Talk:Sign of contradiction

NPOV

The section on Opus Dei appears not to be written from a NPOV.

This topic is about Catholic theology. It entails a certain discipline and knowledge to contribute here. This article should respect the NPOV policy which states that NPOV means reporting on the views of the credible experts on the field in proportion to what is said by these experts.

Expertise here then on the shoulders of those who know Catholic theology. And not anybody who has his own opinion on the subject.

Sign of contradiction implies a double-movement: (1) the downfall of those who reject Christ, and (2) the rise of those who who accept him.

This should be presented in its entirety throughout all the instances when there is a supposed sign of contradiction as seen by Catholic theology. If the two movements are not presented in their entirety then the article becomes inaccurate.

If the article is not proportionate to what the credible experts say (Catholic theologians) then it is not neutral. Marax 11:08, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Catholic theologians are not the only experts in Catholic theology.

This article is about Roman Catholicism. It is stupid to say it is POV, too obvious! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.32.134.108 (talk) 23:45, 19 July 2013 (UTC)

Removed clean up and neutrality tag

There are now attributions for statements which can be deemed pov. With this they are now facts and npov. Also cleaned up misspellings, etc. Marax 08:17, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

The opening sentence

There are problems of grammar and usage with the opening sentence of the article:

"Sign of contradiction refers to the idea that certain persons or entities who are thought to manifest holiness have, at the same time, or consequently, subject to extreme opposition."

The main verb of the sentence appears to be "have subject". It's not at all clear what this is intended to mean. ("have been subject"?). Moreover the word "consequently" is used here as if it means "afterwards", which it doesn't; "consequently" means "therefore" or "as a result". Is the author looking for "subsequently"? At any rate, the article needs tidying up by someone with the appropriate knowledge of the subject and the appropriate writing skills. C0pernicus 13:39, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

Dangling pronoun

In last sentence of the 4th parag. of "Black Legends" he states is not attributed. Is it Keppler, the Pope, or who that is making this statement?Elburts 19:26, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Jesuits

Jesuits are hardly representative of today's Catholic ideology contrasts with I will believe that the white that I see is black if the hierarchical Church so defines it.

i think it is better to explain this phrase or move it to jesuits --Riccardov 08:38, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

"The Society of Jesus brought Western science all over the world, though Jesuits are hardly representative of today's Catholic ideology." I am going to remove the second clause of this sentence, as it has nothing to do with the article as a whole, is certainly POV, and in any case, doesn't even fit with the section it is in.Zerobot 00:54, 25 April 2006 (UTC)

Original research, no references

This article makes many statements which are not supported by any references, much of it appears to be the article author's own writing, violating Wikipedia's no original research policy. I am attempting to tag this article as such, but Curps seems to be reverting the edits without comment. 216.209.114.132 15:27, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for the reminder. I just added a section on references, although throughout the article they are referred to. Marax 08:24, 11 May 2006 (UTC)

How widely accepted is this belief?

I had to mention this belief as an example of fideism within the Roman Catholic Church. The apparent acceptance of this belief among high levels of the RCC hierarchy seems to me to be at least partially in conflict with the traditional Thomism of RC theology, and specifically the rejection of fideism within official RC teachings, such as the encyclical Fides et Ratio.

Are there Roman Catholic theologians who contest the concept? It seems problematic that a belief is considered confirmed by the fact that other people disagree with it. Smerdis of Tlön 16:31, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Yes, it is problematic. In theology it is called a paradox, a problem that is only resolved in the supernatural level, i.e. from the point of view of God. As the laying down of the life of God, the deicide, the greatest evil can produce the greatest good--salvation. Hope this helps! :-) Marax 10:13, 25 August 2006 (UTC)

Yet more POV or accuracy problems

The article currently states, . . .(B)lack legends he discusses are the opposition of the Church to the free-market economy. . .

The whole section seems to be POV, and this sentence is just an example. Of course, the very concept of a "black legend" is POV-pushing, and especially so outside the context of the Spanish Inquisition. AFAIK there was no general "opposition of the Church" to a "free market economy;" there was moral condemnation of certain economic activities, such as speculation and usury. The teachings of moral theologians such as Aquinas and his predecessors is a matter of record, see just price. (Some months ago I had to clean up a lot of POV in the just price article that seemed to assume that the very idea was a relic of the past.)

In my experience, people who call attention to these things now in my experience are not telling a "black legend," whose point is to call attention to alleged moral failings in the Roman church. Most contemporary references to such things praise these historical teachings, and use them as one moral basis to justify condemnation of free-market ideologies.

Of course, if this is the claim the source makes, so it goes. It strikes me that the source is somewhat confused, though. - Smerdis of Tlön 16:20, 24 August 2006 (UTC)

Hmmm

"The Shroud of Turin, an image viewed by some Christians as a miraculous imprinting of the image of Jesus on the cloth, together with the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, are disputed as authentic supernatural depictions. For this reason, Catholics consider them to be signs of contradictions."
"If you dispute my claim, that means I'm right."

Clever. --131.111.8.104 22:35, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

The concept itself is ludicrous. Someone needs to find a reference somewhere of someone in their right mind stating what you said, and add a section to the page.  Madler  03:00, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

True, a claim being disputed does not prove it true, that is absurd. That, however is not the proper meaning of "Sign of Contradiction." The proper way to understand this is that if something is true, but it is disputed, then perhaps that true thing is of greater value. It does not affect the veracity of thing, only the value of a thing. Cowmansr 08:05, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Pope John Paul II never pronounced any of his teachings "infallible." There have been only two dogmas promulgated ex cathedra as infallible teachings in the history of the Catholic Church: the Immaculate Conception of Mary and the Assumption of Mary. Although Pope John Paul II declared discussion on certain topics "over," including the ordination of women, he never claimed papal infallibility in any of his teachings.

article needs more focus, less POV

This is a fascinating description of the phenomenon, but still too much like a list of examples. I would like to know: is this still part of official doctrine, is it widely accepted? How do Catholic and non-Catholic commentators view it? Does any credible writer think there are logical problems with this paradox? (I don't want that debate here or in the article, but if it has happened it should be documented.)

Stating that Many Catholic Church Fathers were also signs of contradiction seems rather POV, since the very concept is not universally accepted. It would be better throughout to say "were seen as signs of", if they were.

Basically I don't think it is reasonable for this article to assume "signs of contradiction" objectively exist, only that people believe in them. I would not like to read in WP that "Another example of alien abduction is the disappearance of Harold Holt." See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Neutral_point_of_view/FAQ#Religion

The current section on Black legends is bizarre, having no apparent connection to the article. Enumerating Catholic victims of tragic genocide is also not to the point of this article. It would be enough for this article to explain the doctrine, its history, any criticisms or defenses, and give a few examples. -- Subsolar 12:58, 7 May 2007 (UTC)

Just looking at this again, it (still) has many many problems with weasely POV language. "Throughout history...", "widely known as", "seen by many as", "according to some."

The question this article ought to answer is "when Catholics say 'sign of contradiction', what do they mean?" That can be illustrated by some examples, but it does not need so much tangential discussion as is present here.

POV: I was surprised by the evident bias of this article when I read it through a link on Holy Fools. It is poorly written. Can't someone summarize Roman Catholic theology without preaching to the reader. 75Janice (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)75Janice75Janice (talk) 00:38, 12 January 2008 (UTC)January 10, 2008.

Significant OR problem

This latter parts of this article in effect treat anything connected to Catholicism that has been criticized or opposed as a sign of contradiction -- even when no evidence is been adduced that that the Church, in whole or in part, or noteworthy theologians or, indeed, any significant group of Catholics regard them as such. This is about as pure as original research gets. Even the earlier parts of the article are afflicted with freestyle Bible interpretations claiming that cited Bible passages exemplify signs of contradiction, but with no references to any published source to establish that they are regarded as such by anybody except the Wikipedian who contributed them. This is also OR.

From the latter part of the article I single out for special mention:

1. Black legends and the Church's contributions to civilization

• Like many others, this section doesn't even mention sign of contradiction. It is a list of Catholic contributions to civilization, culled from a book. The unstated assumption, I gather, seems to be that if Catholicism's contributions to civilization have been neglected, this proves that the Church is a sign of contradiction. This is evidently believed to be the case the case even though the book's author doesn't use the phrase sign of contradiction.

1. Pius VII and Napoleon

• Napoleon opposed Pius VII and later kidnapped him. Therefore Pius VII is a sign of contradiction. And, incidentally, Pius VII outlived Napoleon, and died older. No source is offered suggesting that anybody but the nameless author of this confusing passage regards Pius VII as a sign of contradiction. In Wikipedian circles, this is known as a sign of original research.

1. John Paul II

• People, both inside and outside the Church, disagreed with John Paul II; some opposed him. Evidently the contributor who added this passage believes that this in itself qualifies him as a sign of contradiction -- but the phrase is not applied to John Paul II in any of the cited sources. Again, the writer seems to assume that because some criticized him, it is axiomatic that John Paul II is a sign of contradiction. What is actually needed, in this case and throughout the article, is published sources which establish that some significant body of opinion views the subject -- in the case John Paul II -- this way, in precisely that language: sign of contradiction.

If no such evidence can be located, each of these sections and others like them simply need to be deleted.

There are also unsupported, sweeping statements of the kind "Catholics believe," "in Catholic doctrine," "Catholic theologians say" and so forth. No sources are cited and neither the theologians nor their works are named or cited. Sources need to be provided to establish who makes such claims and in what published works, otherwise these claims, and any material which depends on them, also need to be deleted.

I can't pretend to be sufficiently knowledgeable about the topic to be able to rewrite the sections competently even if I knew where to find the required sources. The best I could do is identify OR sections and other passages unsupported by published sources and delete them. If no one can come up with reliable, verifiable, published sources in fairly short order, that's what will need to happen: judging by this talk page, the need to correct this problem has gone unheeded for nearly three years.

--Rrburke^(talk) 03:27, 17 May 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm #2

Lots of info, much of it seems in conformity with Catholic-baptismal-fount talk of western Canada, but yesyes where be all the references? And further, large parts of the page seem to have nothing to do with the article [e.g. Jesuit section?] Needs a serious restructure and quite a few more refs plz.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 199.126.152.70 (talk) 04:20, 31 December 2009 (UTC)

Luther on eucharist

The article boldly claims that Luther was the only reformer defending the Catholic Transsubstantiation. Odd! I've always been told that Luther was fuzzy about the nature of Eucharist. I found an enlightening link here: while it for sure can be claimed that Luther criticised the Catholic Transsubstantiation, it seems he didn't discuss the dogm in itself, but derogated the use of (from his POV) obsolete Aristotelean + scholastic reasoning for explaining Transsubstantiation. That implies that he didn't defend Catholic Transsubstantiation as the article claims. It is unclear whether he adhered to the Transsubstantiation doctrine, or claimed, as usually believed, in Consubstantiation, but this ignorance will probably always remain, and so the content of the articles in Wikipedia should always be ignorant. (Personally I believe that he never elaborated the doctrine even in his mind, as being a futile logical exercise) Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:31, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

What is it?

There's something missing in the intro, i.e. whether this so called "contradiction" is what is called contradiction within logic, or rather an opposition against a certain doctrine. "Absurdity" seems to originally refer to something like "preposterously wrong", which might include logical contradictions, depending on context. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 09:50, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Honestly, I believe it is a sub-mindset of the Catholic faith that allows a 100% degree turn of opinion fast as a greased flash. Flexible and somewhat admirable, but the risk for real logical contradictions adding up to the system making it an illogical mess, seems overwhelming to me, and not spiritually elevating in most cases. Rursus dixit. (^mbork³!) 10:00, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Sign of contradiction/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Article is short on references, has almost no content other than examples. GRBerry 18:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC)

Last edited at 18:47, 29 May 2008 (UTC). Substituted at 06:08, 30 April 2016 (UTC)