Logic vs The Bible

[Sirk]

Well we agree then on logic. Can this be the progression (retrogression) discussion -> disgustion -> debate -> brass knuckles? LOL

My prefer nunchucks. Haha

 

[Nick01]

It is better to approach the text with no assumptions, even if those assumptions may prove to be true. I have spent many years teaching classes on the nature of God but no matter how many time I have examined John 1, I try never to approach it with any preconceptions about what I think this text says. We never knows what we will see that we have never seen before, perhaps because the Lord was not ready for us to see it. It is critical that we allow scripture its agential place in relation to the mind of man while man assumes the patient relationship.

The problem with this is that it's essentially impossible to read the Bible without bringing to that reading your own assumptions and presuppositions. People use their presuppositions to interpret the world. It is simply not possible for any human to objectively read ANYTHING prima facie without some sort of interpretation along the way against some other set of ideas. That's a basic part of how people function.

For instance, in relation to John 1, I've heard people say before that they read John 1 'objectively', and find that it actually does not teach that Jesus is God. However, they're not actually reading objectively, what they're simply doing is rejecting and placing aside the hypothesis that John 1 suggest Jesus as divine, but leave the alternative option (that it does not) open. This is not an objective reading - this is actively favouring an alternative option over the previously held one. It is, in essence, a kind of reverse bias.

There's no easy solution to this problem (at one level, it's not even really a problem, it just is). It means that fallen human beings will continuously read texts differently, even though the text says the same thing it ever did, without the intervention of God in our minds.

However, one practical piece of advice I would give to everyone is to simply reject the idea that anyone can read the text in a pure, objective fashion, and to instead be aware that we all DO bring our own presuppositions to the text, and to be aware of which assumptions we each bring. If we are self-aware in that fashion, we can begin to see how our reading of the Bible might be affected by our own eisegesis, instead of God speaking to us from his word. That isn't to say that one shouldn't strive to hear the text rather than our own minds. Rather, I suggest we simply spend so much time reading the text and not enough examining our own minds, and we start to say that we are in fact reading the text, but have deceived ourselves and in fact our just parroting back our own assumptions.

One key assumption that I think is almost always incorrect is to read the Bible like a 21st century document. It is not, and it was written in a sea of cultural understandings and assumptions that are not the same as those today. To understand the Bible, one has to get in the head of the Jewish person of antiquity, instead of the Western white person of today.

 

[MidniteWelder]

I believe Oldhermit to be correct.
I didn't begin gaining more from scripture until the day I started to come at it with a clean slate perspective.
The world teaches things worldly and backwards from what God says.
This at times can trickle down into the church.
When at first going to church the Pastor could talk about this verse or that verse but then follow it up with,
"but also open your bible to research it for yourself"
So a person can then verify,
"Yep that's exactly what the pastor said" yet gain nothing further than what was taught in a sermon.

It has been my experience that later when rereading already known passages I would ask God to show me what he wanted me to learn.
Or even when reading something different I hadn't studied yet, to ask him to provide clarity and understanding.
It was then that deeper meaning in his word started to manifest itself.
Some people may not understand how this can be since if like Nick01 says a person merely reads it as a 21st century document, a history book, or a manual of some sort.
It is those things too plus more rolled into one, yet at the same time God literally speaking to you now as he did with them then.
For one praying before opening the bible to ask God to reveal what he wants to teach or show you at that moment, and then opening the bible to a section which directly addresses the situation you just prayed about...can only come from God.
Conversely if a person goes and proofs the texts that were relayed to them in an earlier sermon, this is a good practice to confirm what's being taught by men but they are often only going to confirm what another has taught.
And who knows if that other had prayed and been given God provided interpretation or simply relayed and repeated what they had been prescriptively taught.

So yes, it takes a form of discipline to at times during a study session forget what you had been taught and start again fresh to be guided by God.
Jesus did say to come to him like a child.
In this way as a child does not have set preconceived notions about a subject they never learned about, if a person can go at it absorbing Gods word like a sponge instead of accepting just whats on the surface there can be more for the Lord to reveal.
We know Jesus said he spoke in parables so that only those who hear his voice will be able to understand.
A person can be preached the bible all their life.
Yet unless the holy spirit provides counsel in the words and their application the glass being seen through is that much more dim.
A person needs to hear Gods voice in order to more fully understand God's word.
This takes complete humility in throwing all ones own preconceived notions out the window while God speaks so that he isn't contended interrupted or argued.

 

[oldhermit]

The problem with this is that it's essentially impossible to read the Bible without bringing to that reading your own assumptions and presuppositions. People use their presuppositions to interpret the world. It is simply not possible for any human to objectively read ANYTHING prima facie without some sort of interpretation along the way against some other set of ideas. That's a basic part of how people function.

For instance, in relation to John 1, I've heard people say before that they read John 1 'objectively', and find that it actually does not teach that Jesus is God. However, they're not actually reading objectively, what they're simply doing is rejecting and placing aside the hypothesis that John 1 suggest Jesus as divine, but leave the alternative option (that it does not) open. This is not an objective reading - this is actively favoring an alternative option over the previously held one. It is, in essence, a kind of reverse bias.

There's no easy solution to this problem (at one level, it's not even really a problem, it just is). It means that fallen human beings will continuously read texts differently, even though the text says the same thing it ever did, without the intervention of God in our minds.

However, one practical piece of advice I would give to everyone is to simply reject the idea that anyone can read the text in a pure, objective fashion, and to instead be aware that we all DO bring our own presuppositions to the text, and to be aware of which assumptions we each bring. If we are self-aware in that fashion, we can begin to see how our reading of the Bible might be affected by our own eisegesis, instead of God speaking to us from his word. That isn't to say that one shouldn't strive to hear the text rather than our own minds. Rather, I suggest we simply spend so much time reading the text and not enough examining our own minds, and we start to say that we are in fact reading the text, but have deceived ourselves and in fact our just parroting back our own assumptions.

One key assumption that I think is almost always incorrect is to read the Bible like a 21st century document. It is not, and it was written in a sea of cultural understandings and assumptions that are not the same as those today. To understand the Bible, one has to get in the head of the Jewish person of antiquity, instead of the Western white person of today.

All of this is the result of bringing personal convictions into the reading. When we approach any text, we must train ourselves to set aside ALL personal conviction and our lexicon of personal experiences and allow the grammatical structure of the text to formulate our ideas. This is true no matter what text we engage.

I very much enjoy the study of history, archaeology, astronomy, psychology, sociology and science. A person should be well informed in many areas of study. When I study scripture, I make a concerted effort to never allow what I know of any other field to influence how I approach the text. For example, I never begin the study of any text and ask what does history or psychology or science or archaeology have to say about this text. Never allow this to distort your reading of the text. We must NEVER allow what we understand of any of the nine fields of inquiry to determine how any text of scripture should be understood. On the other hand, I find it quite revealing to learn what scripture has to say about the nine fields of inquiry. It is well and good that we bring scripture to bear on the various field knowledge but NEVER bring those other fields of study to bear upon the text. The world relies upon the nine fields of inquiry as the anthology of all socialized knowledge. This is all knowledge that comes about as a result of full socialization but, true knowledge cannot begin within the social conscience.

The people of God must be dedicated to the proposition that the Word of God relativizes all knowledge that comes as a result of socialization. The Word of God reveals the inherent short comings of human intelligence by comparing it to what God has revealed to us of His own intelligence. The Word of God must be allowed to relativize what society thinks. Intelligence is looked upon as a product of social engendering. We allow society to pronounce upon us what it believes must be regarded as the standard for an intelligent pattern of thinking. The Word of God exists in a state of hostility with what society regards as knowledge. What the world operates on as a base for knowledge is not what God regards as true knowledge. The problem that faces the world is that when the Word of God is brought to bear upon social knowledge it produces a friction within that society. The Word of God renders the wisdom of man as foolishness. Human knowledge cannot be accepted on the same par with the revelation of God, (Act.19:19 the burning of books). The Word of God cannot prevail in the mind of man unless there is a conscious effort on the part of the individual to render the mind subject to the language of the revealed text. All other forms of knowledge must be rendered null and void in favor of revelation. The two cannot function together in the same mind. As long as we allow human knowledge to assume an elevated position in our thinking it will always dominate over the Word of God. NEVER approach any text of scripture and ask what does the historian or the philosopher or the clergy etc... have to say about this text. Truth always rests exclusively within the language of the text, never outside of it.

Having said all of this, am I always 100% successful in this endeavor? No. Obviously not. This is a learned discipline. It take many years of discipline and practice to learn to do this well. We are all products of our environment and there will always be some measure of social influence that creeps into our studies. The goal is to minimize this influence even further each time we open our Bibles.

A good place to begin is to rid one's self of all commentaries and other study aids of this type. Learn to disregard all historical and cultural context that does not come directly from the text. Learn the original languages of the text. This will help you to better maintain the integrity of the text. Learn to meditate (think deeply and long) on the language of the text itself. You will be amazed the things you will discover.

 

[Nick01]

All of this is the result of bringing personal convictions into the reading. When we approach any text, we must train ourselves to set aside ALL personal conviction and our lexicon of personal experiences and allow the grammatical structure of the text to formulate our ideas. This is true no matter what text we engage.

...

This will help you to better maintain the integrity of the text. Learn to meditate (think deeply and long) on the language of the text itself. You will be amazed the things you will discover.

I agree with most of this, and I do agree that the most important thing when reading the Bible is relying on God to reveal his will to us. We surely need his intervention to open our blind eyes to the gospel message!

I'm just not sure it's possible, or even desirable, to try and remove other factors or sources of information when we read the text. The reality is, people will always use other information to interpret a text, because that is how people are designed to interact with the world. We interpret a red pedestrian signal to be telling us to stop, only because we have been previously told that is what it means. We would not know that purely by looking at the signal.

When you read about Jesus travels in the gospels, the various places that he travelled to and the kinds of people he spoke to, there are all sorts of background information that comes in to play that is not necessarily provided in the text. For instance, the fact that Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon is meant to illustrate his judgement on his own people, taking the gospel to Gentiles who are otherwise outside God's chosen people. This important element in particularly Matthew's account is not obvious on the first reading (although it becomes more so if you keep reading, or read elsewhere in the Scriptures first), but would have been instantly obvious to a first century Judean reader, because of their differing context.

However, it goes deeper. What we mean by this word or that word is not necessarily the same as what is meant by the original authors, simply because words, and the contexts they are in, change meaning. This does not mean that the text is impenetrable - far from it. The text is perfectly understandable for the most part. However, my point is simply that there is no baseline objective position from which to read the Bible - our whole concept of experiencing the world is shaped by modern Western culture and society. You cannot just take that off - you should, however, question it, allow it to be challenged, and be aware of it. But from my personal experience, the times I have most thought I had achieved a bias-free reading of the texts are the times I most needed to have my biases challenged.

Having said that, I think the first port of call is to interpret Scripture with Scripture. Many times (particularly in the NT), the Bible goes to great lengths to give cross-cultural explanations for things, concerned as it is with evangelising Gentiles. That is a good starting point.

 

[Kerry]

I think that the bible is focused on one point, whether Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic, Latin, English, Spanish or whatever and that is this, man needs a redeemer and that is the Cross and nothing else.

 

[mustaphadrink]

Is it mere coincidence how you need logic to come to that conclusion though.

No logic used dear boy. It was the result of many years of study and wisdom from those who know more than I do.

 

[mustaphadrink]

The problem with this is that it's essentially impossible to read the Bible without bringing to that reading your own assumptions and presuppositions. People use their presuppositions to interpret the world. It is simply not possible for any human to objectively read ANYTHING prima facie without some sort of interpretation along the way against some other set of ideas. That's a basic part of how people function.

I beg to differ. God spoke to me and said he wanted to get religion out of me. I was a bit surprised as I did not consider myself religious as I have upset a few leaders in my time when I say but the scripture says this. He said I was to detach myself from the church for two years and start reading the scriptures again.

I did this and never went to a meeting during that time or sought out christians. The process was remarkable as I realised how I filtered things through religious interpretation so my "cleansing" was full on. One by one, my religious concepts fell by the wayside.

At the end of two years I had an entirely different perspective on everything.

The end result is that I have never been back to any church since except one that asked me to do an assessment of what they did and said.

 

[Kerry]

There is no logic in the bible. Only the word of God and that is not logic. Logic is what a computer uses to determine results as programmed by a man. Computers though helpful are not flawless as the can only do what a man has programmed them to do.

The bible has nothing to do with logic.

 

[Atwood]

The problem with this is that it's essentially impossible to read the Bible without bringing to that reading your own assumptions and presuppositions. People use their presuppositions to interpret the world. It is simply not possible for any human to objectively read ANYTHING prima facie without some sort of interpretation along the way against some other set of ideas. That's a basic part of how people function.

For instance, in relation to John 1, I've heard people say before that they read John 1 'objectively', and find that it actually does not teach that Jesus is God. However, they're not actually reading objectively, what they're simply doing is rejecting and placing aside the hypothesis that John 1 suggest Jesus as divine, but leave the alternative option (that it does not) open. This is not an objective reading - this is actively favouring an alternative option over the previously held one. It is, in essence, a kind of reverse bias.

There's no easy solution to this problem (at one level, it's not even really a problem, it just is). It means that fallen human beings will continuously read texts differently, even though the text says the same thing it ever did, without the intervention of God in our minds.

However, one practical piece of advice I would give to everyone is to simply reject the idea that anyone can read the text in a pure, objective fashion, and to instead be aware that we all DO bring our own presuppositions to the text, and to be aware of which assumptions we each bring. If we are self-aware in that fashion, we can begin to see how our reading of the Bible might be affected by our own eisegesis, instead of God speaking to us from his word. That isn't to say that one shouldn't strive to hear the text rather than our own minds. Rather, I suggest we simply spend so much time reading the text and not enough examining our own minds, and we start to say that we are in fact reading the text, but have deceived ourselves and in fact our just parroting back our own assumptions.

One key assumption that I think is almost always incorrect is to read the Bible like a 21st century document. It is not, and it was written in a sea of cultural understandings and assumptions that are not the same as those today. To understand the Bible, one has to get in the head of the Jewish person of antiquity, instead of the Western white person of today.

Ah, yea olde assumptions.
Actually, at the basis of all logical deductions there lie axioms, self-evident truths. Assumptions which are not axiomatic, lead to unwarranted conclusions.

Axiom 1: The God of the Bible exists.
Axiom 2: The Bible is the Word of God.

I don't think it preposterous, given that the Bible is the Word of God, to think that it transcends mere time-period culture. Yes, I agree that there is error in reading back 21st century culture into the Law of Moses and judging it by what is politically correct today. But do you not sense that it does indeed impinge on our NOW most profoundly and obviously?

 

[Kerry]

Okay lets examine logic. Logically speaking what is the probability of one prediction coming to pass in the life of one person. Then look a t the logic of 152 predictions happening in one person. It's like covering the surface of the Earth with 1" by 1" white tiles and one of them is red on the reverse side. Then by picking one and flipping it's over and its red. That is logic.

The bible is the infallible word of God.

 

[oldhermit]

I'm just not sure it's possible, or even desirable, to try and remove other factors or sources of information when we read the text. The reality is, people will always use other information to interpret a text, because that is how people are designed to interact with the world. We interpret a red pedestrian signal to be telling us to stop, only because we have been previously told that is what it means. We would not know that purely by looking at the signal.

Anything that stands outside of scripture is never desirable to the study of the text. Truth never resides anywhere outside the of the text. The fact that this is how people generally interact with the world does not give credibility to this type of hermeneutics. Yes there is a place for relying on determined relations in relationship to our place in the created universe but, this dependence MUST be divorced from the reading of the text.

When you read about Jesus travels in the gospels, the various places that he travelled to and the kinds of people he spoke to, there are all sorts of background information that comes in to play that is not necessarily provided in the text. For instance, the fact that Jesus goes to Tyre and Sidon is meant to illustrate his judgement on his own people, taking the gospel to Gentiles who are otherwise outside God's chosen people. This important element in particularly Matthew's account is not obvious on the first reading (although it becomes more so if you keep reading, or read elsewhere in the Scriptures first), but would have been instantly obvious to a first century Judean reader, because of their differing context.

These are merely surface issues to the text. These type of contributions are of minimal significance and give us no insight to the deeper things of the text. This type of approach tends to elevate history and culture above the text but, truth is never in the history or the culture and can never be contingent upon either of these factors. Truth resides ONLY within the grammatical structure of the text. Scripture is equidistant to both time and culture and the language of the text teaches the same truth to us that it taught to those who first heard it.

However, it goes deeper. What we mean by this word or that word is not necessarily the same as what is meant by the original authors, simply because words, and the contexts they are in, change meaning. This does not mean that the text is impenetrable - far from it. The text is perfectly understandable for the most part. However, my point is simply that there is no baseline objective position from which to read the Bible - our whole concept of experiencing the world is shaped by modern Western culture and society. You cannot just take that off - you should, however, question it, allow it to be challenged, and be aware of it. But from my personal experience, the times I have most thought I had achieved a bias-free reading of the texts are the times I most needed to have my biases challenged.

I pointed out earlier that the knowledge of the original languages are indispensable in maintaining the integrity of the text.

Having said that, I think the first port of call is to interpret Scripture with Scripture. Many times (particularly in the NT), the Bible goes to great lengths to give cross-cultural explanations for things, concerned as it is with evangelising Gentiles. That is a good starting point.

Why would you think that using anything other that scripture to interpret scripture can possibly add anything of significance to the meaning of scripture.

 

[oldhermit]

Historically, men have employed a dyadic structure of reasoning in the exercise of Biblical interpretation. The world uses a hierarchical structure of human intelligence that we call the nine fields of inquiry to compile information about the Biblical text as it is fitted within the framework of these nine fields and the Church has unfortunitly adopted this approach to the reading of scripture. All human knowledge is cataloguedwithin these nine fields. This type of textual approach appeals to the respective fields of inquiry to see what each of these have to say about the text of scripture. The world feels that it is somehow important to know what the scientist, the historian, the clergy, the legal apparatus and others have to say about the content of the text. This form of intertextuality regards scripture as nothing more than one of many texts that is subordinate to human analysis based on all other texts. The practice of intertextuality places the Word of God within the dyadic structure of human intelligence. This elevates human intelligence over the inspired intelligence of revelation. The world will never allow the Bible to be regarded as the single hierarchical text that relativizes all others. This of course is not a new problem. We see this same human tendency throughout the Bible. The Pharisees regarded the Law only within the context of centuries of rabbinic interpretation. It was because the Jews were so dyadic in their thinking that Jesus constantly had to correct their corrupted understanding of the Law. They had elevated their traditionally imposed interpretation above the language of text and Jesus said that in doing so, they had made the Word of God null and void. When I consider the way we have approached the Biblical text, it becomes increasingly apparent that the Church has done the very same thing that the Jews of the first century had done.

The first thing you must understand in the reading of scripture is the type of document the Bible is. I think most people would insist that the Bible is an historical document and must therefore be[FONT=Times New Roman, serif] handled as a historical phenomenon. Since the Bible has been handled in such a secular manor, we have come to rely upon secular historical sources to offer their contributions to the text. The science of exegesis takes into consideration all of the historical and cultural evidence we can martial and attempts to explain the text based upon the compilation of the evidence. This is actually just another form of intertextuality. If we take this approach to scripture, it would follow that we could never understand anything about the text that could not be supported and collaborated by what evidence we are able to piece together. Our understanding of the text would then be limited to our ability to collect and correctly interpret this evidence. In the exercise of exegesis, our understanding of the text is determined by how well we understand ancient times and cultures. The farther removed we are from the time and culture in which it was written the less we would be able to understand it. Our ability to understand the text correctly then would diminish with the passing of time, not increase. [/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

With exegesis, truth is determined by the historical context rather than the language of the text. For many who have tried to make sense of the text by the use of exegesis this has been a source of frustration. Some have even concluded on this basis that truth is unknowable. Since revealed truth is not determined by history, this should not be a surprising legacy for the use of the exegetical approach to scripture. The language of the text was not conditioned by the cultures of the time. It was received from the mind of the Holy Spirit who stands outside of human history and culture. If history is allowed to be the canon for determining truth then we root spiritual truth in the temporal rather than in the eternal. This makes the historian the sole proprietor of what can be regarded as truth.[/FONT][FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

It is a mistake to think that we can ever get into the mind of the individuals who put scripture into written form. Even if we were able by some means to manage such a feat this will not tell us what was in the mind of the author. Contrary to what Gordon Fee claims, the Bible is not both human and divine. The Bible is exclusively a divine document and was written independently of human contribution. Man can no more lay claim to any contribution to the biblical text than my computer can to the creation of this essay. Man was simply the tool through which the Holy Spirit recorded scripture in written form. Since the Bible is solely of divine origin, we cannot discern truth by trying to delve into what was possibly in the mind of the apostle Paul when he wrote the book of Romans. The apostle Paul is not responsible for the contents of that or any other letter of scripture pinned by his hand. [/FONT] [FONT=Times New Roman, serif]

Scripture was not intended to speak to the common sense of human reasoning. The Bible cannot be understood by bringing human intelligence to bear upon the text. The language of the text must be allowed to influence and transform the thinking of the reader. It is not reasonable from human experience to believe that dead people live again, or that virgins can conceive a child without human intervention, or that three million people can survive in the desert of Sinai for forty years where there were no material resources for food or water. Scripture is not written to appeal to our sense of reason. Instead, it challenges us to defy reason on almost every page and to learn to see things from the vantage point of God. Scripture does not call men to reason but to faith.[/FONT]

 

[Atwood]

Okay lets examine logic. Logically speaking what is the probability of one prediction coming to pass in the life of one person. Then look a t the logic of 152 predictions happening in one person. It's like covering the surface of the Earth with 1" by 1" white tiles and one of them is red on the reverse side. Then by picking one and flipping it's over and its red. That is logic.

The bible is the infallible word of God.

Indeed it is hard to predict the future. Predicting the future with perfect accuracy is indeed evidence that something is the Word of God. Really one needs omnipotence to guarantee that one's predictions follow without exception.

This line of evidence is offered by the Lord in the chapters that follow the start of "New Testament" of Isaiah (1-39 being his "OT," and 40-66 his "NT"). Here and there in Isaiah 40-50 this line of evidence is offered: Only YHWH predicts the future accurately. I advise anyone who wants to examine the evidence from fulfilled prophecy to start by reading Isaiah 52-53 and Psalm 22 -- see if you can see a description of Christ's death centuries in advance.

"Come & let us reason together, says the Lord"

 

[iamsoandso]

Strong's Greek: 3050. λογικός (logikos) -- reasonable, rational ,,,,,