God and the rules of logic: Difference between revisions
Created page with "{{Top of Page}} {{Reason and the Message}} God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws: :''From the standpoint of reality, we understand that God is the basis of all logic. As the ultimate reality, all truth is ultimately found in him. He has created the reality that we know and in which we have discovered the laws of logic. Even Jesus said, “I am … the truth” (John 14:6). He has structured the world..." |
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=Logic flows from God's nature= | |||
God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws: | God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws: | ||
:''From the standpoint of reality, we understand that God is the basis of all logic. As the ultimate reality, all truth is ultimately found in him. He has created the reality that we know and in which we have discovered the laws of logic. Even Jesus said, “I am … the truth” (John 14:6). He has structured the world in such a way that these laws cannot be denied; however, we did not know God first and then learn logic from him. He exists as the basis of all logic (in reality), but we discovered logic first and came to know God through it. This is true even if we came to know God through his revelation, because we understood the revelation through logic. In the order of being, God is first; but in the order of knowing, logic leads us to all knowledge of God. God is the basis of all logic (in the order of being), but logic is the basis of all knowledge of God (in the order of knowing).<ref>Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 17.</ref> | :''From the standpoint of reality, we understand that God is the basis of all logic. As the ultimate reality, all truth is ultimately found in him. He has created the reality that we know and in which we have discovered the laws of logic. Even Jesus said, “I am … the truth” (John 14:6). He has structured the world in such a way that these laws cannot be denied; however, we did not know God first and then learn logic from him. He exists as the basis of all logic (in reality), but we discovered logic first and came to know God through it. This is true even if we came to know God through his revelation, because we understood the revelation through logic. In the order of being, God is first; but in the order of knowing, logic leads us to all knowledge of God. God is the basis of all logic (in the order of being), but logic is the basis of all knowledge of God (in the order of knowing).<ref>Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 17.</ref> | ||
God did not create the laws of logic, but rather they manifest his nature. There are two kinds of laws: | |||
# Laws of nature. These are descriptive laws; they simply report how things operate | |||
# Laws of logic. These are prescriptive, telling us how we ought to reason in order to align our thinking with reality. | |||
God can break the laws of nature through miracles, but this doesn’t apply to logic. Physical laws merely describe how things typically occur; thus, there can be exceptions, which miracles represent. Logic permits no such exceptions. | |||
There are certain things that God cannot do. For example, God cannot lie. Scripture clearly teaches this: | |||
*Titus 1:2 describes God as one “who cannot lie” | |||
*Numbers 23:19 contrasts God with humans by stating “God is not a man, that He would lie” | |||
*Hebrews 6:18 emphasizes that “it is impossible for God to lie” | |||
*1 Samuel 15:29 declares that God “will not lie nor change His mind” | |||
These passages ground God’s truthfulness in his nature rather than external constraint. The language of impossibility in Hebrews and the contrast with human fickleness in Numbers and 1 Samuel suggest that God’s inability to lie flows from who he is. God cannot violate principles rooted in his eternal character. | |||
=Why can't God break the laws of logic?= | |||
Why can’t God transcend logical laws as he does physical ones? | |||
God is rational, which is again clearly seen in scripture: | |||
*In Isaiah 1:18, God invites man to engage in reason: ''‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ saith the LORD.''<ref>David Norton, ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Is 1:18.</ref> | |||
*In Acts 17:1-2, 17;17, 18:4, 18:19, 24:25, we see Paul engaging in reasoning with the Jews. | |||
*In Acts 17 19-34, Paul engages the most elite philosophers in his day and his reasoned presentation of the Gospel, using no scriptures but drawing on their own poets, persuades some to become followers of Christ. | |||
*In Luke 10:7, Jesus tells a lawyer that we are to love God with "all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your MIND." | |||
*Proverbs 8:22–31 presents Wisdom as present at and mediating creation, a role the New Testament assigns to God the Son, declaring that “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). The Old Testament presents wisdom as a primary way God communicated to people, and the New Testament declares that Jesus is both the “image of the invisible” God and the embodiment of divine wisdom. | |||
*John’s concept of Christ as the Word (logos) draws on Hebrew Wisdom imagery. Like Wisdom, the Word was with God from the beginning and manifests God’s glory. The Logos designates Christ as “the great medium of communication between God and man” (John 1:1, 14)4. | |||
*All knowledge is ultimately predicated on the coherence of all things in Christ, the Logos (Col. 2:8; John 1:1–5), with Christ as the eternal Logos of God who mediates all divine revelation and grounds the correspondence between the divine and human minds, serving as a necessary condition for human knowledge about anything. Because humankind was created in the image of God, the human mind reflects in a creaturely way the rationality of the Creator. | |||
Logic flows from God’s rational nature, and he cannot change his nature without betraying himself, comparable to God breaking a moral law, which also flows from his nature. The analogy is direct: just as we cannot imagine God being unjust or unloving, we cannot coherently imagine him violating logical principles. | |||
There is a difference between propositions that transcend human reason and those that contradict it; mysteries of faith go beyond reason but not against it.<ref>Norman L. Geisler, “Logic,” in ''Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics'' (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 428–429 and Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, ''Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking'' (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 19.</ref> | |||
=Where did the rules of logic originate? = | |||
Similar to the development of the laws of nature and science, the rules of logic were discovered through human intellectual pursuit. Logic’s rules reflect not arbitrary conventions but fundamental truths about how reality and human reasoning align. Mathematical methods significantly shaped logical development, with Aristotle’s Analytics establishing foundational principles of reasoning. Aristotle’s logic passed through Byzantine, Syrian, and Persian commentators before reaching medieval Latin scholars. Later thinkers reconceived logic’s scope: Mill defined logic as the science treating human intellectual operations in pursuit of truth, broadening it beyond mere argumentation to encompass all thinking operations.<ref>William Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel’s Philosophy and Especially of His Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), 295–296.</ref> | |||
Latest revision as of 21:51, 3 July 2026
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This article is one in a series of studies on the reasoning and the Message - you are currently on the page that is in bold:
- How to Deal with Doubt
- God and the rules of logic
- Reason and Faith
- Blind Faith
- Anti-intellectualism in the Message
- Logic and the Message
- Reason and the Message
Logic flows from God's nature
God serves as the foundation of all logic, having created the reality in which we discover the rules of laws:
- From the standpoint of reality, we understand that God is the basis of all logic. As the ultimate reality, all truth is ultimately found in him. He has created the reality that we know and in which we have discovered the laws of logic. Even Jesus said, “I am … the truth” (John 14:6). He has structured the world in such a way that these laws cannot be denied; however, we did not know God first and then learn logic from him. He exists as the basis of all logic (in reality), but we discovered logic first and came to know God through it. This is true even if we came to know God through his revelation, because we understood the revelation through logic. In the order of being, God is first; but in the order of knowing, logic leads us to all knowledge of God. God is the basis of all logic (in the order of being), but logic is the basis of all knowledge of God (in the order of knowing).[1]
God did not create the laws of logic, but rather they manifest his nature. There are two kinds of laws:
- Laws of nature. These are descriptive laws; they simply report how things operate
- Laws of logic. These are prescriptive, telling us how we ought to reason in order to align our thinking with reality.
God can break the laws of nature through miracles, but this doesn’t apply to logic. Physical laws merely describe how things typically occur; thus, there can be exceptions, which miracles represent. Logic permits no such exceptions.
There are certain things that God cannot do. For example, God cannot lie. Scripture clearly teaches this:
- Titus 1:2 describes God as one “who cannot lie”
- Numbers 23:19 contrasts God with humans by stating “God is not a man, that He would lie”
- Hebrews 6:18 emphasizes that “it is impossible for God to lie”
- 1 Samuel 15:29 declares that God “will not lie nor change His mind”
These passages ground God’s truthfulness in his nature rather than external constraint. The language of impossibility in Hebrews and the contrast with human fickleness in Numbers and 1 Samuel suggest that God’s inability to lie flows from who he is. God cannot violate principles rooted in his eternal character.
Why can't God break the laws of logic?
Why can’t God transcend logical laws as he does physical ones?
God is rational, which is again clearly seen in scripture:
- In Isaiah 1:18, God invites man to engage in reason: ‘Come now, and let us reason together,’ saith the LORD.[2]
- In Acts 17:1-2, 17;17, 18:4, 18:19, 24:25, we see Paul engaging in reasoning with the Jews.
- In Acts 17 19-34, Paul engages the most elite philosophers in his day and his reasoned presentation of the Gospel, using no scriptures but drawing on their own poets, persuades some to become followers of Christ.
- In Luke 10:7, Jesus tells a lawyer that we are to love God with "all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength and with all your MIND."
- Proverbs 8:22–31 presents Wisdom as present at and mediating creation, a role the New Testament assigns to God the Son, declaring that “all things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being” (John 1:3). The Old Testament presents wisdom as a primary way God communicated to people, and the New Testament declares that Jesus is both the “image of the invisible” God and the embodiment of divine wisdom.
- John’s concept of Christ as the Word (logos) draws on Hebrew Wisdom imagery. Like Wisdom, the Word was with God from the beginning and manifests God’s glory. The Logos designates Christ as “the great medium of communication between God and man” (John 1:1, 14)4.
- All knowledge is ultimately predicated on the coherence of all things in Christ, the Logos (Col. 2:8; John 1:1–5), with Christ as the eternal Logos of God who mediates all divine revelation and grounds the correspondence between the divine and human minds, serving as a necessary condition for human knowledge about anything. Because humankind was created in the image of God, the human mind reflects in a creaturely way the rationality of the Creator.
Logic flows from God’s rational nature, and he cannot change his nature without betraying himself, comparable to God breaking a moral law, which also flows from his nature. The analogy is direct: just as we cannot imagine God being unjust or unloving, we cannot coherently imagine him violating logical principles.
There is a difference between propositions that transcend human reason and those that contradict it; mysteries of faith go beyond reason but not against it.[3]
Where did the rules of logic originate?
Similar to the development of the laws of nature and science, the rules of logic were discovered through human intellectual pursuit. Logic’s rules reflect not arbitrary conventions but fundamental truths about how reality and human reasoning align. Mathematical methods significantly shaped logical development, with Aristotle’s Analytics establishing foundational principles of reasoning. Aristotle’s logic passed through Byzantine, Syrian, and Persian commentators before reaching medieval Latin scholars. Later thinkers reconceived logic’s scope: Mill defined logic as the science treating human intellectual operations in pursuit of truth, broadening it beyond mere argumentation to encompass all thinking operations.[4]
Footnotes
- ↑ Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 17.
- ↑ David Norton, ed., The New Cambridge Paragraph Bible with the Apocrypha: King James Version, Revised edition (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2011), Is 1:18.
- ↑ Norman L. Geisler, “Logic,” in Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 1999), 428–429 and Norman L. Geisler and Ronald M. Brooks, Come, Let Us Reason: An Introduction to Logical Thinking (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1990), 19.
- ↑ William Wallace, Prolegomena to the Study of Hegel’s Philosophy and Especially of His Logic (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1894), 295–296.