Sunday, October 22, 2023

Arguments From Silence

A lack of observational evidence for extraterrestrial life is not evidence against it.  There might be no actual alien life of any kind in existence, microbial or macroscopic, yet even aside from the inherent epistemological limitations of a non-omniscient being's senses, one might not have access to direct or indirect evidence of alien organisms.  It would be idiotic for a person to believe they can or cannot know the truth of this issue other than possibilities, probabilities, and what logically does and does not follow from these.  Likewise, perceiving that someone has a happy or neutral facial expression does not mean they are not upset (they might be).  It means if one cannot tell if they really are happy.

These are things which do not logically follow from something.  Though all logical fallacies are in some way a non sequitur, the name, not that the name matters rather than the truth itself, of a subcategory of non sequiturs is called the appeal to ignorance.  This is when someone mistakenly thinks an absence establishes something that is not  necessarily true and does not actually follow.  The idea that aliens cannot or do not exist because of a lack of evidence for them (though the difference between logical proof/truths and sensory evidence is relevant to this topic) is this kind of fallacy.  With the concepts mentioned, suggested, or not mentioned in texts like the Bible, a variation of this is the argument from silence.

An example of a fallacious Biblical argument that depends on silence about a matter would be the notion that if God was to appear to one in the present day, it would be in the form of a burning bush.  The Bible does not say God would not appear in this manner again, yet it does not even hint at it.  It could be the case.  It just would not have to be (when it comes to strictly logical necessity or even the teachings of the Bible themselves without what would or would not follow necessarily).  It would not logically follow that God would ever do the same as he did with Moses again.  Another such argument would be the idea that if Job was materially blessed for his righteousness, then anyone else who obeys God will also receive great wealth.  What one person was given in this life for his genuine moral excellence does not necessitate that anyone else, much less everyone else, would receive the same from God.

Yet another example would be the idea, a very popular one at that, that any moral concept not repeated in the New Testament is no longer obligatory.  This does not follow and it even contradicts the Bible, as God's nature does not change (Malachi 3:6, James 1:17).  Morality is where this can get especially important.  In the context of a religious philosophy where God has directly or indirectly condemned some things but not others, silence absolutely is confirmation that something is not immoral on that worldview, at least as far as the specific doctrines in the text go.  It just has nothing to do with silence in the New Testament, as with arson (Exodus 22:6) or general torture (Deuteronomy 25:1-3).  With Christianity, since the Bible itself explicitly and even repeatedly addresses how adding or subtracting from divine commands, which reflect God's morally perfect nature and thus cannot be incomplete or unjust, is grievous, legalism is unbiblical.

The Bible says it contains all one needs to hear or ascertain what is and is not morally mandatory, neutral, and evil according to holistic Christianity (Deuteronomy 4:2, Romans 7:7, 2 Peter 1:3, Matthew 15:3-9), so the Bible being totally silent on an issue does require that a thing is not sinful according to its own framework.  If it does not directly address a moral subject as with loving God (Deuteronomy 6:5) or not withholding the wages of a worker (Deuteronomy 24:14-15), and if it does not follow by necessity that the permittance or condemnation of one thing requires that of another (such as alcohol abuse being equivalent to drug abuse of other kinds although the latter is not mentioned in Mosaic Law), then something is objectively, clearly nonsinful in Christian philosophy.  To think otherwise is to give in to the fallacious, arrogant illusion of adding to the divine moral nature.

The Bible is also not really silent on what some imagine.  Everything it says about monetary transactions, loans, interest (such as not charging interest to people of one's own country in Deuteronomy 23:19-20), and so on would apply to contemporary banking.  Everything it says about sexual immorality would apply to modern dating, which it does not mention, and everything it does not condemn would be permissible in dating today, as it was at all other times.  In saying to not endanger your neighbor's life (Leviticus 19:16), the Bible does not have to mention vehicle safety to by necessity address car use indirectly in this way.  At the same time, what it does not say about, for instance, sexual immorality, such as not condemning masturbation, is absolutely confirmation on the Christian worldview that such a thing is neither mandatory nor evil, and thus can be done in any way which does not involve actual sin--even some ways that might shock or offend the typical Christian [1].


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