Thinking Well

Why think Well?

2Cor 10:4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

At the heart of spiritual warfare, contrary to common religious thinking, is the battle for the mind. The bulk of ideologies and worldviews that have led people away from the Christian faith have been successful purely through deception. Deception is the means that the enemy uses to lure people away from God

It is no wonder then that Jesus when talking about the whole commandment, He included the command of loving God with our mind. Sadly, for most of the people in Christendom and especially here in Africa, the invitation to come to Christ is an invitation to rid ourselves of our minds. Belief in God is supposed to be a leap into the unknown. After all, Jesus reminds us that they are more blessed those who believe without seeing( or does he?)

There is no doubt in orthodox Christianity that the Bible is the most important resource given to mankind by God. It is the primary means with which He communicates to us. However, the resource of a sober mind seems to me to be implicit in this communication. For the bible to be properly understood, we require a sober mind and a clear hermeneutic. The bible has to be properly interpreted if we are to make out what God is speaking. As Gregory Koukl notes;

A different thing is necessary before we can accurately know what God is saying through his Word. Yes, the Bible is first in terms of authority, but something else is first in terms of the order of knowing: We cannot grasp the authoritative teaching of God’s Word unless we use our minds properly. Therefore, the mind, not the Bible, is the very first line of defense God has given us against error. (Koukl, 2009)

Another reason to have a sober mind is to help us to calmly and effectively share the gospel to others. It is indeed true that we could be the greatest impediment to others accepting Jesus. Most believers when encountered by a challenge during evangelism will either result in un-calmly and rude responses or attribute the challenge to the devil. This in sharp contrast to the way Jesus and the apostles responded to challenges. Sadly, the reason we result in uncouth and militant methods in sharing the gospel is because we do not have well thought out and articulate responses to our listeners. As it has well been noted, we face two major tasks in our evangelism, saving the soul the soul and saving the mind yet the church seems to be lagging behind on the latter.

The task of apologetics here in Africa is thus needed and very critical. one only needs to look around and see the many machinations of the gospel being peddled out here.

How to structure a good argument / response

I know for a fact that the word argument doesn’t settle well with most of us. It carries a connotation of a draining exchange between people which is often always negative. For the purposes of this paper, however, the word argument will be used to mean a series of statements linked towards a conclusion.

Arguments are, thus, very good and healthy. They clarify the truth and protect us from error and religious despotism. When the church discourages principled debates and a free flow of ideas, the result is shallow Christianity and a false sense of unity

A good argument constitutes 3 primary items i.e. True premises, valid logic and unambiguous terms. We actually unconsciously employ these rules in our everyday conversations. Let’s look into detail what each of these entails.

True Premises

A premise is a statement on the nature of reality. It is a statement that seeks to proposition reality as we experience. For example:

• It is raining
• All cats are white in color
• Kenyans are generally not wise in the way they vote
• All men are liars
• If God doesn’t exist, objective moral values and duties do not exist.
• Women are by nature gold diggers.

All the above are premises that can be used in an argument. What we have to ensure is that we have warrant for believing the premise to be true. Clearly, some of the premises above are false and thus should not be used in making an argument.

It is our aim in general communication to have the premises being more plausible than their contradictories (Lane & Moreland, 2003).

Unambiguous terms

This means that all the terms used in the conversation are clear and concise. Ensure that the meaning of word is clear and can be easily understood. Let’s look at an example:

• A plane is an important carpenter tool; The Airbus 380 is a plane; Therefore, the airbus 380 is an important carpenters’ tool.

From the above the word plane has been used but having different meanings. The first plane is a jack plane used by carpenters to remove excess chippings. The second plane is an aero plane. So, in as much as the premises are true, the conclusion will be false.

Another example is the word “evolution” which can be expanded and contracted to mean many different things. Sometimes it simply means “common descent from a primordial ancestor.” Other times it will refer to reconstructing the tree of life and showing how things emerged from previous life forms. Other times evolution refers to the explanatory mechanisms of random genetic mutation and natural selection. That is why it is so misleading when somebody asks, “Do you believe in evolution?” or says “Evolution has been proven to be true”.  The question is impossible to answer until you’ve defined your terms.

Valid logic

The word logic should not scare us to think that this a deep philosophical discourse. However, what we simply mean is that the conclusion should follow from the premises. Consider the examples below

• Most old men have bald heads; My father is an old man; Therefore, my father is bald
• Cats are gentle animals; My neighbor owns a cat; Therefore, my neighbor is a gentle person

From the above example its clear that the conclusion does not follow from the premises in as much all the premises and the conclusion could be true

Exercise: Can you identify which arguments below have a problem? Try and identify whether the issue is in the premises, terms or logic. The premises are separated by a semicolon

• Most Kenyans do not vote wisely; Michael is a Kenyan; Therefore, Michael did not vote wisely.
• A plane is a carpenter tool; The Airbus 380 is a plane; The airbus should be sold to doctors
• Greek is a language; Michael is Greek; Michael is a language
• Evolution says that we are descended from a common ancestor with all primates; How can evolutionists claim that we come from apes? Evolution is false
• The Bible is the word of God; The Bible clearly says that the Scriptures are the inspired word of God; Therefore, the Bible is the word of God
• Miracles are a violation of the laws of nature; We know that the laws of nature cannot be violated; Therefore, miracles cannot exist

The errors noted above are known as Logical fallacies. Check out our section on logical fallacies