Origins Of Christianity

[Michael S. Pearl]

In modern logic, truth is not “vacuous form.”

I said, "Logic is form. Logic is not content. Logic is not a truth expression. Logic can be used as a tool for producing true expressions."

I did not say truth is vacuous form, but there can still be a necessary condition that has to be met in order for an expression to be a true expression.

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.

You can, but there is that question of whether or under what conditions the historical approach is sufficient to move from possibly true to actually true.

And then there is that matter of whether that is at all important with regards to anything else.

Eliminating possibilities is exactly what I’m doing.

Possibilities are eliminated when they are ignored. When ignored, possibilities are eliminated from consideration. So, I guess what you said is true. In a way.

Discrimination between possibilities requires public discriminators

Discrimination between possibilities can be accomplished conceptually such as in terms of whether concepts connect compatibly.

Your cited statement evades absolute falsity only if your "public discriminators" includes conceptual discrimination.

And there is still that matter of whether any importance can be mined from the question of whether Paul claims inspiration as public warrant given that he provides reasons which do not rely on that inspiration.

“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

So, you claim to have moved from possibility to actuality on the basis of one way of characterizing the context. You still have not considered the context of Galatians as a letter rather than as a dry argument even though the letter also contains reasoned argument.

For instance, you have not considered the fact that Paul said, "how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone". That remark makes it readily recognizable that Paul's letter was both emotional and reasoned, and you have to prove that the phrases upon which you rely are - and can only be - for a dry claim rather than an emotional expression.

If you cannot so prove, then it is possible that the phrases you reference are rightly appreciated for being emotional expressions, and then you are still stuck in possibility mode rather than having achieved actuality mode.

I am still waiting for a response regarding the matter of whether any importance can be mined from the question of whether Paul claims inspiration as public warrant given that he provides reasons which do not rely on that inspiration. As I previously said, 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.

Show how your obsession can possibly be worthwhile, how it can conceivably be worth anything.

It makes the decisive difference between a private conviction and a public warrant.

Is that your response? I have no idea if the cited statement is - or can be made to be - responsive to anything. Doesn't matter.

Since you are disinterested in the understanding of others, you are disinterested in the factors that affect the expression of understanding. Paul writes a letter while upset. His letter contains emotional expressions - even outbursts. Paul has a history of emphasizing the importance of developing understanding. In his letter, Paul resorts to reasoning despite being upset with the Galatians; therefore, there is absolutely no problem at all with thinking that some expressions in the letter which do not fit with his reasons and his emphasis on the importance of understanding are simply emotional expressions - particularly since they have no bearing on anything else.

This means that your "historical data" fails to move you from possibly true to actually true.

Your obsession here is irrational.

Requiring public support for a publicly used premise is the opposite of irrational

False.

When a "premise" is of no significance to anything, it is ABSOLUTELY IRRATIONAL to insist that there be evidence for that premise. That "premise" relates to nothing. It is of absolute insignificance. It makes no sense to obsess on it. To obsess on it is to be irrational.

Please, please come up with something new or at least challenging enough to be worthwhile.

 

[NoHolyCows]

I said, "Logic is form. Logic is not content. Logic is not a truth expression. Logic can be used as a tool for producing true expressions."

I did not say truth is vacuous form, but there can still be a necessary condition that has to be met in order for an expression to be a true expression.

Modern logic separates syntax from semantics. Syntax (the “form”) gives you well-formed formulas and proof rules; semantics gives you truth—Tarskian satisfaction of sentences in structures. Proof systems don’t “produce true expressions” in the generative sense; they derive conclusions that are guaranteed to be true in every structure where the premises are true (soundness), and every semantically valid consequence is derivable (completeness). So logic doesn’t stand opposed to truth, and it isn’t “vacuous form”: it’s a formal calculus whose correctness is anchored by a semantic notion of truth in a model. When I said truth isn’t vacuous form, that’s exactly what I meant: truth is a semantic property (⊨), not a mere syntactic artifact (⊢).

You can, but there is that question of whether or under what conditions the historical approach is sufficient to move from possibly true to actually true.

And then there is that matter of whether that is at all important with regards to anything else.

In history, “actually true” is not produced by private conviction; it is warranted by publicly checkable facts that favor one explanation over its rivals. The conditions are explicit: specify the competing hypotheses, derive what each would lead us to expect in the surviving record, and ask which expectations match the data better. For Paul’s “not of man … through revelation,” the rival is ordinary human authorship and transmission. The manuscripts, language, genre, argumentative style, and reception history match ordinary human processes and add nothing that is more probable on a non-human source. Under those conditions, the origin claim does not move fro

Possibilities are eliminated when they are ignored. When ignored, possibilities are eliminated from consideration. So, I guess what you said is true. In a way.

Discrimination between possibilities can be accomplished conceptually such as in terms of whether concepts connect compatibly.

Your cited statement evades absolute falsity only if your "public discriminators" includes conceptual discrimination.

And there is still that matter of whether any importance can be mined from the question of whether Paul claims inspiration as public warrant given that he provides reasons which do not rely on that inspiration.

Conceptual coherence is necessary to form intelligible hypotheses, but it is not sufficient to establish historical causation. “Divine inspiration” may be conceptually compatible with many things; the question at issue is whether it yields different, observable consequences from ordinary authorship. If two hypotheses predict the same class of artifacts, conceptual mapping cannot break the tie; only public evidence can.

For empirical origin claims, “public discriminators” means observations whose likelihood differs across hypotheses. Conceptual analysis helps design those discriminators but cannot replace them. Treating conceptual fit as evidentially equivalent to differential observations collapses the distinction between hypothesis formation and hypothesis testing, which is precisely what historical method and science avoid.

So, you claim to have moved from possibility to actuality on the basis of one way of characterizing the context. You still have not considered the context of Galatians as a letter rather than as a dry argument even though the letter also contains reasoned argument.

For instance, you have not considered the fact that Paul said, "how I wish I could be with you now and change my tone". That remark makes it readily recognizable that Paul's letter was both emotional and reasoned, and you have to prove that the phrases upon which you rely are - and can only be - for a dry claim rather than an emotional expression.

If you cannot so prove, then it is possible that the phrases you reference are rightly appreciated for being emotional expressions, and then you are still stuck in possibility mode rather than having achieved actuality mode.

I am still waiting for a response regarding the matter of whether any importance can be mined from the question of whether Paul claims inspiration as public warrant given that he provides reasons which do not rely on that inspiration. As I previously said, 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.

Show how your obsession can possibly be worthwhile, how it can conceivably be worth anything.

I did consider the genre. Galatians is a polemical letter that mixes pathos with deliberative argument; that does not alter the force of its assertions. When an author in a live dispute says the gospel he preaches is “not from man” but “through revelation of Jesus Christ,” he is not merely emoting; he is staking an argumentative premise about source to disqualify rival claims tied to Jerusalem emissaries and Torah observance. Emotional tone and argumentative function coexist; the presence of emotion does not convert a public assertion into a private feeling or remove it from evidential assessment.

That line shows tone, not content type. “I wish I could change my tone” is about delivery; “not of man … through revelation” and “if even an angel … let him be accursed” are propositional claims deployed against opponents. Speech-act 101: assertions remain assertions even when delivered with feeling. I don’t need to prove exclusivity; I need to show that at least one function of the origin language is to ground authority in the dispute. The letter itself supplies that linkage by pairing the revelation claim with anathematizing contrary gospels and by contrasting Paul’s commission with “those reputed to be something.”

The text makes the actuality explicit by how the phrases are used. The revelation claim is cited precisely when Paul invalidates rival gospels and distances his commission from human sources. That is not merely “expressing feelings”; it is functioning as a reason offered to the churches for why the rival emissaries should not be followed. That is enough to establish that the origin claim operates as public warrant in this argument, regardless of any simultaneous emotive freight.

It matters because Paul himself assigns weight to it. If an author adds a premise—“not of human origin”—to trump rivals, that premise is fair game. When tested, it has no public discriminator; nothing in the language, genre, or manuscript history is more probable on a non-human source than on ordinary authorship. Consequence: the revelation premise contributes zero evidential weight, so it cannot bind outsiders or decide the controversy. What remains is his human reasoning about circumcision and faith, which can be debated on its own terms. That is an analytically significant result, because it separates what is historically assessable from what is not and prevents a non-evidential premise from masquerading as a trump card in a public dispute.

It’s worthwhile for exactly the same reason courts and historians separate admissible grounds from inadmissible ones. When a party introduces a source-of-authority claim to win a case, we ask whether that claim has publicly testable support. Here it does not, so it cannot carry the argument. That protects the discussion from a category mistake—treating a private certainty as if it were evidence—and it clarifies the playing field: take what is valuable in Paul’s ethical and theological reasoning as human work, and set aside the origin claim as evidentially idle in public adjudication.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Is that your response? I have no idea if the cited statement is - or can be made to be - responsive to anything. Doesn't matter.

Since you are disinterested in the understanding of others, you are disinterested in the factors that affect the expression of understanding. Paul writes a letter while upset. His letter contains emotional expressions - even outbursts. Paul has a history of emphasizing the importance of developing understanding. In his letter, Paul resorts to reasoning despite being upset with the Galatians; therefore, there is absolutely no problem at all with thinking that some expressions in the letter which do not fit with his reasons and his emphasis on the importance of understanding are simply emotional expressions - particularly since they have no bearing on anything else.

This means that your "historical data" fails to move you from possibly true to actually true.

Your obsession here is irrational.

It is directly responsive. “Decisive difference between a private conviction and a public warrant” states the criterion at issue. A private conviction needs no evidence beyond the holder’s confidence. A premise introduced to settle a public dispute does. Paul’s “not from man … through revelation” is introduced in a public dispute; therefore it falls under public warrant, not private conviction. That is the relevant distinction and it governs how the claim is assessed.

Emotional tone does not negate argumentative function. In Galatians the origin claim is paired with rejecting “man-taught” rivals, recounting an independent commission, and issuing an anathema against contrary gospels. Those are argumentative moves deployed to disqualify opponents. Calling them “simply emotional” is factually wrong about how the letter operates: the phrases you want to reclassify as mere feeling are used to ground authority claims in the dispute. That gives them public bearing by design.

It does the opposite. The placement and usage of the origin claim at precisely the points where Paul invalidates rivals show that, in this text, the claim functions as a reason offered to the assemblies. That is not a possibility; it is how the letter argues. Once the claim is used as a reason in public space, it must be tested by public discriminators. None exist that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary authorship, so the claim contributes no evidential weight to the polemic.

Labeling a methodological requirement “obsession” is not an argument. The requirement is standard: if a premise is used to decide between rival positions in public, its credibility depends on observations that are more expected if the premise is true than if it is false. That is rational scrutiny, not irrationality.

False.

When a "premise" is of no significance to anything, it is ABSOLUTELY IRRATIONAL to insist that there be evidence for that premise. That "premise" relates to nothing. It is of absolute insignificance. It makes no sense to obsess on it. To obsess on it is to be irrational.

Please, please come up with something new or at least challenging enough to be worthwhile.

True. A premise used to adjudicate a public dispute must be supported by public reasons. In Galatians Paul deploys “not from man … through revelation” precisely in a public dispute—against emissaries urging circumcision and fuller Torah observance—alongside an anathema on contrary gospels. That is a public-claim use, not a private diary entry. Public use requires public warrant.

In this case the premise is significant by your own chosen text. Paul’s origin claim is invoked at the very points where he disqualifies rivals and directs practice; it is part of the argumentative load of the letter. If you now declare it “of no significance,” you concede it cannot bear any argumentative weight and should be set aside—exactly my position. If you maintain it is part of the polemic, then it is a publicly used premise and must meet public discriminators. None exist that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary authorship and transmission. Either way, the origin claim cannot decide the dispute: if insignificant, drop it; if significant, it lacks evidential support and fails as a warrant.

Here is the clean, inescapable fork you’ve avoided: either Paul’s origin language is rhetorically and practically idle, in which case it has no role in settling the controversy, or it is used as a reason against rivals, in which case it must be tested by public discriminators. The historical record—ordinary Koine Greek, standard epistolary form, arguments from shared scripture, human manuscript transmission, concrete community disputes—favors human authorship and offers no surplus phenomena that require a non-human source. Thus the origin claim contributes no evidential weight. The discussion properly returns to what can be assessed on human grounds: Paul’s reasons and their outcomes.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

Possibilities are eliminated when they are ignored. When ignored, possibilities are eliminated from consideration. So, I guess what you said is true. In a way.

Ignoring a possibility is not eliminating it; it is refusing to test it. Elimination requires showing that the observations are at least as expected—and often far more expected—on one hypothesis than another. That is why I keep the non-human-origin hypothesis on the table and then discharge it by comparison with the actual record. Dismissing without testing is negligence; testing and finding no differential support is elimination.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

In history, “actually true” is

Is "In history" a subset of "In reality" such that "In history" serves to indicate investigation restricted to a particular perspective that (maybe only temporarily) ignores other perspectives? (Note: "In reality" here is distinct from all forms of "In actual practice".)

If "In history" is not a subset of "In reality", then "In history" either always remains identical to "In reality, 'possibly true'", or "In history" is "In reality" such that "In history" is best replaced by "In reality".

However, if "In history" is identical to "In reality", then "In reality, 'actually true'" is the case if and only if (or if and only to the extent that) "In reality" refers to a state of determinateness by means of an expression which makes exhaustive reference to all (contextually - which is to say relevant) viable possibilities.

If it is the case that "In history" is a subset of "In reality", "In history, 'actually true'" means "In reality, 'possibly true'".

Such a restriction is not inherently defective, but it only avoids being deficient or insufficient when - or to the extent that - the restricted perspective is coherent with the otherwise ignored perspectives/contexts.

This means that, in effect, the "In history" phrase is (or should be) intended to be discarded. It is discarded legitimately if and only if (or if and only to the extent that) "In reality" refers to a state of determinateness by means of an expression which makes exhaustive reference to all (contextually - which is to say relevant) viable possibilities.

Galatians is a polemical letter

In the cited remark, "polemical" is an assumption. Consequently, "Galatians is a polemical letter" means "It is possible that Galatians is a polemical letter" or "It is a possibility that Galatians is a polemical letter".

This means that it remains to be seen whether the possibility that Galatians is a polemical letter is the only viable possibility.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is an emotive letter.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is a reasoned letter.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is a reasoned letter where that reasoning itself is not polemical.

These additional viable possibilities (for so long as they remain viable possibilities), means that it is false to say that "In reality, it is actually true that the only viable possibility is that Galatians is a polemical letter".

"Galatians is a polemical letter" is not the only viable possibility. As a consequence, it is at least ambiguous to say that "In reality, Galatians is a polemical letter" or "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter", because such expressions can reasonably be interpreted as meaning "In reality, Galatians is only a polemical letter".

Disambiguation of "is" and "is actually" here is accomplished by saying "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter, and Galatians is actually not a polemical letter".

Since that expression can be mistaken for a contradiction, it is better expressed as "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter, but it is not only a polemical letter."

And the possibly polemical aspect of the letter is of no significance with regards to the reasoning. The only relevant significance there is with the polemical aspect is as being possibly contributory to the development of an understanding about the author.

In contradistinction, the reasoning aspect of the letter is significant additionally to the matter of developing an understanding about the author in that the reasoning aspect of the letter is interesting for having introduced other possibilities that can be pursued with regards to such separate matters as, for example, the nature of righteousness and the nature of faith.

Likewise, the emotive aspect is significant additionally with regards to how such factors affect thinking and its expression.

Your approach is disinterested in developing an understanding about the person of Paul; your approach does not address or accommodate the matter of how a subjective condition affects thinking and its expression, and your approach provides no additional interesting matters beyond being a possibly useful avenue for eventually becoming better aware of the limited applicability of historical text analysis.

Your approach has not (even) succeeded in moving from "possibly polemical" to "actually polemical but not only polemical", because the emotive aspect can possibly subsume the polemical aspect to the point of the polemical aspect being eliminated. Not that it matters, because the polemical aspect is of no significance to the matter of Paul and his message and his reasoning.

 

[steve_bank]

History/historian 2000 years ago does not have the meaning as today.

An academic or professional historian today is expected to have a degree of intellectual independence and objectivity. That being said good historians can and do have different interpretations of history,.

2000 years ago Roman writers served to elevate the Roman leaders.

My favorite example is Herodotus. He was known as 'Herodotus the liar'. by some He turned second hand and hear say accents he never aw into fist hand reporting of events filing in the blanks and embellishing. Not really fraud as we would say today, a consequence of the poor communications of the day. There was no journalistic reporting.

AI summaries....

Herodotus is known as the "Father of History" because his work, The Histories, was the first systematic investigation of the past, providing a comprehensive account of the Greco-Persian Wars and including geographical, cultural, and societal details beyond just battles. His methodology of gathering various forms of evidence, including oral tradition and eyewitness accounts, and using reason to understand cause-and-effect, laid the foundation for Western historical writing. The Roman orator Cicero conferred this title upon him for these pioneering efforts.

Herodotus is not definitively a "liar" but rather a writer whose work blends factual accounts with embellishments, myths, and biases, leading to accusations of falsehood from contemporaries like Plutarch and Thucydides, who sometimes called him the "Father of Lies". While Cicero named him the "Father of History," he also noted Herodotus's narrative included many poetic tales. Modern scholars debate whether Herodotus intentionally fictionalized or if his "lies" resulted from the nascent state of the history field, his love of storytelling, and the incorporation of local beliefs and unreliable testimony.

A context with which to understand the gospels and the NT in general as well as the OT stories.

To me the gospels are obviously influenced by Greek writers. A weaving of other than first hand accounts of an historical figure with myth and fiction. It was the norm of the day.

 

[NoHolyCows]

Is "In history" a subset of "In reality" such that "In history" serves to indicate investigation restricted to a particular perspective that (maybe only temporarily) ignores other perspectives? (Note: "In reality" here is distinct from all forms of "In actual practice".)

If "In history" is not a subset of "In reality", then "In history" either always remains identical to "In reality, 'possibly true'", or "In history" is "In reality" such that "In history" is best replaced by "In reality".

However, if "In history" is identical to "In reality", then "In reality, 'actually true'" is the case if and only if (or if and only to the extent that) "In reality" refers to a state of determinateness by means of an expression which makes exhaustive reference to all (contextually - which is to say relevant) viable possibilities.

If it is the case that "In history" is a subset of "In reality", "In history, 'actually true'" means "In reality, 'possibly true'".

Such a restriction is not inherently defective, but it only avoids being deficient or insufficient when - or to the extent that - the restricted perspective is coherent with the otherwise ignored perspectives/contexts.

This means that, in effect, the "In history" phrase is (or should be) intended to be discarded. It is discarded legitimately if and only if (or if and only to the extent that) "In reality" refers to a state of determinateness by means of an expression which makes exhaustive reference to all (contextually - which is to say relevant) viable possibilities.

“In history” names a domain of inquiry, not a different species of truth. Historical questions are about past states of the same reality, evaluated with the tools appropriate to surviving evidence: documents, artifacts, chronology, provenance, and corroboration. The qualifier marks method, not a second-class truth value. When historians say something is actually true, they mean it corresponds to what happened and is warranted to a high degree by public evidence, given the normal constraints of the record.

Neither horn is correct. “Actually true in history” is not “merely possibly true,” and we do not need to erase the methodological label. Historians routinely reach findings treated as facts because the likelihood of the evidence under those claims is overwhelmingly higher than under live competitors. Caesar’s crossing of the Rubicon and that Paul wrote to Galatia are not “maybe”; they are established to the same practical standard we use everywhere outside formal proof: beyond reasonable doubt on public evidence.

Exhaustive enumeration of all possibilities is neither required nor practicable in any empirical field. Science and history converge on the same standard: compare the live, workable alternatives against the observations and prefer the one with greater explanatory power and fit. That is how we know a meteorite is extraterrestrial, and how we know a letter is Pauline: by likelihood and consilience, not by canvassing every abstract possibility.

That is simply false. Subsetting by method does not degrade truth to possibility. A verdict of “actually true” in historiography means the claim has crossed the public threshold for acceptance given the record—exactly like a court’s “proven” finding. It remains fallible, but it is not collapsed into “maybe.”

Coherence across perspectives is already baked into rigorous historical work. We check texts against archaeology, paleography, social context, and known linguistic usage. That cross-check is precisely how we avoid deficiency, and it is why claims about non-human origin fail: they add no discriminating predictions to the dataset that human authorship does not already explain.

There is nothing to discard. The domain label signals evidential constraints; it does not alter what truth is. We do not need exhaustive modal canvassing to reach warranted conclusions about the past. We need publicly checkable observations that bear differently on competing explanations. Applied to Paul, the record—Koine language, ordinary epistolary form, arguments from shared scripture, human transmission—fits human authorship entirely. The “not of human origin” clause contributes no public discriminator and therefore carries no evidential weight in historical analysis.

In the cited remark, "polemical" is an assumption. Consequently, "Galatians is a polemical letter" means "It is possible that Galatians is a polemical letter" or "It is a possibility that Galatians is a polemical letter".

This means that it remains to be seen whether the possibility that Galatians is a polemical letter is the only viable possibility.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is an emotive letter.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is a reasoned letter.

It is a viable possibility that Galatians is a reasoned letter where that reasoning itself is not polemical.

These additional viable possibilities (for so long as they remain viable possibilities), means that it is false to say that "In reality, it is actually true that the only viable possibility is that Galatians is a polemical letter".

"Galatians is a polemical letter" is not the only viable possibility. As a consequence, it is at least ambiguous to say that "In reality, Galatians is a polemical letter" or "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter", because such expressions can reasonably be interpreted as meaning "In reality, Galatians is only a polemical letter".

Disambiguation of "is" and "is actually" here is accomplished by saying "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter, and Galatians is actually not a polemical letter".

Since that expression can be mistaken for a contradiction, it is better expressed as "In reality, Galatians is actually a polemical letter, but it is not only a polemical letter."

And the possibly polemical aspect of the letter is of no significance with regards to the reasoning. The only relevant significance there is with the polemical aspect is as being possibly contributory to the development of an understanding about the author.

In contradistinction, the reasoning aspect of the letter is significant additionally to the matter of developing an understanding about the author in that the reasoning aspect of the letter is interesting for having introduced other possibilities that can be pursued with regards to such separate matters as, for example, the nature of righteousness and the nature of faith.

Likewise, the emotive aspect is significant additionally with regards to how such factors affect thinking and its expression.

Your approach is disinterested in developing an understanding about the person of Paul; your approach does not address or accommodate the matter of how a subjective condition affects thinking and its expression, and your approach provides no additional interesting matters beyond being a possibly useful avenue for eventually becoming better aware of the limited applicability of historical text analysis.

Your approach has not (even) succeeded in moving from "possibly polemical" to "actually polemical but not only polemical", because the emotive aspect can possibly subsume the polemical aspect to the point of the polemical aspect being eliminated. Not that it matters, because the polemical aspect is of no significance to the matter of Paul and his message and his reasoning.

It is not an assumption; it is a description grounded in the letter’s observable features. Galatians opens with astonished rebuke of the addressees, denounces rival teachers, issues a curse on contrary gospels, defends the writer’s authority, recounts a public confrontation with Cephas, and includes open ridicule of opponents. Those are standard markers of polemic. Calling a text “polemical” here is reporting genre signals on the page, not guessing at Paul’s inner state.

No one needs it to be the only viable label. A text can be simultaneously polemical, reasoned, and emotive. The point is that polemic is demonstrably one of its operative modes. That suffices for the argument about how origin language functions within it.

Agreed. Emotion and polemic are not mutually exclusive. Strong affect is typical in polemics and is abundant in Galatians; that observation reinforces, not negates, the classification.

Agreed. Polemical letters often advance sustained arguments. Galatians does: it argues from scripture, analogy, and prior agreement. Reasoning does not cancel polemic; it is the vehicle of the polemic.

That is contradicted by the letter’s own deployment of reasons explicitly against identified rivals and practices. The arguments are framed to refute, exclude, and warn. That is polemical use of reasoning by definition.

I have never claimed exclusivity. I claimed—and still claim—that Galatians is a polemical letter in function and form. The coexistence of other features does not touch that factual description.

There is no ambiguity in ordinary scholarly usage. Saying “is polemical” attributes a property; it does not assert that no other properties apply. If you read “only,” that is an import you added, not a claim I made.

That formulation is confused. The correct disambiguation is: Galatians is a polemical letter that also contains emotive appeals and sustained reasoning. “Is polemical” and “is not only polemical” are perfectly consistent.

That is exactly my position. And once we agree on “polemical,” the relevance of Paul’s origin language in that polemic remains squarely on the table.

That is incorrect. The polemical context is why the reasoning is framed to displace rivals and why “not from man … through Jesus Christ” is marshaled as a warrant. Genre and situation explain argumentative function; they are not biographical trivia.

Analysis of those themes does not insulate the letter from its rhetorical deployment against opponents. Both things are true: it argues about righteousness and faith, and it uses origin-claims to underwrite those arguments over against competing teachers.

Yes, and that significance includes sharpening the polemic. The heat of the language is part of how the argument is meant to land publicly. None of this removes the need for public support when origin is invoked as part of that argument.

The text itself moves us there: curses on alternative gospels, direct denunciations of “agitators,” narrative of rival authorization, and even caustic wishes about those urging circumcision are not merely emotive; they are directed refutation. That is polemic by content and aim. And it matters precisely because the letter uses a source-claim as part of that refutation. Once a claim is used publicly to trump rivals, it enters the evidential domain and stands or falls by public discriminators.

NHC

 

[steve_bank]

Logic form and content?

P1: God exists
P2: Paul said his words came from god not men.
C: Therefore Paul was inspired by god with no Greek influence.

For C to be true P1 has to be true. How is P1 shown to be true?

There were times wen I had a problem I could not get a handle on when I used syllogisms. It forced me to think it through step by step and eliminate extraneous issues.

The debate over Paul and all Christian arguments reduce to P1 being proven true or false.

That leads to the list of what Christians present as proofs of existence of god, Noe of which are really proofs, more declarations.

As to logical form, a syllogism or any logical argument can be valid in the sense there are no logical fallacies. A valid logical argument does not mean it is true in raelity.


P1: All Zogs are green.
P2: Joe is a Zog.
C: Joe is green.

A logically valid conclusion, C follows form P1 and P2. It is valid regardless of whether or not Zogs and Joe accrual y exist.

One would have to prove P1, that Zogs are green and exist for it to reflect reality.

Likewise existence of god has to be proven in any theologian argument.

Given the existence of god ensuing theology can be logicaly valid. No contradictions or other logical fallacies.

I doubt the RC theology has any logical fallacies, they have been at it for over 1000 years. But that does make the theology true.

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

“In history” names a domain of inquiry

A domain can be a subset. In the context at hand, the "In history" domain is a subset of reality.

“Actually true in history” is not “merely possibly true,”

If the history domain is a subset of reality, then “Actually true in history” is most definitely "merely possibly true" in the reality domain unless what is “Actually true in history” is the only viable possibility in the reality domain after investigation in terms of other relevant reality subset domains.

Exhaustive enumeration of all possibilities is neither required nor practicable in any empirical field.

But those "fields" - and as is the case for the conceptual "fields" - can proceed without actuality having been reduced to only one viable possibility precisely because those fields in fact proceed by considering a viable possibility set (even if that set references only one member) as if it were the only viable possibility such that future encountered incompatibilities can be regarded as indicators that there are possibilities which were to be taken into account other than that which was treated as the only viable possibility.

This is to say that the possibility being treated as if it were the only viable possibility need not be an actuality; the possibility is simply assumed to be actual as if it were the only viable possibility, and this means that via assumption the as-if solely viable possibility can always actually be "merely possibly true" and that possibility condition is no impediment to or for further investigation.

On the other hand, failure to realize the as-if condition as the assumption which it is can impede the furtherance of investigation when incompatibilities are encountered.

Some claims are politely called "immodest", but what that actually means is that such a claim has failed to sufficiently account for possibilities. And that means that the claim has lost modality rather than it having achieved modality transformation such as from possibility to actuality.

What has been repeatedly shown is that your claim and your approach are both immodest in presentation.

Coherence across perspectives is already baked into rigorous historical work. We check texts against archaeology, paleography, social context, and known linguistic usage.

But your work has been shown to be insufficient for the possible-to-actual transformation in light of the emotive and reasoning aspects regarding Paul's letter. Your polemical remains at best a possibility since your baked-in "Coherence across perspectives" is not across all relevant perspectives including, for instance, the emotive and the reasoning perspectives.

And, even if your polemical were actual, it remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

 

[NoHolyCows]

A domain can be a subset. In the context at hand, the "In history" domain is a subset of reality.

“In history” names a method, not a smaller reality. When historians say something is historically true, they are making a claim about the actual world, justified by public records, texts, archaeology, and stable canons of source criticism. The proposition at issue—e.g., that Paul publicly used “not of man … through revelation” as a warrant against rivals—is either true or false of reality; “in history” tells you which evidential standards were used to fix its truth. Calling the method a “subset” does not demote its outputs to anything less than claims about reality; it only marks that the warrant is defeasible if new public evidence appears. That is revisability, not a shift from truth to mere possibility.

If the history domain is a subset of reality, then “Actually true in history” is most definitely "merely possibly true" in the reality domain unless what is “Actually true in history” is the only viable possibility in the reality domain after investigation in terms of other relevant reality subset domains.

That conflates metaphysical modality with epistemic warrant. “Actually true in history” does not mean “merely possible in reality”; it means “accepted as true of the actual past on the best publicly checkable evidence.” Truth in a domain of inquiry is not restricted to cases where only one logical possibility remains; it is fixed by the total evidence under the domain’s rules. In practice: the letters we possess, their language, genre, argumentative moves, and transmission are public facts. On that record, it is true that Paul deploys an origin claim as part of his polemic. That conclusion is about reality and is justified by evidence. It remains defeasible—like any empirical conclusion—but defeasibility is not “mere possibility.” You’re trying to smuggle a modal standard (“only viable possibility”) into a methodological context where the correct standard is evidential support. Under that standard, the public use of the origin claim stands as a fact; and because it is used publicly, it is subject to public discriminators. That is precisely why “not of human origin” has no warrant as an evidential premise: nothing in the observable record favors it over ordinary human authorship.

NHC

 

[NoHolyCows]

But those "fields" - and as is the case for the conceptual "fields" - can proceed without actuality having been reduced to only one viable possibility precisely because those fields in fact proceed by considering a viable possibility set (even if that set references only one member) as if it were the only viable possibility such that future encountered incompatibilities can be regarded as indicators that there are possibilities which were to be taken into account other than that which was treated as the only viable possibility.

This is to say that the possibility being treated as if it were the only viable possibility need not be an actuality; the possibility is simply assumed to be actual as if it were the only viable possibility, and this means that via assumption the as-if solely viable possibility can always actually be "merely possibly true" and that possibility condition is no impediment to or for further investigation.

On the other hand, failure to realize the as-if condition as the assumption which it is can impede the furtherance of investigation when incompatibilities are encountered.

Some claims are politely called "immodest", but what that actually means is that such a claim has failed to sufficiently account for possibilities. And that means that the claim has lost modality rather than it having achieved modality transformation such as from possibility to actuality.

What has been repeatedly shown is that your claim and your approach are both immodest in presentation.

Yes—fields proceed by adopting a best-supported hypothesis provisionally and revising if counterevidence appears. That practice depends on discriminators: observations more probable on one hypothesis than on its rivals. Where no such discriminators exist, we do not adopt the extra hypothesis even “as if” true. Paul’s “not of human origin” adds no predictive or evidential differences beyond ordinary human authorship; therefore it is not a candidate for provisional adoption in public analysis. Treating it “as if” true without discriminators is precisely what empirical method forbids.

Assumptions are acceptable only when they enable testable consequences that could confirm or disconfirm them. An “as-if” divine-origin claim yields no new, testable consequences for Paul’s letters, their language, their arguments, or their transmission. Adopting it contributes nothing to inquiry and cannot be confirmed or disconfirmed by the artifacts. It is therefore methodologically idle, not a legitimate working assumption.

Agreed—which is why I keep the status of the divine-origin claim explicit: it is an unfalsifiable auxiliary that predicts nothing distinct. Because it generates no potential incompatibilities with the record, it cannot guide or improve investigation. The human-origin hypothesis does generate expectations that match the data; nothing is lost by excluding an inert add-on.

My claim is modest and strictly evidential: the observed features of Paul’s letters are fully accounted for by ordinary human processes; no observed feature requires a non-human source. That is not a modal assertion about what could never be; it is a present judgment about what the evidence warrants. Should a public discriminator appear, the judgment would change. Absent that, adding “not of human origin” is unwarranted.

But your work has been shown to be insufficient for the possible-to-actual transformation in light of the emotive and reasoning aspects regarding Paul's letter. Your polemical remains at best a possibility since your baked-in "Coherence across perspectives" is not across all relevant perspectives including, for instance, the emotive and the reasoning perspectives.

And, even if your polemical were actual, it remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

That is incorrect. Emotive tone and reasoning are not “missing perspectives”; they are part of the public artifact and are handled by standard rhetorical and discourse analysis within historical method. Galatians itself furnishes explicit, checkable markers of polemic and authority-claim: direct denunciation of rivals, curse formulae, self-credentialing by revelation “not from man,” and community-boundary stakes tied to circumcision and Torah observance. Those are not private inner states; they are features on the page. Recognizing them does not “transform possibility into actuality” by fiat; it is exactly how historians move from mere possibility to warranted description: by pointing to observable textual behavior that fits the polemical genre and the situational conflict the letter names. Emotion in the prose does not neutralize the argumentative move; it is the vehicle carrying it. Nothing about anger or pastoral concern alters the evidential status of a public premise. When Paul deploys “not of human origin” against opponents, that premise enters the public argument and, like any premise used to trump rivals, it stands or falls by public discriminators. None are available that favor “not of human origin” over ordinary human authorship; therefore the origin claim retains no evidential force in historical analysis, regardless of the letter’s emotional temperature or the presence of additional reasoning.

It affects exactly the point under dispute. If Paul uses origin language as warrant against rival emissaries, the evidential question is triggered by his own strategy. Either the origin claim carries independent public support or it does not. If it does not—as the record shows—then that component of his case contributes nothing probative and cannot bind outsiders. That is a decisive, practical consequence: it separates what can be publicly warranted (his human arguments from scripture and experience) from what cannot (his revelation claim). Calling that “insignificant” confuses ethics with evidence. Ethical evaluations of his counsel may stand or fall on their human merits; but the moment “not of human origin” is invoked to overrule competitors, its lack of public discriminators is not trivial—it is dispositive.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

“In history” names a method, not a smaller reality. ... making a claim about the actual world

That "about the actual world" means "in reality". If that "history" is not an aspect of the actual world or reality, then it is either reality or it is non-reality or unreality.

Since you are not claiming that history is identical to reality, since you are not claiming that history is not part of reality, since you are not claiming that history is not an aspect of reality, history is rightly regarded as a subset of reality or as a domain within reality.

“Actually true in history” does not mean “merely possible in reality”; it means “accepted as true of the actual past on the best publicly checkable evidence.”

The "accepted as true" designates an assumption. A designated assumption is a possibility identified as being treated in the as-if-actual condition.

Truth ... is fixed by the total evidence under the domain’s rules.

Immaterial and irrelevant, because "the total evidence under the domain’s rules" is not sufficient for a possibility-to-actuality transformation if the product of domain or subset "rules" is incompatible with the product of other relevant domains or subsets.

Your compartmentalized "history" is incompatible with the relevant to reality emotive and the reasons domains.

That means that, in the Paul case at issue, your compartmentalized "history" is insufficient to effect a possibility-to-actuality transformation. And that means that your compartmentalized "history" at best produces - from the reality perspective - polemical as a truth that is merely possible.

Even so, if that possible truth is an actual truth despite your compartmentalized "history" being inadequate to establish the actuality of polemical, an actually true polemical remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

 

[NoHolyCows]

That "about the actual world" means "in reality". If that "history" is not an aspect of the actual world or reality, then it is either reality or it is non-reality or unreality.

Since you are not claiming that history is identical to reality, since you are not claiming that history is not part of reality, since you are not claiming that history is not an aspect of reality, history is rightly regarded as a subset of reality or as a domain within reality.

Right—history is about reality. My point was never ontological shrink-wrapping; it was methodological demarcation. “In history” names the rule-set by which claims about the actual world earn acceptance: source criticism, corroboration, dating, context, and error-control. Saying “history is a method” does not oppose “reality”; it specifies the standards for responsibly talking about reality. On those standards, private, unfalsifiable origin claims don’t count as public warrant. That is a methodological fact, not a denial that history addresses the real world.

Calling it a “subset” changes nothing that matters. The subset talk is metaphysical bookkeeping; the evidential rules remain the same. Historical acceptance depends on publicly checkable discriminators—texts, material culture, chronology, linguistic usage—that raise or lower the probability of a claim versus its competitors. Whether you label the enterprise a “subset of reality” does not promote a private revelation to evidence. Paul’s “not of human origin” has no independent discriminator; therefore, within the historical method that speaks about the actual world, the origin claim carries no probative weight.

The "accepted as true" designates an assumption. A designated assumption is a possibility identified as being treated in the as-if-actual condition.

No. “Accepted as true” in historical practice is not a free assumption; it is a justified conclusion under evidential constraints. It is earned by inference from public data with built-in error controls and explicit defeat conditions. When epigraphy dates an inscription, when independent sources converge, when paleography and stratigraphy cohere, historians accept a proposition as true of the past because the observable record favors it over alternatives. That acceptance is provisional and revisable, but it is not “as-if” make-believe; it is warranted belief anchored to checks anyone can audit. Apply the same rule to Paul’s origin claim: there is no independent discriminator that makes “not of human origin” more probable than ordinary human authorship. Consequently, the claim is not accepted as true in history, however cherished it may be in private faith.

NHC

 

[Elixir]

Mike thinks stuff comes from supernatural sources, and nobody is going to convince him otherwise no matter how many of his toy soldiers you knock down. A conclusion firmly grounded in the desire for transcendence, cannot be uprooted as if logical refutation has objective existence!

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

That practice depends on discriminators: observations more probable on one hypothesis than on its rivals. Where no such discriminators exist, we do not adopt the extra hypothesis even “as if” true.

That is a flaw in the logic of the "we" regardless of who the "we" are and regardless of what is the field in which the "we" work.

Those "we" have constructed a field that is conceptually restricted.

Those "we" have constructed a field that restricts logic such that considerations are prevented regarding the difference between possibility and actuality.

That means that, from the perspective of logic, the field in which the "we" work is always (under threat of being) illogical. And that logic-restricted field is actually illogical when it designates possibility as actuality or confuses mere possibility for actuality.

Of course, if there are any amongst the "we" who are not charlatans, such persons within the "we" would include the non-restricted (perspective of) logic within their "observations". They would then appreciate that they are restricted to the merely possible if there are other relevant perspectives which provide possibilities that are incompatible with the thinking produced by the restricted perspective within which the "we" operate.

In the Paul case, the emotive and reasoning perspectives are incompatible with the polemical perspective which is alleged to be produced by the restricted historical perspective.

In the Paul case, even the non-charlatan version of the history-restricted perspective remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

“Accepted as true” in historical practice is not a free assumption

As I said, "Accepted as true" designates an assumption. "Assumption" neither infers nor implies "free" or "baseless".

And, with regards to the Paul case, the history-restricted perspective remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

 

[NoHolyCows]

That is a flaw in the logic of the "we" regardless of who the "we" are and regardless of what is the field in which the "we" work.

Those "we" have constructed a field that is conceptually restricted.

Those "we" have constructed a field that restricts logic such that considerations are prevented regarding the difference between possibility and actuality.

That means that, from the perspective of logic, the field in which the "we" work is always (under threat of being) illogical. And that logic-restricted field is actually illogical when it designates possibility as actuality or confuses mere possibility for actuality.

Of course, if there are any amongst the "we" who are not charlatans, such persons within the "we" would include the non-restricted (perspective of) logic within their "observations". They would then appreciate that they are restricted to the merely possible if there are other relevant perspectives which provide possibilities that are incompatible with the thinking produced by the restricted perspective within which the "we" operate.

In the Paul case, the emotive and reasoning perspectives are incompatible with the polemical perspective which is alleged to be produced by the restricted historical perspective.

In the Paul case, even the non-charlatan version of the history-restricted perspective remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing.

It isn’t a flaw; it’s the core of rational inference. The likelihood requirement—prefer the hypothesis under which the observations are more expected—is the same backbone in historical method, experimental science, diagnostics, and jurisprudence. Dispensing with discriminators collapses inquiry into assertion. Keeping them is what prevents smuggling in extra causes that add no explanatory work.

Methodological discipline is not arbitrary restriction; it’s the price of public warrant. If a claim is to bind anyone beyond the claimant, it must cash out in observations others can in principle check. That standard doesn’t forbid additional “perspectives”; it asks what those perspectives change in what we should expect to find. If the answer is “nothing,” they are irrelevant to the evidential question.

It’s exactly the opposite. The discriminator rule is how we keep “possibly true” from being treated “as actually true.” Without a difference-maker in the record, an added hypothesis stays at the level of private possibility. The method keeps possibility and actuality distinct by requiring publicly checkable consequences to move from one to the other.

Historical practice does not designate possibility as actuality. Acceptance is provisional and evidence-driven: a claim is held true because the extant data favor it over competitors, and it remains defeasible by new data. That is the logic of inference to the best explanation, not a confusion of modalities. What would be illogical is treating an unfalsifiable private origin story as if it had the same standing as publicly testable claims.

Calling whole disciplines “charlatans” is rhetoric, not argument. If your “other perspectives” are relevant, specify what they predict that differs at the level of observable features. In Paul’s case, the non-human-origin claim predicts nothing in the manuscripts, language, rhetoric, or reception that ordinary human authorship doesn’t already predict. So it remains a private possibility, not a public actuality.

That’s factually wrong about texts and genres. A letter can be simultaneously polemical, emotive, and reasoned; these are not exclusive categories. Galatians includes all three: sharp anathema and boundary-drawing, appeals to shared scripture and reasons, and overt emotional tone (“I wish I were present with you and could change my tone”). None of that rescues the origin claim from evidential scrutiny; it simply describes the mix of strategies.

It affects exactly the point at issue: whether “not of human origin” can be used as a public warrant against rivals. If the claim has no discriminator, it supplies no public authority and cannot trump opponents in the space of reasons. That is a substantive consequence for interpretation and for any argument that seeks to bind others. Repeating that it “affects nothing” does not make it true; it just ignores the live question of what counts as warrant in public argument.

As I said, "Accepted as true" designates an assumption. "Assumption" neither infers nor implies "free" or "baseless".

And, with regards to the Paul case, the history-restricted perspective remains of no actual significance - and it is not actually interesting - because it affects nothing

In historical method “accepted as true” is not an assumption at all; it is a provisional conclusion warranted by publicly checkable evidence and held defeasibly—open to revision if stronger counter-evidence appears. Calling it an “assumption” mislabels the practice. An assumption is taken without requiring new corroboration; a historical conclusion is adopted because extant inscriptions, manuscripts, datings, linguistic features, and convergent context raise its probability over rivals. That is why historians differentiate between background assumptions (e.g., that our sources exist and can be dated) and evidentially supported claims (e.g., that a given letter uses this rhetoric in response to that dispute). “Accepted as true” belongs to the latter category. It is evidence-led, not “free,” and it is retractable precisely because it is not an assumption.

It affects the central live question: whether Paul’s public use of “not of man … through revelation” can function as warrant against rivals. If the origin claim lacks any public discriminator—no predictions or observations that are more expected on “not of human origin” than on ordinary authorship—then it cannot bind anyone outside prior commitment. That is a concrete consequence. It also matters for how we read the letter’s argumentative force: if the revelation appeal adds no evidential weight, then only the human reasons in the text carry public authority, and the origin claim reduces to private faith. That distinction shapes source criticism, reception history, and any claim that Paul’s authority over opponents rested on more than argument. You have repeated “it affects nothing” several times, but the record shows the opposite: it determines whether the origin language can legitimately trump rivals in public reasoning.

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

Methodological discipline is not arbitrary restriction; it’s the price of public warrant.

If the "Methodological discipline" (and, thereby, the "public warrant") does not include taking into account of the distinction between possible and actual, then, from the perspective of logic, that "public warrant" - regardless of the methodology employed - is always (under threat of being) illogical. A logic-restricted "public warrant" is actually illogical when it designates possibility as actuality or confuses mere possibility for actuality.

The discriminator rule is how we keep “possibly true” from being treated “as actually true.”

Were that true, and were you to keep to that "rule", then you would not say that Paul at least claims public warrant.

You claim actuality without being bothered with the need for a possible-to-actual transformation.

 

[steve_bank]

Mike thinks stuff comes from supernatural sources, and nobody is going to convince him otherwise no matter how many of his toy soldiers you knock down. A conclusion firmly grounded in the desire for transcendence, cannot be uprooted as if logical refutation has objective existence!

Well, if nothing else the debate has been a good vocabulary builder for a low brow hoi poloi like me.

 

[NoHolyCows]

If the "Methodological discipline" (and, thereby, the "public warrant") does not include taking into account of the distinction between possible and actual, then, from the perspective of logic, that "public warrant" - regardless of the methodology employed - is always (under threat of being) illogical. A logic-restricted "public warrant" is actually illogical when it designates possibility as actuality or confuses mere possibility for actuality.

Historical method already bakes that distinction in. We treat hypotheses as possible until observations discriminate among them; only then do we adopt a conclusion defeasibly, precisely to avoid promoting “possibly true” to “actually true” without evidence. That is what public warrant means here: claims must yield observations more probable on the claim than on its rivals. If no such differential expectation exists, the claim stays at the level of private commitment. Nothing in my position collapses possibility into actuality; it enforces the boundary your objection presumes is missing.

Were that true, and were you to keep to that "rule", then you would not say that Paul at least claims public warrant.

You claim actuality without being bothered with the need for a possible-to-actual transformation.

“Paul at least claims public warrant” is a statement about what the letter actually does, not about the truth of the origin claim. Galatians overtly opposes “man-taught” rivals and answers with “not from man … through Jesus Christ,” followed by an anathema upon contrary gospels. That is a documented rhetorical move inside the text, not an elevation of the origin claim from possible to actual. Recognizing that the move is present does not grant it evidential success; it simply identifies a publicly visible premise being used in argument, which is exactly the point at which methodological discipline requires testing.

I claim the actuality of a textual fact — that Paul deploys revelation language as part of his polemic — because the letter itself exhibits it. That transformation is complete the moment the words are on the page; it needs no further modality talk. What I do not claim as actual is the truth of “not of human origin.” On that question, the possible-to-actual step does require discriminators, and there are none: the language, genre, argumentation, and transmission of the letters are all fully predicted by ordinary human authorship, and the revelation claim predicts nothing different that we observe. So the methodological boundary is intact on both sides: the rhetorical use is actual (because it is in the document); the non-human origin remains un-warranted (because it yields no public discriminators).

NHC

 

[Michael S. Pearl]

“Paul at least claims public warrant” is a statement about what the letter actually does

As I said, you make an actuality claim. Below, you provide further confirmation.

I claim the actuality of a textual fact — that Paul deploys revelation language as part of his polemic — because the letter itself exhibits it.

The viable emotive possibility alone, for so long as it is a viable possibility, is sufficient to preclude a determination that what you refer to as the (vituperative) polemic part of Paul’s expression is actual polemic.

That part of Paul’s letter which can seem or which can be interpreted as invective cannot be established as actual polemic rather than merely possible polemic for at least as long as the emotive possibility remains viable.