God has come up on the short end of a lot of syllogisms lately.
“I can’t believe in a God that would…”
“I can’t accept that God would…”
“A loving God would never…”
From the disaster in Japan to the question of what happens to the unconverted after death, God has been pushed into the back seat and human logic has taken the reins. If we can’t figure it out, then it’s just not true. If we can’t fully understand and explain it, then it must not exist.
It’s an exaltation of the human mind, a return to the principles of the Greek philosophers. Alexander the Great would be proud, knowing that his quest to spread Hellenism across the world is still affecting the ways we interact with one another.
The irony, of course, is that I use logic all the time on this blog. And in my daily life. I reason with people. I work through patterns of thinking. I use the tools which my modernistic upbringing provided me, logic being one of the main ones.
I think it requires faith to accept that some things are unknowable and incomprehensible for us. I know that it takes courage, for such a view is ridiculed today as shallow and provincial. Could that be why Jesus said we have to be willing to be like a child to enter the Kingdom? It certainly fits with the teachings that the world will hate us and the intellectuals of this world will scoff at our gospel.
The other extreme, of course, is to reject all scholarship, to lock yourself into “the traditions handed down by our fathers.” I’m not advocating that. But I do think that we need to see the limits to our logic. Reason can take us only so far; we go the rest of the way by faith, or we never complete the journey.
When someone says, “I just can’t accept…”, they are being honest and accurate. When they say, “No thinking person can accept…”, they are peddling that which farmers offer us to spread around our gardens. One view accepts personal responsibility; the other places the blame on the concept itself.
Fact is, at some point we choose to believe. Or choose not to believe. And we do that for a wide variety of factors. Logic is one of them, but it is almost never the chief factor. Those that desire not to believe will often point to logic as the reason, but it’s rarely as objective as that. More often than not, we choose not to believe in God or some aspect of God’s nature because of our own wishes and desires, the way we wish things were.
Having thrown logic out the window, I guess I’m rambling a bit with this post. The main thing that I’m trying to say is that I think it takes a lot of courage to say, “I don’t know” or even “I can’t know.” Some see it as a cop out. I see it as accepting the limits of our logic.
The fallacy of logic-based arguments/paradigms/orientations/whatever SOMETIMES is that the original premise is faulty. Take the example of your graphic. Where do we find the “truth” that “Love is blind”? We will accept so many things we’ve been handed down without question that end up setting us up for a “logic-failure.” If the first statement is absolute truth then the last one should be. BUT… are our premises all true? When we base our arguments on faulty premises then we end up making somewhat silly exceptions to our “rules.” WOW…. this has been where I’ve been camping for a while…. Too bad we don’t have enough room for “ghost stories”! LOL
Tim,
i sympathize here. But i think we have to tread carefully. There are important distinctions to be made. (1) There’s “logic” and “reason” in the sense of sound or reliable reasoning through an argument to a conclusion. (2) Then there’s also “logic” or “reason” in the sense of what a “modern,” “enlightened” person should be willing to accept or entertain or find credible.
i think your post mostly criticizes (2). The trouble is people take (2) as though its synonymous with (1), but clearly it’s not. Plenty of modern, enlightened people come up with bad arguments. i think what is involved in (2) is just the presumption of disbelief in anything supernatural.
About (1), the fact is, God has given us tons of conclusions for which He has not walked us through any careful argumentation including premises directly relevant to those conclusions. There is quite a bit we simply take on authority. i suppose that is quite troublesome for the common view that every belief a person holds should be at the mercy of “reason” and “logic,” such that insufficient evidence means unjustified beliefs. No, that’s not really compatible with the general Christian view of things.
But having said that, surely Christians can give a thumbs up to (1) in the sense that God made the world and us and intends us to function well in it, and thus we should expect our sense of reason to work and be reliable a great amount of the time. i think (2) is the real enemy here.
–guy
Great line, Tim:
“More often than not, we choose not to believe in God or some aspect of God’s nature because of our own wishes and desires, the way we wish things were.”
It is a serious flaw of our public (and private) educational system that it does not teach logic beyond the minimal requirements of geometry. We don’t know a fallacy from a fact; a supposition from a syllogism. And, as someone else has already pointed out, even good logic fails if a premise is false.
yeah.
dreamed I heard you speak last night and got to each a potluck with you, maybe it will come true
Logic is an expression of wisdom. Paul says there is a wisdom of the world and a godly wisdom. Godly wisdom will produce solid, godly logic.
The illustration is brilliant. I believe there is room for reasoning in the Christian faith but it must also be realized that all reasoning has its limit. The incarnation, crucifixion, resurrection, ascension… at the end of the day, our belief is by faith and not by sight. That doesn’t mean we are excluded from having credible reasons for faith but it does mean that we are called to faith in something (someone) who will not fit into the box of the Enlightenment era demand placed on reason.
BTW, the graphic is an example of an incorrect syllogism. A proper syllogism is in the format of:
All A are B
C is an A
Therefore C is B
All men are mortal
Socrates is a man
Socrates is mortal
The false syllogism I used was originally:
God is love
Love is blind
Ray Charles is blind
Ray Charles is God
However, I felt the blasphemy, even in jest, would distract from the post.
Tim, your graphic about logic with Stevie Wonder made me laugh out loud. I’m still laughing even after reading all the comments made on this post. Appreciate your humor and your “logic.”
The bible and our faith can be approached from a logical perspective. Aside from the immaculate conception, miracles, God becoming man, resurrection of the dead. Hmmm, this doesn’t sound logical at all. But when you take into consideration, the aftermath, the renting of the vail, the dispersion of the Jews in 70 A.D. and finally the destruction of the temple, what has happened in history does make sense. Sense in the fact that how God deals with human kind has changed from the physical to the spiritual.
If you take into account the facts I have stated, one conclusion can be made, that Israel’s relationship changed and changed forever. That a futurist outlook with the return of Christ could still take place, why? Could we have interpreted the bible’s last prophecy wrong? Or could it already have taken place. The fact that we have absolutely no proof of any interaction of God and man after the destruction of the temple and placing the Jews into captivity by the Romans. With the last recent sunnamis one questions why God, why? I remember what Christ said to Paul, “My grace is sufficient for thee” I know this sounds crazy, but its logical…..