Who is Isaiah talking about in chap. 14?
The Alexandrian school, with its love of allegory, identified Isa 14 with the fall of Satan ("Lucifer," Vulgate).
The Protestant Reformers rejected this identification, and they've been followed by a number of contemporary commentators. However:
i) It may well be true that the immediate historical referent is to some Mesopotamian king. Various candidates have been proposed, viz., Belshazzar, Nabondinus, Nebuchadnezzar, Sargon, Sennacherib, Tiglath-pileser.
The concrete referent depends, in part, on whether you favor the tradition or liberal late dating of the book. In addition, inspiration is not bounded by the past or present time-horizon.
We should also resist the temptation to draw too fine a distinction between king and kingdom (a whole dynasty).
ii) That, however, doesn't account for the imagery itself. There is, in comparative mythology, a revolt-in-heaven motif. This lies behind Isa 14.
One suggestion would be that Isaiah is making use of stock mythopoetic imagery, in the manner of Milton and Dante, in his taunt-song to whomever the historical referent happens to be.
iii) That, however, doesn't account for the origin of the motif. Since, in terms of genealogy, all of these cultures go back to a common point of origin (Gen 9-11), the common motif likely has its roots in a primordial tradition, of which Scripture either preserves the authentic tradition or corrects a corrupted version.
iv) The three-decker universe, with heaven as the abode of supernatural agents, terra firma as the abode of earthlings, and the netherworld as the realm of the dead seems to be a cultural universal. It's a natural figurative extension of an earthbound observer's viewpoint.
v) The analogy between stars and angels is commonplace in Scripture.
vi) Again, by logical extension, is the analogy between waning/falling stars (e.g., meteors) and fallen angels. (v)-(vi) figure in Revelation. See also Lk 10:18 (cf. Isa 14:12, LXX).
vi) Since (the planet) Venus is the brightest star in the night sky, and since it has its own periodic phases (the transit of Venus), causing it to wax and wane, it is a natural choice to illustrate a fall from heaven.
vii) In apocalyptic literature, you have a micro/macroscopic parallel between earth and heaven. For example, pagan kingdoms are treated as front-organizations for the invisible kingdom of darkness--working behind-the-scenes.
Saturday, February 26, 2005
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Postmortem on Holding-4
iii) The only proper way in which to exegete the concept of divine mercy and compassion in Rom 9 is not to import and intrude some free-floating, reductionistic definition supplied by anthropology or sociology, but to retrace the redemptive-historical trajectory, of which Rom 9 is the apex. Paul himself directs the reader to the relevant background material: Exod 33:11. And how does the concept function in the original? Listen to what a number of "credentialed scholars have to say:
"While mercy can be expected because of God's nature and historical actions, it can never be demanded or earned; God freely bestows it. As God said to Moses, 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy' (Exod 33:19)," D. Garland, ISBE 3:322-23.
"The reference here is to the Israelites, those on whom the Lord has had mercy and compassion. It is a summary of what God has done for Israel in bringing them out of Egypt, an act of pure mercy," P. Enns, Exodus (Zondervan 2000), 583.
"Yahweh follows this promise with a statement of his sovereignty. His favor and his compassion are given only on his own terms," J. Durham, Exodus (Word 1987), 452.
"Rom 9:15 quotes this verse and applies it to the sovereignty of God," W. Kaiser, The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Zondervan 1990), 483.
"Yahweh uses an idem per idem formula to express other important aspects of his nature. This formula, 'favor…favor' and 'compassion…compassion,' signifies that God is autonomous, free to bestow his grace and compassion on whomever he pleases. It underscores the doctrine of the sovereignty of God," J. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus (Evangelical Press 2001), 2:305.
"The name of God, which like his glory and his face are vehicles of his essential nature, is defined in terms of his compassionate acts of mercy. The circular idem per idem formula of the name--I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious--is closely akin to the name in Exod 3:14--I am who I am--and testifies by its tautology to the freedom of God in making known his self-contained being," B. Childs The Book of Exodus (Westminster Press 1974), 596.
"The proclamation will not be just generally speaking before you but literally so; it will announce the name of the Lord [YHWH] and the significance implicit therein, to wit, the attributes to which it alludes--'and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show compassion to whim I will show compassion'--the meaning being; but the exercise of these qualities depends entirely on My will; you may know that I am compassionate and gracious, and that I love to go beyond the strict letter of the law, but the decision to act according to these virtues is at all times in My discretion, and it is impossible for you to know when, or if, I shall act thus. If I were constantly to let the quality of mercy prevail over that of justice, and were to forgive every sinner, I should not be a righteous judge, and every man would permit himself all kinds of wickedness in the assurance that he would be forgiven. I shall be gracious and compassionate if it pleases Me, when it pleases Me, and for the reasons that please Me," U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Magnes Press 1997), 436).
The common thread here is the unfettered freedom of God. God can, of course, bind himself in covenant. But God is utterly free to choose if, or with whom, he enters into covenant relations. In Rom 9 and Exod 33:19, the compassion in view is not a "contractual obligation of ongoing reciprocity, "much less "back-pay for previously earned favor."
It has, rather, reference to God free and sovereign decision to adopt Israel in the first place, and, deeper still, to elect a remnant within the chosen people of God.
"All of this blather is just another round of verbal diarrhea, saying nothing and addressing nothing I have said. I do agree that bare meaning is not good enough"
i) Ah, yet another delightful instance of Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. When reason fails him, vulgar invective takes up the rear. I think Holding should consider seeking out the services of a Christian counselor.
ii) When Holding claims that "'Compassion' DOES 'select for' kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort," he is guilty of implicitly saying that "compassion" selects for its own referent. And this commits the Fregean intension=extension fallacy.
" It has been over forty years now since James Barr published his seminal work on The Semantics of Biblical Language, yet Holding continues to repristinate the old word=concept fallacy.
It's too bad Hays can't explain how specifically. By the way, that's just Barr's opinion. That's an argument from authority."
i) I guess I must also explain to Holding what an ad hominem argument is. In an ad hominem argument, you stipulate to the opponent's premise or presupposition for the sake of argument.
I am not the one who said that an argument from authority is fallacious. Holding did. There is no inconsistency in my making use of an argument from authority. Indeed, I expressly argued for that in Rom 9.
Holding has since amended his position. In Holding's home-cooked logic, an argument from authority is sound if and only if the authority source is fallible. If, however, the authority source is inspired, then it is not truly authoritative, and therefore fallacious.
ii) By way of specific answer, take the following statement:
"'Consider this now as well with reference to Pilch and Malina's observation that in an ancient context, 'mercy' is better rendered as 'gratitude' or 'steadfast love' -- as in, 'the debt of interpersonal obligations for unrepayable favors received.' Mercy is not involved with feelings of compassion, as today, but the 'paying of one's debt of interpersonal obligation by forgiving a trivial debt.' To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us!' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
This is a textbook example of what Barr dubs illegitimate totality transfer, where a general semantic construct, abstracted from a multiplicity of individual occurrences in a variety of conceptual contexts, is read back into any given occurrence of the word.
What is far worse in this case is that the purported meaning isn't even derived from an inductive study of Biblical usage, but is, rather, a reductionistic, free-floating definition abstracted from the Greco-Roman patronage-system.
"Once again, there is no answer needed as Hays made no 'precise objection'' -- he erected a strawman ("only prism") and then cried foul when I pointed out his error and how idiotic it was, never admitting his error."
What I actually did was to pose question, followed by a statement: " Is sociorhetorical criticism the only prism through which we ought to read the Bible? He quotes sociorhetorical scholars to prove the primacy of sociorhetorical criticism. What a thoroughly vicious specimen of circular reasoning!"
Holding has yet to explain how the act of quoting sociorhetorical scholars proves the primacy or even the legitimacy of their assumptions and methods.
"So now the real question: How will Hays claim that Rom. 9:16 cannot be such an example, in a way that does not cut the rug out from under him with Jer. 7:22?"
Notice Holding's last-ditch burden of proof. It is no longer a case of having to provide positive evidence for his contention. Rather, it's up to me to show that his importation of Jer 7:22 "cannot" be such an example. However, sound exegesis is based on what is most probably, not what is barely possible.
I said: "If Holding is really that naïve, then it may go a long way in explaining why he's so star-struck by sociorhetorical criticism. All I did was make the elementary, but important observation, that sociology--inclusive of sociorhetorical criticism--is not a neutral discipline which follows the evidence wherever it leads, but rather, comes to the table with certain presuppositions regarding human nature. This carries with it the danger of skewing the evidence to support a foregone conclusion, or ignoring contrary evidence. You shoehorn the evidence to squeeze into your preconceived notions. Remember Margaret Mead?"
He said: "In other words, but much prettier ones, Hays admits that he is a perfect imitation of an atheist. To make matters worse, he commits the fallacy of guilt by assoication [sic], as though to tar Malina with Mead, without any effort to prove the errors of the former, much less than any error of the former (if any if made) is of relevance to any arguments made here. This is sheer laziness and incompetence, once again."
My point, which Holding continues to duck and dodge, is that sociology, like any "science" (if we choose to classify sociology as a true science), is theory-laden and value-laden. When it comes, therefore, to the task of evaluating the "findings" of sociology, or some subdivision thereof (e.g., sociorhetorical criticism), we need to consider the metascientific methods and assumptions of the sociologist, such as his prior commitment to psycholinguistic nominalism.
"But in fact neither view is of any impact to my case, so I skip Hays' further comments on the difference in approach."
Whether we take the essentialist view of Chomsky or the nominalist view of Holding has a crucial impact on Holding's case. For if we side with the essentialist view, then thought is prior to word, in which case it is illicit to compartmentalize an ethnic mindset.
"Hays purposely confuses the issue, which is not that an argument from authority is valid or invalid, but that it is not logical."
"Hays is once again playing semantic games. While validity and invalidity are indeed logical categories, this does not make all valid or invalid statements expressions of logical process. "The ball is red" may be arrived at by some logical process, but it cannot stand by itself and be called 'logical' or 'illogical'".
Holding is now attempting to administer triage on his hemorrhaging claim with an emergency infusion of face-saving distinctions.
"Fine. It remains that what Paul offers in Romans 9 is not a 'reason' for his assertions about election; any more than saying 'shut up' is a "reason" for 'why did you drop that plate'. It is not illogical either; it is non-logical. It puts the questioner off, and that is what Paul does in Romans (as he has a right to, since it is foolish to question God)."
It has already been pointed out to Holding that Paul does more than that. As I said before: "In addition, Paul's reply is not limited to an argument from authority. In addition to that, he also invokes a theodicean rationale for election and reprobation (9:17,22-23; 11:32)."
So Paul is, indeed, giving a reason--is, indeed, offering a supporting argument, for his assertions about election and reprobation.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Holding responds to my rejoinder with yet another potty-mouthed screed. Since, however, I'm not in the habit of hanging out at the local outhouse, I shall hereafter leave my interlocutor to his fecal fulminations.
"While mercy can be expected because of God's nature and historical actions, it can never be demanded or earned; God freely bestows it. As God said to Moses, 'I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy' (Exod 33:19)," D. Garland, ISBE 3:322-23.
"The reference here is to the Israelites, those on whom the Lord has had mercy and compassion. It is a summary of what God has done for Israel in bringing them out of Egypt, an act of pure mercy," P. Enns, Exodus (Zondervan 2000), 583.
"Yahweh follows this promise with a statement of his sovereignty. His favor and his compassion are given only on his own terms," J. Durham, Exodus (Word 1987), 452.
"Rom 9:15 quotes this verse and applies it to the sovereignty of God," W. Kaiser, The Expositor's Bible Commentary (Zondervan 1990), 483.
"Yahweh uses an idem per idem formula to express other important aspects of his nature. This formula, 'favor…favor' and 'compassion…compassion,' signifies that God is autonomous, free to bestow his grace and compassion on whomever he pleases. It underscores the doctrine of the sovereignty of God," J. Currid, A Study Commentary on Exodus (Evangelical Press 2001), 2:305.
"The name of God, which like his glory and his face are vehicles of his essential nature, is defined in terms of his compassionate acts of mercy. The circular idem per idem formula of the name--I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious--is closely akin to the name in Exod 3:14--I am who I am--and testifies by its tautology to the freedom of God in making known his self-contained being," B. Childs The Book of Exodus (Westminster Press 1974), 596.
"The proclamation will not be just generally speaking before you but literally so; it will announce the name of the Lord [YHWH] and the significance implicit therein, to wit, the attributes to which it alludes--'and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and show compassion to whim I will show compassion'--the meaning being; but the exercise of these qualities depends entirely on My will; you may know that I am compassionate and gracious, and that I love to go beyond the strict letter of the law, but the decision to act according to these virtues is at all times in My discretion, and it is impossible for you to know when, or if, I shall act thus. If I were constantly to let the quality of mercy prevail over that of justice, and were to forgive every sinner, I should not be a righteous judge, and every man would permit himself all kinds of wickedness in the assurance that he would be forgiven. I shall be gracious and compassionate if it pleases Me, when it pleases Me, and for the reasons that please Me," U. Cassuto, A Commentary on the Book of Exodus (Magnes Press 1997), 436).
The common thread here is the unfettered freedom of God. God can, of course, bind himself in covenant. But God is utterly free to choose if, or with whom, he enters into covenant relations. In Rom 9 and Exod 33:19, the compassion in view is not a "contractual obligation of ongoing reciprocity, "much less "back-pay for previously earned favor."
It has, rather, reference to God free and sovereign decision to adopt Israel in the first place, and, deeper still, to elect a remnant within the chosen people of God.
"All of this blather is just another round of verbal diarrhea, saying nothing and addressing nothing I have said. I do agree that bare meaning is not good enough"
i) Ah, yet another delightful instance of Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. When reason fails him, vulgar invective takes up the rear. I think Holding should consider seeking out the services of a Christian counselor.
ii) When Holding claims that "'Compassion' DOES 'select for' kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort," he is guilty of implicitly saying that "compassion" selects for its own referent. And this commits the Fregean intension=extension fallacy.
" It has been over forty years now since James Barr published his seminal work on The Semantics of Biblical Language, yet Holding continues to repristinate the old word=concept fallacy.
It's too bad Hays can't explain how specifically. By the way, that's just Barr's opinion. That's an argument from authority."
i) I guess I must also explain to Holding what an ad hominem argument is. In an ad hominem argument, you stipulate to the opponent's premise or presupposition for the sake of argument.
I am not the one who said that an argument from authority is fallacious. Holding did. There is no inconsistency in my making use of an argument from authority. Indeed, I expressly argued for that in Rom 9.
Holding has since amended his position. In Holding's home-cooked logic, an argument from authority is sound if and only if the authority source is fallible. If, however, the authority source is inspired, then it is not truly authoritative, and therefore fallacious.
ii) By way of specific answer, take the following statement:
"'Consider this now as well with reference to Pilch and Malina's observation that in an ancient context, 'mercy' is better rendered as 'gratitude' or 'steadfast love' -- as in, 'the debt of interpersonal obligations for unrepayable favors received.' Mercy is not involved with feelings of compassion, as today, but the 'paying of one's debt of interpersonal obligation by forgiving a trivial debt.' To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us!' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
This is a textbook example of what Barr dubs illegitimate totality transfer, where a general semantic construct, abstracted from a multiplicity of individual occurrences in a variety of conceptual contexts, is read back into any given occurrence of the word.
What is far worse in this case is that the purported meaning isn't even derived from an inductive study of Biblical usage, but is, rather, a reductionistic, free-floating definition abstracted from the Greco-Roman patronage-system.
"Once again, there is no answer needed as Hays made no 'precise objection'' -- he erected a strawman ("only prism") and then cried foul when I pointed out his error and how idiotic it was, never admitting his error."
What I actually did was to pose question, followed by a statement: " Is sociorhetorical criticism the only prism through which we ought to read the Bible? He quotes sociorhetorical scholars to prove the primacy of sociorhetorical criticism. What a thoroughly vicious specimen of circular reasoning!"
Holding has yet to explain how the act of quoting sociorhetorical scholars proves the primacy or even the legitimacy of their assumptions and methods.
"So now the real question: How will Hays claim that Rom. 9:16 cannot be such an example, in a way that does not cut the rug out from under him with Jer. 7:22?"
Notice Holding's last-ditch burden of proof. It is no longer a case of having to provide positive evidence for his contention. Rather, it's up to me to show that his importation of Jer 7:22 "cannot" be such an example. However, sound exegesis is based on what is most probably, not what is barely possible.
I said: "If Holding is really that naïve, then it may go a long way in explaining why he's so star-struck by sociorhetorical criticism. All I did was make the elementary, but important observation, that sociology--inclusive of sociorhetorical criticism--is not a neutral discipline which follows the evidence wherever it leads, but rather, comes to the table with certain presuppositions regarding human nature. This carries with it the danger of skewing the evidence to support a foregone conclusion, or ignoring contrary evidence. You shoehorn the evidence to squeeze into your preconceived notions. Remember Margaret Mead?"
He said: "In other words, but much prettier ones, Hays admits that he is a perfect imitation of an atheist. To make matters worse, he commits the fallacy of guilt by assoication [sic], as though to tar Malina with Mead, without any effort to prove the errors of the former, much less than any error of the former (if any if made) is of relevance to any arguments made here. This is sheer laziness and incompetence, once again."
My point, which Holding continues to duck and dodge, is that sociology, like any "science" (if we choose to classify sociology as a true science), is theory-laden and value-laden. When it comes, therefore, to the task of evaluating the "findings" of sociology, or some subdivision thereof (e.g., sociorhetorical criticism), we need to consider the metascientific methods and assumptions of the sociologist, such as his prior commitment to psycholinguistic nominalism.
"But in fact neither view is of any impact to my case, so I skip Hays' further comments on the difference in approach."
Whether we take the essentialist view of Chomsky or the nominalist view of Holding has a crucial impact on Holding's case. For if we side with the essentialist view, then thought is prior to word, in which case it is illicit to compartmentalize an ethnic mindset.
"Hays purposely confuses the issue, which is not that an argument from authority is valid or invalid, but that it is not logical."
"Hays is once again playing semantic games. While validity and invalidity are indeed logical categories, this does not make all valid or invalid statements expressions of logical process. "The ball is red" may be arrived at by some logical process, but it cannot stand by itself and be called 'logical' or 'illogical'".
Holding is now attempting to administer triage on his hemorrhaging claim with an emergency infusion of face-saving distinctions.
"Fine. It remains that what Paul offers in Romans 9 is not a 'reason' for his assertions about election; any more than saying 'shut up' is a "reason" for 'why did you drop that plate'. It is not illogical either; it is non-logical. It puts the questioner off, and that is what Paul does in Romans (as he has a right to, since it is foolish to question God)."
It has already been pointed out to Holding that Paul does more than that. As I said before: "In addition, Paul's reply is not limited to an argument from authority. In addition to that, he also invokes a theodicean rationale for election and reprobation (9:17,22-23; 11:32)."
So Paul is, indeed, giving a reason--is, indeed, offering a supporting argument, for his assertions about election and reprobation.
I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if Holding responds to my rejoinder with yet another potty-mouthed screed. Since, however, I'm not in the habit of hanging out at the local outhouse, I shall hereafter leave my interlocutor to his fecal fulminations.
Postmortem on Holding-3
ii) But let us play out Holding's contention to its logical conclusion. According to Feinberg, who is cited in this debate--although Feinberg never exports his interpretation of Jer 7:22 to Rom 9:16--"the idiom does not intend to deny the statement but only to set it in a secondary place," Jeremiah: A Commentary (Zondervan 1982), 75.
So assuming for the sake of argument that Feinberg's interpretation is both correct and portable, how would this cash out in application to Rom 9:16? The only effect would be to subordinate the force of the first clause to the second. It would still be true that election and reprobation (v15-16a) are not dependent on human participation. And this secondary fact would hold true due to the primary fact that election and reprobation are, instead, entirely dependent on the sheer mercy of God.
So even if we play along with Holding's misguided application, the predestinarian force of Rom 9:16 remains undiluted.
Since Holding continues to harp on Jer 7:22, as, I guess he must, having so little on which to build his case, it is worth pointing out that his interpretation of Jer 7:22 is not the only viable option or even the best available interpretation of the text. The issue raised by Jer 7:22 is how to square Jeremiah's statement with the divinely ordained sacrificial system in the Mosaic law. A couple of harmonizations are offered. One is the grammatical solution "parroted" by Holding. However, another solution draws attention to narrative sequence and relative chronology:
"In point of fact, then, God never said anything to them at the beginning--'in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt'--about offerings or sacrifices," G. Archer, Bible Difficulties (Zondervan 1982), 272.
"At the time the Sinai covenant was instituted, God required His people Israel to be obedient and to worship Him alone. Only when these prime stipulations were promulgated did God prescribe a developed sacrificial system," R. K. Harrison, Jeremiah & Lamentations (IVP 1973), 87.
"A reading of Exod 19:3-8 makes it clear that the first step in the covenant ceremony was Yahweh's demand for the unconditional acceptance of the covenant. The Decalog is spelled out in Exod 20:1-17, but at no point is the narrative concerned with cultic details. It was only after the covenant has been ratified (24:1-8) that the cultic details of the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrifices were declared," J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah (Eerdmans 1987), 287-88.
"Jeremiah is engaged not in a wholesale critique of the temple, but specifically of certain burnt-offerings and sacrifices that the people brought to the temple, which in turn were not a part of the specified public ritual established at Mount Sinai," P. Craigie (Nelson 1991), 124.
It is odd that Holding, who brags of having "cracked more commentaries than Hays has sat on to reach the dinner table in his lifetime," seems to wholly ignorant of this major exegetical alternative--offered by a number of "credentialed" scholars.
And if we favor that interpretation, then Holding's argument, such as it is, collapses like the proverbial house of cards.
He said: "Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the 'works of the flesh' and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as 'mental acts' I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts.
I said: "Oh, what about 'jealousy' (Gr.=zelos), for one. That's an attitude, a mental act--not the outworking thereof. It may well issue in some concrete form of expression, but that is not the essence of it. Indeed, it is just because a sinful attitude need not translate into a sinful deed that the NT warns the believer that even unconsummated attitudes can still be sinful."
He said: "A blatant dodge. Hays can now find only one item in the list that he thinks works."
Don't you just love the way Holding's mind works? He said that "none of the items" count. Well, it only takes one exception to disprove a universal negative, does it not? He issues a challenge; I rise to the challenge, he calls it a dodge. In other words, whenever you call Holding's bluff, he moves the goal post.
BTW, I never said I could only find one item. But one good counter-example will do.
"And even it, he must admit, is followed on by concrete expression."
This is just a bald-faced lie. I said "may" well issue, not "must" issue. And I went on to note unconsummated attitudes.
"But the issue is once more than I am asking not about attitudes, but about decisions."
Notice that he's moving the goal post again. What he said was "decisions or thoughts." Now an attitude is a thought. An attitude is an intentional state, taking an object. It's an attitude about/thought of something or someone. But Holding didn't anticipate this--which is why he suddenly ditches his own choice of words and confines himself to "decisions," although that is not how he originally posed the question. Did he think no one would notice his switcheroo?
"Chances are he had no expectation of a reply from me, and now that he has one, is scrambling for some cover upon his ample posterior."
Yet another instance of Holding's anatomical fixation. When a man conjures up the mental image of another man's rear-end, you've got to wonder about his orientation. Let us hope that Mr. Holding didn't pick up any nasty habits working in prison.
"It is still not explained how this is so. Nothing of what I said makes a logical order an 'abstract object' and it really would not make an ounce of difference if it was or not. I write down a logical sequence; is it now concrete or abstract? Hays needs to stop playing semantic games to cover his inadequacies."
Whenever Holding gets caught in a trap of his own making, a favorite fallback is to complain that I'm "playing semantic games." To collapse a logical order into a causal order is more than a semantic game. To further confound a logical sequence with a verbal token only befuddles the distinction all the more. Once again, Holding has no doctrine of creation. And it won't do for him to don these airs of intellectual superiority if he's going to commit such elementary blunders.
"If God could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions, then that would not detract from his sovereignty. But this assumes the very answer at issue. You might as well ask if a painter can paint part of the canvass, then let the canvass fill in the gaps. A painting doesn't paint itself. Holding has no doctrine of creation. If a painter leaves the canvass half-finished, it stays half-finished."
Exactly, as in bold. Hays said it, obviously and explicitly, that it what I argued was so, there would be no detraction, and now he wants to backpedal."
Once again we have to treat Mr. Holding to a little primer in elementary logic. Any first year philosophy major can tell that my argument takes the form of a contrapositive proof, known in predicate logic as modus tollens. The abstract schema takes the form of:
If P, then Q.
Q is false.
Therefore, P is false.
Fleshing this out, the argument has two premises. The first premise takes the form of an if-then clause. The second clause, which negates the first, naturally begins with an adversative conjunction like "but"--as in, "if God could P, then Q; but Q is false; therefore P is false. Paul uses a contrapositive proof for the Resurrection in 1 Cor 15:13ff.
"Oh! So now he wants to add "deistic" to his little explanation in order to account for his huge bungle in agreeing I was correct."
At the risk of having to state the obvious and thereby insult the intelligence of the average reader, deism is implicit in Holding's idea of a painting that could paint itself once the painter gets it started and leaves the rest to a nanorobotic apprentice.
" Since Calvin knew his way around the Hebrew Bible, if he new nothing of Hebrew block logic, then that's only because there was nothing there to know.
Let the viciously circular ostrich mentality speak for itself. Will Hays insult Wilson again by saying he does not know his way around the Hebrew Bible?"
Let the viciously circular ostrich mentality speak for itself.
Will Holding insult Calvin again by saying that he does not know his way around the Hebrew Bible?
"Hays is out of touch with the conception of fictive kinship in the ancient world, upon which all covenant and patronage relationships were grounded. There is no confusion except by Hays, in his ignorance of the social world of the NT: Note that my words come from a scholarly source, with which Hays once again does not deal seriously. Compassion" DOES "select for" kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort, whether Hays likes it or not. If he thinks not, let him provide examples to show otherwise. It ought to be worth some yuks, since being unfamiliar with ancient principles of kinship he will no doubt unwittingly pick examples that only prove my point."
i) Notice how Holding takes the Biblical category of "covenant," and stretches it out of all recognition to apply, without distinction, to social bonding throughout the ancient world. This is not inductive exegesis.
It isn't? What Hays does is create ad hoc some special "Biblical category" of covenant as though it could be divorced from the other covenants of contemporary cultures. This is the sort of thinking that refuses to see Deuteronomy as modelled on an ancient suzerainty treaty and pretends that, again, the Bible was written in an intellectual vacuum, protected from all undue influences."
i) Holding is now trading is yet another equivocation, as if analogy were the same thing as identity. To say that Deuteronomy was "modeled"--note the weasel word--on a suzerain treaty is not at all to say that a suzerain treaty is synonymous with a Biblical covenant--much less the amorphous category of "fictive kinship" or the generic concept of a "patronage" system, or the even vaguer notion of "collectivism." Notice how Holding jumbles all these things together as though they were one and the same thing.
ii) Suzerain treaties were international treaties--treaties between respective heads-of-state. But it hardly follows from that one culture-bound example that every "collective" or "fictive kinship" "always involved reciprocity of some sort" or bilateral "contractual obligations."
One of the distinguishing features setting apart the Jewish monarchy from the neighboring nations is that the Jewish king was a constitutional monarch (Deut 17:14-20), whereas the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian kings governed their own people as absolute monarchs. There was no Magna Carta under oriental despotisms.
So assuming for the sake of argument that Feinberg's interpretation is both correct and portable, how would this cash out in application to Rom 9:16? The only effect would be to subordinate the force of the first clause to the second. It would still be true that election and reprobation (v15-16a) are not dependent on human participation. And this secondary fact would hold true due to the primary fact that election and reprobation are, instead, entirely dependent on the sheer mercy of God.
So even if we play along with Holding's misguided application, the predestinarian force of Rom 9:16 remains undiluted.
Since Holding continues to harp on Jer 7:22, as, I guess he must, having so little on which to build his case, it is worth pointing out that his interpretation of Jer 7:22 is not the only viable option or even the best available interpretation of the text. The issue raised by Jer 7:22 is how to square Jeremiah's statement with the divinely ordained sacrificial system in the Mosaic law. A couple of harmonizations are offered. One is the grammatical solution "parroted" by Holding. However, another solution draws attention to narrative sequence and relative chronology:
"In point of fact, then, God never said anything to them at the beginning--'in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt'--about offerings or sacrifices," G. Archer, Bible Difficulties (Zondervan 1982), 272.
"At the time the Sinai covenant was instituted, God required His people Israel to be obedient and to worship Him alone. Only when these prime stipulations were promulgated did God prescribe a developed sacrificial system," R. K. Harrison, Jeremiah & Lamentations (IVP 1973), 87.
"A reading of Exod 19:3-8 makes it clear that the first step in the covenant ceremony was Yahweh's demand for the unconditional acceptance of the covenant. The Decalog is spelled out in Exod 20:1-17, but at no point is the narrative concerned with cultic details. It was only after the covenant has been ratified (24:1-8) that the cultic details of the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the sacrifices were declared," J. A. Thompson, The Book of Jeremiah (Eerdmans 1987), 287-88.
"Jeremiah is engaged not in a wholesale critique of the temple, but specifically of certain burnt-offerings and sacrifices that the people brought to the temple, which in turn were not a part of the specified public ritual established at Mount Sinai," P. Craigie (Nelson 1991), 124.
It is odd that Holding, who brags of having "cracked more commentaries than Hays has sat on to reach the dinner table in his lifetime," seems to wholly ignorant of this major exegetical alternative--offered by a number of "credentialed" scholars.
And if we favor that interpretation, then Holding's argument, such as it is, collapses like the proverbial house of cards.
He said: "Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the 'works of the flesh' and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as 'mental acts' I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts.
I said: "Oh, what about 'jealousy' (Gr.=zelos), for one. That's an attitude, a mental act--not the outworking thereof. It may well issue in some concrete form of expression, but that is not the essence of it. Indeed, it is just because a sinful attitude need not translate into a sinful deed that the NT warns the believer that even unconsummated attitudes can still be sinful."
He said: "A blatant dodge. Hays can now find only one item in the list that he thinks works."
Don't you just love the way Holding's mind works? He said that "none of the items" count. Well, it only takes one exception to disprove a universal negative, does it not? He issues a challenge; I rise to the challenge, he calls it a dodge. In other words, whenever you call Holding's bluff, he moves the goal post.
BTW, I never said I could only find one item. But one good counter-example will do.
"And even it, he must admit, is followed on by concrete expression."
This is just a bald-faced lie. I said "may" well issue, not "must" issue. And I went on to note unconsummated attitudes.
"But the issue is once more than I am asking not about attitudes, but about decisions."
Notice that he's moving the goal post again. What he said was "decisions or thoughts." Now an attitude is a thought. An attitude is an intentional state, taking an object. It's an attitude about/thought of something or someone. But Holding didn't anticipate this--which is why he suddenly ditches his own choice of words and confines himself to "decisions," although that is not how he originally posed the question. Did he think no one would notice his switcheroo?
"Chances are he had no expectation of a reply from me, and now that he has one, is scrambling for some cover upon his ample posterior."
Yet another instance of Holding's anatomical fixation. When a man conjures up the mental image of another man's rear-end, you've got to wonder about his orientation. Let us hope that Mr. Holding didn't pick up any nasty habits working in prison.
"It is still not explained how this is so. Nothing of what I said makes a logical order an 'abstract object' and it really would not make an ounce of difference if it was or not. I write down a logical sequence; is it now concrete or abstract? Hays needs to stop playing semantic games to cover his inadequacies."
Whenever Holding gets caught in a trap of his own making, a favorite fallback is to complain that I'm "playing semantic games." To collapse a logical order into a causal order is more than a semantic game. To further confound a logical sequence with a verbal token only befuddles the distinction all the more. Once again, Holding has no doctrine of creation. And it won't do for him to don these airs of intellectual superiority if he's going to commit such elementary blunders.
"If God could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions, then that would not detract from his sovereignty. But this assumes the very answer at issue. You might as well ask if a painter can paint part of the canvass, then let the canvass fill in the gaps. A painting doesn't paint itself. Holding has no doctrine of creation. If a painter leaves the canvass half-finished, it stays half-finished."
Exactly, as in bold. Hays said it, obviously and explicitly, that it what I argued was so, there would be no detraction, and now he wants to backpedal."
Once again we have to treat Mr. Holding to a little primer in elementary logic. Any first year philosophy major can tell that my argument takes the form of a contrapositive proof, known in predicate logic as modus tollens. The abstract schema takes the form of:
If P, then Q.
Q is false.
Therefore, P is false.
Fleshing this out, the argument has two premises. The first premise takes the form of an if-then clause. The second clause, which negates the first, naturally begins with an adversative conjunction like "but"--as in, "if God could P, then Q; but Q is false; therefore P is false. Paul uses a contrapositive proof for the Resurrection in 1 Cor 15:13ff.
"Oh! So now he wants to add "deistic" to his little explanation in order to account for his huge bungle in agreeing I was correct."
At the risk of having to state the obvious and thereby insult the intelligence of the average reader, deism is implicit in Holding's idea of a painting that could paint itself once the painter gets it started and leaves the rest to a nanorobotic apprentice.
" Since Calvin knew his way around the Hebrew Bible, if he new nothing of Hebrew block logic, then that's only because there was nothing there to know.
Let the viciously circular ostrich mentality speak for itself. Will Hays insult Wilson again by saying he does not know his way around the Hebrew Bible?"
Let the viciously circular ostrich mentality speak for itself.
Will Holding insult Calvin again by saying that he does not know his way around the Hebrew Bible?
"Hays is out of touch with the conception of fictive kinship in the ancient world, upon which all covenant and patronage relationships were grounded. There is no confusion except by Hays, in his ignorance of the social world of the NT: Note that my words come from a scholarly source, with which Hays once again does not deal seriously. Compassion" DOES "select for" kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort, whether Hays likes it or not. If he thinks not, let him provide examples to show otherwise. It ought to be worth some yuks, since being unfamiliar with ancient principles of kinship he will no doubt unwittingly pick examples that only prove my point."
i) Notice how Holding takes the Biblical category of "covenant," and stretches it out of all recognition to apply, without distinction, to social bonding throughout the ancient world. This is not inductive exegesis.
It isn't? What Hays does is create ad hoc some special "Biblical category" of covenant as though it could be divorced from the other covenants of contemporary cultures. This is the sort of thinking that refuses to see Deuteronomy as modelled on an ancient suzerainty treaty and pretends that, again, the Bible was written in an intellectual vacuum, protected from all undue influences."
i) Holding is now trading is yet another equivocation, as if analogy were the same thing as identity. To say that Deuteronomy was "modeled"--note the weasel word--on a suzerain treaty is not at all to say that a suzerain treaty is synonymous with a Biblical covenant--much less the amorphous category of "fictive kinship" or the generic concept of a "patronage" system, or the even vaguer notion of "collectivism." Notice how Holding jumbles all these things together as though they were one and the same thing.
ii) Suzerain treaties were international treaties--treaties between respective heads-of-state. But it hardly follows from that one culture-bound example that every "collective" or "fictive kinship" "always involved reciprocity of some sort" or bilateral "contractual obligations."
One of the distinguishing features setting apart the Jewish monarchy from the neighboring nations is that the Jewish king was a constitutional monarch (Deut 17:14-20), whereas the Egyptian, Sumerian, Assyrian, and Babylonian kings governed their own people as absolute monarchs. There was no Magna Carta under oriental despotisms.
Postmortem on Holding-2
"Next Hays will call all performed anthropological study a fruitless endeavor (as he so belches from his armchair of non-expertise)."
"Belches"? More of Holding's excretory obsession.
"Pointing to a "promise/fulfillment pattern" is not rebutting the matter stated, which is that the example of Pharaoh is one of block logic and dichotomy."
What block-logic? What dichotomy? What we have, rather, is teleological reasoning. God will harden Pharaoh's heart as a means to an end--the revelation of the true God (Exod 7:3-5). That is the form of the promise/fulfillment scheme. Even when Pharaoh is said to harden himself (8:15), this is also said to be in fulfillment of God's prophetic word (cf. 4:21; 7:3).
"'Do I need to use the latrine?' Does Hays dare engage this absurd extreme?"
I confess I hadn't gone into this discussion under the assumption that I'd have to recapitulate the fifth labor of Hercules. So I must decline Holding's kind invitation to join him in the cesspool. I haven't the nose for the job.
He said: "No more idiotic statement could be made."
I said: "What statement could I have made to justify such a sweeping condemnation? Must have been pretty outlandish, right? This is why Mr. Holding is responding to. I had said that "the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture."
He said: " No, Hays said far more than that, and he purpusely [sic] isolates that portion to create a red herring. His full statement was: Wilson and Holding are treating the logic of Scripture as a culture-bound casket which they are at liberty to bury in an unmarked grave. But the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture. Let the dishonesty speak for itself, and that Hays thereafter isolates my first sentence from the rest of the paragraph."
But Holding is just stalling for time here--hoping the clock will run out. Yes, what about his first sentence? What about Wilson? Wilson is his great authority on "block-logic." And Holding denies that "block-logic" is normative for the Christian conscience. Hence, Holding denies that the Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture. Like a greedy taxi-cab driver trying to up the meter, Holding has simply taken us the long way round to arrive at the very same destination.
He said: "No one said anything about 'earning' God's covenant promises."
I said: "Really? Let's go back to back to my verbatim quote of Holding: "To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us.' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
There you have it. Earning God's favor and thereby casting God in the role of debtor. And this line of reasoning runs directly counter to Rom 4:1-4. If that's a representative slice of sociorhetorical criticism (Pilch & Malina), then so much the worse for sociorhetorical criticism. I choose to line up behind Paul, not against him.
He says: "There we have it, yes -- another case of dinshonestly [sic] and verbal equivocation by Hays. He has dishonestly used the words 'covenant promises' to substitute for the word I did use, 'favor' and now is trying to equate the two in a desperate attempt to justify his original falsehood."
Actually, Holding used several words. He didn't merely use the word "favor," but "earned favor"--indeed, "previously earned favor", no less: "Far from being a plea of the hapless, it [mercy] is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are.'
Holding went on to uses the phrases "covenant obligation" and "covenant relationship."
I then said: "Even in the former case, we did nothing to earn God's covenant promises." I used "covenant promise" as a synonym for "covenant obligation" and the like.
Holding then said: "No one said anything about 'earning' [his quotation marks] God's covenant promises."
Notice carefully just what Holding denies. He doesn't take issue with the phrase "covenant promises." Instead, he denies that such promises were "earned." He places quotation marks around the verb, for emphasis--not the noun. It's the verb, with the scare quotes, that's the object of his negation.
Now, though, he's suddenly shifting ground--rejecting as "dishonest" a synonym which he had heretofore accepted without protest. He didn't take exception to the synonym at the time. Rather, he took exception to the allegation that covenant promises were "earned."
Conversely, he also quoted, with evident approval, the phrase "earned favor." All I've done is to take my cue from his fluid usage and semantic equivocations. So much for his trumped-up charge.
But if that were not enough, Holding now follows this up with a longish gloss:
"Let it be remembered that this is not said snobbishly as though God "owes" us something naturally. By comparison God made a compact with Abraham and willingly underwent the ritual of contract (passing between the halved animals) which essentially indicated that if He broke His contract with Abraham, He would be divided in half like the animals! God in His love was willing to send His Son, and is also willing to place Himself under contractual obligation to us, to start a relationship of "ongoing reciprocity," in which "those toward whom one has such a debt are equally obliged to maintain the relationship by further favors..."
In other words, Hays purposely obscures that this "earned" is made in the context of God's own covenant promises in which God obliged Himself and thus set up the entire system of return. So now will Hays argue that God can break His promises and release Himself from His own covenant obligations? Does a covenant obligation make God a debtor? If God says, "I will do this" and God cannot lie, is there or is there not an obligation present? Rom. 4:1-4 only draws from the most critical example of this -- the covenant within which YHWH set up mutual sets of obligations for Himself and Abraham."
i) To say that I "purposely" obscure his usage once again credits me with inspired powers of foresight. In the nature of the case, I can only comment on what he said at the time, and not his retrofitted version.
ii) Yet--and here's the real kicker--Holding himself, in his retrofitted version, uses "covenant promises" and "covenant obligations" interchangeably.
At this point, Holding has his wires so thoroughly crossed that a professional electrician would be hard-pressed to sort them out.
"Hays once again plays a disgusting game of verbal equivocation. The retort was that Calvin did not find these elements to disturbing in the rabbinic writings to use them in his commentaries."
Except that that's not what Holding said. It is he who equivocates with his patch-up jobs.
"All Hays does in reply is offer misdirected and irrelevant bouts of verbal diarrhea mixed with pious outrage."
Another appeal to Holding's favorite argumentum ad excrementum.
"Well, sorry, but for Paul, Hebrew and Aramaic were the 'native' languages. Next irrelevant belch?"
i) "Belch"? Another example of Holding's unhealthy fascination with excreta.
ii) Holding is in no position to know that. Indeed, the claim is antecedently improbable. Given that Paul's hometown was a Roman city, there is no reason to assume that Paul didn't pick up Greek as a child.
"Yet part and parcel of such learning is recognizing your own biases as a social scientist. Paul, for his inspiration, was not one of these and we have no indication that he had the social scientists' knowledge and capability to think outside his own box (or that he even thought he needed to)."
Notice that this is precisely the way in which the queer lobby in liberal churches explain away Paul's opposition to sodomy.
"In other words, Hays, though too gutless to say so outright, wishes to accuse Wilson of incompetence."
Actually, this follows from Holding's criterion, not mine. If you take Holding's view of psycholinguistic conditioning, then, by his own chosen standard, no 20C Jew can be an expert on ancient Hebrew thought-patterns.
" This error is one we have seen from Farrell Till as well. Sorry, but "argument from authority" is not a fallacy if the authority really IS an authority. Fallacy occurs when authority is quoted for the sake of authority ("Albert Einstein says that basketball is stupid"); not when the expert really knows their business (it is no fallacy to quote Stephen Hawking on black holes). Let it speak for itself again that Hays imitates an atheist opponent of ours to perfection."
This is really fascinating. Remember what Holding said to Dr. White? "White's own classification of Romans 9 as 'logical' is similarly obtuse. Indeed, logicians would call what Paul does in Romans 9 a fallacious 'argument from authority'".
Okay. It's not fallacious for Holding to quote Hawking on black holes, 'cause Hawking "really is an authority" on the subject. He's an "expert who really knows his business."
But when Paul quotes from the OT, that's fallacious 'cause the OT really isn't authoritative. The inspired writer doesn't know what he's talking about. Go figure!
"So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?
In i) hays claims he does not have to explain it, but out of the other side of his mouth, then does so."
For someone who claims to be a Christian apologist, Holding doesn't seem to know much about how to mount an argument. In apologetics it is commonplace to present a two-pronged strategy in which we first challenge the operating premise of the opposing side, and then, for the sake of argument, stipulate that even if his premise were true, his conclusion fails to follow. That is not talking about of both sides of the mouth. That is simply offering a multifaceted rebuttal.
" Sorry, but the "Reformed interpretation" still dies on the vine if I am right, because the negation idiom is therefore expressed as well in the "not" in the second clause. That this did not occur to Hays as once speaks volumes for the low level of his mental horsepower."
i) Except for the stubborn little fact that there is no negation in the second clause.
"Belches"? More of Holding's excretory obsession.
"Pointing to a "promise/fulfillment pattern" is not rebutting the matter stated, which is that the example of Pharaoh is one of block logic and dichotomy."
What block-logic? What dichotomy? What we have, rather, is teleological reasoning. God will harden Pharaoh's heart as a means to an end--the revelation of the true God (Exod 7:3-5). That is the form of the promise/fulfillment scheme. Even when Pharaoh is said to harden himself (8:15), this is also said to be in fulfillment of God's prophetic word (cf. 4:21; 7:3).
"'Do I need to use the latrine?' Does Hays dare engage this absurd extreme?"
I confess I hadn't gone into this discussion under the assumption that I'd have to recapitulate the fifth labor of Hercules. So I must decline Holding's kind invitation to join him in the cesspool. I haven't the nose for the job.
He said: "No more idiotic statement could be made."
I said: "What statement could I have made to justify such a sweeping condemnation? Must have been pretty outlandish, right? This is why Mr. Holding is responding to. I had said that "the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture."
He said: " No, Hays said far more than that, and he purpusely [sic] isolates that portion to create a red herring. His full statement was: Wilson and Holding are treating the logic of Scripture as a culture-bound casket which they are at liberty to bury in an unmarked grave. But the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture. Let the dishonesty speak for itself, and that Hays thereafter isolates my first sentence from the rest of the paragraph."
But Holding is just stalling for time here--hoping the clock will run out. Yes, what about his first sentence? What about Wilson? Wilson is his great authority on "block-logic." And Holding denies that "block-logic" is normative for the Christian conscience. Hence, Holding denies that the Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture. Like a greedy taxi-cab driver trying to up the meter, Holding has simply taken us the long way round to arrive at the very same destination.
He said: "No one said anything about 'earning' God's covenant promises."
I said: "Really? Let's go back to back to my verbatim quote of Holding: "To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us.' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
There you have it. Earning God's favor and thereby casting God in the role of debtor. And this line of reasoning runs directly counter to Rom 4:1-4. If that's a representative slice of sociorhetorical criticism (Pilch & Malina), then so much the worse for sociorhetorical criticism. I choose to line up behind Paul, not against him.
He says: "There we have it, yes -- another case of dinshonestly [sic] and verbal equivocation by Hays. He has dishonestly used the words 'covenant promises' to substitute for the word I did use, 'favor' and now is trying to equate the two in a desperate attempt to justify his original falsehood."
Actually, Holding used several words. He didn't merely use the word "favor," but "earned favor"--indeed, "previously earned favor", no less: "Far from being a plea of the hapless, it [mercy] is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are.'
Holding went on to uses the phrases "covenant obligation" and "covenant relationship."
I then said: "Even in the former case, we did nothing to earn God's covenant promises." I used "covenant promise" as a synonym for "covenant obligation" and the like.
Holding then said: "No one said anything about 'earning' [his quotation marks] God's covenant promises."
Notice carefully just what Holding denies. He doesn't take issue with the phrase "covenant promises." Instead, he denies that such promises were "earned." He places quotation marks around the verb, for emphasis--not the noun. It's the verb, with the scare quotes, that's the object of his negation.
Now, though, he's suddenly shifting ground--rejecting as "dishonest" a synonym which he had heretofore accepted without protest. He didn't take exception to the synonym at the time. Rather, he took exception to the allegation that covenant promises were "earned."
Conversely, he also quoted, with evident approval, the phrase "earned favor." All I've done is to take my cue from his fluid usage and semantic equivocations. So much for his trumped-up charge.
But if that were not enough, Holding now follows this up with a longish gloss:
"Let it be remembered that this is not said snobbishly as though God "owes" us something naturally. By comparison God made a compact with Abraham and willingly underwent the ritual of contract (passing between the halved animals) which essentially indicated that if He broke His contract with Abraham, He would be divided in half like the animals! God in His love was willing to send His Son, and is also willing to place Himself under contractual obligation to us, to start a relationship of "ongoing reciprocity," in which "those toward whom one has such a debt are equally obliged to maintain the relationship by further favors..."
In other words, Hays purposely obscures that this "earned" is made in the context of God's own covenant promises in which God obliged Himself and thus set up the entire system of return. So now will Hays argue that God can break His promises and release Himself from His own covenant obligations? Does a covenant obligation make God a debtor? If God says, "I will do this" and God cannot lie, is there or is there not an obligation present? Rom. 4:1-4 only draws from the most critical example of this -- the covenant within which YHWH set up mutual sets of obligations for Himself and Abraham."
i) To say that I "purposely" obscure his usage once again credits me with inspired powers of foresight. In the nature of the case, I can only comment on what he said at the time, and not his retrofitted version.
ii) Yet--and here's the real kicker--Holding himself, in his retrofitted version, uses "covenant promises" and "covenant obligations" interchangeably.
At this point, Holding has his wires so thoroughly crossed that a professional electrician would be hard-pressed to sort them out.
"Hays once again plays a disgusting game of verbal equivocation. The retort was that Calvin did not find these elements to disturbing in the rabbinic writings to use them in his commentaries."
Except that that's not what Holding said. It is he who equivocates with his patch-up jobs.
"All Hays does in reply is offer misdirected and irrelevant bouts of verbal diarrhea mixed with pious outrage."
Another appeal to Holding's favorite argumentum ad excrementum.
"Well, sorry, but for Paul, Hebrew and Aramaic were the 'native' languages. Next irrelevant belch?"
i) "Belch"? Another example of Holding's unhealthy fascination with excreta.
ii) Holding is in no position to know that. Indeed, the claim is antecedently improbable. Given that Paul's hometown was a Roman city, there is no reason to assume that Paul didn't pick up Greek as a child.
"Yet part and parcel of such learning is recognizing your own biases as a social scientist. Paul, for his inspiration, was not one of these and we have no indication that he had the social scientists' knowledge and capability to think outside his own box (or that he even thought he needed to)."
Notice that this is precisely the way in which the queer lobby in liberal churches explain away Paul's opposition to sodomy.
"In other words, Hays, though too gutless to say so outright, wishes to accuse Wilson of incompetence."
Actually, this follows from Holding's criterion, not mine. If you take Holding's view of psycholinguistic conditioning, then, by his own chosen standard, no 20C Jew can be an expert on ancient Hebrew thought-patterns.
" This error is one we have seen from Farrell Till as well. Sorry, but "argument from authority" is not a fallacy if the authority really IS an authority. Fallacy occurs when authority is quoted for the sake of authority ("Albert Einstein says that basketball is stupid"); not when the expert really knows their business (it is no fallacy to quote Stephen Hawking on black holes). Let it speak for itself again that Hays imitates an atheist opponent of ours to perfection."
This is really fascinating. Remember what Holding said to Dr. White? "White's own classification of Romans 9 as 'logical' is similarly obtuse. Indeed, logicians would call what Paul does in Romans 9 a fallacious 'argument from authority'".
Okay. It's not fallacious for Holding to quote Hawking on black holes, 'cause Hawking "really is an authority" on the subject. He's an "expert who really knows his business."
But when Paul quotes from the OT, that's fallacious 'cause the OT really isn't authoritative. The inspired writer doesn't know what he's talking about. Go figure!
"So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?
In i) hays claims he does not have to explain it, but out of the other side of his mouth, then does so."
For someone who claims to be a Christian apologist, Holding doesn't seem to know much about how to mount an argument. In apologetics it is commonplace to present a two-pronged strategy in which we first challenge the operating premise of the opposing side, and then, for the sake of argument, stipulate that even if his premise were true, his conclusion fails to follow. That is not talking about of both sides of the mouth. That is simply offering a multifaceted rebuttal.
" Sorry, but the "Reformed interpretation" still dies on the vine if I am right, because the negation idiom is therefore expressed as well in the "not" in the second clause. That this did not occur to Hays as once speaks volumes for the low level of his mental horsepower."
i) Except for the stubborn little fact that there is no negation in the second clause.
Postmortem on Holding-1
Holding has issued yet another whirlwind reply to my comments. It's gratifying to see that he sets a higher standard in his response time than the dreaded bloggers!
The reply is littered and larded with his trademark volley of invective--the better to plug up the all gaps where the argumentation breaks down--which is frequent. Much of Holding's reply consists of blanket, indignant denials rather than reasoned disproof of what I've said.
Indeed, his invective has become so coarse that parents may well wish to install a v-chip in the kids' computer lest their little ones stray into his website and have their imagination sullied by his foul mouth and dirty mind. I will try as best I can to retrieve what arguments I find floating in his sewer-hole.
"White now appears to be content to rest his laurels a bit and relax under the headdress of the Drama Queen while allowing his parrot Hays to handle his affairs."
I'm afraid this does me far too much credit. Remember that I had commented on Holding's TULIP series long before White ever got around to it. In order, therefore, for me to be his parrot, I'd have to be a pretty prescient parrot. But I lay claim to no such feats of precognition. So as honored as I am to have Holding attribute to me the divine gift of prophecy, modesty compels me to decline this--his most magnanimous compliment.
"Hays is no more than a tame ape with a dictionary at his disposal, able to use his vocabulary as a bludgeon to fool the ignorant into thinking he is actually saying something."
Well, this at least gives me a considerable headstart over Darwin's simian typists, who had to reconstruct the collected works of Shakespeare from scratch. Does this mean that Mr. Holding is a theistic evolutionist?
"No doubt he [Hays] had too many Chick tracts to read the day that The Only Wise God was assigned."
I read Craig's book many years before Holding belatedly heard of it--not to mention of my having read number of Craig's more academic presentations of Molinism.
"The second section is of absolutely no relevance; granting that indeed Paul had access to GR technique of rhetoric, this was also taught even in Jerusalem."
So the fact that Paul made use of philosophical reasoning in Romans is of "absolutely no relevance" to the possible role of logic in Rom 9--even though Fitzmyer specifically identifies its presence in 9:14,19-21,30 and elsewhere.
Remember that it was Holding who had patronizingly advised Dr. White to bone up on Fitzmyer--in connection with this very debate. But when someone takes him up on the offer, this is suddenly of "absolutely no relevance."
"May we remind the reader further that Hays has STILL not figured out that it was not I, but Jaltus, the TWeb seminarian, who referred to Fitzmyer."
May we remind the reader further that Holding has STILL not figured out that it was not Jaltus, the Tweb seminarian, but Holding, who referred to Fitzmyer. Remember what Holding said to Dr. White?:
"Sorry, but White clearly does not have his exegetical ducks in a row. I recommend he read Kasemann, Fitzmyer, Esler, and Witherington. That should run the gauntlet for him, and maybe throw in a healthy dose of Cranfield for the grammar."
Now, either Holding wrote this, in which case he is the one who referred to Fitzmyer, or else Holding doesn't write his own material, but employs the services of a ghostwriter. If the latter, may I humbly suggest that Holding needs to hire a better ghostwriter.
"As an aside, since Fitzmyer is a liberal, Hays by his own rules has no business citing Fitzmyer, since he is a tainted source. Let the fundy tangle himself in his own woven web."
What rules of mine? Can Holding quote me to that effect? The only time I recall using the word "liberal" was when Holding said that Dr. White should get his ducks in a row, and then indulged in a little show of name-dropping to wow the reader.
In that context, I drew attention to the theological diversity of the writers to which he referred.
Since, however, Holding brings up the issue of liberals, I do happen to think it makes no small difference whether you read John Spong or J. Gresham Machen on the Virgin Birth--to take but one example.
"But as it turns out, Childs says nothing here of an 'apologetic' and assuredly nothing of a proof for the mere existence of God, per my original point:
'The unit [41:1-7] opens with Yahweh summoning the nations to appear in court for a trial. The claims of the foreign gods will be tested according to legal rules…[21-29] The force of the argument in both parts of the trial appears to be that the claim to true divinity rests on the ability not only to control the course of future events, but also to have predicted the events before they occurred. Consequently, the ability to match the prediction with its fulfillment can then be tested rationally in the trial,' Isaiah (Westminster John Knox Press 2001), 317,321.
Since Dr. Childs is a highly 'credentialed' scholar, I trust that Holding will pay proper homage to his social betters in this matter.
I do indeed. Unfortunately for Hays, Childs only agrees with my point: There is nothing here of an argument for God's existence but of YHWH's superiority over the false gods."
i) Once again, Holding exhibits his usual deficiency in distinguishing between words and concepts. Naturally, Isaiah doesn't use the Greek derivative. The question is whether the concept is present. Apologetics is simply a rational defense of the faith. To quote Childs once more, "the force of an argument" according to which the "claim of true divinity" is subject to a "rational test," certainly qualifies as an exercise in apologetics. If that doesn't measure up to Holding's standards, this says a lot more about his standards than it does about Isaiah.
ii) In addition, there is certainly more to Isaiah's argument than Yahweh's superiority over the false gods. The whole thrust of Isaiah's argument is that the existence of the true God and nonexistence of the false gods can be put to a rational test. His existence is verified by prophecy while theirs is falsified by its absence.
It is not as if there were other gods who exist, but are merely inferior to Yahweh. Unless, that is, Holding happens to be a polytheist. At this point, I suppose that anything is possible.
I said: "Let's clarify the burden of proof here. Holding was the one who initiated an attack on Calvinism. The onus is therefore on him to acquaint himself with the supporting arguments for Calvinism in order to render an informed judgment on the system under review."
He said: " Since I did, there is no more for me to do."
It is clear from his admitted ignorance of Molinism going into the TULIP series that he did nothing of the kind.
"Hays provided not so much as one word from Warfield; he merely threw the reference at us like an elephant, as though this was some sort of data-argument."
It isn't my job to do his reading for him. Holding initiated a public attack on Calvinism. As a Christian apologist, the burden on him is to research a topic before he goes on the attack. Warfield's article runs to over 60 pages of closely reasoned argument. No, I'm not going to reduce that to a comic strip.
"Hays is incapable of supporting his point, and would be better off returning to his daily duties of sorting milk cartons at the 7-11."
This says less about me than it does about Holding's elitist attitude towards manual laborers and the working poor. He might consider brushing up on the Book of James to cure him of his sub-Christian snobbery.
"Unlike Hays, I do not live in a diaper and do not look for ways to throw the contents of it at others for cheap rhetorical points."
Welcome to Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. When he can't be logical, he can always be scatological. Perhaps, though, he'll accuse me of quoting his obscenities "out of context," or making "abusive" use of them.
I said: "Notice, also, the patent equivocation here. To say that psychology is prior to text is not to say that "block logic" is prior to the text. Holding is smuggling his conclusion into the premise."
He said: "Yet another confused and misplaced comment. Block logic is a product of Hebrew psychology; therefore it indeed must be prior to the text along with every other psychological element, and it certainly is absurd to suggest that psychology associated with the particular people emerged after the text."
All Holding does here is to clumsily repackage the original equivocation. Yes, psychology is prior to the text. But to define "Hebrew" psychology as "block-logic" is just another ham-handed effort to smuggle the conclusion back into the premise.
"Hays is once again offering excessive lines of verbal diarrhea to cover his enormous bungle in misreading my point."
Ah, Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. One is tempted to say that this is one type of argument where the genetic fallacy does not apply.
"Does he deny that there is actual dialectic in these pages of the OT? Does he deny that dialectic was a characteristic of Hegelianism? Does he then deny in turn that the OT shares this particular description with Hegelianism?"
As I originally said, I've already offered my own interpretation of the wisdom literature in my essay on "Vanity of vanities." Holding's comparison is so sloppy and anachronistic that it would die the death of a thousand qualifications.
The reply is littered and larded with his trademark volley of invective--the better to plug up the all gaps where the argumentation breaks down--which is frequent. Much of Holding's reply consists of blanket, indignant denials rather than reasoned disproof of what I've said.
Indeed, his invective has become so coarse that parents may well wish to install a v-chip in the kids' computer lest their little ones stray into his website and have their imagination sullied by his foul mouth and dirty mind. I will try as best I can to retrieve what arguments I find floating in his sewer-hole.
"White now appears to be content to rest his laurels a bit and relax under the headdress of the Drama Queen while allowing his parrot Hays to handle his affairs."
I'm afraid this does me far too much credit. Remember that I had commented on Holding's TULIP series long before White ever got around to it. In order, therefore, for me to be his parrot, I'd have to be a pretty prescient parrot. But I lay claim to no such feats of precognition. So as honored as I am to have Holding attribute to me the divine gift of prophecy, modesty compels me to decline this--his most magnanimous compliment.
"Hays is no more than a tame ape with a dictionary at his disposal, able to use his vocabulary as a bludgeon to fool the ignorant into thinking he is actually saying something."
Well, this at least gives me a considerable headstart over Darwin's simian typists, who had to reconstruct the collected works of Shakespeare from scratch. Does this mean that Mr. Holding is a theistic evolutionist?
"No doubt he [Hays] had too many Chick tracts to read the day that The Only Wise God was assigned."
I read Craig's book many years before Holding belatedly heard of it--not to mention of my having read number of Craig's more academic presentations of Molinism.
"The second section is of absolutely no relevance; granting that indeed Paul had access to GR technique of rhetoric, this was also taught even in Jerusalem."
So the fact that Paul made use of philosophical reasoning in Romans is of "absolutely no relevance" to the possible role of logic in Rom 9--even though Fitzmyer specifically identifies its presence in 9:14,19-21,30 and elsewhere.
Remember that it was Holding who had patronizingly advised Dr. White to bone up on Fitzmyer--in connection with this very debate. But when someone takes him up on the offer, this is suddenly of "absolutely no relevance."
"May we remind the reader further that Hays has STILL not figured out that it was not I, but Jaltus, the TWeb seminarian, who referred to Fitzmyer."
May we remind the reader further that Holding has STILL not figured out that it was not Jaltus, the Tweb seminarian, but Holding, who referred to Fitzmyer. Remember what Holding said to Dr. White?:
"Sorry, but White clearly does not have his exegetical ducks in a row. I recommend he read Kasemann, Fitzmyer, Esler, and Witherington. That should run the gauntlet for him, and maybe throw in a healthy dose of Cranfield for the grammar."
Now, either Holding wrote this, in which case he is the one who referred to Fitzmyer, or else Holding doesn't write his own material, but employs the services of a ghostwriter. If the latter, may I humbly suggest that Holding needs to hire a better ghostwriter.
"As an aside, since Fitzmyer is a liberal, Hays by his own rules has no business citing Fitzmyer, since he is a tainted source. Let the fundy tangle himself in his own woven web."
What rules of mine? Can Holding quote me to that effect? The only time I recall using the word "liberal" was when Holding said that Dr. White should get his ducks in a row, and then indulged in a little show of name-dropping to wow the reader.
In that context, I drew attention to the theological diversity of the writers to which he referred.
Since, however, Holding brings up the issue of liberals, I do happen to think it makes no small difference whether you read John Spong or J. Gresham Machen on the Virgin Birth--to take but one example.
"But as it turns out, Childs says nothing here of an 'apologetic' and assuredly nothing of a proof for the mere existence of God, per my original point:
'The unit [41:1-7] opens with Yahweh summoning the nations to appear in court for a trial. The claims of the foreign gods will be tested according to legal rules…[21-29] The force of the argument in both parts of the trial appears to be that the claim to true divinity rests on the ability not only to control the course of future events, but also to have predicted the events before they occurred. Consequently, the ability to match the prediction with its fulfillment can then be tested rationally in the trial,' Isaiah (Westminster John Knox Press 2001), 317,321.
Since Dr. Childs is a highly 'credentialed' scholar, I trust that Holding will pay proper homage to his social betters in this matter.
I do indeed. Unfortunately for Hays, Childs only agrees with my point: There is nothing here of an argument for God's existence but of YHWH's superiority over the false gods."
i) Once again, Holding exhibits his usual deficiency in distinguishing between words and concepts. Naturally, Isaiah doesn't use the Greek derivative. The question is whether the concept is present. Apologetics is simply a rational defense of the faith. To quote Childs once more, "the force of an argument" according to which the "claim of true divinity" is subject to a "rational test," certainly qualifies as an exercise in apologetics. If that doesn't measure up to Holding's standards, this says a lot more about his standards than it does about Isaiah.
ii) In addition, there is certainly more to Isaiah's argument than Yahweh's superiority over the false gods. The whole thrust of Isaiah's argument is that the existence of the true God and nonexistence of the false gods can be put to a rational test. His existence is verified by prophecy while theirs is falsified by its absence.
It is not as if there were other gods who exist, but are merely inferior to Yahweh. Unless, that is, Holding happens to be a polytheist. At this point, I suppose that anything is possible.
I said: "Let's clarify the burden of proof here. Holding was the one who initiated an attack on Calvinism. The onus is therefore on him to acquaint himself with the supporting arguments for Calvinism in order to render an informed judgment on the system under review."
He said: " Since I did, there is no more for me to do."
It is clear from his admitted ignorance of Molinism going into the TULIP series that he did nothing of the kind.
"Hays provided not so much as one word from Warfield; he merely threw the reference at us like an elephant, as though this was some sort of data-argument."
It isn't my job to do his reading for him. Holding initiated a public attack on Calvinism. As a Christian apologist, the burden on him is to research a topic before he goes on the attack. Warfield's article runs to over 60 pages of closely reasoned argument. No, I'm not going to reduce that to a comic strip.
"Hays is incapable of supporting his point, and would be better off returning to his daily duties of sorting milk cartons at the 7-11."
This says less about me than it does about Holding's elitist attitude towards manual laborers and the working poor. He might consider brushing up on the Book of James to cure him of his sub-Christian snobbery.
"Unlike Hays, I do not live in a diaper and do not look for ways to throw the contents of it at others for cheap rhetorical points."
Welcome to Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. When he can't be logical, he can always be scatological. Perhaps, though, he'll accuse me of quoting his obscenities "out of context," or making "abusive" use of them.
I said: "Notice, also, the patent equivocation here. To say that psychology is prior to text is not to say that "block logic" is prior to the text. Holding is smuggling his conclusion into the premise."
He said: "Yet another confused and misplaced comment. Block logic is a product of Hebrew psychology; therefore it indeed must be prior to the text along with every other psychological element, and it certainly is absurd to suggest that psychology associated with the particular people emerged after the text."
All Holding does here is to clumsily repackage the original equivocation. Yes, psychology is prior to the text. But to define "Hebrew" psychology as "block-logic" is just another ham-handed effort to smuggle the conclusion back into the premise.
"Hays is once again offering excessive lines of verbal diarrhea to cover his enormous bungle in misreading my point."
Ah, Holding's argumentum ad excrementum. One is tempted to say that this is one type of argument where the genetic fallacy does not apply.
"Does he deny that there is actual dialectic in these pages of the OT? Does he deny that dialectic was a characteristic of Hegelianism? Does he then deny in turn that the OT shares this particular description with Hegelianism?"
As I originally said, I've already offered my own interpretation of the wisdom literature in my essay on "Vanity of vanities." Holding's comparison is so sloppy and anachronistic that it would die the death of a thousand qualifications.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
Holding v. Hays-3
"Since I did not say Augustine in particular did not know of patronage, this retort is a red herring. As for Calvin and his "patroness" one could properly use the term of her, but only in the same sense that Constantine became a "patron" for Christianity. The relation of d'Albret to Calvin is nothing like the relationship between the Father, Christ, and the believer as this model sees it. There was certainly nothing in the relationship to inform Calvin of the nature of Biblical patronage."
i) Since the Augustinian tradition is a cornerstone of Calvinism, Augustine's personal experience with the patronage system is directly germane to the charge that Reformed theology has been superceded and falsified in light of sociorhetorical models of patronage, of which Reformed theology was sadly ignorant.
ii) Indeed, until the late 18C, every European culture was structured by a patronage system, for these were all aristocratic, monarchial, hierarchical societies. It was subject to various incidental refinements, such as feudalism, but it was a ubiquitous feature of social life, from Augustine through Anselm and Aquinas to Calvin and Reformed Scholasticism.
"The relation of d'Albret to Calvin is nothing like the relationship between the Father, Christ, and the believer as this model sees it. There was certainly nothing in the relationship to inform Calvin of the nature of Biblical patronage."
This commits a level-confusion. Holding is not beginning with the Trinity. Holding is beginning with Greco-Roman examples and extrapolating from that sociological phenomenon to a more abstract model, thus derived, which he then applies to the Trinity in relation to the believer.
"Neither Calvin nor Arminius, as far as may be seen, knew anything of Hebrew block logic."
Since Calvin knew his way around the Hebrew Bible, if he new nothing of Hebrew block logic, then that's only because there was nothing there to know.
I said: "And what is sociorhetorical criticism if not an extended exercise in block-logic? It treats people, not as individuals, but as social units."
He said: "What we have here is little more than an exercise in linguistic trickery as Hays attempts to equate treatment of people as social blocks with rhetorical presentation of ideas in the form of blocks."
Really, let the reader judge if this isn't a complete about-face from what he said before:
"This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with. More than that, I am not "extrapolating from one genre to psychology"; Hays has merely confused order of presentation for steps in argumentative progression. No, psychology is at the root; wisdom literature is merely the most clear expression of the block logic format that could be used for illustration purposes. This has nothing to do with genres per se. It remains that psychology is at the root, and thus the expression indeed would not be limited to genre, but appear in ALL genres, even epistles like Romans. Hays is once again badly misdirected. Moreover, ability to leap between genres is no pointer for being able to escape mental pathways."
Which is it? Is block-logic a merely "rhetorical presentation of ideas in the form of blocks." Or is block-logic the psychological root of which the rhetorical expression or presentation is merely the end-result?
"Hays mistakes objective investigation for 'on the fly' simply because I didn't deign to close my mind and pigeonhole myself into a Calvinist or Arminian straitjacket before presenting my findings."
This is simply a non sequitur with reference to his original claim that Holding has "the discipline to wait until he's finished with all his research before posting his findings."
Holding chose to launch an attack on Calvinism. Now, middle knowledge is discussed in such old Reformed standbys as Turretin (Institutes), Dabney (Systematic Theology), Chas Hodge (Systematic Theology), Bavinck (The Doctrine of God), and Berkhof (Systematic Theology), as well as such recent entries into the standard literature as Frame (Doctrine of God), Helm (The Providence of God), Grudem (Systematic Theology), and Reymond (New Systematic Theology). These vary in their quantity and quality of coverage, but they all discuss middle knowledge.
Far from waiting to completed his research before posting his "findings," it is now evident for all to see in light of his admitted ignorance, that Holding didn't conduct any serious research into the standard literature before posting his "findings." "Findings" of what? Imagine an astronomer announcing the discovery of a new star by gazing into a telescope with his eyes closed. Apparently Mr. Holding was just winging it all along--hoping that no one would notice.
Instead of research, what we see is a hectic game of catch-up, like a tardy Christmas shopper who shows up at the store five minutes before closing time.
And this is not the only point at which he has shifted his original ground. And far from keeping an open mind, he assumed an adversarial stance towards Calvinism despite his studied ignorance of Calvinism. This is not an open mind. To the contrary, that's the very definition of prejudice in action.
"This sounds so much like Farrell Till that it ought to frighten Hays, as it perhaps would if he knew who Till was. Like Hays, Till merely appeals to the spectre of diversity while missing the point: That the support of scholars demands that the position be taken seriously, not merely waved off with one-liners or blog paragraphs or namecalling ("that guy is a liberal"). Yet this is indeed all the likes of Hays and White are capable of when confronted with matters beyond their ken: Such it is that the buzzwords like "liberal" become grasped like security blankets as they suck on the thumbs of "exegesis" and rest in the comfort of their benighted ignorance, oblivious to the closing of the casket over their heads as the rest of the Christian world moves on beyond their stultified fundamentalism which does more harm than good, and aids and abets only the likes of KJV Onlyists and fundamentalist atheists."
Notice the extremely high ratio of invective in direct proportion to the extremely low ratio of reasoned argument. Indeed, it would be quite a challenge for a reader to salvage any reasoned argument from Holding's reply.
What I had said was: "Holding makes repeated appeal to 'credentialed scholars.' Now, since Holding is an intelligent man, I don't see the point of such a patently fallacious appeal. You can find credentialed representative for almost every position and opposing position. Reformed theology certainly has its share of credentialed scholars. So this appeal, which Holding reiterates ad nauseum, like a verbal talisman, is bereft of probative force."
How is the KVJ-only-cum-Farrell Till tirade the least bit responsive to my observation? Swearing like a sissy is no rebuttal to an honest counterargument.
"Hays is out of touch with the conception of fictive kinship in the ancient world, upon which all covenant and patronage relationships were grounded. There is no confusion except by Hays, in his ignorance of the social world of the NT: Note that my words come from a scholarly source, with which Hays once again does not deal seriously. "Compassion" DOES "select for" kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort, whether Hays likes it or not. If he thinks not, let him provide examples to show otherwise. It ought to be worth some yuks, since being unfamiliar with ancient principles of kinship he will no doubt unwittingly pick examples that only prove my point."
i) Notice how Holding takes the Biblical category of "covenant," and stretches it out of all recognition to apply, without distinction, to social bonding throughout the ancient world. This is not inductive exegesis.
ii) Oh, his words come from a "scholarly source." Notice that this is an argument from authority, which Holding elsewhere derides as a logical fallacy.
Unlike Holding, I distinguish between scholarly opinion and scholarly argument. Quoting the opinion of a scholar is not at all the same thing as mounting a reasoned argument. Holding offers assertions in place of arguments: proof by quotation.
What I know to know is the process of reasoning by which a scholar arrived at his conclusions. What evidence does he offer? What were his supporting arguments? That's the only intelligent way to sift through the welter of competing opinions.
Is it not striking that Holding defers so blindly to the logic of the sociorhetorical commentators while refusing to defer to the inspired logic of the book on which they comment? Says a lot about his priorities.
In any event, a bare argument from a fallible authority is of no use to adjudicate competing claims, for if we were conscience-bound to believe the last thing we read in some scholar or another, we'd change our creed every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
iii) Holding seems not to have absorbed my distinction. So I guess we need to move back a few paces. A century ago, Frege drew a distinction between sense and reference. In his textbook example, the morning star and the evening star share a common referent (the planet Venus), but "the morning star" and the "evening star" don't mean the same thing. The bare meaning of the word "compassion," however we define it, does not pick out its denotae. The meaning functions like an abstract universal. The referent must be supplied by the concrete context. That is why you can plug different content into the same nouns and verbs.
"Being a member of a covenant community makes one fictive kin within that community. Hays is essentially saying that 'all relatives may be part of a family, but it hardly follows that all family members are relatives.' It is only ribald ignorance of the collectivist nature of the ancient world that enables such mouth-foaming blindness."
i) Note the gratuitous invective--"ribald ignorance"; "mouth-foaming blindness."
Yikes! I guess I better get a tetanus shot!
ii) And notice the patent equivocation, as if "collectivism" is interchangeable with a "covenant community." Holding has secularized the notion of covenant community.
It has been over forty years now since James Barr published his seminal work on The Semantics of Biblical Language, yet Holding continues to repristinate the old world=concept fallacy.
"Notice how Hays runs around the field of dirt looking for the perfectly level patch of sand to stick his head into… As for 'circular reasoning' that is yet another Tillism: It is the hapless plea of one incapable of addressing the scholastics on their own terms, such that they are constrained to denigrate and insult their intellectual betters and accuse them of fallacy, without having any knowledge of their scholarship or methodology. This will work well for the dazed and gullible who want only pious confirmation and Praise the Lord' shouted in the ears, but for those who actually want to understand the text in its contexts, it is merely a joke, and a bad one at that."
Observe, once more, how a parade of personal slurs does all the heavy-lifting in the absence of a single reasoned rebuttal. This is combined with another argument from authority--"their intellectual betters." Like a little dog behind the safety of a chain-link fence, Holding tries mightily to scare off the critic with a snarling barrage of lip-curling invective.
All I said was: "This, however, begs the very question at issue. Is sociorhetorical criticism the only prism through which we ought to read the Bible? He quotes sociorhetorical scholars to prove the primacy of sociorhetorical criticism. What a thoroughly vicious specimen of circular reasoning!"
I'll leave it to the reader to judge whether anything in Holding's reply is the least bit responsive to my precise objection.
For the record, I actually own a number of commentaries by sociorhetorical scholars--Kee, Keener, Malina, Witherington, as well as Wayne Meeks' inaugural monograph: The First Urban Christians.
I said: "Holding is sure that he is right, and White is wrong. How very dualistic of Mr. Holding! Doesn't Mr. Holding realize that he is in bondage to that ancient binary logic whereby either he is right or Dr. White is right? Isn't the time past due for Mr. Holding to emancipate himself from the quaint old law of bivalence? From these moldering old "polarities" of primitive thought?"
He said: "All of this is likewise a pretense for inserting a red herring into the pond: That I somehow argue by this that binary logic does not exist today when in fact the point is, and has been, that expression of dualism was much more pronounced in the ancient world, and among the Jews more particularly, than it is today among Western thinkers."
Once again, how is this responsive to the charge? Holding has been telling us that we are not bound by the logic of Scripture because this reflects a culture-bound "block-logic." Now he tries to reduce this qualitative distinction to a quantitative distinction between what was more common back then. But that skirts the real question. If binary reasoning is to be taken seriously whenever Holding uses it in an effort to disprove his opponents, then why is it not to be discounted as soon as Paul uses it to disprove his opponents?
Holding said: "White must show one of any of these things: Paul was not Hebrew or subject to Hebrew thought patterns; that he was one or both, but these passages are to be taken as exceptions for X reason."
I said: "But this is tendentious. Dr. White would only have to do so on the prior assumption that Paul's neuropathways moved in the groove of "Hebrew thought patterns." But why should Dr. White assume that Paul in particular, or Jews in general, were so intellectually inflexible?"
He said: "This ranks as truly one of the most idiotic questions of the age. Psyhcological [sic] science itself tells us that 'neuropathways' learned in childhood are extremely inflexible; however, that matter of psychology aside, it would remain that it would be the burden of the critic to show that a Paul diverged from a normal pathway for his background. My thesis works within what would be the normal pathways for a Paul. Calvinism does not, but insists upon meanings for words and concepts that a person like Paul would have had to change his mindset over in order to adopt."
I had accused Holding of begging the question. What is Holding's response? To beg the question all over again, as though, if you continue to beg the question, sooner or later that will escape the gravitational pull of your fallacious methodology.
Notice that Holding is still assuming that Paul was controlled by "Hebrew thought patterns," even though he has had to grant, under pressure, that he knows nothing specific about Paul's formative linguistic exposure.
But, what is doubly tendentious, Holding continues to make this assumption on behalf of Dr. White, and then put Dr. White into the dilemma of having to carve out an exception for Paul, as though this were a dilemma of White's own making, when anyone can see this is a set-up of Holding's sheer contrivance. In legal circles, this is known as framing the accused by planting evidence.
I said: "Sociorhetorical criticism, being a subdivision of sociology, shares the same bias as sociology. In the perennial nature/nurture debate, the so-called social sciences (sociology; anthropology) come down heavily on the nature side of the debate, treating the human mind as a blank slate which is pencilled in by culture. And, like any half-truth, there's some evidence for that."
He said: "Not much needs be said here; this is yet another imitation of the worst sort of atheists, who, when confronted with material they cannot refute, resort to charges of 'bias'"
If Holding is really that naïve, then it may go a long way in explaining why he's so star-struck by sociorhetorical criticism. All I did was make the elementary, but important observation, that sociology--inclusive of sociorhetorical criticism--is not a neutral discipline which follows the evidence wherever it leads, but rather, comes to the table with certain presuppositions regarding human nature. This carries with it the danger of skewing the evidence to support a foregone conclusion, or ignoring contrary evidence. You shoehorn the evidence to squeeze into your preconceived notions. Remember Margaret Mead?
"Beyond this there is nothing of worth; this is yet more vague claptrap and well-poisoning, with no effort made to apply the statement to a specific claim of my own. Vague blatter about "essential generic mental attributes" may impress others, but it will not impress the informed."
i) Well, since Holding regards it as impertinent to ever question our sociorhetorical "betters," I wouldn't expect him to cultivate the critical thinking skills necessary to see the point of application. However, it goes directly to the central question of which is prior--thoughi or language? Now, if you let sociology do your thinking for you, then that commits you to the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate, in which case you treat language as prior to thought. If, however, you don't come to the table with that prior commitment, then you don't assume that the human mind is a blank slate, to be pencilled in by culture. And, barring that, you are then open to the possibility that language is a tool kit rather than permanent pair of tinted contact lens.
It is especially ironic that Holding attributes such godlike powers to sociolinguistic conditioning when Chomsky, the founding father of modern linguistics, is an essentialist rather than a nominalist.
Let us remember, too, that Holding always exempts himself from his own rule. He is the shining exception who can think outside the linguistic box our otherwise culture-bound existence.
ii) Since Holding subjugates the authority of Scripture to the latest academic fad in Bible criticism, I can see why he would be unimpressed by my comment on "essential generic mental attributes."
Scripture does not, however, treat the human mind as a tabula rasa to be inscribed by the general culture. Social conditioning has a role to play, but in directing rather than implanting our native predispositions. Indeed, the only reason you have certain cultural universals in the first place is due to certain essential generic mental attributes which reproduce themselves in every culture.
"Hays purposely confuses the issue, which is not that an argument from authority is valid or invalid, but that it is not logical, which was what White was indeed trying to claim. Here the appeal is to the authority of God; and that appeal, by its nature, is not logical, but it does transcend logic; much as any statement of fact ("that ball is red") isn't 'logical' Meanwhile Hays quietly dodges the real point, which he admits by his own explanation lacking defense: That indeed, Romans 9 is NOT a 'logical' argument in any sense of the word."
What a hopeless muddle! Validity and invalidity are logical categories. For Holding to drive a wedge between what is logical and what is valid betrays a pretty cloudy grasp of elementary logic.
How is an appeal to the authority of God "by its nature" not logical? How does it transcend logic? Does Holding think that God is irrational? If so, that might explain a lot about Holding's theology.
I, for myself, regard the God of the Bible as the exemplar of logic (e.g., Prov 3:19; Eph 3:10). And the Bible, as the word of God, is an inspired exemplum of God's logic.
I said: "In addition, Paul's reply is not limited to an argument from authority. In addition to that, he also invokes a theodicean rationale for election and reprobation (9:17,22-23; 11:32)."
He said: "That 'rationale' is fine but it remains that it is not a "logical" argument."
One of the problems here is that Holding fails to define his terms. I'd define a logical argument as a relation between two (or more) propositions in which one is offered as a supporting rationale for the truth of the other, or another. In general, logical arguments can either be inductive or deductive. To give a reason for an assertion is to mount an argument. The argument may or may not be sound, but that is the abstract form of a logical argument.
BTW, if any Christian is laboring under the misimpression that Scripture is unconcerned with logical reasoning, he should read "Jesus the Logician" by Dallas Willard:
< http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=39>
And since Dr. Willard happens to be a highly "credentialed" philosophy, I trust that Mr. Holding will be duly obsequious to his social "betters" in this regard.
"Hays was made aware of White's use of his material, and had some further comments we now address, except for some which he directed towards one of our consults, a seminarian noted above (though he did not pay close enough attention to see that it came from someone else, not from me)."
"Hays wrote more, though in reply to comments by a seminary student (which he mistakenly attributes to me)."
This is this a verbatim reproduction of my original quote:
"As one observer on TWeb -- a seminary student, as it happens -- puts it:
How is it that we appeal to Calvin over against the ECFs, who unambiguously took this to refer to man's ability to go against God's will? How about Origen (a native Greek speaker) who understood 20ff as being the part of an interlocuter [sic] and not being Paul's argument since it seemingly contradicts chapter 8."
As any halfway careful reader can see, I am quoting Holding quoting the seminary student. Holding's original attribution to the seminarian is embedded in the very snippet I quoted. Holding cites this, with evident approval, as a supporting argument for his own contention. It is, therefore, fair game.
Once again, I'm not the one who should have to reconnect Holding's own dots for him. If he's that easily confused he needs to slow down. Indeed, his entire reply would benefit from a less hectic response time--especially from one who is so ungenerous towards the dreaded bloggers.
i) Since the Augustinian tradition is a cornerstone of Calvinism, Augustine's personal experience with the patronage system is directly germane to the charge that Reformed theology has been superceded and falsified in light of sociorhetorical models of patronage, of which Reformed theology was sadly ignorant.
ii) Indeed, until the late 18C, every European culture was structured by a patronage system, for these were all aristocratic, monarchial, hierarchical societies. It was subject to various incidental refinements, such as feudalism, but it was a ubiquitous feature of social life, from Augustine through Anselm and Aquinas to Calvin and Reformed Scholasticism.
"The relation of d'Albret to Calvin is nothing like the relationship between the Father, Christ, and the believer as this model sees it. There was certainly nothing in the relationship to inform Calvin of the nature of Biblical patronage."
This commits a level-confusion. Holding is not beginning with the Trinity. Holding is beginning with Greco-Roman examples and extrapolating from that sociological phenomenon to a more abstract model, thus derived, which he then applies to the Trinity in relation to the believer.
"Neither Calvin nor Arminius, as far as may be seen, knew anything of Hebrew block logic."
Since Calvin knew his way around the Hebrew Bible, if he new nothing of Hebrew block logic, then that's only because there was nothing there to know.
I said: "And what is sociorhetorical criticism if not an extended exercise in block-logic? It treats people, not as individuals, but as social units."
He said: "What we have here is little more than an exercise in linguistic trickery as Hays attempts to equate treatment of people as social blocks with rhetorical presentation of ideas in the form of blocks."
Really, let the reader judge if this isn't a complete about-face from what he said before:
"This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with. More than that, I am not "extrapolating from one genre to psychology"; Hays has merely confused order of presentation for steps in argumentative progression. No, psychology is at the root; wisdom literature is merely the most clear expression of the block logic format that could be used for illustration purposes. This has nothing to do with genres per se. It remains that psychology is at the root, and thus the expression indeed would not be limited to genre, but appear in ALL genres, even epistles like Romans. Hays is once again badly misdirected. Moreover, ability to leap between genres is no pointer for being able to escape mental pathways."
Which is it? Is block-logic a merely "rhetorical presentation of ideas in the form of blocks." Or is block-logic the psychological root of which the rhetorical expression or presentation is merely the end-result?
"Hays mistakes objective investigation for 'on the fly' simply because I didn't deign to close my mind and pigeonhole myself into a Calvinist or Arminian straitjacket before presenting my findings."
This is simply a non sequitur with reference to his original claim that Holding has "the discipline to wait until he's finished with all his research before posting his findings."
Holding chose to launch an attack on Calvinism. Now, middle knowledge is discussed in such old Reformed standbys as Turretin (Institutes), Dabney (Systematic Theology), Chas Hodge (Systematic Theology), Bavinck (The Doctrine of God), and Berkhof (Systematic Theology), as well as such recent entries into the standard literature as Frame (Doctrine of God), Helm (The Providence of God), Grudem (Systematic Theology), and Reymond (New Systematic Theology). These vary in their quantity and quality of coverage, but they all discuss middle knowledge.
Far from waiting to completed his research before posting his "findings," it is now evident for all to see in light of his admitted ignorance, that Holding didn't conduct any serious research into the standard literature before posting his "findings." "Findings" of what? Imagine an astronomer announcing the discovery of a new star by gazing into a telescope with his eyes closed. Apparently Mr. Holding was just winging it all along--hoping that no one would notice.
Instead of research, what we see is a hectic game of catch-up, like a tardy Christmas shopper who shows up at the store five minutes before closing time.
And this is not the only point at which he has shifted his original ground. And far from keeping an open mind, he assumed an adversarial stance towards Calvinism despite his studied ignorance of Calvinism. This is not an open mind. To the contrary, that's the very definition of prejudice in action.
"This sounds so much like Farrell Till that it ought to frighten Hays, as it perhaps would if he knew who Till was. Like Hays, Till merely appeals to the spectre of diversity while missing the point: That the support of scholars demands that the position be taken seriously, not merely waved off with one-liners or blog paragraphs or namecalling ("that guy is a liberal"). Yet this is indeed all the likes of Hays and White are capable of when confronted with matters beyond their ken: Such it is that the buzzwords like "liberal" become grasped like security blankets as they suck on the thumbs of "exegesis" and rest in the comfort of their benighted ignorance, oblivious to the closing of the casket over their heads as the rest of the Christian world moves on beyond their stultified fundamentalism which does more harm than good, and aids and abets only the likes of KJV Onlyists and fundamentalist atheists."
Notice the extremely high ratio of invective in direct proportion to the extremely low ratio of reasoned argument. Indeed, it would be quite a challenge for a reader to salvage any reasoned argument from Holding's reply.
What I had said was: "Holding makes repeated appeal to 'credentialed scholars.' Now, since Holding is an intelligent man, I don't see the point of such a patently fallacious appeal. You can find credentialed representative for almost every position and opposing position. Reformed theology certainly has its share of credentialed scholars. So this appeal, which Holding reiterates ad nauseum, like a verbal talisman, is bereft of probative force."
How is the KVJ-only-cum-Farrell Till tirade the least bit responsive to my observation? Swearing like a sissy is no rebuttal to an honest counterargument.
"Hays is out of touch with the conception of fictive kinship in the ancient world, upon which all covenant and patronage relationships were grounded. There is no confusion except by Hays, in his ignorance of the social world of the NT: Note that my words come from a scholarly source, with which Hays once again does not deal seriously. "Compassion" DOES "select for" kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort, whether Hays likes it or not. If he thinks not, let him provide examples to show otherwise. It ought to be worth some yuks, since being unfamiliar with ancient principles of kinship he will no doubt unwittingly pick examples that only prove my point."
i) Notice how Holding takes the Biblical category of "covenant," and stretches it out of all recognition to apply, without distinction, to social bonding throughout the ancient world. This is not inductive exegesis.
ii) Oh, his words come from a "scholarly source." Notice that this is an argument from authority, which Holding elsewhere derides as a logical fallacy.
Unlike Holding, I distinguish between scholarly opinion and scholarly argument. Quoting the opinion of a scholar is not at all the same thing as mounting a reasoned argument. Holding offers assertions in place of arguments: proof by quotation.
What I know to know is the process of reasoning by which a scholar arrived at his conclusions. What evidence does he offer? What were his supporting arguments? That's the only intelligent way to sift through the welter of competing opinions.
Is it not striking that Holding defers so blindly to the logic of the sociorhetorical commentators while refusing to defer to the inspired logic of the book on which they comment? Says a lot about his priorities.
In any event, a bare argument from a fallible authority is of no use to adjudicate competing claims, for if we were conscience-bound to believe the last thing we read in some scholar or another, we'd change our creed every day of the week, and twice on Sundays.
iii) Holding seems not to have absorbed my distinction. So I guess we need to move back a few paces. A century ago, Frege drew a distinction between sense and reference. In his textbook example, the morning star and the evening star share a common referent (the planet Venus), but "the morning star" and the "evening star" don't mean the same thing. The bare meaning of the word "compassion," however we define it, does not pick out its denotae. The meaning functions like an abstract universal. The referent must be supplied by the concrete context. That is why you can plug different content into the same nouns and verbs.
"Being a member of a covenant community makes one fictive kin within that community. Hays is essentially saying that 'all relatives may be part of a family, but it hardly follows that all family members are relatives.' It is only ribald ignorance of the collectivist nature of the ancient world that enables such mouth-foaming blindness."
i) Note the gratuitous invective--"ribald ignorance"; "mouth-foaming blindness."
Yikes! I guess I better get a tetanus shot!
ii) And notice the patent equivocation, as if "collectivism" is interchangeable with a "covenant community." Holding has secularized the notion of covenant community.
It has been over forty years now since James Barr published his seminal work on The Semantics of Biblical Language, yet Holding continues to repristinate the old world=concept fallacy.
"Notice how Hays runs around the field of dirt looking for the perfectly level patch of sand to stick his head into… As for 'circular reasoning' that is yet another Tillism: It is the hapless plea of one incapable of addressing the scholastics on their own terms, such that they are constrained to denigrate and insult their intellectual betters and accuse them of fallacy, without having any knowledge of their scholarship or methodology. This will work well for the dazed and gullible who want only pious confirmation and Praise the Lord' shouted in the ears, but for those who actually want to understand the text in its contexts, it is merely a joke, and a bad one at that."
Observe, once more, how a parade of personal slurs does all the heavy-lifting in the absence of a single reasoned rebuttal. This is combined with another argument from authority--"their intellectual betters." Like a little dog behind the safety of a chain-link fence, Holding tries mightily to scare off the critic with a snarling barrage of lip-curling invective.
All I said was: "This, however, begs the very question at issue. Is sociorhetorical criticism the only prism through which we ought to read the Bible? He quotes sociorhetorical scholars to prove the primacy of sociorhetorical criticism. What a thoroughly vicious specimen of circular reasoning!"
I'll leave it to the reader to judge whether anything in Holding's reply is the least bit responsive to my precise objection.
For the record, I actually own a number of commentaries by sociorhetorical scholars--Kee, Keener, Malina, Witherington, as well as Wayne Meeks' inaugural monograph: The First Urban Christians.
I said: "Holding is sure that he is right, and White is wrong. How very dualistic of Mr. Holding! Doesn't Mr. Holding realize that he is in bondage to that ancient binary logic whereby either he is right or Dr. White is right? Isn't the time past due for Mr. Holding to emancipate himself from the quaint old law of bivalence? From these moldering old "polarities" of primitive thought?"
He said: "All of this is likewise a pretense for inserting a red herring into the pond: That I somehow argue by this that binary logic does not exist today when in fact the point is, and has been, that expression of dualism was much more pronounced in the ancient world, and among the Jews more particularly, than it is today among Western thinkers."
Once again, how is this responsive to the charge? Holding has been telling us that we are not bound by the logic of Scripture because this reflects a culture-bound "block-logic." Now he tries to reduce this qualitative distinction to a quantitative distinction between what was more common back then. But that skirts the real question. If binary reasoning is to be taken seriously whenever Holding uses it in an effort to disprove his opponents, then why is it not to be discounted as soon as Paul uses it to disprove his opponents?
Holding said: "White must show one of any of these things: Paul was not Hebrew or subject to Hebrew thought patterns; that he was one or both, but these passages are to be taken as exceptions for X reason."
I said: "But this is tendentious. Dr. White would only have to do so on the prior assumption that Paul's neuropathways moved in the groove of "Hebrew thought patterns." But why should Dr. White assume that Paul in particular, or Jews in general, were so intellectually inflexible?"
He said: "This ranks as truly one of the most idiotic questions of the age. Psyhcological [sic] science itself tells us that 'neuropathways' learned in childhood are extremely inflexible; however, that matter of psychology aside, it would remain that it would be the burden of the critic to show that a Paul diverged from a normal pathway for his background. My thesis works within what would be the normal pathways for a Paul. Calvinism does not, but insists upon meanings for words and concepts that a person like Paul would have had to change his mindset over in order to adopt."
I had accused Holding of begging the question. What is Holding's response? To beg the question all over again, as though, if you continue to beg the question, sooner or later that will escape the gravitational pull of your fallacious methodology.
Notice that Holding is still assuming that Paul was controlled by "Hebrew thought patterns," even though he has had to grant, under pressure, that he knows nothing specific about Paul's formative linguistic exposure.
But, what is doubly tendentious, Holding continues to make this assumption on behalf of Dr. White, and then put Dr. White into the dilemma of having to carve out an exception for Paul, as though this were a dilemma of White's own making, when anyone can see this is a set-up of Holding's sheer contrivance. In legal circles, this is known as framing the accused by planting evidence.
I said: "Sociorhetorical criticism, being a subdivision of sociology, shares the same bias as sociology. In the perennial nature/nurture debate, the so-called social sciences (sociology; anthropology) come down heavily on the nature side of the debate, treating the human mind as a blank slate which is pencilled in by culture. And, like any half-truth, there's some evidence for that."
He said: "Not much needs be said here; this is yet another imitation of the worst sort of atheists, who, when confronted with material they cannot refute, resort to charges of 'bias'"
If Holding is really that naïve, then it may go a long way in explaining why he's so star-struck by sociorhetorical criticism. All I did was make the elementary, but important observation, that sociology--inclusive of sociorhetorical criticism--is not a neutral discipline which follows the evidence wherever it leads, but rather, comes to the table with certain presuppositions regarding human nature. This carries with it the danger of skewing the evidence to support a foregone conclusion, or ignoring contrary evidence. You shoehorn the evidence to squeeze into your preconceived notions. Remember Margaret Mead?
"Beyond this there is nothing of worth; this is yet more vague claptrap and well-poisoning, with no effort made to apply the statement to a specific claim of my own. Vague blatter about "essential generic mental attributes" may impress others, but it will not impress the informed."
i) Well, since Holding regards it as impertinent to ever question our sociorhetorical "betters," I wouldn't expect him to cultivate the critical thinking skills necessary to see the point of application. However, it goes directly to the central question of which is prior--thoughi or language? Now, if you let sociology do your thinking for you, then that commits you to the nurture side of the nature/nurture debate, in which case you treat language as prior to thought. If, however, you don't come to the table with that prior commitment, then you don't assume that the human mind is a blank slate, to be pencilled in by culture. And, barring that, you are then open to the possibility that language is a tool kit rather than permanent pair of tinted contact lens.
It is especially ironic that Holding attributes such godlike powers to sociolinguistic conditioning when Chomsky, the founding father of modern linguistics, is an essentialist rather than a nominalist.
Let us remember, too, that Holding always exempts himself from his own rule. He is the shining exception who can think outside the linguistic box our otherwise culture-bound existence.
ii) Since Holding subjugates the authority of Scripture to the latest academic fad in Bible criticism, I can see why he would be unimpressed by my comment on "essential generic mental attributes."
Scripture does not, however, treat the human mind as a tabula rasa to be inscribed by the general culture. Social conditioning has a role to play, but in directing rather than implanting our native predispositions. Indeed, the only reason you have certain cultural universals in the first place is due to certain essential generic mental attributes which reproduce themselves in every culture.
"Hays purposely confuses the issue, which is not that an argument from authority is valid or invalid, but that it is not logical, which was what White was indeed trying to claim. Here the appeal is to the authority of God; and that appeal, by its nature, is not logical, but it does transcend logic; much as any statement of fact ("that ball is red") isn't 'logical' Meanwhile Hays quietly dodges the real point, which he admits by his own explanation lacking defense: That indeed, Romans 9 is NOT a 'logical' argument in any sense of the word."
What a hopeless muddle! Validity and invalidity are logical categories. For Holding to drive a wedge between what is logical and what is valid betrays a pretty cloudy grasp of elementary logic.
How is an appeal to the authority of God "by its nature" not logical? How does it transcend logic? Does Holding think that God is irrational? If so, that might explain a lot about Holding's theology.
I, for myself, regard the God of the Bible as the exemplar of logic (e.g., Prov 3:19; Eph 3:10). And the Bible, as the word of God, is an inspired exemplum of God's logic.
I said: "In addition, Paul's reply is not limited to an argument from authority. In addition to that, he also invokes a theodicean rationale for election and reprobation (9:17,22-23; 11:32)."
He said: "That 'rationale' is fine but it remains that it is not a "logical" argument."
One of the problems here is that Holding fails to define his terms. I'd define a logical argument as a relation between two (or more) propositions in which one is offered as a supporting rationale for the truth of the other, or another. In general, logical arguments can either be inductive or deductive. To give a reason for an assertion is to mount an argument. The argument may or may not be sound, but that is the abstract form of a logical argument.
BTW, if any Christian is laboring under the misimpression that Scripture is unconcerned with logical reasoning, he should read "Jesus the Logician" by Dallas Willard:
< http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=39>
And since Dr. Willard happens to be a highly "credentialed" philosophy, I trust that Mr. Holding will be duly obsequious to his social "betters" in this regard.
"Hays was made aware of White's use of his material, and had some further comments we now address, except for some which he directed towards one of our consults, a seminarian noted above (though he did not pay close enough attention to see that it came from someone else, not from me)."
"Hays wrote more, though in reply to comments by a seminary student (which he mistakenly attributes to me)."
This is this a verbatim reproduction of my original quote:
"As one observer on TWeb -- a seminary student, as it happens -- puts it:
How is it that we appeal to Calvin over against the ECFs, who unambiguously took this to refer to man's ability to go against God's will? How about Origen (a native Greek speaker) who understood 20ff as being the part of an interlocuter [sic] and not being Paul's argument since it seemingly contradicts chapter 8."
As any halfway careful reader can see, I am quoting Holding quoting the seminary student. Holding's original attribution to the seminarian is embedded in the very snippet I quoted. Holding cites this, with evident approval, as a supporting argument for his own contention. It is, therefore, fair game.
Once again, I'm not the one who should have to reconnect Holding's own dots for him. If he's that easily confused he needs to slow down. Indeed, his entire reply would benefit from a less hectic response time--especially from one who is so ungenerous towards the dreaded bloggers.
Holding v. Hays-2
"No one said anything about 'earning' God's covenant promises."
Really? Let's go back to back to my verbatim quote of Holding: "To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us.' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
There you have it. Earning God's favor and thereby casting God in the role of debtor. And this line of reasoning runs directly counter to Rom 4:1-4. If that's a representative slice of sociorhetorical criticism (Pilch & Malina), then so much the worse for sociorhetorical criticism. I choose to line up behind Paul, not against him.
Or is Holding going to stake out the compromise position--a la Rome, Sanders--that we're saved by grace, but kept by works?
"Beyond this I will claim responsibility for an error: I did mix up client and patron in the last sentence. This is now corrected."
Okay, so Holding now admits he misspoke. Fine. That can happen to anyone. But a reader can only judge him by what he actually said, not what he meant to say but failed to say. Why take such umbrage when a reader takes him at his word? If he mispoke, is that the reader's fault?
"That's nice. So what? As noted, I had no idea that I was offering Molinism when I first wrote this. The key issue is, can Hays (or anyone) show that the illustration is wrong? What does he deny? Does he deny that God was free to choose among possible worlds to create? Does he say that God's knowledge forces us to do things? What is it he wants to actually criticize? Is he indeed capable of more than throwing around vague references?"
The illustration is wrong on many counts, but let's confine ourselves to four:
i) Even if Molinism were true, toying with Molinism is not the same as doing exegesis on Rom 9. Let Holding cite even one of his precious sociorhetorical critics who uses Molinism to exegete Rom 9.
ii) Rom 9:11 rules out the possibility that election and reprobation are based on what the objects of election and reprobation would or would not have done.
iii) If you posit libertarian freewill, then God cannot know what an agent will do in any given situation; for if an agent has libertarian freewill, then he can do otherwise in any given situation.
Incidentally, libertarian freewill is scarcely compatible with an Evangelical doctrine of sin--to which Holding is nominally committed.
iv) Holding is acting as though possible worlds were a mail-order catalog from which God makes his choice. This conjures up the specter of preexistence, as if God inherited this catalog as a family heirloom. These possible persons already exist, apart from God, like autonomous storybook characters. God's job is simply to choose which ones to activate--based on what they would freely do, given the chance.
But that is highly unorthodox. A possible person has whatever properties that God mentally assigns to him. God knows what "it" would do because God knows what "he" would do "with" it. This is not, then, a model of libertarian freewill.
"Sorry, but John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection. We have already answered this point above, and vague references to a huge book are not answers."
i) No, the burden is not on me, but Holding. Holding is the one who is making breezy generalizations about the linguistic culture of the NT writers, and, furthermore, extrapolating from that to specific points of exegesis. In order to make good on this claim he would need to do the following:
a) Establish his general claim
b) Establish his specific application.
ii) Holding does neither. Referring the reader to a standard reference work on the diverse linguistic milieu of 1C Jews is certainly germane to the general claim.
iii) Incidentally, Holding is quite willing to make vague references to book-length monographs when he happens to think it serves his own purpose.
iv) In addition, let the reader note that Holding cites no sociorhetorical commentator, or any other commentator, who applies the grammatical analysis of Jer 7:22 to Rom 9. All that Holding has done is to prop up one unsubstantiated claim by another unsubstantiated claim.
"Even multi-lingual persons retain the affectations of their native tongue."
This assumes that multi-lingual speakers have a single native language. Some do, some don't. Some grow up in homes where more than one language is heard from the cradle.
Some emigrate at an age where they're too young to have fully mastered their mother tongue, but too old to fully master a second language. Some emigrate at an age where they become more proficient in a second language than their mother tongue.
"The same for Paul, though the degree of interference would vary, and be in accord with factors about the life of Moses and Paul about which we have little information."
Let the reader take careful note of this admission. Holding had just said that "John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection."
Now, however, he is forced to backtrack with the admission that he knows nothing about the particulars of Paul's linguistic formation--or, for that matter, that of Paul's audience. So Holding's interpretation of Rom 9 turns on a very specific claim of linguistic interference for which, by his own tardy admission, he has, and can have, no specific evidence whatsoever.
"How this works out is not explained. Hays is obviously oblivious to the virtues of native informants to say nothing of being pompously denigrating to the work of scholars like Wilson."
Holding said this in reference to the following comment of mine: "Holding's thesis is self-refuting. If it's impossible for one linguistic community to get inside the mind of another linguistic community, then it is impossible for Holding to get inside the 'block-logic' of a 1C Jew."
i) Actually, I thought my statement self-explanatory. Holding insists that Paul cannot think outside the box of his linguistic culture--such is the power which Holding attributes to social conditioning. Yet Holding magically exempts himself from social conditioning. He is confident that he can think outside the box of his own linguistic culture--that he, as a native English-speaker, can comment objective on the linguistic box of a Hebrew speaker, or Greek speaker, or Latin speaker.
ii) Let us add that Wilson is the product of a very different linguistic culture than a 1C Jewish native of Tarsus who was educated in pre-70 AD Jerusalem.
iii) This is not the first time or the last that Holding will take refuge in an argument from authority. His appeal to Wilson is a classic argument from authority. Yet Holding himself brands such an appeal to be a logical fallacy. So my "pompous denigration" consists in not committing a logical fallacy.
Incidentally, if Holding is going to indulge in so much invective, he could at least learn a few synonyms so that he doesn't draw attention to his limited vocabulary. Instead of using "pompous" so often, why not vary the invective a little with such synonyms as "stuffy," "pontifical," "inflated," "swollen," "bloated," "turgid" and the like. That way, what he lacks in logic, he makes up for in style.
"So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?"
i) I don't have to explain the negation in Jer 7:22, because that is irrelevant to the interpretation of Rom 9:16. I could stipulate to Whitney's interpretation of Jer 7:22 without assuming that this in any way colors the usage of Rom 9:16.
ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we did apply it to Rom 9:16? To what would the first clause be relative? What would supply the comparative? Why, the second clause, of course: "So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." The Reformed interpretation remains totally intact. Nothing is changed by this maneuver. No theological readjustment is required. Things stand exactly as they were before. So all of Holding's house-that-jack-built reasoning is still for naught.
"Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the 'works of the flesh' and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as 'mental acts' I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts.
Oh, what about "jealousy" (Gr.=zelos), for one. That's an attitude, a mental act--not the outworking thereof. It may well issue in some concrete form of expression, but that is not the essence of it. Indeed, it is just because a sinful attitude need not translate into a sinful deed that the NT warns the believer that even unconsummated attitudes can still be sinful.
Holding said: "Since a linear or logical order requires the passage of time to exist and be enacted."
To which I said: "A logical order is an abstract object, not a concrete, spatiotemporal object."
To which he said: "What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort."
Holding has a problem connecting his own dots. He said that a logical order requires the passage of time to exist. I countered that a logical order is an abstract object; as such, it subsists outside of space and time. He then says: "What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort."
The point of all this is that he made a claim about a logical order--to whit: it requires the passage of time to exist. This I denied by pointing out that a logical order is an abstract object. That is directly responsive to his claim.
Now he says he said nothing of the sort? To what does the negation now apply? Does he affirm or deny that a logical order is a temporal order? If he denies it, then he denies his own statement to the contrary. If he affirms it, then he needs to explain how a logical order is and must be a temporal order--and how that related to God. Is Holding a nominalist? Does he deny the existence of abstract objects like the laws of logic? If so, then there are no universals, including logical relations.
This came on the heels of his statement that "'To speak of God doing A "because" of B implies a chain of causality that would be impossible for a being who transcends time."
But this confuses causes with reasons. Scripture often says that God does A because of B. That doesn't imply a causal chain. It just means that God is an agent who has reasons for what he does.
"There's no 'trick question' here, Hays' paranoid suspicions notwithstanding. But at least he does admit that there is no detraction from sovereignty."
Sometimes you have to wonder of Holding is uncomprehending or unscrupulous. Did I admit there's no detraction from sovereignty? This is what I said:
"If God could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions, then that would not detract from his sovereignty. But this assumes the very answer at issue. You might as well ask if a painter can paint part of the canvass, then let the canvass fill in the gaps. A painting doesn't paint itself. Holding has no doctrine of creation. If a painter leaves the canvass half-finished, it stays half-finished."
What I obviously and explicitly said is that God's sovereignty would not be compromised if, in deistic fashion, he could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions. I then proceeded to argue that this proviso would not suffice to accomplish his purpose. I proposed a hypothetical in order to debunk it. Is Holding unable to grasp this standard form of argument? I think Holding is smarter than that. The alternative explanation is that Holding, in order to seize a specious tactical advantage, pretends that carefully caveated reply amounts to the tacit admission that his position is basically correct.
"In the meantime Hays' own answer assumes the very answer at issue, that we are equitable to a canvass. What if the painter used a canvass that was partially composed of nanobots that finished the painting for him?"
So Holding concedes that a painting doesn't paint itself. And he retreats into the postulate of nanorobotic painters. But that is just a shell-game which only pushes the original problem back a step and proceeds to camouflage the evasion with a proxy painter. So he still has no doctrine of creation.
"A long quote follows from what I say about deSilva, grace, and faith. Hays' first reply speaks for itself:
i) I've only read the first chapter of DeSilva's book. The experience did not inspire me to intensify my acquaintance. There is nothing revolutionary here. It's a rehash of commonplace sociological concepts like shame culture/guilt culture, ascribed/achieved status, &c. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's hardly breaking any new ground.
The ostrich mentality requires no further comment. This also bespeaks the ostrich mentality."
Notice that Holding does absolutely nothing here to rebut my summary of DeSilva. In the absence of a rebuttal, my summary stands unchallenged.
I said: "Claims that the shame culture rubric represents the 'primary axis of value' among 1C Christians and Jews. He offers next to nothing to substantiate this claim. He cites all of three little verses from Proverbs, plus a lot of stuff from the OT Apocrypha. Most of his supporting data comes, not from Scripture, but Greco-Roman writers."
Holding answers: "In other words, Hays wishes to promulgate the asinine supposition that Scripture existed in a vacuum insulated from its primary culture and context. Let that speak for itself."
Notice how this begs the very question of what constitutes the "primary culture and context" of Scripture, as if the OT as a whole were secondary to the context of the NT. You only have to run through all of the quotes and allusions to the OT in the NT to discern the fatal inadequacy of Holding's preemptory dismissal.
"Nothing is done here but an enormous begging of the question, one that refuses to accept the definition of "grace" as it was known by contemporaries of the text. Beyond that it is too non-specific to reply to."
i) When NT writers like Paul define the nature of grace, they go back to OT models.
ii) Notice, on Holding's reckoning, how the NT is unable to challenge prevailing pagan mores. For, from Holding's perspective, the NT is dependent on the contemporary culture to supply the conceptual framework.
I said: "A client-patron paradigm is so generic that it would be an easy matter to formulate a Reformed client-patron model, or a Pelagian model, or Deist model, or Muslim model, or Hindu model, or Catholic model, or what have you. A patron can make a donation, demanding nothing in return--or a loan, demanding repayment with interest."
Holding said: "If it is an 'easy matter' then let's see Hays work each of these out. Merely bragging that it can be done is just bluster; even more so to claim it and not make any sort of application."
Why should I reinvent the wheel? It's already been done. I was assuming that Holding, as a Christian apologist, would know enough comparative religion that he could fill in the blanks for himself. For example, Hinduism has its patron gods while Catholicism has its patron saints. Indeed, the cult of the saints, with Mary as Mediatrix, and the whole indulgence racket, is a classic example of a patronage system. And it dovetails perfectly with Holding's idea of earning spiritual bonus points. If Holding really believes that salvation is a quid-pro-quo, then he's a stranger to grace.
"The matter of guilt of innocence in clients is an irrelevancy in context; it has to do with the reason and basis for the offer of patronage, not with the structure of the relationship itself."
The matter of guilt or innocence is highly relevant if, as Holding does, you define "mercy" as "a request to pay back previously earned favor."
Sinners cannot earn God's favor because…well…because they are sinners. That's why grace is unmerited favor.
I said: "To talk about degrees of regeneration evinces conceptual confusion."
Holding said: " Why this is so is not explained."
I didn't explain it because Holding, as a Christian apologist, ought to know the basic meaning of stock theological terms. Holding is, of course, at liberty to redefine terms and invest them with an idiosyncratic meaning, but dogmatic usage uses words in a well-entrenched sense. Unlike ordinary usage, technical usage is loaded.
I said: "Yes, you can redefine faith as infused grace ('the gift of fidelity'). This is Romanism. And it fails to do justice to the vicarious character of justification, as articulated by Paul.
He said: "If it is Romanism, so be it; nevertheless applying tags of bigotry and buzzwords guaranteed to upset the Calvinist is not an answer. The remainder is yet again non-specific and deserves no answer."
I said: "No, a human patron cannot engender faith. News flash--God can do things man cannot!"
He said: "News flash in reply: If this refers to Eph. 2:8-9, then the 'faith' there is not ours, but God's loyalty to us."
Okay, let my confess that I may have misjudged Holding's position. I was assuming all along that Holding is an Evangelical Christian. Hence, I was assuming some measure of common ground. That is what one tries to do in dialogue. You use certain shared beliefs as a benchmark.
Now, Holding has offered, with a few codicils, the doctrinal standard of Campus Crusade for Christ as expressive of his own personal creed:
Now, this is what it says in matters of soteriology:
"He [Christ] lived a sinless life and voluntarily atoned for the sins of men by dying on the cross as their substitute, thus satisfying divine justice and accomplishing salvation for all who trust in Him alone.
"The salvation of man is wholly a work of God's free grace and is not the work, in whole or in part, of human works or goodness or religious ceremony. God imputes His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, and thereby justified them in His sight."
Here you have a classic restatement of classic 16C Reformation theology: of vicarious atonement, penal substitution, sola gratia, and sola fide.
This is all directly and deliberately opposed to synergism; to mercy as "a request to pay back previously earned favor"; to faith as "not ours, but God's loyalty to us"; to guilt as "irrelevant" to the way in which the relation between God and man is structured; to God as our "debtor," and we his "clients;" to grace as obligatory "beyond the first round of 'gracing,'" &c.
So I publicly apologize to Mr. Holding for besmirching his character by giving him by benefit of the doubt, by assuming that he says what he means and means what he says, that he doesn't palter in a double sense or affirm an Evangelical statement of faith with fingers firmly crossed behind his back.
Really? Let's go back to back to my verbatim quote of Holding: "To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us.' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."
There you have it. Earning God's favor and thereby casting God in the role of debtor. And this line of reasoning runs directly counter to Rom 4:1-4. If that's a representative slice of sociorhetorical criticism (Pilch & Malina), then so much the worse for sociorhetorical criticism. I choose to line up behind Paul, not against him.
Or is Holding going to stake out the compromise position--a la Rome, Sanders--that we're saved by grace, but kept by works?
"Beyond this I will claim responsibility for an error: I did mix up client and patron in the last sentence. This is now corrected."
Okay, so Holding now admits he misspoke. Fine. That can happen to anyone. But a reader can only judge him by what he actually said, not what he meant to say but failed to say. Why take such umbrage when a reader takes him at his word? If he mispoke, is that the reader's fault?
"That's nice. So what? As noted, I had no idea that I was offering Molinism when I first wrote this. The key issue is, can Hays (or anyone) show that the illustration is wrong? What does he deny? Does he deny that God was free to choose among possible worlds to create? Does he say that God's knowledge forces us to do things? What is it he wants to actually criticize? Is he indeed capable of more than throwing around vague references?"
The illustration is wrong on many counts, but let's confine ourselves to four:
i) Even if Molinism were true, toying with Molinism is not the same as doing exegesis on Rom 9. Let Holding cite even one of his precious sociorhetorical critics who uses Molinism to exegete Rom 9.
ii) Rom 9:11 rules out the possibility that election and reprobation are based on what the objects of election and reprobation would or would not have done.
iii) If you posit libertarian freewill, then God cannot know what an agent will do in any given situation; for if an agent has libertarian freewill, then he can do otherwise in any given situation.
Incidentally, libertarian freewill is scarcely compatible with an Evangelical doctrine of sin--to which Holding is nominally committed.
iv) Holding is acting as though possible worlds were a mail-order catalog from which God makes his choice. This conjures up the specter of preexistence, as if God inherited this catalog as a family heirloom. These possible persons already exist, apart from God, like autonomous storybook characters. God's job is simply to choose which ones to activate--based on what they would freely do, given the chance.
But that is highly unorthodox. A possible person has whatever properties that God mentally assigns to him. God knows what "it" would do because God knows what "he" would do "with" it. This is not, then, a model of libertarian freewill.
"Sorry, but John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection. We have already answered this point above, and vague references to a huge book are not answers."
i) No, the burden is not on me, but Holding. Holding is the one who is making breezy generalizations about the linguistic culture of the NT writers, and, furthermore, extrapolating from that to specific points of exegesis. In order to make good on this claim he would need to do the following:
a) Establish his general claim
b) Establish his specific application.
ii) Holding does neither. Referring the reader to a standard reference work on the diverse linguistic milieu of 1C Jews is certainly germane to the general claim.
iii) Incidentally, Holding is quite willing to make vague references to book-length monographs when he happens to think it serves his own purpose.
iv) In addition, let the reader note that Holding cites no sociorhetorical commentator, or any other commentator, who applies the grammatical analysis of Jer 7:22 to Rom 9. All that Holding has done is to prop up one unsubstantiated claim by another unsubstantiated claim.
"Even multi-lingual persons retain the affectations of their native tongue."
This assumes that multi-lingual speakers have a single native language. Some do, some don't. Some grow up in homes where more than one language is heard from the cradle.
Some emigrate at an age where they're too young to have fully mastered their mother tongue, but too old to fully master a second language. Some emigrate at an age where they become more proficient in a second language than their mother tongue.
"The same for Paul, though the degree of interference would vary, and be in accord with factors about the life of Moses and Paul about which we have little information."
Let the reader take careful note of this admission. Holding had just said that "John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection."
Now, however, he is forced to backtrack with the admission that he knows nothing about the particulars of Paul's linguistic formation--or, for that matter, that of Paul's audience. So Holding's interpretation of Rom 9 turns on a very specific claim of linguistic interference for which, by his own tardy admission, he has, and can have, no specific evidence whatsoever.
"How this works out is not explained. Hays is obviously oblivious to the virtues of native informants to say nothing of being pompously denigrating to the work of scholars like Wilson."
Holding said this in reference to the following comment of mine: "Holding's thesis is self-refuting. If it's impossible for one linguistic community to get inside the mind of another linguistic community, then it is impossible for Holding to get inside the 'block-logic' of a 1C Jew."
i) Actually, I thought my statement self-explanatory. Holding insists that Paul cannot think outside the box of his linguistic culture--such is the power which Holding attributes to social conditioning. Yet Holding magically exempts himself from social conditioning. He is confident that he can think outside the box of his own linguistic culture--that he, as a native English-speaker, can comment objective on the linguistic box of a Hebrew speaker, or Greek speaker, or Latin speaker.
ii) Let us add that Wilson is the product of a very different linguistic culture than a 1C Jewish native of Tarsus who was educated in pre-70 AD Jerusalem.
iii) This is not the first time or the last that Holding will take refuge in an argument from authority. His appeal to Wilson is a classic argument from authority. Yet Holding himself brands such an appeal to be a logical fallacy. So my "pompous denigration" consists in not committing a logical fallacy.
Incidentally, if Holding is going to indulge in so much invective, he could at least learn a few synonyms so that he doesn't draw attention to his limited vocabulary. Instead of using "pompous" so often, why not vary the invective a little with such synonyms as "stuffy," "pontifical," "inflated," "swollen," "bloated," "turgid" and the like. That way, what he lacks in logic, he makes up for in style.
"So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?"
i) I don't have to explain the negation in Jer 7:22, because that is irrelevant to the interpretation of Rom 9:16. I could stipulate to Whitney's interpretation of Jer 7:22 without assuming that this in any way colors the usage of Rom 9:16.
ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we did apply it to Rom 9:16? To what would the first clause be relative? What would supply the comparative? Why, the second clause, of course: "So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." The Reformed interpretation remains totally intact. Nothing is changed by this maneuver. No theological readjustment is required. Things stand exactly as they were before. So all of Holding's house-that-jack-built reasoning is still for naught.
"Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the 'works of the flesh' and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as 'mental acts' I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts.
Oh, what about "jealousy" (Gr.=zelos), for one. That's an attitude, a mental act--not the outworking thereof. It may well issue in some concrete form of expression, but that is not the essence of it. Indeed, it is just because a sinful attitude need not translate into a sinful deed that the NT warns the believer that even unconsummated attitudes can still be sinful.
Holding said: "Since a linear or logical order requires the passage of time to exist and be enacted."
To which I said: "A logical order is an abstract object, not a concrete, spatiotemporal object."
To which he said: "What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort."
Holding has a problem connecting his own dots. He said that a logical order requires the passage of time to exist. I countered that a logical order is an abstract object; as such, it subsists outside of space and time. He then says: "What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort."
The point of all this is that he made a claim about a logical order--to whit: it requires the passage of time to exist. This I denied by pointing out that a logical order is an abstract object. That is directly responsive to his claim.
Now he says he said nothing of the sort? To what does the negation now apply? Does he affirm or deny that a logical order is a temporal order? If he denies it, then he denies his own statement to the contrary. If he affirms it, then he needs to explain how a logical order is and must be a temporal order--and how that related to God. Is Holding a nominalist? Does he deny the existence of abstract objects like the laws of logic? If so, then there are no universals, including logical relations.
This came on the heels of his statement that "'To speak of God doing A "because" of B implies a chain of causality that would be impossible for a being who transcends time."
But this confuses causes with reasons. Scripture often says that God does A because of B. That doesn't imply a causal chain. It just means that God is an agent who has reasons for what he does.
"There's no 'trick question' here, Hays' paranoid suspicions notwithstanding. But at least he does admit that there is no detraction from sovereignty."
Sometimes you have to wonder of Holding is uncomprehending or unscrupulous. Did I admit there's no detraction from sovereignty? This is what I said:
"If God could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions, then that would not detract from his sovereignty. But this assumes the very answer at issue. You might as well ask if a painter can paint part of the canvass, then let the canvass fill in the gaps. A painting doesn't paint itself. Holding has no doctrine of creation. If a painter leaves the canvass half-finished, it stays half-finished."
What I obviously and explicitly said is that God's sovereignty would not be compromised if, in deistic fashion, he could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions. I then proceeded to argue that this proviso would not suffice to accomplish his purpose. I proposed a hypothetical in order to debunk it. Is Holding unable to grasp this standard form of argument? I think Holding is smarter than that. The alternative explanation is that Holding, in order to seize a specious tactical advantage, pretends that carefully caveated reply amounts to the tacit admission that his position is basically correct.
"In the meantime Hays' own answer assumes the very answer at issue, that we are equitable to a canvass. What if the painter used a canvass that was partially composed of nanobots that finished the painting for him?"
So Holding concedes that a painting doesn't paint itself. And he retreats into the postulate of nanorobotic painters. But that is just a shell-game which only pushes the original problem back a step and proceeds to camouflage the evasion with a proxy painter. So he still has no doctrine of creation.
"A long quote follows from what I say about deSilva, grace, and faith. Hays' first reply speaks for itself:
i) I've only read the first chapter of DeSilva's book. The experience did not inspire me to intensify my acquaintance. There is nothing revolutionary here. It's a rehash of commonplace sociological concepts like shame culture/guilt culture, ascribed/achieved status, &c. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's hardly breaking any new ground.
The ostrich mentality requires no further comment. This also bespeaks the ostrich mentality."
Notice that Holding does absolutely nothing here to rebut my summary of DeSilva. In the absence of a rebuttal, my summary stands unchallenged.
I said: "Claims that the shame culture rubric represents the 'primary axis of value' among 1C Christians and Jews. He offers next to nothing to substantiate this claim. He cites all of three little verses from Proverbs, plus a lot of stuff from the OT Apocrypha. Most of his supporting data comes, not from Scripture, but Greco-Roman writers."
Holding answers: "In other words, Hays wishes to promulgate the asinine supposition that Scripture existed in a vacuum insulated from its primary culture and context. Let that speak for itself."
Notice how this begs the very question of what constitutes the "primary culture and context" of Scripture, as if the OT as a whole were secondary to the context of the NT. You only have to run through all of the quotes and allusions to the OT in the NT to discern the fatal inadequacy of Holding's preemptory dismissal.
"Nothing is done here but an enormous begging of the question, one that refuses to accept the definition of "grace" as it was known by contemporaries of the text. Beyond that it is too non-specific to reply to."
i) When NT writers like Paul define the nature of grace, they go back to OT models.
ii) Notice, on Holding's reckoning, how the NT is unable to challenge prevailing pagan mores. For, from Holding's perspective, the NT is dependent on the contemporary culture to supply the conceptual framework.
I said: "A client-patron paradigm is so generic that it would be an easy matter to formulate a Reformed client-patron model, or a Pelagian model, or Deist model, or Muslim model, or Hindu model, or Catholic model, or what have you. A patron can make a donation, demanding nothing in return--or a loan, demanding repayment with interest."
Holding said: "If it is an 'easy matter' then let's see Hays work each of these out. Merely bragging that it can be done is just bluster; even more so to claim it and not make any sort of application."
Why should I reinvent the wheel? It's already been done. I was assuming that Holding, as a Christian apologist, would know enough comparative religion that he could fill in the blanks for himself. For example, Hinduism has its patron gods while Catholicism has its patron saints. Indeed, the cult of the saints, with Mary as Mediatrix, and the whole indulgence racket, is a classic example of a patronage system. And it dovetails perfectly with Holding's idea of earning spiritual bonus points. If Holding really believes that salvation is a quid-pro-quo, then he's a stranger to grace.
"The matter of guilt of innocence in clients is an irrelevancy in context; it has to do with the reason and basis for the offer of patronage, not with the structure of the relationship itself."
The matter of guilt or innocence is highly relevant if, as Holding does, you define "mercy" as "a request to pay back previously earned favor."
Sinners cannot earn God's favor because…well…because they are sinners. That's why grace is unmerited favor.
I said: "To talk about degrees of regeneration evinces conceptual confusion."
Holding said: " Why this is so is not explained."
I didn't explain it because Holding, as a Christian apologist, ought to know the basic meaning of stock theological terms. Holding is, of course, at liberty to redefine terms and invest them with an idiosyncratic meaning, but dogmatic usage uses words in a well-entrenched sense. Unlike ordinary usage, technical usage is loaded.
I said: "Yes, you can redefine faith as infused grace ('the gift of fidelity'). This is Romanism. And it fails to do justice to the vicarious character of justification, as articulated by Paul.
He said: "If it is Romanism, so be it; nevertheless applying tags of bigotry and buzzwords guaranteed to upset the Calvinist is not an answer. The remainder is yet again non-specific and deserves no answer."
I said: "No, a human patron cannot engender faith. News flash--God can do things man cannot!"
He said: "News flash in reply: If this refers to Eph. 2:8-9, then the 'faith' there is not ours, but God's loyalty to us."
Okay, let my confess that I may have misjudged Holding's position. I was assuming all along that Holding is an Evangelical Christian. Hence, I was assuming some measure of common ground. That is what one tries to do in dialogue. You use certain shared beliefs as a benchmark.
Now, Holding has offered, with a few codicils, the doctrinal standard of Campus Crusade for Christ as expressive of his own personal creed:
Now, this is what it says in matters of soteriology:
"He [Christ] lived a sinless life and voluntarily atoned for the sins of men by dying on the cross as their substitute, thus satisfying divine justice and accomplishing salvation for all who trust in Him alone.
"The salvation of man is wholly a work of God's free grace and is not the work, in whole or in part, of human works or goodness or religious ceremony. God imputes His righteousness to those who put their faith in Christ alone for their salvation, and thereby justified them in His sight."
Here you have a classic restatement of classic 16C Reformation theology: of vicarious atonement, penal substitution, sola gratia, and sola fide.
This is all directly and deliberately opposed to synergism; to mercy as "a request to pay back previously earned favor"; to faith as "not ours, but God's loyalty to us"; to guilt as "irrelevant" to the way in which the relation between God and man is structured; to God as our "debtor," and we his "clients;" to grace as obligatory "beyond the first round of 'gracing,'" &c.
So I publicly apologize to Mr. Holding for besmirching his character by giving him by benefit of the doubt, by assuming that he says what he means and means what he says, that he doesn't palter in a double sense or affirm an Evangelical statement of faith with fingers firmly crossed behind his back.
Holding v. Hays-1
J. P. Holding has responded to my recent comments. Except where otherwise stated, his replies will be in quotation marks.
"He [Hays] as much as admits his inability to deal with the case holistically as he too deigns to deal with only what he calls "major arguments." This is a grave mistake, as with White."
I, of course, admit no such thing. It is no more of a "grave mistake" for me to be selective in what I choose to comment on with respect to Holding than it is a grave mistake for him to be selective in what he comments on with respect to his book reviews. I'm simply exercising rational discrimination, which I happen to regard as an intellectual virtue. And I'll exercise the same rational discrimination in this reply.
"It didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in."
Notice the gratuitous invective.
"Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context -- there is no "even if" about this; it is a recognized, endorsed concept noted by social science and anthropological scholars, supported by the consensus -- but more than that, there is the pompously arrogant designation of what I offer as not being "exegesis" simply because it appeals to an external."
i) I'm waiting to see Holding cite one sociorhetorical scholar who interprets Rom 9 in Aristotelian categories.
ii) As to the "pompously arrogant" designation (note the gratuitous invective), Holding did not "simply appeal to an external."
Neither White nor I would deny the potential legitimacy of background material. But to begin with, not all "externals" are relevant to the text. The Religionsgeschichte Schule (e.g., Bultmann; Bousset) was very fond of appealing to "externals" to "exegete" the text of Scripture.
In addition, Holding did a lot more than merely appeal to a high/low context. Remember his exact words: "we would not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by Paul -- because such an 'explanation expectation' would be the product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one, like Paul's."
i) Holding has drawn an antithetical distinction between a "Hebrew high-context mind" like Paul's and a "Western low-context mind," then uses the Western context to exegete Rom 9. So he employs an interpretive grid which, by his own definition, cuts against the grain of the text. He is invoking a distinction in opposition to Pauline thought, and then imposing that on the text. In the nature of the case, this would directly subvert original intent. No, this is not exegesis. This is classic Scripture-twisting.
ii) I'd add that even if, for the same of argument, we were to redirect the Pauline argument through Aristotelian channels, that would only replace one form of determinism with another inasmuch as primary causality is efficacious as well, which is why Aquinas was just as predestinarian as Augustine.
"But that he [Hays] admits that the point is nevertheless overall correct speaks for itself."
Once again I did nothing of the kind. I said that Wilson was guilty of exaggeration, and I offered a counterexample to show that it all depends on the target audience.
"That's very nice, but if anything, this only tends to support my point. 'Disorderly and circuitous' is precisely how a Greek mind would see expressions of block logic. Mental horsepower isn't germane to the particular of expression I cited, so it ends up that Hays only ends up proving my point with his displaced quotation."
The precise point of contrast was between Aristotelian and Talmudic modes of argument ("how he evaluated the Greek mind, as exemplified by Aristotle, vis-a-vis the Talmudic mind").
Greek philosophy had other forms of argumentation, such as the diatribe, favored by the Stoic school (cf. Fitzmyer on Romans, p91--whom Holding references without--evidently--having actually read), which you find reproduced in Paul as well as Rabbinical debate. If you harness up the raw horsepower of the Jewish mind to that technique, as occurs in Romans, you generate a lot of logical argumentation.
"Hays apparently has exegeted some new definition of 'apologetic' with which the rest of us are unfamiliar. There is nothing of such an apologetic anywhere in these chapters -- nothing like a kalam cosmological or a moral argument in sight. At most there is a polemic against ineffectual false gods, but this is not at all the same thing as an argument for God's existence. Hays offers thus yet another misplaced retort."
I don't know who the "us" has reference to, unless Holding is in the habit of talking to himself. As to novel exegesis, if Holding were to crack open the covers of a standard commentary from time to time, he might not be so easily knocked off his pins. This is how Brevard Childs has outlined apologetic strategy in Isaiah:
"The unit [41:1-7] opens with Yahweh summoning the nations to appear in court for a trial. The claims of the foreign gods will be tested according to legal rules…[21-29] The force of the argument in both parts of the trial appears to be that the claim to true divinity rests on the ability not only to control the course of future events, but also to have predicted the events before they occurred. Consequently, the ability to match the prediction with its fulfillment can then be tested rationally in the trial," Isaiah (Westminster John Knox Press 2001), 317,321.
Since Dr. Childs is a highly "credentialed" scholar, I trust that Holding will pay proper homage to his social betters in this matter.
"There's nothing like a non-specific non-answer composed of a reference and nothing else. I will not endorse Hays' laziness by looking up what he should have provided in the first place -- actual data. If this is how Calvinist response is done, little wonder pomposity is a primary weapon of their apologists."
i) Let's clarify the burden of proof here. Holding was the one who initiated an attack on Calvinism. The onus is therefore on him to acquaint himself with the supporting arguments for Calvinism in order to render an informed judgment on the system under review.
ii) If it is lazy for me to refer the reader to a classic exegetical defense of predestination, then it is just as lazy for Holding to refer the reader to his sociorhetorical critics.
"This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with."
i) Notice the gratuitous invective.
ii) Notice, also, the patent equivocation here. To say that psychology is prior to text is not to say that "block logic" is prior to the text. Holding is smuggling his conclusion into the premise.
"The point here is resemblance of a particular method of Hegel to a particular method of the wisdom genre."
Instead of trafficking in these fact-free abstractions, why doesn't Holding reproduce a few representative pages of Hegel's Logik or Phanomenologie des Geistes alongside a few representative pages of Job, perhaps in parallel columns, and let the reader judge for himself the validity Mr. Holding's exercise in comparative philosophical method. Or, better yet, surely he could point us to some sociorhetorical study which does the same.
"Another non-point. At most it would only suggest that we could find Western parallels to the Eastern practice, without disproving my point."
Western parallels to Eastern practice? Does this mean that Holding would now apply to himself the line about how " it didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in. Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context."
Holding had been staking his case on the contrast between a Western low-context mind and a Hebrew high-context mind. Now, however, he's "waving off" that disjunction in favor of cross-cultural parallels.
"More than that, the most critical point is missed: Do these Western dialogues take the tack of 'work it out yourselves' or do they give the answer in a can, with the dialogue as merely a vehicle for the 'crash test dummy' to act as a talking head to which the genius responds with the answers -- or to actually give answers?"
This assumes that Solomon and the author of Job were rough-drafting their way to an answer. But such finished literary products as Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job bespeak a thorough mastery of form and content from start to finish.
"This is just more pious Calvinist blatherskeit [sic]; more 'give glory to God, you heathen' pulpit-pouding [sic]. We are told that we'd better find it 'flawlessly logical,' by gum, or the flames of hell await you!"
Compare this unresponsive reaction--one can hardly call it a reply--to what I actually said: "There is nothing paradoxical about the hardening of Pharaoh. The Bible cues the reader with a couple of programmatic statements (Exod 4:21-22; 7:2-3), the function of which is to supply a hermeneutical framework for what follows in the subsequent narrative. The text is flawlessly logical."
i) What I did was to take a specific claim of Holding's, and rebut it by pointing the reader to the promise/fulfillment pattern of Exodus. If anyone is "pounding the pulpit here, it is Holding, with his verbal bluff and bluster.
ii) However, just to prove to Holding how accommodating and agreeable a Calvinist can be, I'm more than happy to stipulate to his claim that Calvinism has a monopoly on logic.
"Once again Hays arbitrarily selects the word 'antimony' from out of its place and applies it where he pleases, in order to manufacture a problem. But no, as even he admits, there is a polarity: Love and hate, Jacob and Esau. In other words, block logic."
I do, indeed, admit that there's a polarity here. It is not, however, a literary or psychological polarity. Rather, it is based on the "fact" of divine election and reprobation. Malachi attributes this to God. So, if it's "block-logic," it's divine block-logic. It's divine psychology.
Or will Holding dismiss this ascription as a literary fiction? Will he do an end-run around the Bible by opposing a low-context mind-set to a high-context mindset, and relativize away the claim of Scripture by the intrusion of an alien outlook?
"Why? Would it be a threat to Hays if it were? Whether it ought to be 'normative' for Christians is up to each person; but if it was normative for the writers of the inspired text, then it had darned well better become part of our interpretative grid, otherwise we will be disrespecting the text and making it a ventriloquist dummy for our own ideas and preferences. What does Hays hope to accomplish with this silly implied threat, which amounts to gross ethnocentrism?"
Once again, Holding resorts to a childish game of verbal bluffery: "I dare you--I double-dare you!"
I had not issued a threat to anyone. But as long as Holding chooses to recast the issue in these terms, I'm happy to call his bluff. Whether Scripture is normative may well be up to each "person," but it is hardly up to each "Christian." If you do not venerate the normative force of Scripture, then you are not a Christian. It's a simple as that. And Scripture will prove to be just as normative for unbelievers as well--just not this side of the grave.
Holding has resorted to this flailing hyperbole as a way of defanging the charge by co-opting it. I had never leveled such a charge. But let no one be misled by this rhetorical gimmick.
When Holding sets up an antithesis between Hebrew thought and Western thought, and when he substitutes Western thought for Hebrew thought, canceling out original intent in a zero-sum game, then he is, indeed, turning the inspired text into a "ventriloquist dummy" to voice his own ideas and preferences.
If this is not what he means, I would advise Mr. Holding to drop the attitude, drop the invective, and clarify his meaning.
"No more idiotic statement could be made."
What statement could I have made to justify such a sweeping condemnation? Must have been pretty outlandish, right? This is why Mr. Holding is responding to. I had said that "the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture."
But by Mr. Holding's lights, to say that a Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture is an idiotic statement; indeed, no more idiotic statement could be made. I leave it to the reader to judge if this is the view of Scripture we should expect from a Christian apologist.
Holding goes on to say that "Hays exemplifies the sort of person who decontextualizes the text under the thin veneer of pompous piety. One may as well speak of Scripture as 'language-bound' to Hebrew and Greek."
i) Actually, the quickest way to decontextualize a text of Scripture is to set up an antithesis between the mentality of the Biblical writer and the mentality of a modern reader, like Holding does, then substitute your "Western low-context" mindset for the "Hebrew high-context" mindset of the original author.
ii) As to whether the analogy between Scripture as logic-bound and language-bound, there are both analogies and disanalogies, although neither is supportive of Holding's high-handed dismissal.
Language is the medium. And at that level, it is also the vehicle of logic. Now, once you arrive at the meaning, by exegeting original intent, you can translate the propositions into other tongues. And those propositions are normative for believers. That acknowledgement is one of the things that makes a believer a believer. Holding hides behind his customary fog-machine of invective ("the thin veneer of pompous piety"), but an essential element of genuine piety is submission to the authority of Scripture as the word of God.
Next, I had said: "Let us remember that Rabbinical Judaism codifies the Pharisaic school of thought. It is therefore rife with synergism and merit-mongering. Yes, I know, Sanders would demure, but I've addressed the new perspective in my essay on 'Reinventing Paul.'"
To which Holding replied:
"We have already addressed this sort of bigoted ethnocentrism above with White. Apparently Calvin didn't find that 'synergism and merit-mongering' too disturbing; nor do scholars of today."
i) For Holding to say that Calvin didn't find synergism or merit-mongering too disturbing evinces a total ignorance of what the conflict with Rome was all about. And it certainly disqualifies him from offering a halfway accurate critique of Calvinism.
ii) As to "bigotry," when Holding has no argument, he resorts to abuse. I would not deny, however, that there is evidence of bigotry and ethnocentrism in some modern-day scholarship. It is true that Sanders and his epigones have tried to upwardly revise our estimate of Pharisaic theology. Sanders is of the opinion that the Protestant Reformers caricatured the Pharisees. But his historical and theological revisionism is more radical than that. Sanders is also of the opinion that Paul himself caricatured the Pharisees. And surely nothing is more bigoted or ethnocentric that the spectacle of a late 20C gentile Englishman who fancies himself to have a firmer grasp of 1C Pharisaic theology than a 1C Pharisee like Paul who studied under the greatest rabbi of the age (Gamaliel). And I, simple-minded Christian, take my stand with the NT view of Pharisaic theology.
"He [Hays] as much as admits his inability to deal with the case holistically as he too deigns to deal with only what he calls "major arguments." This is a grave mistake, as with White."
I, of course, admit no such thing. It is no more of a "grave mistake" for me to be selective in what I choose to comment on with respect to Holding than it is a grave mistake for him to be selective in what he comments on with respect to his book reviews. I'm simply exercising rational discrimination, which I happen to regard as an intellectual virtue. And I'll exercise the same rational discrimination in this reply.
"It didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in."
Notice the gratuitous invective.
"Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context -- there is no "even if" about this; it is a recognized, endorsed concept noted by social science and anthropological scholars, supported by the consensus -- but more than that, there is the pompously arrogant designation of what I offer as not being "exegesis" simply because it appeals to an external."
i) I'm waiting to see Holding cite one sociorhetorical scholar who interprets Rom 9 in Aristotelian categories.
ii) As to the "pompously arrogant" designation (note the gratuitous invective), Holding did not "simply appeal to an external."
Neither White nor I would deny the potential legitimacy of background material. But to begin with, not all "externals" are relevant to the text. The Religionsgeschichte Schule (e.g., Bultmann; Bousset) was very fond of appealing to "externals" to "exegete" the text of Scripture.
In addition, Holding did a lot more than merely appeal to a high/low context. Remember his exact words: "we would not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by Paul -- because such an 'explanation expectation' would be the product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one, like Paul's."
i) Holding has drawn an antithetical distinction between a "Hebrew high-context mind" like Paul's and a "Western low-context mind," then uses the Western context to exegete Rom 9. So he employs an interpretive grid which, by his own definition, cuts against the grain of the text. He is invoking a distinction in opposition to Pauline thought, and then imposing that on the text. In the nature of the case, this would directly subvert original intent. No, this is not exegesis. This is classic Scripture-twisting.
ii) I'd add that even if, for the same of argument, we were to redirect the Pauline argument through Aristotelian channels, that would only replace one form of determinism with another inasmuch as primary causality is efficacious as well, which is why Aquinas was just as predestinarian as Augustine.
"But that he [Hays] admits that the point is nevertheless overall correct speaks for itself."
Once again I did nothing of the kind. I said that Wilson was guilty of exaggeration, and I offered a counterexample to show that it all depends on the target audience.
"That's very nice, but if anything, this only tends to support my point. 'Disorderly and circuitous' is precisely how a Greek mind would see expressions of block logic. Mental horsepower isn't germane to the particular of expression I cited, so it ends up that Hays only ends up proving my point with his displaced quotation."
The precise point of contrast was between Aristotelian and Talmudic modes of argument ("how he evaluated the Greek mind, as exemplified by Aristotle, vis-a-vis the Talmudic mind").
Greek philosophy had other forms of argumentation, such as the diatribe, favored by the Stoic school (cf. Fitzmyer on Romans, p91--whom Holding references without--evidently--having actually read), which you find reproduced in Paul as well as Rabbinical debate. If you harness up the raw horsepower of the Jewish mind to that technique, as occurs in Romans, you generate a lot of logical argumentation.
"Hays apparently has exegeted some new definition of 'apologetic' with which the rest of us are unfamiliar. There is nothing of such an apologetic anywhere in these chapters -- nothing like a kalam cosmological or a moral argument in sight. At most there is a polemic against ineffectual false gods, but this is not at all the same thing as an argument for God's existence. Hays offers thus yet another misplaced retort."
I don't know who the "us" has reference to, unless Holding is in the habit of talking to himself. As to novel exegesis, if Holding were to crack open the covers of a standard commentary from time to time, he might not be so easily knocked off his pins. This is how Brevard Childs has outlined apologetic strategy in Isaiah:
"The unit [41:1-7] opens with Yahweh summoning the nations to appear in court for a trial. The claims of the foreign gods will be tested according to legal rules…[21-29] The force of the argument in both parts of the trial appears to be that the claim to true divinity rests on the ability not only to control the course of future events, but also to have predicted the events before they occurred. Consequently, the ability to match the prediction with its fulfillment can then be tested rationally in the trial," Isaiah (Westminster John Knox Press 2001), 317,321.
Since Dr. Childs is a highly "credentialed" scholar, I trust that Holding will pay proper homage to his social betters in this matter.
"There's nothing like a non-specific non-answer composed of a reference and nothing else. I will not endorse Hays' laziness by looking up what he should have provided in the first place -- actual data. If this is how Calvinist response is done, little wonder pomposity is a primary weapon of their apologists."
i) Let's clarify the burden of proof here. Holding was the one who initiated an attack on Calvinism. The onus is therefore on him to acquaint himself with the supporting arguments for Calvinism in order to render an informed judgment on the system under review.
ii) If it is lazy for me to refer the reader to a classic exegetical defense of predestination, then it is just as lazy for Holding to refer the reader to his sociorhetorical critics.
"This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with."
i) Notice the gratuitous invective.
ii) Notice, also, the patent equivocation here. To say that psychology is prior to text is not to say that "block logic" is prior to the text. Holding is smuggling his conclusion into the premise.
"The point here is resemblance of a particular method of Hegel to a particular method of the wisdom genre."
Instead of trafficking in these fact-free abstractions, why doesn't Holding reproduce a few representative pages of Hegel's Logik or Phanomenologie des Geistes alongside a few representative pages of Job, perhaps in parallel columns, and let the reader judge for himself the validity Mr. Holding's exercise in comparative philosophical method. Or, better yet, surely he could point us to some sociorhetorical study which does the same.
"Another non-point. At most it would only suggest that we could find Western parallels to the Eastern practice, without disproving my point."
Western parallels to Eastern practice? Does this mean that Holding would now apply to himself the line about how " it didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in. Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context."
Holding had been staking his case on the contrast between a Western low-context mind and a Hebrew high-context mind. Now, however, he's "waving off" that disjunction in favor of cross-cultural parallels.
"More than that, the most critical point is missed: Do these Western dialogues take the tack of 'work it out yourselves' or do they give the answer in a can, with the dialogue as merely a vehicle for the 'crash test dummy' to act as a talking head to which the genius responds with the answers -- or to actually give answers?"
This assumes that Solomon and the author of Job were rough-drafting their way to an answer. But such finished literary products as Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job bespeak a thorough mastery of form and content from start to finish.
"This is just more pious Calvinist blatherskeit [sic]; more 'give glory to God, you heathen' pulpit-pouding [sic]. We are told that we'd better find it 'flawlessly logical,' by gum, or the flames of hell await you!"
Compare this unresponsive reaction--one can hardly call it a reply--to what I actually said: "There is nothing paradoxical about the hardening of Pharaoh. The Bible cues the reader with a couple of programmatic statements (Exod 4:21-22; 7:2-3), the function of which is to supply a hermeneutical framework for what follows in the subsequent narrative. The text is flawlessly logical."
i) What I did was to take a specific claim of Holding's, and rebut it by pointing the reader to the promise/fulfillment pattern of Exodus. If anyone is "pounding the pulpit here, it is Holding, with his verbal bluff and bluster.
ii) However, just to prove to Holding how accommodating and agreeable a Calvinist can be, I'm more than happy to stipulate to his claim that Calvinism has a monopoly on logic.
"Once again Hays arbitrarily selects the word 'antimony' from out of its place and applies it where he pleases, in order to manufacture a problem. But no, as even he admits, there is a polarity: Love and hate, Jacob and Esau. In other words, block logic."
I do, indeed, admit that there's a polarity here. It is not, however, a literary or psychological polarity. Rather, it is based on the "fact" of divine election and reprobation. Malachi attributes this to God. So, if it's "block-logic," it's divine block-logic. It's divine psychology.
Or will Holding dismiss this ascription as a literary fiction? Will he do an end-run around the Bible by opposing a low-context mind-set to a high-context mindset, and relativize away the claim of Scripture by the intrusion of an alien outlook?
"Why? Would it be a threat to Hays if it were? Whether it ought to be 'normative' for Christians is up to each person; but if it was normative for the writers of the inspired text, then it had darned well better become part of our interpretative grid, otherwise we will be disrespecting the text and making it a ventriloquist dummy for our own ideas and preferences. What does Hays hope to accomplish with this silly implied threat, which amounts to gross ethnocentrism?"
Once again, Holding resorts to a childish game of verbal bluffery: "I dare you--I double-dare you!"
I had not issued a threat to anyone. But as long as Holding chooses to recast the issue in these terms, I'm happy to call his bluff. Whether Scripture is normative may well be up to each "person," but it is hardly up to each "Christian." If you do not venerate the normative force of Scripture, then you are not a Christian. It's a simple as that. And Scripture will prove to be just as normative for unbelievers as well--just not this side of the grave.
Holding has resorted to this flailing hyperbole as a way of defanging the charge by co-opting it. I had never leveled such a charge. But let no one be misled by this rhetorical gimmick.
When Holding sets up an antithesis between Hebrew thought and Western thought, and when he substitutes Western thought for Hebrew thought, canceling out original intent in a zero-sum game, then he is, indeed, turning the inspired text into a "ventriloquist dummy" to voice his own ideas and preferences.
If this is not what he means, I would advise Mr. Holding to drop the attitude, drop the invective, and clarify his meaning.
"No more idiotic statement could be made."
What statement could I have made to justify such a sweeping condemnation? Must have been pretty outlandish, right? This is why Mr. Holding is responding to. I had said that "the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture."
But by Mr. Holding's lights, to say that a Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture is an idiotic statement; indeed, no more idiotic statement could be made. I leave it to the reader to judge if this is the view of Scripture we should expect from a Christian apologist.
Holding goes on to say that "Hays exemplifies the sort of person who decontextualizes the text under the thin veneer of pompous piety. One may as well speak of Scripture as 'language-bound' to Hebrew and Greek."
i) Actually, the quickest way to decontextualize a text of Scripture is to set up an antithesis between the mentality of the Biblical writer and the mentality of a modern reader, like Holding does, then substitute your "Western low-context" mindset for the "Hebrew high-context" mindset of the original author.
ii) As to whether the analogy between Scripture as logic-bound and language-bound, there are both analogies and disanalogies, although neither is supportive of Holding's high-handed dismissal.
Language is the medium. And at that level, it is also the vehicle of logic. Now, once you arrive at the meaning, by exegeting original intent, you can translate the propositions into other tongues. And those propositions are normative for believers. That acknowledgement is one of the things that makes a believer a believer. Holding hides behind his customary fog-machine of invective ("the thin veneer of pompous piety"), but an essential element of genuine piety is submission to the authority of Scripture as the word of God.
Next, I had said: "Let us remember that Rabbinical Judaism codifies the Pharisaic school of thought. It is therefore rife with synergism and merit-mongering. Yes, I know, Sanders would demure, but I've addressed the new perspective in my essay on 'Reinventing Paul.'"
To which Holding replied:
"We have already addressed this sort of bigoted ethnocentrism above with White. Apparently Calvin didn't find that 'synergism and merit-mongering' too disturbing; nor do scholars of today."
i) For Holding to say that Calvin didn't find synergism or merit-mongering too disturbing evinces a total ignorance of what the conflict with Rome was all about. And it certainly disqualifies him from offering a halfway accurate critique of Calvinism.
ii) As to "bigotry," when Holding has no argument, he resorts to abuse. I would not deny, however, that there is evidence of bigotry and ethnocentrism in some modern-day scholarship. It is true that Sanders and his epigones have tried to upwardly revise our estimate of Pharisaic theology. Sanders is of the opinion that the Protestant Reformers caricatured the Pharisees. But his historical and theological revisionism is more radical than that. Sanders is also of the opinion that Paul himself caricatured the Pharisees. And surely nothing is more bigoted or ethnocentric that the spectacle of a late 20C gentile Englishman who fancies himself to have a firmer grasp of 1C Pharisaic theology than a 1C Pharisee like Paul who studied under the greatest rabbi of the age (Gamaliel). And I, simple-minded Christian, take my stand with the NT view of Pharisaic theology.
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