the fallacy of division - commonly used in contra grammatical argumentation

Steven Avery

Administrator
What is the Fallacy of Division?
https://www.thoughtco.com/what-is-the-fallacy-of-division-250352


Explanation of the Fallacy of Division
The fallacy of division is similar to the
fallacy of composition but in reverse. This fallacy involves someone taking an attribute of a whole or a class and assuming that it must also necessarily be true of each part or member.

The fallacy of division takes the form of:
X has property P.
Therefore, all parts (or members) of X have this property P.
So we can see this fallacy in action in the heavenly witnesses grammatical discussions:

Fallacy:
New Testament Koine Greek (X) often allows gender discord without it being a solecism (P).
Therefore any gender discord is not a solecism.
This is also called "arguing from the general to the specific" and at times is placed under the fallacy of composition.

Eugenius Bulgaris wrote carefully to explain and avoid this fallacy. He said specifically that neuter nouns with masculine or feminine grammar (adjectives, pronouns, participles) can be very grating discord, a solecism. However, the same was not true with feminine and masculine nouns, which are frequently used in non-solecism clauses and phrases with discordant grammatical gender.

Eugenius Bulgaris - Barry Hofstetter translation:
It is very well known, since all have experience with it, and it is clearly a peculiar genius of our language, that masculine and feminine nouns may be construed with nouns, adjectives and pronouns in the neuter, with regard to the actual sense (τὰ πράγματα). On the other hand no one has ever claimed that neuter noun substantives are indicated by masculine or feminine adjectives or pronouns.
(Note: there is one well known exception involving neuter nouns, given very clearly in the Parkhurst grammar, when a neuter noun refers to a multitude, or collection, or set, of people, like the disciples, or the nation, it may take masculine grammar.)

Yet, again and again the contras simply appeal to some unrelated verse situation or grammatical book reference - giving supposed examples and analogies and references -- involving masculine and feminine substantives. These are simply irrelevant to the grammatical problem with just the earthly witnesses and its neuter substantives. (This includes any phrase with multiple nouns of mixed gender, where one or more is masuline or feminine - irrelevant.)

"Discord is discord" - as James Snapp ignorantly said on the NT Textual Criticism forum in insisting on this fallacious argumentation.

In the earthly witnesses, the discord is heightened by the masculine-neuter-masculine grammatical structure. One native Greek speaker, Ilias Theodosis, called this a "hole", where the solecism is even more obvious. And we have the masculine grammar "three" in the second part pointing right back to the water, the spirit and the blood neuter nouns.


 
Top