ImpriMartin:
Itâs not enough to show an alternate possible interpretation of these 30 things. Youâd have to show how the catholic interpretation of all thirty things CANâT be true. That is the only way make them all coincidence
RodOfIron:
Really? If that is true, then by the same measuring stick, you must show that all thirty interpretations that I would present cannot
be true. The burden of proving my points are untrue isnât any less than the burden I have of proving your points untrue. But proving something is not true seems to be impossible. How would I proceed?
Rod,
It doesnât work that way. The burden of proof is on you to prove your thesis: All the Peter references are unrelated and coincidental. To do that,
âCollectively, Youâd have to show how playing key roles in a jewish culture (name change, given keys, listed first, separated in lists, et al) at critical times
canât be because he had primacy.
âCollectively, Youâd have to show how when certain people (Jesus, pharisees, angels, etc) separated him when other people were present, it
couldnât have been because he had primacy.
âCollectively, Youâd have to show how when people
didnât tell him to be quiet when he was such a
major screw up (betray 3 times, get behind me Satan, saying ONLY a few dumb things, etc) when anyone else wouldâve), it
couldnât have been because they knew he had primacy.
âAll while him not having any special status (heâs uneducated and not the oldest, youngest, smartest, first, last, etc) There is nothing special about him.
âAnd thatâs not including the early church fathers who confirm this.
You could provide your thirty alternate single reasons and verse interpretations, but at best, youâd have thirty single, possible, separate scenarios but because they are mentioned in one work, they become unlikely, improbable coincidences (considering the whole collective.) If there were five things to match the âcanât be primacyâ criteria, then maybe I could see how your scenario is probable, but thirty?
Being a loudmouth doesnât cut it because people donât listen to screwup loudmouths (much less spend the effort to handwrite on expensive paper his rantings when youâre writing the history about someone else and at the same time, youâre being persecuted) especially on matters of truth and salvation and such. Iâm sorry Rod, Collectively, when you consider the entire picture, you have a weak case at best.
It would be like witnessing a civilian man who walks out of the white house (couldvâe been just visiting), soldiers saluting him (maybe he has high rank) on the way to to Air Force One (other staff people ride in that), and flys to the pentagon (other people work there). Then you come to the conclusion that he is not the President of the United States claiming that those are four coincidences. This is probable scenario. But if I mention thrity âcoincidencesâ, that scenario gets exponentially less likely .
On the other hand, the burden of proof on me to prove my thesis as well. What do I have to prove? Well I have the thirty facts. And youâre right, I
need all thirty facts to prove my point. (probably twenty would do) But All I have to do is do the math. The fact that I need these facts to paint the picture is a given. Everyone needs their facts to prove their point.
Synching all thrity facts to the idea that Peter has primacy is a gazillion times easier than synching them to âPeter canât have primacyâ.
Martin
Itâs your thesis. Itâs the nature of the beast when trying to prove negative theses. Our protestant bretheren have a similar problem with the Sola Scriptura argument.:nope:
