Let’s consider more the character of God in relation to logic.

First, logic is a reflection of who God is. We see this most in Jesus Christ, “the image of the invisible God” (Col. 1:15). Jesus is the incarnate logos of God: “In the beginning was the logos, and the logos was with God, and the logos was God” (John 1:1). I am not a Greek scholar, and so I won’t take this any further than to state the obvious: Jesus Christ is the Logos, the word from which we get the word logic. In the incarnation, the infinite God became a particular Man: “And the logos became flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The logos who was God has infinite knowledge, is infinite in power and space and time. This logos became a particular man, a man with a particular height, with ten fingers and ten toes, who could bench press a particular weight.

In a similar way, in the process of reasoning, universal statements lead to particular statements. The universal truth that all men are sinners implies the particular truth that I am a sinner. Thus an abstract truth implies a very concrete truth; “I am a sinner” is an incarnation of “All men are sinners.” It is the process of logic that allows us to make these sort of incarnational conclusions from universal claims.

What it all comes down to is that God Himself is the foundation of Reason. He is a reasoning God. “Come, let us reason together,” He says in Isaiah 1:18. According to this verse, we can reason with God, and He can reason with us. He wants to teach us, He wants to teach our students, and He uses the gift of reason in order to do so. God in His grace has given us minds that reason just as He has given us eyes that see, so that we can receive the good things that He has for us. Reason is an attribute of God, and because He is perfect in His attributes, God cannot fail to reason well. We should imitate God in this, and seek to reason to the best of our abilities. For us, this means training, learning, and study.

God is an orderly, consistent God. Paul writes that “God is not a God of disorder” (I Cor 14:33). God is orderly, and order implies reason. Where there is no reason, there is only chaos.

God is also non-contradictory: He cannot lie (Numbers 23:19), He does not deny Himself (II Tim 2:13), and He is holy – nothing in Him contradicts His perfection. John Frame says about this: “Does God, then, observe the law of noncontradiction? Not in the sense that the law is somehow higher than God Himself. Rather, God is Himself noncontradictory and is therefore Himself the criterion of logical consistency and implication. Logic is an attribute of God, as are justice, mercy, wisdom, and knowledge.”

Now, we need to be careful with this. The logic which is an attribute of God is not an exact correspondence with the logic that we study in the classroom. Logic, as an art developed by men, is (or at least can be) a true reflection, but it is only a reflection of the perfect logic of God.

Tags: reasoning, worldview

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