First, My confusion about Paul's post was cleared up and it was my
problem not his. The structure of his long sentence in his last paragraph
didn't register with me on the first 5 readings but coming back after a
hour I got it. He was contrasting the English translations with the
*purpose clause* translations.
Second, In my closing paragraph I appear to be accusing Wallace of
trying to force hINA into a purpose/results binary opposition. This was
not my intent and this is not what Wallace does. Wallace has a more
complex model than this. I was using Wallace's comment in his note #67
on page 473 as a jumping off place for a short tirade on syntax models.
Wallace's comment is a bit of a conundrum itself. He says in reference to
the hINA clause in 1John 1:9 "This text is a theological conundrum: it
could be treated as purpose, result or purpose-result."
There are a couple of things that bother me about Wallace's analysis.
First and most obvious is his labeling the choice among *purpose,
result or purpose-result* as a * theological conundrum* seems to be
getting the cart before the horse. First of all it is a syntax problem. The
solution to the syntax problem will have an impact on theology, no
doubt, but why are we calling it a *theological conundrum*?
My second problem with this analysis is the breakdown of the
purpose/result issue. By adding the third category *purpose-results*
we seem to be admitting that the purpose/results binary opposition
does not cover the data. I don't think the way to solve this is to provide
a middle term *purpose-results.* The need for the equivocating middle
term *purpose-results* is adequate evidence that the purpose/results
binary opposition is not the best way to model the phenomena. This was
the main thrust of my previous tirade.
Clay Bartholomew
Three Tree Point