Reason ditches peer review. Unamuno, Life 5.14

The role of theology or law, two things which Unamuno finds practically the same, is to relate facts regularly in such manner that they confirm our priors. Rational argument, in this context, is very different from the kind of rational argument deployed in open-ended investigations, the kind that do not aim to confirm what is known or agreed. Pure reason has no respect for consensus, and no reservations about posing or recognizing questions that investigation reveals to be inanswerable, insoluble.

La teología parte del dogma, y dogma, δόγμα, en su sentido primitivo y más directo, significa decreto, algo como el latín placitum, lo que ha parecido que debe ser ley a la autoridad legislativa. De este concepto jurídico parte la teología. Para el teólogo, como para el abogado, el dogma, la ley, es algo dado, un punto de partida que no se discute sino en cuanto a su aplicación y a su más recto sentido. Y de aquí, que el espíritu teológico o abogadesco sea en su principio dogmático, mientras el espíritu estrictamente científico, puramente racional, es escéptico, σκεπτικός, esto es, investigativo. Y añado en su principio, porque el otro sentido del término escepticismo, el que tiene hoy más corrientemente, el de un sistema de duda, de recelo y de incertidumbre, ha nacido del empleo teológico o abogadesco de la razón, del abuso del dogmatismo. El querer aplicar la ley de autoridad, el placitum, el dogma, a distintas y a las veces contrapuestas necesidades prácticas, es lo que ha engendrado el escepticismo de duda. Es la abogacía, o lo que es igual, la teología, la que enseña a desconfiar de la razón, y no la verdadera ciencia, la ciencia investigativa, escéptica en el sentido primitivo y directo de este término, que no camina a una solución ya prevista ni procede sino a ensayar una hipótesis.

Tomad la Summa Theologica de Santo Tomás, el clásico monumento de la teología—esto es, de la abogacía—católica, y abridla por dondequiera. Lo primero la tesis: utrum... si tal cosa es así o de otro modo; en seguida las objeciones: ad primum sic proceditur; luego las respuestas a las objeciones: sed contra est... o respondeo dicendum... Pura abogacía. Y en el fondo de una gran parte, acaso de la mayoría, de sus argumentos hallaréis una falacia lógica que puede expresarse more scholastico con este silogismo: «Yo no comprendo este hecho sino dándole esta explicación; es así que tengo que comprenderlo, luego ésta tiene que ser su explicación. O me quedo sin comprenderlo». La verdadera ciencia enseña, ante todo, a dudar y a ignorar; la abogacía ni duda ni cree que ignora. Necesita de una solución.

Theology begins with dogma, which in its most primitive and direct sense means decree, similar to the Latin placitum, a word for designating a decision or determination whose claim to express law is recognized as pleasing by society's legislative authority. This is the juridical conception from which theology arises. For the theologian, as for the lawyer, dogma or law is something given, a point of origin that is not debated except in terms of how it applies most correctly to particular cases. In keeping with this origin, the theological or legal spirit is originally dogmatic, while the strictly scientific spirit, expressing pure reason, is originally skeptical, i.e. investigative. I refer explicitly to origins here because the word skepticism today carries another (and more popular) sense, referring to a system of doubt, distrust, and uncertainty: this meaning arises from the theological or legal application of reason, from the abuse of dogmatism. The desire to apply authoritative law, the placitum or dogma, to distinct and occasionally opposite practical circumstances, is what has produced the skepticism of doubt. Rational argument in the mouths of lawyers and (what amounts to the same thing) theologians teaches its audience to distrust reason, a lesson it would not learn from true science, the kind concerned only with investigation, which remains skeptical in the original and immediate sense of the word: it does not direct inquiry toward any pre-ordained solution, and will only test hypotheses (not confirm them).

Take the Summa Theologica of Saint Thomas, a classic monument of Catholic theology—of legal reasoning, in other words—and open it anywhere you like. First you will find a thesis: whether … something exists in this way, or another one. Then, you come to the objections: our first approach is as follows … Then responses: but on the contrary we find … or I respond with a compelling statement to this effect … Pure legalese. And at the heart of much that it offers, perhaps even the majority of its arguments, you will discover a logical fallacy that can be expressed in scholastic fashion with this syllogism: “I do not understand this particular fact unless I explain it thus. Since it is imperative that I understand it, my explanation must be the correct one. Otherwise, I shall remain incapable of understanding.” True science teaches doubt and ignorance above all; lawyers have no doubt, nor any belief in their own ignorance. Their work always requires a solution.