Logic, or a lack thereof. There are plenty of other weaknesses we have. We not only don’t come to the Bible as first century Jews but we do come as twenty-first century Americans. We are largely ignorant of the geography, culture, economy of the cultures into which the Bible was written. We are largely ignorant of the Old Testament background that is so vital to understanding the New Testament. We are likewise given to a relativist understanding of the Bible, believing we can assign our own meaning as we wish. We also tend to come to the text carrying this foundational principle, “Whatever the text is saying it isn’t saying I need to change.”
Despite all those lesser troubles I still affirm that our weakness in practicing basic logic is our foundational problem. We often fail to understand God’s written Word because we fail to understand written words. The heart of logic is the law of identity, A is A. Next is the law of non-contradiction, A cannot be A and non-A at the same time and in the same relationship. We try get around it, to make words not mean what they mean. We demonstrate in so doing that we are fools.
In turn, logic can help us cool our jets. While we try to make the Bible not mean what it says we also are prone to trying to make the Bible mean what it doesn’t say. We jump to conclusions. How many times have you heard, for instance, that Jesus, in His resurrected body, could walk through walls? The Bible doesn’t say this. It does say that the disciples were afraid and hiding, with the door locked, when Jesus appeared amongst them. How many different ways could that have happened? Maybe Jesus asked the disciples to open the door. Perhaps Jesus had a key. Perhaps His glorified body can’t walk through walls, but can pick locks. Perhaps Jesus teleported into the room. The Bible simply doesn’t say. So we shouldn’t either.
The Westminster Confession of Faith rightly says of believers that we are to believe every word that the Bible explicitly teaches, and more- every good and necessary consequence of what it explicitly teaches. We often fail to follow all that the Bible says to its logical conclusion. We often get lost on the way to the logical conclusion. Our failures in logic, more often than not, stem from our failure to fear God. Wisdom begins with fear because fear leads us to submission to every word that proceeds from His mouth. Yes, given our fallen minds we can simply make mistakes. Given our fallen wills, we often willfully make mistakes.
A study of basic logic would prove to be helpful in understanding God’s Word. It’s not as scary as it sounds because what we study is simply how our minds are supposed to think. Logic, as my father used to say, is the truth cop. When we fail in it, it lets us know we’re doing it wrong. So we try again. If you aren’t committed to logic, dcjgkeslhd, *^ salbj.