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Exposing The Sophistry Of Joel Gwin's Debate Charts: by Bill Reeves and Tim Haile September 15, 2003 What follows is another one of brother Gwin's generic charts. It is intended to show that an innocent mate must suffer the "unfair consequences" of being "put-away" (rejected) even when he was rejected by a fornicator (or now fornicating) mate.
Though brother Gwin used this chart in the debate, it was designed to answer someone who bases his conclusions on the potential unfairness of some situtaion. Its purpose is to emphasize the need to base conclusions on the Scriptures, and to criticize the practice of basing one's conclusions on emotion and feeling. Brother Gwin used this chart in the debate against brother Reeves even though he had never read nor heard brother Reeves say anything that would suggest that this was the basis of his position! By using this chart against brother Reeves, brother Gwin makes a public false accusation against him. This is another blatant misrepresentation of brother Reeves. How would brother Gwin like it if we were to publicly charge him with taking his position because he thought it was "unfair" that an innocent put-away party should be able remarry! Is this why Joel Gwin takes the position that he does? We can't imagine attibuting this reason to him, but he does attribute reasons to us! Brother Gwin teaches that a sexually innocent person loses his God-given putting-away and remarriage rights on the grounds that he was beaten to the putting-away action by his fornicator-mate. Would it be right for us to charge brother Gwin with holding his position because he thinks it unfair to the fornicator, that the innocent party should be able to remarry when the fornicator was the one who won the divorce? No, it would not be right. Yet, the assignment of false motives is exactly what Joel Gwin has done to us! We call attention to the color scheme of this chart: the yellow title is to be directly connected to the last point (5th) of the several in the list. So, the thrust of the chart is that the innocent spouse, who is unlawfully put away, will just have to suffer, being bound till death to an ungodly, fornicating mate, and be denied the divine permission to repudiate him for his fornication and to remarry. 1. Yes, the title states an obvious truth. We have no disagreement with brother Gwin with regard to the general application of this principle. 2. The first four examples are admittedly so. Again, there is no disagreement here. 3. However, the issue of the debate was the case of an innocent mate who is unlawfully put away, and then (brother Gwin’s proposition states) at a later time the ungodly spouse marries again, thus committing adultery against his wife that he put away (Mk. 10:11). Jesus gives the innocent mate, who has the cause of fornication, permission to repudiate the fornicator and to remarry (Mt. 19:9a). 4. So we have a case in which man’s sin (unlawful repudiation and then fornication) causes suffering to the innocent mate, and God’s permission (to repudiate the fornicator and to remarry) grants relief to the suffering mate. 5. Brother Gwin’s position or doctrine demands these consequences: a. the suffering, innocent one is deprived of God’s relief! b. the innocent one is forced to continue bound to the fornicator till death. 6. Man’s sins in this life certainly cause much suffering to the innocent, but nothing but good comes from God (Jas. 1:17). One of the good things from God is the divine permission for the innocent, unlawfully put-away spouse, once having the cause of fornication against his mate, to repudiate him and to remarry. Now, shall the doctrine of men deprive the innocent one of that relief and force him to remain single? PLease consider the next chart:
1. The three questions posed on this chart, asking for a Scripture, are all based on unproven assumptions. Until the assumptions are proved, the questions are invalid. Let a man today assume that he is Napoleon, and he can then ask a lot of questions that his opponent can’t answer (as framed)! Let the man first prove that he is Napoleon, and then he may legitimately frame his questions. 2. Let us look at brother Gwin’s “Napoleons:” a. In question # 1, the “dissolution of a marriage” (whatever that is meant to signify) makes impossible the action set forth in the Greek words Apoluo, Chorizo, and Aphiemi. b. In question # 2, a put-away person can’t put away. c. In question # 3, a person, whose spouse has separated himself from the person, has nothing left that he can do. All of these assumptions are unproved. Mohammed wanted the world to accept his Koran because it is God’s word spoken to him by an angel. Question: Why does the world reject "God’s word," the Koran? Why does the world reject Mohammed, "the last and greatest of all prophets of God?" Brother Gwin has no problem with such questions, since he knows that they are based on Mohammed’s assumptions. No angel of God spoke to him, as none spoke to Joseph Smith. So, Mohammed’s questions are baseless, and so are brother Gwin’s. 3. Returning to brother Gwin’s three questions: a. If brother Gwin knew what Apoluo, Chorizo and Aphiemi mean, he would not have asked such a question! All that he sees in the three words, as shown by his phrases in quotation marks, is physical, spatial, separation. Behind a spouse’s physically leaving his mate is always the rejection of his vows that he made to that mate. He vowed not to do it, and now he does it. Why? Because he repudiates or rejects his mate by denying the vows that previously he had made. He puts asunder, for sure, what God had joined, because he destroys the one-flesh relationship, but the husband/wife relationship still obtains as does the marriage bond. If he was a husband before, he remains the husband of that wife; if a wife, she remains the wife of that husband. God has not released either one from the marriage bond. Now, as he rejected his vows to the mate, so now his mate can reject his. Brother Gwin uses the worn-out tactic of creating a scenario not treated in the Scriptures and then asking: Where do the Scriptures mention such? Jesus was not asked by the Pharisees (see Mt. 19:2; Mk. 10:3) about a putting-away after one’s marriage has been dissolved? That’s like some who ask: Concerning the Lord’s Supper, where is the scripture that proves that it is alright to eat left-overs in the evening service on Sunday? b. It is brother Gwin’s ipse dixit that a put-away person can’t put-away. What Jesus teaches in Mt. 19:9a is that a spouse may put away a mate for fornication and remarry. What Jesus does not do is put a proviso to his teaching, saying that “unless the putting-away person is already a put-away person.!” Such is man’s creation, not that of Jesus. c. If there were nothing to Apoluo than spatial separation, the only way a person could “further ‘separate’” himself from the one who separated himself from the person would be to travel a greater distance in the opposite direction! And what would that prove? Apoluo means repudiate, according to Mr. Thayer, and repudiate means reject, according to Mr. Webster. Whether or not one has already been rejected has nothing at all to do with his own power to reject. Can one, who has been lied against, lie? Can one, who has been hit, hit? Can one, who has been blessed, bless? Cannot a spouse, who has been rejected by his mate who has rejected his vows, reject his own vows to that person? Why of course he can! 4. The confusing of two scenarios is one of the chief tools of the errorist in this controversy. Jesus, in the scenario presented to him by the Pharisees, sets forth the principle in Mt. 19:9a that the spouse, innocent of fornication, may repudiate a mate guilty of fornication, and remarry without committing adultery. That is the principle that we apply to any spouse whose mate is guilty of fornication. Jesus put no provisos to that, and we put none and do not respect any that others attempt to put. This completes part twenty-three of our study. Please check the next article in the series. Introduction | Part Twenty-Two of the Series | Part Twenty-Four of the Series |
