On the Propriety of Asking Scripturalists Whether They Know X, Y, or Z

Some commenters (e.g., Tim Harris, Turretin Fan, etc) have complained that we keep asking how Gerety knows all the assertions he makes. They think there's some impropriety in doing so. Well, here's some quick, helpful tips:

1. If a person doesn't know the premises of a deductive argument, he knows not the conclusion either.

2. Speaking for myself, I'm not in the habit of letting an opponent score a point with what he admits is nothing but an opinion. A mere, unjustified opinion at that.

3. Epistemic virtues seem to require us to give up beliefs we believe have no positive epistemic status. Beliefs we know are unjustified or have no reason to believe. And Scripturalist opinions are unjustified, make no mistake. If the only way to justify an opinion is to find it in the Bible or deduce it from passages in the Bible, and opinion O is not to be found or deduced, then O is unjustified.

4. Sean Gerety himself has allowed us to do this. Surely my esteemed interlocutors won't begrudge me for holding a man to his convictions. Here's an interesting quote from Gerety I found online:

"I think it is more important to provide an account for the things you believe are true."

Hence Gerety just said that all of his opinions should have attendant deductions from Scripture to go along with them. So, every single assertion he makes, he probably believes it is true, and so he "thinks it is important to provide an account for them." So Tim, TF, and others, can't complain when we ask him to deduce from the Bible every cotton-picking assertion he makes. I'm just obliging the guy. :-)