Thursday afternoon, I posted a piece called “False Premises: An Example” that deals with a comment posted on this blog. If you missed it, I would suggest you have a look before you continue with this post.

In that piece, I mentioned that I would continue with it today, this time taking a look at the author’s use of “Straw Man Arguments.”

In his comment, the author has two sets of straw man arguments. The first, and most amusing, is the section that I characterized as irrelevant last time, when I was pointing out the author’s thesis. Today, let’s go back and take a look at it, and we’ll investigate the second batch of straw men next week.

Before I continue, in case you are not aware of exactly what a straw man argument is, a straw man or red herring argument (Aunt Sally in the UK) is an argument that poses a bogus argument attributed to an opponent or opposition view that is easily smashed for the purpose of giving the impression that the speaker is more credible than the opposing view. This is a common political argument, often used in partisan settings to generate applause or laughs.

Here’s what our guy did:

This is very similar to The Beatles- “All you need is love. Love is all you need. Love, Love, Love.” (In other words, the second commandment, the love of man, without the love of God. Love as me, myself and I define love to be, and continuously redefined by sinful men.)
In essence, it is also the same principle as what Eve did in the Garden of Eden, forgetting about the Tree of Life, which is the first tree in the middle of the Garden, and instead referring to the second tree as “the tree that is in the middle of the garden.” [Genesis 3:3 & 2:9 2:17, 3:24]
Kind of like the Pharisees with Jesus, who were pushing the false idea that we can consider ONE commandment in the Law, alone in isolation, to be “the greatest commandment in the Law.”
Or like today, false teachers in the Chrislam – Purpose Driven – Seeker Sensitive – Emergent – Liberal – Ecumenical – New Age – world church movement pushing the false idea that the the ONE RULE is “Loving God and Neighbor together.” sic

Let’s review the points one at a time:

1. The Beatles. OK, this one is kind of funny in the way it attempts to paint any opponent to the theological argument being made as some kind a 1960’s cult figure, but it doesn’t require a great deal of analytical ability to recognize the straw man here. As I recall, The Beatles never held themselves out as Bible scholars, nor were they known for much apart from being a musical band. I am very familiar with their body of work, and this particular song, am I am confident in asserting that until now, it has never been associated with any such theological claim. Sorry buddy, but this is textbook straw man, and a cheap shot at that.

2. Eve in the Garden. If you insist on creating the illusion that anyone who disagrees with you is just like Eve and committing the original sin by their disagreement, I wouldn’t reference the Genesis verses referenced here, for if you look them up you will discover that Eve had the geography correct, and was not making any sort of theological assertion whatsoever. Another straw man.

3. Kind of like the Pharisees. So are we to understand that by asking which of the commandments was the greatest, the Pharisees were making the assertion that we “can consider ONE commandment in the Law, alone in isolation, to be “the greatest commandment in the Law”? Was that their trap for Jesus? You can think so if you like, but a more reasonable assertion would be that in any group of laws, commands, ideas, people, things, that one item on the list might be the best, greatest or most important. Jesus gave the answer the Law required, the great Shema, and mentioned the second greatest. Since Jesus volunteered the “Second greatest” all on His own, it seems unlikely the Pharisees were setting the trap our author says they did since Jesus accepted their characterization of the “greatest.” The straw man feature here is to equate someone who disagrees with our author as a Pharisee by insinuating a false assertion to the Pharisees.

4. Or like today. Imagine these dastardly characters who say that “ONE RULE is “Loving God and Neighbor together.” (sic) Far be it for me to stick up for such a motley crew, but isn’t that the linkage Jesus made in Mark 12 and Matthew 22? The “ONE RULLE” was your words, sir. The straw man feature here is to equate any opponent of the thesis in this piece with all of these new fangled liberals… and then misrepresent their beliefs.

The persuasive strategy of a straw man argument is to make it seem that the reader must be crazy if they won’t adopt the author’s view, while enhancing the author’s credibility in the reader’s mind by easily defeating arguments that no one has made. This is the sort of argument that children get in to, the sort of argument that people use when they either don’t have a real case, or when they are making a case based upon a false premise, for the evidence does not support the premise that supports the case, so straw man is the only viable option.

This blog is not about persuasive discourse (although that would be fun!) no, but it is about understanding God’s Word. Not everyone is trained in rhetorical discourse, in fact not many people are. I have argued in the past for adding training on rhetoric and persuasion in seminary, but nobody wanted to hear it or saw the value in it, which is a shame. Yet here we all are on the internet, reading and writing about the Word of God. It is vital that we understand what we are reading and writing and the reasoning behind it so that we can avoid mistakes like this fellow has made. It’s also pretty important that we not be led astray by such mistakes. I believe, rightly or wrongly, that if more of us were aware of these things, arguments among brothers and sisters in Christ would diminish considerably, and I hope you agree with me.