Paul, the fact that she is teaching others to break the Law of God testifies against the reality of her conversion.

Oh, I checked the intensedebate site. Your comment links also don't work for me -- it looks like a problem between intensedebate and your site, somehow. I've never used it before, and I'm not very impressed now that I'm trying it.

Just quickly replying so you have something to test.

TF, I had a problem with that too. The solution is twofold. First, go to the top of the comments, and click on the hyperlink "Last Activity". This will bring the most recently posted OR commented-upon post to the top (and the next most recent will be under it).

However, the responses will be hidden. Look at the end of the topmost comment next to the oval reply button, and if the comment has been responded to, you'll see a hyperlink labeled "1 Reply" (or more, of course). Click that and you should see the replies.

Frankly, the commenting software is not very easy to use. It's probably better than the blog's own commenting software, but it's not as nice as I'd expected it to be. Considering its awesome name.

-Wm

Admitting that one has performed acts that God has clearly revealed are sinful is not the same thing as confessing that one has sinned. She is publicly denying that she has sinned while admitting that she performed the actions and nurtured the sinful heart that led to the actions. She is also teaching that others should do likewise and more. This is clear evidence of a lack of conversion. For her to use her authority to teach others to sin likewise is to bring down curses from Christ and Paul.

I regret to inform you that your distinction between sacramental and civil marriage is inappropriate even if one accepts the idea of marriage as a sacrament. The problem is that marriage per se was ordained by God "from the beginning". Your distinction is appropriate only if you consider "civil marriage" to be purely fictional, which does not fit with any teaching of the church ever (even if some fathers, such as Augustine, did to their shame apparently discard their marriage as though it were not real).

-Wm

I look forward to your upcoming posts, as always.

But please don't think I'm pretending agnosticism. That's impossible to consistently attribute to me here. I gave constructive examples of the word "punishment" being actually used in result, episode, and mixed result/episode nominalizations, so I'm not claiming it's impossible to know, or impossible to know in this case; on the contrary, I claim that it's possible to know, and I've given examples of how you can know.

As an aside, I also admitted I was having a hard time figuring out how to express "punishment" as a deverbal manner noun (which you, for some reason you don't state, claim it is in this case). I finally managed to do it: "The law's demands were punishment." That's a nominalized manner, since the claim is not that the law's demands were the result of being punished, nor the episode of punishing, but rather that they acted the same way that punishment would, as their manner matched the manner of punishing. As you can see, I was only able to do this by using the noun with adjectival force, and I wasn't able to come up with any purely nominal examples.

So, is it possible that "And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life" is using "punishment" as a manner noun? Well, is the thing being nominalized actually the _manner_ of punishing? I don't see how that's possible within that sentence structure. From what I can see, it's possible that the wicked are going into an eternal episode of punishing, or they're going into the eternal result of having been punished, but it's not possible that they're going into an eternal manner of punishing. Agent or Patient deverbals aren't possible given the word form, and it being an Ability deverbal would hint that it has to be a possessive property, which makes the sentence mean that eternity is the one who can and might punish (rather than Jesus).

This leaves only episode and result nominalization, and both are completely compatible with the gross structure and meaning of the sentence in context. You and Hebrew Student claim that the fine structure of the parallelism renders an episode nominalization impossible, but you're using a parallel structure that's already being used in a primary, story-critical way to make "eternal" apply to both nouns; that means any additional parallels or contrasts found might be accidental rather than deliberate. As I've pointed out, there IS a contrast between "punishment" and "life", since "punishment" is simply the generic consequence of a unfavorable verdict, while "life" is a specific result of a favorable verdict.

None of this is agnostic. I've carefully exegeted, provided evidence for all my claims, and given examples of my reasoning as applied to other writing.

-Wm

Unfortunately, I have no idea what you're talking about. I re-read both, found the points your raised, and found where I pointed out the errors in those points.

I've often erred in being unclear, so it wouldn't surprise me to find another error on my part. But I'm absolutely certain that although I may have erred in the comment somewhere, the massive quantity of it is correct.

But let me be brief, for once in my life. My point is: the context does not in any way allow us to decide whether Christ intended for the _result_ or the _episode_ of punishing to be nominalized. (Your claim, that it was actually the _manner_, is actually completely impossible in context, and would be very difficult in any context.)

In a constructive argument to which you've given no reply or notice, I've given three examples of sentences in which the result and/or the episode of punishing are nominalized (in one of which it stands ambiguous). You've given only one argument: that there's a parallelism. But this argument gives you _nothing_, because the parallelism was necessary to tie the word "eternal" to both results of the Son of Man's judgements -- there's no way to express that concept without making those two words grammatically parallel, and the tying of "eternal" to both is actually critical to the point of the parable.

Done.

-Wm

I'd hoped for a more deep interaction than "you'll have to find a more authoritative source than Wikipedia". Can I conclude from this that you don't believe there's any such thing as deverbal episode nouns? So you only acknowledge "manner" and "result"? If so, you have NO ground to stand on at all; if the manner is what's being treated as a thing, then God is the subject, and the eternality of the action is not even in scope, only the eternality of the Son of Man. But I'm not even sure that "punishment" CAN be a manner noun.

I won't waste any more time on finding more authoritative authorities, sorry. All you've given me is your own word; at least I've got something more objective than my own opinion.

Your unqualified opinion is only as good as your studies. But your next paragraph is just wrong. "Burning" is not a deverbal noun; it's a gerund, which is a verbal noun. "Burn", on the other hand, is deverbal. As a result noun, "a burn" refers to an area or time that has been affected by burning; as an episode noun, it refers to the incident that caused the effects. I don't think there's a nominalization of the manner, since "to burn" is not usually a personal action, except as a metaphor too closely related to fire to be separated.

"They are not both possible."

As the saying goes, "show, don't tell." I've explained exactly what either reading, as well as the ambiguous reading, would make the parable mean. The ambiguous reading is far preferable, since it doesn't hinge on subtle arguments regarding data that we don't have, but rather focuses on the explicit and full meaning of the part of the parable that Jesus spent time telling. Thus, I've constructively proven that all three readings are perfectly adequate; finding which one is exactly correct can be done by harmony with other texts, but the text itself is ambiguous, almost certainly by intention.

Yes, It clearly does say "punishment." Yes, It clearly does not say "result of the punishment." But it also clearly does not say "the episode of the punishment".

I see you're claiming what you can claim. But you're not supporting it adequately; you're simply claiming it. So the question is whether you're claiming what you SHOULD claim, not what you CAN claim.

"a) No, Christ didn't leave it ambiguous. It's unambiguously about the duration of the punishment."

I agree.

"b) The context does show us he was teaching about the nature of the punishment and of the reward."

I'm not sure that's true. Christ used a generically negative word for the punishment side, and a specific positive word for the reward side. Is anyone surprised that the goats are to be punished? Christ taught the duration, as we agreed, but aside from that teaching, which we already agreed on, this parable doesn't teach anything else about the nature of the punishment.

-Wm

More than likely; it's just how the Greek expresses that.

And Hebrew Student has a fine point below, that the distinction starts now, in an "already but not yet" sense. Read Psalm 73 (please!), and notice how unlike the wicked, the righteous treasure the same thing right now that they will treasure forever: "there is nothing on earth I desire besides [the LORD]."

-Wm

Hebrew Student: I don't think that works.

My point is that "deverbal noun" is a fixed category. You can tell whether almost any given noun is deverbal or not, based on the noun's history and the vocabulary of the source language. (The points of unclarity will be when you can't tell whether the noun is deverbal or the verb is back-constructed from the noun -- as Calvin said, "verbing wierds language.") But "deverbal result noun" is NOT a fixed category. The same word can be a result noun or an episode noun in different usage -- and although the meaning will be VERY different, the usage may be relatively similar.

You're drawing a bunch of illustrations that all assume that I'm attempting to diagram sentences based on inherent word properties or something like that. I'm not doing that. On the contrary, I recognize that words can flex and bend, and languages naturally use the resulting ambiguity. As Dr. Pullum says, "Languages love multiple meanings. They lust after them. They roll around in them like a dog in fresh grass."

And in this case, I'm the one who's pointing out that your framework is far, far too rigid to get any of the parable's actual meaning. You're supposing that Christ was attempting to draw up a parallel construction with two or three points of parallelism and at least two points of clashing contrast in just a few spoken words. We know Christ could do that if He wanted, but keep in mind... He could also have taught clearly if He wanted to. Look at the parable around those words. He wasn't being subtle at all.

"The key in Matthew 25"

No. Matthew 25 is not about the distinction between torment and annihilation. Please read it, and continue into the beginning of Matthew 26. The key is the progressive self-revelation of the Son of Man, culminating in "His glorious throne" and the judgement of all flesh. So powerful is the Son of Man that His judgements carry an eternal punishment and an eternal reward.

"is the parallel between reward and punishment-a parallel that includes the word "eternal" in describing each."

No, it doesn't. It's nothing that simple. It's a half-parallel. Yes, punishment is on the one side; but where you expect to see "reward", instead you see "life". What happened? Why aren't the sides parallel? Wouldn't your eschatology suggest that at least some kind of life is on both sides? No, only one side sees life.

So does that prove anything? NO. That's semantic games. It's fun, but God didn't write His word as word puzzles.

"That is going to be a murderously difficult context to overcome in dealing with what exactly is meant by the phrase "eternal punishment." In order to deal with this, you would have to completely destroy the parallelism."

We aren't called to find what exactly is meant by the two-word phrase "eternal punishment", except in what it literally says. This is one of the pleasant cases where, so far as we can find, the simple English translation carries all or most of the same ambiguity as the Greek. Leave that ambiguity where it is. God put it there. Go find the meaning of "eternal punishment" somewhere God was actually talking about what eternal punishment is.

First, read the passage to see what our Lord and God was talking about. Do you disagree with me that His point in this parable -- and indeed the series of parables -- was to build up to His great and glorious revelation and the most mighty exercise of His eternal power as judge over creation? Then the important thing to see is that there are just and unjust, sheep and goats; that Christ judges them and they find themselves unable to truthfully protest; that they are all given justice at His hands, some the reward of life and some punishment, but for both of them the verdict is sealed with what only the very nature of God can provide -- they are both _eternal_.

That's all it says (and more). It says nothing about torment versus annihilation. It's a very simple verse; look at the Greek.

And it's also a capstone, a turning point, because the One who is going to decree and seal everyone's fate is about to be betrayed and crucified -- He decrees it Himself. And just as he doesn't explain everything about how and why He judges everyone and how He punishes the unrighteous, He also doesn't explain in that verse WHY He had to be betrayed and crucified.

-Wm