Tuesday, January 17, 2006

Logic

"Logic has fallen into severe disfavor and people are quite startled when they are confronted with it." - Rebecca Merrill Groothuis

7 comments:

Joseph Hinman (Metacrock) said...

Fine quote. Never more true than in dealing wiht athesits on message boards. I hope it is more than just my self appointed task to deal with them, but I do deal with them a lot. It seems modern atheists are a cult of "objective empirical data;" for many that is their only standard. Some even repuidate logic altogether thinking all we need is empiricism.

When accuse them of oppossing the law of non contradiction they often become unrulie.

Tom Gilson said...

Metacrock, I agree, and to take it further I'm wondering what empiricism looks like without logic. I think it's most likely to be, "I see what I want to see and conclude what I want to conclude." Is that an unfair analysis?

Susan said...

I am currently reading "Testing Christianity's Truth Claims" by Gordon Lewis. Chapters two and three outline the views of two apologists who are logical, rational, and also empiricists. Without the rules of logic, what would one use to examine empirical data? I suppose, Tom, your analysis is not unfair!

Anonymous said...

I wonder too, if the issue at hand, is perhaps more basic yet. By this I mean, are there not philosophical/theological presuppositions that drive the logical argument? While the proper and consistent use of logic is important, for discussion sake, without quickly moving to the underlying assumptions, are we not granting human autonomy a place it should not have?

Susan said...

John -- you seem to suggest that when a person begins with, for example, "12" as the first statement in a proposition, that person has begun with a brute fact. No need to prove 12 is true, or real. 12 is just 12 and everybody accepts it. Whereas any other proposition, one that uses words rather than numbers to communicate its assertion, is inherently dubious? Is this what you imply, John?

Susan said...

John,

Your own propositions seem wanting as "objects with definite truth values"

-Susan

Douglas Groothuis, Ph.D. said...

Theological statements derived from the Bible have nonambiguous truth value if carefully articulated. A statement need not be empirically verifiable to have truth value. Nor does it have to be empirically verifiable to be verifiable in other ways. "Killing the innocent for pleasure" has a truth value: false. It can be known to be false by moral intuition.

Similarly, theological statements can have specifiable meaning. If God is triune (three in one), God is not unitarian. If God is perfectly good, then God is not evil. And so on. Logical consistency is a necessary, but negative test for truth--for theology, philosophy, physics, or anything else. Moreover, one can argue for truth of propositions about God from philosophical, experience, history, and more.