# Instances of the Naturalistic Fallacy?



## Toasty (Apr 16, 2016)

The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy that occurs when someone argues from what is the case to what ought to be the case. Would the following be examples of the naturalistic fallacy?

1. Teaching that we should follow the example of the believers mentioned in Acts 2:42. They devoted themselves to the word of God, fellowship, the breaking of bread, and prayer. Our lives should be characterized by the same things.

2. Coming to the conclusion that people should get baptized after believing in Jesus by noticing that in the Book of Acts people were getting baptized after they believed in Jesus.

3. Talking about the importance of prayer or making prayer a high priority by looking at the prayer life of Jesus.

4. Talking about Paul's sermon on Mars Hill and concluding that we should talk to non-Christians about the Christian faith in the same manner.


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## Peairtach (Apr 17, 2016)

This isn't the naturalistic fallacy. E.g. the example of the apostles is instructive for how the Church does things and how Christians do things but we have to make careful distinctions sometimes between what was peculiar to the Apostolic era, and what is normative for us.

Maybe someone like Bruce can articulate more deeply and clearly how the exegete goes about this.

This applies, to the Patriarchs, Kings Prophets and all biblical characters. There is ethical teaching there in God's Word: sometimes it's positive, sometimes the behaviour of the character doesn't directly apply to us at all sometimes it's negative. 

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## TheOldCourse (Apr 17, 2016)

I'm not sure that any of those would qualify. An approved example is as valid as a direct command for the Christian. It seems to me that the problem with many of the above is when they are exegeted poorly and made to be exhaustively definitive for the act in question rather than allowing the analogy of faith along with good and necessary consequence to aid us in coming to a more comprehensive understanding of each case.


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## MW (Apr 17, 2016)

Toasty said:


> The naturalistic fallacy is a fallacy that occurs when someone argues from what is the case to what ought to be the case.



In biblical interpretation the is-ought fallacy is also identified as the descriptive-prescriptive or the narrative-normative fallacy. E.g., First Corinthians gives instructions for speaking in tongues; therefore we should desire to speak in tongues. That is a genuine is-ought fallacy. None of the instances you have provided fall into this category. They are based on "approved" example. We are taught to walk as He walked, to follow the apostles as they follow Jesus Christ, and to follow those who through faith and patience inherit the promises.

I thought the "naturalistic fallacy" was broader than the is-ought fallacy, but it has been a long while since I looked at formal fallacies.

Philosophers themselves are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are constantly jumping from the descriptive to the prescriptive without any sound philosophical basis. Believing as we do in creation norms we have to be careful not to fall into the philosopher's abstract world.


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## Afterthought (Apr 18, 2016)

MW said:


> Philosophers themselves are descriptive, not prescriptive. They are constantly jumping from the descriptive to the prescriptive without any sound philosophical basis. Believing as we do in creation norms we have to be careful not to fall into the philosopher's abstract world.


Interesting. Why do you say that philosophers are descriptive? You say that they constantly jump from the descriptive to the prescriptive without sound philosophical basis, but how do they do this? Isn't philosophy a study of universals? And isn't ethics a part of philosophy?

Perhaps additionally someone might ask: Is the prescriptive implicit in philosophy because it has a bearing on our "reason" to which we owe a moral compulsion for even various philosophical reasons, e.g., not practical to be unreasonable; or somehow arguing that truth is non-contradictory and so obeying reason gives us the truth; reason separates from the beasts so we act inhuman when we do not heed the voice of reason?


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## MW (Apr 18, 2016)

Afterthought said:


> Isn't philosophy a study of universals?



Let's say it is. All philosophy is doing is "describing" the universals; but then whence do they derive these "universals?" Apart from creation there is no basis for saying there are individualities or pluralities -- the one and the many. There is nothing static in a world of becoming. There are no entities in emanations. And so on and so forth. Philosophy requires a normative metaphysical framework within which to engage in descriptive analysis, and it assumes the norms of this framework.


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