Steven Avery

Hi Ben,

they will simply claim that Paul did not write Thessalonians
.. after all .. it talks about the resurrection in a non-Pauline manner .

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith Is the argument from silence ever valid? Occasionally. But not very often.

Actually I would see that arguments from silence are often valid. However they are also often a lot weaker than thought by the folks who use the arguments. Validity and substantive utility are not the same.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ben C Smith In Luke 4.27 Jesus made an argument from silence.

It has already been mentioned that the audience would share with Jesus the context of the Tanach scriptures. Those who view Jesus as the author of the scriptures, and those who respected His authority, would understand that what He spoke came from a fount of understanding lacking amongst the pharisees and scholastics.

Luke 4:25
But I tell you of a truth,
many widows were in Israel in the days of Elias,
when the heaven was shut up three years and six months,
when great famine was throughout all the land;
But unto none of them was Elias sent,
save unto Sarepta, a city of Sidon,
unto a woman that was a widow.

This was framed as revelatory, not boolean.

Notice that a few of the logicians got upset.

Luke 4:28
And all they in the synagogue,
when they heard these things,
were filled with wrath,

And then when Jesus when to Capernaum

And they were astonished at his doctrine:
for his word was with power.

I have yet to here a skeptic logician or an atheist philosopher
about whom it could be said -

his word was with power

Shalom,
Steven Avery

RED DAVE

From praxeus:
Define "power," please, and please be prepared to discuss who has it and who doesn't.

RED DAVE

Steven Carr

I did no such thing, as you know very well.

I claimed that if Paul had known Jesus prove the resurrection as in Matthew's Gospel, where allegedly crowds were amazed, then he would have used the proof of the resurrection that Jesus gave there.


That saying does not prove any resurrection, and doesn't even mention the word.

'According to the Lord's own word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left till the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep.'

It is Paul who claims that this in the context of a resurrection, but he does not give the Lord's words which show that it actually was in the context of a resurrection.

Ben C Smith

This is your original argument:

You are clearly reading a different saying than I am. The saying I have in mind is quite manifestly about resurrection, so much so that Paul did not hesitate to use it on the Thessalonians in just such a context.

Paul obviously thought it had to do with resurrection. (As does anybody with half a wit about him.) So why did he not use it in 1 Corinthians 15?

Your argument from silence was actually an argument against the text all along.

Ben.

Steven Carr

If you think a saying which does not mention resurrection, is more suitable than sayings which say 'I am the resurrection', then this argument is over.

The Bishop

I have to say I disagree. I never gave much weight to arguments from silence, but you actually demonstrated the Jesus employed an effective one. He was essentially saying, "Can I do this? [heal a non-Israelite if memory serves] It doesn't say that I can't" Or in this specific instance, "You say I cannot cure a Gentile, but the Scripture only has Elijah and Elisha curing Gentiles, and does not even talk about curing Israelites." This is like a legal argument, in which silences can be very useful for proving legality or illegality.

What you can't do with the argument from silence is assume non-existance of aspects of someone's life just because they are not mentioned. Doherty seems to argue from the non-Gospel silence about Mary that there wasn't a Mary, therefore Jesus didn't have a mother, therefore obviously he was a totally spiritual being who never actually walked on the Earth. Conversely the entire Church has pretty much used an invalid argument from silence to conclude that Jesus never married. Those are not valid arguments from silence, because, say, 90% of everything written about George W. Bush doesn't mention his wife, and if centuries hence the portion of everything written about him happened only to be a subset of that 90%, you would certainly be wrong in concluding that GWB was not married. For Jesus, when Paul writes about him, including the claim to have met his brother, but never mentions Mary his mother, it's going to far to claim that on the balance of probabilities that Jesus the man never had a mother.

So, in conclusion, Jesus was using a legalistic argument from silence, where he was determining how valid his action was. Which is certainly a valid use of silence.