This page will list a few definitions of words I commonly use.

Chapter O. of my Systematic Theology book.

Human Speculation. The unjustifiable premises that come man’s or one’s inner self, usually from one’s own observations, feelings and experiences.  These are the premises of a syllogism, that are not justified.

Human Superstition. I define this how John Robinson[1] said that superstition is the logical void or abyss that is between premise and conclusion.  After human made premises, one adds human invalidness.  This is the invalidness from premise to conclusion.

Deductive logic.  The conclusion is a necessary inference. The conclusion does not have more information in it than what the premises provide. If the premises are true, then necessarily the conclusion is true.

Inductive logic. The conclusion does have more information in it than what the premises provide. A guess. Even if the premises are true, the conclusion is not known, and, it still could be false.

 

Philosophy Verbiage:

Epistemology. The ultimate question about the first principle of knowledge for a system of thinking. The starting point of knowledge for a worldview. And to a lesser extent, how we know what we know–again which is, by the starting point of our philosophy’s knowledge. I sometimes refer to this as the “presuppositional level.”  If your worldview does not start, then it does not begin. If there is no start for knowledge, then there is no knowledge for any other ultimate question of life.

Metaphysics. The ultimate question about existence or reality, or how you define existence. Or that is, what type of existence is x or y.  Sometimes I use this word for both metaphysics and ontology(causality), but I try to mainly use it for existence. The reason for the umbrellaing of ontology beneath metaphysics is that there needs to be a definition of the type of existence we are dealing with, so that we might understand a definition for how different existences work in cause and effect to each other.

Ontology.  The ultimate question of Casualty: both of cause and effect, and of mere correlation.

Ultimate level Ontology. Causality “relative” to God. Or that is, relative from God’s viewpoint.

Relative Level Ontology. Causality “relative” to a creation viewpoint or human viewpoint. Relative from one created object to another created object.[2]

Anthropology. The ultimate question of man. Where does man come from? What is man? Where is man gong? What is the end designed for man?

Logic. The ultimate question about the structure of thought, or thinking. Propositions are the content of thought, but logic is the study of the structure of thought.  Deduction vs Induction. Valid vs invalid.  Good thinking vs defective thinking. What is logic? Where did it come from? Why is it self-authenticating? Why does man use it? Why if self-authenticating, does it not give knowledge of itself?

Axiology.  Ethics and morality.

 

—Endnotes—

[1] Paraphrased from, John Robbins, Forward of Gordon Clark’s book, “Three Types of Religious Philosophy.”

[2]  The ultimate and relative level ontology can be liken to a chess game.

I got this initial idea of a chess game from Vincent Cheung. See, “There is No Real Synergism.” Found in Sermonettes Vol. 1. 2010. Ch.32

Ultimate level. God caused Oshea to believe and confess Jesus Christ. (Oshea moves white pawn to H3 to take black knight.)

Relative Level. Oshea confessed and made Jesus Lord of his life. (White pawn takes black knight).

Just because the announcer at the Chess tournament says, “white pawn takes black knight,” then should I rebuke the announcer and tell him he should know better because the pawn did not move itself?

The Big idea is that ultimate level causality is God moving everything directly. However, the Bible often speaks of relative level causality, “Oshea buys some gum at the store from Johnny.”