Cross Examiner

Qui?
I'm looking for the reason why x is the neutral position, not for an affirmation that x just is the neutral position as a matter of brute fact.
That may indeed be the case but I'd like to know why this is so.
Why is this the case? Here we go:
1. The 'failure' of harmonization is arguable.
2. What and/or who is 'mainstream scholarship'?
3. Why must harmonization convince mainstream scholarship in order to be successful?
4. Presuming the actual existence of 'contradictions' begs the question.
1. Is not the introduction of 'surface anomalies' a response to initial claims of inerrancy?
2. What is it about 'surface anomalies' that qualifies it as prima facie evidence?
3. Harmonizations are certainly a response to the introduction of 'surface anomalies'.
1. This is arguably so.
1. If response R3 (e.g. introduction of a harmonization) is made to rebut response R2 (e.g. introduction of a surface anomaly) which was made to rebut proposition P1 (e.g. that the Bible is inerrant) then the proponent of R3 assumes burden of proving P1? Is this your position? If not, please amend.
1. I've been asking questions of an argument, not making an argument myself (e.g. for inerrancy).
2. I am not asking questions of or arguing towards 'any mainstream scholar', whatever/whoever that is supposed to be.
And that may very well be the case.

Regards,
BGic

Wiploc

I think your neutralist would deny steps 3, 5, and 6. He would say that Sentence Two may appear to some rash people to contradict, corroborate, or be unconnected to Sentence One, but that a rational person should suspend judgement in this regard.

crc

JLK

Sigh. No.
Ted is already accused, already in the dock, the trial has already begun and the prosecutor has already presented Clutch's above prima fac. evidence. The burden has fallen to Ted's defense. Ted is only formally presumed not guilty until the jury returns from deliberating, apparently, according to you, after hearing no defense presented because none is required since the jury should be "neutral" because Ted bears no burden because he is presumed not guilty.

You must be an adherent of the TAG.

Clutch has been saying the above for a week. Why is this so hard?

This impelled me to decloak from lurkerhood.
For where I sit, you are more than intelligent enough to have grasped Clutch's position. Clutch could have toned down the sarcasm in favor of lengthy expansions of the same point, but there are only so many ways one can say the same thing.

Speaking of saying the same thing, I'l just babble a bit to the concept of "harmonization". You constantly demonstrate your familiarity with logic so surely you must know that "harmonizations" can always be presented for any statements of "natural language". The only genuine "nonharmonies" occur in formal axiomatic systems, accepting the axioms of that system. Thus this whole debate is cast in a fog. I consider RobertLW to have been a bit disingenuous when he agreed that the debate's foundation was to be just the Chicago Statement. He should have made it clear he was a presuppositionalist and argued that, while praying for God' grace to descend on us fallen non-presups whose very reason/perception/evidence is corrupt.

And I can't resist commenting on the discussion of Judas' death accounts in Matt. and Acts. It should not just be limited to the death's manner, but what bearing that had on why the field was differently named and purchased. It's one thing to point out "surface anomalies" (to my sematics "surface" is redundant to "anomaly" since it to me always implies mere tentative & potential error) as possible genuine errors, it's another to be able to give extremely plausible reasons why the errors occurred based from within the text itself.
[/lurk]

Cross Examiner

Agreed. The 'surface anomalies' are presented by the prosecution followed by the harmonizations thereof by way of the defense. Now, with whom does the burden rest and why? I remind the reader that the issue is that some here have implied that 'surface anomalies' amount to a 'defeasible appearance of flaws' in support of proposition P which meets the criterion for obliging the proponent of ~P with the burden of proving ~P, irrespective of the existence of harmonizations to these defeasible appearance of flaws. In addition to my first question above, and questions/comments directed to Vorkosigan in my previous post, I would like to know:

1. What is this criterion that is supposedly being met by the existence of a 'defeasible appearance of flaws' ?
2. Where does this criterion come from?
3. Is there a precedent for using said criterion?
4. If so, please cite.
5. How is it that the existence of a 'defeasible appearance of flaws' meets this criterion?
6. If response R3 (e.g. introduction of a harmonization) is made to rebut response R2 (e.g. introduction of a surface anomaly) which was made to rebut proposition P1 (e.g. that the Bible is inerrant) then [does] the proponent of R3 assume [the] burden of proving P1?
7. If so, why?

If there is an answer to any and all of these questions then said answer(s) can surely be offered succinctly, directly and without reference to allegedly analogous circumstances. By the by, there is no shame in saying 'I don't know' to any and all of my questions. I'm not going to throw a parade in honor of RobertLW or myself. I genuinely wish to know what folks here predicate their opinions on ... and your kind participation is entirely voluntary.

Regards,
BGic

Clutch

Almost everyone has had a turn explaining this very simple point to you, now: What are the attempted harmonizations, if not attempts to discharge a recognized obligation to reply to prima facie evidence? Whether we have "neutrality" after any such attempt, of course, depends on the quality of the specific attempt. As I've already explicitly explained, though that goes without saying at this point.


Nobody except you has produced any such poppycock about a "criterion", of course.

What was said, in many different ways, was that our general epistemic practice is to regard evidence that P as defeasible reason to believe that P. A "harmonization" is of course an attempt to actually defeat such defeasible reason; whether it succeeds is only evaluable on a case by case basis. So the question is whether there is a justification for using different practices in some particular instance. Otherwise we simply have the fallacy of special pleading.

"The reader" will already be amply aware of your remarkable attempts, not only to evade this rather straightforward point, but to claim that it has never been broached.


Okay, I do have to thank you for restoring my good humour. That remark is a true gem.

Cross Examiner

Well, Clutch, I thought my last two posts would help break the communication gridlock. I guess I'm just not speakin' the language. Rather than press the issue further I'll simply drop it and move on. Maybe we can argue over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin sometime. Anyway, as a result of my magnanimous, public gesture of goodwill, I've decided to throw a parade for RobertLW and myself. I'm bidding on six crates of ticker tape on Ebay as I type

Regards,
BGic

Clutch

Why? Repetition 31 a magic number?


I'm sure I answered that one, back on page 6.

Good luck with the ticker-tape, and give my regards to the inanimate carbon rod.

Vorkosigan

It's a matter of simple logic. All documents are produced by humans. Ipso facto,
they contain errors.

Not really. Only religiously conservative scholars argue for it and everyone understands that to be an apologetic commitment. No major figure argues for it, and no mainstream figure argues for it. In the major introductions I have to the NT it's not even discussed; as far as scholarship is concerned it is a non-position.

See below.

Because, the mainstream typically consists of scholars who lack axes to grind, who have demonstrated consistent ability to conduct new research and publish, and who adhere to sound historical and analytical methodologies. The assent of mainstream scholars shows that an idea has stood the test of these methodologies (where they exist). Humans are fallible, so the mainstream could be wrong.

No, the contradictions exist. That is the opinion of all mainstream scholars -- those who use sound historical and analytical methodologies. Conservative religious scholars also admit that the contradictions exist, which is why they invented harmonization.

No, it is an axiom of sound scholarship that all documents are produced by humans, and humans are well known to err. No surface anomalies are "introduced." They may be spotted by any reader, and have been discussed for centuries, in some cases.

That is evidence that exists "on its face" -- you see it when you look at the object in question.

No, the correct position is. 1. Discovery of text. 2. All texts produced by humans. 3. Study with appropriate methodologies for analysis of historical and literary documents. You will note that the whole problem of in/errancy does not exist for the scholar. Human documents are not inerrant, so the scholar does not waste her time exploring the question. That is why, of the 60 or so scholarly books that sit on my bookshelf, from conservative scholars to liberal atheist, not a single one contains a scholarly discussion of inerrancy. It is not merely wrong; it is a non-position.

The believer's chain of responses runs differently. 1. Bible is produced/inspired by God. 2. Bible contains contradictions. 3. Experience of cognitive dissonance. 4. Development of harmonization claims as method of dealing with 3.

Note that scholars and believers make different initial assumptions about the text. The assumption of inerrancy is built into the believer's belief system and has nothing to do with the text itself. There is no reason, external or internal, to believe that the text was written by other than human writers in any way, shape, or form. Harmonization is not a response to scholarly claims, BGiC. It is a response to the cognitive dissonance caused by the experience of reading contradictions in the text of a book assumed to be the inerrant word of God. That is why, for serious scholars, it does not even exist, since serious thinkers do not experience cognitive dissonance on encountering error, but instead, see a piece of evidence they need, or even better, an opportunity for analysis or a foundation for a key insight.

Vorkosigan

Cross Examiner

Was the Bible produced by humans alone as you imply? To preclude any degree of divine causation of the Bible is to beg the question.
Non sequitur. It would not follow from the given that only 'religiously conservative scholars' argue for inerrancy that harmonization attempts therefore 'fail'.
Non sequitur. It would not follow from the given that mainstream scholarship is erudite and lacks 'axes to grind' that a harmonization must convince mainstream scholarship in order to be successful.
Non sequitur. It would not follow from the given that mainstream scholarship is of the opinion that the Bible is errant that contradictions do, in fact, exist therein.
Conservative scholars admit to the actual existence or only the appearance of contradictions? I am familiar with the Chicago Statement, for example, and do not recall any admission tantamount to what you suggest here.
To err is human but to avoid begging the question is divine. See my first sentence above.
Oh, but they are. Vinnie introduced particular instances of surface anomalies just as the prosecution, in Clutch and JLK's chosen analogy, introduces the prima facie evidence for Ted's guilt.
To presume that all texts are the effect of human causation alone is a philosophical presupposition, not an argument.
Why do you imply that cognitive dissonance is a necessary cause of the existence of harmonizations?
And upon what do you base this particular assertion?

Regards,
BGic

Vinnie

""""""Was the Bible produced by humans alone as you imply? To preclude any degree of divine causation of the Bible is to beg the question."""""""""""

THis was already addressed by myself and others.

From my first installment in the debate:

"When I go into a public library I do so with the assumption that these books were written by men (and women). Brian Greene wrote ‘The Elegant Universe’. Tolkienn wrote ‘The Hobbit‘, Melville wrote ‘Moby Dick’, Jewish Historian Flavius Josephus wrote ’Jewish War’ and so on. The default position on books is that they were written by their human authors and are not inerrant revelations from God."

The question is "why should I believe God wrote it"? Now why are the Bible defenders so AFRAID to take my challenges and answer the questions? Instad these responses simply parade all around the issues that need to be discussed.

Vinnie