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[Fodder]

Ok, I want to review and regroup, because I think we’re getting farther apart. In the meantime, let me ask a clarification question: do you hold to verbal plenary inspiration and inerrancy? Basically the “Chicago Statement” view of the Bible?

[jimwalton]

Um, sort of yes, but not all of it. I think "inerrancy" is a lousy term trying to describe what the Bible is. I think "infallible" is possibly in the same category. I think we have progressed in our understanding since that document was written, and some parts of it need to be revised or corrected. Again, it's really tough to just generalize and sweep it all into the same barrel with a rousing affirmative, but there are lots of it with which I agree. So saying, it's 13 pages long and I haven't read it in a while. My eyes glazed over and I started skimming after a few pages because we can't possibly discuss the whole document in detail as it warrants.

[Fodder]

Ok, so I think it’s my fault for getting us off track on the comparative religion stuff. Let’s set that aside for now.

I read back through our conversation and here’s how I would summarize: The fundamental question is “what criteria could one use to determine if a writing/prophet is in fact revelation?”

We talked about several criteria:

1. Fulfillment of prophecy
2. Logical consistency
3. Conformity to other revelation
4. Conformity to reality
5. Acceptance / affirmation by the original audience and tradition

With each of these, I raised my concerns, not about their complete illegitimacy but rather their resulting in both false results (mostly false positives) and not always helpful results (true negatives).

First, let me ask a clarification question. Do you understand what I mean when I use the terms, false negative, false positive, true negative, true positive?

So far in our discussion we have not found any criteria that will ONLY reliably produce the most crucial result of all, true positives.

Do you dispute my assertion here? What will give us true positives?, that is the fundamental question here.

[jimwalton]

> Do you understand what I mean when I use the terms...fn, fp, tn, tp

Yes. There is no doubt a certain degree of subjectivity in assessment of revelation, but a cumulative record should eventually justify the inference as "beyond a reasonable doubt." Just as we have in any courtroom or in historical inquiry, and even some logical reasoning, the point is not to achieve proof (which may not be possible) but rather to reliably infer the most reasonable conclusion beyond a reasonable doubt.

It would probably most helpful at this point to do a case study. Exodus 4.1-17 is illustrative. God wants Moses to take a message to the Israelites. Mo is concerned they won't believe him. So God gives Mo three signs to give evidence of the reliability of the message. God is all about evidence.

Are these what you are looking for? Now, we know they don't give "certainty," because in Exodus 7.8-13, the magicians of Egypt are able to replicate the sign, and so the Egyptians blow off the message. But even that doesn't mean the message wasn't legitimate or that we are justified in being agnostic about it all. It's rather that there is no undeniable proof in any of these situations, because anyone can always argue against anything regardless of the logic of it and the evidence behind it. I have learned that on this forum.

[Fodder]

Before getting into your case study, I would prefer if you could answer my question I asked: Do you dispute my contention that the criteria we have discussed thus far do not produce ONLY reliable true positives?

[jimwalton]

You mean such that result in 100% certainty and there are no other possible explanations?

[Fodder]

No, we don’t have to set the bar that high yet.

Do we have any criteria that produce TP’s *more often than not* TN’s, FP’s or FN’s ?

I don’t know of any criteria we’ve discussed yet that produces results that even have the *potential* of being ONLY TP’s


TP = true positive
FP = false positive
FN = false negative

[jimwalton]

The most likely candidate for true positives is a specific prophetic prediction (or request) and the exact fulfillment of that request in a brief time, such as we see in Exodus 4.1-17; Judges 6.36-40; Josh. 6.20.

[Fodder]

Ok. I agree with you that supernatural experiences like those texts talk about would be the closest we could get to finding TP’s, though I think there are still big problems.

1. these are internal to the stories themselves which we are trying to determine as revelation or not. In other words, these stories offer nothing for me NOW, except to presume that “it must have been convincing to them back then, so I should take their word for it”. But this of course completely depends on the historical truthfulness of Moses actually doing these things; however if I come to think the whole narrative is true anyway, than I may as well just believe that Moses was hearing from God directly from his own testimony of the burning bush, the miraculous signs would just be superfluous. This is why I say that, substantively, the Torah and the Book of Mormon are on equal footing. We only more easily doubt the BoM because we’re closer to it historically; and the Torah only enjoys the status of revelation because it’s very old and has more people who believe it.

2. Moreover, nearly all Christians (except maybe Pentecostals) say that God no longer does this type of thing. So I cannot ever expect God to do something like this for me, to prove to me these texts are revelation from Him. It makes no sense to me why God would stop this sort of thing, if he has in the past, all throughout the Bible it says “so and so said to God…. Or God said to so and so, etc etc” so nonchalantly and “matter-of-factly” it’s so mundane there isn’t even an attempt to explain it, and in the age apostles they apparently did signs and wonders to confirm the message—-but in our time, you can be certain, God doesn’t do this sort of thing anymore. In fact every sermon I have heard on the Gideon story has said that he was in the wrong for asking for a sign from God. This strikes me as one of those things that is just “all too convenient” for Christians. It keeps all the miraculous stuff safely in the past, yet at the same time insists that one can completely trust everything in the text because of the miraculous. This is circular. “Why should I believe this is revelation?”, “because the prophet performed miracles” “and how do I know these miracles happened?”, “why, it’s here in the divinely revealed book, so you know it’s certain”

3. As you referenced, even in the Moses story itself, these signs are not even that useful as the Pharoh’s magicians could sort of do them too. In fact, I’m not aware of a time in the rest of the story where doubting Israelites come to Moses and he does the signs to convince them. And anyway, why would these signs be convincing to prove that Moses has revelation? I think something like the Gideon story is much better as he, the doubter/questioner asks of God a specific request. It would have been more convincing if God gave Moses the ability to answer anyone’s sign request that was doubting, rather than having a set group of signs to do.

[jimwalton]

> these are internal to the stories themselves

Of course they are. I don't think there's any other choice. The stories we have can't be outside of the stories we have.

> these stories offer nothing for me NOW

Remember that the Bible was written TO them, not to us. Now, even though it was written to them, it was still written FOR us. It seems you expect that somehow a confirmation that happened 2500 years ago should still have verifiable evidentiary content about the occurrence of the miracle. That doesn't seem realistic to me as a criteria. To me that's like asking, "Did Abraham Lincoln hear JW Booth coming? Prove it to me."

The point is that there were criteria to verify it was a legitimate word from the Lord.

> say that God no longer does this type of thing

I agree with that in general, not being a Pentecostal. But there are prophecies that in the Last Days such phenomena will kick up again (Joel 2.28-32).

> So I cannot ever expect God to do something like this for me, to prove to me these texts are revelation from Him.

I would say that my belief in God and the Bible came from other things first (convinced of theism, the reality of Christ, His death and resurrection, my need to be redeemed from my sin, etc.) Those are the foundation that give me the basis for believing the criteria for His revelation.

> It makes no sense to me why God would stop this sort of thing

I, too, wish God had kept it up, but I can also see (at least through biblical history) that the more obvious God was, the more rebellious people were against Him. Weird, but that's how the Bible portrays it.

> every sermon I have heard on the Gideon story has said that he was in the wrong for asking for a sign from God.

I agree, but God did it for him anyway. The way the story is presented is that Gideon was challenging God from like spite, not trying to confirm or verify. Gideon, like almost everyone in the book of Judges, was a negative example.

> these signs are not even that useful as the Pharoh’s magicians could sort of do them too

Right. That's why they're only mostly TPs. Nothing really PROVES; people even question science that way. Certainly so in historical studies.

The point is that these things are told to us to show us that this is how God works, even though most of the time we're not told the details. The impression we are being given is that God verified His message to those to whom He spoke it. For us, it's "do we believe the record left for us?" I guess it's the same with anything historical. We know the historical records on the pyramids are slanted to exalt the king. So do we believe them? The historical records we have of Alexander the Great are written centuries after Alex. Do we believe them? Why?

The point is that God verified His message. It's left to us to determine whether or not the record is reliable, and beyond that, who is God and how does He relate to us?

> It would have been more convincing if God gave Moses the ability to answer anyone’s sign request that was doubting, rather than having a set group of signs to do.

That still wouldn't convince you 2500 years later.