RE: [TruthTalk] Exegetical Fallacies and Generational Sin

[Jonathan Hughes]

Hi Terry,   Your exact words were:   Bill reopened this can of worms for me a couple of days back.  Judy responded to it.  Both made some points, some good points, yet I was left wondering, as I have been for a long time, as to just what God expects of His people in time of war. Jesus and Peter and Paul all dealt with military men . A couple of centurions and a prison guard as I remember.  None of them were told to give up their careers as a condition of salvation, so it would seem that there is a place for Christians in the military.   What I attributed to you was the use of the ‘argument from silence’ technique.  What I tacked on to the end of my sentence was to illustrate how people take an ‘argument from silence’ and extrapolate it; I no longer had you in mind.  My desire was to do a difficult thing: to use examples from this forum and to show the entire process that happens when this type of interpretation is used.  By showing the entire process I was hoping to take some heat away from the actual examples so that people did not feel attacked.  Consider my post a failure at this point.  I can see how you may be thinking that I am making my own ‘argument from silence’ here.  Fair enough.   This aside, what do you think of the content of my post?  Do you think using ‘arguments from silence’ is a responsible way of interpreting the Bible?   Jonathan   From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Terry Clifton Sent: Sunday, June 27, 2004 11:44 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Re: [TruthTalk] Exegetical Fallacies and Generational Sin   Jonathan Hughes wrote:     This is a dangerous and reckless way of interpreting scripture.  Last week Terry and Judy both made use of the argument from silence technique.  If Paul or Jesus did not ask any of the centurions/members of the military to leave the military then we must assume that being in the military is ok, and more so assume that it is a good thing (i.e. increase it from being acceptable to being a good moral choice). ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Please Jonathan, tell me when I concluded that, and what my exact words were.  I do not recall making any such statement  as that in bold type that you have attributed to me. Terry