Is Continuationism or Cessationism a hard doctrine to prove?

[JAL]

But your doctrine has no scriptural support.

I guffawed on that one. Thanks. I needed a good laugh anyway! Nice to know you have a sense of humor!

 

[JAL]

All prophecy is false today.

You say poteighto, I say potato.

 

[Dave L]

I guffawed on that one. Thanks. I needed a good laugh anyway! Nice to know you have a sense of humor!

Prove the gifts came in another way beyond the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands.

 

[JAL]

Prove the gifts came in another way beyond the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands.

After 700 posts deep into this thread, and my having posted probably a dozen unrefuted arguments for the primacy of direct revelation, including a significant analysis of 1Cor chapter 2, chapter 12, chapter 13, and honorable mention of 14 - after all that, I'm not sure why you have the gall to suggest my whole position stands or falls on whether I can prove some random conclusion somehow viewed as crucial in YOUR eyes.

But since you asked, shall we? To begin with, the question is inane, right? I mean, are you a believer in infinite regressions? There HAD to be a first prophet, right, that is, someone who did NOT have hands layed upon by another apostle or prophet?

You yourself claimed, and I concurred, that there ARE NO DIFFERENCES between OT prophets and NT prophets. Given that the OT prophets could be called by God without human intervention, then, by parity of reasoning, so can NT prophets. That's sufficient proof - I could go on, but I don't see the need to further address such a moot topic wholly inconsequential to the debate.

I mean, do you think God is somehow INCAPABLE of raising up prophets today, without human intervention? That somehow, after having that capability in the OT, he LOST it?

If you have any non-silly questions to ask me, I'll be glad to help out.

 

[Dave L]

After 700 posts deep into this thread, and my having posted probably a dozen unrefuted arguments for the primacy of direct revelation, including a significant analysis of 1Cor chapter 2, chapter 12, chapter 13, and honorable mention of 14 - after all that, I'm not sure why you have the gall to suggest my whole position stands or falls on whether I can prove some random conclusion somehow viewed as crucial in YOUR eyes.

But since you asked, shall we? To begin with, the question is inane, right? I mean, are you a believer in infinite regressions? There HAD to be a first prophet, right, that is, someone who did NOT have hands layed upon by another apostle or prophet?

You yourself claimed, and I concurred, that there ARE NO DIFFERENCES between OT prophets and NT prophets. Given that the OT prophets could be called by God without human intervention, then, by parity of reasoning, so can NT prophets. That's sufficient proof - I could go on, but I don't see the need to further address such a moot topic wholly inconsequential to the debate.

I mean, do you think God is somehow INCAPABLE of raising up prophets today, without human intervention? That somehow, after having that capability in the OT, he LOST it?

If you have any non-silly questions to ask me, I'll be glad to help out.

Nothing you say is worth reading until you prove from scripture the gifts came in any other way than through the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands. This alone refutes everything you say.

 

[JAL]

Nothing you say is worth reading until you prove from scripture the gifts came in any other way than through the two outpourings or through an apostle's hands. This alone refutes everything you say.

Another guffaw. No scripture is worth contemplating, in your opinion, until I can establish some silly thesis postulated by you?

I think it's your own insecurity surfacing. Your conversion to cessationism, away from your former Pentecostalism, was probably based on that silly thesis. Therefore you see a need to keep convincing yourself that it's a crucial topic, that it's the linchpin of the whole debate.

You should know that I accept no distinctions between the OT and NT. Nothing has changed. Anything God did spiritually for men in the OT, He can do today. Therefore, your silly NT-based thesis has absolutely no bearing or impact on the credibility of my theology.

 

[Dave L]

Another guffaw. No scripture is worth contemplating, in your opinion, until I can establish some silly thesis postulated by you?

I think it's your own insecurity surfacing. Your conversion to cessationism, away from your former Pentecostalism, was probably based on that silly thesis. Therefore you see a need to keep convincing yourself that it's a crucial topic, that it's the linchpin of the whole debate.

You should know that I accept no distinctions between the OT and NT. Nothing has changed. Anything God did spiritually for men in the OT, He can do today. Therefore, your silly NT-based thesis has absolutely no bearing or impact on the credibility of my theology.

You have no scriptural basis for your claims.

 

[JAL]

You have no scriptural basis for your claims.

Yeah, keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

 

[Dave L]

Yeah, keep telling yourself that, if it makes you feel better.

If you had any proof, we would not be wasting as much time on the issue as we have so far.

 

[JAL]

If you had any proof, we would not be wasting as much time on the issue as we have so far.

You haven't show any interest in proof. Most of the time, I challenge you with a straightforward question, and you respond with evasive, deflective answers.

For a couple of hundred posts, for example, I've been challenging you, as I challenged Albion, to tell me, in clear language, your epistemic basis for believing the Bible to be inspired. I still can't even get THAT much out of you, for the obvious reason that such answer would impugn your whole position.

Clearly, you don't WANT proof. You just want to keep believing what you already believe.

 

[Dave L]

You haven't show any interest in proof. Most of the time, I challenge you with a straightforward question, and you respond with evasive, deflective answers.

For a couple of hundred posts, for example, I've been challenging you, as I challenged Albion, to tell me, in clear language, your epistemic basis for believing the Bible to be inspired. I still can't even get THAT much out of you, for the obvious reason that such answer would impugn your whole position.

Clearly, you don't WANT proof. You just want to keep believing what you already believe.

You have no challenge because you cannot support your position from scripture. I can show all that you say is false simply by requesting proof from you that the gifts came in other ways than through the two outpourings and the hands on an apostle.

 

[JAL]

You have no challenge because you cannot support your position from scripture. I can show all that you say is false simply by requesting proof from you that the gifts came in other ways than through the two outpourings and the hands on an apostle.

Here's the difference between you and me. I challenge people by attempting to expose inconsistencies in THEIR assumptions. All of us need to be consistent.

You're challenging me on YOUR assumption that OT and NT afford different dynamics, spiritually. If they are same (my view), then your shallow NT-based thesis has no bearing on my claim that God still can raise up prophets without human intervention,as He did in the OT.

To challenge me on YOUR assumptions is a ludicrous form of argumentation.

 

[Dave L]

Here's the difference between you and me. I challenge people by attempting to expose inconsistencies in THEIR assumptions. All of us need to be consistent.

You're challenging me on YOUR assumption that OT and NT afford different dynamics, spiritually. If they are same (my view), then your shallow NT-based thesis has no bearing on my claim that God still can raise up prophets without human intervention,as He did in the OT.

To challenge me on YOUR assumptions is a ludicrous form of argumentation.

You still cannot prove your point from scripture.

 

[JAL]

You still cannot prove your point from scripture.

This is the old fallback to save face, 'If you can't prove it apodictically, I don't have to accept it.'

None of us can prove anything apodictically. I can't even prove that you exist. What we CAN do, in all matters of debate, is try to figure out which side of the debate enjoys the greater cogency and preponderance of evidence. The side with the lesser cogency and degree of evidence should acknowledge that their position has LESS CREDIBILITY than the other side.

Let's recap cessationism. Given that there was no printing press originally, God evidently targeted Sola Scriptura for 1500 A.D.

So in 1500 A.D. He gives us a book abounding with charismatic phenomenology - all of which was already outmoded in 100 A.D. due to the cessation of the gifts - misleading most of us to a charismatic hermenutic. He's obviously an incompetent instructor - too incompetent to give us a book preponderantly relevant to OUR generation. We have to throw out most of it, because it pertains mostly to people pre-100.A.D, who didn't even have a printing press to actually BENEFIT from it.

How much does it abound with charismatic material? I can probably enumerate 20 allusions to charismatic phenomenology in the first chapter of Mark. Just ONE CHAPTER.

Now, WHY would a wise instructor write that way, if the Bible was targeted for post-apostolic, post-charismatic times? Cessationists are asking us to embrace an IMPOSSIBLE position, hermeneutically speaking. The ONLY way to be a cessatonist is via eisegesis.

 

[Dave L]

This is the old fallback to save face, 'If you can't prove it apodictically, I don't have to accept it.'

None of us can prove anything apodictically. I can't even prove that you exist. What we CAN do, in all matters of debate, is try to figure out which side of the debate enjoys the greater cogency and preponderance of evidence. The side with the lesser cogency and degree of evidence should acknowledge that their position has LESS CREDIBILITY than the other side.

Let's recap cessationism. Given that there was no printing press originally, God evidently targeted Sola Scriptura for 1500 A.D.

So in 1500 A.D. He gives us a book abounding with charismatic phenomenology - all of which was already outmoded in 100 A.D. due to the cessation of the gifts - misleading most of us to a charismatic hermenutic. He's obviously an incompetent instructor - too incompetent to give us a book preponderantly relevant to OUR generation. We have to throw out most of it, because it pertains mostly to people pre-100.A.D, who didn't even have a printing press to actually BENEFIT from it.

How much does it abound with charismatic material? I can probably enumerate 20 allusions to charismatic phenomenology in the first chapter of Mark. Just ONE CHAPTER.

Now, WHY would a wise instructor write that way, if the Bible was targeted for post-apostolic, post-charismatic times? Cessationists are asking us to embrace an IMPOSSIBLE position, hermeneutically speaking. The ONLY way to be a cessatonist is via eisegesis.

You are not proving anything by dodging the issue.

 

[JAL]

You are not proving anything by dodging the issue.

What issue? As I recall, you only challenged me on YOUR assumptions. You haven't exposed any problems in MY assumptions, as best I can recall. If I missed something, refresh me. What was the number of the post?

 

[Dave L]

What issue? As I recall, you only challenged me on YOUR assumptions. You haven't exposed any problems in MY assumptions, as best I can recall. If I missed something, refresh me. What was the number of the post?

If you could prove one simple point about the distribution of the gifts happening beyond the two outpourings or through an apostles's hands, you could cease wearing yourself out dodging the issue.

 

[JAL]

If you could prove one simple point about the distribution of the gifts happening beyond the two outpourings or through an apostles's hands, you could cease wearing yourself out dodging the issue.

(Sigh). Again, you are making a NT-oriented 'argument' (if it even deserves that rubric) based on YOUR presumption of OT-NT distinctions. I don't make those kinds of assumptions/distinctions, so it's not an issue for me.

 

[Dave L]

(Sigh). Again, you are making a NT-oriented 'argument' (if it even deserves that rubric) based on YOUR presumption of OT-NT distinctions. I don't make those kinds of assumptions/distinctions, so it's not an issue for me.

You are still all hat and no cattle. Nothing at all to back your claims.

 

[JAL]

If you could prove one simple point about the distribution of the gifts happening beyond the two outpourings or through an apostles's hands, you could cease wearing yourself out dodging the issue.

And why are you contradicting yourself? You admitted there are no distinctions between OT and NT prophets. Therefore, if an OT prophet could arise without human intervention, ditto of the NT prophet.