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NASB | 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | 2 Timothy 2:15 Study and do your best to present yourself to God approved, a workman [tested by trial] who has no reason to be ashamed, accurately handling and skillfully teaching the word of truth. |
Subject: Logic: The Means to Rightly Divide |
Bible Note: Dear Brother Tim, There is no difference between human logic and God's logic. All that is in scripture is true, but not all that is true is in scripture. Hmmm... Let me try to explain another way: The Bible teaches that God is a God of knowledge (1 Samuel 2:3, Romans 16:27). Being eternally omniscient (Psalm 139:1-6), God is not only the source of His own knowledge, He is also the source and determiner of ALL truth. Truth is true because God thinks it so. Since that which is not rational cannot be true (1 Timothy 6:20), God must therefore be rational; the laws of logic are the way He thinks. God is not the author of confusion (1 Corinthians 14:33), He is a rational being, the Lord God of truth (Psalm 31:5). God is the God of logic. John contended with these very same issues you have expressed when he was dealing with the gnostics. Therefore he wrote in John 1:1 that Jesus Christ is called the “Logic” of God: “In the beginning was the Logos, and the Logos was with God, and the Logos was God” (the English word “logic” is derived from the Greek word Logos used in this verse). John 1:1 emphasized the rationality of God the Son. Logic is as eternal as God himself because “the Logos is God.” Thus, God and logic cannot be separated... logic is the characteristic of God’s thinking. The mind of man is, indeed, tainted by sin. We even have the ability to deny the truthfulness of things (like the existence of God, sin, or logic). We can be deceived and misled. We can be more concerned with defending ourselves or what we want, by using logical fallacies, instead of seeking the truth. Now, if you remain true to form, you will take that last paragraph and try to hoist me with my own petard. Please don't do that -- that would be a logical fallacy in and of itself. The last paragraph does not in anyway deny the truth of the high value that God places on logic, nor its importance in our deriving sound doctrine. Let me continue... Since logic is the characteristic of God's thinking, and scripture is a part of the mind of God (1 Corinthians 2:16), it follows that scripture must be logical. What is said in Scripture is God’s infallible and inerrant thought. This is why Paul could reason with people from Scripture (Acts 17:2). Man is the image and glory of God (Genesis 1:27, 1 Corinthians 11:7). God “formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul” (Genesis 2:7). Adam became a type of soul that is superior to that of non-rational animals (2 Peter 2:12, Jude 10). Man, as God’s image bearer, is a rational being (Colossians 3:10). Again, this is why the apostle Paul could spend time “reasoning” with his auditors “from the Scriptures." Because Christ is the Logos who “gives light to every man who comes into the world” (John 1:9), we are to understand that there is a point at which man’s logic meets God’s logic. In fact, John 1:9 denies that logic is arbitrary or that there are many kinds of logic. There is only one kind of logic: God's logic... and the Logos gives every image bearer the ability to think logically. God has given man an understandable message, “words of truth and reason” (Acts 26:25). God has also given language that enables man to rationally converse with his Creator (Exodus 4:11). Without logic, such thought or conversation would be impossible. Logic is an indispensable ingredient to all God-given, human language and thought. Sin did, indeed, render man's ability to reason correctly (Romans 1:21), but this does no damage to the laws of logic. The laws of logic are not strengthened by people complying with them or weakened by people ignoring them. The laws of logic are fixed in the mind of God. In Him, Doc "Thinking is subject to logical laws, for I cannot contradict myself and talk sense, yet alone construct a valid line of argument. Good logic is one of God's good gifts, and it is essential to thinking in this and any world." --Arthur Holmes "The laws of logic are not a speculative prejudice imposed at a given moment of history as a transient philosophical development. Neither do they involve a Western way of thinking, even if Aristotle may have stated them in an orderly way. The laws of valid inference are universal; they are elements of the imago Dei. In the Bible, reason has ontological significance. God is Himself truth and the source of truth. Biblical Christianity honors the Logos of God as the source of all meaning and considers the laws of thought an aspect of the imago." --Carl F. H. Henry |