>>!!OOPS!! retraction<< Re: Third Day Resurrection

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    Gaff correction, necessary material quoted for context.

Michael W. Fisher wrote:


> Alan Fuller wrote:

>

> > Genesis claims to quote God before or at the

> > beginning of creation.  If that is true, the only way

> > to get that information is God had to tell somebody.

> > I can't prove that.  But if it is true, it had to be

> > some form of divine inspiration or communication.

>

>     Welllll, let's look at your original statement:

>

> > > Fuller:

> > > If the Bible is true, it is the divinely inspired

> > > Word of God.

>

>     You may recall that I commented:

>

> >      The formal name for the first argument above:

> >

> >

> >              Modus Ponens

> >     If 'P' then Q : :   P, therefore Q

> >

> >     IF the Bible is true . . .

>

>     If you are going to use Genesis as the factual support of your

> argument, then it seems that at a minimum, the assertions of fact in

> Genesis must be true, for example, the order of creation.

>

>     Substituting in Genesis 1 & 2 we can state the first part of the

> argument as:

>

> >>>If Genesis 1 & 2 are true, then they are the divinely inspired word

> of God.<<<

>

>     However, not only does the order of creation differ in each

> chapter, we now know -- as certainly as we can know any physical facts

> in the universe -- that they are both wrong.

>

>     I.e., the first assertion is false.

>

>     Genesis 1 & 2 are false.

>

>     In the case where the first proposition is false, then the

> conclusion is also negated, i.e. it is necessarily true that:


    Bzzzzzzzzzt on myself, writing too quickly.

    The conclusion is NOT negated, it simply no longer follows from the
initial premise, i.e., where I write below:


>

>

>     If 'P' then Q :  : but not-P, therefore not-Q.


    is incorrect. If P is false (i.e., not-P is true) then Q is simply no
longer a valid conclusion of the argument. It may in fact be true, the
proposition P simply does not establish it as true. The argument is said
to be invalid.

    Thus:


>

>

>     Substituting again:

>

>     >>If Genesis 1 & 2 are true, then they are the divinely inspired

> word of God, but Genesis 1 & 2 are false, therefore they are not the

> divinely inspired word of God.<<


    Is incorrect. What is true is:

    >>If Genesis 1 & 2 are true, then they are the divinely inspired
word of God, but Genesis 1 & 2 are false, therefore that they are divinely
inspired is an invalid conclusion.<<

    And that is all that directly happens to the original argument.

    The proposition we need is:

    "If any part of scripture is false, then it is not divinely inspired."

    However appealing that argument may be, it simply does not directly
follow, via any valid chain of logical arguments,  from the original
argument.

    Whew. Glad I caught that, even though I would like to derive the
original conclusion, alas it does not follow.

    Ciao. (that's what I get for writing in a hurry)


--
       Michael Fisher, ET1/SS USN ret., law student

       http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/logic.html

       http://home.aol.com/Mfish6994

        *               *               *

        ". . . a very LONG discussion is one of the most
        effective veils of Fallacy: . . . A Fallacy which
        when stated barely . . . would not deceive a child,
        may deceive half the world if diluted in a quarto
        volume"
               Richard Whately, "Elements of Logic", p. 151

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