FORMAL LOGIC -- Justifying that Initial Premises are TRUE

[GDL]

I'm very happy that you are not horrified, or shocked, or enormously puzzled by this thread. (Really!)

I think that those who read the thread, will see that it is not a thread on theology.
Hopefully, those who read the thread, will begin to see the relevance of the
philosophical discussions on what reality is, and evidence, and how we need
to vet our initial premises against what the Bible presents as our shared reality.

Hopefully, the readers of the thread will realize that the Incarnation, as God breaks
into human life, happens also in human language that the biblical authors use.
Although the early Christians tend to "take over" the koine Greek that they write in,
the distinct use of that language is still accessible to secular linguists. Just as the
Incarnation in Jesus Christ, was accessible to Gentiles in the first century.

(This is why I promote a massive reference book like BDAG, rather than a
denominational reference book like Strong's. Denominational concordances
tend to impress pre-decided theologies onto the language of the Bible, rather
than recognizing what the language, first of all, meant when the biblical
writers wrote.)

A couple comments:

Re: reference materials: The Strong's I have details words beginning with definitions of their root words and any compound words detailing the roots of each word in the compound. It assists in understanding how meanings are derived from the root. It's more of a linguistic tool than a denominational reference.

BDAG as you've said is the favored Lexicon these days. It is my primary reference, but I frequently find it necessary to double-check it and I use several Lexicons and other references like TDNT at times to get input from several sources. As you know, BDAG does provide interpretations by placing verse references under various definitions of words. If I'm working on exegeting Scripture, I personally don't let others do it for me any more than is necessary. Thus, the word studies I mentioned.

And, yes, getting back to the mindset of the authors by understanding the words they used in the times they used them is the process. More than that, it's getting to know the mind of God who inspired them all and how He uses language through the ages. And then there's that illumination issue...

 

[zippy2006]

So, why would a Christian want to justify (the philosophical term) the truth of their initial premises,
in an argument?

A set of inferences with unjustified premises is not even an argument. Would that more understood this.

 

[Stephen3141]

Example: Believing in Jesus, means...

If you use initial premises that include the English word "believe",
you need to use a definition that matches the language of the New Testament.
(You need to de-sloganize your language....)

One of the main words in the Greek New Testament indicating belief, is pisteuw.
(BDAG 816-818)

Different meanings of pisteuw are:

1 "to consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one's trust, believe"

2 "to entrust oneself to an entity in complete confidence, believe (in), trust"

3 "to entrust (such as something to someone)"

4 "to be confident about"

5 "think/consider possible"

Note that these historical usages are quite broad, and go far beyond the
religious slang of "believing in Jesus".

Specific examples of these meanings are (a sample)
(1)
41 And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, 42 and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! 43 And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? 44 For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 1:41–45.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Co 13:7.

6 And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Heb 11:6.

(2)
34 Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ac 16:34.

8 The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Tt 3:8.

31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 8:31–32.

16 Great indeed, we confess, is the mystery of godliness:
He was manifested in the flesh,
vindicated by the Spirit,
seen by angels,
proclaimed among the nations,
believed on in the world,
taken up in glory.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Ti 3:16.

(3)
10 “One who is faithful in a very little is also faithful in much, and one who is dishonest in a very little is also dishonest in much. 11 If then you have not been faithful in the unrighteous wealth, who will entrust to you the true riches?
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Lk 16:10–11.

3 Then what advantage has the Jew? Or what is the value of circumcision? 2 Much in every way. To begin with, the Jews were entrusted with the oracles of God.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 3:1–3.

7 On the contrary, when they saw that I had been entrusted with the gospel to the uncircumcised, just as Peter had been entrusted with the gospel to the circumcised
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ga 2:7.

(4)
2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 14:2.

(5)
2 One person believes he may eat anything, while the weak person eats only vegetables.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ro 14:2.

18 The Jews did not believe that he had been blind and had received his sight, until they called the parents of the man who had received his sight
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jn 9:18.

26 And when he had come to Jerusalem, he attempted to join the disciples. And they were all afraid of him, for they did not believe that he was a disciple.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Ac 9:26.
---------- ----------

Note that a single use in the New Testament, may have the sense of more than one of these
meanings.

NOTE that if you are going to use an English phrase such as "believe in Jesus"
in the initial premises of a proof/argument, you REALLY should replace that
phrase with a more precise definition (one of the 5, above).

If you do not, then you argument/proof will be ambiguous, as to what you
are trying to assert (even though, in your denomination, the phrase "believe
in Jesus" may have a very unique meaning).

In Christian apologetics, we should ground our definitions in the original
language of the Bible, and what it meant, when the biblical authors
wrote.

If we use English denominational slang, such as "believe in Jesus",
we cut ourselves off from this grounding in the language of the New
Testament (and the Old Testament). And, this will result in proofs that
are Unsound, as they are not using biblical definitions.

(Sorry for any mangling by the FB word corrector.)

 

[essentialsaltes]

NOTE that if you are going to use an English phrase such as "believe in Jesus"
in the initial premises of a proof/argument, you REALLY should replace that
phrase with a more precise definition (one of the 5, above).

If one is not directly referencing a Biblical verse that might provide context, how would one know which of the 5 to use?

 

[GDL]

Note that a single use in the New Testament, may have the sense of more than one of these
meanings.

NOTE that if you are going to use an English phrase such as "believe in Jesus"
in the initial premises of a proof/argument, you REALLY should replace that
phrase with a more precise definition (one of the 5, above).

If you do not, then you argument/proof will be ambiguous, as to what you
are trying to assert (even though, in your denomination, the phrase "believe
in Jesus" may have a very unique meaning).

In Christian apologetics, we should ground our definitions in the original
language of the Bible, and what it meant, when the biblical authors
wrote.

If we use English denominational slang, such as "believe in Jesus",
we cut ourselves off from this grounding in the language of the New
Testament (and the Old Testament). And, this will result in proofs that
are Unsound, as they are not using biblical definitions.

If one is not directly referencing a Biblical verse that might provide context, how would one know which of the 5 to use?

Good question.

Also, one should check to see if there even is a verse that says, 'believe in Jesus".

And then, if there is such a verse, one should make certain the verse is being translated correctly. Some verses translated as faith in Jesus are really speaking of the faith of Jesus.

And one should consider that "believe in Jesus" is essentially an ambiguous phrase begging for some more precision re: what it is we're believing.

This is not just about word definitions.

 

[Stephen3141]

If one is not directly referencing a Biblical verse that might provide context, how would one know which of the 5 to use?

The New Testament text, and the writings of the early Christians in koine Greek,
forms a pretty small body of material.

This body of material has been studied by many biblical scholars. And the
lexicon (BDAG) contains about 300 years of conclusions by these biblical
scholars. If you look at the entire entry for these words, many examples
are listed of specific Bible verses, under the various possible meanings
of the word(s).

Most of the less common words in the New Testament, will appear in (BDAG)
as an example of a meaning. This means that you are not often left guessing
which meaning of the word, applies in a specific Bible passage.

 

[essentialsaltes]

This body of material has been studied by many biblical scholars. And the
lexicon (BDAG) contains about 300 years of conclusions by these biblical
scholars. If you look at the entire entry for these words, many examples
are listed of specific Bible verses, under the various possible meanings
of the word(s).

Right, but you are suggesting

NOTE that if you are going to use an English phrase such as "believe in Jesus"
in the initial premises of a proof/argument, you REALLY should replace that
phrase with a more precise definition (one of the 5, above).

But "believe in Jesus" does not appear in any of the verses you cite, so how does one know which to apply?

Maybe a better example would be "Bible-believing" or "believe in the truth of the Bible". Not something that could appear in a verse. But does it mean "to be confident about the truth of the Bible," "to consider the truth of the Bible possible," or "to completely entrust oneself to the truth of the Bible"?

I think your insistence that the discussion has to tie the words to the meanings used in particular verses means that ultimately the only real topic you can address is the continued explication of the meaning of those verses in the same vein as the scholars you cite. It does not expand or derive new truths, it encourages people to express things in English that adhere to how a speaker of Koine Greek would express them. A worthy exercise in philology and faithfulness to what the authors meant to be sure. But I don't see that the process of deductions of formal logic would lead to novel truths.

 

[Stephen3141]

Right, but you are suggesting

NOTE that if you are going to use an English phrase such as "believe in Jesus"
in the initial premises of a proof/argument, you REALLY should replace that
phrase with a more precise definition (one of the 5, above).

But "believe in Jesus" does not appear in any of the verses you cite, so how does one know which to apply?

Maybe a better example would be "Bible-believing" or "believe in the truth of the Bible". Not something that could appear in a verse. But does it mean "to be confident about the truth of the Bible," "to consider the truth of the Bible possible," or "to completely entrust oneself to the truth of the Bible"?

I think your insistence that the discussion has to tie the words to the meanings used in particular verses means that ultimately the only real topic you can address is the continued explication of the meaning of those verses in the same vein as the scholars you cite. It does not expand or derive new truths, it encourages people to express things in English that adhere to how a speaker of Koine Greek would express them. A worthy exercise in philology and faithfulness to what the authors meant to be sure. But I don't see that the process of deductions of formal logic would lead to novel truths.

For modern Christians, who claim that they are talking about the Christian
faith, as the New Testament presents it, they SHOULD BE familiar with the
language of the New Testament, and what it means.

So if someone is claiming that we should "Believe in Jesus", they should explain
what they mean, in language that is used in the New Testament. This may in some
cases be easy, but in some cases it may be quite difficult.
(We can find numerous examples in the NT of language that involves
"believing" in Jesus, but it may be more difficult to identify what is
meant by each of those verses.)

As I said above, the meanings of pisteuw in the original Greek New
Testament are: (BDAG 816-818)

1 "to consider something to be true and therefore worthy of one's trust, believe"
2 "to entrust oneself to an entity in complete confidence, believe (in), trust"
3 "to entrust (such as something to someone)"
4 "to be confident about"
5 "think/consider possible"

Note that these historical usages are quite broad, and go far beyond the
religious slang of "believing in Jesus".

My guess is that most Protestant Fundamentalists are not using one of the above
5 meanings of pisteuw, when they say that they "believe in Jesus". My guess is
that this phrase is shorthand for what they consider "being saved" is. And,
that is another phrase that needs to be carefully defined.

---------- ----------

As for how this discussion fits in with Formal logic, I laid out in the
beginning of the post that we should evaluate all our initial premises,
to make sure that they were consistent with Christian orthodoxy.
Otherwise, our arguments/proofs may be logically Valid, but would
not be Sound, from the standpoint of the Christian worldview.
---------- ----------

As for the question of WHICH definition of a word, w should use when
we read a specific verse in the Bible, I mentioned above that BDAG has
all sorts of examples (biblical verses) of each of the meanings it lists
for a (Greek) word.

We are not free to pick ANY possible definition we wish. The opinions
of lay people, do not determine the examples listed in BDAG. These are
examples compiled by dedicated scholars.

In the case when a specific verse is not mentioned as an example in
BDAG (of a specific meaning of a word), then we need to carefully
consider what the context of the verse suggests. But, we should NOT
assign some meaning to a biblical word in the New Testament, that
does not appear in BDAG.

 

[Estrid]

How do you get your theology?
How do you determine what is "blatantly obvious in Scripture"?

These are exactly types of topics in how to justify our beliefs/opinions.

Although knowledge and understanding that we gain in this life,
may not apply that much to the next life, STILL, gaining knowledge and
wisdom are activities that the Bible promotes. You should not ignore
these biblical commands, in this life.

Blatantly obvious that some christians interpret the bible to,say...

 

[Stephen3141]

"Blatantly obvious" is hardly a rigorous or precise description.

You need to define your terminology.