False Witness on Polygamy: A Response to Michael Foster

[YoreyC]

Is the legal system sophomoric and meaningless?

that is a thing of a different kind than what is being talked about.

 

[YoreyC]

The assertion being made, then, in their eyes, is that "The Bible permits polygyny". From their perspective, our assertion is the absurd, new claim that requires proof.

yes, burden of proof sensibly belongs moreso to the minority report.

The problem with arguing from our position is that we are arguing for nonexistence (the nonexistence of a prohibition against polygyny), which simply doesn't work.

do you mean that arguments from silence are inherently fallacious? that's an untrue popular misconception. it is a sound argument against the existence of an elephant in my room to say that 1. i dont see one 2. if there were one here, i would, therefore 3. therefore there is not an elephant in my room

or do you mean, as you seem to go on, merely that people dont agree with positions contrary to theirs? because that's not unique to this subject.

requirements for polygyny are circumstantial (and often could be waved away with "that was then, this is now" variants).

the antinomian you are describing has an epistemological backstop which must be handled first. more likely they should be largely ignored.

1. Refute the arguments given for existence of a prohibition. This would need to be an exhaustive refutation, and would only bring the argument for existence into "black swan" territory. "It must say it somewhere" is an easy fallback.

easy i guess but so is refusing to make a move on the chessboard; it's still breaking the rules, and when you break rules, you lose any game.

depending on the heart and disposition of your interlocutor, it could be they are clueless and need gentle education. or, it could be they are clueless and need harsh correction for their arrogance.

When refuting the arguments for existence of a prohibition, our position then gets tasked with saying "no... it doesn't mean that", which can simply be countered with "but I believe it does".

well you obviously have more in the arsenal than "it doesn't mean that;" you would explain why in a way that can be understood or argued with. and if you have, then "but i believe you're wrong" must have an answer as to why, and you've given something material for them to dispute, if they are competent (few are)

Each individual interpretation of a passage becomes a mini (logical) argument of its own.

yeah... well what else do you expect?

Alternative interpretations might be dismissed out of hand ("why would you be right, instead of many educated scholars over hundreds or thousands of years?", "you're biased/motivated", etc.)

but these are fallacious arguments. you can demonstrate such.

But even if one alternative interpretation is accepted, the debate opponent could simply move on to a different verse, ad nauseam.

you can insist on focus and taking turns attacking. this is good and charitable conversation. wisdom in fewer words.

most of the time you will be dealing with a desperate and unskilled person and you must take the reins on them in order to teach them. and/or rebuke them if they are resistant to knowledge.

And if every verse were to have an alternative interpretation which was accepted as a possibility, the person would need to accept that the alternatives for every verse interpretation are true. Then the person runs into a reality-shift problem: the reality that all of the supposed authorities on Biblical interpretation are not able to be fully trusted, because one person says so. One person who may be biased and be particularly motivated. What about the slippery slope? It's "safer" to stay on the side of the many, of the familiar. And that's still an option, because all of these verses only have alternative interpretations, which could be dismissed simply by the wave of a hand. The debater proposes a conflict: scholars, pastors, family, and friends vs the debater. Easiest resolution: the debater is wrong. Who cares about what people call fallacies, when a person's whole reality and world are being turned upside down?

this is true and a intrinsic to fallen man. we tend to act as though our interpretation of reality generally - or god's word in this instance - is reality. this is why proverbs speaks well of the person who cherishes and seeks rebuke; they constantly have a posture that they might be wrong and have more to learn.

know this and arm yourself.

We might have better luck getting as close as we can to the idea that a prohibition must not exist, that the Bible explicitly claims it to be permissible or righteous (examples: God and righteous patriarchs practiced it). That creates, or rather reveals, a contradiction, a conflict, that must be resolved. The conflict is discovered within their own mind, not proposed by an external source.

but you already know this apparent conflict is solved rather simply by assuming antinomianism. that is the root, or closer to it. you dont trim branches of bad trees.

 

[Joleneakamama]

If we were able to catch this problem before it became common, however many centuries ago, it would have been easier, because the burden of proof would have been more clearly on the monogamy-only side, as they would be the ones making a new assertion of the existence of a prohibition.

Ahh but we CAN SHOW that at the council at Trent THEY DID MAKE THE NEW ASSERTION.

That is when the church decided that scripture guidance alone was insufficient for marriages or divorces to be made. THAT was also when they prescribed EXCOMUNICATION as a penalty (ONE NOT GIVEN IN SCRIPTURE) for anyone saying it is lawful for a Christian man to have more than one wife.

This is when the church at Rome fulfilled the prophesy in 1 Tim 4:1 and forbade what the Bible just called marriage.

It puts them in a place where it is often impossible for a congregation to follow Paul's advice.. "to avoid fornication let every man have his own wife and every woman have her own husband." It is the first government intrusion into marriage and even opportunities for lawful procreation from ecclesiastical sources.

 

[Heavens Declare]

the assertion that the burden of proof is on the one making the assertion.

Oh you need proof for that????!!!!! OK that is the very definition of the "Proof by Assertion" fallacy. Making an assertion without proof, if we were supposed to just take that on face value, anyone could make an assertion! It ought to be plainly obvious that making assertions without proof is dishonest and deceitful!

 

[Heavens Declare]

yes, burden of proof sensibly belongs moreso to the minority report.

No that would be the fallacy of Ad Populum.

do you mean that arguments from silence are inherently fallacious? that's an untrue popular misconception. it is a sound argument against the existence of an elephant in my room to say that 1. i dont see one 2. if there were one here, i would, therefore 3. therefore there is not an elephant in my room

Exactly, and not even myself alone. The fact that no one has been able to produce such a verse when challenged on it, is evidence that it is not to be found in a finite set of texts. IOW, given unlimited amounts of time and the desire to find such a verse, those who are motivated to do so, have been unable to do so. Anyone can ASSERT that it is forbidden, but when called out for using this assertion, all one has to do is claim that they are appealing to "Proof by Assertion". I don't have to prove that it is allowed, because if it is not forbidden, being allowed is understood as the meaning of that which is not forbidden!

or do you mean, as you seem to go on, merely that people dont agree with positions contrary to theirs? because that's not unique to this subject.

the antinomian you are describing has an epistemological backstop which must be handled first. more likely they should be largely ignored.

easy i guess but so is refusing to make a move on the chessboard; it's still breaking the rules, and when you break rules, you lose any game.

Yeah I think they call that "rage quitting", forcing the opponent to wait until you flag them.

depending on the heart and disposition of your interlocutor, it could be they are clueless and need gentle education. or, it could be they are clueless and need harsh correction for their arrogance.

well you obviously have more in the arsenal than "it doesn't mean that;" you would explain why in a way that can be understood or argued with. and if you have, then "but i believe you're wrong" must have an answer as to why, and you've given something material for them to dispute, if they are competent (few are)

In many cases they are blatantly wrong. This happens most often when citing all the supposed bad things that happened to a handful of polygynous families. When you can point out that David's problems were caused by adultery and murder (2 Sam 12:10) you can then point out that the individual who asserted it was because of polygyny, has been flat out dishonest, and then ask them why they chose to be dishonest. It undermines their credibility on the spot! I had one fellow who turned around and claimed that sin always leads to more sin. I then responded that by his own admission, polygyny is not sin, since there were many men who had more than one wife, who have no record of other sins that they committed, and not one of them ever took another man's wife and hed him killed. David is the only exception, so no, polygyny does not cause a man to do such a thing! I find opportunity also to call out as dishonest whenever someone claims that Lamech was a wicked murderer, by pointing out that not all killing is murder! When they bring up Solomon, I point out that this is argument from the extreme, which is yet another fallacy, and it is a Post Hoc fallacy as well, since he married heathen women.

yeah... well what else do you expect?

but these are fallacious arguments. you can demonstrate such.

you can insist on focus and taking turns attacking. this is good and charitable conversation. wisdom in fewer words.

most of the time you will be dealing with a desperate and unskilled person and you must take the reins on them in order to teach them. and/or rebuke them if they are resistant to knowledge.

this is true and a intrinsic to fallen man. we tend to act as though our interpretation of reality generally - or god's word in this instance - is reality. this is why proverbs speaks well of the person who cherishes and seeks rebuke; they constantly have a posture that they might be wrong and have more to learn.

know this and arm yourself.

but you already know this apparent conflict is solved rather simply by assuming antinomianism. that is the root, or closer to it. you dont trim branches of bad trees.

Good stuff!

 

[cnystrom]

so? we aren't asking a universal hermeneutical question; we are dealing with a particular.

Do the particulars not teach us as well? If not, why are they even there?

 

[cnystrom]

that serves as a pretty strong proof for the OT but there still remains the apparent contentions in the NT and I think they are competent when phrased by a competent objector (my teacher)

The argument that the NT is different is not a very good one, due to lack of evidence. You would think that if they were trying to change things they would be more explicit.

Romans 7:2, 1 Cor 7:39 both indicate that "a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive". The lack of qualification or symmetry indicates that NT morality in regards to marriage is the same as OT morality.

Current church teaching of reciprocal monogamy is a false teaching. Your teacher does not appear to be competent, at least on this subject anyway.

 

[cnystrom]

yes, burden of proof sensibly belongs moreso to the minority report.

Ok here goes.

1. To be a sin the Bible has to condemn the practice.

2. The Bible does not condemn the practice polygyny.

3. Polygyny is therefor an acceptable sin and guilt free option for the spirit filled Christian man.

That was easy enough.

 

[YoreyC]

1. To be a sin the Bible has to condemn the practice.

2. The Bible does condemn the practice polygyny.

3. Polygyny is therefor sin and guilt for the spirit filled Christian man.

Do the particulars not teach us as well? If not, why are they even there?

this isn't an answer.

Oh you need proof for that????!!!!! OK that is the very definition of the "Proof by Assertion" fallacy.

No that would be the fallacy of Ad Populum.

nevermind.

 

[Heavens Declare]

1. To be a sin the Bible has to condemn the practice.

2. The Bible does condemn the practice polygyny.

3. Polygyny is therefor sin and guilt for the spirit filled Christian man.

this isn't an answer.


nevermind.

So our point of contention is #2. When someone claims that it DOES condemn polygyny, the onus is on them to show that it does, or else they (you in this particular case) are engaging in "Proof by Assertion" which is a logical Fallacy and is deception. If #2 were correct, there would be no disagreement between us and them. We would alll have to concede that it is a sin. End of Story.

 

[frederick]

So our point of contention is #2. When someone claims that it DOES condemn polygyny, the onus is on them to show that it does, or else they (you in this particular case) are engaging in "Proof by Assertion" which is a logical Fallacy and is deception.

Yes, and this should be our approach to any situation where we are challenging a person about perceived sin. Show the passage from the Bible.

 

[Heavens Declare]

@YoreyC You know Pastor Dowell won a debate with Pastor Roberts and it wasn't even close. He cornered him with this one question: Where in the Bible does it say that polygyny is a sin? He also called him out for "wife worship", which was totally deserved! When you get your opponent into that corner, the debate is over! There is a YouTube video that @biblemarriages broke down from GotQuestions, where they bemoaned the fact that the Bible never says that it is a sin, so we do have SOME opponents of ours who are honest enough to admit this.

I not sure if this is the one:

EDIT: Heed that part where where he says "Okay we don't need polygyny to be endorsed because marriage is endorsed" at 26 minutes into the video.

 

[YoreyC]

heavens, i agree with you that these low-information arguments are garbage and easily refuted. to the point that im irritated to be reminded that biblemarriages is still spending his time batting around the softest, least competent arguments. he has demonstrated ineffectiveness when confronted with better ones, and those are the only ones im interested in at this point - with people who aren't similarly out of their depth.

 

[YoreyC]

anyway...

i go through proverbs at the start of each year and made some notes on this one:

prov 16

[COLOR=oklab(0.745437 0.00131872 -0.00849736)]23 The heart of the wise instructs his mouth And adds [l]persuasiveness to his lips.[/COLOR]​

often around here and elsewhere in online circles i get impatient with fellow good-hearted christians, and I communicate my ideas in a way that isn't wise and therefore isn't persuasive. i'll do better about that.

 

[Man_in_the_Middle]

1. To be a sin the Bible has to condemn the practice.

2. The Bible does condemn the practice polygyny.

3. Polygyny is therefor sin and guilt for the spirit filled Christian man.

YoreyC, I believe in the quote above, you are showing how a person can simply make a counter claim of equal weight. Please note though, the original claim of #2 is not equal to your counter claim of #2. The original is claiming the absence of evidence.

For example, in any book you and I just read together, I might make the claim that X never happened in the story line. You then ask me to show you the page and paragraph where it did not happen. Impossible to do because I am claiming that there is no page or paragraph in which it did happen.

You on the other hand might make the counter claim that X DID happen in the story line. I ask you for the page and paragraph because in order for it to have happened in the story line, then it HAS to be in the story on some particular page and within some particular paragraph.

Thus the claim that the bible DOES contain condemnation of X, should be provable by citing chapter and verse wherein that claim can be validated.
Without that citation, the claim is DOA.

 

[YoreyC]

For example, in any book you and I just read together, I might make the claim that X never happened in the story line. You then ask me to show you the page and paragraph where it did not happen. Impossible to do because I am claiming that there is no page or paragraph in which it did happen

if it didn't happen on any page, then you did show me where it did not happen. the position is perfectly demonstrable and falsifiable, as is cnystrom's pro-P.

as far as i can tell "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" is a misused popular slogan. oftentimes "absence" of "evidence" really is such; for instance, if I claim there is no elephant in my room, by arguing like so:

1. if there were an elephant in my room, i would see it
2. i dont see it
3. therefore, there is no elephant in my room

the argument is valid, so all you can do is challenge its soundness by disputing one of the premises. you could challenge 2 by claiming i actually do see it, but don't want to admit it. or 1 by noting that i have vision problems.

note importantly that this isn't technically an "absence of evidence." not seeing an elephant is actually quite compelling evidence that there isn't one in my room.

an example more what you're looking for:

1. if there were extraterrestrial life, i would see it through my telescope
2. i dont see it through my telescope
3. therefore, there is no extraterrestrial life

this argument is also valid, but obviously unsound, because premise 1 is obviously false.

Thus the claim that the bible DOES contain condemnation of X, should be provable by citing chapter and verse wherein that claim can be validated.
Without that citation, the claim is DOA.

this doesn't make my mirrored argument invalid (DOA), just unsound. but you can't complain about the existence of unsound arguments; in any argument, there is always at least 1 unsound position.

it's fine to ask for evidence of the position (chapter and verse), and challenge the proposed evidence. but that's part of the natural conversation; not a technical mis-step.

 

[frederick]

@YoreyC You know Pastor Dowell won a debate with Pastor Roberts and it wasn't even close. He cornered him with this one question: Where in the Bible does it say that polygyny is a sin? He also called him out for "wife worship", which was totally deserved! When you get your opponent into that corner, the debate is over! There is a YouTube video that @biblemarriages broke down from GotQuestions, where they bemoaned the fact that the Bible never says that it is a sin, so we do have SOME opponents of ours who are honest enough to admit this.

I not sure if this is the one:

EDIT: Heed that part where where he says "Okay we don't need polygyny to be endorsed because marriage is endorsed" at 26 minutes into the video.

That's an excellent video. Thanks for posting the link.

 

[Heavens Declare]

It's also fine to point out that making a truth claim without providing evidence for that claim is itself a logical fallacy.

 

[YoreyC]

have you provided evidence for this truth claim

 

[Man_in_the_Middle]

have you provided evidence for this truth claim

This is all beginning to look like arguing for the sake of arguing... ay yi yi