Logical v Dialectical Reasoning in Scripture

[bbyrd009]

It is important to understand that as a Westerner, your thought processes are vastly different from those who have been raised to reason dialectically, as the Jewish writers were: which i had to find out from a secular book, after struggling with applying my logical pov to Scripture for 40 years. The rest is from the reference noted at bottom

"...Dialectical reasoning is actually opposed to formal logic in many ways.

Western Logic Versus Eastern Dialecticism
Aristotle placed at the foundations of logical thought the following three propositions.
1. Identity: A = A. Whatever is, is. A is itself and not some other thing.
2. Noncontradiction: A and not A can't both be the case. Nothing can both be and not be. A proposition and its opposite can't both be true.
3. Excluded middle: Everything must either be or not be. A or not A can be true but not something in between.

Modern Westerners accept these propositions (but Easterners do not)...
...three principles underlie Eastern dialecticism. Notice I didn't say "propositions..." the term "proposition" has much too formal a ring for what is a generalized stance toward the world rather than a set of ironclad rules.

1. Principle of change:
Reality is a process of change.
What is currently true will shortly be false.
2. Principle of contradiction:
Contradiction is the dynamic underlying change.
Because change is constant, contradiction is constant.
3. Principle of relationships (or holism):
The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Parts are meaningful only in relation to the whole...

These principles are intimately linked...
The principles also imply another important tenet of Eastern thought, which is the insistence on finding the "middle way" between extreme propositions...
...and Talmudic scholars developed it over the next two millennia and more.

"Mindware" Richard E. Nisbett, pp. 224-5
​

 

[bbyrd009]

so, the point here is that when you see two Bible Warriors going at it, and basically tearing each other apart, you may confidently assume that they both have a logical pov, and neither one is correct; or put more correctly they both are, but become incorrect in denying the other pov, that Scripture (it is assumed here) supports.

 

[maxwel]

By any normal definition of dialectical reasoning it is not something that operates in some world beyond traditional logic.

Even Socrates was famous for using dialectical reasoning, and you don't get any more "western" or "logical" than Socrates.

 

[Hizikyah]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]John 4:24, “Yah is Spirit, and those who worship Him need to worship in spirit and truth.”

[/FONT]
[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]Psalm 33:11 YHWH's counsel stands forever! The thoughts of His heart stand for all generations! Praise You, YHWH!”[/FONT]

[FONT=Times New Roman, serif]
[/FONT]

 

[maxwel]

If you want to draw some distinctions between traditional Eastern thinking and traditional Western thinking, that's fine.

But you simple cannot make the claim that dialectical reasoning operates beyond, or without, standard principles of logic.


Dialectical Reasoning does not stand in antithesis to Aristotelian propositional logic...
it is simply a particular METHOD for arguing using propositional logic.

 

[trofimus]

so, the point here is that when you see two Bible Warriors going at it, and basically tearing each other apart, you may confidently assume that they both have a logical pov, and neither one is correct; or put more correctly they both are, but become incorrect in denying the other pov, that Scripture (it is assumed here) supports.

Its not just East, for example we learnt about G.W.F. Hegel in school. He was a German dialectic.

On the other hand, the New Testament was written in the Greek background and in the "truth-untruth" nature of things which can be seen quite clearly in Jesus disputing with Jews or in Paul´s letters.

I see the problem in the fact that many theological views/schools/opinions try to simplify things too much. And ignore broader picture (most people are unable to comprehend things deeply).

 

[bbyrd009]

By any normal definition of dialectical reasoning it is not something that operates in some world beyond traditional logic.

Even Socrates was famous for using dialectical reasoning, and you don't get any more "western" or "logical" than Socrates.

i suggest that Socrates dialectical reasoning is not the same as Eastern Dialecticism, and i'll have to go get the ref to illustrate the difference, brb...after i wade through about 5 dense pages, lol.

 

[bbyrd009]

By any normal definition of dialectical reasoning it is not something that operates in some world beyond traditional logic.

Even Socrates was famous for using dialectical reasoning, and you don't get any more "western" or "logical" than Socrates.

ah, yes, "Hegelian" dialectic, a diff animal, pls read this copy/paste and get back to me

"In Hegelian philosophy the conflict of political 'right' and political 'left'..."

"From the Hegelian system of political thought, alien to most of us in the West, stem such absurdities as the State seen as the "March of God through history," that the State is also God, and the only duty of a citizen is to serve God by serving the State, that the State is Absolute Reason and citizens can only find freedom by worship and utter obedience to the State. Other Hegelian absurdities have thoroughly penetrated our education system. But that is for another topic.

From this system of Hegelian philosophy comes the historical dialectic, "that all historical events emerge from a conflict between opposing forces." These emerging events are above and different from the conflicting events.

Any idea or implementation of an idea may be seen as THESIS. This thesis will encourage emergence of opposing forces, known as ANTITHESIS. The final outcome will be NEITHER thesis nor antithesis, but a SYNTHESIS of the two forces in conflict."
Hegelian Dialectics and Conspiracy

ya, this is not "Eastern" dialecticism, but Western Philosophy, and while i cannot condemn the conclusion here, @ "synthesis," we are talking apples and oranges i guess.

 

[bbyrd009]

Its not just East, for example we learnt about G.W.F. Hegel in school. He was a German dialectic.

On the other hand, the New Testament was written in the Greek background and in the "truth-untruth" nature of things which can be seen quite clearly in Jesus disputing with Jews or in Paul´s letters.

I see the problem in the fact that many theological views/schools/opinions try to simplify things too much. And ignore broader picture (most people are unable to comprehend things deeply).

pls see post on the Hegelian Dialectic, ty

 

[Susanna]

I'm not going to use any difficult words, but my experience in the field of philosophy and political science in general, is that society, as a whole, is further above the individual in Eastern societies than in Western societies.

 

[Hizikyah]

pls see post on the Hegelian Dialectic, ty

Hegel provides the most extensive, general account of his dialectical method in Part I of his Encyclopaedia of Philosophical Sciences, which is often called the Encyclopaedia Logic [EL]. The form or presentation of logic, he says, has three sides or moments (EL §79). These sides are not parts of logic, but, rather, moments of “every logical concept”, as well as “of everything true in general” (EL Remark to §79; we will see why Hegel thought dialectics is in everything in section 4). The first moment—the moment of the understanding—is the moment of fixity, in which concepts or forms have a seemingly stable definition or determination (EL §80).


The second moment—the “dialectical” (EL §§79, 81) or “negatively rational” (EL §79) moment—is the moment of instability. In this moment, a one-sidedness or restrictedness (EL Remark to §81) in the determination from the moment of understanding comes to the fore, and the determination that was fixed in the first moment passes into its opposite (EL §81). Hegel describes this process as a process of “self-sublation” (EL §81). The English verb “to sublate” translates Hegel’s technical use of the German verb aufheben, which is a crucial concept in his dialectical method. Hegel says that aufheben has a doubled meaning: it means both to cancel (or negate) and to preserve at the same time (PhG §113; SL-M 107; SL-dG 81–2; cf. EL the Addition to §95). The moment of understanding sublates itself because its own character or nature—its one-sidedness or restrictedness—destabilizes its definition and leads it to pass into its opposite. The dialectical moment thus involves a process of self-sublation, or a process in which the determination from the moment of understanding sublates itself, or both cancels and preserves itself, as it pushes on to or passes into its opposite.


The third moment—the “speculative” or “positively rational” (EL §§79, 82) moment—grasps the unity of the opposition between the first two determinations, or is the positive result of the dissolution or transition of those determinations (EL §82 and Remark to §82). Here, Hegel rejects the traditional, reductio ad absurdum argument, which says that when the premises of an argument lead to a contradiction, then the premises must be discarded altogether, leaving nothing. As Hegel suggests in the Phenomenology, such an argument

or simply



Hegelian dialectic


noun
1.
an interpretive method, originally used to relate specific entities or events to the absolute idea, in which some assertible proposition (thesis) is necessarily opposed by an equally assertible and apparently contradictory proposition (antithesis) the mutual contradiction being reconciled on a higher level of truth by a third proposition (synthesis)

 

[bbyrd009]

"Hegelian dialecticism,"

"A house divided is the only way to go, it is a given, and just be sure you are on the winning team."

not Eastern Dialecticism, the pov from which Scripture was written, iow

 

[maxwel]

i suggest that Socrates dialectical reasoning is not the same as Eastern Dialecticism, and i'll have to go get the ref to illustrate the difference, brb...after i wade through about 5 dense pages, lol.

Since the whole point of your post is to use issues of the Hebrew Dialectic Tradition to prove we cannot use propositional logic in scriptural debate... then let's just deal with that directly.


1. There are a number of ways to turn your argument inside out, because any effort to deny rules of logic is to embrace "irrationality"... or in other words... to embrace "nonsense".


2. The Hebrew Dialectic Tradition developed, or at the very lease PRIMARILY developed, AFTER the time Socrates developed his dialectical theories. And the Hebrew scholars who would be engaging in dialectical treatises were well aware of Greek thought, and we can even see clear instances of Greek thought as early as the New testament, in both Paul and John.

So any kind of argument that the Hebrews used some entirely different reasoning process, which was entirely different than the greeks, and that even their use of dialectical argument was entirely different than the dialectical arguments of the Greeks, is just incredibly weak. The Hebrews were well aware of greek thought, and the Hebrews didn't even develop their tradition of dialectical argument until AFTER it was developed by the Greeks.


3. Of course people use different methods of debate, and argumentation... but that cannot be construed to mean rational discourse can be had WITHOUT RATIONALITY... and propositional logic is merely to MAINTAIN RATIONALITY.

You can't have any meaningful discourse without rationality... and thus logical processes.

 

[Johnny_B]

I have to say that the Lord blessed my at about my forth year of walking with Him, to have read a book that helped my understand that I needed to read the Bible in context with the cultural backround in mind. Then I was lead to a Church that taught the Bible verse by verse, book by book with the cultural backround used to teach the Bible.

Most of the western Church teaching the Bible topically or by taking verses out of the Bible to back up what they want to teach, they do not teach what the Bible teaches, because they use the Scriptures out of context, which includes the cultural backround as well.

Here's something that is important and most Christians do not know this, the phrase "son of" means of the same nature or having the same nature. If you use western thinking to interpret that, you come up with JW doctrine on Jesus not being God He is just His Son.

But we read in II Kings 3:2, 5, 7 “And the sons of the prophets who were in Bethel came out to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he said, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”.....5 The sons of the prophets who were at Jericho drew near to Elisha and said to him, “Do you know that today the Lord will take away your master from over you?” And he answered, “Yes, I know it; keep quiet.”...7 Fifty men of the sons of the prophets also went and stood at some distance from them, as they both were standing by the Jordan.”

These are not the sons of Elijah or Elisha, they are prophets like Elijah and Elisha. With this in mind, the Jews wanted to stone Jesus because He called God His Father or that He was the Son of God.

John 10:31-36 The Jews picked up stones again to stone him.32 Jesus answered them, “I have shown you many good works from the Father; for which of them are you going to stone me?”33 The Jews answered him, “It is not for a good work that we are going to stone you but for blasphemy, because you, being a man, make yourself God.”34 Jesus answered them, “Is it not written in your Law, ‘I said, you are gods’?35 If he called them gods to whom the word of God came—and Scripture cannot be broken—36 do you say of him whom the Father consecrated and sent into the world, ‘You are blaspheming,’ because I said, ‘I am the Son of God’?

This is why Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Man because His nature or attributes are both, because Jesus does not have a human father, yet He is the Son of Man, because He is a man. God did not father Him, yet He is the Son of God, because He is God. Father of, has a meaning as well, "from whom come forth or the one who initiate", because the Father sent Jesus or Jesus came from God to earth, He is the Father, it is not that He fathered Jesus in who He is in His nature. Yes, the Father initiated the body that Christ is clothed in.

Hebrews 10:5 “Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me.”

 

[oldethennew]

oh yes,

it hit me in-between the eyes when Jesus pulled-off the world's fabulous disguises that
tried to lead me astray and into the darkness that pervades this world...

 

[Magenta]

1. [/LEFT]Principle of change:

Reality is a process of change.
What is currently true will shortly be false.​

Your auto signature states:
"Creation is continuous, and never stops."

When will this be false? In fact, why do you proclaim
anything as truth if it will shortly be false?

 

[tourist]

Diabolical reasoning in scripture is probably not a good thing. I think term is probably referring to when one wrests scripture to suit their own bias and misconception.

 

[UnderGrace]

Are you saying that eastern societies are further advanced? Can you clarify

I'm not going to use any difficult words, but my experience in the field of philosophy and political science in general, is that society, as a whole, is further above the individual in Eastern societies than in Western societies.

 

[Susanna]

Are you saying that eastern societies are further advanced? Can you clarify

No, not at all.

What I said, and please forgive me if what I said came across unclear, is that individuals have a weaker position in Eastern societies, generally speaking.

 

[UnderGrace]

Oh yes I understand. Thanks,

I would agree as well, many eastern societies tend to have authoritarian regimes.

Don't want to pull the thread off topic LOL some people get mad when that happens.

No, not at all.

What I said, and please forgive me if what I said came across unclear, is that individuals have a weaker position in Eastern societies, generally speaking.