2/18/05

Regrettably, Hays reveals himself no more interested in depth study than White. His comments are, as White's, in the form of a blog, and he as much as admits his inability to deal with the case holistically as he too deigns to deal with only what he calls "major arguments." This is a grave mistake, as with White. In what follows what Hays quotes from me is in bold; his response in italics; my counter in normal type.

It is our contention that Romans 9 may be better understood in terms of the rubric of primary causality. But we anticipate the objection that we would be thereby reading into the text a concept not found therein. Our answer is that we would not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by Paul -- because such an "explanation expectation" would be the product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one, like Paul's.

Even if we were to accept this description of the Hebrew mind, this amounts to a preemptive admission that he's not doing exegesis on Rom 9. Instead, he's using the Aristotelian category of primary causality as an interpretive grid through which to filter Rom 9. But, in that event, this has nothing to do with what Paul meant. It does even attempt to construe the text in light of original intent.

It didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in. Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context -- there is no "even if" about this; it is a recognized, endorsed concept noted by social science and anthropological scholars, supported by the consensus -- but more than that, there is the pompously arrogant designation of what I offer as not being "exegesis" simply because it appeals to an external. That is the same nonsensical argument White has been throwing around all this time. The definition of exegesis is, Critical explanation or analysis, especially of a text. It does not say, "Critical explanation or analysis of a text without reference to anything outside the text used to understand it." No external -- not even Aristotelian categories -- is exclusive to exegesis. Hays, like White, cuts off his own nose to spite his face, unwittingly also eliminating the use of lexicons and grammars. As for the rest of the blather, we will see.

At this point there's nothing for the Calvinist to rebut. The Calvinist has exegeted Rom 9 (e.g., Murray, Piper, Schreiner). Holding has offered no contrary interpretation, based on text and context.

One suggests that Hays clean his glasses, as such was indeed provided, even if not in the atomizing sense he desires. Of course if there is nothing to rebut, one wonders what Hays spent 11 pages writing about.

The thinking of the ancient Hebrew is not, as ours, concerned with precision. As Marvin Wilson points out in Our Father Abraham, "The nature of Hebrew [the language] is to paint verbal pictures with broad strokes of the brush. The Hebrew authors of Scripture were not so much interested in the fine details and harmonious pattern of what is painted as they were in the picture as a whole. Theirs was primarily a description of what the eye sees rather than what the mind speculates."

This strikes me an obvious exaggeration. It depends on the subject-matter. It depends on what they're interested in. When it came to personal and social ethics, Jewish thinkers could get very detailed and draw very precise distinctions indeed.

Here again Hays proves himself in over his head with subject matter. He does attempt something of an answer beyond the vague, non-specific appeal to what "Jewish thinkers" did (yet were these thinkers influenced by Hellenism, like Philo?), though it is grossly misdirected:

As long as we're going to indulge in breezy generalities about the Hebrew mind, here's one from a more qualified source than Wilson:

More qualified? Wilson is a professor of Biblical and theological studies at Gordon College and a leading scholar of Christian-Jewish relations. Hays' reply source is Cyrus Gordon, citing Harry Wolfson -- a professor of Hebrew literature and philosophy, who died in 1974. More qualified? Doubtful; though perhaps equitable, and certainly not up to date as Wilson would be. Nevertheless, the quote used isn't even relevant, and in fact, only supports my point, to wit:

'I once asked Prof. Harry Wolfson of Harvard U, a savant in ancient and medieval Greek as well as Jewish philosophy, how he evaluated the Greek mind, as exemplified by Aristotle, vis-a-vis the Talmudic mind. He replied, "if you compare a Greek philosophic treatise with a Talmudic tractate, obviously the Greek is orderly and easy to follow, whereas the rabbinic is disorderly and circuitous. But if you compare the mental horsepower of the Greek philosopher and the rabbinic sage, the latter is superior." That was not the answer I expected, but eventually I realized that Wolfson was right,' C. Gordon, A Scholar's Odyssey (Society of Biblical Literature 2000), 5-6.

That's very nice, but if anything, this only tends to support my point. "Disorderly and circuitous" is precisely how a Greek mind would see expressions of block logic. Mental horsepower isn't germane to the particular of expression I cited, so it ends up that Hays only ends up proving my point with his displaced quotation.

'In terms of theology, this means that God's existence is never argued, but assumed; "God is not understood philosophically, but functionally." God is thought of in terms of what He does.'

It would be nice if Hays had done more than refer to a broad swath of eight chapters to prove his point, but that he admits that the point is nevertheless overall correct speaks for itself. And what of that exception, Is. 40-48? Hays apparently has exegeted some new definition of "apologetic" with which the rest of us are unfamiliar. There is nothing of such an apologetic anywhere in these chapters -- nothing like a kalam cosmological or a moral argument in sight. At most there is a polemic against ineffectual false gods, but this is not at all the same thing as an argument for God's existence. Hays offers thus yet another misplaced retort.

'Wilson concludes, therefore, that the Hebrews would have had "little or no interest" in many issues we consider important, including the debate over free will and predestination.'

On the face of it, this claim is palpable false. For starters, just read Warfield's article on 'Predestination' (Works 2:3-67), in which he lays out quite a lot of the Biblical data on this topic.

There's nothing like a non-specific non-answer composed of a reference and nothing else. I will not endorse Hays' laziness by looking up what he should have provided in the first place -- actual data. If this is how Calvinist response is done, little wonder pomposity is a primary weapon of their apologists. Please note that mere statements of predestination (as for example Jer. 1:5) do not in the least constitute "interest" in depth understanding of predestination, any more than a comment on the pleasant weather indicates "high interest" in the science of meteorology. Perhaps for those of Hays' repute, such simplicity is what amounts to depth, but that is why apologetics is in such a depraved state to begin with, with the likes of McDowell at the top of reading lists when they are better left for kindling.

i) Holding is extrapolating from one particular literary genre (wisdom literature) to Hebrew psychology. This is a huge leap of logic. It extrapolates from one genre to all genres, and then extrapolates from a literary genre to national character. Indeed, the fact that Bible writers alternate between different genres goes to show that they are not intellectually straight-jacketed.

This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with. More than that, I am not "extrapolating from one genre to psychology"; Hays has merely confused order of presentation for steps in argumentative progression. No, psychology is at the root; wisdom literature is merely the most clear expression of the block logic format that could be used for illustration purposes. This has nothing to do with genres per se. It remains that psychology is at the root, and thus the expression indeed would not be limited to genre, but appear in ALL genres, even epistles like Romans. Hays is once again badly misdirected. Moreover, ability to leap between genres is no pointer for being able to escape mental pathways. Perhaps we will be given the excuse that the Spirit inspired Paul to think like a Renaissance churchman specially for this occassion.

ii) There is nothing Hegelian about Job or Ecclesiastes. In both cases, the existential problem lies with God's inscrutable providence. I have offered my own interpretation of both books in my essay on 'Vanity of vanities.'

One wishes Hays would provide an actual answer to the real point that we "might loosely compare to a Hegelian case of combining thesis and antithesis, to arrive at a synthesis". Is he denying that this is what is done as process? "God's inscrutable providence" is not the point here; the point here is resemblance of a particular method of Hegel to a particular method of the wisdom genre. Hays is manifestly lost at even grasping the point, and merely throws out some pious remarks guaranteed to keep the staunch Calvinist reader shouting Hallelujah!" rather than understanding what is being said.

iii) It should be needless to say that the dialogical genre is a staple of Western philosophy, viz., Socrates, Plato, Berkeley, Hume.

Another non-point. At most it would only suggest that we could find Western parallels to the Eastern practice, without disproving my point. More than that, the most critical point is missed: Do these Western dialogues take the tack of "work it out yourselves" or do they give the answer in a can, with the dialogue as merely a vehicle for the "crash test dummy" to act as a talking head to which the genius responds with the answers -- or to actually give answers? Hays once again grossly simplifies the matter in order to provide an answer of no worth or relevance.

'Hebrew "block logic" operated on similar principles. "...[C]oncepts were expressed in self-contained units or blocks of thought. These blocks did not necessarily fit together in any obviously rational or harmonious pattern, particularly when one block represented the human perspective on truth and the other represented the divine. This way of thinking created a propensity for paradox, antimony, or apparent contradiction, as one block stood in tension -- and often illogical relation -- to the other. Hence, polarity of thought or dialectic often characterized block logic." Examples of this in practice are the alternate hardening of Pharaoh's heart by God, or by Pharaoh himself; and the reference to loving Jacob while hating Esau -- both of which, significantly, are referred to often by Calvinist writers.'

i) There is nothing paradoxical about the hardening of Pharaoh The Bible cues the reader with a couple of programmatic statements (Exod 4:21-22; 7:2-3), the function of which is to supply a hermeneutical framework for what follows in the subsequent narrative. The text is flawlessly logical. The problem lies with careless readers like Wilson and Holding.

This is just more pious Calvinist blatherskeit; more "give glory to God, you heathen" pulpit-pouding. We are told that we'd better find it "flawlessly logical," by gum, or the flames of hell await you! But in fact Hays has merely picked one word out of my paragraph (paradox) and assumed that this would adequately represent the whole of the point. It does not. This story is cited more broadly as an example of polarity and dialectic, as Glenn Miller has described it:

God seems to deal with us (in many cases) in spirals...in other words, if I choose to reject his truth in my life in favor of a lie, he will resist me for a while, but eventually will 'turn me over' to what I want--to teach me a lesson.

There is thus a polarity in the treatment God gives to us. The same can be said of the Esau example, to which Hays offers this equally misdirected comment:

ii) The second illustration is even worse that the first. We would only have an antinomy of God was said to both love and loathe Jacob, both love and loathe Esau. Holding's illustration is simply incompetent.

Once again Hays arbitrarily selects the word "antimony" from out of its place and applies it where he pleases, in order to manufacture a problem. But no, as even he admits, there is a polarity: Love and hate, Jacob and Esau. In other words, block logic. (As an aside, I should make clear that I refer to Jacob and Esau, as Paul does, in corporate terms; they and their descendants -- not just the single persons.)

Wilson continues: "Consideration of certain forms of block logic may give one the impression that divine sovereignty and human responsibility were incompatible. The Hebrews, however, sense no violation of their freedom as they accomplish God's purposes." The back and forth between human freedom and divine sovereignty is a function of block logic and the Hebrew mindset.'

i) I've already shown that block-logic is a fiction foisted upon Scripture by Wilson and Holding.

Hays is welcome to his fantasies in thinking that a quote that actually supports my point refutes it.

ii) But, assuming for the sake of argument, that block-logic is a feature or even fixture of Scripture, then should that not be normative for Christians?

Why? Would it be a threat to Hays if it were? Whether it ought to be "normative" for Christians is up to each person; but if it was normative for the writers of the inspired text, then it had darned well better become part of our interpretative grid, otherwise we will be disrespecting the text and making it a ventriloquist dummy for our own ideas and preferences. What does Hays hope to accomplish with this silly implied threat, which amounts to gross ethnocentrism?

Wilson and Holding are treating the logic of Scripture as a culture-bound casket which they are at liberty to bury in an unmarked grave. But the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture.

No more idiotic statement could be made. Hays exemplifies the sort of person who decontextualizes the text under the thin veneer of pompous piety. One may as well speak of Scripture as "language-bound" to Hebrew and Greek. The grave is unmarked only to those who hide their heads in the sand and refuse to confront the text in its original contexts -- ALL of them, not just the ones that make us happy.

'What this boils down to is that Paul presents us with a paradox in Romans 9, one which he, as a Hebrew, saw no need to explain. "..[T]he Hebrew mind could handle this dynamic tension of the language of paradox" and saw no need to unravel it as we do. And that means that we are not obliged to simply accept Romans 9 at "face value" as it were, because it is a problem offered with a solution that we are left to think out for ourselves. There will be nothing illicit about inserting concepts like primary causality, otherwise unknown in the text.'

What paradox? Paul repeatedly explains the relation between divine and human agency in terms of divine priority and purpose (9:11-18,21-23).

'Consider this now as well with reference to Pilch and Malina's observation that in an ancient context, "mercy" is better rendered as "gratitude" or "steadfast love" -- as in, "the debt of interpersonal obligations for unrepayable favors received." Mercy is not involved with feelings of compassion, as today, but the "paying of one's debt of interpersonal obligation by forgiving a trivial debt." To say, "Lord, have mercy!" (Matt. 20:31) means, "Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us!" Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are.'

i) Yet another exaggeration. There are basically two forms of petitionary prayer in Scripture. One is where the suppliant calls upon God to remember his covenantal promises. The other is a confession of sin, and plea that God not judge us according to our sins, but be merciful.

What this has to do with anything I wrote, is hard to say. I don't say anything contrary to the above, though perhaps Hays means to imply that the latter examples are not examples of covenant obligation. Since he gives no example from the text, no specific answer can be made, but it can be noted that such prayers of confession come from persons in a covenant relationship with God, for whom indeed "mercy" would mean that they are calling on God to fulfill His promise to forgive sin.

ii) Even in the former case, we did nothing to earn God's covenant promises. This isn't back-pay for services rendered. To cast the divine party in the role of the client, and the human party in the role of the patron, is such a grotesque inversion of Biblical priorities that we might as well class it with other heresies such as gnosticism.

No one said anything about "earning" God's covenant promises. They were given by God; God does not lie; so God will fulfill His promises. I am having a good discussion with "Lee" in the TWeb thread linked above that captures this point. Beyond this I will claim responsibility for an error: I did mix up client and patron in the last sentence. This is now corrected.

iii) Whoever said that the Reformed definition of divine mercy must ascribe certain feelings to God?

Whether it does or not is beside the point; I refer here to a general definition of mercy, which is indeed associated often with compassion. Though we assume that Hays believes that God displays compassion, feelings or not.

'Consider again our example of the three worlds. There is no possible world in which all are saved. God as Prime Mover, He who in sovereign freedom chose one world over all the others possible, in this manner thereby in essence decrees as well who the elect and non-elect will be, without in any way removing our ability to freely choose. Remember that just because God knows we will do X does not mean that we must do X, as if by force.'

i) This, of course, is classic Molinism. Holding offers no exegetical support for such a position.

No, just what I support exegetically with interpretive externals that by Hays' stulted definition of "exegesis" are not allowed to interpret the text. As for the rest, treating Molinism like a curse word is not an answer, as in:

ii) He also ignores philosophical criticisms of Molinism, such as the grounding objection. In addition, some libertarians (open theism) are critics of Molinism. So the attack is not limited to the Reformed front.

That's nice. So what? As noted, I had no idea that I was offering Molinism when I first wrote this. The key issue is, can Hays (or anyone) show that the illustration is wrong? What does he deny? Does he deny that God was free to choose among possible worlds to create? Does he say that God's knowledge forces us to do things? What is it he wants to actually criticize? Is he indeed capable of more than throwing around vague references?

After this come extensive quotes from my excursus on Jer. 7:22; and:

And thus we now pose the Calvinists another question: Is there any reason why the "not" in Romans 9:16 (as well as in a similar passage, John 1:12-13) should not be read in the same sense as the "not" in Jer. 7:22 -- as a negation idiom, not excluding the thing denied, but rather, stressing the prior importance of God's sovereignty in contrast? Given the Hebraic background, I think the burden is upon those who would read "not" absolutely rather than otherwise.'

i) John and Romans were not written in Hebrew to Hebrew-speaking Jews. The linguistic culture of 1C Jews is not all of a piece. According to Angel Saenz-Badillos, in A History of the Hebrew Language (Cambridge 1996), Greek was the lingua franca, while Hebrews was spoken by Judean Jews and Aramaic by Galilean Jews.

Sorry, but John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection. We have already answered this point above, and vague references to a huge book are not answers.

And what does Holding identify as the linguistic community of Hellenistic Jews like St. Stephen or the author of Hebrews?

What's the point of asking? Stephen would probably not have been raised in Hebrew culture; so likewise Hebrews' author (who I take to be Luke).

ii) In this general connection, many of the ancients were multi-lingual. Are we to suppose that everyone whom Abraham came into contact with, in his far-flung travels, spoke the mother-tongue of Ur. Moses was at least bilingual (Hebrew, Egyptian), and his royal education may well have trained him in languages of the Levant and Mesopotamia. Did Solomon, the most cosmopolitan of kings, speak only one language? Paul was at least trilingual (Greek, Hebrew, Aramaic).

And this only adds to my point. Even multi-lingual persons retain the affectations of their native tongue. The question, "Are we to suppose that everyone whom Abraham came into contact with, in his far-flung travels, spoke the mother-tongue of Ur" is just plain asinine in its irrelevancy. Moses, raised Egyptian, would retain "interference" from his Egyptian linguistic habits even as he learned Hebrew, and that would remain the same no matter how many new languages he learned. The same for Paul, though the degree of interference would vary, and be in accord with factors about the life of Moses and Paul about which we have little information. Hays' comment hereafter is grossly naive and sadly misinformed:

You cannot acquire any conversational fluency if you are consciously translating from your mother-tongue to a second-language. There comes a point when you are no longer thinking in your native language. Kids from one linguistic community who play with kids from another linguistic community quickly pick up an idiomatic command of the second language.

I offer as a retort to this gross oversimplification the material I relate from Casey here. It remains that the matter is far from as simple as "people could have learned more than one language" as he makes it out to be.

iii) Holding's thesis is self-refuting. If it's impossible for one linguistic community to get inside the mind of another linguistic community, then it is impossible for Holding to get inside the 'block-logic' of a 1C Jew.

How this works out is not explained. Hays is obviously oblivious to the virtues of native informants to say nothing of being pompously denigrating to the work of scholars like Wilson. My reader answered this sort of pettifoggery above.

iv) To invoke a Hebrew idiom does not discharge Holding of responsibility for showing if and how that idiom figures in any particular passage of Scripture. I'm sure, for example, that an antinomian would love to convert all the negations in the Decalogue to affirmations (you shall lie, you shall steal, you shall murder, you shall philander...).

Suppose we converted all the negations in Rom 1-3 into affirmations: no one is sinless=everyone is sinless.

Yes indeed, there's nothing like a pulpit-pounding threat to keep the congregation gasping. In all of this I did indedd show how it figures in Romans 9; the matter is just that Hays did not like the conclusion, and he did not answer it. Let him try that panic-button method against Jeremiah 7:22. Does that explanation for it mean we can reverse the Decalogue? Unfortunately for Hays, neither Jer. 7:22 nor Rom. 9:16 is in the form of a command imperative, which is the main reason that an antimonian can't play with those. As for Rom. 1-3, Hays is playing the same game as atheists if he tries that tack; see here. If anything these are perfect examples of "black and white" polarized expression of thought which we have maintained is to be found in the text all along. So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?

'In that light I am waiting for an explanation of how receiving grace somehow equates with "deserving" it. '

This varies with the theological system. In Roman Catholicism you have the category of congruent merit. In fact, this comes close to Holding's stated position: 'Sproul's observation that "if grace is obligated it no longer becomes grace" becomes essentially of no relevance once we are beyond the first round of "gracing."'

There's not much to answer here as no answer is given but a vague reference to variation. Much less is there any answer to what I say about grace.

'And a point I have yet to see explained as well is how making a decision qualifies as a "work." The Jews were forbidden to work on the Sabbath; did this prohibit them from thinking or making a decision? Is there any evidence that the Greek word behind "works" (ergon) ever refers to a thought or a decision? It is my earnest wish that an enterprising Calvinist will step to the plate and answer this question, for it seems to me that this is a flawed premise upon which the Calvinistic case rests.'

For starters, try Gal 5:19-21, where works of the flesh include a variety of iniquitous mental acts.

Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the "works of the flesh" and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as "mental acts" I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts, much less are they comparable to the sort of decision that accompanies a conversion.

'Our conclusion, such as can be reached prior to any possible answer to questions offered above, is that the U in TULIP is not grounded as much in Scripture as it is in Western philosophical assumptions and thought-forms being applied to Scripture.'

Isn't that exactly what Holding does when he glosses election in terms of Molinism and Rom 9 in terms of Aristotelian primary causality?

No, because when I wrote I had no idea I was doing either. But if we want to play that game, then Molinism just happens to restore a properly Hebraic element to the text. It remains that Hays has yet to show that a single point is wrong or that any step in the argument is false.

'To speak of God doing A "because" of B implies a chain of causality that would be impossible for a being who transcends time ... indeed such would again be impossible for a timeless being, since a linear or logical order requires the passage of time to exist and be enacted.'

i) A logical order is an abstract object, not a concrete, spatiotemporal object.

What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort.

ii) When God decrees the configuration of the world, he decrees ends-means relations, for causal-chains do exist in the natural world.

There's not much more than blather to this either, though from appearances it is not something I disagree with, nor is it contrary to my point, which is how God acts in relation to the world, not in relation to what occurs within the world, among temporal beings, once created.

'My question for Calvinists in this context would be, does it deny the sovereignty of God, His freedom to do as He pleases, to say that at times He may accomplish what He pleases through the most minimal of actions, and then allows what follows to take its natural course, because it likewise suits His purpose and will to do so? If so, how does this denigrate Him?'

This is a trick question. If God could accomplish his purpose by merely setting up the initial conditions, then that would not detract from his sovereignty. But this assumes the very answer at issue. You might as well ask if a painter can paint part of the canvass, then let the canvass fill in the gaps. A painting doesn't paint itself. Holding has no doctrine of creation. If a painter leaves the canvass half-finished, it stays half-finished.

There's no "trick question" here, Hays' paranoid suspicions notwithstanding. But at least he does admit that there is no detraction from sovereignty. In the meantime Hays' own answer assumes the very answer at issue, that we are equitable to a canvass. What if the painter used a canvass that was partially composed of nanobots that finished the painting for him?

A long quote follows from what I say about deSilva, grace, and faith. Hays' first reply speaks for itself:

i) I've only read the first chapter of DeSilva's book. The experience did not inspire me to intensify my acquaintance. There is nothing revolutionary here. It's a rehash of commonplace sociological concepts like shame culture/guilt culture, ascribed/achieved status, &c. There's nothing wrong with this, but it's hardly breaking any new ground.

The ostrich mentality requires no further comment. This also bespeaks the ostrich mentality:

ii) He claims that the shame culture rubric represents the 'primary axis of value' among 1C Christians and Jews. He offers next to nothing to substantiate this claim. He cites all of three little verses from Proverbs, plus a lot of stuff from the OT Apocrypha. Most of his supporting data comes, not from Scripture, but Greco-Roman writers.

In other words, Hays wishes to promulgate the asinine supposition that Scripture existed in a vacuum insulated from its primary culture and context. Let that speak for itself.

iii) There's no doubt that Greco-Roman society was a shame culture. This is hardly a revelation. You could get that much just from reading about the dutiful Aeneas and the vainglorious heroes of Homer.

Where no answer is open, it appears that simple denigration will do. Yet this does seem to be a "revelation" to Calvinists who have yet to incorporate or deal with the data related to this point.

And, for this reason, a number of NT passages address themselves to the pagan honor-code. However, they do so, not to endorse the honor-code, or supplant it with another honor-code, but to subvert the whole framework. Salvation is by grace, not by ascribed status or achieved status.

Nothing is done here but an enormous begging of the question, one that refuses to accept the definition of "grace" as it was known by contemporaries of the text. Beyond that it is too non-specific to reply to.

iv) Notice Holding's bait-and-switch. Calvinism is wrong because it fails to take into account Hebrew block-logic; no, Calvinism is wrong because it fails to take into account the Greco-Roman honor-code. Okay, which is it? A Hebrew mindset or a Greco-Roman mindset? To paraphrase his (Holding's) criticism of Calvinism, DeSilva's conceptual scheme is not grounded as much in Scripture as it is in ancient Western philosophical assumptions and thought-forms being applied to Scripture.' Reading St. Paul through the Aristotelian lens of the Nicomachean Ethics is far from Mosaic morality.

It is that it fails to account for BOTH. There is no bait and switch; it is a matter of one plus one that are not paid attention to. But Hays has created this dichotomy out of a partially false reading: Block logic was exclusively Hebrew, but honor codes were part of the Hebrew and Greco-Roman thoughtworld alike. The paraphrase is based on this false reading.

v) A client-patron paradigm is so generic that it would be an easy matter to formulate a Reformed client-patron model, or a Pelagian model, or Deist model, or Muslim model, or Hindu model, or Catholic model, or what have you. A patron can make a donation, demanding nothing in return--or a loan, demanding repayment with interest.

If it is an "easy matter" then let's see Hays work each of these out. Merely bragging that it can be done is just bluster; even more so to claim it and not make any sort of application -- and sorry, there is in fact no room in this model, in the Greco-Roman world, for "demanding nothing in return". Reciprocity of some sort was always involved, and adding in the concept of limited good meant that "demanding repayment with interest" above and beyond what was reasonable (hence the OT law against usury) was a dishonorable practice.

vi) Holding uses this rubric as an all-purpose short-cut to the spade-work of detailed exegesis.

Merely more bluster. As noted versus White above, and now Hays above, consideration of such things as these is part of genuine exegesis, and that it is not done in the atomistic fashion Hays and White define as "exegesis" is not an answer. The spade-work is done; it is just that White and Hays do not like the shape of the hole they have fallen into.

vii) He fails to draw any distinction between man-to-man patron/client relations and God-to-man patron/client relations. He further fails to draw any distinction between guilty clients and innocent clients. What does it mean to suggest that if God does us a favor, we do him a favor in return? This is the theology of heathen witchcraft.

The pulpit will soon crack if it is pounded on any further. First of all, Hays himself merely begs the question that such a distinction exists in the crucial elements under consideration and particular to the patronage model. The matter of guilt of innocence in clients is an irrelevancy in context; it has to do with the reason and basis for the offer of patronage, not with the structure of the relationship itself. Finally, if patronage and grace is "heathen witchcraft" then all that means is that witchcraft also resembles a patronage model. The attempt to taint the conception by association is mere bluster and weakness of one who cannot actually rebut the equation.

viii) To talk about degrees of regeneration evinces conceptual confusion.

Why this is so is not explained. Presumably when Hays has his automobile fixed the repairs get done all at once and not a piece at a time.

ix) Yes, you can redefine faith as faithfulness. And if you say that, you then have to say that we are justified, not by faith, but by our faithfulness. And if you say that, then you're right back to justification by works. This is not Paul, but Pelagius.

And once again, we're still waiting for something that shows that thought-orientation is a "work". The one attempt with Gal. 5:19-21 failed rather miserably.

x) Yes, you can redefine faith as infused grace ('the gift of fidelity'). This is Romanism. And it fails to do justice to the vicarious character of justification, as articulated by Paul.

If it is Romanism, so be it; nevertheless applying tags of bigotry and buzzwords guaranteed to upset the Calvinist is not an answer. The remainder is yet again non-specific and deserves no answer.

xi) No, a human patron cannot engender faith. News flash--God can do things man cannot!

News flash in reply: If this refers to Eph. 2:8-9, then the "faith" there is not ours, but God's loyalty to us.

xii) Holding defines faith inclusive as of trust, but denies faith as inclusive of cognitive assent. How can the client exercise trust in the patron unless he assents to the proposition that his patron is trustworthy?

I see no place where I deny such a thing, so obviously no answer is needed to this red herring.

'In conclusion, I think it is clear that we are doing the Scriptures a disservice when we allow writers of the 16th century, or even the 4th century, to determine for us what men of the first century were thinking or saying. Neither Calvin nor Arminius, as far as may be seen, knew anything of Hebrew block logic or of client-patron relationships, which look to be essential keys to understanding important texts in this debate. '

i) Augustine (4C) knew nothing of client-patron relations? Wasn't Ambrose, a Roman aristocrat, his patron? Calvin knew nothing of client-patron relations? Wasn't Jeanne d'Albret, Queen of Navarre, his patroness? One could multiply examples.

Since I did not say Augustine in particular did not know of patronage, this retort is a red herring. As for Calvin and his "patroness" one could properly use the term of her, but only in the same sense that Constantine became a "patron" for Christianity. The relation of d'Albert to Calvin is nothing like the relationship between the Father, Christ, and the believer as this model sees it. There was certainly nothing in the relationship to inform Calvin of the nature of Biblical patronage.

ii) And what is socio-rhetorical criticism if not an extended exercise in block-logic? It treats people, not as individuals, but as social units.

What we have here is little more than an exercise in linguistic trickery as Hays attempts to equate treatment of people as social blocks with rhetorical presentation of ideas in the form of blocks. But in a sense he is right: It is indeed about treating people as they saw themselves in the first century. In other words, it is consistent with what the context demands, whereas what Hays offers when he denies their relevance is not.

And now a bit more as well. Hays was made aware of White's use of his material, and had some further comments we now address, except for some which he directed towards one of our consults, a seminarian noted above (though he did not pay close enough attention to see that it came from someone else, not from me). Our comments as required:

1. I'd just note in passing that Holding's reply is larded with an extraordinary amount of personal invective directed against Dr. White. I'll leave it to better men than myself to judge whether this sustained ad hominem attack is either good moral theology or good polemical theology. Certainly, though, it contributes nothing to the cogency of his arguments--although it may serve to deflect attention from the lack thereof.

Presumably Hays would agree with White that there is no "invective" in White's references to false teachers, the NWT, etc. Considering that White himself admits to have said NOTHING in the course of his commentary as yet, what else can his comments be so far but "polemical theology"?

On what I say of the inadequacy of blogs, Hays complains:

i) This charge proves too much or too little. Is there really that much difference, technically speaking, between what Holding does at his website and what White does at his?

Yes. Especially since White, again, admits that he has said nothing at all as of this date. Moreover, how many sources has White cited so far? One: Piper. And that not even for anything but a record of what I was responding to. Next asinine question? Here it is:

ii) As to Holding having "the discipline to wait until he's finished with all his research before posting his findings," Holding has elsewhere said:

"Let me add here that I had no idea, when I started that essay, what Molinism was or how it was defined,"

as well as:

"Update: To my surprise there is a name for this view I have proposed, and it is one advocated by various Christian philosophers like Plantinga and Craig, in various forms: it is called libertarianism. Well, you never know when you'll cross paths with some things. :-)"

So who's the one doing his theology on the fly?

Not I. Hays mistakes objective investigation for "on the fly" simply because I didn't deign to close my mind and pigeonhole myself into a Calvinist or Arminian straitjacket before presenting my findings. Not "finish my research" but declare for a winner, as White has already done.

iii) It should be unnecessary to point out that a blogger can also do all his research in advance of posting it. The fact that a blogger may post on the installment plan doesn't necessarily mean that he hasn't thought through his position before depressing the "send" button. But perhaps Mr. Holding is speaking from personal experience--to judge by the above.

I am. I have had the "personal experience" of dealing with atheists whom White is imitating in his procedures, to a T. Hays, White, and their ilk are the careless Christian apologists of today fomenting the fundamentalist atheists of tomorrow. Of course neither Hays nor White were as generous with me in supposing that I had done the "spadework of exegesis" and that it was behind my own article, so why should I be any more generous in giving them the benefit of the doubt and regarding this as anything more than a contrived excuse formed to soothe wounded pride?

3. Holding makes repeated appeal to "credentialed scholars." Now, since Holding is an intelligent man, I don't see the point of such a patently fallacious appeal. You can find credentialed representative for almost every position and opposing position. Reformed theology certainly has its share of credentialed scholars. So this appeal, which Holding reiterates ad nauseum, like a verbal talisman, is bereft of probative force.

This sounds so much like Farrell Till that it ought to frighten Hays, as it perhaps would if he knew who Till was. Like Hays, Till merely appeals to the spectre of diversity while missing the point: That the support of scholars demands that the position be taken seriously, not merely waved off with one-liners or blog paragraphs or namecalling ("that guy is a liberal"). Yet this is indeed all the likes of Hays and White are capable of when confronted with matters beyond their ken: Such it is that the buzzwords like "liberal" become grasped like security blankets as they suck on the thumbs of "exegesis" and rest in the comfort of their benighted ignorance, oblivious to the closing of the casket over their heads as the rest of the Christian world moves on beyond their stultified fundamentalism which does more harm than good, and aids and abets only the likes of KJV Onlyists and fundamentalist atheists.

4. On a semantic point, Holding says that "It goes this way for us: 'I will fulfill covenant obligation upon whoever I fulfill it upon, and I will satisfy kinship obligation upon whoever I satisfy it upon.' I should note here that my same source defines compassion likewise in terms of the social state of the Biblical world; 'compassion' means 'caring concern that ought to be felt and acted upon between real and fictive kin.' [30] 'So then, it is not of the one willing, nor of the one exerting himself, but of the covenant-fulfilling God.'"

i) But this commits a classic word-study fallacy. The interpretation of Rom 9:15 turns, not on a dictionary definition of "compassion," but on the meaning of the entire sentence and the way in which this literary unit functions in the whole flow of Paul's argument.

Sorry, but the news flash is that "the meaning of the entire sentence" also supports the view I hold, and fits in just fine with the flow of Paul's argument. Not that Hays bothers to explain why this isn't the case, he merely blathers on piously:

Holding is confusing the meaning of words with the meaning of concepts. What the verb means and what the verb refers to ("real and fictive kin") are two different things. The bare idea of "compassion" does not select for "kin."

Sorry again, but Hays is out of touch with the conception of fictive kinship in the ancient world, upon which all covenant and patronage relationships were grounded. There is no confusion except by Hays, in his ignorance of the social world of the NT: Note that my words come from a scholarly source, with which Hays once again does not deal seriously. "Compassion" DOES "select for" kin in the ancient world -- there is always a kinship relationship of some sort, whether Hays likes it or not. If he thinks not, let him provide examples to show otherwise. It ought to be worth some yuks, since being unfamiliar with ancient principles of kinship he will no doubt unwittingly pick examples that only prove my point.

What is worse, he is confusing the meaning of different concepts. All members of a covenant community may be real or fictive kin, but it hardly follows that all real or fictive kind are members of a covenant community.

Sorry again, but being a member of a covenant community makes one fictive kin within that community. Hays is essentially saying that "all relatives may be part of a family, but it hardly follows that all family members are relatives." It is only ribald ignorance of the collectivist nature of the ancient world that enables such mouth-foaming blindness.

ii) And in his multiplied confusions, Holding manages to make the verse mean just the opposite of what Paul intended. Paul's argument is that election and reprobation cut across all external bonds.

This is non-specific and so deserves no answer; enough to simply say back that in his multiplied ignorance, Hays manages to make the verse mean just the opposite of what Paul intended: Paul's argument is that election and reprobation are worked out within bonds.

5. Holding refers the reader to "Pilch and Malina's Handbook of Biblical Social Values, which describes the ancient mind as one practiced in dualistic thought."

i) Notice that Holding constantly refers the reader to the same little thimbleful of sociorhetorical scholars. This, however, begs the very question at issue. Is sociorhetorical criticism the only prism through which we ought to read the Bible? He quotes sociorhetorical scholars to prove the primacy of sociorhetorical criticism. What a thoroughly vicious specimen of circular reasoning!

Notice how Hays runs around the field of dirt looking for the perfectly level patch of sand to stick his head into. The same little thimbleful? What of it? Does number have any bearing on truth? Let it be said in reply that material of sufficient concentration requires but a thimbleful to be effective -- and if Calvinism is so weak that a mere thimbleful delivers it a knockout blow, that is a reflection of its own weaknesses and that of its apologists.

No, sociorhetorical criticism is not the only prism, nor is it the only one I use. It is however a sorely-neglected prism, one that is extremely critical and which Calvinist commentators completely ignore thus far. It also happens to be the one relevant prism which causes the disagreement; other prisms are neutral in terms of this debate, and hardly require any further treatment, so that Hays is erecting a strawman of undone work without specifiying what neglected "prism" changes anything I have said. Hence let there be no complaints about the use of them here. As for "circular reasoning" that is yet another Tillism: It is the hapless plea of one incapable of addressing the scholastics on their own terms, such that they are constrained to denigrate and insult their intellectual betters and accuse them of fallacy, without having any knowledge of their scholarship or methodology. This will work well for the dazed and gullible who want only pious confirmation and "Praise the Lord" shouted in the ears, but for those who actually want to understand the text in its contexts, it is merely a joke, and a bad one at that.

ii) But just suppose, for the sake of argument, that we agree with Pilch and Malina at this juncture. What follows then? Notice that the attribution of "dualistic thought" doesn't single out the "Jewish" mind or the "Hebrew" mind or the "Semitic mind." No, we are told that this extends to the "ancient" mind. But, if so, then Holding is in no position to drive a wedge between a Jewish mindset and a Greco-Roman mindset, and then play one off against the other.

Hays is making rather too much (as is the wont of one desperate to score points) of a change in verbiage; one is reminded of Till, yet again, writing paragraphs at a time about an opponents' typographical errors. But in fact, one remains in a position to drive whatever wedge the evidence demands. Jews and Greeks did share certain values, apart from moderns; while Jews had certain values of their own, apart from Greeks and ourselves. Hays is merely twiddling his thumbs without giving out a specific where this alleged problem of dichotomy hurts my case.

iii) Holding is sure that he is right, and White is wrong. How very dualistic of Mr. Holding! Doesn't Mr. Holding realize that he is in bondage to that ancient binary logic whereby either he is right or Dr. White is right? Isn't the time past due for Mr. Holding to emancipate himself from the quaint old law of bivalence? From these moldering old "polarities" of primitive thought?

All of this is likewise a pretense for inserting a red herring into the pond: That I somehow argue by this that binary logic does not exist today when in fact the point is, and has been, that expression of dualism was much more pronounced in the ancient world, and among the Jews more particularly, than it is today among Western thinkers. Hays is yet again collapsing my arguments into caricatures of what they really are, no doubt because the specifics are too difficult to counter with actual argument.

6. Holding says that to defeat his contention, "White must show one of any of these things: Paul was not Hebrew or subject to Hebrew thought patterns To; he was one or both, but these passages are to be taken as exceptions for X reason."

i) But this is tendentious. Dr. White would only have to do so on the prior assumption that Paul's neuropathways moved in the groove of "Hebrew thought patterns." But why should Dr. White assume that Paul in particular, or Jews in general, were so intellectually inflexible?

This ranks as truly one of the most idiotic questions of the age. Psyhcological science itself tells us that "neuropathways" learned in childhood are extremely inflexible; however, that matter of psychology aside, it would remain that it would be the burden of the critic to show that a Paul diverged from a normal pathway for his background. My thesis works within what would be the normal pathways for a Paul. Calvinism does not, but insists upon meanings for words and concepts that a person like Paul would have had to change his mindset over in order to adopt. It is the Calvinist's burden to prove "flexibility" -- though we remind the reader that "flexibility" is a hallmark of...eisegesis. It is what permits JWs to do their work. Now how is that for sauce?

ii) Sociorhetorical criticism, being a subdivision of sociology, shares the same bias as sociology. In the perennial nature/nurture debate, the so-called social sciences (sociology; anthropology) come down heavily on the nature side of the debate, treating the human mind as a blank slate which is pencilled in by culture. And, like any half-truth, there's some evidence for that.

Not much needs be said here; this is yet another imitation of the worst sort of atheists, who, when confronted with material they cannot refute, resort to charges of "bias". Beyond this there is nothing of worth; this is yet more vague claptrap and well-poisoning, with no effort made to apply the statement to a specific claim of my own. Vague blatter about "essential generic mental attributes" may impress others, but it will not impress the informed.

7. "To suggest further that we could argue that Paul was some kind of exception ("transfers over to Pauline usage") is itself a counsel of despair, ad hoc special pleading at its worst."

This is a lovely example of a first strike straw man argument. You charge your opponent with your own fault to preempt him from doing the same to you. Since Dr. White would reject Holding's operating premise, he has no need to carve out "some kind of exception" for Paul. The special-pleading is all on Holding's part by trying to slyly foist this faulty premise on Dr. White in the first place.

We still await some actual argument showing my "fault" in this regard, for treating Paul as a person of his time and not a churchman of the Renaissance era. Nevertheless it stands that for White to even maintain his premise against my case, he must (and has, in what little we have seen) begged for Paul to be an exception for the sake of the Calvinist elect. This is nothing but Hays trying to reverse a well-deserved stigma with topspin.

8. According to Holding, "White's own classification of Romans 9 as 'logical' is similarly obtuse. Indeed, logicians would call what Paul does in Romans 9 a fallacious 'argument from authority'".

i) Holding's charge is faulty logic and worse exegesis. To begin with, an argument from authority not automatically invalid. The appeal is only fallacious if your opponent does not acknowledge the authority of your source. But if Paul is shaping his reply with a view to Jewish opponents, whether real or hypothetical, then the appeal to Scripture is perfectly legitimate inasmuch as both sides of the debate acknowledge the authority of Scripture.

Hays purposely confuses the issue, which is not that an argument from authority is valid or invalid, but that it is not logical, which was what White was indeed trying to claim. Here the appeal is to the authority of God; and that appeal, by its nature, is not logical, but it does transcend logic; much as any statement of fact ("that ball is red") isn't "logical". Meanwhile Hays quietly dodges the real point, which he admits by his own explanation lacking defense: That indeed, Romans 9 is NOT a "logical" argument in any sense of the word.

ii) In addition, Paul's reply is not limited to an argument from authority. In addition to that, he also invokes a theodicean rationale for election and reprobation (9:17,22-23; 11:32).

That "rationale" is fine but it remains that it is not a "logical" argument.

Hays wrote more, though in reply to comments by a seminary student (which he mistakenly attributes to me), and we will leave reply on those points to that student, if he so desires to make one. (He has done so; it is in the TWeb thread, linked above.)

2/21/05

White now appears to be content to rest his laurels a bit and relax under the headdress of the Drama Queen while allowing his parrot Hays to handle his affairs. With that we are content; as before, our comments original in bold, his reply in italics, our new retort in plain type.

"He [Hays] as much as admits his inability to deal with the case holistically as he too deigns to deal with only what he calls "major arguments." This is a grave mistake, as with White."

I, of course, admit no such thing. It is no more of a "grave mistake" for me to be selective in what I choose to comment on with respect to Holding than it is a grave mistake for him to be selective in what he comments on with respect to his book reviews. I'm simply exercising rational discrimination, which I happen to regard as an intellectual virtue. And I'll exercise the same rational discrimination in this reply.

Yes, Hays does admit such a thing, whether he has the ability to recognize his own error or not. Naturally those "incompetent and unaware of it" by their very nature, in their failure to recognize the need for a holisitic approach, will never recognize their failure, for if they did, they would not fail in the first place. Calling such selective ignorance "rational discrimination" is trumpeting one's failure to completely clean a kitchen floor by noting that at least the tile slightly to the left of the stove is free of debris. Hays is making a sorrowful attempt to santizize his incompetence and lack of knowledge and preparation, but I'm sorry, that will not pass with me; I know this trick, and Hays is no more than a tame ape with a dictionary at his disposal, able to use his vocabulary as a bludgeon to fool the ignorant into thinking he is actually saying something. Such are the disgraces of popular apologists with their heads in the sand. As for my book reviews, I challenge Hays to find a single comparable exercise in one of them. I take particular care to critique only points from books that are able to be isolated from larger contexts, and with respect to areas about which I have broad knowledge.

"It didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in."

Notice the gratuitous invective.

There is nothing at all "gratuitious" about my analogy of Hays to an ostrich. His attitude is obvious and the designation is completely warranted. Persons like Hays are the cause of the decline and dearth of American Christianity. As for invective, such it is, and when warranted ("whitewashed tomb") it is warranted. If Hays cannot stand being accurately pegged as an ostrich, then he should leave the savanna and seek his fortune in some urban setting.

"Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context -- there is no "even if" about this; it is a recognized, endorsed concept noted by social science and anthropological scholars, supported by the consensus -- but more than that, there is the pompously arrogant designation of what I offer as not being "exegesis" simply because it appeals to an external."

i) I'm waiting to see Holding cite one sociorhetorical scholar who interprets Rom 9 in Aristotelian categories.

Here again Hays plays one of his standard rhetorical manipulation games for cheap points. Nowhere was "Aristotelian categories" argued with the use of sociorhetorical scholars; in fact, note that in my quote, the particular of high and low context is what was appealed to, and Hays conveniently and manipulatively ignores this. Hays offers a disgusting and disgraceful example of a Calvinist "politician" seeking to poison the well.

As an aside, let me add here that these complaints about use of "Aristotelian categories" obscures further blunders by Hays. The word "category", according to Aristotle's logic, means "that which is predicable of a thing", and there are 10 of them: substance, quantity, quality, relation, action, passion, time, place, position, and habit. But that is a minor issue. Of more relevance is that Hays' whining about my talking of primary causality because it is "Aristotelian" is a load of nonsense. Aristotle did not invent the notion of primary causality any more than he invented logic; he simply deduced or inferred rigid, systematically stated truths from conventional language-use, and put a name on something already known. Would Hays deny that God was the "primary cause" of Gabriel's announcing to Mary that she would conceive the Christ? Or that the Holy Spirit was the "primary cause" of Luke's recording the fact? And this is indeed comical -- Hays blatters about Scripture being "logical," and Aristotle specifically says, in his Topics, that though others before him had treated of rhetoric, none before him had given a systematic treatment of "logic" -- the point being, were one to play Hays' game, one could with more justice pettily accuse Hays himself of being anchored in Aristotle's "categories" in his ruthless and misplaced appeals to "logic" further on.

ii) As to the "pompously arrogant" designation (note the gratuitous invective), Holding did not "simply appeal to an external."

Once again there is not a thing "gratuitous" offered. Hays is arrogantly dismissing the work of serious and credentialed scholars, and no amount of hiding his refusal to engage with the pretty words of "rational discrimination" will change that. One may as well be a solider acting as a coward, hiding from the enemy and declaring himself to be doing "rational discrimination" in engagement. The "simply" is not what I did, but what Hays did in his refusal. Hays could stand once again to read carefully what is written, but no doubt the urgent need to produce a blog overstepped any careful consideration.

Neither White nor I would deny the potential legitimacy of background material. But to begin with, not all "externals" are relevant to the text. The Religionsgeschichte Schule (e.g., Bultmann; Bousset) was very fond of appealing to "externals" to "exegete" the text of Scripture.

Yet another non-answer and well-poisoning. Hays erects the strawman of "not ALL externals" and of a particular wayward use of them while avoiding (and poisoning the well against) the use of my particular external. This is the tactic of one frustrated and childish, firing with any and every loose cannon in the hopes of distracting the listener with an 1812 Overture to keep them from hearing the finely-tuned concert violin.

In addition, Holding did a lot more than merely appeal to a high/low context. Remember his exact words: "we would not expect it to be found within Romans 9 or any explanation offered by Paul -- because such an 'explanation expectation' would be the product of a Western low-context mind rather than a Hebrew high-context one, like Paul's."

There is no "in addition" in any of the quote offered. The whole of what is quoted has to do with "high/low context". Hays merely illustrates yet again his profound ignorance of the topic, and thus his gross inability to offer a qualified assessment and critique, by seeing more than that in what he has quoted.

i) Holding has drawn an antithetical distinction between a "Hebrew high-context mind" like Paul's and a "Western low-context mind," then uses the Western context to exegete Rom 9. So he employs an interpretive grid which, by his own definition, cuts against the grain of the text. He is invoking a distinction in opposition to Pauline thought, and then imposing that on the text. In the nature of the case, this would directly subvert original intent. No, this is not exegesis. This is classic Scripture-twisting.

What Hays offers here is little more than misdirected blatherskeit that says nothing of substance. The "antithetical distinction," whether he likes it or not, does exist, and if he has any reason to show why it does not, he certainly does not provide it. Second, Hays vaguely says that I use "Western context to exegete Romans 9" but does not explain how. Thus we can only vaguely guess at what chord out of thousands Hays is trying to strike in his temper tantrum, but I'd have to say that he is complaining that we supply the context Paul does not offer, which if is indeed his point, means that every exegete does the same -- and thus he hoists himself on his own petard, unless he wishes to deny the distinction, which he does not. Furthermore, the antithetical distinction in mindset does not in the least forbid the lower-context mind filling in the gaps with proper information; that is indeed what sociorhetorical commentators do. The distinction in mindset does not in the least require antithetical treatment of texts. I leave it that the real "twisters" here are those who steadfastly and merely deny the relevance of original contexts, in an effort to preserve their pious fantasies.

ii) I'd add that even if, for the same [sic] of argument, we were to redirect the Pauline argument through Aristotelian channels, that would only replace one form of determinism with another inasmuch as primary causality is efficacious as well, which is why Aquinas was just as predestinarian as Augustine.

Yet more vague blather; presumably we are being told that primary causality is also determinative, but as I told a reader who wrote me with the same argument, primary causality offers a "soft" determinism within which libertarian freedom is able to exist. The error made here is the one Craig and others pin on atheists who make the same argument: God's knowledge that we WILL do X is not something that means that we MUST do X, that we are deterministically bound to do it. Hays shows himself to also be less than informed in the department of philosophy. No doubt he had too many Chick tracts to read the day that The Only Wise God was assigned.

"But that he [Hays] admits that the point is nevertheless overall correct speaks for itself."

Once again I did nothing of the kind. I said that Wilson was guilty of exaggeration, and I offered a counterexample to show that it all depends on the target audience.

Yes, Hays did, for he admitted that the OT "ordinarily takes the existence of God for granted." Thus he admits that the "ordinary" expression of the text is exactly what I said it was. If he cannot keep track of his own positions, he should get some techinical or secretarial assistance to remind him of what he believes. We cannot be responsible for reminding his of what he said.

"That's very nice, but if anything, this only tends to support my point. 'Disorderly and circuitous' is precisely how a Greek mind would see expressions of block logic. Mental horsepower isn't germane to the particular of expression I cited, so it ends up that Hays only ends up proving my point with his displaced quotation."

The precise point of contrast was between Aristotelian and Talmudic modes of argument ("how he evaluated the Greek mind, as exemplified by Aristotle, vis-a-vis the Talmudic mind").

Greek philosophy had other forms of argumentation, such as the diatribe, favored by the Stoic school (cf. Fitzmyer on Romans, p91--whom Holding references without--evidently--having actually read), which you find reproduced in Paul as well as Rabbinical debate. If you harness up the raw horsepower of the Jewish mind to that technique, as occurs in Romans, you generate a lot of logical argumentation.

What these last two paragraphs amount to is a dodge of Hays' gross and enormous error in misusing a quote that doesn't even contradict what he put it against, and indeed, agrees with it. "Modes of argument" was exactly my point of difference: Block logic versus a more linear form of logic. The second section is of absolutely no relevance; granting that indeed Paul had access to GR technique of rhetoric, this was also taught even in Jerusalem. May we remind the reader further that Hays has STILL not figured out that it was not I, but Jaltus, the TWeb seminarian, who referred to Fitzmyer. As an aside, since Fitzmyer is a liberal, Hays by his own rules has no business citing Fitzmyer, since he is a tainted source. Let the fundy tangle himself in his own woven web.

"Hays apparently has exegeted some new definition of 'apologetic' with which the rest of us are unfamiliar. There is nothing of such an apologetic anywhere in these chapters -- nothing like a kalam cosmological or a moral argument in sight. At most there is a polemic against ineffectual false gods, but this is not at all the same thing as an argument for God's existence. Hays offers thus yet another misplaced retort."

I don't know who the "us" has reference to, unless Holding is in the habit of talking to himself. As to novel exegesis, if Holding were to crack open the covers of a standard commentary from time to time, he might not be so easily knocked off his pins. This is how Brevard Childs has outlined apologetic strategy in Isaiah:

We'll look at that in a moment; but "us" here refers to several of us on TWeb following this discussion, as well as readers who have commented on Hays' trained-monkey antics. I've cracked more commentaries than Hays has sat on to reach the dinner table in his lifetime, from the looks of it; mainly because I don't limit myself to those on a reading list approved by the Inquisition. But as it turns out, Childs says nothing here of an "apologetic" and assuredly nothing of a proof for the mere existence of God, per my original point:

"The unit [41:1-7] opens with Yahweh summoning the nations to appear in court for a trial. The claims of the foreign gods will be tested according to legal rules…[21-29] The force of the argument in both parts of the trial appears to be that the claim to true divinity rests on the ability not only to control the course of future events, but also to have predicted the events before they occurred. Consequently, the ability to match the prediction with its fulfillment can then be tested rationally in the trial," Isaiah (Westminster John Knox Press 2001), 317,321.

Since Dr. Childs is a highly "credentialed" scholar, I trust that Holding will pay proper homage to his social betters in this matter.

I do indeed. Unfortunately for Hays, Childs only agrees with my point: There is nothing here of an argument for God's existence but of YHWH's superiority over the false gods, exactly as I said. Thus the retort remains utterly and completely misplaced, and Hays is so insensate that he thinks he has rebutted me by providing yet another authoritative quote that says the same thing I do! The last person who did that was a Jehovah's Witness, which says much of Hays' own mental horsepower.

"There's nothing like a non-specific non-answer composed of a reference and nothing else. I will not endorse Hays' laziness by looking up what he should have provided in the first place -- actual data. If this is how Calvinist response is done, little wonder pomposity is a primary weapon of their apologists."

i) Let's clarify the burden of proof here. Holding was the one who initiated an attack on Calvinism. The onus is therefore on him to acquaint himself with the supporting arguments for Calvinism in order to render an informed judgment on the system under review.

Since I did, there is no more for me to do. Hays is merely dodging his inability to back up his argument.

ii) If it is lazy for me to refer the reader to a classic exegetical defense of predestination, then it is just as lazy for Holding to refer the reader to his sociorhetorical critics.

It most certainly would be, if I did not provide quotes from said critics. Hays provided not so much as one word from Warfield; he merely threw the reference at us like an elephant, as though this was some sort of data-argument. So be it: Hays is incapable of supporting his point, and would be better off returning to his daily duties of sorting milk cartons at the 7-11.

"This is a remarkably idiotic comment, since psychology is what produced the texts to begin with."

i) Notice the gratuitous invective.

Once again, there is nothing gratuituous for the comment was indeed idiotic; and the invective is therefore warranted. Of course we may note that Hays is no stranger to such language (calling me a "quack" for example) but I make no record of such wrongs because unlike Hays, I do not live in a diaper and do not look for ways to throw the contents of it at others for cheap rhetorical points.

ii) Notice, also, the patent equivocation here. To say that psychology is prior to text is not to say that "block logic" is prior to the text. Holding is smuggling his conclusion into the premise.

Yet another confused and misplaced comment. Block logic is a product of Hebrew psychology; therefore it indeed must be prior to the text along with every other psychological element, and it certainly is absurd to suggest that psychology associated with the particular people emerged after the text. If Hays wishes to argue either that block logic did not exist and that Wilson is an idiot, or that block logic did exist but emerged after Paul, maybe one day we'll get some actual explanations to that effect.

"The point here is resemblance of a particular method of Hegel to a particular method of the wisdom genre."

Instead of trafficking in these fact-free abstractions, why doesn't Holding reproduce a few representative pages of Hegel's Logik or Phanomenologie des Geistes alongside a few representative pages of Job, perhaps in parallel columns, and let the reader judge for himself the validity Mr. Holding's exercise in comparative philosophical method. Or, better yet, surely he could point us to some sociorhetorical study which does the same.

Why would I need to do this? Hays is once again offering excessive lines of verbal diarrhea to cover his enormous bungle in misreading my point. I ask again: Does he deny that there is actual dialectic in these pages of the OT? Does he deny that dialectic was a characteristic of Hegelianism? Does he then deny in turn that the OT shares this particular description with Hegelianism? No, there is no need for any pages from Hegel any more than there is a need to reproduce the complete works of Charles Dickens just because I say someone is cheap like Scrooge. This is a distraction by Hays from his own inadequate treatment and egregious bungle, and nothing more.

"Another non-point. At most it would only suggest that we could find Western parallels to the Eastern practice, without disproving my point."

Western parallels to Eastern practice? Does this mean that Holding would now apply to himself the line about how " it didn't take long for the ostrich to find a level patch of sand and stick his head in. Of course there is the mere waving-off of high and low context."

No, but how Hays thinks to cross the street and make this suggestion will remain a mystery. One point has nothing at all to do with the other in this last paragraph.

Holding had been staking his case on the contrast between a Western low-context mind and a Hebrew high-context mind. Now, however, he's "waving off" that disjunction in favor of cross-cultural parallels.

I am? It's a shame Hays can't explain how I am. Perhaps Hays is so culturally and scholastically insulated into the Chick School of Theology that he thinks that cultures are either uniform in their similarities or completely different on every count.

"More than that, the most critical point is missed: Do these Western dialogues take the tack of 'work it out yourselves' or do they give the answer in a can, with the dialogue as merely a vehicle for the 'crash test dummy' to act as a talking head to which the genius responds with the answers -- or to actually give answers?"

This assumes that Solomon and the author of Job were rough-drafting their way to an answer. But such finished literary products as Ecclesiastes and the Book of Job bespeak a thorough mastery of form and content from start to finish.

Yet another vague non-answer from Hays. That the product is "finished" in terms of text hardly equates with being "finished" in terms of logic presentation (from a Western view). In the meantime we still await some actual answer to the expertise of scholars like Wilson. Christians should be ashamed of Hays' verbal equivocations here, which are the sort of embarrassments which lead honest Christians, unwilling to cover their cognitive dissonance with such rhetorical tricks, to apostasize.

"This is just more pious Calvinist blatherskeit [sic]; more 'give glory to God, you heathen' pulpit-pouding [sic]. We are told that we'd better find it 'flawlessly logical,' by gum, or the flames of hell await you!"

Compare this unresponsive reaction--one can hardly call it a reply--to what I actually said: "There is nothing paradoxical about the hardening of Pharaoh. The Bible cues the reader with a couple of programmatic statements (Exod 4:21-22; 7:2-3), the function of which is to supply a hermeneutical framework for what follows in the subsequent narrative. The text is flawlessly logical."

Yes, compare it indeed. A perfectly accurate description, is it not? No explanation of how the text is indeed "logical", much less any admission of yet another compositional error, as I noted.

i) What I did was to take a specific claim of Holding's, and rebut it by pointing the reader to the promise/fulfillment pattern of Exodus. If anyone is "pounding the pulpit here, it is Holding, with his verbal bluff and bluster.

Pointing to a "promise/fulfillment pattern" is not rebutting the matter stated, which is that the example of Pharaoh is one of block logic and dichotomy. It doesn't even answer the claim Hays falsely gave to me, that it represented a paradox.

ii) However, just to prove to Holding how accommodating and agreeable a Calvinist can be, I'm more than happy to stipulate to his claim that Calvinism has a monopoly on logic.

That's fine. I know of more than a few atheists and Mormons who have made the same stake. But I made no such claim anywhere, of course.

"Once again Hays arbitrarily selects the word 'antimony' from out of its place and applies it where he pleases, in order to manufacture a problem. But no, as even he admits, there is a polarity: Love and hate, Jacob and Esau. In other words, block logic."

I do, indeed, admit that there's a polarity here. It is not, however, a literary or psychological polarity. Rather, it is based on the "fact" of divine election and reprobation. Malachi attributes this to God. So, if it's "block-logic," it's divine block-logic. It's divine psychology.

Note yet again that Hays refuses to admit to his gross error of merely picking a word out of my paragraph to make an application I never made. The level of disingenuousness is frankly disgusting. Not that this is any better, since I also made no statement about what kind of polarity was in view. Calvinists may see indeed a divine polarity; I would agree but all use of the word "divine" too general, and place the "election" at the earlier level of primary causality. Nevertheless, let it speak for itself that Hays is forced to both ignore his gross error as well as admit that the text really does have what I said it did in reality.

Or will Holding dismiss this ascription as a literary fiction? Will he do an end-run around the Bible by opposing a low-context mind-set to a high-context mindset, and relativize away the claim of Scripture by the intrusion of an alien outlook?

No. Will Hays continue to refuse responsibility for his gross errors of representation?

"Why? Would it be a threat to Hays if it were? Whether it ought to be 'normative' for Christians is up to each person; but if it was normative for the writers of the inspired text, then it had darned well better become part of our interpretative grid, otherwise we will be disrespecting the text and making it a ventriloquist dummy for our own ideas and preferences. What does Hays hope to accomplish with this silly implied threat, which amounts to gross ethnocentrism?"

Once again, Holding resorts to a childish game of verbal bluffery: "I dare you--I double-dare you!"

Once again the pot calls the kettle black. Does Hays then deny that bypassing what was normative for writers of the text leads to false interpretations? Is he content to roll out the red carpet for the midrashim of the cults? No doubt for the preservation of his Calvinist fantasies, that is a worthwhile price to pay to allow Mormons to use the Trinitarian texts for their purposes.

I had not issued a threat to anyone. But as long as Holding chooses to recast the issue in these terms, I'm happy to call his bluff. Whether Scripture is normative may well be up to each "person," but it is hardly up to each "Christian." If you do not venerate the normative force of Scripture, then you are not a Christian. It's a simple as that. And Scripture will prove to be just as normative for unbelievers as well--just not this side of the grave.

I did not say that Hays "threatened" anyone; I asked if something was a threat to him, which shows once again that he reads texts with all the care of an antelope threading a needle. I also did not say that whether Scripture is normative is up to each person; that reference was made to defining externals. I am sure Hays does not think we still need to put barriers around the edges of our roofs (or maybe he does, since Jack Chick tells us to). Yet another false representation by Hays.

Holding has resorted to this flailing hyperbole as a way of defanging the charge by co-opting it. I had never leveled such a charge. But let no one be misled by this rhetorical gimmick.

I asked a question and I got my non-answer. Good enough.

When Holding sets up an antithesis between Hebrew thought and Western thought, and when he substitutes Western thought for Hebrew thought, canceling out original intent in a zero-sum game, then he is, indeed, turning the inspired text into a "ventriloquist dummy" to voice his own ideas and preferences.

Imagine that! By appealing to defining contexts -- which we are still waiting for an ounce of response to -- and then explaining it in a way my own readers can understand, that is ventriloquism. So therefore are all attempts at commentary. This is of course much easier for Hays than actually proving an argument wrong.

"No more idiotic statement could be made."

What statement could I have made to justify such a sweeping condemnation? Must have been pretty outlandish, right? This is why Mr. Holding is responding to. I had said that "the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture."

No, Hays said far more than that, and he purpusely isolates that portion to create a red herring. His full statement was: Wilson and Holding are treating the logic of Scripture as a culture-bound casket which they are at liberty to bury in an unmarked grave. But the Bible-believing Christian is honor-bound by the logic of Scripture. Let the dishonesty speak for itself, and that Hays thereafter isolates my first sentence from the rest of the paragraph:

Holding goes on to say that "Hays exemplifies the sort of person who decontextualizes the text under the thin veneer of pompous piety. One may as well speak of Scripture as 'language-bound' to Hebrew and Greek."

i) Actually, the quickest way to decontextualize a text of Scripture is to set up an antithesis between the mentality of the Biblical writer and the mentality of a modern reader, like Holding does, then substitute your "Western low-context" mindset for the "Hebrew high-context" mindset of the original author.

Let it speak for itself again that Hays believes that contextualization is decontextualization, that black is white, good is evil, and chocolate is peanut butter. This is precisely the error that credentialed scholars whose work he merely waves off have pinned his type for. See above on the context dicotomy and why Hays is blowing smoke.

ii) As to whether the analogy between Scripture as logic-bound and language-bound, there are both analogies and disanalogies, although neither is supportive of Holding's high-handed dismissal.

Language is the medium. And at that level, it is also the vehicle of logic. Now, once you arrive at the meaning, by exegeting original intent, you can translate the propositions into other tongues. And those propositions are normative for believers. That acknowledgement is one of the things that makes a believer a believer. Holding hides behind his customary fog-machine of invective ("the thin veneer of pompous piety"), but an essential element of genuine piety is submission to the authority of Scripture as the word of God.

In essence, yet another distractive non-answer which dodges the point, which is that Hays even in his use of the original language of Scripture is "bound" in a way that he decries when we make use of other externals. Thus our retort: You arrive at the meaning, by exegeting original intent, and that involves consideration of externals which can and must include social science externals, as well as others. Then you can translate the propositions into the mental language of other mindsets (despite the false charge re high-low context). And those propositions are normative for believers. That acknowledgement is one of the things that makes a believer a believer. For Hays, though, "an essential element of genuine piety is submission to the authority" of not Scripture as the word of God, but his backwards, enforced readings of the text through the lens of the 16th century, and a refusal to acknowledge the lens of the first.

"We have already addressed this sort of bigoted ethnocentrism above with White. Apparently Calvin didn't find that 'synergism and merit-mongering' too disturbing; nor do scholars of today."

i) For Holding to say that Calvin didn't find synergism or merit-mongering too disturbing evinces a total ignorance of what the conflict with Rome was all about. And it certainly disqualifies him from offering a halfway accurate critique of Calvinism.

Hays once again plays a disgusting game of verbal equivocation. The retort was that Calvin did not find these elements to disturbing in the rabbinic writings to use them in his commentaries; there was not a word said about Calvin and his interactions with Rome and their expressions of synergism and merit-mongering.

ii) As to "bigotry," when Holding has no argument, he resorts to abuse. I would not deny, however, that there is evidence of bigotry and ethnocentrism in some modern-day scholarship. It is true that Sanders and his epigones have tried to upwardly revise our estimate of Pharisaic theology. Sanders is of the opinion that the Protestant Reformers caricatured the Pharisees. But his historical and theological revisionism is more radical than that. Sanders is also of the opinion that Paul himself caricatured the Pharisees. And surely nothing is more bigoted or ethnocentric that the spectacle of a late 20C gentile Englishman who fancies himself to have a firmer grasp of 1C Pharisaic theology than a 1C Pharisee like Paul who studied under the greatest rabbi of the age (Gamaliel). And I, simple-minded Christian, take my stand with the NT view of Pharisaic theology.

I let it speak for itself that Hays admits to bigotry in modern scholarship. On the other hand, it also bespeaks his ignorance in that he childisly returns to "the NT view of Pharasaic theology" which really means, "the NT view as Hays in ignorance understands it." The NT is indeed right about Pharasaic theology; but Sanders has been corrected by others such as Esler. That indeed does leave the "simple-minded Christian" gasping, and we can only pray that the sort of ignorance Hays exemplifies will be confined to his corner of the body of Christ.

"No one said anything about 'earning' God's covenant promises."

Really? Let's go back to back to my verbatim quote of Holding: "To say, 'Lord, have mercy!' (Matt. 20:31) means, 'Lord, pay up your debt of interpersonal obligation to us.' Far from being a plea of the hapless, it is a request to pay back previously earned favor from our client (God) whose patron we are."

There you have it. Earning God's favor and thereby casting God in the role of debtor. And this line of reasoning runs directly counter to Rom 4:1-4. If that's a representative slice of sociorhetorical criticism (Pilch & Malina), then so much the worse for sociorhetorical criticism. I choose to line up behind Paul, not against him.

There we have it, yes -- another case of dinshonestly and verbal equivocation by Hays. He has dishonestly used the words "covenant promises" to substitute for the word I did use, "favor" and now is trying to equate the two in a desperate attempt to justify his original falsehood. Hays divorces the comment from the paragraph following, which explains the whole matter fully:

Let it be remembered that this is not said snobbishly as though God "owes" us something naturally. By comparison God made a compact with Abraham and willingly underwent the ritual of contract (passing between the halved animals) which essentially indicated that if He broke His contract with Abraham, He would be divided in half like the animals! God in His love was willing to send His Son, and is also willing to place Himself under contractual obligation to us, to start a relationship of "ongoing reciprocity," in which "those toward whom one has such a debt are equally obliged to maintain the relationship by further favors..."

In other words, Hays purposely obscures that this "earned" is made in the context of God's own covenant promises in which God obliged Himself and thus set up the entire system of return. So now will Hays argue that God can break His promises and release Himself from His own covenant obligations? Does a covenant obligation make God a debtor? If God says, "I will do this" and God cannot lie, is there or is there not an obligation present? Rom. 4:1-4 only draws from the most critical example of this -- the covenant within which YHWH set up mutual sets of obligations for Himself and Abraham.

"That's nice. So what? As noted, I had no idea that I was offering Molinism when I first wrote this. The key issue is, can Hays (or anyone) show that the illustration is wrong? What does he deny? Does he deny that God was free to choose among possible worlds to create? Does he say that God's knowledge forces us to do things? What is it he wants to actually criticize? Is he indeed capable of more than throwing around vague references?"

The illustration is wrong on many counts, but let's confine ourselves to four:

i) Even if Molinism were true, toying with Molinism is not the same as doing exegesis on Rom 9. Let Holding cite even one of his precious sociorhetorical critics who uses Molinism to exegete Rom 9.

That's another non-answer; I am waiting for something that is actually to be denied, and we also have as yet no showing of why Molinism would not be relevant to exegesis of a passage like Rom. 9 if it is true. Furthermore, even if no critic cited it, that also would not make it of no relevance by itself. We need some reason to think it is actually mistaken, not just this sort of bluster.

ii) Rom 9:11 rules out the possibility that election and reprobation are based on what the objects of election and reprobation would or would not have done.

Yet another non-answer and non-explanation. It's a shame that we can't be allowed to do "exegesis" like this and not explain ourselves, isn't it? How does Rom. 9:11 rule this out? It doesn't. All it states is that election was determined before birth, before the humans could have done anything about it: For the children being not yet born, neither having done any good or evil, that the purpose of God according to election might stand, not of works, but of him that calleth... It does not say a thing about the basis for election, much less does it deny that it had anything to do with prior knowledge of God of what these persons will do. As a reader has put it:

The general problem with White is that he thinks that the Biblical language picks out one and only one theory of providence. For example, when the Bible speaks of predestination the grammar does not pick out any specific theory say between Molinism, Thomism, Scotism or Palamitism. What does Predestination consist of? There is some marking off or selecting irrespective of the agent but the Biblical data doesn’t pick out any specific theory. Likewise when the Bible speaks of God causing events or actions it doesn’t specify which theory of causation is being employed. How exactly does God cause these events? The Bible doesn’t say and this is for a very good reason-the Bible is not a text of philosophical theology. This being the case you are only going to get so far with White on the exegetical grounds because it is his theory of providence that is informing and structuring his exegesis. It is his lack of knowledge of the basic philosophical moves that singles out Calvinism for him-such confusions as the idea that causation is identical with determinism or that God can’t will things on account of what agents do without implying that God doesn’t exist a se or that God’s knowledge is some how causative. I think that any decent Molinist for example can admit all of the exegetical facts that he wants while it still does not imply his theory of providence. And I am not a Molinist FYI though I think it is a respectable theory.

With respect to Romans 9, one thing to think about is that strictly speaking there is no “before” in God’s election. God doesn’t choose “before” any event if God is timeless. Whatever “election” amounts to for Paul, it strictly speaking doesn’t obtain “before” any temporal event. God’s atemporal acts have temporal effects but the atemporal acts are not indexed to a time. Something to think about.

iii) If you posit libertarian freewill, then God cannot know what an agent will do in any given situation; for if an agent has libertarian freewill, then he can do otherwise in any given situation.

Incidentally, libertarian freewill is scarcely compatible with an Evangelical doctrine of sin--to which Holding is nominally committed.

These two statements are frankly idiotic beyond belief; they might be more so if they were actually explained. But for the first, Hays at least again is ignorant of the distinction made by Craig (see above). Hays may be right here only if God exists in time; if God exists outside of time, then the agent's action could both be the cause of God's knowledge of the action (rather than vice-versa), and God could "fore"know that the agent "will" do the action.

iv) Holding is acting as though possible worlds were a mail-order catalog from which God makes his choice. This conjures up the specter of preexistence, as if God inherited this catalog as a family heirloom. These possible persons already exist, apart from God, like autonomous storybook characters. God's job is simply to choose which ones to activate--based on what they would freely do, given the chance.

How this "conjures up" such a specter in any place but Hays' own tortured mind is not explained. I assume Hays agrees that all things did pre-exist ideally in God's mind, not actually, but it appears from his comment about an "autonomous storybook" that he doesn't know the difference at all. In any event there is nothing here explaining why this is actually wrong; if God has no such views, how could he have known that Tyre and Sidon would have repented at the works of Jesus? So with all four points, Hays provides no actual response or showing of error on my part; he just tells us how horrifed he is (we knew that already) and throws more vague elephants of hellfire.

But that is highly unorthodox. A possible person has whatever properties that God mentally assigns to him. God knows what "it" would do because God knows what "he" would do "with" it. This is not, then, a model of libertarian freewill.

It isn't? It sure sounds like one in the primarily causal way. Perhaps Hays may wish to expand his mind with a critical thinking course.

"Sorry, but John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection. We have already answered this point above, and vague references to a huge book are not answers."

i) No, the burden is not on me, but Holding. Holding is the one who is making breezy generalizations about the linguistic culture of the NT writers, and, furthermore, extrapolating from that to specific points of exegesis. In order to make good on this claim he would need to do the following:

Yes, the burden is on Hays, not Holding, for my "breezy generalizations" are not such, but reflect normal expressive modes of the authors under consideration. It is Hays who is arguing for non-normalcy and thus it is his burden, one which he is clearly incapable of filling. I fulfilled Hays' requirements (ii) via sound scholarship. All Hays does in reply is offer misdirected and irrelevant bouts of verbal diarrhea mixed with pious outrage.

iii) Incidentally, Holding is quite willing to make vague references to book-length monographs when he happens to think it serves his own purpose.

My references are not in the least vague, certainly not to the educated, and include specific quotes, not merely "go see Warfield, entire section of this book".

iv) In addition, let the reader note that Holding cites no sociorhetorical commentator, or any other commentator, who applies the grammatical analysis of Jer 7:22 to Rom 9. All that Holding has done is to prop up one unsubstantiated claim by another unsubstantiated claim.

Yet more vague blather; but what is Hays saying? Does he deny the analysis of Jer. 7:22? And none of this is a substitute for an actual answer. But why would it matter if some commentator said such a thing anyway, since all Hays will do is call that commentator a name ("liberal", "Arminian") rather than providing an actual answer?

"Even multi-lingual persons retain the affectations of their native tongue."

This assumes that multi-lingual speakers have a single native language. Some do, some don't. Some grow up in homes where more than one language is heard from the cradle.

Well, sorry, but for Paul, Hebrew and Aramaic were the "native" languages. Next irrelevant belch?

"The same for Paul, though the degree of interference would vary, and be in accord with factors about the life of Moses and Paul about which we have little information."

Let the reader take careful note of this admission. Holding had just said that "John and Romans were written BY Hebrew-speaking Jews, and Romans was written to a mixzed [sic] audience of Jews and Gentiles, and the matter of bilingual interference makes it Hays' burden to show a disconnection."

Now, however, he is forced to backtrack with the admission that he knows nothing about the particulars of Paul's linguistic formation--or, for that matter, that of Paul's audience. So Holding's interpretation of Rom 9 turns on a very specific claim of linguistic interference for which, by his own tardy admission, he has, and can have, no specific evidence whatsoever.

I backtracked on nothing. Hays is confusing the matter of Paul's native and original language with what I am saying about the degree of interference. In other words, my case requires only the presence of the baseline of interference, about which, the evidence is clear; Hays is trying to get a "backtrack" out of a comment on the deeper extent of the interference, about which, the evidence is less clear, but which will not in the least affect what I say about Romans 9.

"How this works out is not explained. Hays is obviously oblivious to the virtues of native informants to say nothing of being pompously denigrating to the work of scholars like Wilson."

Holding said this in reference to the following comment of mine: "Holding's thesis is self-refuting. If it's impossible for one linguistic community to get inside the mind of another linguistic community, then it is impossible for Holding to get inside the 'block-logic' of a 1C Jew."

i) Actually, I thought my statement self-explanatory. Holding insists that Paul cannot think outside the box of his linguistic culture--such is the power which Holding attributes to social conditioning. Yet Holding magically exempts himself from social conditioning. He is confident that he can think outside the box of his own linguistic culture--that he, as a native English-speaker, can comment objective on the linguistic box of a Hebrew speaker, or Greek speaker, or Latin speaker.

However "self-explanatory" the statement was, it certainly was self-humiliating for Hays. Next Hays will call all performed anthropological study a fruitless endeavor (as he so belches from his armchair of non-expertise) because social scientists cannot escape their own "social conditioning". Yet part and parcel of such learning is recognizing your own biases as a social scientist. Paul, for his inspiration, was not one of these and we have no indication that he had the social scientists' knowledge and capability to think outside his own box (or that he even thought he needed to). Hays is once again erecting a straw man to distract from his inability to provide an actual answer, showing that scholars like Wilson are in their own box and have put Paul in the wrong one. Furthermore it is absurd to suggest that Hays in his own "box" can do any better.

ii) Let us add that Wilson is the product of a very different linguistic culture than a 1C Jewish native of Tarsus who was educated in pre-70 AD Jerusalem.

In other words, Hays, though too gutless to say so outright, wishes to accuse Wilson of incompetence. One wonders why he thought his quote of Wolfson was of any more use, then, unless he wants to tell us that Wolfson was 1900+ years old and once lived in pre-70 Jerusalem.

iii) This is not the first time or the last that Holding will take refuge in an argument from authority. His appeal to Wilson is a classic argument from authority. Yet Holding himself brands such an appeal to be a logical fallacy. So my "pompous denigration" consists in not committing a logical fallacy.

This error is one we have seen from Farrell Till as well. Sorry, but "argument from authority" is not a fallacy if the authority really IS an authority. Fallacy occurs when authority is quoted for the sake of authority ("Albert Einstein says that basketball is stupid"); not when the expert really knows their business (it is no fallacy to quote Stephen Hawking on black holes). Let it speak for itself again that Hays imitates an atheist opponent of ours to perfection.

"So how does Hays explain the "not" in Jer. 7:22?"

In i) hays claims he does not have to explain it, but out of the other side of his mouth, then does so:

ii) But suppose, for the sake of argument, that we did apply it to Rom 9:16? To what would the first clause be relative? What would supply the comparative? Why, the second clause, of course: "So it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy." The Reformed interpretation remains totally intact.

Sorry, but the "Reformed interpretation" still dies on the vine if I am right, because the negation idiom is therefore expressed as well in the "not" in the second clause. That this did not occur to Hays as once speaks volumes for the low level of his mental horsepower.

"Yet another misplaced answer. Gal. 5:19-21 refers to the 'works of the flesh' and therefore would be referring to the outworking of a decision, not the decision or thought itself which takes place in the mind. Which of these items Hays has in mind as 'mental acts' I can only guess but none are merely decisions or thoughts.

A blatant dodge. Hays can now find only one item in the list that he thinks works, and even it, he must admit, is followed on by concrete expression. But the issue is once more than I am asking not about attitudes, but about decisions. I want an example of where, "I'd like eggs for breakfast" is a work. Is decision making a work? Then the Jew committed a sin each time he had a thought involving a yes-no or multiple choice, even when he asked, "Should I eat manna now?" "Do I need to use the latrine?" Does Hays dare engage this absurd extreme?

Holding has a problem connecting his own dots. He said that a logical order requires the passage of time to exist. I countered that a logical order is an abstract object; as such, it subsists outside of space and time. He then says: "What the point of this was I do not know. I say nothing of the sort."

The point of all this is that he made a c