While reading through my currently featured book, Proving Contraries (Signature, 2005), I've been stewing over the title. It bothers me. The phrase comes from a Joseph Smith quote ("By proving contraries, truth is made manifest") and it sounds like just the sort of thing that would thrill a writer — a creative phrase that springs some verbal tension on the reader, hence its use as the title for the book. But writers and English profs never have to prove anything. In mathematics, one technique for proving an assertion is to assume the opposite, then show by careful mathematical argument that it implies a contradiction, hence the assumption can be rejected. In other words, by rejecting contraries, truth is made manifest. That's how I see things. So I need to dig a little deeper to be happy with the title.
A famous set of contraries is Kant's Antinomies. I can't say I have really plumbed the depths on Kant (who has?), but he didn't really resolve these contraries. In a sense, their unresolvability spurred him on to his transcendental enlightenment: instead of rejecting the contraries, he accepted them and rejected truth (as rationalism depicted it). Thus, by accepting contraries, truth is fruitfully deconstructed. Okay, maybe we're getting somewhere.
Then I stumbled onto the medieval doctrine of twofold truth, discussed briefly in this Catholic Encyclopedia entry on Averroes (third paragraph down). In a nutshell, the doctrine holds that what is false in philosophy can, at the same time, be true in theology, and vice versa. Here's a quote from the article:
Averroes advocated the principle of twofold truth, maintaining that religion has one sphere and philosophy another. Religion, he said, is for the unlettered multitude; philosophy for the chosen few. Religion teaches by signs and symbols; philosophy presents the truth itself. In the mind, therefore, of the truly enlightened, philosophy supersedes religion. But, though the philosopher sees that what is true in theology is false in philosophy, he should not on that account condemn religious instruction, because he would thereby deprive the multitude of the only means which it has of attaining a (symbolic) knowledge of the truth.
This probably rubs you the wrong way; the doctrine of twofold truth hasn't fared well in the modern era. However, it strikes me as similar to compartmentalization, a standard coping technique of educated Mormons when faced with contrary claims between religion and science, such as Book of Mormon claims about Israelites/Nephites in America versus the disturbing lack of archaeological evidence for that claim. Solution: compartmentalize. Averroes apparently advocated a sophisticated formulation of compartmentalization. For what it's worth, medieval Scholastics rejected that approach: Scotus and Aquinas would have none of that two truths stuff. Truth was truth and had to be consistent, even if there were two roads (natural reason and divine revelation) to get there. "Truth brooks no contraries" might be their slogan.
How about just "Pondering Contraries?"
I think it would be helpful to know the context of the JS quote...and not just the context of it's appearance, but the context of mind. What exactly was JS thinking when he decided this ditty was worth passing along?
I think it suggests an implicit and hidden connection which remains to be discovered...upon which discovery a previous paradox vanishes.
But I'm still wondering...was JS speaking of a connection that he was aware of that others had yet to discover? Or was he just blowing smoke to justify the many paradoxes that are JS?
Posted by: Watt Mahoun | Jan 13, 2006 at 10:33 PM
Watt, I just looked up the passage, found at HC Vol. 6, p. 28. Joseph wrote (or dictated) a short letter to one L. Daniel Rupp, who had written a book on religious denominations in the US and, for the Latter-day Saints, published a write-up submitted by Joseph. In the course of the letter, Joseph wrote:
(I fiddled with the quotation marks to make them sensible; they are screwed up in the HC text as printed.) The quotations suggest Joseph was quoting from another source, but no reference is given. The full quote kind of gives a different sense to the "proving contraries" phrase than is evident from a first reading (and than is reflected in my post).
Posted by: Dave | Jan 14, 2006 at 01:09 AM
Alright, Google has provided further light and knowledge, courtesy of a quote from none other than Eugene England himself. In the book Why the Church is as True as the Gospel, subtitled "Grappling Constructively With the Oppositions of Existence" (available here, down the page or search on text), the following passage appears:
So England thinks Joseph was using "prove" to mean "test," as in the famous Pauline dictum "prove all things, hold fast that which is good" from I Thess. 5:21.
Now that we're up to speed on this quote (fittingly, one that England felt was particularly insightful) I will get around to commenting on the actual contents in my next post on the book.
Posted by: Dave | Jan 14, 2006 at 01:27 AM
Dave,
Thanks for your depth of response.
Reading this reminds me of what a deep and complex and beautiful man was JS. It's easy to fall into the trap of underestimating him, as I often do.
Posted by: Watt Mahoun | Jan 14, 2006 at 10:01 AM
doesn't the line (as used by JS) come from shakespeare?
Posted by: bbowen | Jan 14, 2006 at 11:47 AM
The closest I can find (using a Shakespeare text search) is "I'll prove the contrary, if you'll hear me speak." King Henry IV, Part III, Act I, Scene 2. I'm not familiar enough with either Shakespeare or England to pull up any better reference.
Posted by: Dave | Jan 14, 2006 at 01:06 PM
One certainly could liken the Averroes idea to compartmentalization. Not knowing anything about the topic, I wouldn't know if that is reasonable or not. However if one is generous, I don't think this is the only way to see the idea.
One could take the view that Averroes "religion" is an approximation of absolute truth done to enable laymen to understand rough ideas. Sort of like some of the poorer science readers you pick up at Chapters: accurate, but approximations of more precise reasoning. They fall apart when analogies get taken too far. From my teaching experience, this tends to happen when students can't manage to get any kind of start on a concept. You throw out a poor analogy and then hope it leads to a stage of comprehension where correction can take place. Of course many people don't like this type of corruption, preferring a reasonably high entrance threshold.We also don't like the streamlining than "two truths" leads to.
However it seems like many people today naturally assume things keep their validity as they get simplified and compressed. (Look how TV sharpens those surveillance camera images - silly 24 season opener). Church focus on personal revelation seems to try and bypass the idea of "truer truths".
Posted by: chris g | Jan 16, 2006 at 12:31 PM