Do fundamentalists exaggerate Paul's significance?

[JesusFan]

We don't even know that the other apostles produced less. What we have in the Bible are translations from the only verifiable documents available. There are likely a great many originals that were lost. What we have is the inspired writings of apostles---what God decreed to be in his word.

If you are going to denigrate Paul, you first will have to show that the Scripture is not the word of God.

Luke and peter at very least saw him as Apostle, and as writer of revelation equal to theirs

 

[JesusFan]

Can I possibly be reasonable to reject Paul's claims to divine inspiration? Or do you think Paul's divine inspiration is so evidentially incontestable that only fools would question it? Does this forum allow scholarly-level discussions involving non-essential doctrine? Or does this forum insist that "Paul was inspired by God" constitutes one of those few doctrines that must be believed in order to be saved (i.e., "essential doctrine")?

The Historical Christian position as always been that Paul was an inspired Apostle to the Gentiles, and that the fellow Apostles of Jesus saw him in that fashion , and those who view him as not an Apostle have been likes of Muslims, Unitarians, Arianism, etc as they use that excuse to claim Paul somehow invented Jesus being God in human flesh, and distorted "real christianity"

 

[JesusFan]

I added text to the "introduce yourself" section.

My purpose in starting with Paul is because of my own observation that what passes for Christianity after the 5th century is nearly never something Jesus said, but what Paul said. So it's only rational that if I wish to show I can reasonably disagree with Christianity, I start with the one religious figure that most Christians pay the most attention to. For most Christians involved in apologetics, that is not Jesus, it's Paul.


No. I realize that to suggest Paul lacked apostolic authority, hurts modern Christianity more than to suggest Jesus did not rise from the dead. Another reason I always begin by showing reasonableness to disagree with Paul is that I find the case in favor of Paul's divine inspiration extraordinarily weak, and yet popular, so that by showing the weakness of a very popular Christian assumption, I am also showing that a person can possibly be reasonable to disagree with a very popular Christian doctrine.

You would have to basically state all of th NT should be rejected then, as all affirmed his Apostolic state

 

[JesusFan]

I don't see anything in the rules that forbids scholarly-level discussion of the merits/deficiencies of non-essential doctrine, so I will proceed accordingly concerning the non-essential doctrine that says Paul's epistles were inspired by God.

So you reject Jesus actually appeared to him and converted Him then? that he just made up being Commissioned by risen Christ?

 

[Greg]

@Greg , it occurs to me to ask: Do you think you can become convinced God does (or does not) exist, by objective reason alone?

Is objective reason even possible in a human —no presumptions, no assumptions, no bias, no attitude, cold hard facts alone?

I agree with presuppositionalists that there is no such thing as cold hard facts alone. To convert a proposition into "fact" requires application of the observer's presuppositions. We would both agree that the vast majority of humanity holds to false ideas about evidence processing and epistemology.

 

[makesends]

I agree with presuppositionalists that there is no such thing as cold hard facts alone. To convert a proposition into "fact" requires application of the observer's presuppositions. We would both agree that the vast majority of humanity holds to false ideas about evidence processing and epistemology.

You might enjoy getting involved in an ongoing discussion on free will and determinism, on CF, in an atheist-available board. I would like to see your arguments countering the OP.

Free will and determinism

 

[Greg]

The posts prove otherwise.

Reason dictates it.

I don't "take it." I simply observe what is stated in the text.

Your posts increasingly contradict one another.


Hmmmm..... The onus is on you, not me or anyone else, to prove Proverbs 10:19 applies. The assertion of Pr. 10:19 occurs as a fallacy of argument solely by assertion.

I don't respond to most of what you allege, because what you allege mostly exists in the form of self-serving one-liners, i.e,, you accuse my posts of increasingly contradicting each other, but without supporting argument.

But then you say the onus is on me to prove Proverbs 10:19 applies. You are correct that my mere citation of the proverb was the fallacy of argument by assertion. That's because I had expected a certain level of comprehension in my opponents here.

But since you make it an issue, I can argue for that Proverb's applicability to Paul. First, I reject biblical inerrancy, so if I interpret a verse in a way that makes it conflict with another verse, that's insufficient basis for me to fear that the interpretation is wrong. Second, as most scholars of the Proverbs recognize, "immediate context" has limited utility at best since by their aphoristic nature, the author expects them to be understood immediately as self-contained units. And as most Proverbs scholars recognize, the proverbs are often strung together without regard to context. From inerrantist Trinitarian scholar D. A. Garrett:

...each proverb is an independent unit that can stand alone and still have meaning. Textual context is not essential for interpretation.

Garrett, D. A. (2001, c1993). Vol. 14: Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Song of songs (electronic ed.).
Logos Library System; The New American Commentary (Page 46). Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers.​

So it doesn't matter if you parse through the "immediate context" and blindly presume that because you think Paul's tongue was like silver, his "many words" somehow are exempt from the unqualified warning in Proverbs 10:19. I can possibly be reasonable, in light of scholarship produced by Trinitarian inerrantists, to say that the meaning of that Proverb is not dictated by textual context, but can be found in the Proverb alone. Not only does the Proverb make no exceptions, neither does the context. It is neither expressed nor implied that when it is a holy man speaking, then suddenly, many words become righteous and good.

We can justify this interpretation of the Proverb from undeniable reality: In the last 2000 years, Christianity did little more than splinter over Paul's many words. Those many words have caused the brethren to be divided, which is a sinful refusal to obey the command to be unified in thought (i.e., you must stop saying "I'm am of Calvin!", and "I am of Arminius!", "Free Grace!", "Lordship Salvation!", i.e., divisions within Protestantism, not merely your differences with "cults" whose membership in the body of Christ you deny, like Roman Catholicism...and don't even get me started on the New Perspective on Paul), see 1st Cor. 1:10-14.

Another example: for 2000 years the church has become progressively more divided about the Synoptic Problem: whether Matthew borrows from Mark, and if so, whether his changes constitute "corrections", i.e., whether Matthew would have thought Mark's gospel was inerrant, etc, and the problems created by trying to harmonize John with the Synoptics...which has led many to either abandon bible inerrancy or seriously question it , e.g., inerrantist Mike Licona's "Why I Think the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Is Wrong", or to adopt "limited inerrancy".

Heck, you can't even argue that Licona is an outlier. Despite that fact that he, Craig Blomberg and other conservative evangelicals adopt full biblical inerrancy, inerrantist Dr. Norman Geisler and other very conservative Trinitarian Protestants still created division of the brothers. See F. David Farnell, Norman L. Geisler, Joseph M. Holden, William C. Roach, Phil Fernandes, Vital Issues in the Inerrancy Debate (Wipf and Stock, 2016).

And as as is well known, despite Geisler having served in the Evangelical Theological Society for 40 years and having previously been its president, he felt he had to resign because. among other things like allowing membership to open-theists, ETS didn't see the issue of inerrancy in quite the way Geisler saw it. Most such division would have been preempted if apostle Paul had simply written a single general epistle of less than two pages summarizing all the doctrines one must believe to be saved, and describing the type of misunderstanding of those doctrines that is sufficiently egregious as to warrant removal from fellowship (e.g., "if anybody says....he is anathema").

For all these reasons, I am reasonable, even if not infallible, to view the warning in Proverbs 10:19 as intentionally unqualified, so that even "many words" by a born-again Christian could possibly make sin inevitable...and this may also imply that if an author is truly inspired by God, they will not engage in "many words"....and to thus use that Proverb to condemn the loquacious controversial fifth-wheel apostle known as Paul. You are never going to prove that my "incorrect understanding" is so evident that only fools would deny it. So I have achieved reasonableness here despite the lingering possibility that I might be ultimately wrong. Finally, the proverb itself might prove to be a bad idea since in some contexts, many words are necessary. But that is irrelevant to an unbeliever like me, YOU are the one who will be constrained to stick with the author's apparent meaning, and be disallowed by your conservative view from getting around the problem by suddenly adopting a more liberal and less constricting ndamentalist view of "god's word".

 

[Greg]

Luke and peter at very least saw him as Apostle, and as writer of revelation equal to theirs

This doesn't establish that my own view is thus "unreasonable". My list of evidential problems with your response won't satisfy hardcore Van Tilians, but anyway:

1 - Luke never expresses or implies that his written words are inspired by God, when in fact we reasonably expect somebody who sees their word as inspired by god, to at least say so. Nothing has so shaky a foundation as the theory that says the NT is the inspired inerrant word of God, and presuppositionalists don't dare attempt to uphold that theory with evidence, they resolve it all back into "but if you don't view it as the word of God, then you can't even justify recognizing that water is wet" type stuff.

2 - Luke nowhere expresses or implies that any epistle of Paul constitutes "revelation".

3 - Neither 1st nor 2nd Peter claim to be inspired by God. Any Calvinist alive today could write a fully equal epistle to other churches using identical language, updated for culture, and nobody would think the author viewed his own epistle as inspired by god. Peter's apostolic status means nothing, Barnabas was an apostle too (Acts 14:14) yet "even Barnabas" thought it appropriate to oppose Paul's view of table fellowship (Gal. 2:13).

4 - Luke's description of the Acts 15 Council of Jerusalem indicates he is spinning history in favor of Paul. He dismisses the Judaizer view with two short-shrifted summary statements, but he spills much ink quoting Peter and James verbatim, along with other remarks that clearly favor Paul's view.

5 - You don't know that Peter saw Paul as an apostle. Despite Peter calling himself an ἀπόστολος (apostle, 2nd Peter 1:1), 3:15 doesn't call Paul ἀπόστολος (apostle), but ἀδελφός (brother).

6 - It wouldn't matter if apostle Peter in 2nd Peter 3:16 was equating Paul's epistles with the OT, the author is supposed to be the most gullible and impulsive apostle of the bunch. His judgment about Paul's epistles need not be taken any more seriously than his judgment that Gentiles should live like Jews (Gal. 2:14). We apparently agree that the mere fact that Peter said it, by no means proves that it is theologically good or correct.

7 - From Galatians 1:6-9 and 2:13 and various passages in Acts, we know that not every Christian who knew Paul adored his every word the way today's Calvinists do. That's sufficient to regard the matter as legitimately disputable, nothing about Luke's and Peter's endorsement would require declaring Paul an authentic apostle.

8 - I've yet to see a Calvinist produce a statement of faith that names Luke's divine inspiration or Luke and Peter seeing Paul as an apostle or as writer of divinely inspired scripture, as things ye must believe or ye cannot be saved (i.e., essential doctrine). So the Van Tilians cannot pretend that when I dispute such non-essentials, this deserves equally as much derision as my disputing of "essential doctrine" such as Jesus' resurrection. But I'm sure the Van Tilians here will simply record their belief that I am "wrong" about whatever, and then proceed immediately to point out how accurate God's prediction in Romans 1:18 is.

 

[Greg]

You would have to basically state all of th NT should be rejected then, as all affirmed his Apostolic state

No, I find some parts of the NT to be historically reliable, and others less historically reliable. I have objective reasons to accept or reject various factual assertions of the NT. And I do not tell other people what they "should" do with the NT. I'm satisfied that most parts of it are not reliable enough to justify bothering with any of it. We learn from the modern phenomena of juries that a group of equally reasonable adults can often remain in disagreement as to either the facts, or what inferences should be drawn from them. And in that case, they disagree about events that might have happened as short as one year before the criminal trial. I have problems, therefore, with Christians who forget this, and pretend that truly reasonable people properly informed of the facts, would never disagree as to the foundational facts of Christianity that were written 2000 years ago and have caused little more than a shocking amount division. Not merely between Protestants and Catholics, but even solely within Protestantism, and even solely within Calvinism.

But regardless, I do not see the downside to rejecting the NT. Could you fill in something I perceive to be a blank? And maybe do so in the style of apologetics, not preaching to the choir?

 

[Greg]

So you reject Jesus actually appeared to him and converted Him then? that he just made up being Commissioned by risen Christ?

Yes, I can tell from the canonical gospels what true original Christianity was, so it doesn't matter if Paul really was commissioned by Christ starting on the road to Damascus, I can compare Paul's resulting epistles with the canonical gospels and reasonably accuse Paul of failing the mission. If you wish to discuss, please remember that I agree with most Evidentialist Christians, including Frank Turek on at least one point: If you come to me with a claim, it's not my job to refute it. It's your job to support it. When that is carried out in practical life, what that means is, if you fail to reasonably support your claim, that can function as fully sufficient grounds for me to ignore it. The notion that you cannot reasonably ignore a claim until you can prove it "false" is nonsense.

 

[Josheb]

I don't respond to most of what you allege, because what you allege mostly exists in the form of self-serving one-liners, i.e,,

That is hogwash. One of my points is that you practice what you criticize others of doing. That sentence I just quoted is a one-liner, a self-serving one-liner.

you accuse my posts of increasingly contradicting each other, but without supporting argument.

No, I quoted the contradictory parts and simply observed the contradiction. There is no "accusation."

But then you say the onus is on me to prove Proverbs 10:19 applies.

It is. And this is another fault in your methodology. Others were criticized for making mere assertions. It is objectively verifiable that is exactly what you have done in places.

You are correct that my mere citation of the proverb was the fallacy of argument by assertion.

Yep. I was correct. Your acknowledgment of the facts in evidence is commendable BUT it would be better if the fallacy hadn't been committed in the first place, you hadn't characterized it as an accusation, and you didn't make excuses for doing so......

That's because....

There's no excuse for the fallacious content or the hypocrisy. Man up, Greg. There are many very intelligent posters here. @John Bauer is going to hand you your rear if he ever decides to substantively address the nonsense of your posts. It's not an atheist/theist thing. You are simply not a well-reasoning individual. You're being indulged because you're new and haven't yet recognized it.

I had expected a certain level of comprehension in my opponents here.

And that was another mistake on your part. No one in any internet forum reads minds and the onus is always on the poster to make him/herself clear. Your posts indicate as much so when you try to gaslight me after having just acknowledged your proof-texted use of the proverb was fallacious, you only make things worse for yourself. It's not okay to post fallacy, not be responsible for doing so, and then blame others for both lacks.

But since you make it an issue,

Nice strawman. I did not make it an "issue." I simply observed a logical error. You're the one losing your composure and making it more than it is. In this forum a simple, "My bad" will suffice, and that is especially true when trading posts with me (which isn't going to happen a lot because I don't read much sincerity in your posts. It looks to me like you're here to pridefully troll Christians and I don't feed trolls. The growing number of logical fallacies employed way too comfortably, the ongoing hypocrisy and attempted gaslighting confirm my appraisal.

I can argue for that Proverb's applicability to Paul.

Not interested. The point has been made and ignored. The only correct resonse was some expression of regret and then making the case for the misuse of the proverb.

First, I reject biblical inerrancy.....

Which has nothing whatsoever to do with the application of the proverb to Paul. Both the proverb and whatever Paul passage you choose could be errant and you'd still have to make the case for the proverbs relevance. You did not do so when initiating the criticism of Paul. You did not do so when the fallacy was noted, and your current attempt is starting off with a non sequitur being employed as a false cause.

, so if I interpret a verse in a way that makes it conflict with another verse,

That would be unadulterated subjectivism to which I and everyone else here could reply with equally subjective interpretation and we might end up with eight or ten different viewpoints. Your case would have no more veracity than anyone else's. You'd win that argument only in your own mind (which would be "self-serving," as you put it.

that's insufficient basis for me to fear that the interpretation is wrong.

If the point is not to find common ground, then you're just trolling. Anyone can post disagreement and anyone can be disagreeable doing so. The subject of this op is whether or not fundamentalists exaggerate Paul's significance. Everything else is off topic and when you joined this forum you agree to at make a conscious and conscientious effort to stay on topic.

I don't feed trolls and I don't do digression, either.

So, I won't be baited into a lengthy tangent on the relevance of Proverbs 10:19 to Paul's writings unless or un til you make an actual exegetical case and do it without gaslighting others. Others might. Not me.

Second, as most scholars of the Proverbs recognize...

Appeal to authority

So it doesn't matter if you parse through the "immediate context" and blindly presume that because you think Paul's tongue was like silver...

Sophist rhetoric

Not only does the Proverb make no exceptions, neither does the context.

Factually incorrect.

We can justify this interpretation of the Proverb from undeniable reality: In the last 2000 years, Christianity did little more than splinter over Paul's many words.

Factually incorrect (Christianity has much more in common than apart but atheists and antitheist like do discount the positive).

Those many words have caused the brethren to be divided...

Strawman and probably a product of biased sources.

, which is a sinful refusal to obey the command to be unified in thought (i.e., you must stop saying "I'm am of Calvin!", and "I am of Arminius!", "Free Grace!", "Lordship Salvation!", i.e., divisions within Protestantism, not merely your differences with "cults" whose membership in the body of Christ you deny, like Roman Catholicism...and don't even get me started on the New Perspective on Paul), see 1st Cor. 1:10-14.

You've come to the wrong forum. I may be more diversely read than most of my siblings, but the difference is marginal. The majority of members here are Reformed (mostly Calvinist) but they/we are a theologically well-read bunch. Despite the homogeneity (or within the pale of Reformed orthodoxy) there's plenty of diversity of thought. If you ever get tired of trolling and learn to reason logically many interesting conversations can be had.

Another example: for 2000 years the church has become progressively more divided about the Synoptic Problem: whether Matthew borrows from Mark, and if so, whether his changes constitute "corrections", i.e., whether Matthew would have thought Mark's gospel was inerrant, etc, and the problems created by trying to harmonize John with the Synoptics...which has led many to either abandon bible inerrancy or seriously question it , e.g., inerrantist Mike Licona's "Why I Think the Chicago Statement on Biblical Inerrancy Is Wrong", or to adopt "limited inerrancy".

Factually incorrect.

Were I to list all the fallacies existent in your posts the list would be lengthy. It's not rational to think a list even a quarter of that size qualifies your participation, much less the notion you reason well.

 

[Josheb]

@Greg,

Until you learn to post more rationally you should understand the post reads like a lot of name-dropping and a pile of one-liber assertions intended as self-promotion. I don't read any evidence you have actually read any of those names, understand their arguments with any substance or know where their views fit in history. I definitely don't read any indication you're aware of any recapitulation existing in any of those names.



This op askes two questions:

1. Do fundamentalists exaggerate Paul's significance?
2. [Which] group is more likely to know truths about Paul not subject to interpretative-subjectivity: his original contemporary converts, or ...people who wouldn't be born for another 1900 years who know precisely nothing about Paul except what they find in a collection of books that ancient supporters of Paul helped put together?

I hope you can see the biases inherent in the loaded questions. Inquiries 1 and 2 can (and should) be dismissed out of hand simply because of their inherent bias. I may as well ask you if this is the first time you've been caught beating little children in the closet as you yell "Cuckoo! Cuckoo!" while wearing a rubber glove stretched over your head. The correct answer is not, "I've never done any such thing. The correct answer is to ignore the question in its entirety, understand its inherent irrationality, and ignore the inquirer as a troll. The op could have been worthy of discussion had it not been saturated with implicit contempt.

1. No. Some might but, as a general rule, Paul's significance in history cannot be over-estimated. Even if there is disagreement (and a lack of consensus) few have impacted history as much as Paul.
2. Neither or both, but the question itself is a red herring. There exist people to know the truths about Paul who do not fit into either category, but what is most germane to Paul's significance is truths of Paul's writings, not the truths of Paul. For all we know Paul could have been a glove-wearing closet dweller. His letters contributed to enormous change (both commendable and reprehensible, both unifying and dividing) and they continue to do so. If that were not the case none of the names you mention would have anything to say. Your own posts confirm his significance and you're not a theist!

Neither question is particularly difficult to answer, even as an atheist. The fact you think those wordings (and the preemptive effort to define your own terms) are intelligent inquiries tells everyone here your faculties of reasoning are sophist and sophomoric at best. The forum rules prohibit us from listing the many fallacies and piling on so you should understand the substantial restraint everyone has shown thus far.

I recommend you take a few days off from the forum (perhaps all participation in all forums) and then come back and re-word this op and repost it anew (ask the mods to close this thread from further comment).

1. Do fundamentalists exaggerate Paul's significance?

(and then define your terms because Reformed fundamentalists are not identical with or synonymous with Charismatic fundamentalists, and specify what you mean by significance," because that term can be defined diversely and if you are looking for rational discourse the onus is on you to avoid the problem of ambiguity)​

2. [Which] group is more likely to know truths about Paul not subject to interpretative-subjectivity: his original contemporary converts, or ...people who wouldn't be born for another 1900 years who know precisely nothing about Paul except what they find in a collection of books that ancient supporters of Paul helped put together?

Nix the nonsensical options and provide some rational alternatives because history and exegesis are supposed to be scientific endeavors, not subjective or incestuous ones.​

Your first foray in the forum is a poor one. You're new here so we'll cut you some slack. Do better if you wish to stay. Trolls end up with the same outcome. The most intelligent members of any forum eventually ignore their handle and the only "discussions" they have after that are with the lowest quality or least mature leftovers. Wish better for yourself.