After sending my two posts on the hINA clause issue I then received the
digest with Carl's post and his follow up post to my *tirade* and I agree
with Carl that Wallace's treatment has much to commend it in by way of
thoroughness.
After some more reflection, I think it is quite possible that my seeing
purpose/result as a binary opposition was reading something into
Wallace's discussion that was not there at all. I am not sure that Wallace
or the other grammarians that I use even think in terms of this concept.
So my tirade may have been attacking a straw horse.
My thinking about language has been profoundly shaped by structuralism
where binary oppositions are a kind of first principle.
Now returning to Paul's original question, I spent an hour mulling over
Zerwick's treatment of hINA clauses and then took another look at 1 John
1:9. Zerwick's discussion of hINA clauses used like infinitives (Zerwick
406-411) helped to clarify the issue. I now understand Carl's treatment of
the subject much better and it seems that his solution is best:
Carl Wrote:
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I think that this hINA clause also (1Jn 1:9 hINA AFHi ... KAI KAQARISHi
...) is a noun or substantive clause like those I've discussed previously.
{snip}
I'd call this clause "epexegetical" and I'd translate it, as I've
suggested previously as the easiest idiomatic English for many of these
hINA substantive clauses, with an infinitive in English; the clause does,
in fact, function exactly as would an epexegetical infinitive with an
adjective, and so here with PISTOS KAI DIKAIOS.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Carl's first statement (quoted above) answers the structural question:
What syntactical function does the hINA clause perform?
Answer: It performs as a noun or substantive.
The second quoted statement answers the question:
What is the semantic function of the hINA clause?
Answer: it is epexegetical.
A final comment: I think those who find the *theology* of this text
difficult are overloading the sense of the hINA construction. They are
seeing some kind of causal link between EAN hOMOLOGWMEN ... and hINA
AFHi. I don't think this causal link is there and I don't think the hINA
construction demands a causal sense.
Clay Bartholomew
Three Tree Point