Originally posted by El_Guero:
Originally posted by El_Guero:
Again you have charged that I have fallen into fallacy during the presentation of my arguments. However, you have once again utterly failed to quote where I have allegedly done so and to demonstrate the specific fallacy from published logic sources. If you will not or can not do so I expect you to stop throwing out such groundless charges.
Originally posted by El_Guero:
Additionally, if we were to accept your use of that passage in support of your argument we would also be forced to acknowledge a clear associated corollary—meaning that the O.T. office of prophet and the N.T. office of pastor must be identical. If that were the case then we should expect God to communicate (reveal His will) for us through our N.T. pastors in the exact same manner that He did through the O.T. prophets. Hence, our N.T. pastors should be hearing the audible voice of God and/or experiencing revelatory visions from God. This would enable them to use the prophetic phrase, “Thus says the LORD…” when they speak to us. However, this does not happen today because God’s word is complete (a change from the original circumstance recorded in the book of Jeremiah). The canon is closed. There is no continual progressive revelation (unless we are to hold to the teachings of Mormonism). The Bible is God’s completely revealed moral will for our lives. God speaks to us through His written word which is proclaimed (i.e. explained and taught) by His people, all Christians, not just by a select group of “called” ministers.
Finally, if we ignore the context of a passage, or passages, of Scripture we can make the Bible say just about anything we want. If we ignore the context we can even make the case that the Bible supports suicide. The ridiculous argument would go something like this, “You know the Bible says that Judas hung himself and it also says, ‘Go thou and do likewise’ so suicide must be biblical.” Clearly, we must always rely on the context of a passage of Scripture to guide and ground our interpretation or we can easily drift into serious error.
[ October 26, 2005, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]
I am not trying to obfuscate your position. I have repeatedly asked you to provide your own definition of what you mean when you use the term(s) “call,” “called,” “calling,” or the phrase “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry.” However, you have simply refused to honor my requests. Likewise, I have repeatedly asked you to provide Scripture without eisegesis that supports your definition (whatever it is) of those terms and that phrase. You have yet to honor this request. You have used passages of Scripture that refer to the Great Commission, and that use words such as “appoint,” “send,” and “gave” in an attempt to say that such words can be used interchangeably with “call,” “called,” “calling,” and/or “God’s effectual call on your life to ministry.” Therefore, if any obfuscation, or equivocation, has taken place it would seem to have come from your side of the argument.
Originally posted by El_Guero:
No the converse of fact is fiction. Converse (in the way you are attempting to use it) means: 1. Something that has been reversed; an opposite; 2. Logic—A proposition obtained by conversion. This is an If/Then type principle (if Y is true, then X must also be true). In this case what you are saying is that if it is true that God did not send false prophets, then it must also be true that He did send true prophets. One must be careful using an If/Then line of argumentation because one can easily slip into the fallacy of Converse Accident where we either carelessly or by design presume that what is true of a particular case is true of the great run of cases (Copi and Cohen, Introduction to Logic, 187). The problem here arises from the fact that there may well be other possibilities that are true about the converse of the “If” half of the argument.
Again you have charged that I have fallen into fallacy during the presentation of my arguments. However, you have once again utterly failed to quote where I have allegedly done so and to demonstrate the specific fallacy from published logic sources. If you will not or can not do so I expect you to stop throwing out such groundless charges.
Originally posted by El_Guero:
Yes. I agree that an implication of what God was saying through Jeremiah in the passage that you referenced is that God did not send false prophets to Israel and that He did send His true prophets to them. Perhaps a better way to express this would have been to say:
This is a very specific circumstance (or case) and we should be careful not to presume that what is true about this particular case is true regarding all those who would serve in ministry today because the circumstances may have changed. This is why I questioned you asking how the context of an O.T. passage dealing with God’s anger at Israel and the false prophets they followed (a very specific circumstance) can be interpreted to mean that “God effectually calls” all who serve in ministry today? Disregarding the context and the very specific circumstance found therein becomes particularly problematic when we see that the N.T. does not give us any requirement that those who serve in ministry should have such a “call” (as you are using the term).
Additionally, if we were to accept your use of that passage in support of your argument we would also be forced to acknowledge a clear associated corollary—meaning that the O.T. office of prophet and the N.T. office of pastor must be identical. If that were the case then we should expect God to communicate (reveal His will) for us through our N.T. pastors in the exact same manner that He did through the O.T. prophets. Hence, our N.T. pastors should be hearing the audible voice of God and/or experiencing revelatory visions from God. This would enable them to use the prophetic phrase, “Thus says the LORD…” when they speak to us. However, this does not happen today because God’s word is complete (a change from the original circumstance recorded in the book of Jeremiah). The canon is closed. There is no continual progressive revelation (unless we are to hold to the teachings of Mormonism). The Bible is God’s completely revealed moral will for our lives. God speaks to us through His written word which is proclaimed (i.e. explained and taught) by His people, all Christians, not just by a select group of “called” ministers.
Finally, if we ignore the context of a passage, or passages, of Scripture we can make the Bible say just about anything we want. If we ignore the context we can even make the case that the Bible supports suicide. The ridiculous argument would go something like this, “You know the Bible says that Judas hung himself and it also says, ‘Go thou and do likewise’ so suicide must be biblical.” Clearly, we must always rely on the context of a passage of Scripture to guide and ground our interpretation or we can easily drift into serious error.
[ October 26, 2005, 01:46 AM: Message edited by: Bible-boy ]
It came up in Systematic Theology because someone asked about it. It came up in Apologetics because we were discussing how many Christians “think” they know what the Bible says because they know a tradition that they have been told is biblical; however, the Bible really never says any such thing. It came up in Hermeneutics because we were discussing how we can not make the Bible say what it never said in its original text. It came up in Introduction to Missions because our textbook referenced Friesen’s book regarding the subject as it pertains to the “missionary call”. It came up in Church History as a side-bar discussion because we were talking about how and when ordination (as we use the term today) came about. It came up in Baptist History because I asked about it.