Love Your Logic

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A lot of everyday thinking, and not a little academic thinking, is riddled with logical fallacies.  It pays to know what counts as logical thinking, in order to keep one’s mind on the straight and narrow.

Here are some notes, helpfully summarised from Peter Kreeft’s book Socratic Logic by Justin Taylor:-

There are three kinds of thoughts, or three acts of the mind:

  1. Simple apprehension [understanding a simple term—e.g., “man”]
  2. Judging [relating two concepts by predicating one term of the other—e.g.,
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Rob Bell and Brian Maclaren – Unbelievable?

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I’ve been listening to a pair of recent episodes of Premier Christian Radio’s Unbelievable show.

The first was a discussion between Rob Bell and Adrian Warnock.  Rob Bell was being quizzed about his recent book Love Wins, which, rather notoriously, appears to entertain a doctrine of universalism.  Unusually for a presenter who is usually very even-handed Justin Brierley, seemed rather keen to side with Adrian Warnock against Rob Bell.  And both of them seemed rather too keen on trying to work out whether Rob Bell is ‘in’ or ‘out’, ‘one of us’ or ‘one of them’, an ‘evangelical’ or a ‘liberal’. …

Genes: masters or slaves?

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In Richard Dawkins’ celebrated book The Selfish Gene, there is a passage which (rather typically for him) smuggles non-empirical assumptions into a statement that purports to be a scientific one.

The passage reads as follows:-

[Genes] swarm in huge colonies, safe inside gigantic lumbering robots, sealed off from the outside world, communicating with it by tortuous indirect routes, manipulating it by remote control.  They are in you and me; they created us, body and mind; and their preservation is the ultimate rationale for our existence.

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Oral tradition and the Gospels

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Craig Blomberg has written extensively on the historical reliability of the Gospels.  In the relevant article in the Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, he identifies a number of factors that support the probability that the Gospels faithfully preserve the oral traditions on which they are based.

1. Jesus was perceived by his followers as one who proclaimed God’s Word in a way which demanded careful retelling.

2. Over ninety percent of his teachings has poetic elements which would have made them easy to memorize.

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The moral argument for God’s existence

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The moral argument, stated at its simplest, asserts that moral facts, or imperatives, exist, and that the best way of explaining these is in terms of a supernatural moral Being (i.e. God).

In asserting that moral facts exist, the Christian apologist is on common ground with the majority of philosophers, including those who are not theists.

Fewer, however would accept that the existence of moral facts necessarily entails the existence of God.

Some would try to explain the moral impulse in terms of social pressure and cultural conditioning. …

Mt 27:11-25; 33-54 – On trial – sermon notes

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Note: this short message was delivered in two parts during the course of an all-age service.  The service was held on Palm Sunday, but the Anglican lectionary set this passage, covering the trial and crucifixion of Jesus, and I was anxious to try to do something worthwhile with it within the time (2 x 6 minutes) available to me.

Text: Matthew 27:11-25; 33-54

1.

This is, of course, the most famous trial in history. And it’s obvious who is on trial here.…

The Curious Case of Madalyn Murray O’Hair

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Madalyn Elizabeth Mays was born in Pittsburgh on Palm Sunday (April 13) 1919.  She married John Henry Roths in 1941.  During the war, she worked as a cryptographer in Italy.  While apart from her husband, she became pregnant with her first child.  Although William J. Murray, a senior American officer, did not acknowledge the child as his own, she seemed to regard herself as married to him.  She divorced Roths, and called her son William Joseph Murray III and referred to herself as Madalyn Murray. …

John 19:1-16a – Rejected – sermon notes

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Of all the different kinds of pain that men and women have to suffer, few can be more agonising than the pain of rejection. For a wife to hear her husband of 20 years say, “I can’t stand the sight of you; you no longer have a place in my life”; for an employee to be told by her boss, “Your knowledge and skills are surplus to our requirements; you no longer have a place in this organisation; you are redundant”; for a student to be notified by his university, “You have failed your examination, you no longer have a place on this course”; all are deeply wounding.…

Who Crucified Jesus?

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To the question, Who crucified Jesus?, the New Testament gives us four distinct answers: the Jews, the Romans, the human race – and God!  The first answer tells the tragedy of a people who, despite their long preparation in providence and grace, failed to recognise their true Messiah and rejected him.  The second reminds us that the contempt against Christ was the calculated response of the Gentile world to the King of Love, not just a Jewish response, Acts 4:24-27. …

The Ironies of the Cross

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In the following address, D.A. Carson sets out four ‘ironies of the cross’ as presented in Matthew 27:27-51.

The Ironies of the Cross

In summary:-

  1. The man who is mocked as king, is the king.
  2. The man who is utterly powerless, is powerful.
  3. The man who can’t save himself, saves others.
  4. The man who cries out in despair, trusts God.
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