Ad Hominem

“You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will scourge in your synagogues and persecute from town to town,  that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of innocent Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Truly, I say to you, all this will come upon this generation” (Matt 23:33-36).

“You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks according to his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44).

One of the charges I find people bringing to one another, when debating online, is that of the ad hominem. If their opponent dismisses them, says something insulting, it is said that they have followed through with an ad hominem. What they have to say, therefore, is proven wrong, because they have committed an ad hominem. Their opponent lost the debate, and they win and one must believe what they have to say because of the insult.

Anyone find this ironic?

It’s common for atheists to make the same charge with Jesus Christ. When I was in high school, learning about fallacies for the first time, my teacher, who was a rather intelligent, and respectable man (he was quite likeable as a person), nonetheless, was also an agnostic, and, from time to time, would always bring out what he thought was erroneous in the way Jesus dialogued with others. He would point out what believed were Jesus’ fallacies, and the ad hominem he thought was normative here. His point is that Jesus consistently engaged in the ad homimen, and therefore, his arguments were invalid.  The words quoted at the beginning of this post are the kinds of examples he would use to prove his point. Jesus could be mean with his interlocutors; he could insult them, call them names, therefore, what he said didn’t hold water.

Anyone find this ironic?

The same point that my old high school teacher would make is the same point people make, one with another, on the internet when they debate. If one side makes any kind of insult, it is seen, by the other side, as if the debate is over, and their side wins. “He insulted me, therefore, he is wrong.”

Again, does anyone see the irony?

St Thomas More is my favorite Catholic apologist. He engaged Luther when Luther was still alive, he engaged Protestantism when the routine responses were not yet established (he would make some of them himself). He was one of the most intellectual men of his time, and if he had something to say, people would listen (though, of course, this doesn’t mean they would agree, nor would St Thomas More want people to agree with him, just because he said something). He was a layman who looked up to authority and respected it, even if he disputed how it was exercised. He knew from within and without how difficult authority could be for those who possess it. Yet, he would have no one dismiss authorities just because an authority was abusive. He would defend authorities, be it King or priest, from what he saw as unjust criticism. No one expected authorities to be perfect, to be impeccable. If someone pointed out failings in the person who held authority, Thomas would be the first to point out this didn’t say anything about authority itself. For an attack on authority and the rights of authority, based upon some personal abuse of authority, was ultimately an ad hominem, and St Thomas knew that if one pointed out the imperfections of authority it didn’t dismiss the legitimacy of authority itself. This is exactly what ad hominems are about – to dismiss the power of words, the authority of truth, based upon the messenger who proclaims the truth, rather than the truth itself.  If they can be shown to be of bad character, the rest of their words are brought into question. That is exactly what an ad hominem is doing. It’s wrong, of course, because what one says or does to others, does not determine whether or not their declarations are true or false. If a teacher abuses a pupil with some sort of corporeal and mental punishment until they get the question, “1+1” right, it doesn’t make the answer “2” wrong because the teacher was abusive. Nor is St Thomas More wrong when he writes of Luther with the following words: “Since he has written that he already has a prior right to bespatter and besmirch the royal crown with shit, will we not have the posterior right to proclaim the beshitted tongue of this practitioner of posterioristics most fit to lick with his anterior the very posterior of a pissing she-mule until he shall have learned more correctly to infer posterior conclusions from prior premises?”[1] While the words are insulting, there is something beyond the insults going on, and the message Thomas wanted to impart to his readers is still correct (which, here, is the difference between anterior and posterior —  how many people reading that would forget the two?). If an insult makes the point wrong, then what does that turn the anterior and posterior ends of the pissing she-mule into?

If one studies the history of logic, and those who are otherwise known as logicians, one will find they engage insults quite frequently. To insult is not to commit an ad hominmen; to insult is to indicate some aspect of the person the insulter finds to be problematic, but, that doesn’t mean that the insulter finds everything the insultee has said to be in error. The insult is not indicative of an argument, but an opinion or statement about the person who is being debated. Only if it is used beyond the insult, only if it is used as an argument in its own light, is it an ad hominem. But, if one labels the insulter as wrong because of the insult, then the one who claims the insulter wrong is the one who is engaging the ad hominem.

Since Jesus is the Logos (John 1:1) made flesh, if he engaged in something which was contra-logic, not in the transcendent sense, it would be proof he wasn’t the Logos which he was claimed to be. But if we look closely, his criticisms did not dismiss the authority of his opponents: “The scribes and the Pharisees sit on Moses’ seat; so practice and observe whatever they tell you, but not what they do; for they preach, but do not practice” (Matt 23:2-3). Jesus made two observations; on the one hand, he did not dismiss the general teachings of his opponents, and, indeed, he reinforced it, by living out the dictates of the law to its fullest extent. And with their teachings, he also declared their general authority. But that leads us to the second point, which is, that his critics were right, but why were the right? Because they pointed to was right beyond themselves. Statements about truth are not good enough; truth isn’t really revealed unless it is known in love. Those who proclaim truth but do not live it out are, as Jesus said, of the devil, for the devil is the figure of hate. Truth is goodness, truth is beauty, truth is love. To follow truth is to love. One can point to it without following it. It is for this reason that Jesus didn’t dismiss what his opponents wanted people to believe; he only pointed out his opponents used the truth in hate, just like the devil, without following it themselves. This is not an argument, but a presentation of the person he is debating, giving them a chance to reform and to follow the truth in love themselves. Jesus always reveals to us the way we fail truth, the way we fail love. Thus he provides to us the chance for reformation, for metanoia. This requires an act of love; do we give up who and what we think we are for the sake of love? If so, we can be reformed and made anew; otherwise, we will remain, under the domain of the devil, who is the king of hate.

Jesus points out the two options, and that is all there is. Two options. Jesus is more concerned about the person’s relationship to love, than to declarations about truth. Jesus’ “insults” are not ad hominems because they are not about the question of whether or not the words are true or not; they are about the question of something more fundamental: where did his opponents lie on the question of love. That was what was important. Revelation can be given to those open to it in love.

This leads us about to so-called ad hominens in online debates.  Our frustrations might show where our love has failed. If that is so, we should accept it and move on; repent and go forth in love. That should be our concern, and nothing else. For God is love, and if we want to know God, we must know love. Then and only then, does the truth of Truth become available to us. The ad hominem, as it is generally employed, doesn’t know this; it shows the one who uses it doesn’t know love. When one judges someone else in love, their judgment has value; otherwise, they give us an ad hominem themselves, which is the irony of the situation. They want to claim someone is wrong merely because they have acted inappropriately. Love knows why this isn’t the case. Self-justification, the fruit of the ego, doesn’t. To measure truth, you must know love, and love is God, infinite and wise. Anything outside of the measure of love will end up in the fire, making way for the truth of love, or else, it will fall into the abyss of hate, unloved and unloving, a particular truth which knows not how to give itself to the whole of truth. That is the basis of the ad hominem, at its root: a judgment based upon hate, a part of truth cut off from its whole, leading, of course, to rejection because the one who commit the ad hominem, because they reject all who are not themselves.

[1] St Thomas More, Responsio Ad Lutherum. Trans. Sister Scholastica Mandeville (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969), 181.