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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 December 2015
In a fable by Lincoln Steffens, he recounts the fate of a man, who, climbing to the top of a mountain, seizes hold of the Truth. Satan, suspecting mischief from this upstart, duly directs his underlings to tail him. When the demon reports with alarm the man's success – that he had indeed seized hold of the Truth – Satan remains unperturbed. ‘Don't worry’, he yawned. ‘I’ll tempt him to institutionalize it.’1
The purpose of this paper is to offer an exploratory critique of the concept of institutionalized truth, as it is postulated within the epistemic traditions of scientism and Roman Catholic theology. Drawing on examples from each of these paradigms, namely, the conclusions of scientism, and the doctrine of papal infallibility, this disquisition argues that immutable truths, as championed by both camps, are in fact, questionable constructs, open to interpretation and criticism.
* See Agrippa's Trilemma for a more thorough analysis
1 Huston Smith, The World's Religions (San Francisco: Harper-San Francisco, 1991), 5.
2 Friedrick Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human (Cambridge Press, 1996), s.48, 264.
3 Oscar Wilde, The Importance of Being Earnest, Act I, (Dover Publications, 1990).
4 Russell, B., ‘The Nature of Truth’, in The Collected Works of Bertrand Russell, vol. 4, ed., by A. Urquhaut (London and New York: Routledge 1994), 492–506.
5 Francis Bacon, Of Truth, in ‘The Oxford Book of Essays’ (OUP, 1991), 1.
6 William James, Pragmatism, in Pragmatism and The Meaning of Truth (Harvard University Press, 1975), 96.
7 Frederick. Nietzsche, On Truth and Lies in a Nonmoral Sense: Collected Works (Random House, 2001), 123.
8 Ibid, 123.
9 Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty (Harper Perennial Press, 1972), 193.
10 Ludwig Witgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Dover Press, 1998), 6.4.
11 Martin Heidegger, On the Essence of Truth, trans. John Sallis (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1993), 117–41.
12 Wittgenstein, op. cit., Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.
13 Jacques Lacan, Television, A Challenge to the Psychoanalytic Establishment ed. Joan Copjec (New York: W. W. Norton, 1990), 3.
14 Joseph Goebbels, ‘Aus Churchills Lügenfabrik’, Die Zeit ohne Beispiel, (January 12th 1941).
16 Alex Rosenberg, The Atheist's Guide to Reality (W. W. Norton, 2012), 7–8.
17 Richard Lewontin, It Ain't Necessarily So (New York Review of Books, 2001), 74.
18 Peter Atkins, ‘Science as Truth’ in History of the Human Sciences (May 1995: 8), 99.
19 W. K., Clifford, The Ethics of Belief (Prometheus Books, 1999), 295.
20 Rudolph van Otto, The Idea of the Holy (Trans. John W. Harvey. OUP, 1923), 12–23.
21 François-Marie Arouet (Voltaire), Epître à l'auteur du livre des Trois imposteurs (Oeuvres complètes de Voltaire, ed. Louis Moland [Paris: Garnier, 1877–1885], 402.
22 Blaise Pascal, as quoted in Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans: Pascal's Pênsees Edited, Outlined and Explained (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), 69.
23 Paul Davies, The Mind of God: The Scientific Basis for a Rational World (Penguin Press, 1993), 14.
24 Richard P. Feynman, What Do You Care What Other People Think? (W. W. Norton, 1988), 22.
25 Karl Popper, The Logic of Scientific Discovery (London & New York, Routledge, 2002), 316.
26 Hans Küng, Infallible? An Enquiry (Continuum, 1971), 100.
27 Paul Tillich, Dynamics of Faith (New York, Perennial Classics Edition, HarperCollins Publishers, 2001), 29.
28 Newberg, Andrew, Principles of Neurotheology (Ashgate Press, 2013), 36.
29 For an alternative viewpoint, see Matthew Alper's ‘The God part of the Brain: A Scientific Interpretation of Human Spirituality and God’.
30 Neils G. Walker, Brian A. Kojetin, Thomas J. Bouchard, David Lykken, and Auke Tellegen ‘Genetic and environmental influences on religious interests, attitudes, and values: A study of twins reared apart and together’, Psychological Science, Vol. 1138, 42.
31 Dean Hamer, The God Gene: How Faith is Hardwired into Our Genes (New York: Doubleday, 2004), 59.
32 Comings, D. E., Gonzales, N., Saucier, G., Johnson, J. P., and MacMurray, J. P.. 2000. ‘The DRD4 gene and the spiritual transcendence scale of the character temperament index’, Psychiatric Genetics 10 (4), 185–9CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed.
33 Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Phenomenon of Man, (Harper Press, 2008), 32.
34 Persinger, M.A., Makarec, K. ‘Temporal lobe epileptic signs and correlative behaviors displayed by normal populations’, Journal of General Psyhcology (1987), 1114: 179–195CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Persinger, M. A., Makarec, K., ‘Complex partial epileptic signs as a continuum from normals to epileptics: Normative data and clinical populations’, Journal of Clinical Psychology 49: (1983), 33–453.0.CO;2-H>CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
35 Granqvist, P., Fredrikson, M., Unge, P., Hagenfeldt, A., Valind, S., Larhammar, D., and Larsson, M.. (2005). ‘Sensed presence and mystical experiences are predicted by suggestibility, not by the application of transcranial weak complex magnetic fields’, Neuroscience Letters, 379 (1): 1–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Granqvist, P., and Larsson, M. (2006). ‘Contribution of religiousness in the prediction and interpretation of mystical experiences in a sensory deprivation context: activation of religious schemas’, Journal of Psychology 140 (4), 319–27CrossRefGoogle Scholar.
36 Daniel J. Boorstin, The Discoverers (Doubleday Books, 1985), 15.