Critical Thinking

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.

Christian Critical Thinking is imperative since it has become clear that the battle is for the mind. All the powers of darkness appeal to you that you must think the way they want you to think. You must think according to their assumptions and presuppositions. They push. They accuse. They poke fun. They do whatever it takes to squeeze you into their mold. Don't let them do it, though. Instead, be transfigured by the renewing of your mind. (Romans 12:1-2)

Once you lose the ability for critical thinking, it is very hard to regain it. Unfortunately, when lies are taught as fact and most people never say anything (they don't dare) about it, then the ability for critical thinking is lost. This video is an example of how someone can speak effectively while saying nothing that makes sense. Nothing this person says is true, yet you might think that it is true and that you just don't understand. Many college students and high school students listen to the same sort of nonsense that is posing as knowledge. This is what happens when Post Modernism is taught as if it were reality while denying that there is anything like reality. This is what happens when Evolutionism is taught as if it were science or fact. This is what happens when various theories about the ecology are taught as if they were fact. Other similar topics include: feminism, liberalism, socialism, atheism, agnosticism, naturalism, uniformitarianism, and materialism. Much of what is taught in history classes is of this nature. Listening with an uncritical mind will cause you to lose your ability for critical thinking. The colleges are not the only ones to blame for the loss of critical thinking. Movies are full of ideas that cannot work in reality. TV shows are also full of such ideas. Newspapers, magazines, and TV news is guilty of this. Sermons in churches that have strayed away from the Bible. All of these involve people trained in giving a message in a convincing way. Most of these people are deluded themselves, having lost the ability for critical thinking.

This page may be a shock to some who have learned ungodly critical thinking. The ungodly often eliminate the possibility of God from their thinking using assumptions and forgotten presupposition. Not that the presupposition of naturalism or materialism is forgotten, but the fact that naturalism and materialism are simply made up stories is forgotten. They become iron towers that cannot be moved in the mind of those who push God from their awareness. As a result, what is taught as critical thinking is often just scoffing at the truth. These people mentioned above teach you to be very skeptical of truth but to accept lies without any analysis. In fact, they tend to demonize anyone who examines the evidence for ideas like feminism, liberalism, socialism, atheism, agnosticism, naturalism, uniformitarianism, perversion, casual sex, covetousness, and materialism.