11 - LOGIC, ILLOGIC AND NORMALIZING CONTRADICTION

November 2, 2024

Logic is invincible, because in order to combat logic it is necessary to use logic.

                                                                      Pierre Boutroux (1880-1922, French mathematician)

Do you remember how John opens his Gospel?  “In the beginning was the Word…”  There is a play-on-words here: the Greek word is logos, from which comes our word logic.  In ancient Greek, logos meant the divine principle (Logic or Reason) that controls the Universe; to this definition John added a person,   Christ Jesus, the Son of God, as the “ultimate controlling principle,” the one who made the Universe.

Logic is the foundation of rational thinking.  The Laws of Logic describe what makes thinking rational and, thus, what distinguishes it from the irrational.  The laws are:

The first and third laws need no further explanation; their meaning is simple common sense.  I want to focus on the middle law,1 the Law of Non-Contradiction (LNC) …

First, Non-Contradiction separates sense from nonsense.  A truth claim is either True or False; it cannot be both True and False at the same time and in the same relationship.  A woman cannot be both mother and aunt to the same children!  This is the “logic” of the light switch: either On or Off.  Logic is one more example of the Principle of Non-Contradiction in the structure of Creation – that is, the divine nature revealed in the things that have been made (Romans 1:20).

Second, the Either/Or framework in the LNC confirms how opposites relate to each other. Thus, Non-Contradiction is the foundation on which all order (harmony, peace, coherence, etc.) in the Universe rests. 

Third, to have meaningful conversation, the participants must use the LNC (and the other two laws) in the same way.  Without this there is no basis for shared meaning.  Rational communication happens only where the parties in the conversation share understanding; word meanings can only be shared on the basis of non-contradiction and the other laws of Logic.

Fourth, the Non-Contradiction is inescapable.  This is point of the quote that opens this post.  The Principle of Non-Contradiction is so deeply and thoroughly embedded in the Universe that, to argue against the LNC, you must use the LNC.  Non-Contradiction is universal and irrevocable!   

Fifth, human beings can be illogical. We can overlook, ignore, or, in some sense, defy it – we can and do believe that contradictory truth claims are both True. This is a foolish and dangerous thing to do, however, because whatever is built on a contradiction will inevitably collapse.  As Abraham Lincoln said in one of his most famous speeches2 – paraphrasing Jesus in Mt. 12:25 – “a house divided against itself cannot stand.” 

You have heard or read, “Everything is relative!”  In our secular culture, and even in the church, many people accept this self-contradictory statement as “true,” and take as a given. Equally, a claim that the same individual can be biologically male and simultaneously “identify” as female is also self-contradictory.  Both claims are nonsense! 

Yet, those who hold these views do not see the contradiction as a problem, if they see the contradiction at all because we live in a culture where contradiction has been normalized.  This is a huge change from what people believed a century ago.  If you had surveyed people in the 1920’s, the overwhelming majority would have agreed that opposing truth claims cannot both be correct at the same time.  Agreement with the proposition that both can be true would have been limited to “progressive” academics and liberal theologians.

As noted in the fifth point, normalizing contradiction comes with costs.  We will explore the cost issue next time…

1           There is no standard arrangement for the three Laws of Logic.  Some sources switch the order of the first two Laws.  The Law of the Excluded Middle is pretty much uniformly listed as the third Law.

2           Lincoln, Abraham, Speech delivered June 14, 1858 at the Republican State Convention, Springfield, Illinois.