Prejean's hand-waving exercises

The exchange with Prejean seems to be winding down. I say that because Prejean is now resorting to the rhetorical gimmicks he used on Engwer after he ran out of things to say to Engwer. What he did at that point was to pepper what passed for his rebuttal with cutesy emoticons and the following little jingle:

***QUOTE***

You don't understand my argument. This statement is evidence that you don't understand my argument, because it's non-responsive. I'm not going to explain it to you again, because you either aren't interested in or aren't capable of understanding it.

***END-QUOTE***

What he’s done in his latest “reply” to be is a variation on that sophistry. This time his shtick is the charge of “hand-waving.” He pushes the auto-set "hand-waving" button throughout the course of his reply, partly as a prejudicial tactic, and partly to pad out the poverty of his argumentation. If you were to delete all of the “hand-waving” verbiage from his reply, there’d be precious little left.

Now, it’s fine with me if Prejean wishes to be intellectually frivolous. Frivolity is the fallback of bright minds that are running low on arguments. It was used to great effect by Voltaire and Bertrand Russell. But discerning readers will see the tactic for what it is.

***QUOTE***

Problem is that if you do it in front of people trained to spot the trick, it ain't gonna work. Grizzled old veterans of this kind of analytical endeavor, like Perry Robinson and myself, tend to catch it.

***END-QUOTE***

Frankly, this is the way in which losers console themselves on their losses. Robinson has a habit of leaving the table before the game is over. So he has no cause to claim victory—if, indeed, he is doing so. At the moment, I’m not hearing from Robinson, but Prejean.

I said:

***QUOTE***

Prejean is mashing together a couple of quite distinct issues: in particular, he is confounding a hermeneutical method with an apologetical method.

i) The hermeneutical question is the question of how we ascertaining the meaning of a document—especially a document from the past, whether the Bible or the church fathers or a church council or a papal encyclical, &c. That’s what the grammatico-historical method (GHM) has reference to.

ii) The apologetical question is how we verify or falsify the truth-claims of a document.

Historical evidence (evidentialism) may figure in the answer, especially in the case of historical revelation, but that is not at all the same thing as GHM.

iii) GHM and evidentialism may intersect at various points. This can happen, for instance, when GHM is used to ascertain the meaning of a documentary truth-claim, while evidentialism is then used to verify or falsify that truth-claim.

***END-QUOTE***

He said:

***QUOTE***

Of course, this all fails to account for the fact that I completely reject the notion that the GHM is anything other than an empirically grounded method. In other words, my point is exactly that the hermeneutical question IS an evidential question, so the distinction Hays draws is spurious. Moreover, by abstracting the GHM into some hermeneutical principle that stands above evidential reliability, Hays has effectively immunized his view from evidential criticism, something that he is quick to accuse others of doing. So this isn't an answer, it's simply a reassertion of exactly what I reject. No proof, no argument, nothing.

***END-QUOTE***

i) I have offered several arguments for GHM. And I have also interacted with his empiricist version. So I’ve done much more than merely reassert my position. I’ve offered supporting arguments for my position, as well as fielding his objections along the way.

The fact that he continues to reject my explanation is irrelevant unless and until he can show what is wrong with my arguments for GHM and my counter-arguments against his eccentric version thereof.

ii) In addition, when I’m arguing with someone as clever as Prejean, I admittedly take certain things for granted, such as the distinction between meaning and truth. So I hope that my readers will forgive me if I must now belabor the obvious.

Let’s take the case of fiction to illustrate the distinction in its sharpest terms. Is there a character of a Cheshire Cat, and another character of a Mock Turtle, in The Adventures of Alice in Wonderland?

By what hermeneutical method would we ascertain the meaning of the Cheshire Cat-propositions and the Mock Turtle-propositions? Allegory, or the GHM?

Now, I maintain that this sort of hermeneutical question is entirely distinct from the factual or alethic question of whether there really is a Cheshire Cat or Mock Turtle. Indeed, these questions are obviously separable inasmuch the story-book characters are purely imaginary.

Moving, now, from fiction to falsehood, there is likewise a distinction between ascertaining what someone meant, and ascertaining the truth of what he said. For example, some men are liars. But you could only establish that fact if you distinguish between meaning and truth and, in this case, oppose the two.

***QUOTE***

What this hand-wave does is to sneak in the astrological hermeneutic based on the evidential reliability of the GHM.

***END-QUOTE***

The “astrological hermeneutic based on the evidential reliability of the GHM” is Prejean’s construct, not mine. He’s the one who’s trying to sneak this in as a substitute for my own understanding of the GHM. And that’s not the only time when he will conflate his own position with mine.

***QUOTE***

Problem is that it doesn't show that the evidential reliability of the GHM is applicable in this case, nor does it demonstrate that the conclusions drawn are within the scope of the GHM's reliable area.

***END-QUOTE***

Since I’ve already argued against the relevance of that condition, it isn’t a problem for me that I haven’t shown something which is unnecessary to my own position. Once again, Prejean is projecting.

***QUOTE***

Similarly, "self-witness" is used equivocally; it assumes that the self-witness is what results from the application of the method.

***END-QUOTE***

What, exactly, is Prejean trying to deny here? Is he denying that the GHM can arrive at the self-witness of Scripture regarding its inspiration? Is he affirming that it can do so, but denying the propriety of that application? Is he saying that an alternative method can or cannot arrive at the same results?

I said:

***QUOTE***

To repeat: there are two distinct issues here:

i) The identification of a truth-claim, and:

ii) The verification of a truth-claim.

(i) is a prerequisite for (ii).

***END-QUOTE***

He said:

***QUOTE***

Note the artistry in this simple hand-wave. By putting (i) apart from (ii), he effectively takes the verification of his method for identifying truth-claims outside of the scope of evidentialism, which is simply reasserting the same distinction that I reject.

***END-QUOTE***

I have a better idea. Note that Prejean is tacitly operating with the very standard he denies. He assumes that he knows what I mean. He is taking authorial intent as his point of departure. He isn’t applying a “moderate allegorical” approach to my statement.

Then he distinguishes between what I meant and whether what I said was true. Indeed, he opposes the two. He regards what I said as erroneous.

***QUOTE***

I'm speaking strictly of the historical fact of whether that condemnation was directed at conclusions that were by historical fact derived from distinctive methods of the Antiochene school. Even apart from any value judgments involved on whether Constantinople is or ought to be persuasive (the significance of the historical facts), there is a historical question here that is well within the competence of the historical method.

***END-QUOTE***

The fails to distinguish the genre of document in question. For example, the Bible does make value-laden statements. When the GMH ascertains the meaning of Scripture, it is extracting value-laden statements from Scripture. And if Scripture is authoritative, then its value-judgments are authoritative. Some documents are inherently authoritative, while others are not.

***QUOTE***

Hays doesn't get to accuse people of being irrational, hypocritical, or inconsistent for reasonable objections.

***END-QUOTE***

What “people” are we talking about? I thought this was a debate between Prejean and me. Have I ever accused Prejean of being a hypocrite? As I recall, he was the one who accused Evangelicals of hypocrisy in his opening salvo over at Crowhill.

Or is he somehow identifying himself with the likes of Enloe? Perhaps his panpsychism is a logical consequence of Robinson’s Christology. If the Incarnation unites Christ to all of mankind, then we all united to teach other so that you are me and I am you. Is that how it works?

***QUOTE***

The hand-wave here is equivocation again. They [an Egyptologist or Assyriologist] may have an advantage on what it means in the original context, but that isn't necessarily an advantage on identifying what the "message" of Exodus is to the Christian community, which is exactly the subject under discussion.

***END-QUOTE***

This is an extremely telling statement in what it simultaneously affirms and denies. Scripture is the inspired record of divine revelation. The original meaning is the revealed meaning—the original context—time, place, culture, language--in which God chose to disclose his message.

To divorce the “message” from the revealed meaning is to identify a non-revelatory message in application to the Christian community.

***QUOTE***

But can he show it based on my premises?

***END-QUOTE***

Yes, I can—because a patrologist applies the GHM to the church fathers. Or does McGuckin, for one, employ a “moderate allegorical” method to interpret the primary sources?

***QUOTE***

That's been the big failure of Hays's replies both to Tim and to me.

***END-QUOTE***

It is quite illicit of Prejean to enlist the support of Enloe at this juncture. Although both Robison and Prejean have commented on my recent critique of Enloe, Enloe has not. Unless and until Enloe can show where I have failed, Prejean has no right to co-opt Enloe’s silence as consent.

***QUOTE***

No, that's not even one reason. As I said, it's fallacious to conclude that there is a viable alternative based on a perceived need for the method. "Ta da! I don't have to follow any reasonable standards of evidence!"

***END-QUOTE***

Not a “perceived” need, but an inescapable need. Prejean cannot do without it himself. At every turn, when he interprets what I say, or Engwer says, or McGuckin says, he is depending on the very principles which he denies.

I said:

***QUOTE***

For conservative evangelicals, their theology must agree with their exegesis.

***END-QUOTE***

He said:

***QUOTE***

This is actually a bad thing. The necessity of theology and exegesis agreeing would, in my view, skew the objectivity of the interpreter's conclusions.

***END-QUOTE***

He seems to be inverting what I said, which was not: their exegesis must agree with their theology, but: their theology must agree with their exegesis. That follows from the assumption that Scripture is authoritative. Therefore, our exegetical findings should govern our theology.

***QUOTE***

That's why, despite there not being a principled ontological need for an objective interpreter, it certainly makes life better from a practical standpoint.

***END-QUOTE***

So he is now the one making the perceived need select for the methodology.

***QUOTE***

See how assertion of the GHM doesn't really resolve problems of epistemic fallibility.

***END-QUOTE***

Observe the sudden bait-and-switch tactic. Since when did I—or Engwer, for that matter—ever rest my case for the GHM on “resolving the problems of epistemic fallibility?

I said:

***QUOTE***

v) Without a doctrine of providence, we’re all up a creek without a paddle.

***END-QUOTE***

He said:

***QUOTE***

I'd say that without the objective presence of God in the Church, we're up a creek without a paddle.

***END-QUOTE***

If he could extract that proposition from revelation, I’d agree with him.

***QUOTE***

Hand-wave again -- that word "uncertain" sneaks the astrological hermeneutic in without argument.

***END-QUOTE***

I agree that there’s some more hand-waving going on here—on Prejean’s part, that is. He’s the one who’s trying, yet again, to smuggle in his “astrological hermeneutic” is though that were a surrogate for my own.

***QUOTE***

This is a sneakier hand-wave; there's a real argument here that is not made explicit. Hays is arguing, based on his view of revelation as a fixed meaning at a fixed point in time, that later certainty is "new revelation." Since the disputed point is whether that is, in fact, what revelation is, it's begging the question (reasserting the disputed point).

***END-QUOTE***

Not at all. This follows from Prejean’s own position. This is what he originally said:

***QUOTE***

The difference between Catholics and Evangelicals on this point is obvious; Catholics don't apply the GHM outside of the area where it is necessarily persuasive. What we mean by the "literal sense" is exactly what the GHM applied in and of itself can tell us definitively and nothing more. No external criteria, nothing except what an ordinary, uninspired, first-century author (or set of authors, depending on one's pet theory of authorship) with that author's finite knowledge would have written on a particular subject trying to communicate from point A to point B. Beyond that point, the GHM just isn't "sure," and accordingly, the theology formed based on the GHM isn't "sure" either. Thus, you won't see Raymond Brown or Joe Fitzmyer *stopping* in their theological conclusions at the text; they isolate what they can definitively know from the text, and then they move on to how external church teachings can inform exegesis where the conclusions are not definitive.

***END-QUOTE***

So where the original revealed meaning is indefinitive, the church can upgrade that indefinitive meaning to something definitive. Hence, the input is less than the output. The definitive meaning is not the original revealed meaning, but something above and beyond the original revealed meaning—a surplus sense, which cannot be directly extracted from the original, but is supplied by the church. What we have here is a de facto doctrine of continuous revelation by another name.

***QUOTE***

And likewise, you are welcome to your opinion, but for myself, I see no reason to think that it was "good enough for Christ and the Apostles and prophets."

***END-QUOTE***

Compare this with his later admission:

***QUOTE***

No, Hays has asserted that the GHM is the method of Scripture itself. I can grant that there are numerous explanations of past times in a present context within Scripture and still deny the conclusions. That means Hays doesn't have an argument.

***END-QUOTE***

So even though the purpose and practice of the GHM is widely attested in Scripture itself, Prejean still refuses to apply this to himself or his own communion.

He also doesn’t explain what he means by an “argument.” To begin with, where there’s common ground, you don’t need to mount an argument.

In addition, if Scripture is an authoritive, and the method in question is widely attested in Scripture, in the practice of Christ and the Apostles and prophets, then that automatically authorizes the practice is question. You need no further argument unless the authority of Scripture itself is at issue. And even the Catholic church doesn’t deny the authority of Scripture.

***QUOTE***

And notice the failure to mention the historical argument I have for believing that.

***END-QUOTE***

He has not presented any argument to the effect that the Chalcedonian creed, about a paragraph long, incorporates every refinement of Cyrillic Christology.

***QUOTE***

This gives me a little bit of a laugh, because no one actually thought otherwise in the East the entire time. The West had an incentive to emphasize Leo's role, and that in turn influenced the compromise theories of Harnack and Grillmeier, but my entire point is that the West had this wrong the entire time. Far from being a case of the sources closest historically to the controversy being mistaken, it is exactly the later interpretation, distanced from the historical facts, that strikes me as inaccurate.

***END-QUOTE***

How does this help him in the least? He’s a member of the Western church.

BTW, I never said or implied that the primary sources were mistaken. The source of error is irrelevant. The salient point is that it took 1500 years for the Western church to correct itself--assuming that, in fact, McGuckin’s reconstruction has achieved official acceptance.

***QUOTE***

So are Gnostics and Arians and (in Hays's case) Donatists and Nestorians.

***END-QUOTE***

Is he attributing to me a Nestorian Christology? Where can he quote me to that effect? All I ever said is that we should avoid canonizing unscriptural refinements in any direction.

***QUOTE***

But this is all the more vigorous hand-waving on Hays's part. He hasn't shown that McGuckin departed from ordinary historical methods in making his argument and responding to objectors…

***END-QUOTE***

Completely misses the point. The fact that McGuckin makes use of the GHM in patrology, and Prejean’s relies on Mcguckin’s methodology, serves to confirm my position and disconfirm Prejean’s.

***QUOTE***

There is a difference between historical conclusions and theological conclusions drawn from those historical conclusions.

***END-QUOTE***

That, again, depends on the genre of the document. If the document is a theological document, then the application of the GHM will ascertain theological conclusions; and if the document is authoritative, then the GHM will ascertain normative theological conclusions.

***QUOTE***

I'm am thrilled to have the admission that the use of the GHM is immune to history, that it's a castle in the air that Hays believes because he believes it. Sundering Baptist/free-church ecclesiology from reality is very convenient for my arguments.

***END-QUOTE***

This characterization totters on a tendentious definition of history, by which he surreptitiously means the Catholic philosophy of church history.