Speculative Logic?

How can we know anything about anything

To try to explain truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation. George Macdonald

Do we have to make a choice between science and the Bible?

NO!

That is NOT where the problem is, but that is what everyone seems to want to talk about.

Take science as an example. How can we know anything about the created material world around us?

How can we know anything from what we can see using natural sciences?

We all see the same things in the material world, but we don't come to the same answers.

Why is that?

How can we know anything about the Bible and what it teaches? Every person believes different things about the Bible and how it should be read.

Why is that?

Same scientific facts. Different answers.

Same Bible. Different answers.

Why is that?

The true question is this: How do we come to our answers that we get from what we can see through science or what we can read in the Bible?

How do we think about what we see using science or what we read in the Bible?

How do we analyze what we have seen and read?

How do we interpret what we have seen and read?

We use logic, but logic always has a foundation. Jesus talked about building on the Rock. That Rock is Jesus Christ. He is the true foundation. There are also the false foundations of the ungodly.

An example might help.

Question: Why do you believe in evolution?

Answer: Because my science teacher told me that evolution is scientific fact.

Question: Why do you believe your science teacher?

Answer: because he agrees with the textbook he assigned us to read.

Now, we have asked, "Why?" twice.

If we continued to ask, "Why?" we would come down to the foundation of this person's thoughts.

When we get down to the foundations, there are no more questions that can be answered. So where to the foundations come from?

There are three possibilities.

things that we make up, pulled from the air
demonic lies
divine revelation

Question: Why do you believe in creation?

Answer: Because God revealed this to me. He spoke to me through the Bible and gave me His faith so that I could believe Him.

See how quickly we got to the foundation. This is a belief that has a foundation that is solid and that cannot be moved.

In reality, the things that we make up, that are pulled from the air, are actually from demons and all the lies of demons spring from the prince of demons, Satan. So these are one and the same.

Divine revelation comes from the Almighty, Creator, God, Jesus Christ. So there are only two choices, but how do we know there are only two choices? Because God has revealed this truth to us.

The question then is how do we tell the difference between the revelation that comes from God and the lies of Satan?

The answer is that everyone who sincerely wants to do the will of God will know.

Jesus said, "If you really want to obey God, you will know if what I teach comes from God or from me"

The rejection of the revelation that comes from God is not an intellectual problem. It is a moral problem.

Jesus said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened to you: For everyone who asks receives; and he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks it shall be opened." *

Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to those who ask him? Matthew 7:7-11 *

You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink. You can set the truth before someone, but you can't make anyone believe those things that they don't want to submit to. They have to want to obey God.

How frequently it is brought to our attention that nothing good can be done if the will is wrong! Reason alone fails to justify itself. Richard M. Weaver

Jesus said, "You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32)

"If we are not prepared to buy the truth at the cost of our own humbling we shall not receive it"

Lies appear to have no price upon them. They seem cheap and they abound everywhere. But for the truth there is always an obvious price to pay.

"[God] has set a day when He will judge all the world's people with fairness. And He has chosen the man Jesus to do the judging for Him. God has given proof of this to all of us by raising Jesus from death" (Acts 17:31).

"There is a judge for the one who rejects Me [Jesus] and does not accept My words; that very word which I spoke will condemn him at the last day" (John 12:48)

That also stands for every person who speaks the utterances of Jesus. When we hear them, we hear Jesus Christ, and we either accept or reject. Every person who follows Jesus Christ is commanded to only speak His utterances and not their own.

"When we love others, we know that we belong to the truth, and we feel at ease in the presence of God" (1 John 3:19)

Ravi Zacharias did two open forums in a university. On the second night, one man told him that he had brought two Atheists in the night before who said that the arguments presented were so strong that they could not contend with them, but they were going to remain Atheists because that is what they prefer to be true.

In another case of just listening to an unbeliever and drawing out his reasoning, the unbeliever finally came to his foundations.

They turned out to be assumptions that were pulled from the air. When asked why he believed his basic assumption, the unbeliever looked startled and blurted out, "I guess I'm making the whole thing up." It was quite a revelation to him since he hadn't even known that he had any assumptions. However, he decided to remain an Atheist because he didn't want God to rule over him.

Speculative Logic

There was a seemingly intelligent person talking about something he called, "speculative logic." What on earth is speculative logic? Logic is logic and speculation is speculation! Something's wrong! People must realize that there is no such thing as a logical assumption, don't they? There is certainly such a thing as an illogical assumption, of course. If something has been shown to be improbable, such as Evolutionism, and yet someone were to assume it (e.g. Evolutionism) to be true, that would be an illogical assumption. . Perhaps it should be clarified that it is not the logic that is speculative. It is the assumption that is speculative. Experience, observation, and logic can, to some degree of probability, show our speculations, our assumptions, to be probably wrong or to be probably right or to remain unresolved.

However, an assumption is something that is put forward as a possibility (just supposing for a moment that X is true). Logic has not shown the assumption to be true, though logic plus whatever limited knowledge is available at the time may show the assumption to appear to be possible. An assumption is something that is put forth without proof. Too often, we begin to believe our assumptions as if they were supported by valid evidence. What happens then is very interesting. We begin to deny reality in favor of our assumptions. Our assumptions become part of our worldviews, and we cease to have the ability to discern between our mental constructs and reality. This, along with our nearly total blindness and ignorance, is one of the great weaknesses of the human mind and of the use of logic. As a simple illustration, if you assume that Z is 10 and you know that Z+Y=20, then you may think that Y=10. This type of thinking is far too regularly used in something that is falsely called "science." This is part of what Jesus was talking about when he talked about those who build on sand and meet disaster. There is a way to build on the Rock instead of the sand. (Read More about building on the Rock)

Logic is a tool that God has given us. It is a very limited tool, but a tool none the less. It consists of a small measure of understanding of the way that things work and the way that God thinks. We can see a fair measure of logic being used in the Bible as God speaks to men and women through His Holy Word.

It is important to know the difference between speculation and logic and to always keep them separate. So often, we see people making assumptions and then forgetting that the assumptions are merely made-up ideas. If we make up a story, is it a lie? The assumptions seem to get to be set in stone in the process of applying logic. In fact, people lose the ability to tell which part of their thought is logic and which is assumption. When logic shows that the assumptions are false, people cannot let go of their assumptions. There is an amazing example of a set of assumptions that don't hold up under logical scrutiny when matched with the information that is currently available but that are still taught in just about every school of the planet. This example is sometimes called: "The Axioms of Science." These assumptions are: Naturalism, Materialism, and Uniformitarianism. Actually, the person who referred to "speculative logic" also made the extraordinary statement that Creation Scientists make the wrong assumptions while Evolutionists make the correct assumptions: Naturalism, Materialism, and Uniformitarianism, and that the Evolutionistic assumptions are self-evident. Yikes!

Just as important as knowing the difference between speculation and logic is knowing the difference between speculation and revelation. These differences are not easily discerned. In fact, the only way that they can be discerned is by divine revelation. Divine revelation only can come by coming to know the Divine Revelator, the Holy Ghost. This is only available to those who receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. If you have not already come to know Jesus, perhaps you may consider receiving Him today. If you have received Him and are born into the family of God and have begun to be able to discern and see reality, perhaps you will consider the fact that there are deeper depths and higher heights in Him. Perhaps you will consider the fact that He is an unfolding revelation and you will commit to pressing toward the mark of your high calling in Christ Jesus. (Read More) Atheists have a particularly difficult problem with logic. (Read More)

Speculative Logic?

How can we know anything about anything

Speculative Logic

Contact Form