From another thread:

Putting this here for interaction and to segregate it from the other thread.

__________________
-JD

The proposition the Matthew (armourbearer) is referring to is this:

In terms of the RPW:

P1 New covenant believers are commanded to sing and to be taught by the Psalms (Ephesians 5:19, Colossians 3:16)
P2 The Psalms teach that we should sing a new song to the Lord (verses here)

C1 New covenant believers are commanded to sing new songs and the Psalms to the Lord

Matthew is attempting to present a reductio ad absurdum rebuttal to this by proposing that a prescription to sing new songs means that every time one sings, brand new songs are required, otherwise the new song is no longer "new".

This ad absurdum is easily rebutted by pointing out that the New Testament is not now the Old Testament simply because it is not "brand new". A new song is a new song in comparison to the "old" songs of the Psalms.

In fact, we may now sing the "old" songs with new understanding - does that mean our new understanding is now "old" the moment we understand and exercise it?

It does not take a master logician to see that Matthew's proposition is the one built on nonsense.

As noted previously, as soon as you allow that an old song may be sung with new understanding, then you allow that the Psalms may be sung with new understanding, and thereby negate your imperative of new compositions. It is clear that you are changing sailing vessels mid-race.

__________________
Yours sincerely,


"Illum oportet crescere me autem minui."

An additional verse to consider:

Matthew 9:17
"Nor do people put new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the wineskins burst, and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins, and both are preserved."

According to Matthew's rationale, the new wine, once poured into the new wineskin would instantly become "old" wine.

The conclusion does not necessarily follow, from what I can tell. The "new song" in your second premise could easily refer to another Psalm that was later recorded. Or, more likely, I take it as David or another psalm writer telling the congregation, in song, to sing the new song he is leading.

I'm not an EPer, but I think the argument you set out does not sequence.

__________________
Raymond Victor Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

Click to get: Board Rules -- Signature Requirements -- Suggestions?

What is clear is that you are creating a false dilemma.

Only if you contend that the Psalms' prescriptions and teachings are not to also be understood and practiced in light of the new covenant.

No, what is clear is that you don't like being tied to your own definitions of the terms you have created, but would like room to equivocate in order to make your argument sound plausible.

The argument is not only plausible - it is sound and aligns to Scripture and to the RPW.

It is clear that the new covenant believer is commanded to sing the Psalms as well as new songs.

The burden of proof is on the the EP'er to prove otherwise.

But that isn't included in either of your premises. That's importing another premise.

Not really - it is implied when I reference "new covenant believer" - is does assume a priori knowledge of the new covenant, but also assumes a priori understanding of what the Psalms are.

Then you have two prescriptions which cancel each other out. The contradiction is evident.

Again - you try and create a false dilemma where none exists.

The new covenant believer must sing the Psalms and new songs. Not either/or, but both/and.

You are clearly not abiding by your use of the word "prescriptive." The point at which you are "permitted" to sing a new song, old songs are no longer "prescribed;" and the point at which you are "permitted" to sing old songs, new songs are not "prescribed." You have made a formal argument in which the premises are thought to lead naturally to the conclusion; but your premises do not lead naturally to the conclusion without a great deal of equivocation.

My point was missed. Your rejoinder was "Only if you contend that the Psalms' prescriptions and teachings are not to also be understood and practiced in light of the new covenant."

I was not objecting to prior knowledge of the new covenant, but rather, that a new premise was introduced. One that states:

"Psalm's prescriptions and teachings must follow a practice enlightened by the new covenant."

You've laid the case for 1. We are to sing (your NT cites). 2. Psalms have songs that include verses telling us to sing new songs (which could be another psalm for all I know).

But I don't see anything supporting the premise that our new covenant enlightenment commands a particular practice regarding what was sung in the OT Psalms.

Sorry - I have been clear that the new covenant believer is commanded to sing new songs as well as the Psalms. I did not use the term "permitted".

The equivocation still clings to the word "command." When you sing a commanded new song, you are not singing a commanded old song, and vice versa. You cannot sing old and new at once.

I did not introduce that premise.

New covenant believers are to sing and be taught by the Psalms. (Colossians 3:16)

This implies that the Psalms' prescriptions are to be understood in light of the new covenant.

For example:

Psalm 105:1
Oh give thanks to the LORD, call upon His name; Make known His deeds among the peoples.

The Psalms prescribe "call upon His name" - whose name shall the new covenant believer call upon?

Answer:

1 Corinthians 1:2
To the church of God which is at Corinth, to those who have been sanctified in Christ Jesus, saints by calling, with all who in every place call on the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, their Lord and ours

I can sing a Psalm, then I can sing a new song - where is simultaneity prescribed or implied?

JD, I'm going to have to work on some other things, so I'll break off here.

One thing: the example you just gave is different from the first. The second example provided the missing authority for the practice. You asked whose name to be called upon, and the answer was squarely stated. I agree.

But in your first example you have the premise that our practice must be governed by the understanding that an OT "new song" is in fact a completely new composition rather than another psalm. To be consistent, you would have to find authority in NT to answer the question "what sort of new song are we commanded to sing?"

I have - psalms, hymns and spiritual songs - all types represented by the Psalms.

Blessings!

This is yet another element not provided for in your premise, and if provided would alter the conlusion. Again, you must understand that, in making a formal argument, the terms in the premise must be univocal with the terms as drawn in the conclusion.

Call it a semi-formal argument structured with formal argument elements, since it may not fall precisely in line with the formal ruleset. That doesn't invalidate the conclusion, nor imply your exception. Your are stretching in order to validate your false dilemma by introducing a red herring.

Hence invalid according to formal rules of logic. My challenge of the argument has served its purpose.

P1 New covenant believers are commanded to be taught by as well as sing the Psalms to the Lord
P2 The Psalms teach new songs be sung to the Lord

C1 New covenant believers are commanded to sing new songs as well as sing the Psalms to the Lord

With all due respect - straining gnats and swallowing camels.

That's the nature of formal logic, my friend; it helps keep us all honest.

Sorry to do this to you, but your minor premise conflates two terms -- teach and sing -- which were used in the major premise. This leaves no way of particularising the argument.

Sorry to do this to you but that is nonsense.

Please look at your syllogism again. Whereas your original argument made an equivocation on the word "prescribe" as used in premise and conclusion, this argument nullifies the word "command" between first and second premise.

Ok - I'll bite for a bit - although this really seems to be a complete sidetrack to the overall point and nonsensical in its approach to the argument.

That is to say - you have not proven that the argument is illogical, only that it may not conform to the formal rules of logic or that I am somehow conflating teaching and singing (which I have not) or being deliberately ambiguous or deceitful in my use of language (which I am not).

I am perfectly comfortable changing "teaches" in the second premise to command, since I contend that what the Scripture teaches, God commands us to obey.

P1 New covenant believers are commanded to be taught by as well as sing the Psalms to the Lord

P2 The Psalms command new songs be sung to the Lord

C1 New covenant believers are commanded to sing new songs as well as sing the Psalms to the Lord

Now, please interact with the premises - if one can be conclusively proven false, the conclusion is false. If not, you must reevaluate your dogmatic adherence to an erroneous doctrine.

And with that I say, good night and God bless you!

P2 is faulty because it assumes that "Sing to the Lord a new song" is teaching to sing new songs when it is much more likely similar to "Praise the Lord" -- an exclamation rather than an exhortation. Reading straight through the passages and their surrounding contexts makes this fairly self-evident.

It's not as if we're supposed to read the Psalms in an entirely different setting. We can learn from the Psalms without assuming that someone is lecturing us the Psalms verbatim, speaking them entirely differently. The psalmist is still saying "Sing to the Lord a new song" in the context of a song, which does not imply an actual command to do so, but rather an exclamation of doing so.

JD, what I fear from this is that you are far too emotionally invested in your position. You have a blog created for it and you are an ordained deacon in a church that does not generally adhere to EP (do some PCA churches do that? I'm not sure). I'm not trying to tell you you're in some self-blinded sinful rebellion, but please be willing to sacrifice the entire blog and your pride for the sake of the EP position if you find that it is correct. I'm not saying you view it as correct and deny it, but if it were to happen, I want to encourage absolute intellectual honesty. I know I have failed in that arena several times myself, and I would truly hate to see another brother struggle with it.

I say this, because, honestly, I find that we must read the Psalms in an entirely different way -- in a way that they are no longer worship songs -- in order to think that they are commanding new songs be sung.

All the best. I have been struggling a lot recently with pride and anger and other such sins, and I apologize if I come across in any way like that. I truly wish you the best. I love you, brother.

__________________
Ben Maas. . . . .Facebook
In college, attending First Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), Ada, OH, and
Belle Center Reformed Presbyterian Church (RPCNA), Belle Center, OH
When at home, attending Covenant Presbyterian Church (OPC), Mansfield, OH

“Prayer is as natural an expression of faith as breathing is of life.”
-Jonathan Edwards-

You are making a formal argument; therefore you are bound to make it conform to the formal rules of logic. There are no informal rules for formal arguments.

A little better. Now you have to alter premise 1 so as to say that believers are commanded to be commanded by the Psalms. When you have done that, it will be easily seen that premise 2 in fact overrules premise 1; it does not provide a particularisation of premise 1. It will also be seen that your use of the passive -- are commanded -- only serves to hide the subject, which is the ultimate source of authority; when the subject is made clear in the argument it will result in two sources of authority -- NT and Psalms -- which are at variance with one another.

I prescribe singing Kum by Yah:

__________________
Adam B., Wine Country, California, PCA

"I fear not to hold with Junius, de Politia Mosis cap. 6, that he who was punishable by death under that Judicial law, is punishable by death still; and he who was not punished by death then, is not to be punished by death now."

I'll address this, then return to deal with your non ad hominem arguments.

You are correct - I am very passionate about this particular subject, since it deals with nothing less than the corporate practice of singing praise to God in worship. Some folk are passionate about peado vs credo - baptism. They are passionate for a good reason. I feel my passion is no less warranted concerning EP, since one of us is in grave error regarding something the Father takes very passionately. Namely, the glory of His Son.

BTW - I may be very, very direct and straightforward in my responses. I may even call someone's defenses nonsense and the rhetoric may heat up, but I never stop loving the folks I am debating. I also sleep well at night in that assurance

I have pushed the limits before when I was going through some personal turmoil - basically itching for a fight - I have apologized and been forgiven, but that is irrelevant to the validity or perspicuity of the overall argument.

As far as intellectual honesty is concerned, I'd ask no less from the folks I dialogue with and if my premises can be proven conclusively false, I will abandon them, but thus far, all I have seen is an approach based on the form of the argument (a tactic that I consider weak, in general) not the actual truth of the premises and how valid they are.

We're getting closer to actually debating the premises...and I will concede and be instructed on the rules of form, if that means we can get closer and closer to the truth, because ultimately, the truth is there - I contend that we all agree on that .

BTW - in the end, this and baptism are the only 2 areas of substantial disagreement I imagine we 3 participating on this thread have with one another, and there are PLENTY of folks willing to debate both sides of the baptism argument!

Anyway - don't assume I am unreasonably over-emotionally vested in this simply because I don't back down. I sincerely believe that EP is not a safe doctrine and I'd like to make sure that those whom may be contra-reacting to the hokey-pokey, 7-11, shallow effluvia that passes as worship song out there don't throw away the baby with the bath water.

Now - I must head to work, then rejoin the debate in a bit.

Pax, my brother!

The only time two prescriptions necessarily contradict each other is when they are stated as "either/or". They do not contradict each other when they are stated as "both/and".

When the psalms command the singing of "new songs" they do so in a particular context. Ps. 98 gives us a clear statement of that context. The reason new songs were to be composed and sung in that period was that the Lord had "made known his salvation ... and his righteousness in the sight of the nations". A number of Psalms record such revelations of God's righteousness and judgements and the events mentioned are not merely pre-Sinai but cover the eras of the Exodus, Judges, Samuel to David (Ps. 78), David before becoming king (Ps. 34), various victories of Davidic period (Ps. 18), and even a pslam describing the Babylonian judgment (Ps. 137). Since the events covered include those contemporary with the writings of some of the psalms that describe them, it is clear that through the years from David to Babylon, the term "new song" could describe a newly composed psalm celebrating the Lord's ongoing deeds of salvation.

Yet the command to sing new songs is balanced by another command within Psalms, i.e., to "remember the wondrous works that he [the Lord] has done" (Ps. 105:5) and if older deliverances were already recorded in older psalms that meant those older psalms must be sung alongside and not instead of newer songs recording contemporary deliverances.

It is clear from the survival of the book of psalms to the era of the second temple that the pre-captivity Jews did not understand the exhortation to sing new songs to be an exhortation to sing new songs only, for they kept the older songs in their songbook. They understood that the instruction to sing new songs was a both/and instruction combined with a recognition that older songs that recorded God's earlier acts of deliverance remained valid expressions of praise and that singing them obeyed the instruction of Ps. 105:5.

Now the question we face today is not "Must we sing new songs only?" but "should we not sing new songs in addition to the biblical psalms? Why or why not?" Whatever the full intent of Paul's twice repeated instruction to sing "psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs" (Eph. 5 19, Col. 3:16), the biblical psalms are certainly included within that which Paul wants sung, since they are specifically identified by the term "psalms". What is at issue, and the point upon which the whole debate turns, is Paul's intended meanings for the other two terms "hymns" and "spiritual songs".

The term "spiritual songs" cannot be simply presumed to be another meaning for the psalms. During the years before the close of the canon, the Holy Spirit was operating in "charismatic" mode (prophecy, tongues etc.) and it seems that "hymns" (1 Cor. 14:26 ESV) were included within the exercise of these gifts Since that Paul's overarching theme in these verses is the regulation of charismatic gifts within orderly worship (1 Cor. 14:1-40). , it is not going to far to read the "hymn" here as equivalent to "spiritual song" in Eph 5 and Col 3. (If hymn is not held equivalent we have the phenomenon that Paul discusses a purely human presentation in the assembly when the rest of the phenomena discussed are almost certainly "charismatic"). Given this evidence we cannot exclude the possibility that Paul was referring to similar charismatic songs when he mentioned "spritual songs" in the Eph. and Col. verses. (I have pointed out elsewhere on the board that God giving new songs [whether charismatic or human composed makes no difference] to an allegedly EP only commanded church is enough on its own to disprove the EP thesis - although God has the right to temporarily allow something he has previously forbidden and will later forbid again, to be faithful to his nature, he must do so in a way that avoids contradicting himself. Unless he goes on record specifically allowing the forbidden practice for a temporary period and explicitly ends the period in which the temporary freedom is allowed, he necessarily creates confusion, contrary to his nature.)

Now if psalms means the biblical book of Psalms, and spiritual songs can mean Holy Spirit prompted songs in the undeniably "charismatic" era of the church, "hymns" can no longer necessarily be held to be another term for the biblical psalms over against its other known meaning, that of human composed texts. And if we cannot derive the conclusion that we are commanded to sing biblical Psalms only by necessary consequence from this text - (and against the evidence provided in this and the previous paragraph, we cannot do so) - then we must conclude that God has not required biblical Pslam only worship of the NT churches.

__________________
In Christ's love and service

Mr. Tim Cunningham,
BMus. (Trombone Performance), University of Toronto
Dip. CS, Regent College, Vancouver
Member, First Baptist Church
Vancouver, BC
------------
"I once sat in darkness, and waited for the moon to rise.
I once sat in darkness, and waited for the son to shine.
I once sat in darkness, when all the light I'd waited for was gone.
Then Jesus came, and now the only true light, ever, shines in me."
– John Deacon -

I agree, the syllogism is improved. I still have an objection to it that is a bit different from Matthew's.

Your conclusion has two parts: NC believers are commanded to sing new songs and NC believers are commanded to sing the old Psalms. I leave the second conclusion aside because it doesn't seem to be the focus of controversy.

Looking at the conclusion "NC believers are commanded to sing new songs," we see several elements. I grant your implied assumptions regarding NC believers, and I grant the use of "sing". So that leaves two elements: "command" and "new songs." In order for a syllogism to reach the conclusion you are asserting, it has to include those two elements in the premises and they have to mean the same thing when moving from one premise to another.

Here is a syllogism that would support your conclusion:

P1 New covenant believers are commanded to obey what is taught in the Psalms.

P2 The Psalms teach that we must sing new songs.

C New covenant believers are commanded to sing new songs.

See how the conclusion flows from the two premises? The problem here, for me, is that the two premises I set out above are not clearly supported. As Timothy and Ben have pointed out, there are a lot of unresolved considerations that would have to be resolved before we can say that either premise is true.

For example, are we sure that we are commanded to obey what is taught in the Psalms? Every single statement? We know that we are commanded to learn from them, but are we commanded, for instance, to dash infants on rocks?

And are we sure that the new songs of the Psalms are the same thing as new songs today? Not necessarily.

That's why I say the syllogism doesn't work. There are too many unresolved assumptions brought into the equation.

As for whether the EP argument is convincing, I leave that aside. I'm only stating that your anti-EP argument needs a lot of work.

Blessings.

Vic

Vic, thanks - I have gotten some other council that my premises were compound and may be over-complicating the syllogism by trying to kill 2 birds with one stone.

On the other hand:

I feel safe in saying yes and would contend that the burden of proof otherwise would lie on the person asserting "no".
Unless abrogated by the NC, yes.

I assume you refer to Psalm 137:

9How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones
Against the rock.

Does the Psalm positively command that one should dash little ones against rocks?

Is this activity abrogated by the NC?

We can be sure that new songs mean new songs. Are the OC songs new songs for the NC believer? I am certain they have newness in the fullness of understanding the NC, but do they satisfy the requirements of the NC?

Ephesians 5:20
always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Hopefully, this has helped resolved them.

It was a formal argument. A formal argument has to account for all the terms being used. You can't have both/and in a formal argument because it leads to equivocation.

JD opened this thread with a criticism on his particular argument; here you introduce a new argument which is not relevant to his new songs approach. If you would like to put this argument forward then please open a new thread and we can discuss it there. Please note that any discussion of the exclusive psalmody position must approach it from the context of the regulative principle, and that means the exclusivity of the argument does not require a biblical prohibition of other songs but merely the omission of a biblical warrant to sing other songs. Blessings!

Yes you can if the argument is constructed properly to narrow the topic under discussion. The burden of this part of my post is to help JD do the necessary narrowing. As I read JD's argument, I think he will be able to effectively narrow his first premise to something like this:

"Scripture commanded during the OT era that God be praised both in older songs and in contemporaneously composed songs."

Covenant theology takes as its general rule the proposition that any doctrine or practice not altered by the NT is assumed to continue throughout the church age since "there is unity and continuity in the covenant of grace throughout history" (s.v. "Covenant Theology, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology"). The regulative principle of worship in the OTallowed for contemporaneously composed worship songs in that era, so according to the general hermeneutic of covenant theology, the permission of contempraneously composed songs must continue unless it can be shown to be discontinued.

Also discussion of any Scriptural issue must commence approaching it, not on from a traditionally accepted theology but from the Scriptures that speak directly to it. If it can be shown, as I think I have shown, that the words "hymn" and "spiritual song" cannot be restricted to the meaning "biblical Psalm" in Eph. 5 and Col. 3, then Scripture gives positive warrant to for the church to sing other songs in addition to the biblical psalms in the New Covenant era.