Monday, February 22, 2010

Philosophy: Rescuing Bad Theology

On occasion, the tools that philosophy provides can be useful outside its normal practices; it can be not only intellectually satisfying, but edifying and far-reaching. Such an occasion arose this Sunday when a pastor at a church I attend (who has a Ph.D., by the way) made a very controversial claim: that Jesus made two inconsistent claims. He asserted that the following were inconsistent:

1. Whoever is not against us is for us (Mark 9:40)
2. He who is not with me is against me (Matthew 12:30)

The entire sermon was preached off the premise that these two were inconsistent; however, it struck me as incorrect, so I got to work. Let's simplify these things down a bit...

Let's call, "gender-neutral he who is against us", A, and "gender-neutral he who is for us/with us" F. We can simplify these premises to:

1. Whoever is not A is F.
2. Whoever is not F is A.
3. Not F and A at the same time.

Number 3 is a hidden premise here (but a noncontroversial one)that one cannot be A and F at the same time. Before get into the nitty gritty of how these are consistent, let's do one last bout of simplification. Let's call "negation", "not", and etcetera ~, like so:

1. If ~A then F
2. If ~F then A
3. ~(A and F)

Make sense? Good. Now let's show how they're consistent. With Premise 1, there are two possibilities: ~A is false (therefore A, Premise 1a) or F is true (Premise 1b). With Premise 2, there are two possibilities: ~F is false (therefore F, Premise 2a) or A is true (Premise 2b). So, we have four possible combinations of true values:

4. A (Premise 1a) and F (Premise 2a)
5. F (Premise 1b) and F (Premise 2a)
6. A (Premise 1a) and A (Premise 2b)
7. F (Premise 1b) and A (Premise 2b)

We are left with 4, 5, and 6 as consistent interpretations, but we still have to apply the hidden third premise: ~(A ^ F). It states that A and F cannot be true at the same time-- so, in each of those premises, either A is false or F is false (since they both can't be true at the same time).

4. A, F, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]
5. F, F, and either [~A] or [~F, contradiction]
6. A, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F]
7. F, A, and either [~A, contradiction] or [~F, contradiction]

What are we left with?

5. A is false, F is true
6. A is true, F is false.

Both of those are consistent. Lo and behold-- it is not inconsistent to say, "he who is not with us is against us" and "he who is not against us is with us"! I'm afraid to say that the pastor, here, built his argument on sand, and it took neither rain nor flood nor wind for it to fall down. I didn't tell him about the claims being consistent, but I certainly thought about it. At any rate, did the logic look sound? Anything confusing or need clarification? Disagree with my argument-- whether I properly assigned notation and whatnot?

2 comments:

R. J. Marvin said...

It took me about 30 minutes to understand the logic but it seems correct. It looks like the pastor misquoted the bible. I took the time and looked up the passages and its clear that those sayings were said in very different situations. Your pastor would have been a horrible journalist.

R. J. Marvin said...

Just wanted to clarify that the pastor didnt misquote but took quotes out of context. The quote, "whoever is not against us is for us" ought to be interpreted as whoever is doing good is in line with God. the second quote, "he who is not with me is against me" ought to mean he who is going against what is good is going against God.

The funny thing here is that a good sermon could be preached using both stories from the bible explaining the nature of sin and the implications of leading a good life.