not try to make it infallible. Of course someone like Gehringer could argue against all of this in many ways, as for example by the common consent of the Church and of theologians throughout history. But that would be an argument, and might or might not be right. Thus it is possible in principle for someone to hold Zimmerman’s position, even without changing any idea regarding the Church’s authority. But such a position would have consequences, and Gehringer has some justification for fearing those consequences. I will say more about this shortly.

Second, Zimmerman says a number of strange things about tradition and about the magisterial statements. Gehringer notes some of these things, such as the concept of “folklore tradition,” and the statement that “Adam wouldn’t die, but his body would die.” I noted above that generally speaking, Zimmerman is an orthodox Catholic. This is the best way to understand the various oddities of Zimmerman’s position. He does not like saying that “the Church was wrong”, and so he says various strange things in order to avoid this. As I said in the first point, in principle someone can hold Zimmerman’s position without rejecting the authority of the Church as such. However, it is not reasonable to hold this position without saying that the Church has proposed a false teaching a number of times, even if non-infallibly. So Zimmerman’s position appears unreasonable because he attempts to hold his position on original immortality while trying to avoid saying that the Church was mistaken, even in cases where in fact it would have been mistaken, under Zimmerman’s hypothesis.

Third, the real basis of the disagreement is the evidence against original immortality, discussed here and here. Zimmerman finds this evidence convincing, and consequently holds that it is necessary to adjust the teaching of the Church to correspond to this evidence. Gehringer instead wishes to say that the theory of evolution is false, and hopes that this will imply that there is no longer any evidence against original immortality.

There are several problems with Gehringer’s manner of response. In the first place, even if the theory of evolution was false, and even if there were no substantial evidence for it, there would still be evidence against original immortality, even if it would be somewhat weaker. Second, evidence is objective and does not change sides. So whether you accept or reject original immortality, or evolution, or anything else, is not the point. The evidence for and against these things will remain just as it is no matter what your position is.

Fourth, however, the consequences of that evidence will vary somewhat depending on how you react to it. There is evidence against original immortality, but there is also evidence (as for example those magisterial statements) in favor of it. Those evidences will remain just as they are no matter what someone’s position is. But there will be different ultimate consequences in terms of how people react. I said above that Gehringer has some justification for fearing the consequences of Zimmerman’s position. One of those consequences is that someone who holds Zimmerman’s position will almost certainly conclude that the authority of the Magisterium is weaker than many Catholics suppose, if he is honest enough to admit that his position implies that each of those magisterial statements was mistaken. Note that there is an objective aspect here as well: even if someone does not conclude that this position is ultimately true, the evidence against original immortality is also evidence that the Church’s authority is weaker in this way. But whether you believe that it is actually weaker in this way or not, may depend on whether you are convinced by the evidence regarding immortality.

But there is yet more for Gehringer to fear. Genesis assigns death as a result of the fall, but also other things, such as a woman’s pain in childbirth. But death seems the most important of these things. If death is not the result of the fall, then it is likely that the pain of childbirth and so on are not results of it. Thus it would be unclear that the fall had any results at all, which would suggest that it did not happen. This seems to suggest that the Bible as a whole would be false, given that considered as a whole it seems to be an account of the origin of death and how it is to be overcome. This, of course, is not a conclusion that Zimmerman draws or wishes to draw. But there is an objective aspect here as well: the evidence against original immortality is indirect evidence that the Bible as a whole is false, whether or not anyone draws that conclusion.

Original Immortality and the Order of the World

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Earlier we discussed an argument against the idea of the fall, taken from the nature of the order of the world. This will apply in a particular way to the idea that man was immortal before the fall, if only because this is one concrete way that the idea of the fall can be understood.

It is a common young earth creationist claim that before the fall, there was no animal death at all:

Death is a sad reality that is ever present in our world, leaving behind tremendous pain and suffering. Tragically, many people shake a fist at God when faced with the loss of a loved one and are left without adequate answers from the church as to death’s existence. Unfortunately, an assumption has crept into the church which sees death as a natural part of our existence and as something that we have to put up with as opposed to it being an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26) that came into God’s very good creation. This paper will argue that the biblical understanding of death, whether animal or human, physical or spiritual, views it to be a consequence of man’s disobedience towards his Creator and an intrusion into His “very good” creation.

This is not a very reasonable view, and St. Thomas argues against it in principle:

In the opinion of some, those animals which now are fierce and kill others, would, in that state, have been tame, not only in regard to man, but also in regard to other animals. But this is quite unreasonable. For the nature of animals was not changed by man’s sin, as if those whose nature now it is to devour the flesh of others, would then have lived on herbs, as the lion and falcon. Nor does Bede’s gloss on Genesis 1:30, say that trees and herbs were given as food to all animals and birds, but to some. Thus there would have been a natural antipathy between some animals. They would not, however, on this account have been excepted from the mastership of man: as neither at present are they for that reason excepted from the mastership of God, Whose Providence has ordained all this. Of this Providence man would have been the executor, as appears even now in regard to domestic animals, since fowls are given by men as food to the trained falcon.

The creationists however have correctly perceived that the original mortality of other animals would be evidence for the original mortality of man. It would be more likely that other animals would have died, given that man was going to die as well, than given that he was not going to die, and this means that animal death is evidence for human death. The creationists are probably also correct to suppose that the story of the fall, considered as a story, implies the original absence of both animal and human death, although this is not explicitly stated. They are mistaken, however, to suppose that Genesis is intended literally.

The existence of animal death before the existence of humanity is confirmed by geology, and this does not change much with the acceptance of the theory of evolution. However, the issue at least becomes more noticeable. Given that the first humans had ancestors, this implies that whoever was first meant to be immortal, had parents and possibly siblings that were not immortal. And since evolution proceeds gradually, it is possible that the first man who was capable of moral action was not the first human (with a human soul) to exist. This would suggest that the death of human beings happened even before anyone was capable of choosing good or evil.

In any case, the particular argument considered in the previous post on the fall and the order of the world, was that an elevation of nature to a condition obtainable through secondary causes, without actually using such causes, is unlikely.

Absolute immortality does not seem to be a condition obtainable through secondary causes, or at least there is no clear evidence of such a possibility. Consequently the argument discussed there does not apply to an elevation to absolute immortality, although it would still apply to the fall from that state (namely, it would argue that this is contrary to the usual order of the world.)

However, being elevated to immortality also includes aspects that in fact can be produced by secondary causes. In principle it is not impossible for an animal to be free of biological aging, and there may be some species in nature that are very nearly so. In practice this was not possible for human beings because they descended from a species which already had death by aging. St. Thomas however notes that it is possible to produce freedom from death in this sense through secondary causes:

I answer that, The tree of life in a certain degree was the cause of immortality, but not absolutely. To understand this, we must observe that in the primitive state man possessed, for the preservation of life, two remedies, against two defects. One of these defects was the lost of humidity by the action of natural heat, which acts as the soul’s instrument: as a remedy against such loss man was provided with food, taken from the other trees of paradise, as now we are provided with the food, which we take for the same purpose. The second defect, as the Philosopher says (De Gener. i, 5), arises from the fact that the humor which is caused from extraneous sources, being added to the humor already existing, lessens the specific active power: as water added to wine takes at first the taste of wine, then, as more water is added, the strength of the wine is diminished, till the wine becomes watery. In like manner, we may observe that at first the active force of the species is so strong that it is able to transform so much of the food as is required to replace the lost tissue, as well as what suffices for growth; later on, however, the assimilated food does not suffice for growth, but only replaces what is lost. Last of all, in old age, it does not suffice even for this purpose; whereupon the body declines, and finally dies from natural causes. Against this defect man was provided with a remedy in the tree of life; for its effect was to strengthen the force of the species against the weakness resulting from the admixture of extraneous nutriment. Wherefore Augustine says (De Civ. Dei xiv, 26): “Man had food to appease his hunger, drink to slake his thirst; and the tree of life to banish the breaking up of old age”; and (QQ. Vet. et Nov. Test. qu. 19) “The tree of life, like a drug, warded off all bodily corruption.”

Yet it did not absolutely cause immortality; for neither was the soul’s intrinsic power of preserving the body due to the tree of life, nor was it of such efficiency as to give the body a disposition to immortality, whereby it might become indissoluble; which is clear from the fact that every bodily power is finite; so the power of the tree of life could not go so far as to give the body the prerogative of living for an infinite time, but only for a definite time. For it is manifest that the greater a force is, the more durable is its effect; therefore, since the power of the tree of life was finite, man’s life was to be preserved for a definite time by partaking of it once; and when that time had elapsed, man was to be either transferred to a spiritual life, or had need to eat once more of the tree of life.

From this the replies to the objections clearly appear. For the first proves that the tree of life did not absolutely cause immortality; while the others show that it caused incorruption by warding off corruption, according to the explanation above given.

Two problems with this considered as a direct response to the argument from the order of the world, however, are first that the tree of life in Genesis cannot be understood literally, and second that the tree of life itself does not have natural secondary causes. In practice the only realistic way to achieve freedom from death by aging through secondary causes would be through human medical technology, as is hoped for by Ray Kurzweil. But this implies that it is also the mode which is most fitting to the order of the world, which argues that human immortality should be in the future, not in the past.

Nor would the fact that absolute immortality cannot be produced by secondary causes negate this evidence, for absolute immortality could also be in the future, even given that it is to be obtained. And if there could have been rational animals without the capacity for moral choice who lived and died before man was offered immortality, then the proposal that absolute immortality be put off long enough to allow the obtaining of imperfect immortality through the action of secondary causes would be entirely reasonable.

In addition, positing a complete immortality at the beginning of the human race implies the addition of an indefinite number of miracles to the order of secondary causes, which necessarily makes this order less perfect. St. Thomas, noting that man’s body could be affected by other bodies, says that, “Man’s body in the state of innocence could be preserved from suffering injury from a hard body; partly by the use of his reason, whereby he could avoid what was harmful; and partly also by Divine Providence, so preserving him, that nothing of a harmful nature could come upon him unawares.” But such a use of divine providence effectively implies being miraculously preserved from the possibility of accidental death.

The Magisterium and Original Immortality

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A council of Carthage (418 – 419) approved the following canon:

That whosoever says that Adam, the first man, was created mortal, so that whether he had sinned or not, he would have died in body— that is, he would have gone forth of the body, not because his sin merited this, but by natural necessity, let him be anathema.

The council of Orange in 529 published the following:

CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was “changed for the worse” through the offense of Adam’s sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, “The soul that sins shall die” (Ezek. 18:20); and, “Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?” (Rom. 6:16); and, “For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved” (2 Pet. 2:19).

CANON 2. If anyone asserts that Adam’s sin affected him alone and not his descendants also, or at least if he declares that it is only the death of the body which is the punishment for sin, and not also that sin, which is the death of the soul, passed through one man to the whole human race, he does injustice to God and contradicts the Apostle, who says, “Therefore as sin came into the world through one man and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all men sinned” (Rom. 5:12).

These canons are concerned with establishing that original sin affects man spiritually, but nevertheless they take it as an absolute fact that bodily death is a result of sin.

The council of Trent published these canons:

1. If any one does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he had transgressed the commandment of God in Paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice wherein he had been constituted; and that he incurred, through the offence of that prevarication, the wrath and indignation of God, and consequently death, with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam, through that offence of prevarication, was changed, in body and soul, for the worse; let him be anathema.

2. If any one asserts, that the prevarication of Adam injured himself alone, and not his posterity; and that the holiness and justice, received of God, which he lost, he lost for himself alone, and not for us also; or that he, being defiled by the sin of disobedience, has only transfused death, and pains of the body, into the whole human race, but not sin also, which is the death of the soul; let him be anathema:–whereas he contradicts the apostle who says; By one man sin entered into the world, and by sin death, and so death passed upon all men, in whom all have sinned.

Apparently there was an original formulation of the first canon which specified that the death with which man had been threatened was a bodily death, but this specification was omitted in the final formulation. There is some discussion of this issue here. Regarding this point, the author of the essay concludes, “At any rate it does not seem that we can say for certain that Trent is here defining immortality as a gift to man before sin and simple physical death as a punishment for sin.” Nonetheless, the council certainly seems to take for granted that man without sin would not have physically died.

The Second Vatican Council stated in the document Gaudium et Spes,

18. It is in the face of death that the riddle a human existence grows most acute. Not only is man tormented by pain and by the advancing deterioration of his body, but even more so by a dread of perpetual extinction. He rightly follows the intuition of his heart when he abhors and repudiates the utter ruin and total disappearance of his own person. He rebels against death because he bears in himself an eternal seed which cannot be reduced to sheer matter. All the endeavors of technology, though useful in the extreme, cannot calm his anxiety; for prolongation of biological life is unable to satisfy that desire for higher life which is inescapably lodged in his breast.

Although the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Church has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. In addition, that bodily death from which man would have been immune had he not sinned (cf. Wis. 1:13; 2:23-24; Rom. 5:21; 6:23; Jas. 1:15.) will be vanquished, according to the Christian faith, when man who was ruined by his own doing is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour. For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. Christ won this victory when He rose to life, for by His death He freed man from death. Hence to every thoughtful man a solidly established faith provides the answer to his anxiety about what the future holds for him. At the same time faith gives him the power to be united in Christ with his loved ones who have already been snatched away by death; faith arouses the hope that they have found true life with God.

The document thus says explicitly that man would have been free of bodily death if he had not sinned. This passage is quoted by the Catechism of the Catholic Church:

Death is a consequence of sin. The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and Tradition, teaches that death entered the world on account of man’s sin. Even though man’s nature is mortal God had destined him not to die. Death was therefore contrary to the plans of God the Creator and entered the world as a consequence of sin. “Bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned” is thus “the last enemy” of man left to be conquered.

This is repeated in the “In Brief” section, summarizing, “As a consequence of original sin, man must suffer ‘bodily death, from which man would have been immune had he not sinned’ (GS § 18).”

The Catechism does not always contain specifications such as “The Church’s Magisterium, as authentic interpreter of the affirmations of Scripture and tradition,” before going on to make a statement. The purpose of this addition seems to be to recognize that some suppose that bodily death is not a result of sin, and to exclude this possibility, more or less completely. Fr. Zimmerman’s book, Original Sin: Where Doctrine Meets Science, was published about a year and a half before the publication of the Catechism. It is not impossible that the authors of the text of the Catechism were thinking of his opinion in particular.