“And how would this chain of events begin? Why, by following the lesson that Cardinal Mazzare seems to have brought from his future: to work uncritically toward the intertwined values of peace and religious tolerance. And what first, fateful step are we now contemplating which would logically take us in that direction? Nothing less than having the Head of the Church Militant, the only living link with Heaven, place himself in the hands of the greatest scourge upon the True Church, Gustav Adolf of Sweden.”
Vitelleschi raised a hand. “Cardinal Wadding, in your zeal, you seem to be losing sight of our process here: one issue at a time. The matter of taking refuge with the Swede shall be considered at a later date. Cardinal Mazzare, you have been singularly silent; is there nothing you wish to say in response to Cardinal Wadding?”
Larry rose. “Has Cardinal Wadding finished making his case?”
Wadding stared at Larry. Sharon saw a hint of trepidation flicker through his otherwise steady gaze. “I am mostly done.”
Larry started to sit. “I will wait until you are fully done.”
Vitelleschi held up his hand again. “Cardinal Mazzare, I find your reluctance to respond to Cardinal Wadding’s points more worrisome than his overzealous exposition of them.”
Mazzare spread his hands. “Father-General Vitelleschi, I have not interrupted Cardinal Wadding’s arguments out of a sense of both propriety and order. If I were to immediately rebut every assertion with which I disagree, we would still be debating his first point, I fear.”
Vitelleschi’s thin, wrinkled lips puckered. Urban lifted his hand, apparently to scratch his nose, but the light in his eyes told what he was really doing: hiding the smile he had been unable to suppress.
“So,” continued Larry, “I will wait until Cardinal Wadding has finished explicating the primary points of his case. And I will humbly hope that he will show the same patience and forbearance when I present mine.”
Wadding’s face momentarily became sour.
Ruy turned to Sharon, using that change of position to conceal his own smile. “Your up-time parish priest is quite clever; he has outflanked one of the preeminent debaters of this day.”
“What do you mean?” asked Sharon.
“I mean he has used Wadding’s own argumentational mannerisms to influence the criteria upon which they will both be judged. Because if the Irish cardinal now interrupts Cardinal Mazzare, it is the Irishman who will be seen as the lesser debater.”
Sharon, who congratulated herself on having a good grasp of the principles of argument, grudgingly conceded that she just didn’t have the formal training in it to perceive the finer points that well-educated down-timers did. “Okay, I’ll bite; why would interrupting show Wadding to be the lesser debater?”
“Because, my love, Cardinal Mazzare has subtly thrown down the gauntlet of true rhetorical sophistication. He is implying that his argument, if presented in toto, will be stronger than Wadding’s. After all, he felt no need to interrupt Wadding. So now, if Wadding interrupts Mazzare, it implies that the Irishman’s argument is fundamentally weaker, since only he needs to disrupt his adversary’s presentation. And so, it is more likely that Mazzare can now make his case without disruption. Masterful.”
Sharon nodded, staring at Ruy. “Wow,” she said. “Maybe you should be the ambassador, not me.”
“What a novel idea-having a Spaniard as the representative of the USE.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I do. And I still disagree. I may be well-versed in my century’s traditions of debate, my heart, but I do not have your patience, nor your fine mix of practicality and compassion.”
Vitelleschi was staring at Wadding. “Cardinal Wadding, will you be able to extend to Cardinal Mazzare the same discursive courtesy he has extended to you?”
Wadding had the wary look of an old fox that knew himself to be in the vicinity of an unseen trap. “I cannot presently see any reason why I would need to interrupt my colleague.” Wadding’s caveat-“presently”-was not lost on any of his listeners, judging from the collection of raised eyebrows.
Mazzare nodded at his Irish colleague and turned to the rest of the clerics. “I must begin by pointing out that Father Vitelleschi’s charge to me-to prove Grantville’s origins beyond a ‘reasonable doubt’-places the burden of proof upon the accused, not the accuser. That I need only prove it beyond a ‘reasonable’ doubt, while helpful, is still problematic: there is no criterion for distinguishing what is reasonable from that which is unreasonable. And this is a most urgent definitional requirement since I must adduce positive, rather than negative, proofs.”
Vitelleschi frowned. “I am unfamiliar with your terms. What is the difference between a negative proof and a positive proof?”
“Father-General, in my world, there was a philosopher named Karl Popper who averred that the only true proof was negative proof. By this, he meant it is possible to conclusively disprove an assertion, but almost impossible to conclusively prove one.
“Allow me to furnish an example: I propose the hypothesis that all stones float. It is easy enough to conclusively prove that hypothesis wrong. We walk to the nearest body of water and cast in stones. As soon as the first stone sinks, the assertion is disproven. This is negative proof.
“I then follow with a seemingly logical extension of the first hypothesis: I propose that all rocks will sink. We perform the same test, and achieve the same result. But we have not conclusively proven this second hypothesis, even though it seems to demonstrate the exact same property of all rocks: that they sink.”
Vitelleschi nodded. “Of course; the first can be easily disproven by a single test, but the second can only be proven by an impossibly omniscient observer who would have to be present every time a rock is cast into water. Consequently, the hypothesis-however strong and unexceptioned-cannot be considered proven as a truly universal law of nature.”
“Just so, Father-General. And in the case of investigating the origins of Grantville, this distinction is not a sophistry, but a crucial caveat. Specifically, there is simply no way to conclusively demonstrate that Grantville’s origins are entirely mundane, because the task ultimately requires positive proof, not negative proof. Which means that some doubt will always remain. Therefore, insofar as I must eliminate all ‘reasonable doubt,’ you might say that I do not start from a clean slate, but begin with an unavoidable deficit.”
Vitelleschi nodded carefully. “Perhaps so. But what may be done?”
“Simply this: in an issue where all logic and likelihood points in a single direction, let us agree that this constitutes the removal of reasonable doubt. So, if the viability of one of my arguments-or Cardinal Wadding’s-depends upon rejecting most of what we hold true about our Church, or goes against the deductive cut of Occam’s razor, I would humbly ask that those arguments not be validated. Let us not stand the world on its side to explain how a fly may remain affixed to a vertical wall.”
Vitelleschi’s face was utterly rigid, which Sharon swiftly and surely interpreted: he was resolved not to show the degree to which Mazzare’s reasoning and erudition had pleased him. “Your point is well taken, Cardinal Mazzare. Please begin.”