Talk:Argument from silence

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)

Sorry, Mkmcconn -- although I do appreciate the effort, the above links do not cut it. Let me lay my cards on the table: I do not believe that Jesus was born of a virgin, and I do not believe he was the messiah. My people have been rejecting these claims for 2,000 years, so you will understand why we are a little non-plussed when "skeptics" get passionate about disproving something we never believed. Be that as it may, I want to be crystal clear: my point has nothing to do with skeptics versus Christians, or with the question of whether or not Jesus was "really" born of a virgin. My only concern is what makes for a good encyclopedia article -- obviously the main pont of an encyclopedia is to be informative, and I think that all of us here pay at least lip-service to NPOV and accuracy as crucial to this objective. In this article, I have problems with the vague claim about "the famous" use of the argument of silence concerning the Virgin Birth. I am not questioning whether it is a good argument or a bad argument. I am questioning who has made this argument and how famous it is. In general, I am dubious about relying on other websites to answer such questions -- that seems to me to be a rather weak form of research that undermines the credibility of our project. After all, we are a web-based encyclopedia. If we rely on other web-based encyclopedias or other web-based material for information, what real value are we adding to the web? How do we evaluate the information on other websites? I checked out the four websites, and did see that a couple of them invoked the argument of silence. But I do not know who made these websites and they do not seem to be original or authoritative; moreover, they did not provide any evidence as to who first employed this argument, or what its status is among Bible critics, theologians, and historians. You see, there really is a real world outside of the web and websites. There really are theologians and Bible critics who teach courses and write books and articles about these issues. I think this article needs to report on what they are doing, and provide an account of debates over the virgin birth (and the argument of silence) in the context of these real debates amoung real people. This would take "real research" -- reading books, searching journals, etc. But the result -- a paragraph that said "The argument from silence was first raised by A in (year). Today scholars are divided into two camps: one (including B, C, and D) accept this argument for the following reasons... The other (including E, F, and G) reject the argument for the following reasons." THIS would make for an informative encyclopedia entry, rather than BS. Slrubenstein

Chris, I don't doubt the truth of your addition of "Legal" issues, but the credibility is lacking without some reference. Can you trace down som examples of which legal systems or legal decisions limit the use of the argument of silence, so that reporting it here doesn't sound so much like hearsay? Mkmcconn 17:35 May 8, 2003 (UTC)