Let us Reason Together: Thinking About Thinking
Mark Roberts
What exactly is the role of reasoning in pleasing God? Even a brief look at Westside will find we place a huge emphasis on the mind and its use. We encourage the study of the Bible relentlessly. We expect our members to be able to give a reasoned and reasonable answer to questions like “How do you know there is a God?” and “Why don’t you have a piano?” For some this is all a mistake. They are unhappy with such a cerebral approach to religion. They complain that logic doesn’t lead us to God, or that the rules of establishing Bible authority are “preacher rules.” Perhaps we would do well to do some thinking about thinking.
First, let us note that using our minds is not anti-spiritual.
Over and over God demands we use our mind. This is true from the very beginning when God commanded Adam and Eve not to eat of the fruit of one specific tree (Genesis 2:16-17). They then had to think and reason about what the law meant, what tree was prohibited, and then decide to act accordingly. They were not to feel or rely inner intuition to know what God did and did not want them to do. Instead God made a direct appeal to their minds and thinking ability. Evidently, such does not lessen one’s relationship with God as some charge! The rest of the Bible is full of the very same kind of thing: God wanting us to use our minds to know Him and serve Him. Look at Leviticus and Numbers and their lengthy laws that had to be thought about so they could be carefully observed. Jesus reasons off a very fine verb tense in Matthew 22:32 and is frustrated when His disciples can’t think deeply and understand His metaphors about bread (Matt 16:8-11). Paul writes well-reasoned careful treatises that expose error and explain what is right in books like Galatians and Romans. With all the commands of God, laws of God, and written Scripture serving as God’s basic means for establishing covenant and relationship with us how did anyone ever decide that using our minds somehow will foul up serving the Lord? God gave humans a wondrous mind and He expects us to use it!
Second, such reasoning is not an attempt to subjugate God with logic.
One of the objections to rational argumentation about the work of the church or the interpretation of the Bible is the idea“you are trying to contain God with logic” or “human reasoning doesn’t apply to God.” Yet the reasoning that says we cannot reason about God (a rather self-contradictory idea!) fails miserably because it pretends that somehow man came up with logic and imposed it on God. That is not true by any means. God is the originator of rational, ordered thought (Psalm 104:24; 111:10; Prov 1:7; 2:6; 3:19; 21:30; Eccl 2:26). Further, as we have seen, God communicates to us in a logical way that we can grasp and understand as He reasons with us. We don’t reason with God trying to persuade Him with our logic to do as we please. Instead, God kindly stoops to our level, explaining Himself and His laws. The result of God’s action is that we are motivated to obey Him because we can reason and see that God knows what is best and it is good for us to serve Him (see Deut 6:24).
It is important to realize as well that while we certainly acknowledge the limitations of the human mind and human reasoning, it isn’t God that we are examining using logic but our statements about God. As Geisler and Brooks note in their excellent book on reasoning Come Let Us Reason “No one is trying to judge God. It is the statements that we make about Him that we analyze with logic. Logic simply provides a way to see if those statements are true – if they fit with the reality of who God really is” (pp. 17-18). If someone says “God is weak and has little power,” we would want to evaluate that statement’s truthfulness in light of the evidence. Creation and Scripture would be marshaled to show that such a statement is false. Yes, that is reasoning but it is not an attempt to imprison God to human will with logic, but instead to find out what is right. Again, the goal is serving God acceptably.
Finally, what are commonly called “preacher rules” are simply basic principles of truth that function in all of life.
When the preacher says “this verse can’t say that because it would contradict other passages and the Bible cannot contradict itself,” he isn’t fabricating some rule to get the Bible out of a tough spot. Truth is always consistent with itself. That is the nature of truth, and it is so in mathematics, physics or even in human relationships. For example, a teen-age girl can see that if her boyfriend says “I would never kiss anyone but you,” and then she sees him kissing another girl, something is amiss. She reasons that his statement and his actions are contradictory and cannot both be true. Simple logic, all done without a preacher’s help!
In a very similar way many of the “rules” we use to understand the Bible are simply basic truths that apply to all communication. For example, when a mother sends her child into the store with $5 and says “Buy a loaf of bread and a gallon of milk,” she is not required to tick off a laundry list of every kind of candy not to buy. The explicit direction to buy bread and milk excludes, without further comment, everything else. Mother would be dumbfounded if the child returned with bread, milk, and candy and explained the extra purchase by saying “The idea that silence does not authorize is just a preacher rule.” In the same way, when God specifies something He expects us to respect that communication and not violate it by adding to it or taking from it (see Gal. 1:8-9).
What of the famous “Three Ways to Establish Bible Authority?” Perhaps nothing has taken more abuse among those who desire to loose what God has bound then the idea that direct command, apostolic example, and reasoned conclusions give us the means to know and do God’s will. Yet how else can anything be learned? Football coaches tell the team what to do (“throw the ball long”), have the team watch film and learn from others (“this team threw long and beat our opponent”), or can put information before the team and expect them to draw the right conclusion (“when you see them in this defensive set they are vulnerable to the long pass. You know what to do then!”). What works on the football field works in the classroom and with parents and yes, even in the church because these are basic principles of communication. God can tell us what to do, let us watch someone do it, or give us the principles and other information needed for us to conclude what we should do. How else could we know what to do? No preacher made up the basic rules of communication we all live by.
Certainly there are truths about God that go beyond our ability to reason and understand. The human mind cannot fathom eternity. The doctrine of the Trinity is exceedingly difficult to grasp. However, being beyond reason is not the same as saying something contradicts reason. God reasons with us and He wants us to reason with Him.
Denying the role of thinking in our pursuit of God is a dangerous attack on Christianity. It casts one in the role of a super-spiritual person (“I’m not going to bind God with human logic”) and destroys any ability to discuss or reason further. However, it is an idea that simply won’t work scripturally or realistically. We must use our minds in the service of God, and that means it behooves us all to understand how to reason and think correctly, accurately and righteously.