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December 9, 2024   “I beg you to believe that life is not a process, it's a drama”                                                             ― Malcolm Muggeridge   Decades ago – when I was in my 20’s – I thought Theistic Evolution was the “thing” that freed Christians to argue that science and faith/religion were NOT in conflict.  And I still see the appeal that Theistic Evolution offers, but I long ago realized that the alleged conflict between Science and the Bible is “fake news.”   Properly understood Science (i.e. the study of cause-and-effect) is simply a method which applies the Principle of Non-contradiction in closed systems.* It is further evidence of the Divine Nature revealed in Creation (again, see Romans 1:20).   Since God’s Divine Nature is evident in the very fabric of the scientific method and what it can usefully study, any supposed “conflict” between Science and Religion disappears.   So, in the end, Theistic Evolution does not and cannot pass muster when Scripture is rightly understood and applied, and when it is given its rightful priority .   Now, in the last post I identified several contradictory meanings that make the word “evolution” meaningless, but I neglected to mention the most fundamental contradictory meaning: “evolution” in biology nature, á la Darwin, is impersonal – it is merely a process  - whereas, the “evolution” of automobiles – and a whole host of things produced through ingenuity – is personal . It is drama  and it is sweet irony that the mere existence of commercials testifies to this!   We must not miss the fact that all creative human endeavours are a form of story-telling.  This, of course, reflects the reality that we are created in the image of God (Gen. 1:27).  This fundamentally marks creativity of every kind as intentional; even discoveries and inventions that are “accidental” are not “blind” in the sense that Richard Dawkins writes of a “blind watchmaker.”   While I don’t think that the Bible rules out “evolution,” in the sense of adaptation , it does rule out the impersonal, unplanned, purposeless process of evolution championed by Richard Dawkins and others.  The Bible never speaks of one “kind” of plant or animal “evolving” into another “kind;” in Genesis 1:11, 12, 21, 24, and 25 we find the phrase “after its kind” or “after their kind.”  This is a caveat which rules out any evolutionary Tree of Life.**   As well, we need to remember where the main focus of the creation story in Genesis 1-2 falls: on the Creator.  It is clearly a personal story that begins the drama recorded in the Bible.  And this notion is reinforced “in spades” in the Book of Job.  When God answers Job out of the whirlwind (Job 38:1-39:30) he gives what is, effectively, a second, more-detailed Creation account.  Here is a sample:   22 “Have you entered the storehouses of the snow,    or have you seen the storehouses of the hail, 23   which I have reserved  for the time of trouble, for the day of battle and war?   Yahweh then speaks of lions, ravens, mountain goats, the wild ox, the horse, and many more, as his personal creations.  There is no Deism here, of a god who simply wound up Creation like a clock and let it run; no, and what God makes, he governs.  The God of the Bible is the God of details!   And this brings me to the details we find in DNA.  DNA is a language – a language with instructions that control activity within cells.  To use familiar images, DNA works like a recipe or an instruction manual.  I particularly like the metaphor of knitting instructions because this harkens to Psalm 139: “… you knit me together in my mother’s womb…” (v. 13b) [Perhaps, in this phrase, the Bible anticipates that human beings will one day discover DNA.]   Furthermore, language is the product of intelligence.  It is intentional and purposeful, even as it changes. These are necessary conditions for the existence of language and all the evidence supports this view.  And, from a Biblical point of view this makes sense…   In the beginning, God created… (Gen. 1:1) And God  spoke… (Gen. 1:3, 6, 9, 11, 14, 16, 20, 26) In the beginning was the Word ….  (Jn. 1:1)   Muggeridge is right, life is not merely a process, our lives are part of a great drama that unfolds through creation, fall, human history, redemption of some and judgment for others.   Next time, I want to return to look at more worthless words. * A closed system is one where natural events – chains of cause and effect – are repeatable and, therefore, falsifiable.  Science can only study closed systems. Open systems that can be studied include: history, philosophy, sociology, theology, and so on. I am indebted to the late Frances Schaeffer for his explanation of closed and open systems. **  As a an explanation for living things, any Theory of Evolution has multiple, serious flaws. Those other flaws are beyond the scope of this post. Perhaps I will return to other flaws with Evolution later.

December 4, 2024   You love evil more than good,     and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah 4  You love all words that devour,  O deceitful tongue.  Psalm 5:3-4   In the Animal Farm post – a couple of posts ago – I wrote about contradiction in word meanings – where the same word – “equality” in that case – was used twice in the same sentence with opposite meanings:  simultaneously meaning both equal and not equal.  Such Orwellian word meanings are nonsense.   I want to note that this  problem with word meanings is quite different from that oddity in English vocabulary known as the homonym  – a word with the same spelling but with openly different meanings.  For example, “bat” refers both to a flying mammal and to a stout wooden stick used in the game of baseball.  One infers the relevant meaning of a homonym from the context in which it appears.  Confusion is, thus, avoided.   Homonym meanings are honest and above board; “Orwellian words” are dishonest and meant to hide truth – as Orwell wrote, “to make murder sound respectable.”* The psalm quoted above is focused on this reality: since some – many? – people have no love for Truth and do not pursue it, they are quite willing to lie; therefore what they say “devours” Truth and our tongues are filled with deceit.  We might say that they speak with worthless words !   (In searching online while preparing this post, I came across a book with the title The Dictionary of Worthless Words: 3000 Words to Stop Using Now. ** It is a book aimed to aspiring creative writers, not a dictionary listing words that well-equipped Christians should not use!)   When contradiction is normalized, “Orwellian words” enter the everyday vocabulary and are typically used without any awareness of confusion or dishonesty.  Mature Christians are  aware of this and should actively work to avoid using such words in their conversations.   The word that tops my list of worthless word is “Evolution/evolution.”  I think it is quite instructive to pay attention to how often “evolution” is used to talk about change, and how casually and carelessly it is used to describe any kind  of change.   So, when addressing “evolution” in living things (biology), Richard Dawkins makes this truth claim:   “In the case of living machinery, the ‘designer’ is unconscious natural selection, the blind watchmaker.”***   And then, a few years back – prior to 2015 –Volkswagen – a company that designs, manufactures and assembles automobiles – used this advertising slogan:   Volkswagen, the evolution   of Das Auto!   [I also stumbled upon a current website that styles itself autoevolution.com . (See https://s1.cdn.autoevolution.com/ .)  If you pay attention you can build yourself quite a catalogue of the contradictory ways in which “evolution” is used/abused.]   So, evolution is both not  designed and designed, unplanned and planned, unintentional and intentional. Such contradictions!!!  Such nonsense!  Such confusion!   “Evolution,” thus, is a word that Christians – and other clear thinking folk – should avoid.  There are several good synonyms: change, adaptation, modification, among others.  Check an online Thesaurus!   The most insidious aspect of the nonsense and confusion that is part-and-parcel of the word “evolution” is the way that it imports the notion of “progress.”  Evolution in nature is assumed to progress, from the simple to the complicated, and from the good to the better.  Survival of the fittest assumes that whatever survives is better than that which does not survive.   In some sense this may be true when it comes to automobiles; and it certainly helps the cause of naturalistic Evolutionism to have its claims about “progress” reinforced by the “sighted” engineers at VW and other automobile companies.  As well, it also helps that a great many people do not recognize the game that is being played and the sleight-of-hand that is at work.   “Evolution” is a worthless word in our culture, even a dangerous word. Note that Marxism and its offspring used to claim that societies “evolve” and that socialism is a more “evolved” system of government and economics than others.  Those claims have become more muted with the tyranny and poverty of Marxist experiments have become visible.    Now, “evolution” is far from the only worthless word that Christians should avoid and I will soon get to these, but not until after we take a little bypath to explore what room the Bible leaves for evolution.     *         From his essay Politics and the English Language . **      Written by Dave Dowling.  Published in 2012.  A primer for aspiring writers. ***    Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker, 1986, WW Norton & Company.

November 19, 2024   “Mystery is never more than a mirage; it vanishes as soon as one tries to approach it.” Simone de Beauvoir*   Most of what I have shared to this point comes from “ground” that is well ploughed – from years of reading and reflection.  However, as I noted two posts ago, my thoughts about “horizons” – and how they function to define the meaning of opposites - are very new, and I have worked out a few more details over the past few days.  Hence, I think it useful to return to that topic briefly.   Creation has boundaries.  “Big Bang” theorists speak of an expanding universe that has edges .  All created things have boundaries, or limits, or margins, or borders; horizon is simply a type of boundary and I think that which differentiates earth from sky is a helpful toll when speaking about external reference points of any kind.   A geographical horizon is an object.  It really exists.  It exists apart from any person and apart from the way anyone experiences.  It is a fact.  Its existence is not dependent upon the way anyone “feels” about it or subjectively experiences it.  Since the horizon is objectively real, it is in my best interest to respect it and to abide by any limits that it places upon me.   Note that a geographical horizon exists even when someone is blind.  The fact that he or she cannot see the horizon presents problems (challenges?) for a blind person, but blindness does not negate the horizon’s existence.   In the earlier post, I noted that our secular culture rejects external reference points to establish ethical standards and so traditional external reference points for right and wrong – like The Ten Commandments – are dismissed as “The Ten Suggestions.”  However, I should have gone on to note something that you presumably already know: while the objective  horizon line for ethics disappears, another horizon line – a subjective horizon line – is (usually) substituted .   This is commonly known as moral relativism .  Defined in negative terms, moral relativism  is the belief that there are no absolute standards of right and wrong, and, therefore, what is right or wrong may vary over time and from situation to situation and from person to person.    Of course, moral relativism is not new.  The Book of Judges speaks to it: “In those days there was no king in Israel. Everyone did what was right in his own eyes. ” (Judge 21:25)   Now, moral relativism rests on a contradiction – a “con” – although most people fail to see the scam (which violates the Principle of Non-Contradiction in at least two ways).  1)   Relativists deny that an objective standard for truth-telling exists and then adopt some “standard” of truth-telling based on the now non-existent standard of truth-telling.   (Thus, “to lie” has no fixed meaning to a relativist and while it does to a non-relativist, i.e. a traditionalist. Words that sound the same no longer have a common meaning and real communication breaks down. Relativists speak of truth, justice, democracy, equality, as do traditionalists, but they are speaking different languages. )   2) And the other violation is a classic self-contradictory statement: “Everything is relative” = “The one truth claim that is absolutely/objectively true is that there is no absolute/objective Truth.”  That, of course, is nonsense.  Boom!    In the earlier post, I failed to note that moral relativists often “set up” subjective “boundaries” – that is, they “create” their own ethical horizon lines.  (It is an open question as to whether Jay Michaelson did this in the excerpt I quoted in the “Buying the Farm?” post.)  What relativists fail to see, and what we must not miss, is that, having stepped into the absurdity of subjective ethics, their so-called horizon lines are fake.  They are nonsense!  They are imaginary, a mirage , an illusion, an exercise in self-deception.     From the perspective of Romans 1:20, this mirage of horizons is not a mystery.  As to what insight Ms. de Beauvoir was offering in her quote with which this post began, I do not know, but her words have a certain application to the topic, even if only as something that sounds profound, but makes no sense...   For next time: knowing that I have put both the objective and subjective on the table, so to speak, I want to devote the next post to explaining how the two interact.  Let’s play ball!!     *     From The Second Sex , as quoted by Pauline O’Flynn in a 2009 article/paper in “Minerva – An Internet Journal of Philosophy.” http://www.minerva.mic.ul.ie/vol13/de%20Beauvoir.pdf

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others. - George Orwell, Animal Farm (1945)   November 14, 2024   This is surely the most famous quote from Animal Farm , long a classic piece of political satire.  (George Orwell was the pen name used by Eric Blair. I think Blair chose this pen name because “Orwellian” was to be such a brilliant term for describing absurd politicized language!)      The “all animals are equal” quote is a great illustration of an insight that Orwell offered in his essay Politics and the English Language : *   “Political language… is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind.”   The quote from Animal Farm’s  exemplifies the pigs’ systematic abuse of logic and language, by way of contradiction. “All animals are equal” implies that all animals are equal to one another, but leaves wiggle room so that one can read/misread the word “equal” as a relative term rather than an absolute  one.  Could there be degrees of “equal”-ness, just as there can be degrees of colourful-ness, for example (more colourful, less colourful)? What is really a logical fallacy  hides the fact that the two parts of the sentence are contradictory.  It then sounds  no more absurd to say “more equal” than to say “more colourful.” But the content is nonsense – the notion that anything can be both equal and not equal at the same time is contradictory .     The pigs, of course, did this because they wanted the power to control the other animals. Some 80 years later, it remains a useful reference point for assessing the current state of secular Western culture.   However, Western culture in the 1940’s had not yet normalized contradiction. Most people understood that contradiction was problematic, and they could distinguish sense from nonsense, and truth from lies. To be sure, people lied, but they knew they were lying. In Animal Farm  everyone is “in” on the nonsense – Orwell, his readers, even the pigs.  We all recognize the nonsense for what it is!   In fact, Orwell’s intention in writing Animal Farm was to warn against the dangers of revolutions. Today, however, huge numbers of people – whether speaking or listening - do not recognize that contradiction is nonsense.  Take this brief excerpt from a panel discussion that took place on CNN just the other day; the topic in view is biological males playing sports with biological girls…   Shermichael Singleton:  “I think there are a lot of families out there who don’t believe boys should play girls sports…"   Jay Michaelson  (interrupting): “They’re not boys… I am not going to listen to transphobia at this table; I am not going to listen to you call a “trans girl” a boy…” CNN Newsnight with Abby Philip, Nov. 11, 2024 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2DlM_2djAHg [You can watch the relevant portion at the link above (starting at the 4:05 mark)…]   Jay Michaelson betrays no awareness at all that what he says is nonsense!  He is serious!  Worse, he is also sincere!! He believes that what he says is “true” and he quickly claims the “moral high ground.”  And while he does not believe that objective Truth exists, he demands that his absurd claims be accepted as the Truth!   Mr. Michaelson has normalized contradiction.  Like JFK Jr., he is piloting without an objective horizon** and that is a dangerous thing to do.  If you are not paying attention, though, you, too, will likely miss the absurdity of this nonsense!  Don’t!   Here, then, we confront the immediate cost of normalizing contradiction: meaningless words, nonsense/absurdity/irrationality; words without content, just a nice sound, and not seen for what they really are. From this flow innumerable indirect costs, which we will address in due course, but next time I want to take a step back and revisit the idea of "horizons" that I introduced last time, to develop it a bit more; then we will look at some high-profile words that normalizing contradiction has rendered meaningless – words that we should avoid.   *     Essay by George Orwell published in 1946 and available online in PDF format. ** I am learning on-the-fly. Since the previous post, I have come to see the need to flesh out the concept of "horizon" to distinguish between the objective (real) and the subjective (imaginery).

November 21, 2024 This is rich!!  From the recent efforts to recount ballots in the Pennsylvania Senate election comes this story…   [ Background : Pennsylvania, like all states in the U.S. has election laws that govern the validity of ballots not cast in person.  It is a given that votes not cast in person, such as proxy votes, and mail-in ballots, are only counted if they meet certain procedural requirements – they are properly signed, dated, and delivered by the established deadline.]   In the initial ballot count, election officials rejected ballots that were not properly completed according to election rules.  One political party sued to have these ballots counted.  From online news…   The [Pennsylvania Supreme Court] initially ruled on Nov. 1 that mail-in ballots without formally required signatures or dates should not be counted.  [Some] election boards, however — including in Philadelphia, Bucks County, Montgomery County, and Centre County — balked at the ruling and voted to include such ballots in the recount.   "People violate laws any time they want," … Bucks County commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia said last week, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer . "So, for me, if I violate this law, it’s because I want a court to pay attention . There’s nothing more important than counting votes."   https://redstate.com/bobhoge/2024/11/19/pa-governor-shapiro-finally-grows-a-spine-sides-with-court-on-dem-efforts-to-steal-a-senate-seat-n2182183   Election boards are composed of partisan appointees. The most plausible interpretation for the comment that the commissioner wants “a court to pay attention” is that this commissioner disagreed with the court’s original ruling and wanted it reversed so that these ballots would be counted, to the benefit of the candidate from her party.  The issue was returned to the courts…   The court’s new decision to block the officials was made 7-0 on the merits and 4-3 on pro-cedural matters, with Justice David Wecht…, writing in concurrence:   “It is critical to the rule of law that individual counties and municipalities and their elected and appointed officials, like any other parties, obey orders of this Court. As Justice Felix Frankfurter once wrote: ‘If one man can be allowed to determine for himself what is law, every man can. That means first chaos, then tyranny. … The greater the power that defies law the less tolerant can this Court be of defiance.’”   https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/columnists/3233889/pennsylvania-supreme-court-stops-attempt-steal-votes/   One way of restating Diane Ellis-Marseglia’s explanation is, “If I don’t like a law, I am free to break that law if it suits my purposes.”  This is a classic application of the axiom “ Rules for thee, but not for me .”  Justice Wecht comments are “spot on;” one wonders if he knows Joshua 21:25.   The court is to be commended, as is Justice Wecht.  In the face of some blowback, Ms. Ellis-Marseglia subsequently claimed that her comments had been taken out of context…

November 11, 2024   If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense.  Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn’t… Lewis Carroll   I have a certain admiration for Charles Dodgson, better known as Lewis Carroll.  Dodgson had a lively sense of humour and a great eye for satire.  The quote above is taken from his children's classic, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.   Alice in Wonderland  is meant to be a fun read, but let me push Alice’s envelop by asking this: How would you navigate in a world where everything is nonsense?  How would you – could you – get from A to B, if A is not A and B is not B?  I eagerly await answers, but sensible answers only, please!!!   In the previous post I noted that we need external reference points   to navigate our way through life .  Pairs of opposites give us two external reference points – which provide the objective norms by which we can judge our actions.  In doing this, these pairs create “horizon lines,” if you will…   Consider, for example, Up and Down.  Do you see the invisible “line” that divides one from the other?  It’s there, just as it is literally there in a bar magnet, where a line crosses the magnet to differentiate the poles.  That “line” acts as a horizon !  This is another application of the Principle of Non-Contradiction.  Applied to all manner of opposites, it helps us make sense of the world.   When it comes to physical (i.e. material, tangible) things, most of us tend to respect the created “horizons” that are out there.  We try to not collide with stuff that is, or would be, in our way; when we cross the street, we understand that it’s either  the bus or  me1 – this is how we use external reference points to navigate!   But… in the realm of in tangible things – ideas, thoughts, reasoning, the mind and so on – the secular culture has come to believe that external reference points are not necessary or relevant when applied to ethics, politics, and society; in fact, they are not just unnecessary, they imaginary and pointless.  To consider external reference points, the culture holds, is to place a burden on one’s self-definition.2   This is what passes for conventional wisdom in the secular West today.  I think the Apostle Paul had this kind of “wisdom” in mind in his letter to the church in Rome, “Claiming to wise, they became fools…” (Romans 1:22)   To do away with “horizons” is to normalize contradiction and that comes with costs, for without “horizons” what we “see” is nonsense; therefore, we become confused and lose our way.  The reference points that allow us to know our true “direction” disappear; the “compass” we need to reason properly loses its “magnetic North Pole” and so we go in whatever subjective “direction” our feelings tell us.   Let me end with a bit of history that illustrates the cost of losing external reference points…     On July 16, 1999, a light aircraft piloted by John F. Kennedy Jr. crashed in the Atlantic Ocean off Martha's Vineyard killing him, his wife and his sister-in-law.  Kennedy did not have an instrument rating and was flying under vision flight rules (VFR).  In the weather and lighting conditions that developed that evening, he lost the ability to see the landmarks – the external reference points  – that he needed to locate the horizon.  Without an objective  way to (literally) distinguish Up from Down, he became disoriented and, unwittingly, flew the plane into the ocean.   To normalize contradiction is to create, in the realm of thought, the same kind of hazard that JFK Jr. found himself in on that fatal flight.  His error quickly proved costly.  Normalizing contradiction in a culture may not prove so  costly so  quickly, but the cost will  come.   In the next post, we will shift our gaze – our horizon? – from Lewis Carroll to George Orwell…   1     I owe this illustration to the late Ravi Zacharias and a story he told about a dinner conversation where he defended the Either/Or realism of Biblical Christianity against the Both/And claims of a professor of Eastern religions.   2     An example from the USA: “ The Democratic Party moved away from moral condemnation of abortion because Democrats now believe that human happiness is rooted in subjective self-definition , particularly with regard to sexual activity; that biology, particularly pregnancy and childbearing, is an active imposition on such a vision of human happiness; and that abortion is therefore a sacrament to be protected.”  Ben Shapiro in Jewish World Review, June 29, 2022 https://www.jewishworldreview.com/0622/shapiro062922.php

November 7, 2024 A photo!!  We will get to it shortly…   One of the things that I greatly admire about the Bible is that, by-and-large, the doctrines of grace described for us in the – in theoretical terms in the New Testament letters are illustrated by concrete events in the Old Testament.   For example, the Passover ritual we find in Exodus 12 provides an easy-to-picture concrete example of atonement by the blood of a substitute. A little later, the crossing of the Red Sea gives us a picture of God (physically) redeeming his people, taking them through waters that would otherwise swallow them up in death in the face of the advancing Egyptians, to new life on the other side (see Exodus 14, 1 Cor. 10:1, 2).  So, with that in mind, here is my attempt to mimic that style in relation to Non-Contradiction.   What abstract idea does the photo concretely illustrate?  There are at least three different “correct” answers to the question:   1.        We see, of course, a collision (a “fender bender”) – the aftermath of two vehicles that collided. 2.        We see, and know full well, that two objects – in this case, cars – cannot occupy the same space at the same time .   Either one vehicle or  the other vehicle can occupy a given space at any given time, but not both.  The result of the attempt is costly! 3.        As well, we can characterize the collision as the inevitable result of an attempt to violate the Principle of Non-Contradiction.   Again, please note that we find non-contradiction everywhere!   Let us now consider the costs that come with violating the Principle of Non-Contradiction.  In the case of vehicles colliding, they are obvious and, potentially, numerous.  Here is an incomplete list:   the cost of repairing damage, or replacing the vehicle, the cost of a temporary replacement vehicle, perhaps, the various costs related to injuries (hospitalization, treatment and other medical costs, time lost from work, pain and suffering, disability), the cost of law suits, other legal proceedings, fines for highway traffic violations, increased insurance costs.   When material objects  violate non-contradiction, things break; in some cases they are destroyed.  Sometimes they cause death!   Material objects cannot normalize contradiction!!  The motor vehicle accident is a clear and simple illustration of that universal reality.  And what is true of material objects is also true of immaterial objects !  A truth claim is an immaterial  object; in terms of its status as an object, it is no different than a car!  The former is abstract and the latter is concrete, but they share the same status as objects.   So, to claim that Truth Claim “A” can be both true and false at the same time and in the same relationship is to endorse the equivalent of an immaterial “car accident!”  Yet, since truth claims are immaterial – meaning we cannot access them with our five physical senses – it is possible to delude 1  – and I chose that word intentionally! – oneself into believing that contradiction is not problematic.   One final point for this post, and one so obvious that it may prompt a shake of your head: to navigate (drive) in a way that enables you to avoid car accidents, you MUST use external reference points !! Think about that: other vehicles, pedestrians, traffic signs, signals and road markings, and so on, are all external reference points that make it possible to drive safely.  Of course, we take these things so much for granted that we never think about this aspect of Reality!   In the next post, we will bring Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland into the conversation and look more at external reference points and the costs of contradiction…   1     Delusion – a false belief in a person’s mind that runs contrary to Reality.

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 Law of Identity A truth claim (a thing) is what it is. The Law of Non-Contradiction A truth claim is either True or False.  It cannot be both True and False at the same time and in the same relationship. The Law of the Excluded Middle A truth claim cannot be neither T nor F. 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.

10 – Restoring Reason – II   October 28, 2024   Back in the 80’s I taught a Sunday school class of 12-14-year-olds.  I wish I had kept some notes about that class, because I cannot recall the curriculum or what prompted me to use this illustration again and again: to make a point, I would walk to the light switch beside the classroom door and turn the switch Off and On several times.  As I did that I would say, “A light is either On  or  Off .  It cannot be both On  and Off  at the same time.  As well, it cannot be neither On  nor Off , nor can it be On  for me and Off  for you.  Its “On-ness” and “Off-ness” is a fact; it is true at all times and in all places, and it is true apart from any human being’s assent.”  [Well, after I introduced the illustration, I used a short-form explanation most of the time.]   The illustration demonstrated a principle we find in the design and form of the Universe: the Principle of Non-Contradiction.  It is the same principle we find in God, who is one, but the Universe, of course, is not one; it has many parts!  How, then, does God embed this principle in what he made, in what is not one?  Quite simply, through opposites!   The Universe is full of diversity – not the DEI kind(!) but a vast array of stuff that is related, yet different, in other words, differentiated .  The creation account in Genesis 1-2:7 outlines developing differentiation and complexity day-by-day.  And that differentiation – in both the material and immaterial things of the Universe – is grounded in opposites.  For example:  Creator vs. creation Sky vs. earth (ground) Something vs. nothing Water vs. land Heaven (sky) vs. earth Male vs. female Night vs. day Good vs. not good (evil)  Beyond those mentioned in Genesis 1, we find opposites everywhere in creation.  For example:  Up vs. down Inside vs. outside Left vs. right North vs. south Front vs. back +ve vs. (-ve) [think electro-magnetism] Top vs. bottom Cause vs. effect  And the list goes on and on… Now, returning to scripture, we find other opposites that have theological significance: Life vs. death Wrath vs. patience Virtue vs. sin (non-virtue) Justice vs. injustice Clean vs. unclean Justice vs. vengeance Blessing vs. curse Justice vs. mercy Wisdom vs. folly Love vs. hate Faith vs. unbelief Heaven vs. Hell  Opposites are so pervasive in the Universe – across and throughout everything, both material and immaterial – that they are clearly foundational to its makeup and organization!  They are uni tary in design – no contradiction – and yet incredibly di verse  in form; from which comes the word uni-verse .    Indeed, one may state with certainty (without fear of contradiction!!) that non-contradiction is a necessary condition  for order  in the Universe.  Non-contradiction “makes” sense – pun intended – and, in the absence of non-contradiction there is only disorder, confusion, chaos and non sense.   Again, I have presented only a tiny sample of the evidence of God’s non-contradiction – his divine nature – in Creation.  Next, we turn to the role of non-contradiction in human reason and in communication.

October 24, 2024   Just because you’re taught that something’s right and everyone believes it’s right, it don’t make it right. Mark Twain   Typical of Twain’s wit – and apart from his bad grammar – this little proverb contains a true t ruth: there i s a Capital “R” Reality* and it exists in every area of the Universe independently of our knowledge of, belief in, or assent to its existence.  That Reality is universally and objectively true, and is not subject to change because I “identify” this way or that or have “my truth.”   [* The capital “R” distinguishes objective Reality  from reality which is subjective and “constructed” (made up).  Facts fall into capital “R” Reality; opinions and “identity” belong in lower-case reality.  So, gravity is a fact; its force acts on all things; gravity is not optional, no matter how you may “identify.” The same principle applies to Truth, Reason, Justice and other concepts that may be discussed.  When I use a term which I wish the reader to know has an objective reality, it will be capitalized. ]   Gravity – gravitational force , to be precise  – is a self-evident example of Reality.  Everyone is gravity-bound, whether you “identify” as gravity-bound or not.  All people act in ways that take this Reality into account!  (To treat gravity as reality (optional) and not Reality, is to invite serious injury or death!)   Capital “R” Reality is embedded in the very structure of the Universe’s creator, and both reflects and reveals something about the Creator.  God exists independently of our knowledge of him, of our belief in him, and of our assent to his rule.  In the Bible, the most direct statement – i.e. revelation – of Reality in Creation is in Romans 1:20:   For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature , have been clearly perceived , ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made .   It Is good to meditate on Paul’s words, so that we grasp more clearly how signs of God’s divine nature are all around us in Creation.    In his divine nature, God is one: that is, he is without contradiction.  He is one being.1 This is clearly stated in Deut. 6:4: “The Lord,  the Lord your God is one …” And this is affirmed elsewhere in scripture.  Take, for example, 1 John 1:5b: “… God is light , and in him is no darkness at all.” [ESV]   And:      “For I the Lord do not change ” [Mal. 3:6a – ESV];   And:      “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change .”  [James 1:17 – ESV]   And:      “This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. ”   The argument is both straightforward and simple: contradiction takes two or more!  And since God is one1, there can be no contradiction.  This is the Principle of Non-Contradiction.   Of course, there is more to God that non-contradiction; in him we find beauty, harmony, and power (omnipotence), among other attributes, and we see evidence of these in the “stuff” that makes up the Universe: awe-inspiring vistas, magnificent music, the brightness of the sun and the might of a great storm.  These are evidence of his divine nature in the things that have been made.   Still, God has no parts; his attributes are in perfect unity.  Going forward, I want to focus on non-contradiction and how this invisible attribute of his divine nature is seen in the things, since the beginning of Creation, that God has made.   Next time: Restoring Reason – II     1            Yes, God is three persons, but Father, Son and Holy Spirit are in one Being, who is the Supreme Being.  God is self-existent, self-sufficient, without limit, and unbound by time or space – in fact, outside time and space while transcending them.  The ancient argument that the Trinity is really three gods mistakenly reduces the unbounded Supreme Being to conforming to the limitations of space and time.

October 22, 2024   In writing this Blog, it is not my intent to concentrate on events-of-the-day, but today’s news has prompted me to adjust my approach a little to allow for an occasional Blog Outburst, due to something timely in the news.    Yesterday’s post (October 21st) began with a claim that we live in an increasingly irrational culture, and the news cycle over the last couple of days has proffered a wonderful example of this – of irrational nonsense that is offered as sense.   The question in view is how does one provide evidence of something that did not happen?  How do you “prove” a non-event?  It is impossible to prove that something did not happen; to use an old Gertrude Stein quote (apparently about Oakland, CA),”There is no there there.”    It is axiomatic that you cannot prove a negative.  You can’t prove that something didn’t happen, because nothing happened for which evidence can exist. So, a demand to produce evidence about a non-event  is self-contradictory!!!  One cannot get something from nothing, or  have something about nothing.  This is nonsense!  It is irrational.   The example comes from the U.S. Presidential election campaign. I don’t want to get into partisan politics, or into media bias; I simply want to focus on the nature of the evidentiary requirement that has been in the news about the failure one of the U.S. Presidential candidates to provide evidence that the opposing candidate did not  work at a McDonald’s restaurant as a teenager more than 40 years ago.    One must note that the candidate claiming to have worked at McDonald’s has yet to produce any evidence in support of the claim that would be admissible in a court of law , let alone conclusive, but the opposing candidate is, according to the media, at fault for the lack of evidence against the claim. In truth, the onus is entirely on the candidate claiming the truth of the event.   Again, how does one prove that an event did not happen?  What evidence can there be of an event that never was?  (One thing I learned in high school – and that was a very long time ago – is that you cannot prove a negative.) This demand for evidence is nonsense, but the people making the demand do so with straight faces.   Apparently, “they” do not teach the “Can’t prove a negative” axiom any more, although perhaps the greater problem is that today’s “journalists” just don’t care; a couple of generations or more ago, I think there were more real  journalists who would have had enough sense, and integrity, to avoid this silliness. There is a piece of evidence from me that we live in an irrational culture.

October 21, 2024   We live in a culture that is increasingly irrational!  In fact, it seems to me that secular Western culture has, in many ways, abandoned rationality, and it continues to do so!  (This is even true of “science.”)1   I sometimes listen to a Classical FM station that claims to provide “Beautiful music for a crazy world!”  (We could substitute “irrational” for “crazy.”  “Irrational” focuses more on the thinking behind the behaviour rather than on the behaviour itself. But, for the sake of argument, let’s stick with “crazy” for now.)    I find the “crazy world” claim plausible, and I am confident that I not alone in holding that view.  How, then, do we explain this craziness?  How do we understand the culture around us?   In my university days – back in the 1970’s – absurdist philosophy  was very much in vogue.  My undergrad course readings included at least two books from this school of thought: L’Etranger (The Stranger) by Albert Camus, and Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre.   Sartre was much admired in academic circles as a great existentialist  philosopher (Existentialism being an “optimistic” riff on absurdism).  I was unimpressed.  B&N is likely the densest prose – i.e. hardest to follow – I have ever read (and my reading includes three years of legal opinions and treatises in law school!!).  Notwithstanding the English translation (Sartre wrote in French), Sartre’s writing was opaque and unwieldy.  Even if you could make sense of any of his thoughts, he really didn’t say anything worth keeping; B&N  was 400+ pages of philosophical nothingness dressed up in big, vague words and long sentences.   The Stranger was much shorter and just depressing.   The root idea of a bsurdism , and its cousin Existentialism,  is that the universe does not, ultimately, make sense; it is irrational and meaningless. The universe is, you see, full of contradictions which cannot be resolved .  So, to believe that the big questions of life have objective, or reasonable, answers is to be naïve and deluded.   Now, please focus closely on this: the claim that the Universe is absurd is a self-contradicting statement because that claim is offered as NOT absurd; the statement itself is offered as something can be, and is, understood; hence there is at least one big question about the Universe for which there is an answer that has meaning and that is not absurd!!!    With the application of a little basic reason, the absurdist claim falls apart because it contradicts itself !  Again, pay attention to plain meaning of the words: in a single same sentence, what is presented as universally true (absurdity) is, in at least once instance, not absurd and, hence, false.   This list of such self-defeating claims in our contemporary culture is long.  Take, for example, so-called “anti-racism”1 that condemns “racism”2 – actually, some types of alleged “racism” – yet offers more “racism” as the solution.  So, as much as “anti-racism” decries discrimination on the basis of skin colour, its answer to this injustice with discrimination on the basis of skin colour !!  This is self-contradictory and irrational, yet many people don’t notice!   Transgenderism presents an even more obvious contradiction: someone with XY chromosomes (a male) can “identify” as a female (XX chromosomes) – and vice versa.  This is to claim that a biological male can, simultaneously, be female, and the reverse.  In a rational world, this is nonsense.   Camus, Sartre and their fellow travelers in absurdist and existential philosophy don’t get much attention today, but their influence has been both profound and revolutionary, and it continues.  I believe their greatest impact has been in “normalizing” the idea that contradictory truth claims can both be true at the same time, an idea that is now taken for granted in much (most?) of society.   In the next post, I want to begin to explore the relationship between reason and contradiction, as I share some thoughts about the universal principles that underlie reason.   Coming soon: Reality with a Capital “R”     1     For example, the public was exhorted to “follow the Science” at various times during Covid, as the authorities manipulated people to mask up, to (anti-) social distance, and to get jabbed with “vaccines” that didn’t prevent the vaccinated from getting the virus or from spreading the virus, and about which the side-effects were unknown.   2     I enclose certain words in Quotations Marks (Scare Quotes) a lot, sometimes to indicate exaggeration or irony, but very often as a warning that the word is politicized and that its meaning is variable and meant to obscure knowledge and bully the listener.  I place “racism” and “anti-racism” in Scare Quotes to mark them as illegitimate terms  because: 1) to the extent they have content/meaning, it is self-contradictory and thus nonsense; and 2) they are used, not for any actual meaning, but for their emotional impact (i.e. as a bullying device).