Petitio Principii

Last updated on: August 2, 2009 at 2:00 am by Henry Karlson

Petitio Principii 2009-08-02T02:00:51-05:00 Henry Karlson

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“Then the Pharisees went and took counsel how to entangle him in his talk. And they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are true, and teach the way of God truthfully, and care for no man; for you do not regard the position of men. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why put me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the money for the tax.’ And they brought him a coin. And Jesus said to them, ‘Whose likeness and inscription is this?’ They said, ‘Caesar’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard it, they marveled; and they left him and went away” (Matt 22:15 -22).

One of the more common accusations that one finds when two or more people debate is that one or the other is “begging the question.” Many think that this means to either raise a question, or, often in a debate, to not answer a question which has been raised by avoiding it and answering a different question (or not at all).If this is the meaning of petitio principii, one must wonder whether or not Jesus here was “begging the question” of his accusers. Surely he did not answer the question given to him. However, this is not what begging the question is about.

The petitio principii is the fallacy where one assumes one’s conclusions; one goes about “proving what is not self-evident by means of itself.” In other words, begging the question is to assume something has been proven when it has not been. “Abortion should remain safe and legal because it is safe and legal” would be begging the question. However, in regards to the way people take the fallacy, if one does not answer the question, there is no assumed conclusion. Whatever else one might want to say about it, such a refusal to answer a question cannot be called “begging the question.”

In this example, Jesus initially did not answer the question, but returned the challenge put against him back to his critics. They wanted to trap him in front of the Herodians. If he said that one did not have to pay taxes, that would get him to be considered a political rebel and worthy of imprisonment (if not more). If, on the other hand, he said one should pay taxes, then, would he not be supporting the tax collectors, and make himself seen in the eyes of the people as one of their ilk?

The question was based upon a false dilemma, which is what Jesus wanted to show with his response. There was no way to answer it without allowing his opponents to dictate the meaning of the answer and to assume all kinds of false consequences from it. If the implications were valid, Jesus would have answered the question directly and let them come out. The only way to deal with the question was to show its invalidity, to show its fault from within. This is what he did by raising the question of the image on the coin. Now it did not answer the question, but rather, showed his critics that he understood the illegitimate nature of the question itself. Whose image was on the coin? When his opponents said “Caesar’s” (because that is all they could say in front of the Herodians) they had fallen for their own trap. “Render therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” On the one hand, this can be seen as a defense of taxation, and so the Herodians could be satisfied (although in reality he did not say the coin belonged to Caesar). On the other hand, what he said is that God has claim to what is his, and his disciples, who believed Israel was God’s, could easily have read it as a political statement and be satisfied.[1]

Now we might not always be free, as Jesus did, to render inoperable illegitimate questions asked to us. If we do not feel as if we can answer, we don’t have to. There is no requirement we do. If they try to make an answer for us in our silence, just let them know they are the ones who have just fallen for a fallacy: argument from silence.

Footnotes

[1] We might want to briefly mention that Jesus’ words has another hidden meaning, one which authors such as St Hilary (and Thomas Aquinas, quoting him in his Golden Chain) want us to understand: humanity is made in the image of God, so the human person must render itself to God, mind, body and soul. While political authority can be seen as authentic, and to be adhered to, this must only be done in and through one’s response to God, where one recognizes such authority comes from God and is respected because God’s providence established it.

Henry Karlson

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