Error as Wandering: The Sadducees, 'You Err Through This', and Ignorance as a Cause of Error

Orientation #

He opens saying he is “making a larger excursion here” from the De Anima text (line 18–20) and refers back to “the text we looked at earlier” on the four causes, and to Thomas’s proemium to logic (“I don’t know if we did”). He says the point will be “very important for this book” when they reach Book I’s opinions on the soul and a “very famous passage” in Book II on error. The previous class was on the De Anima proemium and the method of defining the soul.

The class, in order #

1. “Many doubts and errors”: the etymology of error (“there are many errors about what the soul is”) #

Point: the Greek of De Anima’s line ~20 (eti pollas aporias … kai planas) is well translated “difficulties and errors” because error and planē are etymologically the same: both come from a word meaning to wander.

• Aporia = doubt, “things puzzling the mind”; planē = wandering.
• Knight errant: literally a wandering knight going about the countryside rescuing maidens from dragons; poets pun on the other sense (a sinful man).
• Planet: Greek planētai asteres, “the wandering stars,” against the “fixed stars,” which keep the same positions relative to each other while the whole sphere seems to revolve; the planets are in different places at different times. “So much learning here now.”

2. Error as a disordered movement of reason (“error is the result of a disordered movement of reason”) #

Point: the etymology (Greek and Latin independently) is “a key into something about how error takes place”: error results from a disordered movement of reason.

• We “wander into illusions, as Shakespeare says in the Comedy of Errors.”
• “Out of order” sign on a broken machine: when your thoughts are out of order, your mind is not functioning well and is apt to fall into error.
• Thomas’s proemium to logic: logic helps reason proceed in its acts “orderly, easily, and without error”; he takes the order of the three words as significant. The master carpenter, plumber, chef go about their work in an orderly way, so it seems easy, and they don’t make the errors you make without the art (his brother-in-law the carpenter: “Why would you do it that way?”). Orderly and without error are known together as opposites of the disorderly movement.

3. The Harmony of the Gospels and the commandment of love (“a harmony of the Gospels”) #

Point: introduces the book he will read from (Knox translation, all four Gospels in 112 parallel sections; no. 1 the eternal Word, John only; no. 84 the resurrection of the dead, in Matthew, Mark, Luke, not John).

• Aside from his own earlier study of the commandment of love: English uses one preposition (“with”) throughout, but Luke has “from your whole heart” and “in your whole soul … strength … mind.” He takes this as significant: love of God is an act of the will that commands, or should command, the acts of all the other powers, so it is from the heart into the soul, strength, mind. “Kind of missed in the translation.”

4. The Sadducees: objection, answer, root (“in the resurrection, whose wife will she be”) #

Point: the three accounts share the same structure and Christ’s answer follows an order worth noticing.

1. All three begin by noting the Sadducees deny the resurrection.
2. Their objection follows the Mosaic law in good faith: seven brothers marry the same woman in turn, each dying childless; in the resurrection whose wife is she, since all have an equal claim?
3. Christ first meets the objection: in the next world there is neither marrying nor giving in marriage; they are like angels.
4. Then he goes to the root, their denial of resurrection, quoting Moses: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” the God of the living. “Notice Christ’s order there”: first the objection, then the root.

• Side thought: Matthew and Mark have hōs angeloi en tō ouranō, “like the angels”; Luke (20:36) has one word, isangeloi, “equal to the angels” (isos = equal), after “no longer able to die.” He connects this with Thomas’s view that the saints fill up the ranks of the fallen angels: some saints greater than some angels, some angels than some saints, but “a kind of equality there.” Knox’s “as the angels” loses it.
• Aside: his favourite Knox quotation, that it is stupid of the modern world to stop believing in the devil “when he is the only explanation for it.”

5. Does Christ label it error? planasthe and dia touto (“is it not through this that you err”) #

Point: the Sadducees are in two errors (no resurrection; and, if there were one, we would be as now, eating, drinking, marrying), and Christ names the error differently in each Gospel.

• Luke: never says “you err,” though he is refuting an error.
• Matthew (22:29): once. Greek: planasthe mē eidotes tas graphas mēde tēn dunamin tou theou, “you err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God”; “wrong” is not a bad translation, but the word is the wandering word.
• Mark: twice. First: ou dia touto planasthe, “is it not through this that you err, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God?” Knox’s “Is not this where you are wrong” mistranslates: the Greek is not “where” but dia, “through” or “by,” so Christ is naming the cause of the error. Grammatically one could construe it otherwise, but the error he means is the two about the resurrection.
• What connects their being in error with not understanding? A student answers: that is the cause. He agrees.

6. The same word in Aristotle: dia ti (“we do not think we know each thing”) #

Point: Christ’s dia touto is Aristotle’s dia ti, the through-what or by-what.

• The text on the four causes (second book, “fifth lectio”): since the investigation is for the sake of understanding (epei gar tou eidenai charin … hē pragmateia), and we do not think we understand each thing before we take the dia ti (prin an labōmen to dia ti), and “this is to take the first cause” (touto de esti to labein tēn prōtēn aitian). Latin propter quid.
• So Christ is saying: it is through your ignorance of Scripture and of God’s power that you err about the resurrection and the state after it.

7. Mark’s ending: polu planasthe (“he is not the God of the dead”) #

Point: after refuting both errors (“not the God of the dead but of the living,” ouk estin ho theos nekrōn alla zōntōn), Mark alone adds polu planasthe, “you err much.”

• “Much” is not only the number of errors (two) but the weight of the matter: the resurrection is essential to Christianity. He recalls Paul: if Christ did not rise and we will not rise, our faith is vain; the Greeks at the Areopagus could not accept it. “We’re not really redeemed if we don’t rise.”

8. Why the cause of error matters for De Anima (“even more common than knowing”) #

Point: Christ’s text suggests where to begin in studying the causes of error: you err because you are ignorant of something.

• Book I of De Anima (which they will not read whole) gives all the opinions on the soul: water, fire, air, a number, the atoms. If everyone has a different opinion, either all are mistaken or all but one; so most philosophers are mistaken about the soul, which is enough to make one stop and want to avoid error.
• Book II, “very famous passage”: Aristotle’s predecessors tried to explain how man and the other animals know but gave no explanation of how they are mistaken, though error is “even more common than knowing”; a “sin of omission.”
• “The great Boethius”: if you don’t know the cause of evil, it is hard to avoid it; how avoid disease without knowing what causes it? So too error, hard enough even when the causes are known.

9. Ignorance as a cause of error, by opposites (“God cannot be deceived because he knows everything”) #

Point: “let’s just put out: ignorance as a cause of error,” manifested through its opposite.

1. The formula “God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived.” Why can God not be deceived? Student: he knows everything.
2. Presumably then we can be deceived because we do not know everything; unless ignorant of something we would never fall into error.
3. “Be careful there”: ignorance is not the same as error.

• His favourite syllogism: happiness is the end of life; the end of life is death; so happiness is death. If deceived, it is dia ti, through what? A student: ignorance of the different meanings of the word “end.” (His students who hear “nature acts for an end” as nature bringing all things to an end: “a rather pessimistic view.”)
• The whole-and-part argument he uses to deceive students: animal is only part of what man is, yet animal includes dog, cat, horse besides man, so “the part sometimes includes more than the whole.” Resolution: two senses of whole and part are mixed, the universal whole (animal said of more than man) vs. the composed whole (the definition of man contains more than animal). A harder case than “end.”
• “Roger Maris hit 61 home runs with the bat; the bat is a flying rodent”: nobody is deceived, because the two senses of “bat” are seen. Difficulty of the sophism rises with the hiddenness of the equivocation.
• Application: the Sadducees err partly because they don’t see the resurrection taught in Scripture, partly because they think God’s power limited to what nature can do; likewise moderns who deny miracles as contradicting the “laws of nature, so-called” err through ignorance of the power of God. The class breaks off here (“Okay. Now.”).

His words #

• aporia; doubt, “things puzzling the mind.”
• planē / planasthe; wandering, to wander; the Greek behind “error” and “you err” [ed.: usually rendered "you are wrong/mistaken"].
• error; etymologically a wandering, hence “a disordered movement of reason.”
• knight errant; wandering knight.
• planets; “the wandering stars,” against the fixed stars.
• orderly, easily, without error; Thomas’s three words for what logic gives reason (his emphasis on their order).
• harmony of the Gospels; a book of parallel passages of all four Gospels (Knox).
• hōs angeloi; “like the angels” (Matthew, Mark); isangeloi; “equal to the angels” (Luke), from isos, equal.
• dia; through, by. dia touto; through this. dia ti; through what, by what [ed.: the "why"]; Latin propter quid.
• “to take the first cause”; Aristotle’s gloss on knowing the dia ti.
• polu planasthe; “you err much.”
• sin of omission; his phrase for the predecessors’ failure to explain error.
• universal whole vs. composed whole; animal said of more than man vs. the definition of man containing more than animal.

Texts #

Read in class

• Aristotle, De Anima I, line ~18–20 (Greek: eti pollas aporias … kai planas).
• Matthew 22:29 (inferred numbering), Mark 12:25–27, Luke 20:36, in Knox’s Harmony of the Gospels, section 84, with the Greek.
• Aristotle, the text on the four causes, “second book,” “fifth lectio” (Physics II, inferred), Greek read.

Mentioned

• Thomas Aquinas, proemium to logic (orderly, easily, without error).
• Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors.
• Luke’s version of the commandment of love (“from your whole heart … in your whole soul”).
• Thomas on the saints filling the ranks of the fallen angels.
• Knox on the devil as the only explanation of the modern world.
• St Paul on the resurrection (“our faith is in vain”); the Areopagus.
• De Anima I (opinions on the soul) and II (predecessors did not explain error).
• Boethius on knowing the cause of evil.
• Heath’s notes on Euclid (“a larger excursion,” phrase borrowed).

His questions #

• What do “error” and Greek planē come from etymologically? To wander (knight errant, planets as wandering stars).
• What is a knight errant doing? Wandering the countryside; literally “wandering knight.”
• What does the etymology indicate about how error takes place? Error is the result of a disordered movement of reason.
• In what order does Christ answer the Sadducees? First meets the objection (no marrying, like angels), then the root (God of the living).
• Does Christ label their view an error in all three texts? Luke never; Matthew once; Mark twice, with dia touto and polu.
• What is the connection between their being in error and not understanding Scripture or God’s power? It is the cause (Greek dia, through, not “where”).
• Why is it impossible for God to be deceived? He knows everything; so we can be deceived because we don’t.
• Through what are we deceived by “happiness is the end of life; the end of life is death”? Ignorance of the different meanings of “end.”
• How can “the part include more than the whole”? Two senses mixed: universal whole vs. composed whole.
• Is ignorance the same as error? No; ignorance is a cause of error, “be careful there.”