Mr. McDonald opened his fourth defense by saying that I have made so many concessions that I "barely have any position left from which to argue," but two pages later, that "bare" position I had left had suddenly become no position at all: "Now, with all of these concessions in mind (seven in all) we can see that he (Till) has completely given up on his position" (p. 3, emphasis added). This is just one example among many that I could cite of McDonald's inconsistencies and hyperbolic tendencies. If I barely have a position left, then, of course, I would have at least some position left; I would not have "completely given up" on my position.
In point of fact, however, many of the alleged concessions I have made are concessions only in Mr. McDonald's wild imagination, and, of course, anyone who can imagine finding irrefutable proof of divine inspiration in the Bible is likely to imagine just about anything. It doesn't surprise me, then, that he should imagine that I have conceded my position in this debate, but an examination of the concessions I have made and others that he claims I have made will confirm that neither does any damage to my position.
The "biggest concession" I have made, so he says, is my acknowledgment that I could be wrong in my position on the inerrancy doctrine. In the Laws-Till Debate, which incidentally was a debate that Laws withdrew from after writing only three affirmative manuscripts, Laws asked this question in his first affirmative: "Is it even possible that Mr. Till is wrong regarding his view of the Bible?" Here was my answer in its entirety:
From long years of dogmatically believing (as Dr. Laws does) that I was right, totally right, and couldn't possibly be wrong in my view of the Bible, I learned that it is unwise to take the position, on any matter, that I cannot be wrong. So, yes, it is possible that I am wrong, but I must insist that Dr. Laws prove he is right before I admit that I am wrong. Incidentally, I wonder if he is willing to admit that he might be wrong?
McDonald keeps bringing up this matter and quoting only the abbreviated statement, "Yes, it is possible that I am wrong," but in my first rebuttal (pages 8-9) I summarized my entire answer to make it emphatically clear that, in admitting the possibility of being wrong, I was in no way conceding my position. Apparently that wasn't enough for him, because he keeps coming back to this, as if modestly admitting that I could be wrong is the same as saying that I am wrong. Well, I have never admitted that I am wrong in my position, and I believe that even the possibility that I am wrong is so remote as to be completely irrelevant to this debate. While addressing this issue in my first rebuttal, I said in the place cited above, "Whatever a person believes, there is always a possibility that he might be wrong in that belief." Now I will ask Mr. McDonald to tell us if that is a true statement. If he admits that it is a true statement, then perhaps he might tell us what was so grievously wrong in my acknowledging the possibility that I could be wrong. If he denies that it is a true statement, I challenge him to cite a single religious or philosophical belief that one might have and it be absolutely impossible to be wrong about.
So even though he alleges that concessions I have made, some real and some imaginary, have led to a complete surrender of my position, if an admission that I could possibly be wrong was my "biggest concession," I would say that I am in pretty good shape at this point in the debate, especially since it isn't hard at all for him to see concession and defeat in just about anything I say. He found a concession, for example, in my answer to his fourth true or false question in his first manuscript. The question was this: "It can be absolutely proven that the Bible in its original autographs can be absolutely proven not to be the inspired and inerrant word of Jehovah God." I said that the statement was false and then clarified the answer with a question: "If an original document is unavailable for examination, how could anyone prove what it was not when it was written?" If someone should claim that the original manuscript of Homer's Iliad contained no grammatical mistakes or errors in graphology as it was practiced at that time, although common sense would tell me that a work of that length surely contained some human errors, I could never prove that it was not error free, because the original manuscript is not available for examination. Furthermore, I would have no obligation to prove that the claim of an error-free original manuscript was not true; the one making the claim would be obligated to prove that it was true. He who asserts must prove. That is an axiom as old as the science of argumentation itself.
McDonald understands this principle; he just doesn't want to face the fact that it is true. He had no sooner quoted my answer to his question when he said, "Now he (Till) will no doubt say that he has no obligation to disprove anything in this part of the debate, but as usual he is wrong." Anything, of course, might be a bit too exclusive, but at least this statement was right in principle. The negative side in a debate is obligated to disprove the soundness of the affirmative arguments, and I have been doing exactly that (obviously to McDonald's dismay). However, when an affirmant presumes to assert a preposterous position that simply cannot be proven, the negative side has no responsibility to prove that the position is not true. The affirmer must prove that it is true. If I should argue that the human race descended from an alien life form that colonized the earth from a planet orbiting the star Sirius, what would be McDonald's obligation to prove that my assertion is not true? Exactly zero! It would be my responsibility to proof that a goofy idea like this is true.
This is exactly the position he finds himself in. He has undertaken the responsibility of proving a proposition that is about as goofy as any that could be dreamed up. He has signed on to prove that the "original autographs" of the Bible--which no longer exist, which he has never seen, which no one living has ever seen, which, in fact, no known person ever saw--were inerrant in every detail. Now how is he going to prove that? He has to admit that errors are present in the existing texts, so how in the world is he going to prove that these errors were not in those elusive original autographs? I asked him that same question in my first rebuttal:
If you have never seen the original autographs of the books in the Bible and if you have never discussed the originals with anyone who has seen and examined them, how could you possibly know that they were inerrant (p. 3)?
Did you catch his answer? "I go to the testimony of those who have seen the originals. The science of textual criticism and logic helps out in this area." Oh? It's that simple then? Well, I would like for him to quote "the testimony" of those who have seen the "original autograph" of the book of Jeremiah. Let him give us their names, and then let's hear what they have to say that would clarify the puzzle of the sections missing from the Septuagint version of this book (translated from the Hebrew text in the third century BC) that are present in the Masoretic text of AD 895 from which the various English versions have been translated. (Jeremiah 27:19-22; 33:14-26; 39:3-14; and 48:45-47 are the missing sections.) While he is at it, let's hope he will also cite testimony (from "those who have seen the original autograph" of Jeremiah) that will explain the thirty some variations in the structure and organization of the book when the Septuagint version is compared to the Masoretic text. What text was right in these variations, the Septuagint (which the Holy Spirit presumably directed New Testament writers to quote) or the Masoretic? How can "the science of textual criticism and logic" help us out in this matter? We will expect to receive a detailed explanation from him, as he prepares his next "point-by-point" reply, but I predict that we will get no more than another evasive generalization.
McDonald seems to think he has found proof in Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary that I have a responsibility to "demonstrate the falsity" of his position (fourth affirmative, p. 1). In other words, he is saying that if he wants to make a ridiculous assertion (in this case that the "original autographs" of the Bible were error free) Webster's definition of negative obligates me to show that his assertion is not true. In so doing, he even joined Bill Jackson in questioning whether my knowledge of the dictionary is what an English teacher's should be. I'm sure our readers will understand that no person, no matter who he is or what his profession may be, knows ever word and every definition of every word in a standard English dictionary, but if McDonald and Jackson are not careful, I may just make their "original autographs" of our debates available for public inspection and then let our readers, after seeing their many spelling, grammatical, and semantic errors, decide for themselves whose knowledge of the dictionary, theirs or mine, is not quite up to snuff.
The dictionary McDonald quoted has several listings of the word negative, each listing in turn having many definitions. What McDonald did was find the one that suited his purpose, and in doing so he went to the definition of negative when it is used as a transitive verb, which is a rare, uncommon usage of the word and certainly not the sense we have been using in this debate. Had he checked the noun definitions of the word, he would have found one that is expressly said to define the word as it applies to debating: "The point of view that denies or attacks the positive or affirmative" (emphasis added). So I would ask him to tell us if this is not what I have been doing, denying and attacking his position.
If his own dictionary doesn't satisfy him, he might consult any one of many others. In checking negative as it applies to debating, I found the following definitions in other versions:
The side contradicting or opposing the position upheld by the affirmative side in a debate or argument (The American Heritage Dictionary).
The side that upholds the contradictory position in a debate--opposed to affirmative (Webster's Third New International Dictionary).
The side of a question that denies or contradicts what the other side affirms, as in a debate (Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary).
In terms of what all reputable dictionaries say about the negative position in a debate, as well as what recognized rules of debating require, I have been doing exactly what the negative party is supposed to be doing at this point in the debate: I have been contradicting, opposing, and denying Mr. McDonald's position. But there is no rule of debating that obligates me to prove his absurd position is not true. So what concession did I make when I said that one cannot absolutely prove what a nonexistent document was not? I didn't concede anything that even remotely damages my position in this debate.
McDonald also sees a significant concession in my saying that "there is no way I could possibly prove that Moses did not exist," but what is the significance to this admission? "Well, if Mr. Till cannot prove that Moses did not exist," he said, "then maybe he did, and if he did then Mr. Till cannot prove (beyond a doubt) that Moses did not write (by inspiration) the first five books of the Bible" (fourth affirmative, p. 2). Such muddled thinking as this almost defies--no, scratch the almost. It doesn't almost defy; it does defy comprehension. If I should approach Mr. McDonald with the claim that I have a book that was written 3,500 years ago by a man named Yodah and that Yodah was verbally inspired by God when he wrote this book, McDonald surely wouldn't believe me. Surely, he would demand proof. He would probably even want to see evidence that this man Yodah had in fact existed. If I said in response to that demand, "Okay, I challenge you to prove that Yodah did not exist," what would he say? Would he say, "Well, I guess you've got me there; there is no way I can prove that Yodah did not exist"? No, certainly not. More probably, he would say, "I don't have to prove that Yodah existed. You're the one saying that he existed, so you're obligated to prove that he did exist." What then would be McDonald's reaction if I said, "Well, if you cannot prove that Yodah did not exist, then maybe he did, and if he did then you cannot prove (beyond a doubt) that Yodah did not write (by inspiration) this book"? Would McDonald's immediate conversion follow that statement? No, again. He would surely try to explain to me that I have a lot to learn about the rules of evidence.
That's exactly how it is with Mr. McDonald. He has a lot to learn about the rules of evidence. The prosecution asserts that Smith is guilty of murder. Smith is not obligated to prove that he is not guilty of murder; the prosecution must prove that he is guilty. Islamics assert that the Koran was written in heaven and delivered to the prophet Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel. Those who reject Islam are not obligated to prove that the Koran was not written in heaven and not delivered to the prophet Mohammed by the archangel Gabriel; Islamics must prove that these were the exact circumstances that produced the Koran. And so it is with McDonald. He asserts that the nonexistent "original autographs" of the Bible were error free. I don't have to prove that the original autographs were not error free; he must prove that they were error free. This is such an elementary rule of argumentation that it is almost embarrassing to have to waste time pointing it out.
Earlier in the debate, McDonald cautioned me (inappropriately) against argumentum ad ignorantiam (the argument from ignorance), which "is committed whenever it is argued that a proposition is true simply on the basis that it has not been proven false, or that it is false because it has not been proven true" (second affirmative, p. 6). Perhaps now it is time to suggest that he heed his own caution, because when he says that if I cannot prove that Moses did not exist, then perhaps Moses did exist, and if he did exist then I cannot prove that he did not write the Pentateuch by divine inspiration, McDonald is certainly courting the argumentum ad ignorantiam. If all he can say is, "If you cannot prove that what I am saying is not true, then maybe it is true," he is the one making the dangerous concession, because he is conceding his inability to produce solid evidence to support his proposition.
He sees concession in my saying that the existence of God would be necessary in order for the Bible to have been inspired of God, but he is only grasping at straws again when he uses this to argue that the opposite must also be true, i. e, that one would have to prove that God does not exist before he could prove that the Bible was not inspired by God. Obviously, anyone (including God) would first have to exist before he could produce anything, but merely proving that somebody existed is not enough to prove that anything and everything that may have been unjustifiably attributed to this somebody was indeed produced by him. Likewise, to prove that the anything and everything unjustifiably attributed to this somebody was not in fact produced by him, one would not have to prove that this somebody never existed. It was obviously necessary for Shakespeare to exist in order for Hamlet to have been written by him. Some scholars contend, however, that Shakespeare did not write Hamlet or any of the other famous plays attributed to him. For them to prove that Shakespeare did not write the plays, they certainly would not have to prove that he did not exist in order to prove their position. If they should ever be able to produce undeniable evidence (which none of them has yet done) that Shakespeare absolutely could not have written the plays, they will have proven their position despite the verifiable fact of Shakespeare's existence. After the death of the famous billionaire Howard Hughes, a controversial holographic document claiming to be Hughes's last will and testament surfaced. When the document was taken into court, no lawyer, no judge, no one concerned with the case even suggested that the ones questioning the authenticity of the will would have to prove that Howard Hughes never existed before they could prove that he did not write the will. The court eventually decided that the document was not Hughes's will, and they reached that decision by considering evidence internal and external to the document, but the question of Hughes's existence was never a factor in the case.
The principle involved in these examples would be true of McDonald's claim that the Bible was verbally inspired by Jehovah God. One would not have to prove absolutely that McDonald's Jehovah God does not exist before he could prove that the Bible could not have been inspired by him. McDonald has said that he would not have to prove that God does not exist in order to prove that God was not involved in the authorship of other allegedly inspired books. If he is right about this, let him stop quibbling and explain why the same principle would not apply to the Bible.
McDonald alleges other damaging concessions that I have made, but why waste more time clearing away the smokescreen he is trying to lay down in order to hide the inadequacies of his affirmative efforts? A widely recognized rule of evidence states that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. McDonald is certainly making an extraordinary claim. He is claiming that the "original autographs" of the Bible, which no longer exist, which he has never seen, which no living person has ever seen, which no known person from the past ever saw, were verbally inspired by Jehovah God and therefore were inerrant in every detail. So the claim is undeniably extraordinary, but where is his extraordinary evidence that will prove the truth of his extraordinary claim? He hasn't given us any yet, and I doubt that he can.
Let's look at the nature of his evidence. He has said, "Well, if Till cannot prove that Moses did not exist, then maybe he did exist, and if Moses did exist, then maybe he did write the Pentateuch by divine inspiration." He has argued that if God exists and if he is omniscient, then he could have inspired the authorship of the Bible. He has argued that the Bible was inspired by God, because it says that it was inspired by God. He has argued that the Bible is authoritative, because it says that it is authoritative. He has argued that the Bible is all sufficient, because it says that it is all sufficient. Ifs, maybes, could haves, and simplistic question-begging premises--these have been the major thrust of his "arguments," and certainly there is nothing extraordinary about ifs, maybes, could haves, and question-begging premises. So McDonald fails to pass one of the basic tests required by established rules of evidence. He has no extraordinary evidence to support his extraordinary claim.
He has said a lot about a hypothetical prison that he sees me inescapably locked into. Because of more important matters that I needed to address, not even to mention the sheer absurdity of the analogy, I have not said anything directly about his imaginary prison, but since he keeps bringing it up, as if he really had something to crow about, I will show him how easy it is to break out of his escape-proof prison. In his mind, I am confined in a doorless room that is inside another doorless room that is inside another doorless room, etc., etc., etc. The walls of all the rooms are made of steel and concrete, and since there are no doors or windows, in order to escape, I must break through the first wall, then the second, then the third, and so on until the last wall is torn down. Escaping, however, turns out to be not nearly as difficult as he thinks, because the walls in reality are not made of steel and concrete. They are made of tissue-thin paper.
The first "wall" in McDonald's prison concerned the existence of God. To get through this wall, according to McDonald, I must prove (absolutely) that God does not exist, but I have just shown, as I did in my very first rebuttal (pp. 1-2), that there is no merit at all to this claim. Just as he wouldn't have to prove that God does not exist in order to prove that the Book of Mormon was not inspired by God, so I don't have to prove that God does not exist in order to prove that the Bible was not inspired by God. If not, why not? He can't explain that or at least he hasn't yet. So just where is this impregnable first wall in his imaginary prison? It doesn't exist except in his imagination.
The second "wall" in his prison was his arbitrary requirement that I must "know for sure that the Bible is not of divine origin" (first affirmative, p. 12). Could somebody please tell him that on this point he has locked himself into his own prison? I am the negative party, the one denying someone else's claim. So if this role somehow requires me to know for sure that the Bible is not of divine origin, then certainly the affirmative role would require him to know for sure that the Bible is of divine origin. At this point in the debate, he is the affirmant; he is the one who is making the extraordinary claim, so he is the one who must do the proving. How many times will he have to be told this before it finally, if ever, sinks in? He is the affirmant! He is the claimer! Now let's see him try to prove his claim rather than waste time challenging me to prove that Moses did not exist or inquiring into my opinions on the issue of objective morality. Neither one of these subjects has anything to do with his proposition. If he could prove himself right, absolutely, beyond a doubt, on both points, he would still have to prove that the "original autographs" of the Bible were inspired by Jehovah God and were therefore inerrant in every detail. So where is this second wall that I must break through in order to escape from his imaginary prison? Where? He is the one who's locked inside a prison, because he has foolishly undertaken the task of affirming a ridiculous, unprovable proposition. I'm on the outside of the prison looking in, waiting for him to offer more than just silly syllogisms as proof that his proposition is true.
Some may think it unkind to call his syllogisms silly, but so far his only direct effort to prove that the Bible is "of divine origin" was a syllogism that, if not silly itself, was certainly "supported" by silly evidence:
Major Premise: The Bible is either of divine origin or it is of human origin.
Minor Premise: The Bible is not of human origin.
Conclusion: Therefore, the Bible is of divine origin.
I have analyzed this syllogism twice to show that the major premise does not include all possible sources of the Bible's origin (first rebuttal, pp. 11-14; third rebuttal, pp. 13-14), but McDonald's only response to this was an evasive dismissal: "Since Till does not believe that the Bible is of Satanic origin and since I do not believe in such, I am not going to waste my space elaborating on it" (second affirmative, p. 10). I also showed that the minor premise is, to say the least, very questionable (first rebuttal, pp. 14-17; third rebuttal, pp. 12-13), and had had nothing offered in support of it but McDonald's bad-men/good-men "argument." Bad men couldn't have written the Bible, so his argument goes, because they wouldn't have written something that condemns them; good men couldn't have written the Bible, because it claims to be inspired of God, and good men wouldn't lie. In my last rebuttal (pp. 12-14), I applied this same argument to the Koran and other allegedly inspired books to show that the same "proof" could be offered in support of their inspiration claims, but McDonald said nothing about this, even though he brags continually about answering my rebuttals "point by point." So I hope that in his point-by-point analysis of this rebuttal he will explain to us just why his bad-men/good-men "argument" would not prove equally as well that books like the Koran, the Avesta, and the Book of Mormon--which all condemn evil and claim to be divine in origin--were also inspired by God.
As far as arguments go, this one is about as simplistic as anything we have yet heard from McDonald. It reveals a mind-set that is typical of fundamentalist thinking. Logicians even have a name for it: the either-or fallacy. Sometimes it is called the black-or-white fallacy. It occurs when one sees only two categories or classifications into which a matter in dispute can be put. To such people, everything in life is either black or white. There are no gray areas in between. A fundamentalist will say, for example, that the Bible is either inspired of God or it is not. The possibility that parts of the Bible were inspired and parts were not never occurs to a person who thinks like this. It must be all or nothing as far as he is concerned. And so it is with McDonald's bad-men/good-men "argument." Before he even began his argument, he had already put all people living and dead into just two categories: good and bad. To him, then, all men are and were either good or bad. If a man honestly, but mistakenly, thought that he was inspired of God as he was writing a book and said in the text of the book that he was writing by inspiration, he would be a "bad" man to McDonald no matter how sincere he may have been in his mistaken conviction. I addressed this issue in my first rebuttal and suggested that the men who wrote the Bible were good men who were honestly mistaken, but McDonald dealt with it by setting up a straw man on the issue of moral atrocities. Since I believe that "the Old Testament almost bleeds with moral atrocities," he wondered how I could believe that good men endorsed moral atrocities (second affirmative, p. 15). The answer to that is simple: they didn't believe they were atrocities. They lived in barbaric times when such events as the Midianite and Amalekite slaughters were commonplace. Their level of civilization condoned and even applauded such behavior and believed it to be the will of their particular tribal god. To their way of thinking, they were not endorsing moral atrocities. They sincerely thought they were reporting Yahweh's will.
The only odd thing about the subject of endorsing moral atrocities is that McDonald would even bring it up, because he is the one who spent three pages (13-16) in his third affirmative manuscript endorsing the moral atrocities of the Bible. He thought that Yahweh's command to "utterly destroy" the Amalekites for something done by their ancestors 400 years before was the proper thing to do. He even argued that Yahweh did the children and infants of this nation a big favor in ordering their slaughter, because he mercifully provided them with quick death rather than slow starvation and at the same time saved their souls by keeping them from growing up to become evil heathens. Likewise, McDonald defended Moses' orders (presumably received directly from Yahweh) to kill all Midianite male children and nonvirgin women and girls but to keep the virgin girls alive "for yourselves." He danced all around this dastardly deed but could offer only Gleason Archer's word (p. 15) that this was not an act of mass rape.
To quote someone like Gleason Archer in a matter like this would be sort of like quoting the National Rifle Association to prove that the widespread ownership of handguns is a sane national policy. No matter how appalling the "divine" act, no matter how flagrant the contradiction, no matter how absurd the story, if it is recorded in the Bible, Gleason Archer is going to surmise some scenario to "explain" it, so why does McDonald even bother to quote him? There is nothing even remotely scholarly or scientific in Archer's methods. He approaches every situation with a predetermined intention to "show" that it can be harmonized with the Bible inerrancy doctrine. That makes him everything but a reputable scholar, because reputable scholars accept the conclusions that the evidence points to no matter what those conclusions might be. Archer's Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties is itself a volume almost as long as the Bible, and his is only one of many books written for the sole purpose of explaining "alleged" Bible contradictions. Think of the absurdity of it. The fundamentalists tell us that the Bible is the verbally inspired, inerrant word of God and is harmonious in every detail from cover to cover, yet this marvelously written book has spawned an industry that thrives on publishing other books to "explain" that contradictions in the Bible text aren't really contradictions. Shouldn't we expect an omniscient God to produce a more competently written inspired work than that? Certainly, we have every right to expect it, yet Bible inerrantists like Mr. McDonald would have us believe that the omniscient, omnipotent Yahweh apparently knew no more about principles of lucid writing than a lackluster college student struggling to pass freshman composition. Who can believe it?
Where then are those impregnable walls in Mr. McDonald's imaginary prison? They don't exist except in his deluded fundamentalist mind that believes when one Bible historian said that David paid 50 shekels of silver for the threshing-floor of Araunah (2 Sam. 24:24) and another said that David paid 600 shekels of gold for the same piece of property (1 Chron. 21:25), this was somehow not a contradiction; or when one "inspired" writer said that Ahaziah was 22 years old when he began to reign (2 Kings 8:26) but at the same time one of them also said that Ahaziah (Jehoram's son) was 42 when he began to reign after Jehoram's death (2 Chron.22:2), this was only a "variance" that wasn't necessarily a contradiction; or when one Bible writer said that Zedekiah was Jehoiachin's father's brother (2 Kings 24:17) and another said that Zedekiah was Jehoiachin's brother (2 Chron. 36:10), somehow this too was not a contradiction; or when Mark said that the women after encountering an angel at Jesus's empty tomb fled from it and "said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid" (16:8), but Matthew (28:8) and Luke (24:9) said that they ran from the tomb and told the disciples what they had seen, in some mysterious way these were not contradictions either; or when.... But why continue? This is more than enough to show that I am not surrounded by any impenetrable walls of an escape-proof prison. McDonald is the one locked into the prison. He has allowed his uncritical acceptance of an absurdly ridiculous religious tradition to imprison him behind more than just a wall of blind gullibility. In an act infinitely more contemptuous of social ethics than Esau's, he has sold his intellectual birthright for a mess of cheap, superstitious pottage.
McDonald argued at length that he has not been begging the question when he tries to settle an issue or prove the truth of a syllogistic premise by simply quoting where the Bible claims whatever he needs at the moment to support his argument. To beg the question, he says, the premise and the conclusion must be the same. That doing this would be begging the question is certainly true, but if he thinks that the fallacy of begging the question is no more complex than this, then he needs a crash course in basic logic. Logical fallacies can take different forms. Argumentum ad hominem, for example, can take the abusive (name-calling) form, the associative (guilt-by-association) form, or the tu quoque (likewise-you or you-too) form. Regardless of the form it takes, the argumentum ad hominem is still a fallacy designed to evade the issue by drawing attention to the opposition's character or reputation. In the same way, begging the question can go beyond its basic form of having a conclusion that is the same as the premise it is derived from. As was said by Perry Weddle, the authority that McDonald obviously doesn't like, "In good argument, premises are independent of the conclusion in the sense that support or acceptance of the premises must not come from the very thing the argument is trying to establish" (Argument: A Guide to Critical Thinking, p. 28). When this is done, Weddle went on to say, petitio principii or begging the question occurs, and this is certainly what McDonald is doing when he concocts a syllogism intended to show that the Bible is authoritative or self-sufficient or inspired or whatever and then in effect says, "I know that my premises are true, because, look, right here in such and such a place in the Bible it says that it is authoritative or self-sufficient or inspired." After all, what is McDonald trying to prove anyway? He is trying to prove that the Bible was inspired by God and is therefore inerrant. Shouldn't his evidence, then, be more substantial than what the Bible itself says on the very issue he is trying to prove? Certainly, it should.
Since he didn't like Perry Weddle's definition of begging the question, let's look at what another authority said on the same subject. In The Elements of Logic, Stephen F. Barker defined the fallacy of begging the question in this way:
An argument is called a petitio principii (or begging of the question) if the argument fails to prove anything because it somehow takes for granted what it is supposed to prove (p. 190).
Now isn't this exactly what McDonald is doing each time he quotes the Bible as proof that a premise in one of his syllogisms is true? Isn't he taking for granted that the Bible is inspired of God (the very thing he is supposed to be proving) and should therefore be accepted as absolute truth to settle all matters in dispute in this debate?
In his discussion of begging the question, Barker went on to give a hypothetical example of a form of question begging known as circular reasoning. In the example, two Moslems are discussing the subject of liquor:
"We must not drink liquor."
"Why do you say that?"
"Drinking is against the will of Allah."
"How do you know?"
"The Koran says so."
"But how do you know that the Koran is right?"
"Everything said in the Koran is right."
"How do you know that?""Why, it's all divinely inspired."
"But how do you know?"
"Why, the Koran itself declares that it is divinely inspired."
"But why believe that?"
"You've got to believe the Koran, because everything in the Koran is right."
Barker explained that this kind of reasoning is a "more extended case of begging the question," because the speaker is "taking for granted one of the things that he professes to be proving." Believe me when I say that I can readily identify with the person trying to reason with the hypothetical Moslem in this example, because I feel the same frustration every time I read McDonald's latest manuscript. Invariably, it turns out to be nothing but page after page of begging the question. To show that this is exactly what McDonald has been doing in his manuscripts, let's adapt Barker's Islamic scenario to a situation that involves the very thing McDonald is supposed to be "proving" in this debate:
"We must obey everything the Bible commands us to do."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because the Bible is divinely authoritative."
"How do you know?"
"The Bible says it is authoritative."
"But how do you know that the Bible is right about this?"
"Everything said in the Bible is right."
"How do you know that?"
"Why, it's all divinely inspired."
"But how do you know?"
"Why, the Bible itself declares that it is divinely inspired."
"But why believe that?"
"You've got to believe the Bible, because everything in the Bible is right."
Objective readers will have no difficulty seeing that this example, although overdrawn as most textbook examples are, describes a situation strikingly parallel to what McDonald has done throughout this debate. Underlying practically all of his syllogisms are hidden premises (assumptions) that he expects everyone to accept uncritically. His "argument for the Old Testament Canon" (second affirmative, p. 18) illustrates his reliance on hidden assumptions. The major premise of this syllogism states that "if the O.T. (c)anon that we have in the KJV and the ASV is the same (c)anon as that which was spoken of by Jesus, then we have the correct O.T. (c)anon," but why would the consequent of this premise (then we have the correct O.T. canon) necessarily follow the antecedent (the "if" statement)? McDonald never even tried to explain why; he just stated it and expected us to agree that the one would logically and necessarily follow the other. But why would it? Why would Jesus's perception or belief of what constituted canonical scripture have any more to do with settling the question of canonicity than my own or anyone else's view? Well, don't you see? Jesus was the son of God; Jesus was God. So whatever he did, said, or believed absolutely had to be truth. That is the hidden assumption in this syllogism. Without even an iota of effort to prove that Jesus was in fact the son of God or that he even existed, McDonald just stated his premise and then brazenly expected us to accept it without question. How does one reason with a man whose thinking is as simplistic as this?
His predisposition to assume pervades his manuscripts. One of his syllogisms was based on the premise (assumption) that "we must do everything by the authority of Christ," a premise that was supported only by a quotation from Colossians 3:17 (first affirmative, p. 18), and when I asked him to explain why we must do everything by the authority of Christ, this was his profound answer:
Why must we do everything by the authority of Christ, he asks? Simply because Christ is God and as God he was the creator of all that there is. As Creator of all that there is he is deserving of our worship, service, and obedience. Therefore, any book he wrote would be our sole authority in making our religious decisions, and any book he wrote would necessarily be free from error (fourth affirmative, p. 14).
In this answer, we have an open admission that the original syllogism was based on an
assumption,
Nothing demonstrates McDonald's penchant for assuming more than his uniqueness-of-the-Bible syllogism:
Major Premise: If it is the case that the Bible is the most unique book on earth, then it is the case that the Bible is of divine origin.
Minor Premise: It is the case that the Bible is the most unique book on earth.
Conclusion: Therefore, it is the case that the Bible is of divine origin.
Before I take this argument apart and relegate it to the trash bin where it belongs, I can't resist taking the opportunity to show Mr. McDonald that I just might know more about the dictionary than he thinks. In its Usage Note following the word unique, the American Heritage Dictionary, makes an observation that I thought just about everyone was aware of:
Unique, in careful usage, is not preceded by adverbs that qualify it with respect to degree. Examples such as rather unique, with reference to a book, and the most unique, referring to the most unusual of a rare species of animals, are termed unacceptable by 94 percent of the Usage Panel, on the ground that the quality described by unique cannot be said to vary in degree or intensity and is therefore not capable of comparison. The same objection is raised about examples in which unique is preceded by more, somewhat, and very....
I assume from McDonald's wording of his syllogism that he counts himself in the 6% who consider the qualification of unique to be acceptable. If so, he, seeming to enjoy the company of intellectual minorities, should feel right at home, for at a time when Christians, including even those in his own Church of Christ, are rejecting it in mass numbers, he persists in clinging to the inerrancy doctrine long after higher criticism has proven it to be hopelessly indefensible.
To help Mr. McDonald out of the mess he has gotten himself into, let's just imagine for the moment that he had worded his syllogism without the improper qualification of unique. This would then have him arguing that "if the Bible is a unique book, then it is of divine origin." Would there be any compelling force to such an argument as this, anything at all to suggest that there might be critically sound reasons for accepting the inerrancy doctrine? Certainly not that I can see, because the world is full of unique books. Unique means "the only one of its kind," so in that respect I am in complete agreement with him; the Bible is indeed a unique book. There isn't another one even remotely like it on earth. But the Book of Mormon is also a unique book. And so is the Koran, as well as many other allegedly sacred books. Religion has a way of spawning books that faithful believers of these religions earnestly and wholeheartedly believe are divinely inspired. So in that respect, there is nothing even approaching uniqueness about the Bible or Mr. McDonald's belief that it is the verbally inspired word of God.
I have repeatedly tried to impress upon Mr. McDonald that his claims for the Bible prove no more than similar claims that other religions make in support of their sacred books. Three times in my last rebuttal (pp. 3-4, 9-10, 13), I adapted his syllogisms to either the Koran or the Book of Mormon to show that what he sees as proof that the Bible was divinely inspired would also prove that the Koran and the Book of Mormon were also inspired. He "responded" to these counterarguments by simply saying that chapter and verse references I had cited from the other books didn't really mean what they would have to mean to make my adaptations of his syllogisms parallel to his. For my references to the Koran, I relied on Maulana Muhammad Ali's English translation and the copious footnotes that he supplied, so I assume that Mr. McDonald wants us to think that he knows more about Koranic doctrines than a respected Islamic scholar.
In reply to my adaptation of another of his syllogisms to the Book of Mormon, he said, "The passage that Till refers to does not refer to the book of Mormon, but rather a book that is being prophecied [sic] about by the book of Mormon. If it were the Book of Mormon it would be prophecying [sic] about itself. Really!" (fourth affirmative, p. 14-15). It is almost embarrassing to have to take time to respond to such muddled thinking as this. Like the Bible, the Book of Mormon purports to be a volume of smaller books that were written over a long period of time and then eventually collected under one cover when the angel Moroni revealed the golden plates (perhaps the "original autographs"?) to Joseph Smith, who then translated them into English. Second Nephi, the particular book that I quoted, allegedly was a separate book at one time from Jacob, Mosiah, Alma, and the other "books" that comprise the Book of Mormon. In this respect, the short book 2 Nephi could have prophesied of an eventual greater collection of latter day revelations known as the Book of Mormon in the same way that any single Old Testament book could have prophesied of the eventual collection of 66 sacred small books into one canonical volume known as the Bible. Really!
As for whether 2 Nephi 27 is considered a prophetic reference to the eventual revelation of the Book of Mormon, I will just let McDonald argue with the Mormons about this. The title page to my copy of the Book of Mormon states that it is an official publication of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, and at the beginning of each chapter, as many versions of the Bible also have, brief chapter headers are printed. At 2 Nephi 27, two of these headers say, "The Book of Mormon shall come forth--Three witnesses shall testify of the book." Obviously, then, my adaptation of Mr. McDonald's syllogism to the Book of Mormon (third rebuttal, pp. 9-10) was a proper analogy, so he is obligated to show us just why his argument proves the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Bible but does not prove the verbal inspiration and inerrancy of the Book of Mormon. Let him explain, then, why an inspiration claim in the Book of Mormon must be disregarded, but inspiration claims in the Bible text should be accepted at face value as definitive proof that it was unquestionably inspired of God.
McDonald even thought that he had found textual evidence in the Book of Mormon that it "disavows any claim of divine inspiration" (fourth affirmative, p.15). As it turned out, what McDonald had found were statements like 1 Nephi 1:3, "And I know that the record which I make is true; and I make it with mine own hand; and I make it according to my knowledge." He also quoted similar statements from 1 Nephi 19:6 and Jacob 7:26, but in citing these passages, the only thing he has done is cast doubt on the inspiration of the Bible, which contains like disavowals of inspiration. In 1 Corinthians 7:25, the apostle Paul said, "Now concerning virgins I have no commandment of the Lord: but I give my own judgment, as one that hath obtained mercy of the Lord to be trustworthy." What? Paul was giving only his "own judgment" here! Well, my, my, whatever happened to the claim that Bible writers spoke as they were "moved by the Holy Spirit"? From reading this verse, one would never guess that that was how the Bible was written. Prior to this statement, Paul had said in verse six on the subject of marital duties, "But this I say by way of concession, not of commandment." In beginning his gospel account, Luke said that he had "traced the course of all things accurately from the first" in order to write his story of the life of Jesus, but if he were inspired of God as he was writing, why would it have been necessary for him to do research? In sending forth his disciples in what is sometimes called the "limited commission," Jesus told them that they would be delivered up to councils and governors and kings but to "be not anxious how or what ye shall speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what ye shall speak. For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you" (Matt. 10:19-20). Wouldn't that be an accurate description of how verbal inspiration would work? The person being inspired would not have to give prior thought or study to what he would say, because the Holy Spirit would on the spot, at the moment of need, guide him to say the appropriate thing. If this is so, why then did Luke feel the need to research his subject before writing his gospel account?
So once again Mr. McDonald has gotten himself into a peck of trouble. Using the methods he has shown us thus far, every time he makes an argument to prove the inspiration of the Bible, he simultaneously proves the inspiration of the Koran, the Book of Mormon, the Avesta, and all other allegedly inspired books. And now by "proving" that the Book of Mormon was not inspired, he has proven that the Bible couldn't have been inspired either. How many times can he shoot himself in the foot and still remain in the debate?
His argument is that the Bible is unique and therefore inspired of God, but, as I said, the world is full of unique books, many of which claim to be divinely inspired. In the introduction to his translation of the Koran, Maulana Muhammad Ali said this about the uniqueness of the Islamic holy book:
In fact, the transformation wrought by the Holy Qur'an is unparalleled in the history of the world. No other reformer brought about such an entire change in the lives of a whole nation in his lifetime. The Qur'an found the Arabs worshippers of idols, stones, trees, heaps of sand, and yet, within less than a quarter of a century, the worship of the One God ruled the whole country, idolatry being wiped out from one end to the other. It swept away all superstitions and gave in their place the most rational religion that the world could imagine. The Arab who prided himself in his ignorance had, as if by a magician's wand, become the lover of knowledge, drinking deep at every fountain of learning to which he could get access. This was the direct effect of the teachings of the Qur'an, which not only appealed to reason, ever and anon, but declared man's thirst for knowledge to be insatiable.... The Qur'an effected a transformation of humanity from the lowest depths of degradation to the highest pinnacle of civilization within an incredibly short time where centuries of reformation work had proved fruitless. To its unparalleled nature, testimony is borne by the non-Muslim, sometimes anti-Muslim historian... (p. vii).
These, of course, are merely the words of an Islamic zealot, and as such they prove no more than parallel claims that Zoroastrians make for the Avesta or fundamentalist Christians make for the Bible. It is, however, the very parallelism of the claims that I want Mr. McDonald to take note of in his next "point-by-point" response to my counterarguments. He should tell us why an argument that won't prove the inspiration of the Koran will somehow prove the inspiration of the Bible.
McDonald says that the Bible is unique in its portrayal of Bible characters in that it reported the good as well as the bad about them. Well, okay, let's assume that this is so. What is there about this that proves inspiration? Does he mean to imply that all history books that honestly and objectively depict the characters in them were inspired of God? If not, why not? While he is at it, he might explain to us the significance of how the Chronicles writer(s) cleaned up many unsavory parts of the books of Samuel and Kings. If honest depiction of character proves inspiration, wouldn't failure to do this, as was certainly true of the Chronicles author(s), prove lack of inspiration? Or has McDonald ever even noticed this about the Chronicles?
Another "unique" feature of the Bible, McDonald says, is its historical teaching. "All of it is accurate," he further said (fourth affirmative, p. 24). So with the sweep of a pen, he has made another hasty generalization with apparently no consideration at all having been given to the need to prove such an assertion as this. All history in the Bible from 1 Samuel through 2 Chronicles is accurate! I would very much like to see him prove that. I would like to know how he would even propose to prove such an outrageous assumption. The Moabite Stone, an archaeological discovery of 1868, dates from about 930 BC and records the Moabite version of a battle described in 2 Kings 3:21-27. The Moabite account of this battle differs significantly from the biblical version, particularly in declaring that the Moabites routed the Israelites in battle rather than the other way around as in the biblical version. So who is to say that the Bible account is accurate and the Moabite stone inaccurate? What grounds can McDonald give us for accepting the biblical version over the Moabite version? Archaeological excavations at Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, uncovered inscribed murals in Sennacherib's palace that depicted the battles of Lachish and Jerusalem that were also recorded in 2 Kings 18 and 19. According to the Bible, Sennacherib's army was defeated at Jerusalem because an angel of Yahweh passed over the Assyrian camp by night and struck 185,000 soldiers dead so that Sennacherib had to withdraw his army in defeat. The Assyrian record states, however, that Sennacherib was victorious at Jerusalem and withdrew his army only after extracting a heavy tribute from Hezekiah, the king of Judah (D. Winston Smith, Documents from Old Testament Times, pp. 64-69). The biblical account clearly indicates that the Assyrian army was stricken by some plague that caused the overnight death of 185,000 soldiers, but the Assyrian record makes no reference at all to any such calamity. Now, isn't that strange? An army suffered a disastrous loss like this, but in the national archives that recorded the military expedition in great detail, no mention of the disaster was made. It is even stranger that historical documents like these that obviously conflict with the biblical record are known and have been known for decades, but fundamentalist preachers never refer to them in their sermons. They just go on their merry way, proclaiming the Bible to be wondrously accurate in every detail. And gullible pulpit audiences, to their everlasting shame, swallow it all, hook, line, and sinker. Anyway, we will now wait to see just how long Mr. McDonald will want to stick to his claim that all history in the Bible is accurate.
Another "unique" aspect of the Bible, according to McDonald, is its "teachings on prophecy." What a relief to finally have this on the table! A debate on the inerrancy issue just wouldn't be a debate unless the inerrancy defender dragged out this worn-out piece of balderdash. He referred to the alleged virgin birth of Jesus as a fulfillment of a prophecy spoken in Isaiah 7:14, "Behold a virgin shall conceive and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel," but the only "proof" we have that this was indeed a prophecy fulfillment is Matthew's mere word--and that is not good enough, not nearly good enough. When the reliability of Matthew's testimony about the fulfillment of Micah 5:2 came up in my debate with Bill Jackson, I made the following observations that are equally applicable to the issue McDonald has raised about the alleged virgin birth:
He argues that prophecy fulfillment provides marvelous evidence that the Bible is the inspired word of God. What about all those amazing prophecies uttered in "ages past" that "man could not manipulate or connive an end (to) across the centuries"? How do I explain that? Well, the explanation is quite simple. They never happened except in the fertile imaginations of a few religious mystics whose fanciful interpretations of certain events have been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by gullible people like our Mr. Jackson.
Jackson claims, for example, that Micah 5:2 was fulfilled by the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem of Judea. How does he know this? Well, Matthew told him so (2:5-6). The fact that no contemporary event seemed too insignificant for Matthew to see prophecy fulfillment in it doesn't seem to faze Mr. Jackson. If Matthew said it, that's good enough for him. What Jackson will probably never understand is that just because it's good enough for him doesn't mean that it's good enough for people who use logic to determine what should or should not be believed. Matthew, for example, saw fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 in the flight into and return from Egypt of Joseph's family (2:15). And what does Hosea 11:1 say? "When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt." The context of this statement shows very clearly that Hosea intended this statement as a reference to the Israelite exodus from Egypt. Jackson can talk until he is blue in the face about the "double intention" of some prophecies, and the truth will still remain: if Matthew had not imaginatively applied this statement to Jesus, no one would have thought it referred to anything but the Israelite exodus.
This Matthew who saw fulfillment of Hosea 11:1 in Joseph's flight into Egypt was the same Matthew who saw fulfillment of prophecy in Joseph's decision to take his family to Nazareth on their return from Egypt: "(A)nd being warned of God in a dream, he withdrew into the parts of Galilee, and came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through the prophets, that he should be called a Nazarene" (2:22-23). The only problem is that none of the prophets ever said anything that Bible scholars have been able to identify as Matthew's point of reference, yet he didn't just say that a prophet had said this; he said that the prophets (plural) had so prophesied. If it is true that the prophets did make this prediction, why can't anybody find at least one reference to it? The fact is, as I'm sure even Mr. Jackson knows, the Old Testament doesn't mention the town of Nazareth or Nazarenes a single time. Yet he expects us to swoon over Matthew's claim that the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem fulfilled Micah 5:2 (Jackson-Till Debate, p. 17).
Matthew, then, wasn't exactly a shining example of intellectual reliability, so with a record like his, we have to take anything he said about something as extraordinary as prophecy fulfillment with not just a grain but a bucket of salt. Anyone could write a document and claim that such and such an event fulfilled such and such a prophecy, so McDonald's task at this point is to show us some sound, sensible reasons why, in view of Matthew's questionable credibility on prophecy fulfillment, we should believe that the birth of Jesus fulfilled the Isaiah 7:14 prophecy. Even more important than that, we need to see proof that Isaiah even intended this as a prophecy of something as remote from his day as the birth of Jesus. The context of Isaiah 7:1-17 clearly indicates that the birth of the child referred to in verse 14 was to be a sign to King Ahaz that the military alliance between Rezin, king of Syria, and Pekah, king of Israel, would not succeed in its war against Judah. So if the statement was made as a sign relating to contemporary events, how could it have been a prophecy of something that would not happen till some 700 years later? Furthermore, according to 2 Chronicles 28, the Syrian-Israelite alliance against Judah did succeed, so even as a contemporary "sign," Isaiah 7:14 proved to be a prophetic dud. Why then should we consider it a wonderful prophecy of Jesus's birth 700 years later? Perhaps Mr. McDonald can tell us.
Once again he has presented me with another list of questions intended to draw attention away from his inability to produce credible evidence to support his proposition, but before I answer his questions this time, I want to comment first on an unethical tactic he has been using in commenting on my answers to past questions. Perhaps the readers have noticed it too. If an answer doesn't satisfy him, he simply disregards it and substitutes one that suits his purpose. Before each of his questions, he warns that if I don't answer, he will assume such and such, and I have been wondering what gives him the right to do this. If I should overlook any of his questions either through neglect or purposeful intention, that would not give him the right to assume anything about what I may or may not believe about the subjects the questions refer to. As it is, I have not avoided any of his questions; I have answered them all. In some cases, I just couldn't give the simple true or false answers that he demanded, so whenever this happened, he would immediately leap to say things like this: "He did not answer with a true or false answer, so as was stated in the question, we will assume that his answer is true"(fourth affirmative, p. 23). This was said in reference to my answer to question two in his third list, so let's look at the question and the answer I gave to it:
Question: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "It is false that God, as a divine being, and as creator of all life, would have the right to decide who should live and who should die without becoming guilty of real (objective) moral wrong."
Answer: If objective moral laws do in fact exist, then God, if he too exists, would also be subject to those objective moral laws, wouldn't he? If not, why not? Will McDonald say that it is all right for God to be objectively immoral?
That was an honest attempt to answer his question. He keeps wagging the subject of objective morality into this debate, even though I have repeatedly told him that I do not believe objective morality exists. Believing as I do, then, how could I answer either true or false to a question that assumes objective wrongdoing is possible? If objective morality does not exist, then obviously objective wrongdoing is impossible no matter whether the question relates to acts done by Adolf Hitler or Yahweh Elohim. If objective morality doesn't exist, then it simply doesn't exist, and if it doesn't, how could objective wrong be committed by anyone? If, however, I am wrong and objective morality does exist, then God himself would have to be subject to the requirements of that system of objective morality, wouldn't he? Having already made my position on objective morality abundantly clear, I had to consider the question theoretically and give it a theoretical answer. But my reply didn't satisfy McDonald, so he answered the question the way he wanted me to answer it so that he could then distort and misrepresent my position on a subject that doesn't even relate to this debate. Did anyone notice, by the way, that I posed a counterquestion that McDonald didn't answer? "If objective moral laws do in fact exist, then God, if he too exists, would also be subject to those objective moral laws, wouldn't he?" Perhaps he will favor us with a reply this time around.
Now, to answer his latest round of questions, I will restate them for the convenience of the readers:
One: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) Knowledge can come by reading about something as well as being there to see it, hear it, touch it, taste it, and/or smell it.
Answer: False (let's see if this satisfies him). Verifiable knowledge can be acquired only through one or more of the five senses. If one reads about a subject, he can come to know what the writers thought or believed about the subject, but he cannot know if they were right about what they thought or believed.
Two: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer, we will assume that your answer is true.) "... To sustain his position, he must therefore prove that, even though he lives in the 20th century, he has somehow perceived through one or more of his five senses the exact circumstances under which all the books of the Bible were originally written hundreds and even thousands of years ago so that he can now, in our time, know that all of these books were written by the inspiration of God. In order to have experienced such perceptions, however, he would have had to have been all of the men God persumably [sic] chose to write the Bible so that he could attest to whatever they saw, heard, tasted, smelled, and/or felt when they were writing under the influence of divine guidance. If not that, at the very least he would have had to have been with these inspired men while they were writing the Bible so that he could testify to having perceived in some way whatever happens when men are divinely inspired to write."
Answer: This statement is true; I made it in my first rebuttal in the Laws-Till Debate. What galls McDonald is that he cannot prove it wrong.
Three: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "It is valid for one to use logic, and the testimony of other [sic], and the authorities to prove the inspiration of the Bible."
Answer: This is a question that I cannot give a simple true or false answer to, so I may as well let McDonald assume that my answer is true, as he will anyway if I try to give an honest answer to the question. I will just let him sit and wonder what my answer would have been if he hadn't been in such an assuming mood.
Four: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "God was guilty of real moral atrocities when he had Saul utterly destroy the Amalekites."
Answer: If real (objective) morality exists, then the answer is true. God was guilty of real (objective) moral atrocity (if objective morality does in fact exist). This is a good time to press McDonald for an answer to my question that he ignored in his last manuscript. If a system of objective morality does in fact exist, would God be subject to the requirements of that system?
Five: Is the following statement true or false? (If you do not answer we will assume that your answer is true.) "The Old Testament almost bleeds with moral atrocities perpetrated presumably in obedience to Yahweh's commands."
Answer: True. I made this statement earlier, and I will stick to it. Please notice, however, that I said "moral atrocities," not "objective moral atrocities."
Turn about is fair play, so I have a set of my own questions for Mr. McDonald to answer:
At the outset of this debate, Mr. McDonald proposed to prove that the Bible was verbally inspired by God. He is now down to his last affirmative manuscript and has yet to produce any evidence that supports his claim. So far, about all he has been able to do is say, "The Bible is inspired of God, because it says that it is inspired of God." If he can't see how unconvincing this line of reasoning is to people who use critical thinking in deciding what to believe and what not to believe, there isn't much hope of his ever becoming an able spokesman for the inerrancy doctrine.
Let's hope that in his last affirmative effort he will at last give us something worthy of serious consideration. Quite frankly, I'm a little weary of bibliolaters who want to debate the inerrancy issue but can't deliver on their promise to prove that the Bible was verbally inspired of God.
Go to McDonald's Fifth Defense
