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The flaw of silence

Written by Kevin Harper

Saturday, 08 July 2006

Awhile back, I began to suspect that there was a flaw in the theory, sometimes called the Law of Silence, that the Bible's silence on a subject is always prohibitive. I've found cases where it indeed appears to be. But with more study and thought, I've found clear cases where it appears not to be.

I've concluded that the so-called "Law of Silence" is based on flawed logic. This should be evident by taking a close look at the following matrix illustrating each possible choice. It shows the logical conclusion of whether a decision is good or bad, or if it could be either.

The main flaw with the Law of Silence lies in a misunderstanding of quadrants #2 and #4. The flawed law presumes that these are bad, and amount to disobedience, when in fact they can be either good or bad. Essentially, if it falls into quadrants #2, #4, #6, or #8, the Bible is indifferent on the subject. Questions that fall in these categories, then, have to be answered by other criteria than simply whether the Bible does or does not say something explicit about it.

Let me give you an example from real life. If I adopt children into my home (as I have), they are going to need to learn a lot of rules at first until they come to know me better, and understand how I think and what I want. As they learn more about who I am and what I like, they should become less dependent on explicit rules, and more dependent on their internalized knowledge of me to make their decisions.

Maybe there's an analogy there somewhere for us. The more we know God's heart through time spent walking with Him, the less we need to rely on propositional truths to determine His will.

Why the Law of Silence isn't true

The following eight examples illustrate the complexity of our decision-making process, and point out that God's silence about something does not necessarily mean He's prohibiting it:

Doing what we're told to do
This is universally good. It is obedience.
Doing what we're not told to do
This could be either good or bad. If I never tell my son to mow the lawn, and he does, I'd consider it a good thing. If, on the other hand, I never tell him to eat the whole pie in the refrigerator and he does, I'd consider it a bad thing.
Doing what we're told not to do
This is universally bad. It is disobedience.
Doing what we're not told not to do
This could be either good or bad. If I never tell my son not to mow the lawn, and he does it, I'd consider it a good thing. If, on the other hand, I never tell him not to eat the whole pie in the refriferator and he does, I'd consider it a bad thing.
Not doing what we're told to do
This is universally bad. It is disobedience.
Not doing what we're not told to do
This could be either good or bad. If I never tell tell my son to eat the whole pie in the refrigerator, and he doesn't, I'd consider it a good thing. If, on the other hand, I never tell him to stop and help the elderly person with a flat tire on the side of the road and he doesn't, I'd consider it a bad thing.
Not doing what we're told not to do
This is universally good. It is obedience.
Not doing what we're not told not to do
This could be either good or bad. If I never tell my son not to eat the whole pie in the refrigerator, and he doesn't, I'd consider it a good thing. If, on the other hand, I never tell him not to lose his temper and he does, I'd consider it to be a bad thing.

If you're head is hurting by the time you get to number eight, that's OK. Mine was too as I tried to keep the double and triple negatives straight. But this exercise was well worth my time, because it helped to straighten out an important flaw in my own thinking about how we determine God's will from Scripture, and how we don't.

If this has left you with questions like "What about Nadab and Abihu?" or "What about Uzzah?," then perhaps my next article on this subject will help. I will go into greater detail analyzing the typical examples pulled from Scripture to support this flawed Law of Silence.