1

Joe,

May I suggest creating a wiki for this project? It seems only natural. It would allow for the creation and compilation of content much faster than the method you would use.

2

I like the idea. The link for the article isn't working for me. Is anybody else having trouble viewing it?

3

Perhaps first you need to point your readers to a primer on logic. From reading many blogs, it certainly appears that many either do not have a grasp of the topic, or at least a refusal to be bound by its conventions.

4

http://www.dwillard.org/articles/artview.asp?artID=39

is the link to the article

5

I'm an inveterate debater/apologist.

Logical Fallacies.

Wiki version of above.

Informal Logic (Wiki)

Formal Logic (Wiki).

That's a bit, to get started.

6

Linked!

http://onanazurefield.blogspot.com/2005/01/logic-and-teachings-of-jesus.html

Interesting link ot Judiac Logic included

7

The more interesting thing to me is why you might want Jesus to be seen as a "logician," and in doing so, you must, of necessity, throw out the ambiguity and inconsistency that gives much beauty and sincerity to what good is in scripture.

That "why" is so interesting.

8

And yes, I'm in Joe.

How will we pick verses? Volunteer to do a certain verse?

(Post will go up tonight. I'm just catching up on blogs before work :D)

9

Logic and beauty are not mutually exclusive. I find a peculiar magnificence to a logic structure built like a cathedral. Emotive arguments are worse than useless - unless they have an extremely sound logical base. Emotion is nothing, if not empty, with no reason, or rhyme, behind what causes it.

It's just.. hysteria. Emotive arguments are dangerous - if they are _only_ emotive. Logical arguments can produce the same emotions - but for better reason.

"Figurative" beauty, alliteration, and the like are all well and good - but only if there is a logical reason for them to BE beautiful.

10

David May I suggest creating a wiki for this project? It seems only natural. It would allow for the creation and compilation of content much faster than the method you would use.

While I think wikis can be a great tool, I don’t think they can do it as fast or as well as blogs can. It just wouldn’t be possible to complete such a project in under three weeks using a wiki. Wikipedia, for example, was around a long, long time before it really took off. And it constantly has to be monitored to prevent “hijacking” of topics. Wikis, like all public spaces in life, are treated much differently than privately owned areas. Because blog owners would be taking “ownership” of their post – investing not only their time and space but reputation as well -- they have more incentive to participate.

RazorKiss How will we pick verses? Volunteer to do a certain verse?

I figure a “first come, first serve” basis will work fairly well. I expect that a couple of verses will have several entries but I think self-interest will even the workload. After all, if a verse already has ten entries why bother to just add another that will get lost in the crowd?

By the way, I must say that I’m a bit nervous about this project. We evangelicals talk a good game when it comes to claiming the Bible as an authoritative text so I hope we are not proven wrong. It would be rather embarrassing, for example, if our Catholic brothers and sisters were to outperform us in textual analysis. ; )

11

Douglas Groothuis--Philosophy Professor at Denver Seminary--has done some work in this area. He has authored a short book ("On Jesus") in the Wadsworth Philosophy Series (2002), and also written the following summary article:

"Jesus: Philosopher and Apologist," Christian Research Journal, vol. 25, no. 2 (2002). Here's a PDF of the article:

http://www.equip.org/free/DJ700.pdf

12

Jesus is also way cool: he turned water into wine.

13

Sounds good - I'll participate.
Of course those of us who are influenced by Van Til are going to ask what was the basis of Jesus' logic. Did Jesus' use of logic conform to Aristotelian categories? Should we judge Jesus' statements in Aristotelian (or any other school of thought) terms? Or, is there a kind of "biblical logic" that judges and transcends Aristotelian categories?

14

RazorsKiss:

Logic and beauty are not mutually exclusive.

No, but neither are they mutually inclusive, or at least it is very hard for us to tell that (it boils down to a free will versus determinism argument).

15

Sounds interesting and very worthwhile. Count me in.

16

Jesus is Spock, Kirk and McCoy rolled in one. St. Paul is the over-emotional but devoted Scotty.

Lt. Uhura is Mary Magdalene, of course.

And remember when Jesus fed all those people with a couple loaves of bread?

Tribbles, my friends. Tribbles.

17

Alright, smarty, who's Checkov?

And I guess St. Stephen would be the unnamed cast members who die in the opening scene.

18

St. Paul is the over-emotional but devoted Scotty.

Although Paul is certainly emotional, many of his arguments have often struck me as profoundly logical. I think that's why I like reading his stuff so much.

I'll see if I can't find something, though I doubt I'll use the proper Latin terms for logical constructs. My grasp of formal logic is a bit more... intuitive than learned.

19

Joe- sounds like an excellent idea for a project. I'm very much in. A couple of observations/suggestions:

1. re: wiki- I agree with you on this point, but perhaps this could be something once the "curriculum" is complete, thus allowing it to grow after it is "finished". I'm not up on wiki-tech, but I'm sure there is a way to only have previlaged users- perhaps only those who contributed would be part of the "growth" team to begin with, but then a review process could be used to approve more and more. A wiki is only as good as its contributors, and this way I think you can regulated that.

2. Have you talked to John Mark Reynolds about this? I'm sure he would jump at the idea to contribute, as well as lend quite a lot of creedance to the project. J.P. Moreland as well, although I know he is I believe on sabbatical and doesn't contribute to the blogosphere quite like JNMR.

3. Philosophia Christi is also an excellent resource for would-be contributors.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

20

I have to agree with Adam - Paul presents his arguments very thoroughly and logically. It's due to his grace and intelligence as a writer that they come through as emotional.

I have to admit, I'm skeptical about the value of a project like this. It strikes me as self-indulgent and I can't see how it's going to contribute anything to advancing the kingdom. It seems gimmicky - like another WWJD. Maybe it's just me.

21

Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. For Jews request a sign, and Greeks seek after wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to the Jews a stumbling block and to the Greeks[b] foolishness, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.

For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God.

St. Paul - 1 Corinthians 1

That being said, I will with interest watch the development of such an innovation as, Jesus the Logistical King.

22

Good stuff! Posted here now.
http://godsman.blogspot.com.

23

I think this is a great idea and I'm really excited to see how it will turn out. I'll definitely participate. I'm no scholar and I'm new to blogging as well, but allow me to throw a couple of ideas out there. If I were attempting to manage such a project as this in the blogosphere - and assuming trackbacks and article categories are available on the host blog, I think I would:

1. Limit the initial focus to start with one Gospel. I'd recommend Mark.

2. Create a post category for the project on the core blog ("Jesus the Logician - Book of Mark", for example)

3. The hard part - From the target Gospel, cut and paste take all the red letter passages that involve teaching or meaningful conversation and post them as separate articles with the passage reference as the title.

4. Enable trackbacks and comments for all of those articles/passages.

This way, you have:

a) An always current and visible inventory of work already done and work that needs to be done without the intermediate steps of email and updating a central document

b) A way for readers who are not bloggers to participate - using comments

c) Bloggers can link in using trackbacks instead of email. Those who can't do trackbacks can use comments, like the non-bloggers.

If you start with one Gospel book and complete it, when you move on to the next one you can link the similar passages (in Luke, let's say)back to their Mark equivalents so everyone knows these have already been addressed.

This idea might be overkill in terms of organization and preparation but that's how my brain works. I figured I'd just throw it out there for you to consider.

24

Perhaps, because Paul is writing to an audience with a Greek worldview, while Jesus is dealing primarily with Jews, I have often found the writings of Paul more comforting and resonant than the words of Christ. I have never really thought about it, but as a product of a civilization that traces its origin to Greek rationalism and logic, the concepts and style of Paul speak to me in way I can relate to. Interesting.

25

Razorskiss,

Thanks for the links, this is something I am interested in reading more about.

26

There is an incident that should be near the top of any account of Jesus' use of logic, in this case the reductio ad absurdum argument. However, it is often missed because we have forgotten the beliefs of the time. That is the incident of the denarius (Matt. 22:15-22 and parallels).

Briefly, the Pharisees (with the Herodians) set a trap for Jesus. They ask him, should we pay taxes or not? This leaves Jesus the choice of appearing to be a collaborator with the corrupt pagan regime, or inciting rebellion against it (waffling was no more popular then than it is now).

Jesus' reply exposes the hypocrisy of the supposedly simon-pure non-cooperators. Good Jews (such as the early Hasmoneans) did not have the images of humans or gods (Caesar was both) on their money. That is the reason for money-changers in the temple; Ceasar's image was not to enter the temple, so money without the offending images was used instead. With this background, Jesus' logic could be stated as follows:
1. Assume: One should not pay taxes
2. The reason one should not pay taxes is that one should follow the law strictly
3. In the law it states that one should not serve any graven image
4. Pagan money has a graven image on it
5. A follower of the law will not serve pagan money
6. If the pagan emperor wants pagan money, there can be no religious reason for not giving it, unless one refuses to have the money in the first place.
7. Money without Caesar's image is not allowed outside the temple.
8. Propositions 1, 6, and 7 require one to live without money, which is absurd.
9. Propositions 6 and 7 are secure.
10. Therefore proposition 1 must be incorrect.

Or, put more succinctly, if you're so holy that you can't pay taxes to Caesar, what are you doing with his graven images in your pocket?

It is interesting that Jesus did not spell out all the propositions. Because of that, and because we no longer share the assumptions of first-century Judean Jews, we miss the full force of the argument. But it would have made for much more boring reading if all the implications were spelled out. In fact, part of Jesus' brilliance was the ability to forcefully make the case without spelling it out in detail.

I suspect that when we discuss Jesus' use of logic, we will find a number of premises which both Jesus and His hearers shared, that are unstated. I already see that in, for example, the assumption that the 110th Psalm is messianic. If we study Jesus' logic, we will have to be alert to these unstated premises.

27

In thinking about this more, I'm not sure it would be worth it (or even possible) to examine an entire book or even every word of Jesus in a book for logical arguments. Jesus uses logical thinking certainly (and just a cursory look at the red letters in my Bible shows that He used it quite often!), but not all the time. There are some passages for which we would have to read into the text in order to find a logical argument, and we should never be doing that.

I think we should be careful about trying to apply this to every word in the Gospels. Our goal is to show that Jesus was very logical - or at least more so than we usually give Him credit for. Our goal is not to show that His every word could be interpreted as a thorough proof.

28

Excellent, excellent idea!! How would those of us who do not have blogs be able to contribute to the project? Let me know what I can do to help, other than distributing the link (yes, I have already started doing this!)

29

This is a wonderful idea! As Christ appealed in Isaiah 1:18 -- "Come now, let us reason." I would also recommend a phenomenal resource for logic and that would be Come Let us Reason by Norman Geisler. This book not only provides a firm foundation of logic, but it is done completely in the context of Christianity. The back even has some questions to work through.

30

"there is in our culture an uneasy relation between Jesus and intelligence"

Rather, there is antipathy between the 'reality-based' culture and Jesus. This is nothing new, same thing as Pilate asking 'what is truth?'. To not take Jesus the Christ as the root truth is to be lost and taken captive from the onset.

I think the objective is to minister to the intellectual which coincidentally one of my passions. However, this exercise says in effect 'lets look at Jesus through the lens of Aristoleon philosophy' and further through the lens of Jesus taken as a one of many. This is a doubly blind approach rather than a double blind approach.

If we would like to take an argumentative approach to opening Jesus up to our 'reality-based' friends, perhaps let us have them read the four gospels in detail and show us where Jesus is in error and tell us why. Ironically, many very intelligent people are totally ignorant of the gospels. There are many testimonies of people setting out to prove scriptures wrong and getting saved along the way. It is a demonstration of the power of God's Word.

As Christ based intellectual community, we have to understand that we need to reject Aristotle as a root of all truth and rather grasp Christ as the starting point. Collosians 2:8 !

Let's have full disclosure. What is Michael Moore's IQ? I usually come out somewhere between 130 and 140 and I know a lot of Christ confessing people that leave me in the dust. I haven't talked personally with Mr. Moore, but he doesn't come across as very bright, but he does come across as a leader of the 'reality-based' community. Perhaps that is put on, but there you have it - if so a lie from the onset.

If you think your smart confer Matthew 11:25.

Some times I rather enjoy being child like when it comes to approaching Jesus the Christ.

Blessings,

Bob(A.)

31

"Smart" and "Logical" are not the same thing.

"Being Logical" is a way of applying the laws of logic to how you think, and how you act.

"Being smart", depending on the usage, can be "evincing knowledge", or "applying your learning".

Which, of course, depends on what you've learned :D GIGO!

Jesus is not using "Aristolean" logic, or philosophy.

He is not using that of Socrates, or Plato....

He is using His Own.

That's the point a lot of people are missing here.

Logic, like all things, comes from God. A lot of us study "logic" - but we have no conception of real logic. God's logic.

So, this is a project (or, should be, at least) to but Jesus back in the center of Logic. Where He should be.

32

I think the example in Matt 22:15-22 points out
an interesting fact: the difference between
"TRUE truth" and apparent truth. The Roman govt
may have minted the coin. The Herodian may have
been payed denarii as a wage (thus its his).
BUT GOD MADE the earth and the ores contained
therein -- so ultimately its Gods.
Technically both God and Caesar should get their
share -- hence the "and" operator.

Maybe I just taught myself something:
could "apparent truth" be a subset of "TRUE truth"

I'm in

33

I wrote on the subject, but not according to the guidelines or (even) the purpose. Mine's more of a caution and (maybe) corrective. Of course, I could be wrong.

http://nonprophetchurch.blogspot.com

34

Hey...maybe in the midst of this little anachronistic piece of psychological history you guys are doing...perhaps you could tell all of us what the biblical justification is for thinking that Jesus even conceived of his own words in these terms (ie. as logic or logical) or that we should understand them as such.

There are bigger epistemological questions here that such a study just isn't going to uncover. Dr. Willard attempts to speak to Jesus' motive in his article when it's quite clear that the Bible gives us no such view of why Jesus said what he said or reasoned as he did. Why we think we ought to be free to speculate is beyond me.

35

I'm not speculating on "why" Jesus reasoned like He did. I have no need to. All you need to do, is to look at _what He said_. We examine His words, and underlying principles concerning them, in every other conceivable way... why not logically?

Although I'm sure there _are_ "larger epistemological questions to consider" - logic is something that is easily identified, and examined, for the average person. Someone else noted that, perhaps, this is a "blog as classroom" project. If you want pure theology, there are theological blogs in abundance which address it in abundance - from people qualified to do so, to boot. However, if you want unique, and original approaches to using the blogosphere, in a collaborative way, this is one of the best blogs on the net - bar none.

Why, out of curiosity, it is "speculation" to identify correlations with logical principles we know, in Jesus' teachings? Is He supposed to be inherently illogical? I highly doubt it, as the Saducees, Pharisees, and Scribes, like most Jews in that day (or even today :D), are inveterate debaters. Jesus confounded them. To the point where "noone else, from that day forward, dared to ask Him any more questions".

I'd venture to say that a study of the logic used by our Lord, as much as anything else about Him (especially in this age of "braindead" Christianity), is not only interesting - but extremely educational for someone who hasn't ever been exposed to the philisophical branches of Christian thought. Someone who hasn't read Schaeffer, or Moreland - or even C.S. Lewis. Perhaps it will introduce them to a deeper understanding of the way Christians should both live and think. I can't see that it would do any harm - none whatsoever. How can study of the Scriptures be harmful?

Our minds work a certain way, because we were made that way. We were formed in the image of God - and we, if you recall, are supposed to have the mind of Christ. This study, in my view, and in my study of the Scriptures, is a very cool way to illustrate the fallacy of the "blind faith" argument that those who oppose Christianity really enjoy spreading about.

Plus, it gives the participants some good practice in studying the Scriptures, and in critical thinking. Don't you think it may be a bit... premature... to condemn something that has never been tried before?

36

I just wonder how you are going to establish that a first-century Jew thought of his discussions with others in the same way logicians of today (or those overly concerned about the use of logic) do. If you can't establish that without anachronistic gymnastics, I don't see what point there is to this exercise.

It is fine to study the Scriptures, but you come to this exercise with certain preconceived notions and unproven assumptions such as what the "mind" of Christ is (did I miss a biblical definition that you provided?), why (as if you could read the mind of someone who spoke 2000 years ago) he interacted with others the way he did, that somehow logic is such an overarching and obvious principle that it can be seen and observed plainly in the words of Jesus, and the final assumption that somehow these things are easily discernible in the text of Scripture.

You have a lot of work to do in justifying the above assumptions before moving on to convince someone that 'Jesus the Logician' would be a profitable way either to study Christ or convince others that He was indeed who He said He was.

I wish you all the success in the world but somehow I think you are going to have difficulty in providing proof for your presuppositions. It would be healthy though at least to admit that your presuppositions and assumptions are present as I state above. At least then, we could see at the very least if you are being internally consistent regardless of the actual facts at hand. :)

37

Kevin I just wonder how you are going to establish that a first-century Jew thought of his discussions with others in the same way logicians of today (or those overly concerned about the use of logic) do.

I can't. But that's not the point of the project. Jesus, after all, wasn't just a "first-century Jew", He was God incarnate. I'm sure God -- the creator of logic and reason -- know more about the topic than any logician today.

Also, this isn't an attempt at eisegesis in which we try to read into the text something that isn't there. It is more akin to translation, explaining what Jesus did in a way that is comprehensible to modern people.