Origins Of Christianity

[NoHolyCows]

Your notion is both unsupported and illogical.

No reason has been supplied explaining how it is that because someone makes a statement in public, that statement "needs public discriminators".

You have made a necessity claim.

But it is not necessary in any sense of necessary that a statement "needs public discriminators" for that statement having been made in public.

It’s neither. In public reasoning, an origin claim is warranted only if it yields observations that are more expected on that claim than on its rivals. That is the standard in science (hypotheses must have discriminating predictions) and in history and law (claims need corroborables). Calling that “unsupported” ignores the basic fact that without public discriminators, no origin claim can bind anyone who doesn’t already accept it.

Because a public claim seeks public assent. Assent in public inquiry is earned by publicly checkable differences in what the world would look like if the claim were true versus false. If a claim supplies no such differences, it is indistinguishable from its negation in evidence terms and cannot function as warrant over rivals.

I’m not asserting a metaphysical necessity; I’m stating a methodological requirement. If a claim is offered as a reason others should prefer it, then—by the norms of public argument—it must be testable against alternatives. If you don’t want that burden, don’t use the claim to obligate outsiders.

False.

I said: "The fact that the reasoning Paul presented was itself not dependent on Paul's inspiration is sufficient basis for concluding as fact that Paul's reference to his inspiration experience was not an appeal to authority at all." I could, of course, rephrase "sufficient basis for concluding as fact" as "sufficient basis for taking as fact" or as "sufficient basis for assuming as fact" with the emphasis in all versions remaining on Paul's reasoning being - and making itself ever more - independent of the inspiration.

Independence of some reasons does not erase the presence of a separate warrant. In Galatians, Paul both argues and explicitly states his message is “not from man … through Jesus Christ.” The existence of argumentation does not transmute an explicit origin-warrant into a nullity. If you want the origin claim to be irrelevant, stop deploying it. If you deploy it, it must carry public evidential load. It doesn’t.

Your statement means: "The existence of argumentation does not erase what necessarily cannot be anything other than non-human warrant." Your statement is a necessity claim.

No. It means exactly what it says: the presence of logos does not negate an appeal to ethos. A speaker can use both reasons and a claimed source. I’m not claiming the origin appeal is the only function—only that it is used as warrant and therefore must meet public standards if it is to trump rivals.

The fact that the argument Paul presented was itself not dependent on Paul's inspiration provides sufficient reason for denying that very necessity which you claim. The argument was presented because it was thought to be a good argument sufficient for its contextual purposes. The argument did not depend on "non-human warrant"; therefore, the supposed claim of non-human warrant would - at best - itself be regarded as a redundancy. But it is not even necessarily a redundancy, because, in light of the intent to present an argument, the reference to the inspiration can be intended as a way of contrasting viewpoints by highlighting distinctly different compatibilities. That is precisely how what you call a claim of non-human warrant was used - more about which is found below. So, the redundancy is not necessary, but for now it remains possible; consequently, a correct version of your statement could have been: "The existence of argumentation does not erase the possibility of there also being an additional claim of non-human warrant."

The point is that your use of "explicit" is false for being an erroneous claim of necessity rather than the more appropriate claim of possibility.

You also said: "A speaker can use both ethos (claimed authority) and logos (reasons)." That statement would be more correct in context if you had said: "A speaker can use both reasons and what might appear to be claimed authority." It is necessary that there be interpretation in order for there to be what appears to be "claimed authority". That necessity of interpretation imparts a burden upon any assertion of there necessarily being a "claimed authority" occurrence.

You said: "Paul’s narrative of independent revelation (Gal 1:11–17) is plainly introduced to trump 'man-taught' rivals." Your statement means: "Paul’s narrative of independent revelation (Gal 1:11–17) is necessarily introduced only to trump 'man-taught' rivals." That statement is false. It is false because it is a claim of exclusivity entailed by necessity, but that necessity is never established; therefore, the exclusivity claim is false.

If the revelation claim is redundant, it adds no warrant and should not be used to obligate anyone. If it is contrastive, it still functions as a source–superiority move and, once used against rivals, must be testable by public discriminators. In Galatians Paul doesn’t merely “contrast”; he asserts “not from man … through Jesus Christ” and attaches an anathema to contrary gospels. That is a public origin–warrant claim. Your concession that the reasoning stands without inspiration collapses the only possible probative use of the revelation appeal. Keep the reasons; the non-human warrant remains evidentially idle unless you can show observations more probable on “not of human origin” than on ordinary authorship. None have been shown.

“Explicit” here is descriptive, not modal. Paul states the origin claim in the text; that makes it explicit. The necessity I invoke is methodological: if you publicly deploy an origin claim as warrant over rivals, you necessarily incur the burden of providing public discriminators. That requirement does not vanish because the same letter also contains arguments.

All textual analysis is interpretive, but the classification is straightforward: a first-person revelation claim, set over against “from men” and paired with a curse on dissenters, functions as an ethos/authority move in ordinary rhetorical terms. Naming it “appears to be” does not change its role. And precisely because it is used as an authority move in public dispute, it must carry publicly checkable support to bind anyone beyond prior commitment. It doesn’t.

I never claimed “only.” I said “plainly to trump,” which is a statement about how it is used in the polemical context. He can both argue and assert superior origin. Once the latter is used as a warrant against rivals, it is subject to evidential adjudication. Since nothing in the letters or their transmission yields outcomes more probable on “not of human origin” than on human authorship, the origin claim does no probative work. Your attempt to recast my point as an exclusivity thesis misreads it; the conclusion stands: the origin appeal, as deployed, lacks public warrant and cannot obligate anyone outside private faith.

Paul's letter to the Galatians was certainly intended "to trump 'man-taught' rivals", but that trumping was by the reasoning which was independent of the report of inspiration. You interpret "man-taught" to necessarily mean "man-taught and therefore necessarily wrong". However, by the reasoning provided by Paul, "man-taught" is not a premise; it is, instead, a conclusion that validly follows from Paul's argument.

The position of the rivals is shown to be incompatible with the nature of righteousness. Paul's understanding, on the other hand, is compatible with the nature of righteousness. Since the rival understanding is inconsistent with the understanding about the nature of righteousness, the rival understanding necessarily deviates from what follows from divine inspiration in the absence of "man-made" or "man-taught" error, whereas Paul's expressed understanding does not (at least yet) so deviate from what follows from divine inspiration.

This means that reference by Paul to his own alleged experience of divine inspiration is not necessarily for the purpose of invoking "non-human warrant", and that means you are logically wrong to characterize Paul's reference to inspiration as nothing other than or not possibly other than a claim of non-human warrant.

Paul shows that the understanding expressed by the rivals is erroneous by the necessity of entailment. This means that there is no meaning lost by substituting "erroneous" for "man-taught" to get "to trump erroneous rivals."

This additionally highlights your own error. Your statement now means: "Paul’s narrative of independent revelation (Gal 1:11–17) is necessarily introduced only to trump erroneous rivals." However, it is not a revelation nor even an inspiration which trumps the rivals. Rather, it is Paul's reasoning which trumps the erroneous rivals, and your claim about the reference to the inspiration is made even more intensely wrong owing to your mis-taking of "man-taught" as if it is necessarily intended to mean "necessarily wrong".

Two things are simultaneously true in Galatians: Paul argues, and Paul asserts a non-human source to overmatch his rivals (“not from man … through Jesus Christ” with an anathema on contrary gospels). The presence of arguments does not erase the public origin claim; it adds to it. I have never said “man-taught” means “wrong” by definition. My point is methodological: once Paul deploys “not of human origin” as a warrant against rivals, that claim carries a burden of public discriminators—observations more probable if his origin claim is true than if ordinary authorship is true. None are available in the language, genre, rhetoric, or manuscript history of the letters. So keep the reasoning if you like; the origin appeal still contributes zero evidential weight.

“Incompatible with the nature of righteousness” is a theological judgment, not a public discriminator of origin. You are building the conclusion into your premise: define “what follows from divine inspiration” in a way that matches Paul, then declare rivals “man-taught.” That is circular from the standpoint of historical method. Even if Paul’s ethical conclusions were admirable, ethical appraisal does not convert into evidence that his message’s origin is non-human. Public adjudication of origin requires features the human-origin hypothesis does not already predict. Galatians supplies none.

I have not claimed “nothing other than.” I’ve said that in this polemical context Paul explicitly uses origin language as warrant against rivals. Whether he also reasons is immaterial to that fact. If the origin appeal is merely ornamental, it adds no warrant and should be dropped. If it is functional—offered to trump “man-taught” rivals—then it must be testable by public discriminators. Either way, the outcome is the same: the revelation claim provides no evidential gain.

There is no “necessity of entailment” here in the logical sense. Paul’s conclusions follow only if one grants his interpretive premises about Abraham, law, promise, and faith. Those are theologically loaded premises, not neutral axioms. Validity relative to those premises does not create evidence for a non-human origin; it only shows internal coherence within Paul’s framework. That keeps the dispute theological, not evidential.

You are attributing an “only” I did not write. My claim is conditional and consistent: Paul uses both reasons and a revelation claim. The reasons can be assessed on their merits; the revelation claim, once used to overtop rivals, must carry public discriminators to obligate anyone who does not already share Paul’s premises. The letters and their wholly human transmission provide none. Therefore the revelation appeal remains evidentially idle, and your recasting of my position does not touch that conclusion.

Even if errors are always produced by human thinking, human thinking does not always produce errors.

In essence, Paul's argument boils down to this conclusion: "neither circumcision nor uncircumcision has any value." That is to say that Paul's rivals are in error when they deny this point which follows from the reasoning - the argument - which Paul provided. Paul's reasoning is compatible with the possibility of Paul having been divinely inspired, but that reasoning is not at all dependent on Paul having been divinely inspired.

It has been indubitably and logically established that Paul did not necessarily make reference to inspiration for the purpose of trumping his rivals by referring to an experience of having been divinely inspired.

Trivially true and beside the issue. The fact that humans can reason correctly does nothing to convert a public origin claim—“not of human origin”—into evidence. Plenty of entirely human authors produce sound arguments; soundness does not license a non-human source. Your statement neither rebuts nor even touches the methodological point: origin claims acquire warrant only when they generate observations more probable on that claim than on ordinary human authorship. Correct reasoning, by itself, is perfectly consistent with purely human origin.

You’ve just conceded my position. If Paul’s reasoning and conclusions are independent of the inspiration claim, then the inspiration claim adds no evidential weight. Compatibility is not evidence; what matters are discriminators that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary composition. The letters give us none: they are written in ordinary Koine Greek, use standard epistolary forms, argue from shared scriptures, address concrete community disputes, and survive through a normal human manuscript tradition. All of that is exactly what we expect from human authorship; none of it is made likelier by a non-human source. So even if Paul’s argument about circumcision is internally coherent on his premises, that coherency does not move the origin question an inch

That hasn’t been established; it’s been asserted. The text itself shows Paul deploying origin language as a warrant in the Galatian dispute: he says his gospel is “not from man” but “through Jesus Christ,” recounts receiving it “through revelation,” and pronounces a curse on contrary “gospels.” Whether or not that is the only purpose is irrelevant; once the appeal is used in public argument, it invites public tests. On public criteria—language, genre, rhetoric, transmission—everything we can observe is fully human, and nothing observed is more probable on a non-human-origin hypothesis than on ordinary authorship. Therefore the revelation appeal carries no evidential force for anyone not already committed to it by faith, and repeating that it’s “indubitable” does not change the evidential calculus.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Logically, it has been indubitably established that Paul's reference to his reported experience of divine inspiration was not necessarily intended as an appeal to authority.

Therefore, it is illogical for you to insist that Paul necessarily presented an "origin claim as public warrant."

With regards to the possibility of his having presented an "origin claim as public warrant", reasons aplenty have been provided to warrant thinking that such was not the purpose of his referring to the inspiration experience he reportedly had.

But, since neither Paul's message nor his reasoned argument depends on whatever is the fact regarding the reported inspiration, it is wholly irrational to obsessively insist that there be evidence one way or the other with regards to whether the inspiration was actual and whether that inspiration, if actual, was actually a case of divine inspiration.

Requests for evidence are not inherently rational for being requests for evidence.

Paul's message as the expression of his understanding as developed by his reasoning is the public claim to be questioned, challenged, tested, and even modified for the purpose of furthered development of understanding. For that, it is a good thing that the validity and veracity of his public message do not depend on the actuality of the experience which he reports as having been the impetus for the conversion away from the way he previously had been thinking.

Even if Paul had certainly presented a claim of non-human warrant in addition to the argument he presented, his argument remains utterly unaffected by such a claim for non-human warrant. This means that it is illogical in such a circumstance to insist that it is necessary that there be evidence for the claimed non-human warrant before Paul's message could have any possible validity or veracity.

A claim of having non-human warrant can be wrong, but that claim and its wrongness are irrelevant given an argument which does not itself depend on the claim of non-human warrant. Paul's argument depends on faith in righteousness but not on inspiration and not on non-human warrant.

Your "evidential" argument is illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

Two different claims are being conflated. Whether Paul “necessarily intended” an appeal to authority is a question about psychology; whether he in fact used the origin claim as part of his public case is a question about the text. In Galatians Paul explicitly contrasts “not from man… through Jesus Christ” with rival teaching and pronounces a curse on contrary gospels; that is the deployment of an origin claim as a warrant within a public dispute. Intention need not be exclusive or “necessary” to establish use. The public use is there in the document; that is what triggers public evaluation.

I have not argued “necessarily;” I have argued “factually.” Once the letter itself adduces “not of man… through revelation” against opponents, the origin claim is functioning as public warrant in that argument. The presence of any additional reasoning does not erase that use; it just means he used more than one strategy.

Your alternatives are speculative. The only non-speculative data are the words on the page and the controversy they address. On those data, the revelation claim is part of the argumentative toolkit. Appeals to alternative “purposes” do not remove what the text actually does in situ.

Evaluating the content and evaluating the origin are separable. I agree the ethical/theological claims can be assessed on their own merits. But when a public origin claim is used to trump rivals, that claim stands on its own and is properly tested by public criteria. Saying “the argument doesn’t depend on it” concedes exactly my position: the content can be weighed as human work, and the origin claim—lacking discriminating evidence—carries no weight for anyone not already committed by faith.

In public inquiry they are. History, science, and law all share a baseline: a claim that purports to settle a public dispute needs publicly checkable discriminators—observations that are more expected if the claim is true than if it is false. That standard is what keeps adjudication from collapsing into private certainties. It applies here exactly because the origin claim is being used in a public controversy.

Agreed—and that agreement dissolves the need to import “not of human origin” into historical warrant. Assess the arguments as arguments. But then the origin claim neither binds nor advances the case. It remains evidentially idle.

You’re arguing against a claim I haven’t made. I have nowhere said the message requires disproving the origin claim to be assessed. I’ve said the opposite: the message stands or falls on ordinary human reasons and consequences, and the origin claim—precisely because it adds no public discriminator—should not be treated as warrant over rivals. That is the only evidential point at issue.

If the origin claim is irrelevant to the argumentative force, we agree on its evidential status: it does no work and should not be invoked to settle disputes. That is all I have maintained. Where we still differ is that you continue to treat my demand for public discriminators as “obsessive,” while it is simply the standard that keeps public claims answerable to shared evidence.

It is straightforward. Evidence, in public inquiry, is any observation that bears differently on competing explanations. The Pauline corpus, its language, genre, rhetoric, and manuscript history are exactly what ordinary human authorship predicts and nothing that a non-human origin predicts better. Therefore, as a public warrant, “not of human origin” is unfalsifiable and evidentially empty; as private faith, anyone is free to hold it, but it cannot adjudicate the historical dispute.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

I have not argued “necessarily;” I have argued “factually.”

False with regards to not necessarily, and false with regards to factually.

Expressions presented factually are expressions of fact which follow necessarily from (reduction to) considerations in terms of possibilities.

Factually is factually by virtue of an expression which presents a determinate condition.

A determinate condition is put forth factually either by presentation of multiple possibilities intended as or presumed to be necessarily exhaustive in combination, or a determinate condition is put forth factually in terms of only one possibility after it is established that there necessarily remains only one viable possibility - which would be to say the actual case.

Your expression puts forth only one possibility that is not qualified by some expression which would indicate an assumption. This means that the sole possibility you put forth is only factual to the extent that it is necessarily the only actually viable possibility.

You do NOT actually argue "factually" without "necessarily".

Once the letter itself adduces “not of man… through revelation” against opponents, the origin claim is functioning as public warrant in that argument. The presence of any additional reasoning does not erase that use; it just means he used more than one strategy.

Your expression puts forth only one possibility: "is functioning as public warrant". Since your expression is not qualified such as in terms of functioning as an assumption, that one possibility which you put forth is only factual to the extent that it is necessarily the only actually viable possibility.

You could have more legitimately put forth your "is functioning as public warrant" as it having been assumed as fact, but that would not save your argument from being illogical inasmuch as your focus is irrational as a result of its insistent and inescapable narrowness.

Even having assumed as fact that Paul put forth a reference to inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant", there is the "more than one strategy" matter which is a problem for you.

It is a fact that Paul put forth reasoning (or argument) in his letter to the Galatians.

With regards to that letter, it would have been a possibility that Paul would not put forth reasoning (or argument), and it would have been a possibility that Paul would put forth reasoning (or argument). That combination of possibilities is exhaustive with regards to the matter of whether reasoning would be included in the letter.

It has been established - and you have agreed - that it is necessarily the case that Paul did put forth reasoning in that letter to the Galatians. That possibility is the only one from within the exhaustive combination of possibilities which is the only actual viable possibility given that Paul did as a matter of fact put forth reasoning.

It has been shown how Paul's reference to divine inspiration functions other than "as public warrant" within the reasoning he puts forth.

It has been shown that the "functioning as [other than] public warrant" occurs without being a premise on which Paul's reasoning depends.

It has been shown that Paul's reasoning does not use his reference to divine inspiration as a premise.

It is necessarily the case that Paul's reference to divine inspiration functions other than "as public warrant" within the reasoning he puts forth.

It has been shown to be necessarily the case that neither the validity nor the veracity of Paul's reasoning is dependent on Paul having been divinely inspired, since Paul's reasoning does not use his reference to divine inspiration as a premise.

Therefore, Paul's reference to divine inspiration is not necessarily intended for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant".

And that means that, if Paul's reference to divine inspiration is nonetheless intended for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant", such can be the case only if that intended "functioning as public warrant" is extraneous to, in addition to - a matter wholly separate from - the reference to divine inspiration being used in his reasoning for a purpose other than "functioning as public warrant."

Here is the problem you must overcome in order for you to have presented an actually logical argument of any relevance, importance, or interest:

The necessity of Paul having referred to divine inspiration for an additional purpose of "functioning as public warrant" has not been established, but, even if that additional purpose were to be established as necessarily the case, that leaves Paul's provided reasoning unaffected.

Even so, it can be assumed as fact for the sake of argument that Paul also referred to divine inspiration for the additional purpose of "functioning as public warrant".

That fact (whether assumed or established as also necessarily the case) about Paul having referred to divine inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant" leaves the validity and the possible veracity of Paul's presented argument intact and unscathed.

The fact (whether assumed or established as also necessarily the case) about Paul having referred to divine inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant" has no possible utility other than to establish that Paul could be wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant".

And that possibility about Paul being possibly wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant" can be assumed as fact without it having been established as necessarily the case such that what is now treated as fact is that Paul is wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant".

Paul being wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant" does nothing but establish as fact that Paul was human. But that was never an issue. There is no doubt that Paul was human even if Paul can only be assumed to have been an actual human person.

And this means that the question about whether divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrelevant to the matter of the message preached as an expression of Paul's understanding - an understanding which remains intact, unaffected, valid, still possibly true, and subject to further development.

Since the question of whether reference to divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is so irrelevant as to not even succeed in achieving mere triviality, the insistence that there be evidence that divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrational as a focus.

It is illogical to focus - as you do - only upon an issue which, were it to be dispositively settled, can have no effect on other matters and cannot introduce new possibilities.

Your "evidential" argument is illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

 

[NoHolyCows]

False with regards to not necessarily, and false with regards to factually.

Expressions presented factually are expressions of fact which follow necessarily from (reduction to) considerations in terms of possibilities.

Factually is factually by virtue of an expression which presents a determinate condition.

A determinate condition is put forth factually either by presentation of multiple possibilities intended as or presumed to be necessarily exhaustive in combination, or a determinate condition is put forth factually in terms of only one possibility after it is established that there necessarily remains only one viable possibility - which would be to say the actual case.

Your expression puts forth only one possibility that is not qualified by some expression which would indicate an assumption. This means that the sole possibility you put forth is only factual to the extent that it is necessarily the only actually viable possibility.

You do NOT actually argue "factually" without "necessarily".

You’re conflating two different modalities. “Factual” means true of the actual case; “necessary” means true in all possible cases. Most facts are contingent, not necessary. “Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon” is factual and contingent. My point about Paul’s letter is of that kind: in the actual text he deploys a “not from man… through Jesus Christ” claim against rivals. That observation is factual without presuming logical necessity.

That is not how factual determination works in history, science, or law. Outside of pure mathematics, facts are established by public evidence and inference to the best explanation, not by deriving necessity over all possibilities. We say a lab result, a courtroom finding, or a textual feature is factual when the available observations support it; none of those “follow necessarily.”

A determinate state of affairs suffices; necessity doesn’t. The determinate state here is straightforward: the letter contains an explicit non-human-origin claim placed in a polemical frame. That is an observable feature of the document, not a guess about Paul’s inner life.

That’s a false dilemma. Empirical practice does not require exhausting all possibilities or proving necessity. We compare live alternatives and adopt the one best supported by the record, always defeasibly. In textual analysis the “record” is the wording and context; the wording shows Paul invoking revelation “not from man” while anathematizing contrary gospels—public use of an origin claim. No modal necessity is needed to call that factual.

I’m not offering a conjectural “possibility”; I’m pointing to the text’s observable rhetoric. Regardless of what additional purposes you speculate Paul might have had, the document itself uses the revelation claim as part of the case against opponents. That descriptive fact stands without any appeal to necessity.

That statement is simply incorrect. Historical facts are routinely contingent: who authored which lines, which arguments a letter contains, which claims are deployed in a dispute. “Factually” in public inquiry means borne out by the evidence of the case at hand. My claim is exactly that: in this letter, the non-human-origin claim is publicly deployed; therefore, if it is to carry weight in that public dispute, it must meet public evidential standards. If it does not, the content must be assessed on human merits and the origin claim carries no warrant.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

You’re conflating two different modalities. “Factual” means true of the actual case; “necessary” means true in all possible cases.

False.

It is only "logically necessary" which means true in all possible cases.

Logically necessary is not the only sort of necessary.

I have not claimed that I am referring to logical necessity.

Nothing I have written implies there having been reliance on logical necessity.

Nothing I have written warrants inference of there having been reliance on logical necessity.

Nothing I have said depends on or presumes logical necessity.

That is obvious given the discussion in terms of entailment.

Consequently, your argument remains illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

 

[NoHolyCows]

False.

It is only "logically necessary" which means true in all possible cases.

Logically necessary is not the only sort of necessary.

I have not claimed that I am referring to logical necessity.

Nothing I have written implies there having been reliance on logical necessity.

Nothing I have written warrants inference of there having been reliance on logical necessity.

Nothing I have said depends on or presumes logical necessity.

That is obvious given the discussion in terms of entailment.

Consequently, your argument remains illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

You can’t invoke “entailment” and then deny you’re relying on logical necessity. Entailment just is a necessity relation: if your premises are true, the conclusion must be true in every admissible case. When you repeatedly said things like “it has been indubitably and logically established,” “it is necessarily the case that…,” and “logically… established,” you were asserting modal necessity. If you meant some other modality (nomological, deontic, pragmatic), you must state the modal base and show why the necessity follows under that base. You didn’t. In practice you oscillate: when it suits you, “necessarily” is used to dismiss alternatives; when pressed, you retreat to “I didn’t mean logical necessity.” That’s equivocation.

“Factual” and “necessary” aren’t the same job. To claim something is factual you supply public evidence that it is true in the actual case. To claim something is necessary you give a valid argument whose conclusion follows from explicit premises. You’ve done neither for your key moves. You haven’t provided public discriminators that make Paul’s “not from man… through revelation” more probable than human origin, so the factual claim fails as public warrant. And your appeals to “necessity” ride on theological premises about “righteousness” and “faith,” which, even if granted for the sake of discussion, yield at best conditional conclusions—“if those premises, then your conclusion”—not necessity binding on outsiders.

The point you keep trying to wave away remains untouched: in Galatians the origin claim functions as a public warrant in a polemic. That is a factual feature of the letter. As such it’s legitimately tested by public criteria. No modal reshuffling changes that. Without discriminating evidence for the non-human origin strand, it carries no public force; what remains are Paul’s human arguments, which can be weighed on their merits. That is clear, non-equivocal, and methodologically sound.

NHC

 

[Elixir]

Without discriminating evidence for the non-human origin strand, it carries no public force; what remains are Paul’s human arguments, which can be weighed on their merits.

Trying to deprive theists of their uncanny ability to emulate jello when you attempt to pin them down?

Good luck with that!

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

You can’t invoke “entailment” and then deny you’re relying on logical necessity.

The logical necessity of entailment only regards all possibilities having been taken into account such that only one of those possibilities is left viable so as to be claimed as actual. (The possibility of such entailment leaving more than one possibility as viable is being left aside for being irrelevant to the way in which you claim what you claim, but the possibility of there being multiple viable actuals has been previously addressed and is addressed yet again below. It presents an insuperable problem for you.)

The logical necessity of entailment discussed immediately above does not rely in any way on the logical necessity of something being the case regardless of whatever are in any way relevant possibilities, conditions, contexts, or perspectives.

When you say that Paul's reference to divine inspiration is a matter of "public warrant", what you have expressed is the claim that "public warrant" is the only possibility left viable so that it can be claimed as being actual. What you have expressed is a claim that Paul's reference to divine inspiration has been established by logically entailed necessity as being the only possibility left viable as actual.

Your claim is not logical as a result of not having (sufficiently or at all) taken into account alternative possibilities.

The fact that your claim is false is made evident and obvious by my having shown as viable an alternative possibility regarding Paul's reference to Paul's inspiration with that alternative possibility being one in which Paul's reference to divine inspiration is most definitely NOT a matter of inspiration "functioning as public warrant".

“Factual” and “necessary” aren’t the same job.

They are in the context at hand. Fact and factual refer to a determinate condition depicted in terms of whichever possibilities by virtue of the logical necessity of entailment are said to be exhaustively viable for actuality.

The point you keep trying to wave away remains untouched: in Galatians the origin claim functions as a public warrant in a polemic.

False.

The "public warrant" possibility, even when accepted as factual, is a fact which is in addition to the demonstrated actuality of Paul having referred to divine inspiration for a purpose entirely other than "functioning as public warrant".

That is a problem of logic for you. It is an insuperable problem for you. That is why you continue resorting to every sort of misdirecting you can cook up in order to avoid that matter. That which is your problem is not any sort of problem for me.

Your argument is illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

 

[NoHolyCows]

The logical necessity of entailment only regards all possibilities having been taken into account such that only one of those possibilities is left viable so as to be claimed as actual. (The possibility of such entailment leaving more than one possibility as viable is being left aside for being irrelevant to the way in which you claim what you claim, but the possibility of there being multiple viable actuals has been previously addressed and is addressed yet again below. It presents an insuperable problem for you.)

The logical necessity of entailment discussed immediately above does not rely in any way on the logical necessity of something being the case regardless of whatever are in any way relevant possibilities, conditions, contexts, or perspectives.

When you say that Paul's reference to divine inspiration is a matter of "public warrant", what you have expressed is the claim that "public warrant" is the only possibility left viable so that it can be claimed as being actual. What you have expressed is a claim that Paul's reference to divine inspiration has been established by logically entailed necessity as being the only possibility left viable as actual.

Your claim is not logical as a result of not having (sufficiently or at all) taken into account alternative possibilities.

The fact that your claim is false is made evident and obvious by my having shown as viable an alternative possibility regarding Paul's reference to Paul's inspiration with that alternative possibility being one in which Paul's reference to divine inspiration is most definitely NOT a matter of inspiration "functioning as public warrant".

That is not what logical entailment is. Entailment is the truth-preserving relation between premises and conclusion: in every admissible model where the premises are true, the conclusion is true. It does not require “surveying all possibilities until only one is left.” That is abduction or inference-to-the-best-explanation, not entailment. Conflating deduction with abduction is a category error. My point about Paul’s letter was descriptive and textual, not modal: the letter itself deploys “not from man… through revelation” in a polemical context. That observation stands independently of any dispute about necessity.

If you are abandoning logical necessity, then “entailment” is the wrong word. Context-relative constraint is a different modality; to use it coherently you must specify the modal base—the set of background conditions—and show that your conclusion follows under those conditions. You have not done so. More importantly, my claim doesn’t hinge on any necessity operator at all. It is a factual claim about what the text does: it presents an origin contrast (“not from men… nor was I taught it, but through revelation”) as part of its case against opponents. That is a matter of what is written, not of which modality you prefer.

Incorrect. Identifying a function of a passage is not claiming exclusivity. Saying Galatians uses an origin claim as public warrant means exactly that the text deploys origin as a justificatory move in public argument. It does not deny the presence of other moves (reasons from Scripture, appeals to prior relationship, rhetoric). In ordinary rhetorical analysis, ethos and logos routinely co-occur. Recognizing the ethos move here is not a modal claim that no other reading is “viable”; it is a factual description of one thing the text undeniably does.

Alternative readings do not negate observed features. You can propose that Paul mentions revelation as audience accommodation, or as autobiography, or as contrast without authority-claim. None of those alternatives remove the plain argumentative role the letter assigns to the claim: a gospel “not from men,” received “through revelation,” set against “man-taught” rivals, followed by an anathema on contrary gospels. Multiple strategies can operate at once; acknowledging that does not dissolve any single strategy’s presence. The alternatives you prefer neither change the wording nor supply public discriminators for a non-human origin.

Offering a possible psychological or pastoral motive is not evidence that the public-warrant function is absent. The letter’s own framing opposes “from men/taught by men” to “through revelation” precisely to undercut rival authorization; that is what “functioning as public warrant” means in practice. Your alternative posits an internal intention that cannot be verified and that, even if true, would coexist with the observable argumentative use on the page. Textual function is established by the argumentative structure and language actually used. On that public, checkable basis, the origin claim is deployed as warrant; because it supplies no discriminating evidence against the human-origin baseline, it fails as public justification, regardless of any additional reasons Paul also offers.

They are in the context at hand. Fact and factual refer to a determinate condition depicted in terms of whichever possibilities by virtue of the logical necessity of entailment are said to be exhaustively viable for actuality.

No. “Factual” means true in the actual case; “necessary” means true in all admissible cases. Entailment is a relation of logical necessity between premises and conclusion; it is not the same thing as factual truth. You can make factual claims without claiming necessity, and you can analyze necessity without deciding the facts. Collapsing these notions muddies the discussion rather than resolving it.

False.

The "public warrant" possibility, even when accepted as factual, is a fact which is in addition to the demonstrated actuality of Paul having referred to divine inspiration for a purpose entirely other than "functioning as public warrant".

That is a problem of logic for you. It is an insuperable problem for you. That is why you continue resorting to every sort of misdirecting you can cook up in order to avoid that matter. That which is your problem is not any sort of problem for me.

Your argument is illogical in terms of its expression and focus.

The letter itself disproves your “false.” Galatians opens by opposing “a gospel according to man” to one “not from man… nor was I taught it, but through revelation of Jesus Christ,” and immediately attaches an anathema to contrary gospels. That is a public use of origin as a justificatory move against rivals. Whether you like that description or not, it is what the text does.

Multiple functions can co-exist. Showing that a passage also serves autobiographical, pastoral, or contrastive purposes does not negate its warranting role. Your “entirely other” purpose, even if granted, does not erase the plainly polemical deployment of “not from men… but through revelation” in the argument. Both can be true; none of that supplies any public discriminator for a non-human origin.

There is no “insuperable problem.” Identifying a passage’s argumentative function is a straightforward textual observation. Your rhetoric about misdirection does not engage the substance: the origin claim is overtly used in a polemic, and, because it lacks any public discriminator, it carries no evidential weight for outsiders. That remains untouched.

It is the opposite. The focus is precise: when a writer invokes “not of man… through revelation” to trump opponents, that move is a public warrant and is evaluable by public standards. On those standards, the letters’ language, genre, arguments, and transmission are fully human; the origin claim adds no evidential leverage. You have not overturned either part: the textual fact of the warranting move, or its failure to discriminate between human and non-human origin.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Your expression puts forth only one possibility: "is functioning as public warrant". Since your expression is not qualified such as in terms of functioning as an assumption, that one possibility which you put forth is only factual to the extent that it is necessarily the only actually viable possibility.

You could have more legitimately put forth your "is functioning as public warrant" as it having been assumed as fact, but that would not save your argument from being illogical inasmuch as your focus is irrational as a result of its insistent and inescapable narrowness.

Even having assumed as fact that Paul put forth a reference to inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant", there is the "more than one strategy" matter which is a problem for you.

It is a fact that Paul put forth reasoning (or argument) in his letter to the Galatians.

With regards to that letter, it would have been a possibility that Paul would not put forth reasoning (or argument), and it would have been a possibility that Paul would put forth reasoning (or argument). That combination of possibilities is exhaustive with regards to the matter of whether reasoning would be included in the letter.

It has been established - and you have agreed - that it is necessarily the case that Paul did put forth reasoning in that letter to the Galatians. That possibility is the only one from within the exhaustive combination of possibilities which is the only actual viable possibility given that Paul did as a matter of fact put forth reasoning.

It has been shown how Paul's reference to divine inspiration functions other than "as public warrant" within the reasoning he puts forth.

It has been shown that the "functioning as [other than] public warrant" occurs without being a premise on which Paul's reasoning depends.

It has been shown that Paul's reasoning does not use his reference to divine inspiration as a premise.

It is necessarily the case that Paul's reference to divine inspiration functions other than "as public warrant" within the reasoning he puts forth.

It has been shown to be necessarily the case that neither the validity nor the veracity of Paul's reasoning is dependent on Paul having been divinely inspired, since Paul's reasoning does not use his reference to divine inspiration as a premise.

Therefore, Paul's reference to divine inspiration is not necessarily intended for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant".

And that means that, if Paul's reference to divine inspiration is nonetheless intended for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant", such can be the case only if that intended "functioning as public warrant" is extraneous to, in addition to - a matter wholly separate from - the reference to divine inspiration being used in his reasoning for a purpose other than "functioning as public warrant."

Here is the problem you must overcome in order for you to have presented an actually logical argument of any relevance, importance, or interest:

The necessity of Paul having referred to divine inspiration for an additional purpose of "functioning as public warrant" has not been established, but, even if that additional purpose were to be established as necessarily the case, that leaves Paul's provided reasoning unaffected.

Even so, it can be assumed as fact for the sake of argument that Paul also referred to divine inspiration for the additional purpose of "functioning as public warrant".

That fact (whether assumed or established as also necessarily the case) about Paul having referred to divine inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant" leaves the validity and the possible veracity of Paul's presented argument intact and unscathed.

The fact (whether assumed or established as also necessarily the case) about Paul having referred to divine inspiration for the purpose of "functioning as public warrant" has no possible utility other than to establish that Paul could be wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant".

And that possibility about Paul being possibly wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant" can be assumed as fact without it having been established as necessarily the case such that what is now treated as fact is that Paul is wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant".

Paul being wrong about divine inspiration supplying "public warrant" does nothing but establish as fact that Paul was human. But that was never an issue. There is no doubt that Paul was human even if Paul can only be assumed to have been an actual human person.

And this means that the question about whether divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrelevant to the matter of the message preached as an expression of Paul's understanding - an understanding which remains intact, unaffected, valid, still possibly true, and subject to further development.

Since the question of whether reference to divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is so irrelevant as to not even succeed in achieving mere triviality, the insistence that there be evidence that divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrational as a focus.

It is illogical to focus - as you do - only upon an issue which, were it to be dispositively settled, can have no effect on other matters and cannot introduce new possibilities.

Your "evidential" argument is illogical in terms of its expression and

I’m not offering a “possibility”; I’m describing what the letter does on the page. In Gal 1:11–12 Paul states his gospel is “not from man… but through a revelation of Jesus Christ” and then anathematizes contrary gospels. In that polemical setting, the origin claim is used as warrant against opponents. That is a contingent textual fact, not a modal necessity claim.

There’s nothing assumed here; it’s the letter’s stated move. Evaluating a move the author himself deploys against rivals isn’t “narrow”—it’s methodologically required if we’re assessing the argumentative force of the document.

Multiple strategies don’t cancel one another. That Paul also argues does not erase that he simultaneously invokes a non-human origin as warrant. Both strands must be appraised on their own evidential merits.

Agreed, and I’ve never denied it. My point is that alongside that reasoning he advances a public origin claim. That separate claim is subject to public standards of support.

Those trivial possibilities are irrelevant. What matters is what the letter actually contains: argumentation plus an explicit non-human-origin claim used against rivals.

That Paul reasons is undisputed. It does not touch the separate question of whether his revelation claim is being used as warrant and therefore requires independent evidential scrutiny.

It hasn’t been shown. The text introduces the revelation claim precisely in the section establishing why his gospel outranks “man-taught” alternatives. That is public-warrant usage.

Whether his syllogisms could stand without it is beside the point. He in fact deploys the origin claim in the polemic. That strand’s legitimacy must be judged as such.

Even if some arguments proceed without it, the letter explicitly asserts revelatory origin to trump rival claims. That assertion is still there and still demands public support if it is to bind outsiders.

“Necessarily” is misapplied. The plain rhetorical function in the passage is warranting superiority: “not from man… through revelation,” followed by a curse on contrary gospels. That is textbook warrant language, not merely color commentary.

Independence of some arguments doesn’t absolve the revelation strand from evidential standards. The strand exists; therefore it is assessable. If unsupported, it carries no public weight.

Intent beyond the text is unnecessary. Its argumentative function in the letter is warranting his gospel over rivals. That is observable regardless of what you posit about inner intentions.

“Extraneous to the reasoning” still leaves it operative in the polemic. Arguments can contain independent strands. We evaluate each: the rational arguments on their merits, the origin claim on its evidential footing.

There’s no problem to overcome. I’m distinguishing strands and applying standard public criteria to each. That is basic logic, not a defect.

Correct: his other reasoning stands or falls on its own. That concession does not touch my claim that the revelation strand, as a public warrant, lacks discriminating evidence and so has no public force.

Good. On that assumption—which matches the text—we then ask for public discriminators. None are available; consequently that strand is evidentially idle.

Agreed. And my conclusion follows: discard the idle warrant, weigh the remaining arguments as ordinary human reasoning.

That utility is exactly the point in public adjudication. It tells hearers not to defer on the basis of the origin claim and to judge solely on reasons and evidence available to all.

No need to overstate. The measured conclusion is simpler: insofar as no public discriminator is provided, the origin claim does no argumentative work for outsiders. That’s sufficient for method.

It establishes more than mere humanity; it constrains what can be asked of an audience. Claims that don’t meet public standards cannot be used to demand public deference.

It’s relevant precisely where the letter uses it to trump rivals. Once that strand is neutralized, we proceed—as I’ve said all along—to evaluate the message on ordinary human grounds.

It’s the opposite of irrational: it’s the minimal standard of public reasoning. If a claim is used publicly to bind or overrule, it must carry public support. Otherwise, it is set aside as non-probative.

Settling it has a direct effect: it removes the authority-by-origin move from contention, forcing everyone back to reasons, outcomes, and consistency—exactly where public inquiry belongs.

It is standard practice in history, science, and law: public claims require public discriminators; unsupported strands are discarded; remaining arguments are weighed on shared evidence. That is logical, replicable, and fair.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

That is not what logical entailment is. Entailment is the truth-preserving relation between premises and conclusion:

That is vacuous because it leaves "truth" utterly without characterization. Being vacuous, that notion is insufficient for any purpose. But even were you to well characterize "truth", that would not be sufficient to save your approach and focus.

If you are abandoning logical necessity, then “entailment” is the wrong word.

That is an interesting way of not bothering with understanding. The concepts expressed in association with the use of entailment could have been substituted for the word entailment, but you opted not to.

That is not a problem for me, as you will see.

I have no need of the word entailment, because there is no manner of expression which cannot be expressed differently. I also have no need of the word necessary for the same reason. Neither entailment nor necessary will appear in the rest of this posting, and my position/argument still remains utterly decisive.

Context-relative constraint is a different modality; to use it coherently you must specify the modal base—the set of background conditions—and show that your conclusion follows under those conditions. You have not done so.

False. Not that it matters or makes any difference.

You present Paul's reference to inspiration as being a claim functioning as public warrant. You do not say it is a possibility that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You do not say it is possibly true that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You claim that it is actually true that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You present your claim as if it were an exhaustively established conclusion such that your claim would be reasonably understood as it being actually true that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

That is a very serious flaw.

Even were you to acknowledge that there remain actually viable alternatives by which Paul's reference to inspiration is anything other than - or anything in addition to - a claim functioning as public warrant, you would still have the serious error of having expressed Paul's reference to inspiration in such a way that it would be reasonable to understand your position as holding that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

If you do not intend that your claim is to be reasonably understood as holding that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant, you can re-express your claim to fix it. But that fix - as warranted as it would be - will not itself be enough.

Your error (even if it is only a deficiency in expression) can only be remedied by acknowledging in some fashion that your assertion is not intended to mean that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant. But any such remedy for your manner of expression will not actually save the approach or the argument you have presented from being inappropriately or too narrowly focused.

For so long as there are viable alternatives according to which Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant, then it is false to hold that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant. In that case, if you do not mean to hold that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant, your claim as expressed is badly deficient insofar as it reasonably can be understood as making a false claim.

If you did not seek out alternatives to the notion that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant, then your entire approach is deficient as a means of determining whether Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

If there are viable alternatives according to which Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant, and if you do not seek out alternatives to the notion that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant, then your approach is unsuitable as a means for analyzing fully (or more fully or as fully as possible) Paul's expression of his understanding.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant even if Paul's reference to inspiration separately and, therefore, additionally functions as public warrant.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functioning as public warrant can be wrong, and that such wrongness would not affect in any way Paul's reference to inspiration functioning as other than public warrant.

That Paul reasons is undisputed.

The issue of whether reference to divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is so very insignificant as to be irrelevant, and it does not even succeed in managing to attain mere triviality.

The insistence that there be evidence that divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrational as a focus - given that Paul reasons without that reasoning itself relying on inspiration as public warrant. This means that the "public warrant" focus has no effect on any other actually or relatively significant matters, and that means the focus does not (even likely cannot) itself introduce new possibilities.

It does not matter at all whether Paul refers to inspiration for the purpose of functioning as public warrant if Paul also provides reasoning which does not rely on inspiration. Paul provides such reasoning which is independent of any and all claims by which reference to inspiration might be for the purpose of functioning as public warrant; therefore, granting as fact that Paul also refers to inspiration for the purpose of functioning as public warrant has no effect.

The issue of evidence for inspiration as public warrant is not worth pursuing at all; the issue of inspiration as public warrant can be dealt with entirely conceptually in terms of other held beliefs (such as the importance of understanding) without any demands for evidence.

 

[NoHolyCows]

That is vacuous because it leaves "truth" utterly without characterization. Being vacuous, that notion is insufficient for any purpose. But even were you to well characterize "truth", that would not be sufficient to save your approach and focus.

“Truth” in logic is not vacuous; it is the semantic notion of a statement being satisfied in a structure. “Entailment” means that in every admissible structure in which the premises are true, the conclusion is true. That is the standard definition across logic textbooks, and it is exactly what “truth-preserving” abbreviates. Clarifying it does not “save” my focus; it confirms it. Your move throughout has been to swap clear criteria for undefined appeals to “understanding.” Logical consequence is a formal relation; private understandings are irrelevant to whether a conclusion follows from stated premises or whether a public warrant is supplied.

That is an interesting way of not bothering with understanding. The concepts expressed in association with the use of entailment could have been substituted for the word entailment, but you opted not to.

That is not a problem for me, as you will see.

I have no need of the word entailment, because there is no manner of expression which cannot be expressed differently. I also have no need of the word necessary for the same reason. Neither entailment nor necessary will appear in the rest of this posting, and my position/argument still remains utterly decisive.

Substitute the words if you like; the substance doesn’t change. If you mean “from these stated reasons it follows regardless of viewpoint,” you are invoking the same necessity that “entailment” names. If you retreat from necessity to a weaker, defeasible “it tends to support,” then you’ve left deductive consequence and entered evidential relevance. In that arena the rule is simple and public: a claim has evidential standing only if it changes what we should expect to observe compared to its competitors. Either way—strict entailment or probabilistic relevance—your appeal to “understanding” does no work on the public question.

It is a problem you haven’t solved. You still have not identified any observation that would be more expected if “not of human origin” were true than if ordinary human authorship were true. Without that, the origin claim is idle in historical argument, regardless of how you rephrase your rhetoric.

Changing vocabulary does not change the burden. If you claim Paul’s rhetoric against rivals “follows” from his premises in a way insulated from alternatives, you’re asserting the very necessity you say you don’t need. If you decline necessity and say it merely “supports,” then you owe a public discriminator—some feature of the letters or their transmission that is more probable on “not of human origin” than on human authorship. None exists. The Greek is ordinary Koine, the genre is standard epistle, the arguments are human reasoning from scripture, the manuscript tradition is entirely human with normal variance. Your position is not “decisive”; it is non-responsive to the only question at issue: what publicly checkable difference does the origin claim make?

False. Not that it matters or makes any difference.

You present Paul's reference to inspiration as being a claim functioning as public warrant. You do not say it is a possibility that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You do not say it is possibly true that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You claim that it is actually true that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant. You present your claim as if it were an exhaustively established conclusion such that your claim would be reasonably understood as it being actually true that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

That is a very serious flaw.

Even were you to acknowledge that there remain actually viable alternatives by which Paul's reference to inspiration is anything other than - or anything in addition to - a claim functioning as public warrant, you would still have the serious error of having expressed Paul's reference to inspiration in such a way that it would be reasonable to understand your position as holding that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

If you do not intend that your claim is to be reasonably understood as holding that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant, you can re-express your claim to fix it. But that fix - as warranted as it would be - will not itself be enough.

Your error (even if it is only a deficiency in expression) can only be remedied by acknowledging in some fashion that your assertion is not intended to mean that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant. But any such remedy for your manner of expression will not actually save the approach or the argument you have presented from being inappropriately or too narrowly focused.

For so long as there are viable alternatives according to which Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant, then it is false to hold that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant. In that case, if you do not mean to hold that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant, your claim as expressed is badly deficient insofar as it reasonably can be understood as making a false claim.

If you did not seek out alternatives to the notion that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant, then your entire approach is deficient as a means of determining whether Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

It does matter, and the difference is straightforward. The modal base here is the publicly checkable historical context: a first-century letter written in ordinary Koine Greek, using recognizable Greco-Roman epistolary conventions, addressing a concrete dispute in Galatia about Gentile circumcision and Torah observance, and explicitly contrasting “from men/through man” with “through Jesus Christ,” refusing consultation with “flesh and blood,” and pronouncing an anathema on contrary “gospels.” Within that base, the function of the origin claim in the polemic is public—offered to the audience as a reason to prefer Paul’s message over rivals. That is a factual, text-level observation, not a private “understanding.”

I do not need “only.” I need “at least.” Once the letter deploys “not from man … through revelation” in a dispute with rivals, it is functioning as a public warrant—whether or not Paul also uses other strategies. Showing additional functions never removes a function already present. My claim is minimal and text-driven: whatever else the rhetoric does, it appeals to a non-human source to trump “man-taught” opponents.

There is no flaw to point to. Saying “at least one function is public warrant” does not assert exclusivity. Your objection attacks a claim I did not make.

I have already acknowledged multiple functions. It does not change the evidential point. If a speaker uses origin as a reason against rivals, that move enters public space and must stand or fall by public discriminators. Whether the same letter also contains reasons from scripture or ethics is irrelevant to that requirement.

Here is the re-expression you’re asking for, clearly: in Galatians, Paul’s origin claim is one of the strategies functioning as public warrant against rivals. That is enough for my argument, because a single use suffices to trigger the evidential question.

Acknowledged, and my approach is not narrow. I explicitly separate two tracks. When origin is not used as warrant, we evaluate content on ordinary human grounds. When origin is used as warrant—as it is here—we ask for a public discriminator. That is a standard, general method, not a fixation.

Again, I am not claiming “only.” Your entire objection collapses once you read my claim correctly: at least one function is public warrant. Multiple functions can coexist. That is common rhetorical practice, and it does not blunt the evidential question attached to any one of those functions.

If there are viable alternatives according to which Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant, and if you do not seek out alternatives to the notion that Paul's reference to inspiration is a claim functioning as public warrant, then your approach is unsuitable as a means for analyzing fully (or more fully or as fully as possible) Paul's expression of his understanding.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functions as other than public warrant even if Paul's reference to inspiration separately and, therefore, additionally functions as public warrant.

It has been shown that Paul's reference to inspiration functioning as public warrant can be wrong, and that such wrongness would not affect in any way Paul's reference to inspiration functioning as other than public warrant.

Alternative functions do not erase the function I pointed out. In Galatians Paul explicitly contrasts “not from man nor through man” with rival, humanly transmitted teaching and pronounces an anathema on contrary gospels; in that polemical setting, the origin claim is offered to the audience as a reason to side with him. That is a public-warrant use whether or not the same paragraph also narrates autobiography or frames ethos. My approach is two-track: evaluate content on ordinary human grounds, and, when an origin claim is used to trump rivals, ask for a public discriminator. That is a complete analysis of the relevant function, not an evasion of alternatives.

Grant it. Showing additional functions—pastoral reassurance, narrative background, or contrastive framing—does not negate the observable fact that in this argument the origin claim is deployed against opponents. Multiple functions can and do coexist; one of them is a warrant claim. That single use is sufficient to trigger the evidential question.

The issue of whether reference to divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is so very insignificant as to be irrelevant, and it does not even succeed in managing to attain mere triviality.

The insistence that there be evidence that divine inspiration supplies "public warrant" is irrational as a focus - given that Paul reasons without that reasoning itself relying on inspiration as public warrant. This means that the "public warrant" focus has no effect on any other actually or relatively significant matters, and that means the focus does not (even likely cannot) itself introduce new possibilities.

It does not matter at all whether Paul refers to inspiration for the purpose of functioning as public warrant if Paul also provides reasoning which does not rely on inspiration. Paul provides such reasoning which is independent of any and all claims by which reference to inspiration might be for the purpose of functioning as public warrant; therefore, granting as fact that Paul also refers to inspiration for the purpose of functioning as public warrant has no effect.

The issue of evidence for inspiration as public warrant is not worth pursuing at all; the issue of inspiration as public warrant can be dealt with entirely conceptually in terms of other held beliefs (such as the importance of understanding) without any demands for evidence.

It is not insignificant in Galatians, where Paul explicitly says his gospel is “not from man nor through man… but through Jesus Christ” and then pronounces an anathema on any contrary gospel. That is a public-facing justification aimed at deciding a communal dispute. When a speaker uses an origin claim to settle who is right, that claim is part of the argument’s load-bearing structure. In historical assessment, any load-bearing claim must face public tests; otherwise it reduces to private conviction and cannot do the argumentative work Paul assigns to it.

It is perfectly rational to test each distinct warrant a writer invokes. That Paul also argues from Scripture and principle does not nullify the separate origin claim; it adds another strand that must be appraised on its own terms. If the revelation strand contributes no discriminating evidence beyond what ordinary authorship predicts, then that strand fails as warrant. Showing that one strand fails does affect a significant matter: it removes a claimed trump over rival emissaries and returns the dispute to human arguments that can be weighed on shared grounds.

It matters because Paul himself makes it matter in the letter’s polemical frame. He contrasts a “man-taught” gospel with his “revealed” gospel to disqualify rivals before he develops his scriptural case. If a litigant brings both documentary evidence and an eyewitness, the court evaluates both; the eyewitness isn’t ignored because documents exist. Here, the “eyewitness” claim—direct revelation—is offered. On public criteria it establishes nothing new, so it cannot carry the disqualifying force Paul assigns to it. That is an effect: a claimed trump is removed from the table.

Treating a historical, communal warrant “entirely conceptually” is precisely the point of failure. Conceptual glosses about understanding do not convert a private experience into a public discriminator between competing teachings. In history, science, and law, public warrants require public indicators—features more probable if the claim is true than if it is false. Nothing in the language, genre, argumentation, or manuscript transmission of Paul’s letters is more expected on “not of human origin” than on ordinary human authorship. Therefore the origin claim does no evidential work in the public arena, and the content must stand or fall as human reasoning alone.

NHC

 

[Elixir]

Bravo, NHC
I think you’re now at the brink of eliciting yet another (predictable) waiver of rationality in favor of experiential conformance.

 

[steve_bank]

I used to think the Earth was the center of the universe. I beveled this because the Sun and stars appeared to rotate around the Earth as I obsessed from the surface with my eyes.

But then I saw pictures from space that showed I was wrong. Now I do not believe the Earth is the center of the universe.


I believe god exists because god is in the bible. I know the bible is true because the bible is the inspired words of god.

Mr Pearl, do you see the difference between the two? The first belief is falsifiable, better data can [prove the belief wrong. That is the history of science.

The second belief in a god is not falsifiable. No matter how logical and sophisticated the arguments and theology it can never be proven be disproven.

I was having a conversation with an Evangelical creationist. He pointed out the widow and said ' Just look it is obvious it was created by god. A version of the Teleological argument, the universe can not possibly exist without god,therefore god exists.

That is the nature of theological proofs. Declarations not objective proofs. That Paul was inspired by a god is a declaration not a proof, however convulsed the argument.

The claim can not be falsified. That is the loophole that enables regions.

 

[Swammerdami]

Inspiration - including divine inspiration - does not cause understanding. Understanding refers to a response - even when there is not one. If there is no response, there is no understanding about that to which there might otherwise have been a response.

Paul's claim that he was divinely inspired is not a claim that his understanding was divinely produced. Paul's understanding was "caused" by Paul. Paul is responsible for his understanding because his understanding is his response produced by him.

When a text’s language, genre, argumentation, and transmission are fully accounted for by ordinary human processes, there is no remaining explanatory work for a non-human cause to do.

So what? We're right back at - or still stuck on - the point that human understanding is human-caused.

Nope. His understanding is his response to an experience.

As I read this, I am reminded of my own understanding of the key Christian Experience. Although I've never been a Christian (or Christian-trained except for a silly Sunday school) I've experienced it slightly myself.

What I am about to explain (or try to explain) are my own musings. I may be COMPLETELY wrong. I hope for feedback: Do I glimpse some of the appeal of Christianity, or am I "way out in left field"?

When some Christians say "I let Jesus into my heart", this isn't just a vague metaphor. They had a visceral experience, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime experience, where they welcomed a divinity (Jesus or the "Holy Ghost") into their very soul, and let it take over and direct them. Self-hypnosis may be the word that best helps non-believers understand how this can even happen.

When Paul heard Jesus talking to him on the road to Damascus, he really did hallucinate the voice of Jesus. Since the hallucinated Jesus was speaking to Paul in the present tense, Paul felt that Jesus was still alive, that He had been "Resurrected." Some people experience a similar "self-hypnosis" today. Sometimes they need to repeat the experience, sometimes a single event allows Jesus to "take charge" more permanently. What portion of people are susceptible to this "self-hypnosis"? It varies from culture to culture, and is probably harder to find in educated science-oriented cultures.

But 2000 years ago, in the stressful conditions on the fringes of the Roman Empire, and with illiteracy and belief in magic both common-place, conditions may have been ripe for such hallucinations and "self-hypnosis." The early Christian leaders, James and Peter in Jerusalem, and Paul to their north, somehow made their messages resonate with the cultural capacity for such self-hypnosis. This is how Christianity spread so rapidly, and why it's still influential even today.

What do fellow Infidels think? Am I on the right track?

 

[NoHolyCows]

As I read this, I am reminded of my own understanding of the key Christian Experience. Although I've never been a Christian (or Christian-trained except for a silly Sunday school) I've experienced it slightly myself.

What I am about to explain (or try to explain) are my own musings. I may be COMPLETELY wrong. I hope for feedback: Do I glimpse some of the appeal of Christianity, or am I "way out in left field"?

When some Christians say "I let Jesus into my heart", this isn't just a vague metaphor. They had a visceral experience, perhaps a once-in-a-lifetime experience, where they welcomed a divinity (Jesus or the "Holy Ghost") into their very soul, and let it take over and direct them. Self-hypnosis may be the word that best helps non-believers understand how this can even happen.

When Paul heard Jesus talking to him on the road to Damascus, he really did hallucinate the voice of Jesus. Since the hallucinated Jesus was speaking to Paul in the present tense, Paul felt that Jesus was still alive, that He had been "Resurrected." Some people experience a similar "self-hypnosis" today. Sometimes they need to repeat the experience, sometimes a single event allows Jesus to "take charge" more permanently. What portion of people are susceptible to this "self-hypnosis"? It varies from culture to culture, and is probably harder to find in educated science-oriented cultures.

But 2000 years ago, in the stressful conditions on the fringes of the Roman Empire, and with illiteracy and belief in magic both common-place, conditions may have been ripe for such hallucinations and "self-hypnosis." The early Christian leaders, James and Peter in Jerusalem, and Paul to their north, somehow made their messages resonate with the cultural capacity for such self-hypnosis. This is how Christianity spread so rapidly, and why it's still influential even today.

What do fellow Infidels think? Am I on the right track?

From an atheist perspective, the key point is that powerful religious experiences are real to the people who have them, but their supernatural interpretation is not warranted by evidence. Humans routinely report “letting a presence in,” hearing voices, feeling commanded, or being flooded with awe and love; psychology and neuroscience show that such states arise naturally from altered consciousness—bereavement visions, hypnagogia and sleep paralysis, fasting and all-night prayer, rhythmic chanting and glossolalia, strong expectation and suggestion, temporal-lobe activity, or psychoactive substances. The content of the experience tracks culture and prior belief—Christians meet Jesus, Hindus meet Krishna, new-age practitioners meet “guides”—exactly what we expect if brains generate the state and the mind labels it with available concepts. That framework accommodates Paul as well: in his earliest letters (decades before Acts), he reports a visionary “revelation” of Christ rather than the narrated roadside drama; whatever he experienced, a sincere inner event is not evidence that an external being intervened, any more than a bereaved parent’s vivid dream proves a ghost returned. As for the spread of Christianity, there was no instant mass conversion of a credulous, “hypnosis-prone” ancient public; growth unfolded over centuries through ordinary sociological mechanisms—dense urban networks, mutual aid and charity, a universalizing message attractive to non-Jews, meaningful roles for women in many communities, and eventually imperial patronage. None of that requires a supernatural cause. The epistemic standard is simple: to claim that a god actually operates in the world, the claim must be made precise enough to generate risky, testable predictions that beat natural explanations and replicate under controls. “I felt X” is data about a mind, not about the cosmos. If intercessory prayer, for example, reliably improved health outcomes in blinded, pre-registered trials far beyond placebo, or if visions repeatedly delivered novel, verifiable information that humans could not have known, or if instruments detected rule-governed signatures in nature that tracked stated divine intentions and survived independent checks, that would shift the discussion; we do not have that. Education level does not immunize people from altered states, and modern, science-literate societies still produce intense conversion experiences, which underscores that these are human universals, not proof of a transcendent agent. So you’re on the right track in treating the experiences as genuine psychological events and in noting that “letting Jesus into my heart” often feels like surrendering agency, but the better umbrella term is altered states of consciousness (with well-studied triggers and mechanisms) rather than “self-hypnosis,” and the stronger historical picture is that Christianity’s persistence is explained by human brains and human societies, not by verifiable interventions from beyond nature. The bottom line is the atheist one: until a god hypothesis yields precise predictions that survive rigorous, independent testing and outperform natural accounts, the rational stance is non-belief—not because people don’t have the experiences they report, but because natural mechanisms already explain those experiences without adding untested entities.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

“Truth” in logic is not vacuous; it is the semantic notion of a statement being satisfied in a structure

"'Truth' in logic" is form (formalism) that is independent of - and without concern for - content. That is vacuity at least because, as I said, that mere formalism "leaves 'truth' utterly without characterization."

“Entailment” means that in every admissible structure in which the premises are true, the conclusion is true. That is the standard definition across logic textbooks

Yes, and it is both sad and revealing that you think the reference to "textbooks" carries any logical weight against the charge of vacuity. Logic is form. Logic is not content. Logic is not a truth expression. Logic can be used as a tool for producing true expressions.

Your very needlessly narrow understanding of "entailment" suits your manner of thought production. Your cognitive processing is restricted to category-thinking, a manner of thought production which is more accurately recognized as compartment-thinking. Compartment-thinking is useful only as an early stage for cognitive processing. Compartment-thinking is starkly different from connections-thinking. Compartment-thinking is always insufficient for the production of discovery, which is to say learning. From the perspective of compartment-thinking, learning is rote and form. Compartment-thinking never produces true expressions; compartment-thinking can only at best be, as you say, "truth-preserving".

True expressions are produced by connections-thinking. Connections-thinking uses logic not for the purpose of truth-preservation but for the purpose of discriminating between possibilities and actuality. Your insistence that "entailment" only occurs in the empty formalism suited for compartment-thinking guarantees that you will be unable to see how "entailment" gets used in connections-thinking to become aware of which and how actuality and awareness of actuality are effected by thinking in terms of possibilities. "Entailment" in connections-thinking gets used to both recognize and to eliminate possibilities for the purpose of producing true expressions.

If you mean “from these stated reasons it follows regardless of viewpoint,” you are invoking the same necessity that “entailment” names.

The "regardless of viewpoint" phrase indicates a trans-contextual or trans-perspectival condition. Your claim has no such condition. Your claim is restricted to only one perspective.

Having restricted yourself to that sole perspective, the only "truth-preserving" you can legitimately, validly, and accurately do is this:

Paul refers to inspiration in such a way that you have the impression that Paul claims public warrant with that reference to inspiration. Given your impression, It is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration. Analysis of the words (or some of the words) Paul uses when referring to inspiration, in themselves and without consideration of context or Paul's actual intentions, does not negate the possibility that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration. Therefore, it is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration.

However, you did not express your claim in that way. You expressed your claim in such a way that it would be reasonable to understand that claim as asserting that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

After that flaw with your expression was pointed out to you, you said:

I do not need “only.” I need “at least.”

That means you assert that Paul's reference to inspiration can be at least a claim functioning as public warrant. That is an improved expression, but all you are saying there is that, in terms only of particular phrases used and without consideration of context such as with regards to Paul's actual intentions and without other regards to context such as the many ways in which letter writing typically differs from other writing, it is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration.

Saying “at least one function is public warrant” does not assert exclusivity. Your objection attacks a claim I did not make.

I addressed a flaw in your expression. You have altered your expression sufficiently to eliminate the possibility of it being reasonable to understand your previous expression as one "assert[ing] exclusivity."

Good.

It does not change the evidential point. If a speaker uses origin as a reason against rivals, that move enters public space and must stand or fall by public discriminators.

Bad.

This means that your claim that Paul's reference to inspiration can be at least a claim functioning as public warrant has to be changed to Paul's reference to inspiration is at least a claim functioning as public warrant.

You are now claiming to have moved from possible to actual, but your text analysis is not sufficient for the sort of entailment that goes beyond "truth-preservation". You have gone from possibly actual to actually actual without analysis sufficient for the sort of entailment that goes beyond "truth-preservation".

Here is the re-expression you’re asking for, clearly: in Galatians, Paul’s origin claim is one of the strategies functioning as public warrant against rivals. That is enough for my argument, because a single use suffices to trigger the evidential question.

Sorry. No.

Concepts precede evidence. Concepts provide a place for evidence. You have not conceptualized the situation well enough. You are too early with the insistence that there be evidence. I will try to make this clearer.

Let us proclaim it as proven fact that Paul referred to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant.

If it is also a fact that Paul provides reasons, and if it is also a fact that the reasons Paul provides do not rely at all on inspiration, then it is a fact that Paul's reference to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant is wholly irrelevant to the reasoning Paul provides.

Given that Paul's reference to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant is wholly irrelevant to the reasoning Paul provides, there is no need to focus on evidence in support of the claim that inspiration grants Paul public warrant, because Paul's reasoned position is in no way affected by having been wrong about inspiration being sufficient to grant public warrant.

Someone who makes sense of or draws some importance from Paul's independent-from-inspiration reasoning is challenged by another person who says that, even though Paul provided reasoning, Paul also demanded deference because he had been inspired. The challenged person can effortlessly brush away the challenger by saying sure, sure, Paul was wrong in doing that, and Paul's reasoning is still important anyway, because Paul's reasoning does not depend on public warrant or whatever.

If the challenging person replies to that reasonable, logical, rational brushing off by continuing to insist that evidence be presented which is in support of Paul's inspiration-based claim to public warrant, that simply makes no sense. It is not reasonable or logical; it is frankly irrational. There is no contentious issue of any possible relevance or interest for which it would make sense to ask for evidence. Nothing new or significant follows from it being proven that Paul claims inspiration-based public warrant. Nothing new or significant follows from it being proven that there is no evidence for an inspiration-based public warrant.

You are too early with the insistence that there be evidence, because your perspective is so blinkered as to make it impossible for you to conceptually consider whether the evidence you demand would make a difference outside your very narrow focus. The evidence you demand makes no difference to anything. Your focus is too narrow to be of any importance.

If Paul actually claimed inspiration as warrant for deference, that makes no difference to his reasoning. If Paul did not actually claim inspiration as warrant for deference, that makes no difference to his reasoning.

There is no reason for this incessant, insistent demand for evidence in support of Paul's report that he was divinely inspired.

This particular incessant, insistent demand for evidence is absolutely irrational.

 

[NoHolyCows]

"'Truth' in logic" is form (formalism) that is independent of - and without concern for - content. That is vacuity at least because, as I said, that mere formalism "leaves 'truth' utterly without characterization."

That is simply incorrect. In modern logic, “truth” is not a free-floating formality; it is defined semantically by satisfaction in a structure. A formal language supplies syntax; a structure (model) supplies content by assigning a domain and interpreting the non-logical symbols. A sentence is true when, under that interpretation, the satisfaction relation holds. Validity is form-insensitive on purpose—it preserves truth in every admissible interpretation—but truth itself is always with respect to a model that encodes content. Saying logic is “without concern for content” confuses two levels: proof theory (rules that manipulate form) and model theory (semantics that fix truth via interpretations). The latter is explicitly contentful: the interpretation function maps predicates to sets and relations over an actual domain, constants to objects, and so on. That is why the same formula can be true in one model and false in another, and why “truth in a structure” is a characterized notion, not vacuity.

Applied to our dispute, this matters. When Paul asserts “not of man … through revelation,” you can formalize the argumentative move and then ask which models of the historical data satisfy it. On the human-origin model—ordinary composition, ordinary transmission—the observed features of the letters are expected. On a non-human-origin model, you would need additional constraints that generate observations different from the human model. Because no such discriminators appear in the actual record, the revelation claim fails in the relevant models. That is how logical semantics and evidential reasoning work together: form tracks entailment; models supply content; truth is evaluated there. Nothing about that is vacuous.

Yes, and it is both sad and revealing that you think the reference to "textbooks" carries any logical weight against the charge of vacuity. Logic is form. Logic is not content. Logic is not a truth expression. Logic can be used as a tool for producing true expressions.

Your very needlessly narrow understanding of "entailment" suits your manner of thought production. Your cognitive processing is restricted to category-thinking, a manner of thought production which is more accurately recognized as compartment-thinking. Compartment-thinking is useful only as an early stage for cognitive processing. Compartment-thinking is starkly different from connections-thinking. Compartment-thinking is always insufficient for the production of discovery, which is to say learning. From the perspective of compartment-thinking, learning is rote and form. Compartment-thinking never produces true expressions; compartment-thinking can only at best be, as you say, "truth-preserving".

True expressions are produced by connections-thinking. Connections-thinking uses logic not for the purpose of truth-preservation but for the purpose of discriminating between possibilities and actuality. Your insistence that "entailment" only occurs in the empty formalism suited for compartment-thinking guarantees that you will be unable to see how "entailment" gets used in connections-thinking to become aware of which and how actuality and awareness of actuality are effected by thinking in terms of possibilities. "Entailment" in connections-thinking gets used to both recognize and to eliminate possibilities for the purpose of producing true expressions.

Citing the textbook definition of entailment is not an appeal to authority; it’s pointing to the shared technical meaning of the term. In modern logic, truth is not “vacuous form.” Syntax is form; semantics gives content. A structure interprets the non-logical vocabulary over a domain; a sentence is true exactly when it is satisfied in that interpreted structure. That is why the same formula can be true in one model and false in another. So logic, as actually practiced, is not “without characterization” of truth—Tarskian semantics is a precise characterization. When I say “entailment means: in every admissible structure where the premises are true, the conclusion is true,” I’m using the standard semantic account that connects form to content through interpretation. Nothing about that is empty; it is the backbone of how we assess whether a purported conclusion really follows from stated premises.

Deduction is truth-preserving by design, and that is a feature, not a defect: if the premises are true, the conclusion cannot be false. Mathematics is built on that and produces genuine truths all the time by deduction from axioms. Discovery—new hypotheses—typically arises by abduction or induction. That “connections-thinking” you praise is exactly what philosophers of science call hypothesis generation and model selection. It is already formalized: e.g., Bayesian updating compares hypotheses by how well they predict observations; statistical learning does the same with likelihoods and penalties for complexity. There is no conflict here: abductive creativity proposes possibilities; deductive and probabilistic tools test them. Calling this “compartment” versus “connections” doesn’t rescue a claim from evaluation. Once proposed, a hypothesis must still earn its keep by generating observable consequences that fit the world better than its competitors.

Eliminating possibilities is exactly what I’m doing. Discrimination between possibilities requires public discriminators—observations that are more expected on one possibility than another. Where there are no such differentials, nothing gets eliminated. Applied to Paul: “human origin” versus “not of human origin” are rival possibilities. The letters’ language, genre, argumentative style, historical allusions, and manuscript transmission are exactly what human origin predicts, and there is nothing in the record that human origin fails to explain but “not of human origin” succeeds in explaining. By your own standard of winnowing possibilities, the non-human origin claim contributes no discriminatory work and is set aside. Creativity may propose it; evaluation discards it when it makes no testable difference. That is the entire point: inference worthy of the name—whether you frame it in model theory, Bayesian terms, or your “connections-thinking”—still hinges on differential expectations. In this case, there aren’t any that favor “not of human origin,” so the public warrant evaporates.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

The "regardless of viewpoint" phrase indicates a trans-contextual or trans-perspectival condition. Your claim has no such condition. Your claim is restricted to only one perspective.

Having restricted yourself to that sole perspective, the only "truth-preserving" you can legitimately, validly, and accurately do is this:

Paul refers to inspiration in such a way that you have the impression that Paul claims public warrant with that reference to inspiration. Given your impression, It is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration. Analysis of the words (or some of the words) Paul uses when referring to inspiration, in themselves and without consideration of context or Paul's actual intentions, does not negate the possibility that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration. Therefore, it is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration.

However, you did not express your claim in that way. You expressed your claim in such a way that it would be reasonable to understand that claim as asserting that Paul's reference to inspiration can only be a claim functioning as public warrant.

I’m not claiming a context-free necessity; I’m making a contextual, historical claim about how Paul deploys origin language in Galatians. “Public warrant” here means exactly this: in that polemical setting—rivals appealing to human authorization and Torah continuity—Paul answers with “not from man… through Jesus Christ,” an oath “before God I do not lie,” and an anathema on contrary gospels. Those are public, argumentative moves meant to establish standing over opponents. That is not a private “perspective”; it’s a description of what the letter itself does in that controversy. Different context, different analysis; this one supports “functions as public warrant” within the polemic at hand.

It isn’t “my impression,” and it isn’t words “without consideration of context.” The context is the dispute itself (Gentile circumcision, emissaries from Jerusalem), the contrasts Paul labors (not from men, not taught by men, but by revelation), and the forensic markers he adds (oath, curse). In standard historical method, cumulative textual features that align with a known rhetorical aim justify a positive functional claim, not merely “possibly true.” You don’t reduce courtroom testimony with corroborating features to “possibly relevant”; you say it functions as evidence in that case. Likewise here: the origin claim is being used as warrant in that argument, alongside reasons. Both strategies appear; acknowledging logos does not erase ethos.

I’ve never said “only.” I’ve repeatedly said “functions as public warrant in that polemic,” while also noting Paul offers reasons. That’s exactly the point you keep sidestepping: multiple strategies can operate at once. Showing that his reasoning does not formally depend on the revelation claim does not alter the fact that the revelation claim is deployed as an authority-grounding move against rivals. Both statements can be—and in Galatians are—true together.

That means you assert that Paul's reference to inspiration can be at least a claim functioning as public warrant. That is an improved expression, but all you are saying there is that, in terms only of particular phrases used and without consideration of context such as with regards to Paul's actual intentions and without other regards to context such as the many ways in which letter writing typically differs from other writing, it is possibly true that Paul claims public warrant when he refers to inspiration

No—“at least” here is not a bare possibility claim; it’s a context-grounded description of how the letter actually operates in its specific dispute. The context is explicit in the text: Paul is answering rival emissaries who assert human authorization and Mosaic continuity; he counters by front-loading non-human commissioning (“not from men nor through a man, but through Jesus Christ,” Gal 1:1), by stating his gospel is “not from man… but through a revelation of Jesus Christ” (Gal 1:11–12), by adding a forensic oath (“before God I do not lie,” Gal 1:20), and by issuing an anathema on contrary gospels (Gal 1:8–9). Those are not free-floating phrases; together, and within a polemical letter that also narrates his independence from Jerusalem and confrontation with Cephas (Gal 1–2), they function to establish standing over opponents. That is exactly what “public warrant” means at the level of argumentative use. Acknowledging that Paul also gives reasons does not erase that use; it shows he runs multiple strategies at once. Your attempt to demote this to “possibly true” by alleging lack of context fails because the contextual markers—audience, occasion, genre, and the sequence of claims—are the basis for the “at least” judgment. In historical analysis, when a set of textual features uniquely serves a recognized rhetorical aim in the live controversy, we don’t call that a mere possibility; we call it the operative function in that context.

addressed a flaw in your expression. You have altered your expression sufficiently to eliminate the possibility of it being reasonable to understand your previous expression as one "assert[ing] exclusivity."

Good.

Noted. With exclusivity off the table, the point that remains is straightforward and unchanged: once you concede that at least one operative function of “not of man…but through revelation” in Galatians is public warrant in a live dispute, the claim is no longer a private devotion; it is a public-facing premise in an argument. Public-facing premises bear a public burden. They must be supported by discriminators—features of the record that are more probable on the non-human-origin hypothesis than on ordinary human authorship and transmission. Nothing in the letters or their manuscript history meets that burden. The texts are ordinary Koine epistles using normal rhetorical moves, addressing real communities, and preserved by a human scribal tradition riddled with the usual variants. Those observations strongly favor human origin and do not favor a non-human source over and above it. Therefore, the “public warrant” function fails evidentially and cannot trump rivals. That conclusion does not touch the ethical content you prefer to discuss; it simply establishes that the origin claim adds no evidential weight in the very polemical context where Paul deploys it.

Bad.

This means that your claim that Paul's reference to inspiration can be at least a claim functioning as public warrant has to be changed to Paul's reference to inspiration is at least a claim functioning as public warrant.

You are now claiming to have moved from possible to actual, but your text analysis is not sufficient for the sort of entailment that goes beyond "truth-preservation". You have gone from possibly actual to actually actual without analysis sufficient for the sort of entailment that goes beyond "truth-preservation

“Bad” is not an argument. The evidential point stands or falls on what the text does and what follows methodologically from that. Dismissing it with a label changes nothing about the facts under discussion.

That change is not mine; it’s Paul’s. In Galatians he sets up a live dispute and contrasts “from men” with “through Jesus Christ” and “through a revelation of Jesus Christ,” then pronounces a curse on contrary gospels (Gal 1:6–12). Those are not private devotions; they are deployed as reasons against opponents. That’s exactly what “functioning as public warrant” means. It is an observation about how the letter argues, not a conjecture added by me.

No modal leap is needed. The letter itself explicitly introduces origin as a polemical premise; that is a direct textual fact, not a speculative inference. From there the evidential requirement follows: any premise offered as public warrant must be testable by public discriminators—features of the record more probable if the premise is true than if it is false. On that criterion, Paul’s origin claim fails. The artifacts we actually have—ordinary Koine style, standard epistolary form and rhetoric, context-specific reasoning to communities, and a wholly human manuscript transmission with normal variation—are fully expected on human authorship and transmission and provide no differential support for “not of human origin.” Whether or not Paul also offers additional reasons is irrelevant to this evidential point; once origin is used publicly, it is subject to public tests, and it does not pass them.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Sorry. No.

Concepts precede evidence. Concepts provide a place for evidence. You have not conceptualized the situation well enough. You are too early with the insistence that there be evidence. I will try to make this clearer.

Let us proclaim it as proven fact that Paul referred to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant.

If it is also a fact that Paul provides reasons, and if it is also a fact that the reasons Paul provides do not rely at all on inspiration, then it is a fact that Paul's reference to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant is wholly irrelevant to the reasoning Paul provides.

Given that Paul's reference to inspiration for the purpose of claiming public warrant is wholly irrelevant to the reasoning Paul provides, there is no need to focus on evidence in support of the claim that inspiration grants Paul public warrant, because Paul's reasoned position is in no way affected by having been wrong about inspiration being sufficient to grant public warrant.

Someone who makes sense of or draws some importance from Paul's independent-from-inspiration reasoning is challenged by another person who says that, even though Paul provided reasoning, Paul also demanded deference because he had been inspired. The challenged person can effortlessly brush away the challenger by saying sure, sure, Paul was wrong in doing that, and Paul's reasoning is still important anyway, because Paul's reasoning does not depend on public warrant or whatever.

If the challenging person replies to that reasonable, logical, rational brushing off by continuing to insist that evidence be presented which is in support of Paul's inspiration-based claim to public warrant, that simply makes no sense. It is not reasonable or logical; it is frankly irrational. There is no contentious issue of any possible relevance or interest for which it would make sense to ask for evidence. Nothing new or significant follows from it being proven that Paul claims inspiration-based public warrant. Nothing new or significant follows from it being proven that there is no evidence for an inspiration-based public warrant.

You are too early with the insistence that there be evidence, because your perspective is so blinkered as to make it impossible for you to conceptually consider whether the evidence you demand would make a difference outside your very narrow focus. The evidence you demand makes no difference to anything. Your focus is too narrow to be of any importance.

If Paul actually claimed inspiration as warrant for deference, that makes no difference to his reasoning. If Paul did not actually claim inspiration as warrant for deference, that makes no difference to his reasoning.

There is no reason for this incessant, insistent demand for evidence in support of Paul's report that he was divinely inspired.

This particular incessant, insistent demand for evidence is absolutely irrational.

Sorry. No.” is not an argument. The point at issue is simple: when a writer publicly deploys an origin claim (“not of man … through revelation”) against rivals in a live dispute, that move has entered public space and is answerable to public discriminators. Denying that does not make the move disappear from the letter.

In empirical and historical method the order is hypothesis → observable expectations → check against the record. The “concept” here—“not of human origin”—is precisely such a hypothesis about source. Once it is used as a premise in a polemic, it must yield expectations that differ from ordinary human authorship and transmission. That is not “too early”; that is the correct sequence.

That is what I’ve said from the outset about Galatians: origin is used as warrant against opponents. On that stipulation, the evidential question is not optional; it follows immediately. A premise offered as public warrant must be testable by public discriminators.

Irrelevant to a separate line of argument does not mean irrelevant overall. Paul can run two strategies at once: reasons and a revelation-warrant. The reasons must be assessed on their merits; the warrant-claim must be assessed on its evidential merits. The existence of one does not immunize the other from scrutiny.

There is a need precisely because Paul uses both. If origin is invoked to anathematize rivals, its failure as public warrant matters for that polemical use. Saying “his other reasons might still stand” concedes my point about the origin claim: as public warrant it carries no weight unless it produces discriminating evidence. It does not.

Exactly—and that is my position. Treat the ethical and communal counsel as human reasoning and evaluate it as such; set aside the “not of human origin” strand as evidentially idle. What you call an “effortless brush-off” is the correct methodological separation of claims: keep what has public support, discard what does not.

It makes sense because Paul uses that warrant to trump rival gospels and pronounce curses. If the warrant has no public support, that strand of his case carries no binding force on anyone not already committed. That is both contentious and significant in a dispute about authority.

It makes the decisive difference between a private conviction and a public warrant. In science and in courts, a party who introduces a special-source claim bears the burden of producing discriminators. Without them, that claim does no argumentative work beyond motivating insiders. That is exactly the boundary I’m marking.

It makes a difference to the deference-claim. I have never argued that every line of his reasoning collapses with it; I have argued that the origin-as-warrant collapses without public discriminators. That is the specific point at issue, and it stands.

Requiring public support for a publicly used premise is the opposite of irrational; it is the minimal standard of responsible argument. Apply it here and the result is clear: nothing in the language, genre, argumentation, or manuscript history of the Pauline letters is more probable on “not of human origin” than on ordinary human authorship. Therefore the origin claim, as a public warrant, fails; the human-level arguments can then be weighed on their own terms.

NHC