This is interesting, you have now softened the point so much that you only seem to be suggesting that Gen 1 is a narrative (dropping the whole “historical” bit), even including a parable to support the point that narratives can be something other than strictly historical. This is simply not how I remember the general thrust of your previous arguments, and as a result, I no longer exactly understand what position is being defended here…
That said, I guess we now agree, which is good.
Being a narrative and being poetry are not at all mutually exclusive.
Poe’s The Raven is poetry that presents a narrative and you could point out all sorts of markers of narrative text in it. It’s still poetry.
Much of Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophets are hortatory texts in poetic form.
I could write a recipe in poetry, and then you’d have a procedural in poetic form. You could demonstrate that it had all the elements of a typical procedural text, but doing wouldn’t entail you had demonstrated it was not poetry.
Same thing with a text being figurative or not. Or allegorical or not. Just because you establish something is a narrative text doesn’t establish its proper interpretation.
If you never recognized it, then I inaccurately gave you the benefit of the doubt (and a compliment) where I shouldn’t have. When your Argument from Confirming the Consequent fallacy was squarely identified (I don’t recall who posted it first and Professor OldTimer hasn’t yet posted his rebuttal to your argument), you remained adamant that you somehow hadn’t insisted on the truth of the protasis based on the truth of the apodosis. Yet, we noticed that you started backing off on the strength of your argument and said, “I never said it was a rule.” Even so, the “non-rule” you were applying somehow remained strong enough for you to insist that Genesis 1 had to be a historical narrative because of the presence of waw-consecutives. That’s quite a feat! But a day or two later you backed off even further and admitted that waw-consecutives tend to occur in “NARRATIVES” NOT “HISTORICAL NARRATIVES”! Thank you. End of game! (If that was all McCabe was trying to say, then nobody would disagree! WAW-consecutives appear in both historical narratives and non-historical narratives. It might be nicely convenient if we had a “magical grammatical construction or phrase” which ONLY appears in narratives of actual historical events but NEVER appears in parables, fictitious stories used as illustrations, and other non-history narratives. But anybody who has studied linguistic genres and even basic descriptive stylometry knows that languages are not that simplistic and mechanical! It is an absurd claim. The alleged “wav-consecutive rule that is not really a rule” is undeniable only to those who refuse what centuries of scholarship have determined about language texts.
Your misunderstanding of the fallacy of the Confirming the Consequent, does explain why you fail to recognize the fundamental irrelevance of McCabe’s waw-consecutive paper and the reasons why it never appeared in a respected peer-reviewed academic journal. The methodological errors and elementary logic errors wouldn’t have passed muster for a Bible college term paper. I’ll go ahead and summarize a few of his blunders but I would generally defer to Prof. OldTimer, who is far more qualified, both in logic and stylometry.
BACKGROUND: I taught mostly 100-level and 200-level undergraduate logic courses to pay my tuition when I decided to get a second Masters as part of my mid-life crisis. So I freely admit that I’m not anywhere close to being a Professor of Linguistics. I first met OldTimer a few years later when I audited his 500-level APPLIED FORMAL GRAMMAR & AUTOMATA course as a prerequisite for admission to his computational linguistics sequence (because I didn’t have the usual academic background of the typical American student who was about twenty years younger than me.) At that time the CL first year semesters was required as an “essential toolset” for ALL of the PhD candidates. If I remember right, for most of the historical linguistics students (and ALL of those who were comparative linguistics specialists), the second semester of that sequence was an intensive practicum. Admission to the Ph.D. program was basically probationary until one adequately “tested out” of the sequence. The Department chairman and the Dean of the Graduate School were adamant about raising the Dept of Linguistics’ PhD program’s international ranking and you-know-who (or you-can-guess) was offered a special appointment in order to bring him to the campus. (This eventually proved fortuitous for me because I still get to name-drop on my CV that I was his TA one semester and later his RA.)
I mention this NOT to solicit sympathy for my hard-knocks life and circuitous academic journey, but to help explain why I’m going to make popcorn and invite faculty friends to watch if someone plans to tell Professor OldTimer that he doesn’t understand the Argument from Confirming the Consequent!
If that could be set up as a video debate, I’d finally go ahead and spend the money for pay-cable. It has great potential for Pay-Per-View, except for what has always been the greatest danger to investors and fans: a knock-out in the first round. Yes, my money’s on McCabe. (Is sarcasm allowed here? I intended levity. Not disrespect.)
CONFIRMING THE CONSEQUENT
This infamous fallacy can described in many ways, formats, and notations, but to put this in a form suitable for the average reader:
“If P, then Q.”
“Here’s an example of Q being the case.”
“Therefore, Q must also be an example of P.”
We could also describe this fallacy in linguistic terms as:
“If a text is of genre P, then language structure Q is often present.”
“Here’s a text which contains language structure Q.”
“Therefore, the presence of Q tells us that the text is of genre P.”
(Is it not obvious that there can be OTHER GENRES where Q is present, even while that first statement is true? And because LT-15 finally admitted that fact, he has conceded that his original claim was an example of Confirming the Consequent. Watering down what started as a “rule” to just a “tendency” or general suggestion or whatever is the present position DOES NOT REVERSE THE LOGICAL FALLACY!)
Instead of digging a deeper hole, why not acknowledge what Waltke and many of the other scholars listed already stated. Yes, a generally collegial environment like the annual ETS conference tries to avoid brutal annihilations of an opponent’s argument. But let’s not confuse civility with agreement or concession. Waltke and others were quick to point out that McCabe was correct in saying that HISTORICAL NARRATIVES OFTEN CONTAIN LOTS OF WAW-CONSECUTIVES. BUT SO DO THE OTHER TYPES OF NARRATIVES, INCLUDING POETIC NARRATIVES, PARABLES, FABLES, AND PEOPLE TELLING LIES. (Isn’t it obvious when a liar is asked, “What did you see happen?”, they are going to tell their story using all of the usual structures of the language—even though the events never actually happened! It is very difficult to believe that anybody actually believes that Hebrew or any other language has some magical “proof of actual events” construction which, if present, SEPARATES HISTORICAL TRUTH FROM NOT THE TRUTH! That’s one of many reasons why nobody noticed this “amazing discovery” until the young earth creationist movement and creation science fans started pushing these OVERLY CONVENIENT FACTOIDS, as Professor Tertius likes to call them.)
That is one of the logic failures in McCabe’s paper which includes the misguided waw-consecutive argument. And if one goes back far enough in LT_15’s posts in this thread—before he started giving ground and waffling on whether he fully supported the traditional YEC position about waw-consecutive----this was his argument. [I use quotes below to indicate PARAPHRASES of what appeared to be his claims. That allows the non-quoted sentences to serve as commentary describing his position.]
(1) “If a Hebrew text is historical narrative, it usually has multiple waw-consecutives in it.” (Think of this Hebrew language construction as “And then this happened…” and “And then that happened…”)
(2) “Genesis 1 is a text with lots of waw-consecutives in it.”
(3) "Therefore, we can say with confidence that Genesis is historical narrative. "
(4) “As a result, we can rule out Genesis 1 being symbolic or figurative.” He implies that it cannot be considered at all poetic or hymnic. Nor can it be a parable or teaching story of events which never happened. It must have really happened as literal history because the waw-consecutives demand it. (McCabe has stated it just that emphatically. But LT_15 appears to have retreated from McCabe’s rule and now says that it just makes a strong case OR a likely case OR a probably-true case [depending how long this thread page continues] for Genesis 1 being literally interpreted as actual history, with creation requiring just six 24-hour days. He says it is not an absolute rule, yet he also implies that it is nevertheless a strong enough argument to prove all old earth creationists wrong about Genesis 1!)
QUESTIONS FOR LT_15:
(1) Do you still claim that those disagreeing with you don’t understand the Confirming the Consequent fallacy? Do you think me ignorant of it?
(2) Do you believe I have incorrectly summarized your argument about waw-consecutive?
(3) Do you still believe your argument is NOT an example of the Confirming the Consequent fallacy?
(4) If not, why?
For years I’ve also been asking this question: Why do so many young earth creationist leaders insist that the world’s university professors of biology, physics, astronomy, geology, paleontology, and EVEN PROFESSORS OF LOGIC somehow managed to get entire fields of the academy “wrong” and yet untrained and unpublished non-academics with no such considerable background can identify their many errors and are qualified to rebuke and tutor them? Are entire fields of science, math, and university scholarship in general that hopelessly mired in ignorance and contradiction? What can we in the academy do to cure the error of our ways and start getting our facts right and start interpreting the Bible correctly?
Thanks for your lengthy exposition of 2 Peter. I can’t fault your description of what the text says. And maybe I was out of order to describe the whole point of verse 8 as being about the days of creation – I over-stated the point and caused some misunderstanding there, and for that I apologise.
However, I must respectfully disagree with your claims about what the text doesn’t say. Just because a passage is primarily about one subject does not mean that it is silent on other subjects which it also discusses. I simply can not agree that the passage has nothing to do with creation, for creation features in both the scoffers’ attack in verse 4 and Peter’s response from verse 5 onwards. Making the length of the creation days open ended is maybe not the intention of the verse; however, it is clearly a corollary of what it says.
I must also take issue with your accusation that I am treating the verse as a scientific declaration, or even as an equation. That is a straw man that nobody is seriously arguing. The whole point that I’m making here is not that the Bible intends to tell us how old the earth is, but that it doesn’t, and 2 Peter 3:8 is just a confirmation of that.
There’s a third thing I’d like to take issue with, and that is the length of many of the posts on this thread (not just yours). Lengthy posts are difficult to read, difficult to respond to in a meaningful way, and easy to misunderstand. They also make you sound either hot-headed, or condescending, or at the very least getting carried away with yourself. Please, keep it short and clear.
Thanks for explaining it. Unfortunately your sources were buried in a wall of tl;dr (which takes me back to my point about just about everyone getting into far too much detail.) I’m not familiar with the argument myself, so I’ll just leave it to others to discuss its merits.
I should have checked today’s email before posting my last comments. Professor OldTimer left for South Africa and will be visiting several Bible translation projects on the field in central and west Africa. He doesn’t always have consistent satellite Internet while in some of those countries so I’m not sure when he will be posting the answers to the questions I sent him. But he did refer me to one of his old papers where he included a critical review of McCabe’s paper.
I prefer to leave the technical details to him but it doesn’t take many Old Testament examples to destroy McCabe’s argument that waw-consecutive (e.g.,“And then this happened…”) “proves” that some passage is HISTORICAL NARRATIVE rather than NON-HISTORICAL, NON-LITERAL STORY TELLING. Professor OldTimer cites both Nathan’s Fable and Jotham’s Fable, in 2 Samuel 12:1-4 and Judges 9:8-15.
The prophet Nathan rebuked King David after he murdered a loyal subject in order to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba. The narrative telling the story of a rich man who stole the pet sheep of a poor man was NOT about “literal historical events”. Yet it contains waw-consecutives just like most any other NARRATIVE.
Jotham’s Fable tells the story of trees looking for a king to rule over them. If McCabe truly believes that his waw-consecutive rule “proves” that Genesis 1 is an historical narrative about ACTUAL HISTORICAL EVENTS INVOLVING SIX 24-HOUR DAYS, then McCabe must also maintain that “genuine Christians who trust the Word of God” should believe that trees can talk and discuss which plant should rule over them.
McCabe and those who quote him don’t even bother to compile an exhaustive concordance of the Hebrew Masoretic Text (not to mention extra-Biblical sources) to see if ONLY HISTORICAL NARRATIVES utilize the waw-consecutive construction. So his Confirming the Consequent logical fallacy was not exposed by the use of sound methodology. And that is another reason why no reputable academic journal would accept such a poorly conducted failure of academic research. Unfortunately, that kind of prove-what-one-already-believes brand of scholarship is common in the “doctoral programs” of a great many unaccredited graduate institutions and Bible colleges. They’ve not received adequate training in how to do Biblical studies research. And that is why their papers are so often ignored by academics in the major universities and top graduates schools of the world.
I’ve received news requiring my travel to my homeland. So I will probably have consistent email access but not World Wide Web. So if anyone has questions about what I’ve posted or posts something to this thread intended for me, I may not see it for a while unless it is also emailed,
I only have crude SMS texts available to me presently so I’m extremely limited in what I can relay to my assistant in the States for posting on this Biologos page, even with the help of special software which treats documents as disassemblies and concatenations of SMS texts. So for now I’ll restrict myself to just one of the major points raised, even though I will again be accused of “cherry-picking” and ignoring many other issues. (I find on so many of these origins forums, if I don’t respond fully to each point of the Gish Gallups, I’m said to be dodging the arguments. Unfortunately, these are complex issues and even one paragraph of erroneous claims generally requires an entire page or two to adequately explain and refute. It is often a darned-if-you-do, darned-if-you-don’t debate quandary.)
@LT_15, was it you or some other thread participant who had previously promoted McCabe’s scholarship as a conclusive argument that YOM in Genesis 1 must be interpreted as actual history of a six conventional solar days creation? I’m trying to recall.
You definitely challenged us to either accept or refute McCabe’s argument, so I assumed that you agreed with them. But after we showed the major logical fallacies and methodological flaws in McCabe’s article, you softened your claims and said, “The waw-consecutive is not a hard and fast rule, so it doesn’t prove that Genesis 1 must be historical narrative.” Yet that is exactly what McCabe claims to have established in his publications and lectures. McCabe defies all linguistic scholarship in claiming that the existence of a single decisive Hebrew construction which by its presence in a text PROVES that it is historical narrative. You also said that this is undeniable and everybody you mention agrees with you, even though everybody I know (including Dr. Waltke and Kaiser) deny it. Those gentlemen and everybody else I can think of admits that waw-consecutive is common in both historical and non-historical narrative, including fables and teaching stories which describe theological truths, not historical events.
So what is your position? Do you concur with McCabe or not? Your latest posts clearly indicate that you are disassociating yourself with McCabe’s adamant position, no doubt because you have realized that he is guilty of the Argument from Confirming the Consequent. Good for you. Yet it remains unclear where you now stand on Genesis 1. Are you admitting that the waw-consecutive does nothing to resolve the question of whether Genesis 1 is historical narrative or non-historical narrative, and can thereby be ignored as irrelevant? If you have, then you have joined Waltke, Kaiser, Sailhamer, Tov, and countless other evangelical scholars as well as the entire mainstream AAR/SBL academy of Semitic language scholars. (Of course, not a single linguistics stylometry scholar would ever fall for such a naive claim that shows a fundamental lack of understanding of literary genre and how human language works. That’s why they wouldn’t even have to know a thing about ancient Hebrew to know that McCabe’s claims were extremely suspect and likely to arise from poor methodology.)
A good analogy for English-speaking lay audiences would be the English phrase “Once upon a time…” A non-native speaker of English learning it as a second language might naively assume that the presence of that phrase in a particular text firmly marked that text as of the fairy tale genre (non-historical narrative commonly found in popular folklore and folk wisdom.) On the surface, it might actually seem like a clever observation on the part of a novice student of English. Yet, a native speaker knows better. We can all cite examples of “Once upon a time…” appearing in stories told about actual historical events, especially when the storyteller is being playful or comical. One could describe it as part of a flippant, light-hearted literary style. For example:
“Once upon a time, in a magical land known as Silicon Valley, there were two brave and clever knights, Sir Gates and Sir Jobs. And for years they jousted against one another in the field of battle for the hearts and minds of all of the kingdoms of the world. On a particular day one of them would do this…and the next day the other would do that and more. And the day after that, they would both do some other things.”
Clearly, “Once upon a time…” proved not to be a phrase which would definitely mark the passage as non-historical narrative. Likewise, the “and the next day” highlighted phrases which sound much like Hebrew waw-consecutives don’t establish historical narrative at all. Just a narrative genre of some sort. (Grammatical constructions do not so simplistically indicate truth or myth! Few would make that kind of novice mistake in their own language. Yet, the untrained often make such mistakes when dealing with unfamiliar languages.)
This example illustrates what any competent linguist could have explained to McCabe…if he had bothered to ask. Of course, for that matter, if McCabe had simply consulted the Hebrew Old Testament and used his computer to study all of the waw-consecutives, he would have noticed that prophets would also tell theological “fairy tales” about events which never actually happened, all for the purpose of explaining important lessons. Thus, if McCabe is going to claim that the waw-consecutives in Genesis 1 require good Christians to interpret that pericope as “literal historical events that really happened in a single week of seven 24-hour days”, then he must apply his “logic” consistently and conclude from Jotham’s pericope that all Christians must admit that trees can talk and plan for botanical self-governance. Does he?
Answer: No. McCabe doesn’t insist that trees can talk and choose their king because that was not within his agenda of tradition-based, prior beliefs which must be preserved at all costs. Thus, like LT_15, McCabe doesn’t really believe in his waw-consecutive argument after all. It is simply a convenient but illogical argument when he wants to “prove” Genesis 1 requires a traditional young earth creationist interpretation and no other.
I’ll post further when I get full Internet access again. I realize that the adamant will remain unmoved but I will post some more details for the readers who sent me questions. I had promised to post my answers publicly where all readers can read them or ignore them as they see fit.
That’s the advantage of a written rather than a live-audio forum. Visitors can pick and choose what they care about, embracing the comfortable and rejecting what is uncomfortable or too technical. (That is tongue-in-cheek and self-deprecating.) Skimming is the equivalent of the fast-forward button. And most writers tend to structure their comments so that the first paragraphs and last paragraphs of a post tend to capture the most important points. I freely admit that I don’t read everything posted in these threads. But I’m delighted that I always can, if and whenever I wish to do so. Some comments interest me and some do not. I prefer more choices and more information, more examples, more illustrations, more arguments, and more rebuttals. Not fewer.
Thank you all for your interesting posts even though I don’t have time to read the entirety of every one of them.
And yet it has been the subject of continued dispute, even after your comments. Strange, eh?
[quote=“bren, post:187, topic:4219”]
You are making what amounts to a questionable statistical inference (thankfully no longer disguised as sort of a rule in this forum) on a basis that is wholly inadmissible from a stats standpoint (all things being equal is a serious problem here), and that without even a rudimentary justification.
[/quote]I think you perhaps didn’t read closely. I have never made a statistical argument and I never disguised as a rule. I think I was clear from the beginning. Perhaps the objection is to what the forum thinks my position is, and therefore objects to it without consideration of the arguments. That such may be the case is indicated by the fact that no one, when pushed, actually disagrees with my support. They simply disagree with the outcome, and the pretend it’s because of the support. Yet, they agree with my support.
[quote=“bren, post:187, topic:4219”]
I’m also amazed that your above summary of the waw-consecutive… whatever-it-is, doesn’t even acknowledge the above criticisms, let alone address them.
[/quote]It’s not my intent to delve into an extended conversation of Hebrew grammar, which most here would not grasp and which is largely undisputed, as evidenced by the fact that most people here agree with me.
[quote=“bren, post:187, topic:4219”]
How exactly does my formulation differ from your own version? How is it not a statistical inference?
[/quote]Because we are not counting anything. We are simply saying that certain indicators typically go together, not always. But in any individual case, it must be examined. The question is, given the grammatical and syntactical construction of Gen 1 which generally indicates historical narrative, what would lead us to deny that? It’s not statistics because we are not arguing probability based on something unknown. We are not extrapolating from a small sample to a large one as statistical arguments generally do (though it can go backwards from a large sample to a particular case). We are rather accepting the common, and then examining it to see if there are reasons to not accept the common.
So I am not saying that out of 1000 cases of X, 900 are Y; Case A is Y, therefore it is most likely X. That is affirming the consequent with statistics. I am saying that generally speaking, X grammatical construct is Y. Case A is X; therefore we should consider it as Y unless there are compelling reasons to the contrary.
Thanks again. I am not sure there is much more to be said. I have tried to be clear from the beginning as I am sure you have and we are missing each somewhere. But I do appreciate the conversation and your approach to it.
It is actually Affirming the Consequent officially I believe.
But let’s look at it and examine how it would apply here.
P = waw-consecutive
Q = historical narrative or time sequence
So when we plug this in, it reads like this:
If waw-consecutive (P), then historical narrative (Q).
Gen 1 is historical narrative (Q), therefore waw-consecutives appear (P).
Now, do you see the problem?
I have never argued this way at any point.
My argument is actually this: If P, then most likely Q. Genesis 1 is P, therefore it is most likely Q. This is a modus ponens argument which is valid if the premises are true. My caveat to this has always been “likely” or “generally speaking.” It was never absolute.
You should easily see how you misrepresented my argument.i
It doesn’t matter to me what level you have taught at or who you learned from. You can be totally right on the logic, but you misapply the argument by misidentifying the premise, you are incorrect. Which is similar to logic: You can have a valid syllogism that is untrue, which is perhaps what you have done here. If you had properly characterized my argument, you would be right. But the premise (properly characterized my argument) is false. Therefore your conclusion is invalid.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
“If a text is of genre P, then language structure Q is often present.” “Here’s a text which contains language structure Q.”“Therefore, the presence of Q tells us that the text is of genre P.”
[/quote]I don’t believe this is actually not a fallacy. Look at it this way: “If something is historical narrative, then the waw-consective is often present.” That’s a true statement. It is a true premise. However, you have untrue conclusion is that you omitted part of the premise, namely, “often.” You shoul have said, “Therefore the presence of Q often tells us that the text is genre P,” or specifically, “the presence of the waw-consecutive often tells us that something is historical narrative.”
In that, the logic is sound. The problem is the truth of the premise. Does the waw-consecutive generally or often indicate historical narrative? Many here appear to disagree, but the grammars are on my side.
In your second statement, you did not reflect my argument because you have the premises reversed.
Something is fallacious or invalid when the premises do not logically lead to the conclusion. Something is untrue when the premises are untrue or the conclusion does not logically follow.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
we noticed that you started backing off on the strength of your argument and said, “I never said it was a rule.”
[/quote]Can you point to where I called it a rule? That charge has been repeatedly made, and denied by me. And no one has bothered to support the original charge.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
Your misunderstanding of the fallacy of the Confirming the Consequent, does explain why you fail to recognize the fundamental irrelevance of McCabe’s waw-consecutive paper and the reasons why it never appeared in a respected peer-reviewed academic journal.
[/quote]It is affirming the consequent, and it has nothing necessarily to do with the reasons why it never appeared in a respected peer-reviewed journal. You have here participated in the fallacy of the excluded middle. You have argued that it either (a) appeared in a respected peer-reviewed journal or (b) is wrong. But you have clearly excluded the middle–that perhaps it was never submitted to such a journal. Or perhaps other options.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
(1) Do you still claim that those disagreeing with you don’t understand the Confirming the Consequent fallacy? Do you think me ignorant of it?
[/quote]Yes, based on what you have said here as I demonstrated above. At the very least, you have misapplied it.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
(2) Do you believe I have incorrectly summarized your argument about waw-consecutive?
[/quote]Yes.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
(3) Do you still believe your argument is NOT an example of the Confirming the Consequent fallacy?
[/quote]Yes. I have shown how I have not affirmed the consequent. I have instead used a basic modus ponens. (Whether the premises are true or not is different than whether the syllogism is valid.)
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
(4) If not, why?
[/quote]See above.
[quote=“Saito, post:190, topic:4219”]
For years I’ve also been asking this question …
[/quote]Without repeating the whole question(s), and without answering for anyone else, I believe that the constant state of flux in the sciences is evidence that we should hold their conclusions lightly. I think there is a good deal of mutual approval based on the choice of peers (an issue that economist Thomas Sowell wrote about some time ago … that peer review is only as good as the peers. And when everyone agrees, it’s not really peer-review per se). Yes, I think there is some contradiction and illogic. I think too little weight is given to these things. I think what the academy needs to do is to submit the mind and heart to the Creator and begin to examine creation that way.
In the end, if in eternity (or in this life) it was indisputably revealed that the earth was old and that evolution was the mechanism for it, I would only be marginally surprised. It wouldn’t drive me to despair or to leave my faith.
Here’s an interesting issue though to me, and I close with this:
Some are willing to interpret nature and adjust their understanding of the Bible to fit it even though what is read in nature and the Bible is not consistently agreed on.
Some are willing to interpret the Bible and adjust their understanding of nature to fit it even though what is read in the Bible and nature is not consistently agreed on.
In both cases, there are some general agreements on broad things and lesser agreements on other things.
It wasn’t me. I suggested it as a source that needs to be examined and considered. It should be. It has not been. Whether or not its claims hold up can only be determined by examination. You guys are complaining that it hasn’t been peer-reviewed, and yet here with a chance to do a little informal peer-review, you have resisted it.
As I have asked many times, falsify it. Show us the data about the use of YOM in Genesis 1 that refutes his understanding of it as normal days. And then interact with his actual position about the waw-consecutive.
I have to wonder if you actually read his argument. Let me quote some key sections of it (emphasis mine):
While the waw consecutive may appear in poetic literature, it is not a defining characteristic of Hebrew poetry. However, it is a significant component of Hebrew historical narrative in that it generally adds to past time narration an element of sequence (p. 34).
The use of waw consecutive to communicate sequential, past tense material is the expected style for a historical book like Genesis. If the author of Genesis wanted to preserve past-tense, sequential material, we expect his literary style to include a consistent use of the waw consecutive (p. 35).
My argument is not that waw consecutive always denotes sequence (p. 35).
I want you to note particularly the last quote and then explain why you have so frequently and so egregiously misrepresented what he said? How are your accusations and representations of him not an violation of ethics in conversation and debate? They are clearly wrong, and perhaps intentionally dishonest. How is it that you, a PhD expert (IIRC), are willing to misrepresent an argument?
Might it be that you never actually read the argument? Otherwise could you have missed it? It seems the other option is that you saw him say this and you then lied about what you know he said. Is there another option?
Whether you agree with him or not, you owe it to him and to all of us here to accurately represent his position. The first duty of scholarly interaction is to make sure your opponent recognizes himself in your presentation of his argument. You have clearly failed in that.
Furthermore, I notice that you have not interacted with his actual data. Why not? He gives some pretty detailed information. Did you read that? Or did you just see the name on the article and proceed to deny it without interaction?
[quote=“OldTimer, post:193, topic:4219”]
But after we showed the major logical fallacies and methodological flaws in McCabe’s article
[/quote]I apologize. I missed this somewhere. There has been a lot said though, and I haven’t read it all. I recall, the charge that McCabe overlooked other data, yet none of that overlooked data was ever supplied so that we examine it. It was charged that it wasn’t eer-reviewed and therefore is unreliable. Yet that partakes of a fallacy, and is simply false. Something is not reliable or unreliable based on who has reviewed it or who agrees with it. It was charged that McCabe made a hard and fast rule, and that was shown clearly to be false on p. 35 of the article. There were probably some others I forgot.
I did challenge you and others to examine the data and offer a refutation of it. So far that has not been done.
[quote=“OldTimer, post:193, topic:4219”]
You also said that this is undeniable and everybody you mention agrees with you, even though everybody I know (including Dr. Waltke and Kaiser) deny it.
[/quote]What I said was undeniable, I believe, was the generallly accepted use of the waw-consecutive as related to narrative and sequence. Waltke seems to agree with me that the author of Genesis intended our normal days to be understood and about the significance of waw-consecutives in Hebrew grammar. So do many others.
[quote=“OldTimer, post:193, topic:4219”]
So what is your position? Do you concur with McCabe or not?
[/quote]I think there is merit to his argument and it needs to be considered. I am open to someone actually interacting with it.
[quote=“OldTimer, post:193, topic:4219”]
A good analogy for English-speaking lay audiences would be the English phrase “Once upon a time…”
[/quote]h.That’s not a particularly good analogy because “One upon a time” is a figure of speech or an idiom of sort. A better analogy might a non-native English speaker seeing present tense verbs in a text. They would be justified in understanding that to reflect something that is happening. But they would be wrong to assert that present tense verbs always reflect present action.
I think you simplified McCabe’s argument too much. You haven’t actually interacted with it. You flat out misrepresented it and ignored that he specifically denied what you claim he believes.
I don’t know who you are or what your background is. But I believe you have acted unethically by attributing to McCabe and to me arguments that we never made and, in fact, arguments that McCabe and I specifically denied. That is wrong, whether it is in an informal forum or a formal academic exercise.
Correct, but in Hebrew, they are generally different gramatically and syntactically (though not always).
[quote=“jammycakes, post:191, topic:4219”]
Just because a passage is primarily about one subject does not mean that it is silent on other subjects which it also discusses.
[/quote]I think this is a very helpful point to make and it has ramifications for Genesis 1. The fact that Genesis 1 is not primarily about “how” creation came to be but rather a polemic about God as creator does not necessarily mean that it is silent on “how” creation came to be.
Hard to see why it is strange; you continually trot out the grammatical rule as though it will support the questionable inference that you seem to be advocating. We keep pointing out that repeating the grammatical rule doesn’t somehow transform a bad inference into a good argument, and in response, you go back to discussing just how amazingly solid the grammatical rule happens to be and how everyone agrees with it. Beyond a certain point, this continual focus on the grammar takes on the character of a diversion that distracts from the weakness of the inference. Please tell me that this is not why you keep emphasizing a point that no one has bothered to dispute. So no, not so strange, but the above might give an idea of why it keeps coming up, and yes, that story is strange.
“When pushed”? No one needs to be pushed, grammar: fine. Inference: unacceptable from any rational standpoint. Although rhetorically convenient, it is irresponsible to maintain that you have been defending the universal opinion of the grammarians in the face of constant opposition on this site. That is quite obviously an incorrect assessment; as I’ve said, you have been defending a position that no one is attacking and my impression is that this has served as a surrogate for defending the inference that is not being accepted. Might I suggest that you distance yourself from the grammar that so few here would understand anyway from what you say (I have trouble taking that suggestion wholly seriously, since it is hardly a complicated construct) in favor of grappling with the inference problem – which I think you’ve started to do.
That said, your brief treatment of the inference problem (“the(y) pretend it’s because of the support”) is highly suspect and hardly generous. I don’t see any make-believe happening here. The generally accepted references don’t support your inference at all, the generally rejected references fail to argue the point successfully and have neither undergone peer review nor generated any scholarly support or discussion, and the actual arguments have been shown to be illegitimate on fairly basic grounds.
You are mixing up two arguments here for some reason. If you follow my reasoning, I never suggested you “affirmed the consequence with statistics”. That would be an odd accusation and I’m sort of surprised that this is what you understood. You had, and have, a choice: either you affirm the consequent, or you lean on a very poor probability argument. To your credit, and in contrast to some other YECs, you have decided to avoid affirming the consequent. You have renounced any claim to a firm logical inference. I agree with you that you have been careful to not call it a rule. Great so far. This is then slightly ruined when you seem to give it a rational gloss by calling it modus ponens (sounds great, but this is wrong) instead of simply admitting that it is probabilistic, but I guess we can skip that minor quibble since I see what you meant by it.
If you can’t make it a sure bet with a deductive argument, then all you have left is inference based on probability. Because you are making an inference, you would be right to strictly call it probabilistic instead of statistical, so my mistake there. It hardly makes a difference with respect to the form of the argument or the criticism it is subject to. In the later part of the above quote, you get carefully vague; “generally speaking”, as though this vagueness would somehow change the nature of the argument and clear it of all problems relating to the use of probability or statistics. Whatever your use of terms, the form of the argument remains self-evidently probabilistic and as such, my criticism stands.
It is a probability statement in which you make the point; “such and such is usually the case throughout this population, so by inference it is likely to be also the case for this individual”. Since you are comfortable with statistics and probability, you will know that in any case, the inference is acceptable if and only if the individual case in question can be SHOWN TO BE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE POPULATION BEING USED TO SET UP THE INFERENCE. If it is a significant outlier in many respects (Genesis 1 is quite obviously unique in its combination of characteristics and in its subject matter) or has numerous features that link it to other populations (mythology, cosmogony, stylized narratives, poetry) each with their own set of probabilistic features, then appropriateness of the population selected for the inference becomes highly doubtful, the number of confounding variables goes up substantially and the inference, as a result, is no longer even remotely valid. The whole setup is steeped in omitted variable bias when you ignore the outlier features of the text in relation to the main population you are using for the inference.
This broad-brush equivocation is simply unacceptable when using a probabilistic model, but instead of looking carefully at this objection, you seem to offer yourself a blanket amnesty by making use of the observation that “I have never made a statistical argument”. And that technicality helps? Are you suggesting that if you had run a quick survey of the OT and ended up with: “in 90% of the cases” instead of “generally speaking”, your argument would have crumbled, but luckily, you didn’t check, so you get to duck that bullet and ignore the basic requirements for any probabilistic inference? I don’t get this style of reasoning.
If it is a probability or a statistical argument, then you need to treat it with the care due to such an argument and not mix your apples with your oranges, and if it is neither a logical nor a probabilistic argument, then just exactly what is it?
Not sure if you caught why I made my statement. I have proposed that Gen 1 is circular poetry and because of the structure of the poetry harmony is found with standard science. Not in just here and there but with every detail (if you stop arguing what the writer meant by day or firmament).
Most of the comments I have received presented arguments against concordism. However, no one has actually looked at the poetry angle that gives the freedom of harmony. Care to take a look at the thread Poetically Harmonizing Genesis with Science?
That is because Eddie and I have been arguing on multiple threads. I get tired of (angered by) answering argument after argument without ever finishing any one. My bad. His arguments started off generally good, straight out of the book. But I said the examples did not apply. That is when he twisted my words to build ridiculous scenarios, then presented them as what I said or as a “logical” conclusion to what I said. The logic contortions, most of what you have gleaned, is in his head, not mine. To me what he does is no different from a YEC who distorts scientific concepts in illogical paths that end with the “conclusion” that those concepts are false when it was the distortion that was false.
Please start by reading my proposal in the thread “Poetically Harmonizing Genesis with Science.” This is not a complete work or even a complete list of the ideas pertaining to Gen 1. It is a quick squashing of chapters to give an idea of what I am talking about. I do not know Hebrew and was hoping for some dialogue about the poetry from someone who does. I am an armchair science buff so was hoping from some science guy to agree or disagree on my ordering. I have yet to get any response to these questions. However, concordism is a hot topic.
I actually like logic. I really do understand the difference between logical impossibilities and physical impossibilities, as you and he defined them. My complaint was that he insist his view of my proposal falls into an impossible category simply because it is an attempt at harmonizing. He sees no possibility that God inspired this text to do something he deems impossible.
From here on, if I say Eddie believes something, that is what I gathered from his words. He may or may not agree with how I worded his beliefs. He is rather cagey about his beliefs yet gets irritated if his beliefs are not presented perfectly.
Eddie wants every detail upfront, with a detailed history, while he insult the mere attempt at concordism, particularly by someone without the correct credentials. Eddie believes Gen 1 is historical narrative. I say it is poetic, specifically circular poetry, a form that has never been applied to this passage before, thus Eddie concludes circular poetry must be wrong because no one with the right degree thought of it. He accepts the “2 column” structure (God made 3 spaces, then filled those spaces, as it has been around hundreds of years) but does not accept any other poetic interpretation because none of them have every worked. However, instead of starting with and shredding the poetic aspect, he remains on a quest to stop me from trying to harmonize the Bible with standard science and says it is for my own good.
Poetry can say things in fewer words than narrative. Poetry gives those words flexibility and depth within the structure of the style. The patterns within this poem intertwine in circles like everything in nature intertwines, like life cycles are drawn in circles. Circles mean the consecutively listed “days” are not literally linear (a concept that boggles Eddie’s mind). Poetry lets the details of the poem tell the same story as standard science in the same order we find it today. Those details are an outline, not a play-by-play that Eddie wants to see. I am not doing gymnastics to force it to make interlocking circles. The poetry style just does.
Because it is poetic, each generation comes at the same words with the understanding they have (Eddie’s use of the word “exactly” in describing my ideas is very distorted), and they can see God’s glory in their understanding. Earlier generations did not need to know quantum physics or genetics. Unlike Eddie’s assessment, there is no need for only one generation’s understanding to be “correct.” The writer understood what he understood. Augustine could define it in a Hellenistic version. Medieval Europeans could add all the mysticism they wanted. Everyone understood it in their limited way. Today, YEC can see it their way while a science guy can see all the glories of a scientific creation. The passage is so forgiving that Eddie, and those like him, can find God in the myth. It will continue this ability. I think that shows something far beyond any other creation text. It makes the first chapter of our holy book circumstantial evidence for the inspiration of the God of creation.
The poetry describes several attributes of the Big Bang and geologic structures that we have only recently discovered. No earlier theologian could have visualized these passages as we can. Unlike other creation texts, this one generalizes all the animals, including humans. Most of the groups are too vague to pick a kingdom let alone a species (sea creatures). The closest to “genus” might be human, but that is still not necessary to interpret it that way. Leviticus 11 uses the word “kind” but not as species or genus, just “these things that kind of look alike.” I say evolution theories started with that same idea. That is why I say “kind” means “lineage,” and lineage incorporates all the animals from the beginning.
It is our limitations that limit the miracle within the text. For instance, Charles Darwin could not rationalize his understanding of an evolving creation with a loving God. Why? Because everyone in his time visualized the biblical creation as seen through Paradise Lost. That epic continues to distort our understanding of the biblical texts and our comprehension of a loving God.
I’m presently in West Africa without full Internet access and can only exchange plain text with my assistant in the States. Nevertheless, long delays in airports required a diversion so I’ll address some issues on this thread that may even have become stale by now. Nevertheless, I’d promised some readers that I’d address their questions so now is a good time for that.
Some readers want just the major points and some readers complain that details are missing. So I will try to address the interests of all readers but the main points will appear in bold and italics. (Learning to skim is a valuable skill for every academic and well worth learning.)
Firstly, forum threads do not prove all that effective for remedial education. So rather than focus on correcting what someone did or didn’t claim, or whether or not someone understands the fundamentals of some academic discipline, I’m going to primarily address the versions of these failed arguments which are most commonly made by many Young Earth Creationists. In particular, because Robert McCabe was so frequently mentioned, I will address his arguments. I’ve dealt with his claims on numerous occasions and even had a “virtual debate” with him once through an intermediary’s blog. Thus, if someone on the thread claims, “I never said that I agree with McCabe.”, that is certainly their right. I’m simply saying that anyone who affirms or approvingly cites McCabe should expect to experience fallout from even a vague association with his much panned, poorly considered arguments.
Secondly, McCabe is most frequently cited for two articles (which appeared in his school’s publication, the Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal), which appears in my archival notes as:
(1) McCabe, R., A defense of literal days in the creation week, Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 5:97–123, Fall 2000.
(2) A critique of the framework interpretation of the creation week (Appeared in two parts), Detroit Baptist Seminary Journal 10:19–67, 2005; 11:63–133, 2006.
Because both articles involved creation week topics, the two titles and three citations have been confused on a number of websites. As a result, some of the published critiques confused them as well—including my own on occasion!—because they/we assumed the accuracy of the “creation science” articles which referred to them, and we didn’t always double-check their citations. Thus, for my purposes here, I will simply refer to “McCabe’s arguments”, even though in the case of his waw-consecutive arguments about Genesis 1, they appeared in #2 and not #1 above, as well as in various of his lectures and Internet interviews.
Thirdly, I freely acknowledge that not every Young Earth Creationist claims that the multiple wav-consecutives in Genesis 1 mark it as historical narrative. Yet, a great many certainly do, including McCabe. In the process of making that argument, McCabe and many others blatantly blunder their way into the Argument from Affirming the Consequent fallacy.
Fourthly, when they start from a tradition-based Young Earth Creationist agenda which dictates that they must prove that Genesis 1 is historical narrative describing six solar days,** in propaganda terms this is also a case of Confirming the Consequent,** a particularly egregious form of the ubiquitous logical fallacy.
Yes. It is roughly akin to saying, "Historical narrative is one of many genres where one finds many occurrences of “And the…” (Truth be told, the argument is just as unimpressive in Hebrew as it is in English.) That is why nobody would disagree with McCabe if he had stopped there. But he didn’t!
McCabe also observes that in the corpus we know as the Hebrew Masoretic Text, most of those waw-consecutives appear in historical narrative passages. And that is where he abuses the irrelevant, and tries to make claims about Genesis 1 based on a logical fallacy, an ignorance of first year stylometry basics. The argument defies common sense and few would ever try to apply it within their own native language. If in Corpus Z the Language Structure X happens to have Attribute A 90% of the time and Attribute B (or even NOT-A) 10% of the time, in no way does that tell us that for any given instance of Structure X, we can be confident that Attribute A will be the case. That may constitute a strategy for playing roulette but it is not a sound methodology for exegesis! A monoglot would never presume such an argument in their own language.
Indeed, that lame argument reminds me of the Young Earth Creationist who told me that “The earth is either young as I assert or the earth is old as you assert. Thus, we each have a 50/50 chance of being correct.” What does one say when that kind of thinking passes for “logic” in some quarters? Answer: I don’t think that there’s much that one can do in such cases. Cognitive dissonance is a powerful force. Tradition is a powerful force.
YES IT IS! And that is exactly what McCabe and many other have argued about the waw-consecutive. It could hardly be a more blatant example of affirming the consequent"!
I realize that the formal study of logical fallacies is a foreign concept to many readers. I’ve found that on Internet forums for general audiences one needs to explain these types of principles with far more words and examples than we’d ever use in the classroom (where students have already learned the basics from their Introduction to Logic textbook.) We need to make allowances for the majority of university graduates who never took a logic course. Those with strong backgrounds in logic can skip the next section
Let’s employ the kind of simple substitutions-of-the-variables which everyone will find familiar from conventional algebra, rather than the more concise symbolic language one would find in a logic textbook.
Here’s McCabe’s argument broken down into its logical steps:
** “If some text is historical narrative, then lots of waw-consecutives are usually present in that text.”
“Genesis 1 has lots of waw-consecutives.”
“Therefore, Genesis is a historical narrative.” **
Now, let’s review the general form of the Affirming the Consequent logical fallacy:
If P is true, then Q is true.
Q is true.
Therefore, P is true.
An argument of this form is always invalid because P being true is not the ONLY way that Q can be true! Obviously, there can be circumstances in which Q is true without P being true. If this still sounds like a foreign language to some, let’s try to make sense of it through some classic examples found in first year logic textbooks:
“If the Sultan of Brunei owns the Hope Diamond, he is very rich.”
“The Sultan of Brunei is very rich.”
“Therefore, the Sultan of Brunei owns the Hope Diamond.”
Notice that both statement #1 and statement #2 are true, yet statement #3 is not true. There are other ways for someone to be rich without owning the Hope Diamond! In fact, obviously, the vast majority of rich people in the world do not own the Hope Diamond.
Someone might wrongly assume that that traditional textbook example is too specific in starting with one particular person. So let’s also illustrate the Affirming the Consequent logical fallacy with a more generalized form of Statement #1:
“If a man owns the Hope Diamond, that man is very rich.”
“Warren Buffett is very rich.”
“Therefore, Warren Buffet owns the Hope Diamond.”
Obviously, generalizing the first statement of “If P is true, then Q is true.” did not prevent another Affirming the Consequent fallacy.
[By the way, if someone doesn’t like the 100% absolutism implied by “is true”, this fallacy description will also apply just fine if one substitutes “generally true” for the “true” appearing with Q. The fallacy remains just as wrong because I could always re-phrase Q as “generally true” with a statement within the statement, as in the general version of statement #2: " ‘Q is true’ is generally true". You will sometimes find this explicitly stated in logic textbooks because when illogical debaters are cornered, they will often pretend that a more qualified “degree of truth” avoids “100% absolutism” and thereby prevents the argument from being a logical fallacy. (This will often sound plausible to poorly informed general audiences, so it makes an excellent debate tactic outside of academic circles. Most creationist audiences love it.) Yet, I chose the Sultan of Brunei example pre-emptively, just to illustrate that the Argument from Affirming the Consequent fallacy still applies and is equally false—and would even apply when just one member of the set fits the Q-is-true reality.)]
Hopefully the reader should now be sufficiently schooled on this classic logic blooper to determine if McCabe’s argument fits the format of this Confirming the Consequent fallacy. Let’s find out by substituting some specific particulars for P and Q:
P= “Some particular Biblical text is historical narrative”
Q= “waw-consecutives appear in that Biblical text”
So, let’s now place the substitutions into the general form of the fallacy:
If “Some particular Biblical text is historical narrative” is true, then “waw-consecutives appear in that Biblical text” is true.
“waw-consecutives appear in that Biblical text” is true for some Biblical text.
Therefore, “that Biblical text is historical narrative” is true.
Thus, McCabe claims that “the Biblical text known as Genesis 1 is historical narrative” is a true statement.
McCabe’s defenders will look for some sort of wiggle room by saying that this isn’t a 100% proof, and yet will claim that McCabe has “followed the evidence” where it led. Yet that makes no sense. If the reader is unsure of this, go back and review the familiar textbook examples again. Did "following the evidence wherever it led bring one to the conclusion that Warren Buffet owns the Hope Diamond? Of course not.
Even so, I expect to read in protest, “No! That’s not the same thing! Not all rich people own the Hope Diamond.” I would agree! Of course they don’t. Likewise, not all texts containing waw-consecutives in the HMT are historical narratives. (“If P then Q” does NOT require “If Q, then P”!)
The Argument from Affirming the Consequent leads to a logical fallacy, and the Argument from CONFIRMING the Consequent is all the more lamentable because we knew in advance that McCabe’s employment required him to play along with this traditional waw-consecutive YEC argument.
Yes, naively assuming that the presence of waw-consecutives in a text indicates historical narrative is probably McCabe’s most obvious logical fallacy. And that would have remained true EVEN IF McCabe had demonstrated that every waw-consecutive in the Hebrew Masoretic Text was found to be historical narrative. That is just one of many reasons why McCabe’s monograph would never be published in a leading academic journal.
It gets much worse for McCabe, however. Did McCabe even bother to do an exhaustive concordance of waw-consecutives in the Hebrew Old Testament to see if they are all historical narrative? Believe it or not, no. (He also failed to pursue and concord his QAL argument but I have no reason to kick-a-dead-donkey, as Saito so eloquently put it!) How can McCabe follow the evidence wherever it leads when he didn’t even bother to collect and examine all of that evidence? Welcome to the wonderful world of “creation science” YECism! ( When an author displays a total lack of familiarity with basic research procedure and academic standards, a journal editor wouldn’t even bother to send review notes. I feel sad having to eviscerate McCabe’s “research” like this but I’m left with little choice—especially when his arguments are misleading so many within the Body of Christ.)
What would McCabe have discovered if he had done competent, peer-reviewed journal, professional-quality scholarship? A simple concordance would have forced him to notice what his lack of familiarity with the Hebrew Tanakh did not bring to mind from his memories of attending seminary: Nathan’s Fable in 2 Samuel 12:1-4 (i.e., the stolen lamb story which explains the evil of King David’s indirect slaying of Uzziah after impregnating Uriah’s wife) utilizes waw-consecutive constructions. Also, the Fable of Jothan in Judges 9:8-15 talks about trees looking for a king and uses wav-consecutives to tell a story which sounds much like Aesop’s except Aesop generally preferred to use animals. Does anyone think that those two fables—teaching stories meant to communicate important truths, not actual real-life events—represent “historical narrative”? No.
Those two stories, which most of us learned about in Sunday School class as children, include plenty of waw-consecutive constructions yet McCabe never even mentions them. (So much for following the evidence where it leads!) Because McCabe and so many other YECs insist that waw-consecutive indicates actual historical events which happened “literally” as described, will they also insist that an ancient king really did kill a poor man’s pet sheep in order to feed it to guests? Will they adamantly claim that some trees discussed who to appoint as their king? I doubt it. They just cherry-pick when it fits their tradition-based agenda.
Yet, somehow I think it likely that McCabe and his fans will admit that the Nathan Fable and the Jotham Fable were teaching stories and did not reflect historical events that happened exactly as described by the waw-consecutive-laden texts. I’d bet that they would say that those two stories were illustrative rather than “literal” historical events—despite the ubiquitous waw-consecutives within them. They would admit that both stories are filled with symbolism. I have no doubt that they could correctly explain the meaning and purpose of each symbol. (Does anyone doubt that Bathsheba was the beloved lamb in the story?) Yet, the $50,000 question is whether McCabe and friends will be honest in following the evidence wherever it leads and admit that the waw-consecutive in Genesis 1 could also constitute a teaching story full of symbols, a “creation week fable” just as truthful and theologically rich, a parable filled with poetic structures.
I hope Young Earth Creationist readers will visit a library and look at a university-level logic textbook. There’s also many excellent Internet webpages with descriptions of logical fallacies. I assure you that what I just explained is there for anyone to search out. This is NOT a “misplaced argument from authority”.
The “Argument from Authority” Fallacy is also misunderstood by many of the same YECs who commit the Affirming the Consequent fallacy.
The Argument from Authority fallacy is often misapplied on these thread. Even though it has been some twenty-five years since I taught a logic course at the graduate level, publishers continued to send me undergraduate logic textbooks as unsolicited “desk copies”. That gave me the opportunity to see some of the developing trends. Textbook authors apparently noticed how often the Argument from Authority fallacy has been mangled in popular debates and, as a result, many of the textbooks now call it the Argument from Misplaced Authority. That is because every valid citation in an academic paper is an entirely appropriate “argument from authority!” Authority matters. It comes from demonstrating a mastery of the knowledge and methodology and rests on the foundation of skillful handling of the evidence. That’s why “Isaac Newton published the Law of Universal Gravitation which states that…” is a valid argument from authority while “Robert McCabe says that one particular Hebrew construction pattern indicates that Genesis 1 is historical narrative” is an invalid argument from authority. (McCabe has no expertise or training in literary stylometry, and he failed to apply the most elementary methodology in following the evidence where it led.)
Similarly, the Argument from Ad Hominem fallacy is just as often misunderstood by many young earth creationist ministry leaders. They think it simply means to insult someone! (Face-palm.) So I’ve often complained that not only are so many YECist arguments filled with logical fallacies, when they make their own references to logical fallacies, they apply the terms in ignorance.
“It’s dead, Jim.”
I hope we can finally put the irrelevant “McCabe presuppositional protest-as-pretence” to rest. You can declare it “irrefutable” all day long but nobody outside of the YEC ministry world has any respect for such nonexistent “rules”, especially when they are obvious logical fallacies.
Here’s McCabe’s own words as the “smoking gun” of his logical fallacy: [I’ve added my own commentary in square brackets where McCabe goes off the rails.]
“Yet Genesis 1:1–2:3 is nothing like this. Instead, it consistently uses a grammatical device that characterizes historical literature, the waw (or vav) consecutive. [More accurately, it characterizes NARRATIVE in general, not just historical narrative. McCabe ignores that fact because he probably doesn’t know it.] This device, which usually moves the narrative forward in sequence (i.e. consecutively) occurs some 2,107 times in Genesis, averaging out to 42 times per chapter. [The infamous frequency fallacy.] In Genesis 1:1–2:3, while there is an absence of poetic parallelism,[Irrelevant. Poetic parallelism is just ONE of MANY TYPES of poetic attributes. And for that matter, Genesis 1 does use another type of parallelism in its chiasmic structures. And the most obvious poetic/hymnic structures in Genesis 1 are the six verses-with-choruses.] there are 55 waw consecutives… Whatever else may be said about the creation account, this grammatical device marks it as historical narrative, [DING! DING! DING! McCabe just committed the Affirming the Consequent fallacy!] just as it does in the remainder of Genesis. Thus, it is our obligation [Sure sounds like a RULE!] to interpret the creation account as literal history just like we do the other historical narrative in the Bible.”
Wow! If that is not the smoking gun of McCabe’s logic fallacies and ignorance of literary stylometry, I don’t know what is! I would defy anyone but the most blind to defend such an atrocious paragraph of the armchair diletante, to borrow a favorite phrase of Professor Tertius.
Is this yet another area where entire departments of professors in universities throughout the world are all wrong and we’ve been teaching egregious errors—and we need YECs with no backgrounds in the relevant fields to rewrite our textbooks for us? Should logicians and linguists join the ranks of the already-rebuked geologists, biologists, paleontologists, comparative anatomists, physicists, and astronomers who are hopelessly mired in glaring errors which taint entire academic fields as hopelessly unreliable about the simplest of fundamental concepts? Is formal logic yet another academic field needing the remedial tutelage of to-the-rescue Young Earth Creationists?
If someone simply chooses to believe that:
(1) “Genesis 1 describes six 24-hour days of actual historical events despite all of the scientific evidence to the contrary, and…”
(2) “I believe man’s fallible interpretations of the evidence in God’s universe are hopelessly flawed while my interpretations (or my church’s interpretations) of the evidence in God’s Bible is inerrant, and…”
(3) “I simply don’t believe that an old earth and the Theory of Evolution are things which a genuine Christian should believe,”
…then I can accept that position among my Young Earth Creationist Christian brethren as their valid freedom-of-thought opinion even though I consider it to be factually wrong and destructive to the Kingdom. Yet, meanwhile, I have to draw the line at dogmatic claims that are factually wrong.
As the old saying goes: “Everyone is welcomed to their own opinion but not their own facts.”
[quote=“bren, post:199, topic:4219”]Hard to see why it is strange; you continually trot out the grammatical rule as though it will support the questionable inference that you seem to be advocating.[/quote]I don’t recall describing it as a rule at all, and I think every time that was brought up I corrected it. That charge came from others. I have been explicit about how I view it. And I have given support for it. You and others say that the support doesn’t support me. That indicates that you don’t understand the argument I am making.
No one disputes what the grammars and grammarians say. And when I say I am saying the same thing they are saying, you say I am not and the grammars don’t support me. So how is it that I say I agree with the grammars and you tell me I don’t? How is it that you know what I believe better than I do? That’s why it is strange.
[Edited to remove a section in which Bren mistakenly identified a logical argument then later corrected it. I had responded to the Bren’s original response not knowing that he had later corrected it. I have removed this short section containing the mistake and my response.]
It appears that most of you here haven’t read the article; you don’t seem to know what it argued, or how it used the data, or what qualifications were given. Did you see the quotes I gave from the article earlier? It showed that McCabe, in his own words, denied the very thing that OldTimer and Saito (and perhaps you) are charging him with. How can you see a writer make a clear statement, and then deny the statement? The only explanations I can think of are that (1) you didn’t read the article closely or (2) you are lying. (Not you specifically, but the person making the charge.) I would prefer to think the best and assume people didn’t read the article.
[quote=“bren, post:199, topic:4219”]
it is irresponsible to maintain that you have been defending the universal opinion of the grammarians in the face of constant opposition on this site.
[/quote]So the fact that people on this site oppose something is evidence that the grammarians didn’t say it? I am not sure I understand that.
[quote=“bren, post:199, topic:4219”]
your brief treatment of the inference problem (“the(y) pretend it’s because of the support”) is highly suspect and hardly generous. I don’t see any make-believe happening here. The generally accepted references don’t support your inference at all
[/quote]Here again, you simply didn’t read. The comment that you quote didn’t have to do with the inference issue.
Given that no one has actually argued against the Hebrew here, I suggested that perhaps they simply disagree with the outcome (i.e., YEC) and pretend that their disagreement is with the Hebrew (even though they agree with the Hebrew support).
@OldTimer, That’s a very long post and frankly, it’s a mindboggler on several different fronts. How in the world can you claim to be an expert of some sort when you can’t read and understand basic prose in conversation, informal though it may be? Or when you can’t read and understand a basic article? There is nothing in depth or complicated here. It is a bit technical for non-Hebrew readers, but it’s not overly technical. And yet you have managed to completely miss some things and to misrepresent what others have said.
I realize you are overseas and at somewhat of a handicap, but that seems like the least of your problems here. It may be that your assistant is not fully communicating with you. In such a case, he or she is doing you a great disservice. It may just be that you need some peer review.
Let me hit just a few things:
[quote=“OldTimer, post:202, topic:4219”]
Let’s employ the kind of simple substitutions-of-the-variables which everyone will find familiar from conventional algebra, rather than the more concise symbolic language one would find in a logic textbook.
[/quote]I already did this and in so doing demonstrated you to be incorrect. Here you try again and demonstrate once again that you are incorrect. Nobody here (certainly not me) is making the argument that you propose. I will gladly refute the argument as your present it. It’s wrong. And it’s not my argument. You subtly switched the protasis and the apodosis by switching from an active verb (marks) to a passive verb (is marked) and making the argument appear different than it is.
The argument is not that narrative is marked by waw-consecutives, but that waw-consecutives typically mark narrative. The P is waw-consecutives, not historical narrative. You failed to read closely enough and think carefully enough to even understand the argument that was made, and you repeatedly refused to listen when I told you what I was saying. You then proceeded to refute an argument that I am not making and that I don’t think McCabe is making.
In short, you switched the protasis and then pretended as if I had made that argument. I have explicitly denied that. So your statement that I am affirming the consequent is incorrect since I am not making the argument that you are trying to refute. It is unethical and unscholarly for you to misrepresent my argument.
You are not responding to my argument, and you are not responding to what I think is McCabe’s argument. You have made up your own argument and then lied about it being someone else’s.
I would like to give you the benefit of the doubt, but you are a scholar or an expert (so we are led to believe). That means you should know better than to make these kinds of mistakes. Basic research starts with understanding your opponent’s argument and then presenting in a way that he or she would agree with. You failed. If you can’t represent your opponent’s argument correctly, then you are unethical.
I showed where you lied about McCabe’s position by quoting McCabe denying the very thing you claim he said. How can you do that?
The argument, as I showed above, is simple:
Note closely the location of the Ps and Qs compared to your own attempt above. Notice the structure: If P, then most likely Q. P, therefore most likely Q. That is a modus ponens argument, not affirming the consequent.
Here you can easily see that you are misrepresenting my argument.
Again, I have told you that over and over again but you seem to think you know better than me what I believe. You are wrong. You have misrepresented your opponent’s arguments.
The defense for McCabe here is not that there is wiggle room in the waw-consecutive argument (which he explicitly says there is, and you refuse to acknowledge; McCabe even cites Waltke/O’Connor for other uses). The defense is that you appear to have changed his argument so that you are not responding to him, but rather making up the argument you want to refute and then refuting it, even though no one is arguing it except you.
You are correct that affirming the consequent is a logical fallacy. You are incorrect that I have done that, and or that McCabe has done that (as I read him).
[quote=“OldTimer, post:202, topic:4219”]
Did McCabe even bother to do an exhaustive concordance of waw-consecutives in the Hebrew Old Testament to see if they are all historical narrative? Believe it or not, no.
[/quote]He said in his article that not all waw consecutives are historical narrative. So why raise this point against McCabe when you agree with McCabe?
[quote=“OldTimer, post:202, topic:4219”]
Here’s McCabe’s own words as the “smoking gun” of his logical fallacy:
[/quote]Where did this quote come from?
And why do you persist in saying it is affirming the consequent when it isn’t?
[quote=“OldTimer, post:202, topic:4219”]
“Everyone is welcomed to their own opinion but not their own facts.”
[/quote]Well said. It applies to you. You don’t get to make up your own facts about what other people have said and believe whether they are YEC or not. You have made stuff up out of whole cloth. You have misrepresented. You have twisted other people’s words. I consider that unethical.
I urge you to reconsider your tactics. You have severely misrepresented me (and McCabe) even after I have corrected you. I don’t care if you agree with me or not. I do care that you do what is right and ethical in argumentation. You have not done so.
This has been my first foray into BioLogos forums and frankly, it has been disappointing. This level of conversation is incredible, and not in a good way.
I discovered these Biology forums after seeing some of the thread highlights listed in the “Best of the Web” feature in an email newsletter I subscribe. This Meaning of the Word 'Day" analysis is my favorite so far. My Sunday School teacher gave us a handout of the major arguments and the vav-consecutive argument was on there. The teacher was a student at the local seminary and said that the argument was much like saying the word “the” appears frequently in historical narrative and therefore, the frequent appearance of “the” in Genesis 1 marks it as historical narrative. Nevertheless, now I understand it so much better especially the logical fallacy aspects.
I appreciated the sentence by sentence dissection of McCabe’s summary paragraph where he states his vaw-consecutive argument. The use of section titles and bold face font is great for helping me follow the arguments. Most forums, such as Facebook comments, don’t have any provision for fonts. It is nice to see them used so effectively here.
This stuff is definitely worth saving for future reference. I’m going to make sure the Biologos URL is listed in the Sunday School section of our church website.
Discussions are like handfuls of sand. The more tightly one SQUEEZES the sand … the more it runs out between your fingers.
Some things just aren’t worth arguing about … when there are different definitions in play, bring the differences out into the open and agree to some temporary terminology … and on and on it goes …
ENGLISH:
“Live and let live”
CHINESE:
和平共存的
ARABIC:
عش وإجعل غيرك يعيش, على كل شخص العيش حسب معتقداته وآراءه
SPANISH:
vivir y dejar vivir
(vivir según su propia filosofía, permitiendo al prójimo vivir según la suya)
DUTCH:
men moet leven en laten leven
(iedereen moet leven volgens zijn eigen geloof en opvattingen)
PORTUGUESE:
viva e deixe viver
(cada um viverá pela sua crença, oportunidade para qualquer pessoa viver de acordo com seus princípios)
TURKISH:
yaşa ve yaşat, her insanın kendi inançları ve dünya görüşleriyle yaşaması gerekir
ITALIAN:
vivi e lascia vivere
FRENCH:
il faut que le monde vive!
(donner la possibilité à toute personne de vivre selon son aspiration)
GERMAN:
leben und leben lassen
JAPANESE:
人は自らの人生観に従って生きるべきである
HEBREW:
חיה ותן לחיות
(איש באמונתו יחיה, מתן אפשרות לכל אדם לחיות לפי השקפתו)
SWEDISH:
leva och låta leva
(låt var och en leva sitt liv, att låta var och en leva som den vill)
“Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone.” -Colossians 4:6
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