Faulty Logic, Faulty Theology

[Martin Marprelate]

There are many reasons for faulty theology, and one of them is faulty logic.

Genesis 2:15-17. 'Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat [literally, 'eating you may eat']; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die [literally, 'dying you shall die']"'

So the obvious inference of verse 17 is, "If you don't eat of it, you won't die." But this has been described as the logical error of 'Affirming the consequent.' It is, of course, nothing of the sort.

'If A, then B.' So if A happens, B follows, and if A doesn't happen, B doesn't follow. This is absolutely logical and apparently carries the name of Modus tollens. So what is 'Affirming the consequent'?

It is this: 'If A then B.' If B happens, then A must have happened. This is faulty logic. 'If you die, you must have eaten of the tree.' But of course, that is not what God said. What would be even more illogical would be to imagine that God meant, "If you don't eat of it, you're still going to die. That would be making God out to be a liar.

1 Kings 2:36-37. 'Then the king went and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there anywhere. For it shall be, on the day you go out and cross the Brook Kidron, know for certain you shall surely die [literally, 'dying you shall die']. Your blood shall be on your own head."'

The obvious inference is, "If you don't cross the Brook Kidron, you won't die. What would be illogical would be to say, "If you die, you must have crossed the Brook Kidron." There might be all sorts of reasons for Shimei to die, including natural causes.

We read that for three years Shimei carried on living in Jerusalem, and, whadd'ya know? He didn't die. Had he continued to live there he would have died sooner or later, but Solomon would not have killed him. But he did cross the Brook, and Solomon had him killed forthwith.

Note that Solomon used the same term to Shimei as God used to Adam: 'In the day that you cross....' 'In the day that you eat....' And sure enough, Shimei died, if not the very same day, almost immediately afterwards, as quickly as Solomon could arrange it. Just sayin'.

 

[MartyF]

“Die die” and “eat eat” are Hebrew idioms whose meaning changes with context. In this case, “on that day, you will be subject to death.” or “you will surely die” is what is meant by context. “I will slay you on that day” or “On that day, you will die” is not implied by the context.

 

[HankD]

There are many reasons for faulty theology, and one of them is faulty logic.

Genesis 2:15-17. 'Then the LORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it. And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat [literally, 'eating you may eat']; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die [literally, 'dying you shall die']"'

So the obvious inference of verse 17 is, "If you don't eat of it, you won't die." But this has been described as the logical error of 'Affirming the consequent.' It is, of course, nothing of the sort.

'If A, then B.' So if A happens, B follows, and if A doesn't happen, B doesn't follow. This is absolutely logical and apparently carries the name of Modus tollens. So what is 'Affirming the consequent'?

It is this: 'If A then B.' If B happens, then A must have happened. This is faulty logic. 'If you die, you must have eaten of the tree.' But of course, that is not what God said. What would be even more illogical would be to imagine that God meant, "If you don't eat of it, you're still going to die. That would be making God out to be a liar.

1 Kings 2:36-37. 'Then the king went and called for Shimei, and said to him, "Build yourself a house in Jerusalem and dwell there, and do not go out from there anywhere. For it shall be, on the day you go out and cross the Brook Kidron, know for certain you shall surely die [literally, 'dying you shall die']. Your blood shall be on your own head."'

The obvious inference is, "If you don't cross the Brook Kidron, you won't die. What would be illogical would be to say, "If you die, you must have crossed the Brook Kidron." There might be all sorts of reasons for Shimei to die, including natural causes.

We read that for three years Shimei carried on living in Jerusalem, and, whadd'ya know? He didn't die. Had he continued to live there he would have died sooner or later, but Solomon would not have killed him. But he did cross the Brook, and Solomon had him killed forthwith.

Note that Solomon used the same term to Shimei as God used to Adam: 'In the day that you cross....' 'In the day that you eat....' And sure enough, Shimei died, if not the very same day, almost immediately afterwards, as quickly as Solomon could arrange it. Just sayin'.

1 Kings is an historic book and the narrative of Solomon is only infallible in its recording and accuracy thereof not necessarily the content or even that Solomon completely understood the theological meaning of the words.
Solomon's narrative is not God's narrative.

Romans 5:12 is the apostolic pronouncement of death for humanity in that each personal death is rooted inextricably to the sin of Adam in the garden and not to Shimei for crossing the Brook.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

To compare the two is the proverbial attempt to compare apples and refrigerators,

 

[JonC]

“Die die” and “eat eat” are Hebrew idioms whose meaning changes with context. In this case, “on that day, you will be subject to death.” or “you will surely die” is what is meant by context. “I will slay you on that day” or “On that day, you will die” is not implied by the context.

Exactly.
This is also consistent with the Hebrew use of words. Literally it says "die" twice.

And IMHO we should stick with Scripture rather than using our theories to interpret Scripture.

For the passage to have any merit Adam had to have some type of context of death. God told Adam that on the day he ate of the fruit death would be certain (death would enter Adam's world).

The problem is people tend to lean towards theory and created narratives in order to package their theology.

The logical fallacy associated with this is with those who think that God's words that should Adam eat of the fruit he would die leads to the conclusion that if Adam did not eat of the fruit he would have lived forever.

This is called denying the antecedent (or the inverse fallacy).

I may tell a child not to run out in traffic because if he does so he will die. This does not mean if the child refrains from running out in traffic he will live forever. The process @Martin Marprelate is speaking of is illogical (it is a formal logical fallacy) and as such must be dismissed in an argument. That does not mean his conclusion is false. But it does mean it is neither biblical nor logical.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Fortunately, someone kindly posted a link where logical fallacies are discussed.

It's found on Page 7 of the 'Spiritual Life' thread.
It explains things very well.
If you tell a child, "If you run out into the road, I'm will give you a wallop," he may reasonably and logically suppose that if he doesn't run into the road, he won't get a wallop. He might perhaps be walloped for another misdemeanor, but not for that one for the rather obvious reason that he didn't commit it.
What is not logical is to say that because he was walloped, he must have run out into the road (he might have been walloped for something else), or that because he wasn't walloped, he must not have run out into the road (his father might not have seen him).

“Die die” and “eat eat” are Hebrew idioms whose meaning changes with context. In this case, “on that day, you will be subject to death.” or “you will surely die” is what is meant by context. “I will slay you on that day” or “On that day, you will die” is not implied by the context.

I understand that the expressions are Hebrew idioms; that was my point. The question is whether 'in that day' can mean 'in 900 years time.' In the 1 Kings 2 example, it meant 'rather quickly.' If you can find an example of where 'in that day' means a long, extended period, I will be interested to read it. The Bible is a big book and I might have missed it.

My case is that in Genesis 2, the death spoken of was, in the immediate context, spiritual death. The physical death is announced in Genesis 3:19.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

1 Kings is an historic book and the narrative of Solomon is only infallible in its recording and accuracy thereof not necessarily the content or even that Solomon completely understood the theological meaning of the words.
Solomon's narrative is not God's narrative.

Romans 5:12 is the apostolic pronouncement of death for humanity in that each personal death is rooted inextricably to the sin of Adam in the garden and not to Shimei for crossing the Brook.

Romans 5:12 Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned:

To compare the two is the proverbial attempt to compare apples and refrigerators,

The comparison is purely in the language used. Comparing Scripture with Scripture is an accepted way of doing exegesis. See my answer to @MartyF above.

 

[JonC]

Fortunately, someone kindly posted a link where logical fallacies are discussed.

It's found on Page 7 of the 'Spiritual Life' thread.
It explains things very well.
If you tell a child, "If you run out into the road, I'm will give you a wallop," he may reasonably and logically suppose that if he doesn't run into the road, he won't get a wallop. He might perhaps be walloped for another misdemeanor, but not for that one for the rather obvious reason that he didn't commit it.
What is not logical is to say that because he was walloped, he must have run out into the road (he might have been walloped for something else), or that because he wasn't walloped, he must not have run out into the road (his father might not have seen him).


I understand that the expressions are Hebrew idioms; that was my point. The question is whether 'in that day' can mean 'in 900 years time.' In the 1 Kings 2 example, it meant 'rather quickly.' If you can find an example of where 'in that day' means a long, extended period, I will be interested to read it. The Bible is a big book and I might have missed it.

My case is that in Genesis 2, the death spoken of was, in the immediate context, spiritual death. The physical death is announced in Genesis 3:19.

Rather than looking at videos that are geared to explaining fallacies to a child, I think most here can understand the fallacy and why it is a fallacy simply from the logical form:

If P, then Q. Not P, therefore, Not Q.

If Adam eats of the fruit he will die (the data). If Adam does not eat of the fruit he will not die (fallacy). The fallacy only comes in when we suppose that this was a covenant with Adam (as Scripture defines a covenant).

We do not know what would have occurred had Adam not eaten of the fruit. We do know if this was a covenant that God would not have been just to punish any type of disobedience that could have followed (per the definition of a covenant) so we know that not to be the case. But we do not know if God would have eventually given Adam another command and Adam not obeyed. The issue is not eating "magic fruit" that has "magical powers" but Adam disobeying God.

For this reason, we should set aside faulty logic. God is not a God of nonsense. (The fallacy is a covenant with Adam, not the fact that Scripture never mentions anyone spiritually dying or Adam dying on the day he sinned).

 

[JonC]

The comparison is purely in the language used. Comparing Scripture with Scripture is an accepted way of doing exegesis. See my answer to @MartyF above.

The problem is this is not exegesis. You have chosen one example out of many that you could have chosen in how Hebrew uses repetition because Shimei died on that day. This is faulty logic (death had not yet entered the world with Adam and Shimei knew he would one day die so the words would be meaningless had he not died on that day - but they would not have been false).

We can all go through Scripture and lift words and instances to prove our views either way. For example - with Shimei death refers to a physical death (not a spiritual one). By your "exegesis" this disproves your assertion that "die, die" was referring to a spiritual death with Adam. The fact of the matter is that nowhere is anyone (not Adam, not Satan, not Paul, not Jesus, not you, not me) said to have died spiritually.

 

[HankD]

Exactly.
This is also consistent with the Hebrew use of words. Literally it says "die" twice.

And IMHO we should stick with Scripture rather than using our theories to interpret Scripture.

For the passage to have any merit Adam had to have some type of context of death. God told Adam that on the day he ate of the fruit death would be certain (death would enter Adam's world).

The problem is people tend to lean towards theory and created narratives in order to package their theology.

The logical fallacy associated with this is with those who think that God's words that should Adam eat of the fruit he would die leads to the conclusion that if Adam did not eat of the fruit he would have lived forever.

This is called denying the antecedent (or the inverse fallacy).

I may tell a child not to run out in traffic because if he does so he will die. This does not mean if the child refrains from running out in traffic he will live forever. The process @Martin Marprelate is speaking of is illogical (it is a formal logical fallacy) and as such must be dismissed in an argument. That does not mean his conclusion is false. But it does mean it is neither biblical nor logical.

Romans 5:12.

 

[HankD]

The comparison is purely in the language used. Comparing Scripture with Scripture is an accepted way of doing exegesis. See my answer to @MartyF above.

Romans 5:12 Martin, sin and death were introduced in Genesis by God not by Solomon in 1 Kings.

 

[JonC]

Romans 5:12.

Yes. I do not think any of us reject that passage.

Of course I also notice it does not say any of us (to include Adam) died spiritually either. And it does not say Adam would have lived forever.

 

[Martin Marprelate]

Romans 5:12 Martin, sin and death were introduced in Genesis by God not by Solomon in 1 Kings.

Yes. And your point is?

 

[Baptist Believer]

The Tree of Life usually gets ignored when discussing Genesis 1-3, especially when talking about the question of death. Humankind is encouraged to eat of every tree of the garden, except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which includes the tree of life (Genesis 2:9,16-17).

The very name of the tree of life indicates that it has some sort of properties inherent to the promotion of life, and the counsel of God is quite concerned of the danger that the man and woman might take of the fruit of the tree of life and live forever in their fallen state (Genesis 3:22), that they were banished from the garden and an angel posted to prevent access to that fruit (Genesis 3:24).

The next time the tree of life appears, it is in Revelation 22, where the tree of life bears 12 kinds of fruit and its leaves are for the healing of the nations (Revelation 22:2).

I do not know of any clear teaching that humanity was created to be inherently immortal without the sustaining providence of God, as symbolized through the tree of life.

 

[JonC]

The title of the thread says it all - faulty logic, faulty theology. We have to stay closer to Scripture than the OP allows. And @Baptist Believer is absolutely right that the Tree of Life is often ignored. This is because people use Genesis to support what they have already determined to be true instead of deriving truth from Scripture.

But calling tradition exegesis does not make it so.

 

[HankD]

Yes. And your point is?

i dont know and cant remenber what your point is/was
my guess is i wanted to show that there was a difference between GOD and Solomon and the scope of death of each

 

[Martin Marprelate]

i dont know and cant remember what your point is/was
my guess is i wanted to show that there was a difference between GOD and Solomon and the scope of death of each

My main point is that to say that if Adam had not eaten the apple, he would not have died is not a logical fallacy. Since that fact has now been conceded, however grudgingly, the point is made and the thread may now be closed so far as I am concerned.
There were a couple of subsidiary points, but they can't be that important if you can't remember what they are. We can at least agree that there was a difference between God and Solomon, though I believe that comparing Scripture with Scripture is a helpful way of arriving at the truth.

 

[InTheLight]

My main point is that to say that if Adam had not eaten the apple, he would not have died is not a logical fallacy.

1. It wasn't an apple.

2. We don't know if he would have lived forever had he not eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We only know that if he ate of it he would surely die. As I read that passage I see some leeway for Adam not dying if he abstained from eating it, but I see death as a certainty if he were to eat of it.

3. I agree with JonC's point that it is a logical fallacy to assume he would never die if he abstained. We simply don't know that from scripture. It is an inference.

 

[JonC]

My main point is that to say that if Adam had not eaten the apple, he would not have died is not a logical fallacy. Since that fact has now been conceded, however grudgingly, the point is made and the thread may now be closed so far as I am concerned.

@Martin Marprelate ,

You cannot get around the fact that it IS a logical fallacy by definition. When we drift from Scripture and get into philosophical speculation we enter dangerous grounds. This means you should be even more careful to examine your processes. What you have committed is by definition a logical fallacy.

This does not mean your ultimate conclusion is false, but it is not biblical (as in not in Scripture) and it is based on a logical fallacy (it is illogical due to the process). The best you can say is it is your extra-biblical and illogical opinion. That is a very weak foundation upon which to build doctrine. As such, I urge you to consider the importance Scripture places on itself as the Word of God when contrasted to human understanding. We may not be perfect, but God is and so is His Word.

 

[HankD]

My main point is that to say that if Adam had not eaten the apple, he would not have died is not a logical fallacy. Since that fact has now been conceded, however grudgingly, the point is made and the thread may now be closed so far as I am concerned.
There were a couple of subsidiary points, but they can't be that important if you can't remember what they are. We can at least agree that there was a difference between God and Solomon, though I believe that comparing Scripture with Scripture is a helpful way of arriving at the truth.

I'll raise the ante and say comparing scripture with scripture is not only a helpful way of arriving at the truth but THE ONLY WAY to arriving at the truth (with the leading of the Spirit of truth of course).

 

[Martin Marprelate]

1. It wasn't an apple.

2. We don't know if he would have lived forever had he not eaten the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We only know that if he ate of it he would surely die. As I read that passage I see some leeway for Adam not dying if he abstained from eating it, but I see death as a certainty if he were to eat of it.

3. I agree with JonC's point that it is a logical fallacy to assume he would never die if he abstained. We simply don't know that from scripture. It is an inference.

All you have to do is read the Scriptures.
Romans 5:12. 'Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin......'
Sin entered the world through Adam's disobedience to God's command. Death entered the world because of sin.
If there had been no sin, there would have been no death, for the wages of sin is death. Therefore if Adam had not sinned, he would not have died. QED, End of story.