Keeping up appearances

ED: Which writer's of the philosophy of the mind? I have done my fair share of reading, and it has contributed signficantly to my assertions. If you believe that your conclusion is the only one represented in the relevant literature, it is you who needs to do some "serious reading."

SH: No one said that dualism is the only option. But you said you were unable to “see” any alternative to physicalism. If you’d done your fair share of reading, then you’d know better.

I’ve discussed dualism many times on this blog.

ED: How is that a denial of God as Creator? Where is the substantiation of this claim? Just because I reject the category of causality as sufficient to describe the creative acts of God does not mean that I have denied that God is creator.

SH: You’re free to employ idiosyncratic, nonstandard usage if you like.

But in ordinary usage, to create is to cause something to be. And that’s how The Bible describes the creative role of God.

Everyone enjoys an intuitive grasp of cause/effect relations. I begin where everyone else begins.

If you choose to deny the obvious, then the onus lies on you to present an intelligible alternative.

So far you’ve failed to do so. You take familiar words and then invest them with esoteric meanings, but you haven’t shown how your words denote an alternative concept.

You’re very clear on what you think my conceptual scheme amounts to—even though you’re persistently mistaken. What about yours?

ED: You are inevitably making divine fiat into a causal category, which is what I am questioning and which you are failing to defend.

SH: Other issues aside, since you have yet to present an intelligible alternative, my position wins by default.

ED: Come on, Steve. I am sure you can do better than these pathetic attempts to malign my person by these ridiculous personal attacks. We all run Scripture through "extraneous" categories; such is the nature of human epistemology and the functional nature of interpretation.

SH: Scripture was meant to be interpreted. And we have many examples of intertextual interpretation in Scripture itself.

ED: How would you determine this? Upon what basis would you determine that the "partial knowledge of the infinite" is, in fact, accurately representative of the fulness it images?

SH: That depends, on part, on whether I’m talking to a believer or unbeliever.

There are the general arguments for the inspiration of Scripture. The revelatory status of Scripture.

Given that fact, then we don’t need a separate argument to establish the correspondence between Scriptural claims and their extrascriptural referent.

ED: My issue is not about knowing "anything"; it is about turning this anything into propositional statements about that which we cannot epistemologically access (which propositions require the ability to know everything).

SH: Once again, you assume what you need to prove: that God is not an object of knowledge.

As usual, you sound like an unbeliever.

Take the traditional attributes of God, viz., omnipotence, omniscience, eternality, spirituality, love, mercy, justice, &c.

Are you saying that these are indefinable?

If so, where’s your argument?

Or are you saying that, while definable, they are inapplicable to God?

If so, where’s your argument?

ED: And upon what basis are you going to adjudicate whether they are "true" or not? You wish to speak propositionally about the divine nature, but you have no position from which to establish the proposition whatsoever, besides appealing to the circularity of your conception of Scripture.

SH:

1.Once again, it depends on whether I’m addressing a believer or an unbeliever.

Does the Bible make true statements about God? If you deny this, then you’re an unbeliever.

2.As I’ve said before, many of my ideas can be independent of Scripture. I don’t have to get all my ideas from Scripture, so my database isn’t circular in that sense.

But from Scripture I lean to predicate certain ideas of other ideas in a set of propositions about God, man, and the world.

3.It isn’t necessary to have a separate argument for every claim of Scripture.

The question is whether our general source of information is reliable. If you can establish that, then it’s unnecessary to corroborate every individual claim.

4.It would defeat the purpose of revelation if everything we learn through revelation is also attainable apart from revelation.

5.Likewise, the demand for corroboration can become viciously regressive if you press it too far. If a witness needs a corroborating witness, then does the corroborating witness need another witness to corroborate the testimony of the corroborating witness, ad infinitum?

ED: That is not an answer at all. You are creating a criterion for affirmation that has nothing to do with the actual phenomenon. You define inspiration upon the basis of what you believe that it should be, not on the basis of something that can be independantly verified to be so (and if it could, it would seek to be inspiration, according to your criterion). So, essentially, you have a self-refuting criterion for "determining" the nature and causal structure of divine inspiriation.

SH: You have a bad habit of confusing a circular argument, which is vicious, with a circular definition or description, which is virtuous.

If you ask me to define a red rose, I’ll describe the properties of a rose. My definition will be circular inasmuch as my description is dependent on the the properties of the rose. It follows the object.

But that’s what makes it an accurate definition. The definition corresponds to the object it defines.

ED: Yes, that is compelling, given that it is thoroughly the product of your interpretation, not the objective, independent criterion which would be required for the proof of the thing.

SH: What is the point of your hermeutical relativism? That one interpretation is just as good as another? That Jn 3:16 might just as well be a recipe for walnut fudge brownies?

That unless I have an “independent criterion,” then the walnut-fudge-brownie interpretation is just as viable as the non-walnut-fudge-brownie interpretation?

ED: It is unscriptural according to your presuppositions and interpretations. You have yet to show, however, that it is in fact "unscriptural" in a way that is not prey to your philosophical presuppositions about the nature of divine transcendence.

SH: This is a rhetorical gimmick of yours. To the contrary, you have yet to show that my construction of divine transcendence is, in fact, the product of my philosophical presuppositions.

ED: Again, this is a horrifically circular argument. You say that the categories of inspiration which you claim are relevant are "from the bible." However, as the Scriptures require interpretation, you have, per my assertion, created the criterion yourself by interpreting them in the Scriptures upon the basis of your philosophical presuppositions about what the Scriptures say, the nature of God, etc.

SH:

1.Once again, to say that something requires interpretation doesn’t imply that one’s interpretation is dictated by certain preconceptions.

It’s quite possible for a student of Scripture to come to the Bible with certain preconceptions, and have his preconceptions corrected by his encounter with Scripture, so that he will leave with a different view than he brought to his initial study.

2.You are also assuming, without benefit of argument, that all extraneous considerations are philosophical considerations.

To the contrary, insofar as we interpret the Bible within a larger framework, that framework is generally supplied by our background knowledge of the historical setting.

ED: Warfield, like all other writers, wrote from the perspective of his presuppositions, philosophical loyalties, etc. He is no more in a position to "describe the process and product of inspiration" in an objective way than you or me.

SH:

1.Notice that ED doesn’t even attempt to consider Warfield’s evidence. He dismisses the evidence unheard, based on his pomo relativism.

ED is the one who’s imprisoned by his presuppositions. And he gives no good reason for his presuppositions.

2.Warfield mounted an exegetical case for his position.

i) ED doesn’t show that Warfield was wrong.

ii) ED doesn’t present an exegetical alternative to Warfield.

iii) Not only does ED fail to make a specific exegetical case to the contrary, he never presents an alternative hermeutical scheme.

He doesn’t give us any specific exegesis to the contrary, and he doesn’t make a case for a general hermeneutical alternative.

ED: I have devoted several pages now to describing the ways in which your conception of the the divine, inspiration, etc. are thoroughly materialist.

SH: Which I refuted very early in this thread.

ED: While you may ultimately reject my conclusions, it is unjust to assert that I have not provided supporting arugment.

SH: You have failed to mount a counterargument. You simply reiterated your original, discredited allegations.

ED: Anyone else reading this would agree that I have provided support for my arguments, regardless of whether or not they ultimately agree with me.

SH: A number of readers have commented on your position—quite unfavorably.

ED: Yes, I have noticed it. To the most penetrating of my questions and comments, you respond with a dodge like this. It is a disappointing trend indeed.

SH: What you do is to make a groundless, counterintuitive assertion, then challenge me to disprove it.

But if you tell me: “I saw pink rats in the basement last night—prove me wrong!” I am, in fact, under no intellectual obligation to prove you wrong since you’ve given me no good reason to suppose that you saw any pink rats.

ED: I would offer no "mediating" alternative, for I would not wish to live between two materialist conceptions of God. The alternative I would offer is to begin with a philosophical system that does not start from presuppositions that God's relationship to that which is created can be reduced to materialist categories.

SH: We’re still waiting for you to redeem your vouchers. Big, boastful claims—but where’s the demonstration?

ED: I am not arguing about derivations. My point is that if one, through propositional language, reduces the divine nature to causal, materialist categories, one has categorically equated God with that which is created by God.

SH: This assumes that effects resemble their causes, for which you’ve offered no supporting argument.

By your logic, if I’m in the ice cream business, and I mix up a batch of Jamoca almond fudge, then I must be made of Jamoca almond fudge.

Pardon me for suspecting that your categorical equation falls short of strict implication.

ED: Let's assume that this is a meaningful description of successful communication (which I would question, BTW). The determination of success is based upon the ability to observe and quantify the results (the correlation between the message, reception, and application of same). Let's apply it to propositional language about the divine: Upon what basis are you going to be able to determine that these propositions have been deployed "successfully?"

SH:

1.Other issues aside, why should I accept “quantification” as a necessary condition?

Suppose I see many more people sitting on one side of an auditorium than another?

That’s something I can take in at a glance. I don’t have to count how many people are sitting on one side or the other to accurately perceive that one side has more sparsely attended than another.

2.Which brings me to another point—you confuse first-order knowledge with second-order knowledge. You act as if I can’t know something unless I can specify its truth-conditions.

But your internalist constraint on knowledge is open to many counterexamples. Do you think a two-year old can’t recognize his mother unless he is able to spit out an “independent criterion” in order to “quantify” this maternal presence as an object of knowledge?

ED: How does one determine that the "standard of reference" is, in fact, such a standard?

SH: As usual, it depends, in part, on whether I’m talking to a believer or unbeliever. If you refuse to believe that the Bible is a standard of reference, then you’re an unbeliever.

ED: To speak propositionally about the divine, locating the identity of this standard would be absolutely necessary, albeit impossible.

SH: “Albeit impossible.” As usual, ED does theology by assertion rather than argument or exegesis.

He sidelines the divine authority of Scripture while divinizing his own admittedly subjective ipse dixit.

ED: I am not arguing about the inspiration of Scripture, for as I have already asserted, I fully believe in the inspiredness of the Scriptures as well.

SH: Rather, he fully disbelieves the inspiration of Scripture. He clings to the pro forma category, but radically redefines it, withdrawing the preconditions that make it meaningful.

ED: But this is not the question: the question at hand is what the nature of this inspiration is, and more specifically, how you are going to prove your contention that divine inspiration can be adjudicated on the basis of causality. I am still waiting for this proof.

SH: No, you’re not waiting for the proof. Because you’ve chosen to disqualify everything that would count as proof in advance of having seen it.

If a crowd saw a man jump off a skyscraper, and hit the ground a few seconds later, and if this event was also recorded by a security camera, you would still deny the man was dead.

Sure, he brains would be splattered all over the pavement, but death is just a matter of “interpretation,” which is, in turn, just a matter of “presuppositions.”

To say that he was dead because he couldn’t survive a fall from that height, striking the pavement, to further say that he was dead because his brains were splattered all over the pavement—well, that would be “horrifically circular,” ya know.

ED: For all of this, you have yet to answer the question about how you are going to establish the validity of your claim that divine inspiration can be delimited on the basis of causal categories.

SH: Do you think there’s a difference between inspiration and the absence of inspiration? If inspiration has no effect on the outcome, then it’s indistinguishable from the absence of inspiration.

If it doesn’t make a difference, then it’s nothing.

ED: Give me a break. I am no Marcionite. Leave your petty personal attacks somewhere else.

SH: I’m sorry that you get so emotional when a disputant holds you to the implications of your own stated position.

ED: Well, there is a little something called the church also, the existence of which provided the impetus for the composition of the NT.

SH: And there’s another little something called the spoken word as well as the written word whereby the church mediates the Gospel through the public reading of the Scriptures, or in sermons, creeds, liturgies, theological textbooks, &c.

Just as you pay perfunctory tribute to the Bible, you pay perfunctory tribute to the church.