Scripture and Logic

 Since I hear so many people do not use logic in their claims about God or theology, I wanted to provide several examples in this post of logical and illogical statements. 

1. Logic about Christ and Judaism 

This is an example of logic:

To know Christ in the fullest sense, we must understand Scripture as it was written by the Jews. 

Let me start with the beginning of the premise: ''To know Christ in the fullest sense...'' I am arguing that some can know him incompetely or without full knowledge of his work. But then I conclude, ''...we must understand Scripture as it was written by the Jews.'' 

How do I conclude the final part of my sentence? By logic. Below, you will see how I arrived at the conclusion. 

My Argument: To know Christ in the fullest sense, we must understand Scripture as it was written by the Jews. 

Premise 1. To know Christ, we have to have a Biblical theology of him.

Premise 2: To have a Biblical theology, we must know scripture. 

Premise 3. To know scripture, we have to understand its historical context within Judaism. 

Conclusion: To know Christ in the fullest sense, we must understand Scripture as it was written by the Jews. 

Logic Concerning Jesus is the second Person of God

To believe in the Trinity, one must understand logic (especially logic in light of scripture. For example, if I say that Jesus is God, then one should never assume that I'm arguing no one else is God (I also believe the Father and the Spirit are). One also should never conclude that I'm not saying Jesus was man (which I know he is). But to believe in the Trinity is to accept that Jesus is both God and man and the second person of God. Nowhere in scripture explicitly says that Jesus is the second person of God, but it is drawn from passages like John 1, which insist that the Word of God (Jesus) is God, eternal, and became man. But to insist that Jesus is only God or only man would be to exclude biblical passages on one side of the argument or the other and claim to isolate Biblical texts from the full truth of scripture. 

Logic 3: Christ and Predestination 

Illogical statements are made by many people in theology. This has been especially the case in recent years with the newer wave of Calvinist Baptists. For example, many of them will look to Ephesians 1, which teaches that God predestines people to salvation, and assume that he predestines others to damnation (though scripture never says this). Arguably even worse, many of them will look to passages about the predestination of the saints and conclude Christ never died for all men (which scripture nowhere teaches and actually affirms). Even if predestination is unconditional, we should not assume this means (or proves) that Christ's death was only limited to the elect when numerous passages in scripture imply unlimited atonement (John 3: 16-17, Hebrews 2: 9, 1 Timothy 4: 10, 1 John 1, Titus 2:11, 2 Peter 3:9, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15). 

Logic Case 4: 

Another illogical statement often made is that baptism only concerns believers in the New Testament (which is actually debated among scholars). Regardless, the baptism of believers does not deny the baptism of infants, nor does the baptism of infants deny the baptism of believers (both can be true). Furthermore, the households mentioned throughout the Acts of the Apostles have been claimed by many scholars to have included infants (a household in Jewish literature often included everyone, including the slaves and youngest children, even infants). Therefore, to point to the baptism of converts in passages like Acts 2 and conclude that infants cannot be baptized is illogical. 

On the contrary, this is an example of logic:

Premise Argument: Infant baptism is nowhere explicitly mentioned in Scripture, but in Jewish literature, ''household'' included young children, and the author of Acts gives us no reason to think that he wrote differently than the culture of his time. 

Conclusion: Since households did include young children in Jewish literature and since Acts speaks of the baptism of entire households, therefore infant baptism was practiced in the New Testament era. 

Logic Case 5: 

I have one more case to share. In Luke 22:19-20, Jesus says the Lord's supper is his Body and Blood. He also tells the apostles to take it in remembrance of him. Today, many American Evangelicals only emphasize the latter part of this passage while downplaying the former (''This is my body...''). But why can't it be true? Accepting the Eucharist to be the Body and Blood of Christ does not mean we must deny Jesus's work on the cross for us, nor should we not remember what he did, implying that we must deny that the Eucharist is only in remembrance of him. 

I have written these as examples. I hope they are helpful. I hope those reading this will attempt to use more logic as they discuss theology. I've seen more people not use logic in theology than use it, unfortunately.