And who decides what is robust debate and what can be labeled fallacious?
Anyone with a knowledge of logic and classical logical fallacies (ad hominem, special pleading, appeal to ignorance, appeal to authority, et cetera).
If you think the opposing views are illogical, then it is clear you have not studied their views.
The views are not neccessarily illogical, but the polemical threads on this forum attacking our denominations on various points of doctrine usually are, with some exceptions.
The fact that they are not convinced your arguments against the biblical support for their views stands means they believe they have sufficient grounds to hold to those views.
This statement of yours is entirely contrary to reason, in that one could use it to justify any arbitrary belief system on the basis of the opinion of its adherents. Allow me to rephrase it in order to demonstrate this point:
"The fact that flat earthers are not convinced by your arguments against the scientific support for their views means they believe they have sufficient ground to hold those views."
See the problem there? Subsitute Scientologists, Muslims, or any belief system you like for "they" and your argument is still applicable; it has no bearing on the truth of those views.
As long as those contradictory views of doctrine with biblical bases can be defended, it's judgmental to consider them fallacious.
"Fallacious" is not a moral judgment. It is not a subjective judgment at all; if an argument contains a logical fallacy, it is a matter of objective fact. Most people who make them do not intend to engage in fallacy but have simply not had an education on the principles of logic.
Unlike the RCC, the SDA and other sects for example, they do not put forward extra biblical sources as the basis for their argumentation.
This is simply untrue; whereas many Catholics and Orthodox internally resort to Patristic material, and can cite this material as doctrinal within a denominational context, we do not defend it as inerrant in the manner of Adventists and Ellen G. White; we also frequently make arguments without resorting to it. The majority of my posts on cf.com rest entirely on scripture. This is simply no different than referring to John Calvin, John Wesley, NT Wright (who you quote below) or any other Protestant theologians.
I don't know how you differentiate between fallacious criticism and acceptable debating,
On the basis of whether or not that argumentstion rests on logical fallacies or factual errors.
so you may believe the form described here to be too loose formed:
"Chew it afresh
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/jesuscreed/2013/07/16/chew-it-through-afresh-rjs/
QuoteOne of the interesting things about the Christian faith, when you think about the Bible, is that it seems to be designed so that every generation needs to chew it through afresh. We can no-one of us live on what was done before because cultures change, that has always been true, the language too, the pressure points of people have always been changing and again and again, this is not just true of our generation but every generation.It's rather like the way the Israelites gathered manna. You just have to go out and get the fresh stuff every day.But the good thing is that it means we all have to grow up and that there can be no passengers. We've all got to think it through and that is really the Pauline principle of transformation by the renewal of the mind and the way that that happens is when we are faced with new situations and we have to think it through afresh what is it we are saying and what we mean by what we are saying... We've GOT to do that.N T Wright"
Now, amusingly enough, NT Wright is a member of a traditional denomination this post seeks to defend. That said, I consider your quoting of him is no different from my quoting St. Athanasius in a theological context.
In engaging in honest introspection and reviewing long held doctrine, one may have to jettison a few views that were once believed to be sacrosanct. There ARE no sacred cows:
This view of yours seems to regard Biblical Truth as reflected in the teachings and traditions of the Apostles as somehow mutable. I disagree, and I believe, so does St. Paul, in 2 Thessalonians 2:15 and Galatians 1:8. If there are no "sacrosanct views," why not challenge the divinity of our Lord, or introduce the Gnostic apocrypha into our lives and praxis?
The content of Scripture, and the most basic common interpretations of it, for example, the Trinity, are traditions, which should properly be regarded as sacred, unalterable aspects of the Apostolic faith.
QuoteDBW: “Up until the last few years, I would say—and have said—that the practice of textual criticism neither needs nor deserves any theological presuppositions. For example, I am not convinced that the Bible speaks of its own preservation. That doctrine was first introduced in the Westminster Confession, but it is not something that can be found in scripture. But with the rise of postmodern approaches to biblical studies, where all views are created equal, it seems that theology is having a role in the discussion. The question is, Is it the right theology? What I didn’t care for about modernism was its tendency toward dogmatism; what I don’t care for about postmodernism is its tendency toward scepticism. I think we’ve jumped out of the frying pan of modernist certainty and into the fire of postmodern uncertainty. At bottom, historical investigation has to deal with probabilities. These fall short of certainty, but all views are not created equal."Interview of Daniel B. Wallace on Textual Criticismhttps://bible.org/article/interview-daniel-b-wallace-textual-criticism
I am simply going to gloss over this quote on textual criticism, which is not relevant to the discussion at hand.
I have no quibble with doctrine per se, just that they are not effective, not words of life, revealing of the meaning of Scripture that motivates people to leave the world, serving mammon, to serving God, just as the works of God Moses performed motivated Israel to leave Egypt.
What you just described is a doctrinal statement.
Don't forget what Stephen did when he shared the meaning of Isaiah 53:7,8 with the Ethiopian eunuch, causing him to leave Egypt and follow God. Yes, baptism is the act of abandoning the serving of mammon and turning to serving God instead. The details are filled in when we drink from the Rock.
More doctrine.
In not gathering, one scatters. The Charismatic movement is a gathering movement. Not so the Cessationist movement, in their rejection of the value of miracles in the work of gathering.
Note that the tangent on charismaticism initiated by
@Optimax is not directly germane to the content of this thread. I disagree, but I am not going to get drawn into an argument on this point.
That's the logical fallacy of appeal to authority.
Ah, so now apparently you answer your initial question woth "you." Never mind that my statement was specifically not an appeal to authority. If I had said, "You should be Orthodox because the Fathers were Orthodox," that would be. However, my statement was rather a commentary on how one can trace apostolic continuity, a continuity of thought, idea and discussion, from the Epistles, through the writings of Ss. Clement, Ignatius, Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and so on, into the Nicene period.
One should not think that the early church fathers were free of error. Don't forget that 1 John, an early text, Scripture even, was written to fight heresy.
By your own standards, that matters not, because the heretics must have had good reason to believe in their views. Thus, the logical error in your earlier argument should be fully apparent.
Please consider DOCTRINE had a specific function, ie to confirm the truth of the Gospel, to authenticate the authority of the messenger:
It certainly does, which is why I object to those who challenge it in this manner.
Spouting the Nicene creed isn't going to bring men out of the world, put off serving mammon.
There it is chaps, the predictable attack on the Nicene Cred, and with it, an implicit rubbishing of the most important doctrinal convention of Christianity: the Holy Trinity.
Words of life, works of God are the means by which that repentance, metanoia happens. That's why the Charismatic movement is more successful at bringing men out of the world, into the church, where they can drink from the Rock, who is Christ. In that respect, they are less lazy than the Cessationist movement. I REPEAT, THEY BEAR MORE FRUIT. THE CESSATIONISTS ARE LIKE THE LAZY SERVANT.
The Orthodox Church is not cessasionist, neither is it charismatic, however, I woild regard your intemperate attack on cessasionists as an example of the kind of subpar polemic rooted in logical fallacy (as seen earlier in your post) that this thread specifically objects to.
The ECF were the main source of contamination from Greek worldviews and philosophies: dualism, humanism and rationalism.
Not content to simply smear cessasionist members as being "lazy," which is by the way
actually judgemental, you now charge the Fathers with promoting systems of belief which, in fact, in the case of dualism, they were opposed to, and in the case of humanism and rationalism, did not exist in that era, and would not for more than a thousand years.
What is more, your allusion to "Greek contamination" comes across as anti-Hellenic or rather anti-Byzantine prejudice. It's the sort of thing that might be misinterpreted by some Greek members as a slur against their racial, ethnic or national identity.
I have posted elsewhere about the damage they did in hampering the moving forward of the Kingdom of God.
So, it is not judgmental for you to post your subjective opinions on the Fathers, and the traditional churches, whereas it is judgmental for me to object to logical fallacies and factual errors in your post?
A rather nice arrangement for you, that...
