jbernier

Oh, I get perfectly what you are saying. I just happen to disagree. Now, please note that merely repeating your original assertion is not a valid response to my counter-argument to your assertion. My argument is thus: Obviously empirical methodology is capable of producing ontological truths because the findings of empirical methodology allow us to develop means of consistently shaping aspects of nature to our advantage. Would you care to give an counter-argument?

Cross Examiner

Feeling plucky, my friend? OK, I'll play. Rule number one is to present premises and inferences plainly. Rule number two is to define terms. So you apparently argue via immediate inference that:

P1. Empiricism provides man the means to consistently shape nature to his advantage.
C2. Therefore, empiricism produces ontological truths.

You can probably guess what I'd say next so please do, by all means, amend your argument as you see fit -- before we get on with rule number two and all that. Et aussi, il n'y a aucun besoin de traduire, jbernier.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

No. I am just unconvinced that merely repeating yourself stands as an argument. btw, what is with the "un jeu des enfants"? Who are the children in this situation?

That would be ineffective dialogue as I would be critiquing something that was never said - thus creating a straw man.

I have no interest in amending my argument. Either way it is irrelevant. This thread is about inerrancy. I see that you continue to dodge something that I have been pushing you to deal with for several days: Does inerrancy hold up when we turn to the texts? Enough of this esoteric, epistemological, crap; let's get down to brass tacks: Would one who did not assume "inerrancy "conclude that the text was "inerrant"? That, to me, is the single most crucial question and I notice that you have continued to avoid it completely. Yes or no? Would you come to the inerrancy conclusion if you did not already hold that position prior to reading the texts? Yes or no?

Cross Examiner

So I line up the words you used formally and you call it a 'straw man' (I now doubt you know what this means). You then refuse to critique something I never asked you to critique in the first place. Then you ask me to address your 'argument' defending empiricism only to pronounce that that issue is now irrelevant. To top it off you finally accuse me of evasiveness; the very thing I've recently shown you guilty of (projection?). So much confusion in one very short post; you have an utterly amazing gift for obfuscation. But I'll honor your last request anyway and post on the issue of Biblical inerrancy subsequently.

Regards,
BGic

jbernier

I must admit that I have made an error in judgment. I realized a couple days ago that this thread was going in circles - that it was getting nowhere and that many comments were getting too personal. I am increasingly realizing that I was right. I should have just dropped out of this inane, tired, pointless, conversation a long time ago but did not. That was unwise of me. I am dropping out now, however.

Craigart14

So one pair and seven pairs mean the same thing? Or did God make a mistake and have to revise his instructions?

The fact that they contradict one another and describe two quite different versions of God doesn't concern you? In the first story God creates everything through speaking; in the second, he makes things out of the dust. In the first, he creates man and woman at the same time; in the second, he creates man, then animals (among which he looks in vain for Adam's helpmeet) and then woman. There are other contradictions, but these are enough for now. In the first story, God creates everything without reservation in an orderly process. In the second, he seems to make it up as he goes along. How can one of these stories be a detailed explanation of the other? Is it not possible, as Biblical scholars have suggested, that the second creation story was a folktale or myth, and the first was inserted before it during the Babylonian captivity as a claim for the primacy of monotheism?

Which would mean that the Bibles we have today cannot be inerrant. How do you know which parts of the Bible are in error and which are not?

So it goes like this: God is always right.
God wrote the original Bible, though humans have since introduced error.
Therefore, the original Bible is right.

If I can paraphrase Father Mulcahy in Mash: "circularity, circularity."


Of course. The God who made such a huge mistake when he created mankind that he had to murder everyone on earth except one family. He could never be wrong, though in numerous verses he "repents" of his mistakes.

The repeated testing of human reason, along with its products and predictions.

Good grief, Charlie Brown! The argument for reason is its repeatedly demonstrated efficacy. Reason gave us airliners, smallpox vaccine, and dvd players. Religion gave us the Crusades, the Salem witch trials, and the Mountain Meadow massacre perpetrated by the Mormons. Logicians have a technical term for your statement immediately above: bullshit. Or is it gobbledygook?

I agree. And it is pretty damn capricious to believe that the Bible is inerrant because God wrote it and that God exists because he wrote the Bible.

Do you believe that the sky is a solid object? That there is water above it? That the earth floats on an underground sea? The writers of Genesis did. But then, they hadn't seen a single geology book or the photos taken from space.

Signing off now before this thread becomes completely indistinguishable from a Monty Python sketch.

Craig

jdlongmire

Come back here! I'll bite your knees off!

RobertLW

Your arguments do not bear this out.





Yes, they are located with in the world, but they are not OF the world. This is a very important distinction that must be made.





The warrant is contained in scripture and we also have philosophical warrant:

Col 2:3 (emphasis mine) “of the Father and of Christ, in whom are hidden ALL the treasures of wisdom and knowledge�

1Cor 2:4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

1Cor 2:5 that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.

1Cor 2:6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away.

1Cor 2:7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory.

1Cor 3:18 Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise.

1Cor 3:19 For the wisdom of this world is folly with God.

Thus to try and reason apart from God’s revelation (God’s wisdom) is to reduce ourselves to foolishness.

You can also refer to my past arguments for philosophical justification. I therefore have provided you with both scriptural warrant and philosophical warrant.





The people who wrote the text intended for the text to be the record of God’s revelation. For you to argue that their intent was to record man’s interpretation of the revelation of God is for you to disregard the obvious intent of the writers as echoed by Paul.

1Th 2:13 And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers.





As demonstrated above, the reformed Christian is reading the text in fundamentally the same way that the people wrote as they wrote it. Apostasy would read the text in a fundamentally different way.





I assuming that this was in response to my argument in which I said that there is strong evidence the OT canon was fixed in the centuries preceding Christ. What is this compelling evidence to the contrary? All of the “compelling evidence� I have seen is to the contrary of your statement here. Even in the times of the kings, the “book of the law� was considered to be the word of God. All the books that reformed Christians consider to be canonical were considered to be canonical in the time of Christ. The OT even speaks to a book that is considered to be the Word of God. This is evidence that a book was being formed (canonized) and was to be considered the Word of God throughout history.

Isa 34:16 Seek and read from the book of the LORD: Not one of these shall be missing; none shall be without her mate. For the mouth of the LORD has commanded, and his Spirit has gathered them.





First, there appears to be great problems with editing already texts. Take for instance:

Pro 30:5 Every word of God proves true; he is a shield to those who take refuge in him.

Pro 30:6 Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar.

2Pet 3:15 And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him,

2Pet 3:16 as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

Rev 22:18 I warn everyone who hears the words of the prophecy of this book: if anyone adds to them, God will add to him the plagues described in this book,

Rev 22:19 and if anyone takes away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God will take away his share in the tree of life and in the holy city, which are described in this book.

Second, your view of the biblical authors editing current scripture could be construed as heretical. Matthew never edited Mark; he made his own gospel using Mark. That is a very far cry from editing what Mark wrote. It’s not as if Matthew edited Mark and said, “here is the new version of Mark�. He simply had other things to tell from his experiences with Christ.





Please refer to your following argument:





Far be it for me to argue with a “Biblical scholar� but it would appear from your argument that your “self-serving purpose� is to find a place for homosexuality in Christianity. You argue above that Paul was simply prejudiced and considering your experiences you know better than Paul and so can “finish the job� of his eventual acceptance of homosexuality. Your argument shows that you disagree with Paul and so you will make an effort to change what Paul ACTUALLY meant and make an argument that you have considered the “prejudices� of man and found them to be incorrect and therefore you will correct Paul. It does not seem to occur to you that what Paul ACTUALLY meant is that homosexuality is immoral behavior notwithstanding what era you live in. Paul was not recording “Christian thought� in light of his era, he was recording the revelation of God and that revelation is NOT historically conditioned based on what the Christian community “thought at the time�. That revelation is God’s revelation and is grounded in His eternal nature.





You seem to think that Paul had an actual encounter with the living Christ on the road to Damascus and yet you wonder if God would have inspired Paul to write accurately the will of the very Christ who met him on that road? I would think that if God were going to inspire Paul God would also inspire him to be accurate. It would be reasonable for Paul to NOT WANT to infuse his own human ethical standards as derived from “his times�. Let us remember that Paul had a righteous fear of the Lord and would have also wanted to be accurate in the Lord’s wishes. Paul would have thought, “I better get this right�. Furthermore, I do not see that the “logical conclusion� of his vision would extend to those areas of human life that are considered immoral behavior. This extension would include a whole array of behavior and I do not think that you are really willing to accept the true consequences of that extension.





You seem to ignore my phrase “By making such an argument�. I was concluding your intent from your argument. That is what this very forum is for. I make an argument and you try to conclude what the heck I mean. You make an argument and I try to conclude what the heck you mean. Either way your complaint of ad hominen is irrelevant to the point I made which was based in your arguments and seems as nothing more than an evasion. As I said before, if one does not want to open his/her own beliefs up for critique, one should consider removing themselves from this type of arena. I am not going to play the PC game for the benefit of those thin-skinned people who only wish to criticize others. Call me a “homophobic, irrational, weak willed, fundamentalist Christian� and I will not even bat an eye. This is because I know that I am in a forum in which people with diametrical opposing views are also located and I fully expect a certain amount of tension among the participants. This will inevitably show up in the posts. Furthermore, I am “just as Christian as you,� and if you told me that I do not submit to God, I would not cry ad hominen, I would commence to show you where you are wrong.





How can you say you follow the verse John 1:9 and at the same time repudiate what John meant and what John was writing about? Please refer to your following arguments:




By your arguments above it has been shown you question the deity of Christ. The text describes Christ as God. Are you really letting the text be what the text is? Furthermore, by your argument, it is shown that you profess to worship a “qualified� deity. (Which is not a deity in any sense one can make sense of) Who is making this “qualification�? How can any man impose any qualifications on God and then profess to either truly believe in or submit to God?

Furthermore, you profess to have no problem with believing one is “partially� illuminated by the light of Christ. That statement betrays the whole problem that you will only submit your understanding to that which you have “no problem� with. As such you consider yourself to be the authority, not God, because you only submit when you agree. (Which is not submission, it is agreement) I on the other hand submit to God even when I do not like it. Do you care to address this problem or is this too “ad hominen�?





I addressed this in my debate with Vinnie many times. I do approach it as any other historical documents by presuming the verity of the authors. The difference? Other historical documents do not claim to be the only Word of God. The other difference? I do not ground my knowledge in men or the world I ground it in God.





That is so 4th grade playground.





Look, I am clearly speaking of the atheist worldview (atheism). For you to start accusing me of ad hominen is in and of itself ad hominen. Don’t you wish to be bigger than me?





Point one: The only way epistemology can exist is if God exists and knows all things. I have not seen any sound contrary argument, only your arbitrary opinion to the contrary. I have demonstrated that my epistemology is self-authenticating and it will take a lot more than your opinion to refute it. Both BGIC and I have given you thorough sound arguments as to why our epistemology is self-authenticating and can only be ground in an eternally existent being. The term epistemology smacks of universals and as such cannot be grounded in any other way. We say we know something and we come up with epistemological rules to tell us how we know. To even approach the subject of how we know you must admit the existence of universals. If universals exist, see our arguments. If universals do not exist then stop using reason.

Point two: Not sure what you are saying here but it seems as though you are saying that just because God said he knows everything that does not mean he does. Oh, say it isn’t so.





It is beyond you because you do not have justified knowledge, which is what I had just said. Also, cultural studies did not lead me to certainty, what I said is I FOUND certainty in my studies. This is a very important distinction that must be made.





You seem to be saying that because we did not think of it before, then it could not have been true before we thought it. So, because one day we realized that the earth revolves around the sun all of a sudden it became true? No, it has always been true, regardless of when we discovered it. The truth of any given problem is not based in mans understanding of said problem nor in the thought processes or in the way man defines the problem. The truth is the truth regardless of man’s thought and all man can do is discover the truth. Man does not create truth; he discovers it.





This is a very good point. I cannot separate my ideas from “the world�. This is why I need God’s revelation. So I can conform to God’s “way of thinking�.





Yes, it does to mine. I have justified knowledge.





Yes, I see that it is.





Considering your way of thinking, no it does not. External sources are sometimes wrong. To my way of thinking, yes it does. I evaluate external sources in light of my epistemology, not the other way around.





Your answer is clearly no. My answer is clearly yes. The only way someone would answer “no� is if they presuppose errancy, and then they must do some cleaver footwork to make that “no� stick and at the same time preserve true knowledge.





The human in my hermeneutic, good question. There is a human element to God’s revelation but you seem to forget that God’s revelation begins with Him. Man does not initiate revelation or inspiration and so does not bear the mark of man. God initiates revelation and inspiration and so it would bear the mark of God. He wanted to impart a human element because we are humans. This would be why he used multiple humans all with differing backgrounds and abilities. He used thoroughly human language to impart His will and knowledge to us. Since inspiration begins with God the very process of inspiration would be perfect.





It would seem that you are unfamiliar with the Protestant doctrine of inspiration.





I beg to differ, you told me your epistemology. You did not attempt to justify it, in fact you admitted it is arbitrary and thus cannot be justified.





Refer to the following quotes, posted by you directly to me before I had ever said anything at all to you:





You began your interchange with me with an ad hominen attack. You opened that door I just walked through it, I am playing by the rules you laid down. If I were to speak to an atheist and claim that God exists and then say “I am just as atheist as you�, I would fully expect said atheist to commence to besiege my “fort of knowledge� with an unrelenting and vicious attack that would make Hitler blush. At least I have not been vicious. Yet. It does seem a bit strange for you to begin an interchange with a personal attack and then cry foul when your opponent returns in kind. This makes it seem as though you are nothing more than a bully, only willing to prey on the weak yet not wanting to confront the strong. I am not saying, “You obviously cannot be a Christian because you hold views that differ from mine�. I am saying “Your views obviously cannot be considered Christian views because you hold views diametrically opposed to the very basis of Christianity�. Don’t like it? Prove me wrong.


Robert

RobertLW

Good point BGic, too bad all we heard was....

<cue cricket noise>

RobertLW

Have not moved because when I substantially answered your objections……... (To borrow from BGIC)...<cue cricket noise>





For the second time, yes “presupposition� means that the idea is subject to change, did I not admit to changing my presuppositions once? I will not, however, change my presupposition based on evidence evaluated by your presuppositions. I have asked over and over and over again. If my presupposition is incorrect, please show me where and provide an alternate that will still preserve knowledge. All I have heard so far is.....

<cue cricket noise>





What you see in this quote is a statement of inerrancy, regardless of YOUR interpreted facts, regardless of YOUR interpreted proofs and will never change unless my presuppositions are proven unsound and it can be shown that there is an alternative that will provide for true knowledge. Until such proof is offered, my presuppositions will remain non-defeasible. I will not change them arbitrarily. I thought I made this clear.





What are you saying here?





That was not the only rule of Canon. My point was to say that neither Christ nor the Apostles quoted from them.





It is as God wanted it to be, he is sovereign over his creation.





Do you see now that it does?


Robert