Mike Winger Critique Episode 8: PSA Fallacies & Tactics, Part 3

The fallacy of hypostatized proof happens when an historian mistakes an historical event for the received interpretation of the event. In theology, this fallacy occurs when a reader mistakes a Bible passage for his tradition’s official spin of the passage. YouTuber Mike Winger often falls into to this fallacy during the course of his 6-video defense of penal-substitutionary atonement (PSA). Most notably, Winger’s Protestant tradition sees Christ as the culmination of the Old-Testament animal sacrifices. Thus, any time Winger speaks of the cross, the argumentation is loaded down with all of this conceptual freight. This means that any time Christ refers to himself as the fulfilment of the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms, Winger instantly understands that to mean animal sacrifice.

Christ calls himself the fulfilment of Moses’ writings; that is to say, the first five books of the Old Testament. While it is true that these books contain the laws concerning animal sacrifices, they also contain numerous statements that are at odds with the entailments of PSA (time hack 8:46); likewise, the Psalms (time hack 15:58) and the Prophets (time hack 26:12).

Paul makes especial note of the seventh chapter of Jeremiah, verses 21-23 of which read: “Thus saith the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel; Put your burnt offerings unto your sacrifices, and eat flesh. For I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing commanded I them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and ye shall be my people: and walk ye in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well unto you.” This passage throws into question the idea that the bewildering array of sacrifices offered after the Exodus from Egypt were God’s original intent for the Hebrews.

Winger and the atonement school fail to recognize that a data set--in this case, the incarnation, life, death, and resurrection of Christ--can be explained by multiple working hypotheses (phrased more concisely, “models”). A reader must also at least save the appearances of a lexical data set. This set includes stand-alone words (sacrifice, suffered, died) and phrases (for our sins, died for our sins, had to suffer, had to die). Regrettably for the atonement school, all the models explaining Christ’s work--not just PSA--save the appearances of the lexical data set. Paul uses a clip from James White’s Dividing Line show to demonstrate that Protestants have no concept of what a model is. By extension, they also have no concept of philosophy or systematic theology.