Silver Blaze and the Argument from Silence

We’re often told that an argument from silence is fallacious. Treat yourself to Arthur Conan Doyle’s Silver Blaze. Enjoy it for the literary brilliance of Doyle’s acute story-telling gift, and for sake of an illustration of the strength and soundness of an argument from silence. Pay close attention to pages twenty through twenty-six, which focus on the dog in the stables. An argument from silence of powerful, when there should be noise!

Circular Reasoning, Humorously Illustrated: Weather Prediction

Late fall the Indians on a remote reservation in North Dakota asked

 their new chief if the coming winter was going to be cold or mild.

Since he was a chief in a modern society, he had never been taught the
 old secrets. When he looked at the sky, he couldn't tell what the
 winter was going to be like.

Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, he told his tribe that the
 winter was indeed going to be cold and that the members of the village
 should collect firewood to be prepared.

But, being a practical leader, after several days, he got an idea. He
 went to the phone booth, called the National Weather Service and
 asked, 'Is the coming winter going to be cold?'

'It looks like this winter is going to be quite cold,' the
 meteorologist at the weather service responded.

So the chief went back to his people and told them to collect even
 more firewood in order to be prepared.

A week later, he called the National Weather Service again. 'Does it
 still look like it is going to be a very cold winter?'

'Yes,' the man at National Weather Service again replied, 'it's going
 to be a very cold winter.'

The chief again went back to his people and ordered them to collect
 every scrap of firewood they could find.

Two weeks later, the chief called the National Weather Service again.
 'Are you absolutely sure that the winter is going to be very cold?'

'Absolutely,' the man replied. 'It's looking more and more like it is
 going to be one of the coldest winters we've ever seen.'

'How can you be so sure?' the chief asked.

The weatherman replied, 'The Indians are collecting tons of
 firewood'!

In Yeshua, YHWH Saves

And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS:[1] for (γαρ; grounds clause) he [himself][2] shall save his people from their sins (Matt. 1:21 KJV).

Here are some gleanings from my message prep for the Second Sunday in Epiphany (which is also Sanctity of Human Life Sunday).

Matt. 1:21 is the fulfillment of the promise of Is. 49:1d, “From the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” So, naturally, it has weighed in on my studies.

I’ve always found this verse to be one of the strongest indirect proofs for Jesus’ deity, similar to Matt. 11:27, St. Matthew’s so-called logion. And there is a transparent word play intended in Jesus’ name in Matt. 1:21 (see fn. 1).

The command to name the Messiah Jesus (Arm. Yesuah or Joshua) is premised or grounded on the fact that “he himself will save his people from their sins” (1:21b). I’ve always struggled to put Jesus’ deity from indirect texts into a sound and valid syllogism. For instance, consider the synthesis of the following verses.

St. John 1:9 calls Jesus “the true Light.” Likewise, in 1 Jn. 1:5 we learn that “God is light.” It seems that these two could be brought into a meaningful deductive relation.

1. Jesus is the true Light;

2. God is Light;

3. Therefore, Jesus is God.

The apparent problem with this is that it creates a formal fallacy, the undistributed middle. No manner of arrangement has proven to be free of either logical or theological fallacies, as far as I can tell. It is clearer when we use other subjects.

1. My Jeep is blue;

2. The sky is blue;

3. Therefore, my jeep is the sky.

Despite these past blunders in trying to create a cogent argument from indirect biblical data, a discussion with Beaner this morning revealed that Matt. 1:21 provides just such a possibility.

            1. Yeshua is Savior of Israel (Matt. 1:21)

            2. The only Savior of Israel is YHWH (Is. 43:11; 45:15, 21, etc.)

            3. Therefore, Yeshua is YHWH.

As far as I can see, this argument is both sound and valid; it is free from logical fallacies. Additionally, it is perfectly consistent with the NT authors’ regular attribution of kurios to Jesus, which are in their OT contexts attributed to YHWH.

---

[1] NAS text note: Jesus is the Gk form of the Hb name “Joshua,” which = “The Lord saves” or “Yahweh saves.”

[2] NAS text note: Lit. He Himself.  

Lutherans' Consubstantiation: Trampling Under Foot All Reason, Sense, and Understanding

Martin Luther once stated “Faith must trample under foot all reason, sense, and understanding.” He might as well have included biblical truth and sound doctrine in this list. This is precisely what he and his successors did in their formulation of their understanding of Christ’s presence in the Eucharist, the doctrine commonly called consubstantiation.

Lutherans’ confessional commitment to consubstantiation, their view of the Eucharist, must be considered heresy in that it contradicts the orthodox formulation of Christology as prescribed in the Creed of Chalcedon, which reads, “One and the same Christ, Son, Lord, only begotten, to be acknowledged in two natures, inconfusedly...” This clause was in response to the original heresy of Eutyches, which was condemned at the Council of Chalcedon in A.D. 451.

How, though, does the Lutheran confessional stance on the Eucharist confuse Christ’s two natures?

The Epitome, one of the central Lutheran confessional documents, contains a blatant contradiction, which leads to the contradicting of the Chalcedonian Christology. In chapter eight, “The Person of Christ,” the Epitome affirms the following.

VIII. The Person of Christ: Affirmative Theses

[6] 2. We believe, teach, and confess that the divine and human natures are not mingled into one substance, nor the one changed into the other, but that each retains its own essential properties, which [can] never become the properties of the other nature.

[7] 3. The properties of the divine nature are: to be almighty, eternal, infinite (that is, boundless and without spatial limitation [KS]), and to be, according to the property of its nature and its natural essence, of itself, everywhere present, to know everything, etc.; which never become properties of the human nature.

[8] 4. The properties of the human nature are: to be a corporeal creature, to be flesh and blood, to be finite and circumscribed, to suffer, to die, to ascend and descend, to move from one place to another, to suffer hunger, thirst, cold, heat, and the like; which never become properties of the divine nature.

Here are some clear points that may be adduced from these theses.

1. The divine and human natures do not comingle; each nature retains its own properties, which are never communicated to the other nature (from [6]2).

2.  Omnipresence and infinity are properties of the divine nature, and never become properties of the human nature (from [7]3).

3. Flesh and blood and finitude are properties of the human nature (from [8]4).

These are some of the most basic doctrines of Christology and are worthy of full acknowledgement and confession by any claiming to be faithful Christians. So, from these three general propositions, one can make the following synthesis.

C1. The flesh and blood of Christ (human nature) can never possess the properties of omnipresence and infinity (of the divine nature, being “everywhere present”).

This seems to be a necessary implication of the three theses from the Epitome, chapter 8, on the Person of Christ. This then is a foundational belief for a faithful Christology, according to both the Chalcedonian Creed and the Epitome-Concord; and, I’d argue, the scriptures. Concluding this, we have a good starting point to go back one chapter in the Epitome, chapter 7, and consider its theses on the Eucharist.

For clarity’s sake, I’ll use just a few theses from the Negativa, namely [32]11—[34]13. First, though, I’ll include this section’s prefatory remarks. The preface reads,

[21] On the other hand, we unanimously reject and condemn all the following erroneous articles, which are opposed and contrary to the doctrine presented above, the simple faith, and the [pure] confession concerning the Lord's Supper...

The following articles read as follow.

[32] 11. That the body of Christ is so enclosed in heaven that it can in no way be at once and at one time in many or all places upon earth where His Holy Supper is celebrated.

[33] 12. That Christ has not promised, neither could have effected, the essential presence of His body and blood in the Holy Supper, because the nature and property of His assumed human nature cannot suffer nor permit it.

[34] 13. That God, according to [even by] all His omnipotence (which is dreadful to hear), is not able to cause His body to be essentially present in more than one place at one time.

Of course, as part of the Negativa, these theses, as the preface makes clear, are those that are denied by Lutherans. Again, a positive statement of synthesis necessarily follows from the above theses.

C2. The body (i.e., flesh and blood; human nature) of Christ can be omnipresent, “at one time in many or all places upon the earth” (divine nature).

Now, let’s put these two propositions together, one a conclusion from chapter 8 and the other a conclusion from chapter 7, and see if they can be maintained in any sort of meaningful relationship.

C1. The flesh and blood of Christ (human nature) can never possess the properties of omnipresence and infinity (of the divine nature, being “everywhere present”).

And,

C2. The flesh and blood of Christ (human nature) can be omnipresent, everywhere present (divine nature).

Coming now to these two conclusions, which I believe are very fair inferences from the Epitome’s theses, there are only a couple of options available to us.

Option 1. We allow the more basic, foundational doctrine of Christology (C1) to cause us to reevaluate and reformulate as necessary the doctrine of the Eucharist (C2). Granting that we are over 500 years removed from formulation and confession of the formula of the doctrine of the Eucharist, this doesn’t seem likely.

Option 2. We maintain the two doctrines of the Concord stand in clear contradiction. If we were to try to synthesize C1 and C2, it would look something like this.

C3. It is the case that Christ’s human nature cannot possess the divine property of omnipresence; and, it is also that case that Christ’s human nature can possess the divine property of omnipresence.  

This is a particular violation of the general statement of the law of non-contradiction, a most basic law of logic: Something cannot be both A and not-A at the same time in the same sense. Or, to put it in our context: Christ’s human nature cannot be both omnipresent and not-omnipresent. However, that is what I understand, as illustrated above, the Formula of Concord to be saying. This is utter nonsense!

To invoke the miraculous nature of the Supper doesn’t help resolve this. In fact, I don’t question for one second the supernatural or miraculous nature of the Supper; it is nothing less! What I have trouble with, in fact must reject, is the idea that Christ’s institution would entail such a brazen contradiction as this does.

To be clear, I am not promoting rationalism. I don’t understand logic to be something extraneous to the Godhead, to which he is subject. Rather, logic is an expression of the divine nature itself, which was “declared” (exēgeomaito) to us in the incarnation of the Word, the eternal Logos (Jn. 1:18). Being part of the essential nature of God, he cannot contradict himself, or as St. Paul put it, “he abideth faithful: he cannot deny himself,” thus, “he cannot lie” (2 Tim. 2:13; Tit. 1:2). And being created in his image, to reflect his glory, we also cannot violate logic, especially in our thoughts concerning his nature and this holy Supper, wherein he is present.

In chapter 8 of the Epitome, [13]5 of the Affirmative Theses rightly states, “That God's Word is not false, and does not deceive.” Elsewhere, the Formula confidently states that the doctrine of the Eucharist is based solely on the words of Christ, “according to the letter,” and the literal sense. However, if, as I’ve shown above, this doctrine entails a contradiction, then it is false by definition, not to mention deceptive. Moreover, if these doctrines are assuredly good and necessary deductions from the clear teaching of Scripture, then Scripture too must contain at least one contradiction, which would have obvious implications for our bibliology, namely the doctrines of infallibility and inerrancy.

The good Dr. Luther, in spite of the huge debt of gratitude all Protestants owe him, and the mighty ways that God used him and his brilliant mind to contribute to the Reformation, saving the church from her Babylonian Captivity to Rome,  risks being condemned by his own words, when it comes to the doctrine of the Eucharist.

“You conduct yourself like one drunk or asleep, belching out between your snores, ‘Yes, No.’” –Martin Luther (The Bondage of the Will, Vol. 33 of Luther's Works, pp. 113).

Three Views on Apologetics

In defending the Christian faith, believers should be aware of the three general approaches to apologetics, and which method is the most consistent with that faith.  The three approaches are the classical, the evidential, and the presuppositional methods.  First, there is the classical method, which operates on a form of rationalism.  Generally speaking, rationalism maintains that, beginning with self-evident truths and applying the laws of logic, the human mind can arrive at epistemic certainty by deduction.  Additionally, the legitimacy of natural theology is assumed; that is, that man can begin with general human experience alone and arrive at an accurate understanding of God, the world, and man’s relation to both.  Moreover, classical apologetics presupposes that the reprobate mind is neutral toward God’s truth, and functions properly independent of God (contra, Jn. 3:19; Rom. 8:7; Eph. 4:17—19).  Classical apologetics, then, appeals to human autonomy as the source of ultimate authority.  Secondly, evidential apologetics, or evidentialism, is similar to the classical view.  However, evidentialism begins with the presupposition of empiricism rather than rationalism.  Empiricism supposes the validity of sense perceptions; and, applying induction and verification, man can arrive at true knowledge.  Similarly too, evidentialism makes its final court of appeal the authority of autonomous human reason.  Lastly, presuppositional apologetics, or presuppositionalism, works on the epistemological presupposition of revelation, that of Christ and the Scriptures.  Because unbelievers suppress the truth of God clearly and authoritatively revealed in the natural world, the Scriptures are required as corrective lenses for reinterpreting natural revelation after God (see Rom. 1:18ff;).  Presuppositionalism does not rely on human wisdom to persuade the unbeliever.  Rather it rests on the foolishness of the cross and the saving, regenerating grace of the Holy Spirit, without which no one can believe (1 Cor. 1:18—25; 2:14).  Presuppositionalism makes the self-attesting Word of Christ its final authority, seeking to bring the sinner’s intellect in submission to the Lordship of God in Christ.  Classical and evidential apologetics suggest that human reason is competent to authoritatively judge the veracity of Christ and his Word.  Therefore, of the three approaches to apologetics, presuppositionalism is most consistent with the faith that Christians are defending.