ABSTRACT: In
understanding how discipleship to Jesus Christ works, a major issue is
how he automatically presents himself to our minds. It is characteristic
of most 20th century Christians that he does not automatically come to
mind as one of great intellectual power: as Lord of universities and
research institutes, of the creative disciplines and scholarship. The
Gospel accounts of how he actually worked, however, challenge this
intellectually marginal image of him and help us to see him at home in
the best of academic and scholarly settings of today, where many of us
are called to be his apprentices.
_________________________________________________
Few today will have seen the words "Jesus" and "logician" put together to form a phrase or sentence, unless it would be to deny
any
connection between them at all. The phrase "Jesus the logician" is not
ungrammatical, any more than is "Jesus the carpenter." But it 'feels'
upon first encounter to be something like a category mistake or error in
logical type, such as "Purple is asleep," or "More people live in the
winter than in cities," or "Do you walk to work or carry your lunch?"
There is in our culture an uneasy relation between Jesus and
intelligence, and I have actually heard Christians respond to my
statement that Jesus is the most intelligent man who ever lived by
saying that it is an oxymoron. Today we automatically position him away
from (or even in opposition to) the intellect and intellectual life.
Almost no one would consider him to be a thinker,
addressing the same issues as, say, Aristotle, Kant, Heidegger or Wittgenstein,
and with the same logical method.
Now this fact has important implications for how we today view his
relationship to our world and our life--especially if our work happens to be
that of art, thought, research or scholarship. How could he fit into such a line
of work, and lead us in it, if he were logically obtuse? How could we be his
disciples at our work, take him seriously as our teacher there, if when we enter
our fields of technical or professional competence we must leave him at the
door? Obviously some repositioning is in order, and it may be helped along
simply by observing his use of logic and his obvious powers of logical thinking
as manifested in the Gospels of the New Testament.
*
Now when we speak of "Jesus the logician" we do not, of course,
mean that he developed theories of logic, as did, for example, Aristotle
and Frege. No doubt he could have, if he is who Christians have taken him
to be. He could have provided a Begriffsschrift, or a Principia
Mathematica, or alternative axiomatizations of Modal Logic, or various
completeness or incompleteness proofs for various 'languages'. (He is,
presumably, responsible for the order that is represented through such efforts
as these.)
He could have. Just as he could have handed Peter or John the formulas of
Relativity Physics or the Plate Tectonic theory of the earth's crust, etc. He
certainly could, that is, if he is indeed the one Christians have traditionally
taken him to be. But he did not do it, and for reasons which are bound to seem
pretty obvious to anyone who stops to think about it. But that, in any case, is
not my subject here. When I speak of "Jesus the logician" I refer to
his use of logical insights: to his mastery and employment of logical
principles in his work as a teacher and public figure.
Now it is worth noting that those who do creative work or are experts in the
field of logical theory are not necessarily more logical or more
philosophically sound than those who do not. We might hope that they would be,
but they may even be illogical in how they work out their own logical theories.
For some reason great powers in theory do not seem to guarantee significantly
greater accuracy in practice. Perhaps no person well informed about the history
of thought will be surprised at this statement, but for most of us it needs to
be emphasized. To have understanding of developed logical theory surely could
help one to think logically, but it is not sufficient to guarantee logical
thinking and except for certain rarified cases it is not even necessary. Logical
insight rarely depends upon logical theory, though it does depend upon logical
relations. The two primary logical relations are implication (logical
entailment) and contradiction; and their role in standard forms of argument such
as the Barbara Syllogism, Disjunctive Syllogism, Modus Ponens and Modus Tollens--and
even in strategies such as reductio ad absurdum--can be fully
appreciated, for practical purposes, without rising to the level of theoretical
generalization at all.1
To be logical no doubt does require an understanding of what
implication and contradiction are, as well as the ability to recognize their
presence or absence in obvious cases. But it also requires the will to be
logical, and then certain personal qualities that make it possible and actual:
qualities such as freedom from distraction, focussed attention on the meanings
or ideas involved in talk and thought, devotion to truth, and willingness to
follow the truth wherever it leads via logical relations. All of this in
turn makes significant demands upon moral character. Not just on points such as
resoluteness and courage, though those are required. A practicing hypocrite, for
example, will not find a friend in logic, nor will liars, thieves, murderers and
adulterers. They will be constantly alert to appearances and inferences that may
logically implicate them in their wrong actions. Thus the literary and cinematic
genre of mysteries is unthinkable without play on logical relations.
Those devoted to defending certain pet assumptions or practices come what may
will also have to protect themselves from logic. All of this is, I believe,
commonly recognized by thoughtful people. Less well understood is the fact that
one can be logical only if one is committed to being logical as a fundamental
value. One is not logical by chance, any more than one just happens to be moral.
And, indeed, logical consistency is a significant factor in moral character.
That is part of the reason why in an age that attacks morality, as ours does,
the logical will also be demoted or set aside--as it now is.
Not only does Jesus not concentrate on logical theory, but he also
does not spell out all the details of the logical structures he employs on
particular occasions. His use of logic is always enthymemic, as is common to
ordinary life and conversation. His points are, with respect to logical
explicitness, understated and underdeveloped. The significance of the
enthymeme is that it enlists the mind of the hearer or hearers from the
inside, in a way that full and explicit statement of argument cannot do. Its
rhetorical force is, accordingly, quite different from that of fully explicated
argumentation, which tends to distance the hearer from the force of logic by
locating it outside of his own mind.
Jesus' aim in utilizing logic is not to win battles, but to achieve
understanding or insight in his hearers. This understanding only comes from the
inside, from the understandings one already has. It seems to "well up from
within" one. Thus he does not follow the logical method one often sees in
Plato's dialogues, or the method that characterizes most teaching and writing
today. That is, he does not try to make everything so explicit that the
conclusion is forced down the throat of the hearer. Rather, he presents matters
in such a way that those who wish to know can find their way to, can come to,
the appropriate conclusion as something they have discovered--whether or
not it is something they particularly care for.
"A man convinced against his will is of the same opinion still."
Yes, and no doubt Jesus understood that. And so he typically aims at real inward
change of view that would enable his hearers to become significantly different
as people through the workings of their own intellect. They will have, unless
they are strongly resistant to the point of blindness, the famous
"eureka" experience, not the experience of being outdone or beaten
down.
*
With these points in mind, let us look at some typical scenes from the
Gospels: scenes that are of course quite familiar, but are now to be examined
for the role that distinctively logical thinking plays in them.
(1). Consider Matthew 12:1-8. This contains a teaching about the ritual law:
specifically about the regulations of the temple and the sabbath. Jesus and his
disciples were walking through fields of grain--perhaps wheat or barley--on the
sabbath, and they were stripping the grains from the stalks with their hands and
eating them. The Pharisees accused them of breaking the law, of being
wrongdoers. Jesus, in response, points out that there are conditions in which
the ritual laws in question do not apply.
He brings up cases of this that the Pharisees already concede. One is the
case (I Samuel 21:1-6) where David, running for his life, came to the place of
worship and sacrifice supervised by Ahimelich the priest. He asked Ahimelich for
food for himself and his companions, but the only food available was bread
consecrated in the ritual of the offerings. This bread, as Jesus pointed out
(Matthew 12:4), was forbidden to David by law, and was to be eaten (after the
ritual) by priests alone. But Ahimelich gave it to David and his men to satisfy
their hunger. Hunger as a human need, therefore, may justify doing what ritual
law forbids.
Also, Jesus continues (second case), the priests every sabbath in their
temple service do more work than sabbath regulations allow: "On the sabbath
the priests in the temple profane the sabbath, and are innocent." (Matthew
12:5) It logically follows, then, that one is not automatically guilty of
wrongdoing or disobedience when they do not keep the ritual observances as
dictated, in case there is some greater need that must be met. This is something
the Pharisees have, by implication, already admitted by accepting the rightness
in the two cases Jesus referred to.
The still deeper issue here is the use of law to harm people, something that
is not God's intention. Any time ritual and compassion (e.g. for hunger) come
into conflict, God, who gave the law, favors compassion. That is the kind of God
he is. To think otherwise is to misunderstand God and to cast him in a bad
light. Thus Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea: "But if you had known what this
means, 'I desire compassion, and not sacrifice' , you would not
have condemned the innocent." (Matthew 12:7; cp. 9:13) Thus the use of
logic here is not only to correct the judgment that the disciples (the
"innocent" in this case) must be sinning in stripping the grain and
eating it. It is used to draw a further implication about God: God is not the
kind of person who condemns those who act to meet a significant need at the
expense of a relative triviality in the law. Elsewhere he points out that the
sabbath appointed by God was made to serve man, not man to serve the sabbath.
(Mark 2:27)
Now the case of sabbath keeping--or, more precisely, of the ritual laws
developed by men for sabbath observance--is one that comes up over and over in
the Gospels, and it is always approached by Jesus in terms of the logical
inconsistency of those who claim to practice it in the manner officially
prescribed at the time. (See for example Mark 3:1-3, Luke 13:15-17, John
9:14-16, etc.) They are forced to choose between hypocrisy and open
inconsistency, and he does sometimes use the word "hypocrisy" of them
(e.g. Luke 13:15), implying that they knew they were being inconsistent
and accepted it. In fact, the very idea of hypocrisy implies logical
inconsistency. "They say, and do not" what their saying implies.
(Matthew 23:2)
And legalism will always lead to inconsistency in life, if not hypocrisy, for
it will eventuate in giving greater importance to rules than is
compatible with the principles one espouses (to sacrifice, for example,
than to compassion, in the case at hand), and also to an inconsistent practice
of the rules themselves (e.g leading one's donkey to water on the sabbath, but
refusing to have a human being healed of an 18-year-long affliction, as in Luke
13:15-16).
(2). Another illustrative case is found in Luke 20:27-40. Here it is the
Sadducees, not the Pharisees, who are challenging Jesus. They are famous for
rejecting the resurrection (vs. 27), and accordingly they propose a situation
that, they think, is a reductio ad absurdum of resurrection. (vss. 28-33)
The law of Moses said that if a married man died without children, the next
eldest brother should make the widow his wife, and any children they had would
inherit in the line of the older brother. In the 'thought experiment' of the
Sadducees, the elder of seven sons died without children from his wife, the next
eldest married her and also died without children from her, and the next eldest
did the same, and so on though all seven brothers. Then the wife died (Small
wonder!). The presumed absurdity in the case was that in the resurrection she
would be the wife of all of them, which was assumed to be an
impossibility in the nature of marriage.
Jesus' reply is to point out that those resurrected will not have mortal
bodies suited for sexual relations, marriage and reproduction. They will have
bodies like angels do now, bodies of undying stuff. The idea of resurrection
must not be taken crudely. Thus he undermines the assumption of the Sadducees
that any 'resurrection' must involve the body and its life continuing exactly
as it does now. So the supposed impossibility of the woman being in conjugal
relations with all seven brothers is not required by resurrection.
Then he proceeds, once again, to develop a teaching about the nature of
God--which was always his main concern. Taking a premiss that the Sadducees
accepted, he draws the conclusion that they did not want. That the dead are
raised, he says, follows from God's self-description to Moses at the burning
bush. God described himself in that incident as "the God of Abraham, the
God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." (Luke 20:35 ) The
Sadducees accepted this. But at the time of the burning bush incident, Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob had been long 'dead', as Jesus points out. But God is not the
God of the dead. That is, a dead person cannot sustain a relation of devotion
and service to God, nor can God keep covenant faith with one who no longer
exists. In covenant relationship to God one lives. (vs. 38) One cannot very well
imagine the living God communing with a dead body or a non-existent person and
keeping covenant faithfulness with them.
(Incidentally, those Christian thinkers who nowadays suggest that the Godly
do not exist or are without conscious life, at least, from the time their body
dies to the time it is resurrected, might want to provide us with an
interpretation of this passage.)
(3). Yet another illustration of Jesus' obviously self-conscious use of logic
follows upon the one just cited from Luke 20. He would occasionally set teaching
puzzles that required the use of logic on the part of his hearers. After the
discussion of the resurrection, the Sadducees and the other groups about him no
longer had the courage to challenge his powerful thinking. (vs. 40) He then sets
them a puzzle designed to help them understand the Messiah--for which everyone
was looking.
Drawing upon what all understood to be a messianic reference, in Psalm 110,
Jesus points out an apparent contradiction: The Messiah is the son of David
(admitted by all), and yet David calls the Messiah "Lord." (Luke
20:42-43) "How," he asks, "can the Messiah be David's son if
David calls him Lord?" (vs. 44) The resolution intended by Jesus is that
they should recognize that the Messiah is not simply the son of David,
but also of One higher than David, and that he is therefore king in a more
inclusive sense than political head of the Jewish nation. (Rev. 1:5) The
promises to David therefore reach far beyond David, incorporating him and much
more. This reinterpretation of David and the Messiah was a lesson learned and
used well by the apostles and early disciples. (See Acts 2:25-36, Hebrews 5:6,
and Phil. 2:9-11)
(4). For a final illustration we turn to the use of logic in one of the more
didactic occasions recorded in the Gospels. The parables and stories of Jesus
often illustrate his use of logic, but we will look instead at a well known
passage from the Sermon on the Mount. In his teaching about adultery and the
cultivation of sexual lust, Jesus makes the statement, "If your right eye
makes you to stumble, tear it out, and throw it from you; for it is better for
you that one of the parts of your body perish, than for your whole body to be
thrown into hell," and similarly for your right hand. (Matthew 5:29-30)
What, exactly, is Jesus doing here? One would certainly be mistaken in
thinking that he is advising anyone to actually dismember himself as a way of
escaping damnation. One must keep the context in mind. Jesus is exhibiting the
righteousness that goes beyond "the righteousness of the scribes and
pharisees." This latter was a righteousness that took as its goal to not do
anything wrong. If not doing anything wrong is the goal, that could be achieved
by dismembering yourself and making actions impossible. What you cannot do you
certainly will not do. Remove your eye, your hand, etc., therefore, and you will
roll into heaven a mutilated stump. The price of dismemberment would be small
compared to the reward of heaven. That is the logical conclusion for one who
held the beliefs of the scribes and the pharisees. Jesus is urging them to
be consistent with their principles and do in practice what their principles
imply. He reduces their principle--that righteousness lies in not doing anything
wrong--to the absurd, in the hope that they will forsake their principle and see
and enter the righteousness that is "beyond the righteousness of the
scribes and pharisees"--beyond, where compassion or love and not sacrifice
is the fundamental thing. Jesus, of course, knew that if you dismembered
yourself you could still have a hateful heart, toward God and toward man. It
wouldn't really help toward righteousness at all. That is the basic thing he is
teaching in this passage. Failure to appreciate the logic makes it impossible to
get his point.
*
These illustrative scenes from the Gospels will already be familiar to any
student of scripture. But, as we know, familiarity has its disadvantages. My
hope is to enable us to see Jesus in a new light: to see him as doing intellectual
work with the appropriate tools of logic, to see him as one who is both at home
in and the master of such work.
We need to understand that Jesus is a thinker, that this is not a
dirty word but an essential work, and that his other attributes do not preclude
thought, but only insure that he is certainly the greatest thinker of the human
race: "the most intelligent person who ever lived on earth." He
constantly uses the power of logical insight to enable people to come to the
truth about themselves and about God from the inside of their own heart and
mind. Quite certainly it also played a role in his own growth in
"wisdom." (Luke 2:52)
Often, it seems to me, we see and hear his deeds and words, but we don't
think of him as one who knew how to do what he did or who really had
logical insight into the things he said. We don't automatically think of
him as a very competent person. He multiplied the loaves and fishes and walked
on water, for example--but, perhaps, he didn't know how to do it, he just
used mindless incantations or prayers. Or he taught on how to be a really good
person, but he did not have moral insight and understanding. He just mindlessly
rattled off words that were piped in to him and through him. Really?
This approach to Jesus may be because we think that knowledge is human,
while he was divine. Logic means works, while he is grace. Did we forget
something there? Possibly that he also is human? Or that grace is not opposed to
effort but to earning? But human thought is evil, we are told. How could
he think human thought, have human knowledge? So we distance him from ourselves,
perhaps intending to elevate him, and we elevate him right out of relevance to
our actual lives--especially as they involve the use of our minds. That is why
the idea of Jesus as logical, of Jesus the logician, is shocking. And of course
that extends to Jesus the scientist, researcher, scholar, artist, literary
person. He just doesn't 'fit' in those areas. Today it is easier to think of
Jesus as a "TV evangelist" than as an author, teacher or artist in the
contemporary context. But now really!--if he were divine, would he be dumb,
logically challenged, uninformed in any area? Would he not instead be the
greatest of artists or speakers? Paul was only being consistent when he
told the Colossians "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are
concealed in him." (2:3) Except for what?
There is in Christian educational circles today a great deal of talk about
"integration of faith and learning." Usually it leads to little solid
result. This is in part due to the fact that it is, at this point in time, an
extremely difficult intellectual task, which cannot be accomplished by ritual
language and the pooh-poohing of difficulties. But an even deeper cause of the
difficulty is the way we automatically tend to think of Jesus himself. It is not
just in what we say about him, but in how he comes before out minds: how
we automatically position him in our world, and how in consequence we position
ourselves. We automatically think of him as having nothing essentially to do
with 'profane' knowledge, with learning and logic, and therefore find ourselves
'on our own' in such areas.
We should, I believe, understand that Jesus would be perfectly at home in any
professional context where good work is being done today. He would, of course,
be a constant rebuke to all the proud self-advancement and the contemptuous
treatment of others that goes on in professional circles. In this as in other
respects, our professions are aching for his presence. If we truly see him as
the premier thinker of the human race--and who else would be that?--then
we are also in position to honor him as the most knowledgeable person in our
field, whatever that may be, and to ask his cooperation and assistance with
everything we have to do.
Catherine Marshall somewhere tells of a time she was trying to create a
certain design with some drapes for her windows. She was unable to get the
proportions right to form the design she had in mind. She gave up in
exasperation and, leaving the scene, began to mull the matter over in prayer.
Soon ideas as to how the design could be achieved began to come to her and
before long she had the complete solution. She learned that Jesus is maestro of
interior decorating.
Such stories are familiar from many areas of human activity, but quite rare
in the areas of art and intellect. For lack of an appropriate understanding of
Jesus we come to do our work in intellectual, scholarly and artistic fields on
our own. We do not have confidence (otherwise known as faith) that he can be
our leader and teacher in matters we spend most of our time working on. Thus our
efforts often fall far short of what they should accomplish, and may even have
less effect than the efforts of the Godless, because we undertake them only with
"the arm of the flesh." Our faith in Jesus Christ rises no higher than
that. We do not see him as he really is, maestro of all good things.
*
Here I have only been suggestive of a dimension of Jesus that is commonly
overlooked. This is no thorough study of that dimension, but it deserves such
study. It is one of major importance for a healthy faith in him. Especially
today, when the authoritative institutions of our culture, the universities and
the professions, omit him as a matter of course. Once one knows what to look for
in the Gospels, however, one will easily see the thorough, careful and creative
employment of logic throughout his teaching activity. Indeed, this employment must
be identified and appreciated if what he is saying is to be understood. Only
then can his intellectual brilliance be appreciated and he be respected as he
deserves.
An excellent way of teaching in Christian schools would therefore be to
require all students to do extensive logical analyses of Jesus' discourses. This
should go hand in with the other ways of studying his words, including
devotional practices such as memorization or lectio divina, and the like.
It would make a substantial contribution to the integration of faith and
learning.
While such a concentration on logic may sound strange today, that is only a
reflection on our current situation. It is quite at home in many of the
liveliest ages of the church.
John Wesley speaks for the broader Christian church across time and space, I
think, in his remarkable treatise, "An Address to the Clergy." There
he discusses at length the qualifications of an effective minister for Christ.
He speaks of the necessity of a good knowledge of scripture, and then adds,
"Some knowledge of the sciences also, is, to say the least, equally
expedient. Nay, may we not say, that the knowledge of one (whether art or
science), although now quite unfashionable, is even necessary next, and in
order to, the knowledge of Scripture itself? I mean logic. For what is this,
if rightly understood, but the art of good sense? of apprehending things
clearly, judging truly, and reasoning conclusively? What is it, viewed in
another light, but the art of learning and teaching; whether by convincing or
persuading? What is there, then, in the whole compass of science, to be
desired in comparison of it?
"Is not some acquaintance with what has been termed the second part of
logic (metaphysics), if not so necessary as this, yet highly expedient (1.) In
order to clear our apprehension (without which it is impossible either to judge
correctly, or to reason closely or conclusively), by ranging our ideas under
general heads? And (2.) In order to understand many useful writers, who can very
hardly be understood without it?"2
Later in this same treatise Wesley deals with whether we are, as ministers,
what we ought to be. "Am I," he asks,
"a tolerable master of the sciences? Have I gone through the very gate
of them, logic? If not, I am not likely to go much farther when I stumble at the
threshold. Do I understand it so as to be ever the better for it? To have it
always ready for use; so as to apply every rule of it, when occasion is, almost
as naturally as I turn my hand? Do I understand it at all? Are not even the
moods and figures above my comprehension? Do not I
poorly endeavour to cover my ignorance, by affecting to laugh at their barbarous
names? Can I even reduce an indirect mood to a direct; an hypothetic to a
categorical syllogism? Rather, have not my stupid indolence and laziness made me
very ready to believe, what the little wits and pretty gentlemen affirm, 'that
logic is good for nothing'? It is good for this at least (wherever it is
understood), to make people talk less; by showing them both what is, and what is
not, to the point; and how extremely hard it is to prove any thing. Do I
understand metaphysics; if not the depths of the Schoolmen, the subtleties of
Scotus or Aquinas, yet the first rudiments, the general principles, of that
useful science? Have I conquered so much of it, as to clear my apprehension and
range my ideas under proper heads; so much as enables me to read with ease and
pleasure, as well as profit, Dr. Henry Moore's Works, Malebranche's Search
after Truth, and Dr. Clarke's Demonstration of the Being and Attributes
of God?"3
I suspect that such statements will be strange, shocking, even outrageous or
ridiculous to leaders of ministerial education today. But readers of Wesley and
other great ministers of the past, such as Jonathan Edwards or Charles Finney,
will easily see, if they know what it is they are looking at, how much use those
ministers made of careful logic. Similarly for the great Puritan writers of an
earlier period, and for later effective Christians such as C. S. Lewis and
Francis Schaeffer. They all make relentless use of logic, and to great good
effect. With none of these great teachers is it a matter of trusting logic instead
of relying upon the Holy Spirit. Rather, they well knew, it is simply a
matter of meeting the conditions along with which the Holy Spirit chooses to
work. In this connection it will be illuminating to carefully examine the logical
structure and force of Peter's discourse on the day of Pentecost. (Acts 2)
*
Today, by contrast, we commonly depend upon the emotional pull of stories and
images to 'move' people. We fail to understand that, in the very nature of the
human mind, emotion does not reliably generate belief or faith, if it generates
it at all. Not even 'seeing' does, unless you know what you are seeing. It is
understanding, insight, that generates belief. In vain do we try to change
peoples' heart or character by 'moving' them to do things in ways that bypass
their understanding.
Some months ago one who is regarded as a great teacher of homiletics was
emphasizing the importance of stories in preaching. It was on a radio program.
He remarked that a leading minister in America had told him recently that he
could preach the same series of sermons each year, and change the illustrations,
and no one would notice it. This was supposed to point out, with some humor, the
importance of stories to preaching. What it really pointed out, however, was
that the cognitive content of the sermon was never heard--if there was any to be
heard--and does not matter.
Paying careful attention to how Jesus made use of logical thinking can
strengthen our confidence in Jesus as master of the centers of intellect and
creativity, and can encourage us to accept him as master in all of the areas of
intellectual life in which we may participate. In those areas we can, then, be his
disciples, not disciples of the current movements and glittering personalities
who happen to dominate our field in human terms. Proper regard for him can also
encourage us to follow his example as teachers in Christian contexts. We can
learn from him to use logical reasoning at its best, as he works with us. When
we teach what he taught in the manner he taught it, we will see his kind of
result in the lives of those to whom we minister.4
NOTES
- See my paper, "Degradation of Logical Form," in Axiomathes,
Number 1-3, 1997, 1-22, especially pp. 3-7. Return
to text.
- From Selections from the Writings of the Rev. John
Wesley, edited by Herbert Welch, New York: Eaton & Mains, 1901, p.
186. Return to text.
- Ibid., p. 198. Return
to text.
- For necessary elaboration of many themes touched upon in
this paper, see J. P. Moreland's crucial book, Love Your God with All
Your Mind, Colorado Springs: Navepress, 1997. Return
to text.
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