Talk:Argument from silence - Misplaced Pages

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If the a.f.s. is used as a proof of certain ignorance, it's fallacious. If it's used a proof of possible ignorance, it isn't. You can't dismiss it out of hand as fallacious, as I've tried to explain in the article. Jacquerie27 22:04 May 5, 2003 (UTC)

It's an interesting article, Jacquerie27, although it might be tedious to make it complete. It would serve no purpose to use these encyclopedia articles as a place for debating what after all constitutes "silence" - that argument would never end. Nevertheless, the article asserts as a fact that St Paul is silent concerning who the father of Jesus is - or rather, concerning the event of the virginal conception. I'm sure that you recognize that this only seems reasonable if an alternative explanation is adopted for St Paul's consistent reference to Jesus as the Son of God. There are alternatives, of course: gnosticism, docetism, etc. But with "orthodox" assumptions, the virgin birth appears to be explicitly mentioned every time this title is used of Jesus. Although this does show a glaring committment to skepticism underlying the article, I don't think that the article would be improved by adding arguments from the other side. What would you recommend, instead? Mkmcconn 20:27 May 6, 2003 (UTC)

I agree that the article flirts with tedium,

He quite didn't say that, and I'm still interested to know what objective test you're applying to decide whether an article is interesting or not. If you've got one, what score does an article have to reach on the index of interest to meet your approval? I'll fall short of it, I know, but I'd like to know whether I'm improving. Jacquerie27 14:00 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

especially when it makes the sophistic point that the argument from silence "proves" that Paul "may not have known" about the Virgin Birth. Geez -- to prove that something may have been the case doesn't sound like much of a proof!

The whole point of the a.f.s. is that it establishes possibility, not certainty. If you've got a way of proving for certain that he knew or did not know about it, lots of scholars, famous and otherwise, would be very interested to see it. Jacquerie27 14:00 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

I do however take strong issue with the claim that the argument has "famously" been used against Paul. The use of the passive voice and the word "famously" sound like the kind of rhetorical dodges that people use to excuse ignorance. Tell us which famous scholars have famously used this argument! If you do not, I will interpret your silence to mean you do not klnow, and I will delete the paragraph! Slrubenstein

You must be a Saki fan. Jacquerie27 14:00 May 8, 2003 (UTC)

By the way, Mkmcconn, I would not at all take Paul's use of "son og God" to refer to the Virgin Birth. In the Hebrew Bible, "son of God" is used to refer to Kings of Israel (who most definitely had biological genitors), see Psalm 2:7 and 89: 26-27. The Apocryphal book Ecclesiasticus uses the phrase to refer to "just" or "righteous" men, which echoes Psalm 17. I grant that the phrase has other meanings (e.g. angelic beings); other sources use the phrase as synonymous with "Children of Israel," so it had an ethnic connotation as well as a moral connotation. My point is that it is an idiomatic phrase that was not used in a way consistent with its literal sense, and that it is pretty likely that Paul and other early Christians "may have" used it just like other people at the time. Slrubenstein

I think that it would be safe to anticipate that as a very early Christian he might have been using the phrase as non-Christians at the time used it. However, it's hard to maintain when one considers the actual, distinctive way that Paul uses the phrase, and the peculiar significance this title has in Paul's explanation of salvation, by which we are "sons of God". But the issue would be hard to conclude, divorced from belief one way or another - that's what I mean by my warning that this article could invite an endless argument over whether Paul is in fact "silent" about who Jesus father is. Mkmcconn 22:19 May 7, 2003 (UTC)

quicky web-refs supporting the "famous use" of this argument:

All of these pages assert that the argument is in some sense "famous", or the standard fare of critics of the Virgin Birth. Mkmcconn

Thanks, Mkmcconn. It is famous, at least among skeptics. Jacquerie27 14:00 May 8, 2003 (UTC)