Discernment Pt.4    Logic	10-28-2001

Discernment is the ability to make clear distinctions with a bias toward the good.

Before we get on with this morning’s study, let me just add one more thought about that definition.

The Prerequisite To Discernment

The prerequisite to discernment is knowledge.  The more knowledge you have, the more perceptive you are.  The more you know about something, the more you see when you look at it.

When I was into BMX, I could see a kid ride by on a bike and list off every brand name of almost every component, along with an explanation of the strengths and weaknesses of each part.  Most people just see two wheels and a frame.

My brother in law is a professional cook.  He can taste some food and make all kinds of observations about the ingredients.  For me, there are only two tastes – good and bad.

A person who has never driven children anywhere thinks all child seats are the same.  But a mother of three little ones can go to Wal Mart and say, “That seat you can get your kid out with one hand, that seat has been recalled, that seat makes it hard for the child to sleep…”

The more educated you are about something, the more you see when you look at it.  

A connoisseur of great art looks at a painting and sees brushstrokes.  All I see is a picture.

It works the same way with spiritual realities.  The more general Bible knowledge you have, the more you see when you are introduced to a new truth.  You can see subtle strengths and weaknesses to an idea that are like brush strokes, whereas the average person just sees the basic idea.

So the constant pursuit of knowledge of God in every area is for us like the daily workout is for the athlete.  

When your intellectual growth becomes stagnant, you can’t get new insights from Scripture, because you just keep bringing all the same old categories to the study. 

You can’t see an old truth from new angles or find new applications beyond what you did the last time you studied that principle, because you haven’t thought about anything new since then.

In a sermon a while ago I talked about God’s sovereign control over everything, and I made the point that God controls the movement of every molecule, controls the flight path of every snowflake, etc.

That idea is hard for people to accept in our culture where we have been taught that everything is random and meaningless.  

Even most Christians believe the creation is mostly on autopilot, and God just steps in once in a while when a miracle is needed.

Joe talked to me after that sermon and pointed out that it’s like pixels on a TV screen.  The natural observer would think of the color and brightness of one single pixel and think it’s irrelevant.  The only thing that matters is the overall picture.

But the overall picture is made up entirely of the pixels.   

And when they make the realistic video games, you see an overall picture that is realistic, but only because some programmer wrote out complicated programming governing each pixel.  

So knowledge of video games can make it easier to understand and accept the nature of God!

Knowledge by itself is worthless and can be harmful.  But for a growing Christian, knowledge never is by itself.  Knowledge accompanied by an eager heart is an incredibly important tool.

Think of what knowledge is.  Knowledge is when your thinking is aligned with reality.  

It’s a very powerful thing to be aligned with reality, because that enables you to cooperate with reality.  

For centuries the reality was that electricity existed and had certain properties.  But that reality didn’t do anyone much good, until people gained knowledge about it.  They aligned their thinking to go along with the fact that it exists and has certain properties, and once they did that they were able to cooperate with it and look at how useful it because.

The less you know about the nature of God, the nature of prayer, the nature of sin, etc. the less ability you will have to align your life with the nature of those things, and you will have trouble.

But the more knowledge you have about the way they work, the more you can utilize them for your advantage. 
 
There may be a lot of passages of Scripture that seem irrelevant to you – just like the nature of why you got a shock after walking across carpet used to seem irrelevant to people.

Or the principles of physics and mathamatics that those who learned to harness electricity used may seemed irrelevant to them when they were first introduced to them as kids in school.

Now that we have established the definition, let’s turn our attention now toward the cognitive process that is involved.  

Ps 32:9  Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding but must be controlled by bit and bridle or they will not come to you

One of the most obvious differences between people and animals is the ability to reason.  And so sound reasoning is an important part of fulfilling what God created us to be.

Animals can reason, yet we are in God’s image and they are not.  So it seems that part of what it means to be in God’s image in not just the ability to reason, but the ability for complex reason.

One difference in the way we think and they way they think is we are capable of much more complex reason than they.  And so we are in God’s image and they are not.

It stands to reason, then, that the more complex your reasoning ability becomes, the more like God you are becoming in that area.

This is why Scripture is constantly calling us to think more deeply and more rigorously.  

1Pe 1:13
prepare your minds for action

2Pe 3:1-2
Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. 

Not only is it impossible to know God without complex, sound reasoning, but it is impossible to live the Christian life, because the foundation of ethical behavior is knowledge about the way things are, and the ability to reason properly from that knowledge.

So without knowledge and reason you can’t know God nor can you obey Him.

1 Co.6 is a chapter that is designed to call us away from fighting with one another and from immorality.  If you struggle in the area of these particular sins, what is the key to conquering it?

2 Do you not know that the saints will judge the world?
3 Do you not know that we will judge angels? 
9 Do you not know that the wicked will not inherit the kingdom of God?

15 Do you not know that your bodies are members of Christ himself? 
16 Do you not know that he who unites himself with a prostitute is one with her in body?
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? 

The key to success in godly living is to know the truth about the way things are, and to be able to draw proper conclusions from that information.

The second part is crucial.  It’s not enough to just be aware of the facts.  It’s entirely possible for a person to be aware of the fact that we will judge the angels, and still get into fights with people.

It’s possible to be aware of the fact that if a man sleeps with a prostitute, they are one in body, and still commit immorality.  

The key is to be able to reason from those starting points, realize the implications of those truths, and then draw correct conclusions.

That process is logic.   And without logic you will be hopelessly crippled in the sanctification process.

Ro.12:2
be transformed by the renewing of your mind

He could have said, “Be transformed by developing a lot of warm feelings about God.”

J.P. Moreland: “The mind is the soul’s primary vehicle for making contact with God, and it plays a fundamental role in the process of human maturation and change, including spiritual transformation.”

One of the sad results of the revivalism of the 1800s was an overemphasis on immediate conversion instead of a studied period of reflection and conviction.  

Preaching became emotional, simple and popular, aimed at the least common denominator, instead of intellectually careful and doctrinally precise sermons.

Personal feelings became the measure of one’s relationship to God rather than a deep grasp of the nature of God. 

Historian George Marsden:  “anti-intellectualism was the feature of American revivalism.”

The Bible went from being a body of true propositions about God that were to be thoroughly studied, to little more than a practical handbook for ethical guidance and inspiration (the “What does this passage mean to me” approach).

The intellectually shallow and theologically illiterate form of Christianity that emerged gave birth to Mormonism in 1830, Christian Science in 1866, and Jehovah’s Witnesses in 1884.

And the shallow thinking remains to this day in those movements.  If you want to really see someone’s eyes glaze over, the next time a cultist comes to your door and quotes a verse from the Bible, ask if they understand the context.

If they say yes, ask if they can explain to you the historical background, main theme and basic structure of that book of the Bible (or any book).

The people who pursue advanced academics end up being liberal, and so many have responded by downplaying the role of the mind altogether.

Spirituality is reduced to emotions and feelings and subjective leadings and promptings and revelations, and all thinking does is get in the way.

And when someone does come along with a questioning mind, who wants to dig deeply and develop a more reasoned, better-founded faith, he is often met with suspicion.  

He asks honest questions like, 
How do we know the Bible is true? 
What about the internal conflicts?
Why doesn’t what the Bible says seem to match my experience?
What about this persuasive argument from the world…?

And everyone looks at him funny and thinks, “He must be immature – if he’s even saved he’s probably barely saved.”

That’s too bad, because Christianity is a faith that is based on sound reasoning & critical thinking.

Neil Postman: When God revealed Himself as the Word, that was “an unprecedented conception requiring the highest order of abstract thinking.”

The reason we need to study and master logic is because logic is the correct way to think and reason.  We read the Bible and find it is the way God reasons.  If God’s reasoning follows logic, then that’s the way we ought to think.

Definition:
The simplest definition I can think of for logic is the ability to discern the implications of a given truth.

The way God designed language, a whole lot of truth is contained in a small number of words.  The words themselves are the explicit portion of the truth, but there is more truth that is implicit (not stated but implied).

The skill of logic is the ability to combine pieces of information with other pieces of information and discover what is implied.

So one piece of information is that all who die as unforgiven sinners go to hell.
A second piece of information is that everyone sins.
Logic is what enables me to put those two pieces of information together and figure out the conclusion: “Unless receive forgiveness, I am bound for hell.”
 
That conclusion was never explicitly stated in the original information, but it was implied.

Sound logic is also what prevents me from coming up with a conclusion that is not implied by the original information.  So I can’t just walk up to someone and say, “You will certainly spend eternity in hell.”  (Because maybe that person has been or will be forgiven).

The formal name for that is a syllogism.  

A syllogism is an argument made up of statements in one of four forms: 
“All A's are B's” (universal affirmative), 
“No A's are B's” (universal negative), 
“Some A's are B's” (particular affirmative), or 
“Some A's are not B's” (particular negative).

The rules of syllogisms enable us to test a categorical syllogism without considering similar examples or examining the argument's structure in detail.  These rules are based on certain features that occur in all valid syllogisms and distinguish them from invalid ones.  For example, one rule states that no valid syllogism has two negative premises.  There are two negative premises in this syllogism: "No stars are planets.  Some satellites are not planets.  Therefore, some satellites are not stars."  Thus, we know that this syllogism cannot be valid.  

There are other rules for constructing valid syllogisms. (1) The syllogism must have exactly three terms.  For example, consider this invalid syllogism: "All laws are made by Congress.  v = at is a law of falling bodies.  Therefore, Congress made v = at. " The term law is unclear.  It can refer to a physical law, such as the law of falling bodies, or to legislative law.  As a result, this syllogism has four terms instead of three--and is invalid. (2) Two positive premises must yield a positive conclusion. (3) A negative premise and a positive premise must yield a negative conclusion. (4) The term that occurs in both premises must be modified by the words all or none at least once. (5) A term that is modified by all or none in the conclusion must be modified by all or none in one of the premises.

A = unforgiven sinner
B = hell

If A then B
A
Therefore B

That particular syllogism is called Modus Pones (the mood of affirming).  It’s called that because in the second line we affirm the antecedent.  

Perhaps an easier to remember name would be “When the ‘if’ is true.”

Let’s look at the error of walking up to someone and saying, “You are a sinner, and so you are going to hell.”  

If A then B
C
Therefore B

That is, the person may or may not be an unforgiven sinner.  If you can’t affirm A, that is, if you don’t know for sure if the ‘if” is true, you can’t draw the conclusion.

Another way to look at it is:

If A then B
Either A or non-A
Therefore B

Another valid logical deduction is arrived at by denying the ‘then’ part.  If the ‘then’ part is not the case, then you know the ‘if’ part can’t be the case.

If A then B
Not B
Therefore not A

This is called Modus Tollens (the mood of denying).

Example:
Lk.23:43  Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." 

That thief is in heaven.  He did not go to hell.

If A (unforgiven sinner) then B (hell)
Not B (He didn’t go to hell)
Therefore not A (He didn’t die as an unforgiven sinner)

The Bible doesn’t explicitly say he was forgiven, but if our premise is true, then it does implicitly say so.

So you can draw valid conclusions by affirming the ‘if’ or by denying the ‘then.’

Disjunctive Syllogism (Either or)
One other important syllogism:
Either X or Y
Not X
Therefore Y

Every humans is either saved or lost
This guy is not saved.
Therefore he is lost.

(Even dogs are capable of this syllogism.  When tracking an animal, if they come to a fork, they will sniff one direction, and if they don’t find a scent, will take the other road without sniffing to verify)

What goes wrong in our reasoning?

If dogs are capable of this kind of thing, why is there so much error?  That’s really the crucial question.  The normal process of your brain will follow logic.  It’s not so much that we have to work to achieve that.  

What we need to do is work to prevent a malfunction of reason.  The reason there is error, is because people short circuit the logic process by some invalid form of reasoning.

Invalid forms of reasoning

The reason we come up with incorrect conclusions is because of one of the following:

1.	Formal Logical Fallacies
2.	Informal Logical Fallacies
3.	Flawed Premises

When you are evaluating an argument, you need to check to see if there is one or more of these problems.  To do that, you must learn a very important skill: Reduce the rhetoric down to the basic argument.  

Reducing Rhetoric to an Argument

When someone tries to persuade you of his view, a whole lot of words will come out of his mouth.  Your job is to sort through all those words and pinpoint his reasoning.

Very often this is all you have to do.  Once you do this, and repeat back to him his own reasoning in more concise terms, he will see the folly of it.

Thomas Sowel gave his argument against the environmentalist movement, and someone responded, “But they are raping the planet!”  Sowel’s response was “What specifically does that mean?” 

Sowel said “He was as speechless as someone who had just played the ace of trump and was then told that that was not enough to win.”  

Sometimes when you push aside the rhetoric to expose the actual argument, you find that there is no argument.  

At that point you may have to help them construct an argument so you will have something to refute.
“Did you mean that they are harming the earth, and that no harm is ever justified?  Or just that while some harm maybe justified, developers are doing too much?”

Our culture is in desperate need of someone to step up and identify the arguments behind the rhetoric.  

A great example of this is the abortion debate.  The pro-abortion side says, “A woman has the right to choose” and the pro-life side responds by saying, “But the baby is a person.”  Then the pro-abortion side argues back, “But the woman has the right to choose” etc.

No one is persuaded, because no one is addressing the other side’s argument. 

If their thesis is that a woman has the right to choose life or death for the little one inside her, in order to disprove that we need to address the question of whether or not a woman has that right.

So our response should be something like this: “We all agree that a woman has a right to choose up to a point.  She has the right to choose what she wants for dinner, what kind of car she wants to buy, where she wants to live, who she wants to marry, etc.”  

“But you would have to agree that there are some things she does not have the right to choose.  For example, she does not have the right to choose to break into your house and steal something, right?”

“So the question is, when do we cross the line from things she has the right to choose, and things she doesn’t have the right to choose?  The question at hand is which side of that line is the choice to destroy her fetus?”

Now we have defined the debate.  From there they can present arguments for why the destruction of a fetus is on one side of that line, and we can present arguments for why it is on the other side.

Or, if we suggest that the fetus is a human being, in order to argue against that they should address that issue.

Either they can argue that it’s OK to kill those particular human beings, or they are not actually human beings.

But how often do you hear either of these happen?  Almost never.  Our culture has almost completely lost the ability to debate.

Trace their arguments all the way back to your common ground.  This not only gives you an overview of their entire argument, but it is an excellent habit to get in to.

Identifying your common ground will 
1.	Help you know where to begin in your debate.  You don’t begin 5 steps past where your thinking diverges from theirs.

If you are talking to someone who believes capital punishment is wrong, you don’t begin by talking about how it is a deterrent. 

If it’s morally wrong, it doesn’t matter if it’s a deterrent.

Somewhere back before that point your thinking and his diverged such that he ended up believing it to be immoral and you didn’t.  You need to keep asking him questions until you can pinpoint the place of departure.

Backtrack your own path you took to your present conclusion until you get to some point of common ground.  Then you will see where the departure occurred.

Then you can begin your discussion at that point.

2.	It will help you gain greater understanding into your own belief.  

Backtracking your reasoning process will help solidify that in your head.  If it was a valid reasoning process, you can use that to persuade the person.

But remember the other purpose of debate – to discover if you are wrong.

You may backtrack your argument and find that you don’t have a valid argument.  That’s important for you to know.

3.	Once you identify common ground with your opponent, you immediately state that as the beginning of your argument.

“We both agree on this…and this…”  

That has an extremely beneficial effect in the debate process.  Keep in mind that the person you are debating probably isn’t a great critical thinker, so not only do you need to have sound reasoning, but you need to help him have it as well.

Starting out by identifying common ground gives you both an appreciating of the scope of disagreement.

It also tends to generate good will.  People like it when you agree with them.  So find the latest possible step in which you both agree.  They will be much more willing to debate if you do this.

4.	Questioning and probing to discover the exact point of departure gives you time to think through the argument so you aren't both shooting from the hip.

5.	It gives you a way to measure progress.  If you move the point of divergence up a few yards, even if they aren’t persuaded of your final conclusion, you have made progress.

Maybe they are against capital punishment because they believe all violence to be wrong.  

So you discuss that point, and at the end he agrees there are some instances of violence that are not wrong.

He’s moving down your path.  The next time you talk you can say, “We both agree there is some violence that is valid, and yet we both agree that it’s wrong to be vengeful…”  those are the two outside boundaries where the disagreement ends.

Now you can work at bringing those boundaries in a little closer.

Homework: identify the argument in the following editorials: