The inner man is one. Not three. Not a spirit penthouse, a soul apartment, and a body garage with three different landlords. Andrew Wommack has helped a lot of people, and I like him on some things about faith, healing, and miracles, and “you already in God.” However, he also teaches as a core doctrine that our identity in Christ is the three-part man. Part of why that teaching works is obvious. It tells sin-conscious Christians to stop staring at their failures the way the law trained Israel to. Hebrews 10 says the old sacrifices were repeated year after year and never cleaned the worshiper. If they could have, the guilt-feelings would have vanished. They did not. Those sacrifices actually reminded them of their sins. The New Contract does the opposite. God says He will never again remember their sins and lawless deeds. When sins have been forgiven, there is no more sacrifice. East from west. You cannot see them because they are gone. You already have the mind of Christ. You are already a new creation, already seated, already given every spiritual blessing, already a saint. Sin-consciousness after that is unbelief wearing a church name tag.
So yes, telling a beaten-down believer that one-third of you, the spirit part (not soul or mind), which is the real new you, is wall-to-wall Holy Ghost can yank them out of that old reminder-system. The problem is the slice. Wommack takes “spirit and soul and body” and turns completeness language into a spare-parts diagram. Spirit got saved. Soul is the mental-emotional leftover still waiting. Body is the old tent. One part of you is wall-to-wall Holy Ghost. Two-thirds still in the fryer. Andrew is correct in his reminders not to limit God. Unfortunately, this teaching is doing just that. One-third is too small for what God did.
The Bible says a man understood with his heart and felt with his mind. He considers with his heart. He reasons in his spirit. Either Scripture is contradicting itself, which it cannot do, or heart, mind, soul, and spirit name one inner man with more than one job. Jesus used the law of contradiction on the Pharisees about David’s Lord. Hebrews already told you there is not even a tiny whiff of contradiction allowed. If you treat interchangeable words as three separate inner persons, you manufacture one.
Vincent Cheung does a good analogy with the stomach. A stomach secretes acid and a stomach moves. Still one stomach. Digestion is not a second organ hiding behind the first. Love the Lord with all your heart and soul and mind and strength is completeness talk, the way you tell a child to clean the whole room. It is not an autopsy report that your soul lives in the closet and your mind lives in the attic. The Bible is not running a Kentucky Fried franchise on your inner man. It is not three extra-crispy pieces sitting in separate boxes.
First Thessalonians 5:23 is the verse they wave like a franchise license. “May your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless.” Whole. Complete. The same completeness grammar Jesus used when He said love the Lord with heart, soul, mind, and strength. Paul is not inventorying spare parts. He is praying the whole package arrives blameless, not that two rooms stay condemned while the spirit suite gets housekeeping. If that verse carves you into three landlords, Mark 12 carves you into four, and now you need a fifth apartment for the will. Scripture is not running a franchise. It is telling the whole man to show up. Hebrews 4:12 does not rescue the diagram. The Word divides soul and spirit the way a sword divides joints and marrow. Joints and marrow are not two animals. They are one body opened so nothing hides. The Word pierces. It does not install drywall and hand out three birth certificates.
The one who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him. Not one-third of you subletting a closet while the rest pays rent to the old man. The union is the inner man. The mind of Christ is not a guest room with a do-not-disturb sign on the soul. Peter’s incorruptible seed is the whole book rebound, not a pamphlet stapled into one chapter while two chapters sit on the counter and spoil. Romans 8:11 is the punch the diagram dodges. The Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, and He will give life to your mortal body. Not “give life to the spirit room and leave the body on the curb until the rapture.” The same Spirit holding the rebuilt propositions is already leaning on the tent. That is why healing is not a future coupon you redeem if the leftover two-thirds behave. The inner man is wall-to-wall, so the overflow hits the nerves.
Wommack’s diagram is a car with the engine saved and the transmission still in the flood. God did not buy a third of a vehicle and leave the tires in Adam. A partial renovation is zombie theology with better lighting. The corpse gets a room in the house and a name tag that says “soul, still processing.” God’s thoughts create. He considered the old man dead and the new man His righteousness, and that consideration is the ontology. He does not do partial ontology. The Holy Ghost does not babysit leftovers.
Start with God. He is Spirit. He is intellectual. Those are not two floors of the Godhead. God is not material. He is an invisible Spirit. This invisible Spirit is a system of propositions, not material stuff or up-and-down emotions. God does not have mutable emotions like a man with nerves and blood sugar. If He did, He would change. Emotions hitch more to the body, to the outer tent. The inner man images God as a system of propositions, spiritual and intellectual as the same reality. That is the soul. That is what the invisible inner man is. That is you.
Man sinned and the fall shredded the book. Subjects got taped to the wrong predicates. Darkness. Delusion. New birth is God putting the book back together in the knowledge of Christ, and then the Spirit shrink-wrapping it so it cannot rot again. Peter calls that the incorruptible seed. That seed is not a third of you vacuum-packed in a spirit-safe while two-thirds sit on the counter. That seed is you. Colossians says the new self is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its Creator. Ephesians says be renewed in the spirit of your minds and put on the new self created to be like God. Paul does not say a third of you was created in righteousness. He says the new man was. The Spirit did not renovate one room of a subdivided soul and leave two condemned. He recreated the whole inner man and then stood there as the power that keeps the whole system of propositions from ever being shredded again. Romans 12:2 renews the mind. The one inner man. Not a leftover soul waiting on a spirit roommate to finish the paperwork.
You can be lazy. You can let feelings run the house like a toddler with the car keys. The devil can yell at your nerves and you can stupidly listen and let it affect you. None of that un-creates the mind of Christ. The system of propositions has been rebuilt and the Holy Ghost is holding it. It is not held together by your willpower. You can leave the door open to allow Satan to harass you. But the new recreated system of propositions, which is the real you, the inner man, is protected by the Spirit and is incorruptible.
Peter says we partake of the divine nature through the knowledge of God. Your inner man was already created in that knowledge. When you refuse to think it, you are not being humble. You are sleeping on the porch of a house that already has your name on the deed. Romans 6 does not say feel dead to sin. It says reckon yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Consider it. Intellectually agree. That is faith. The reckoning is the inner man agreeing with God’s verdict, not a spirit whispering past a stubborn soul that never got the memo. You are not schizophrenic; your inner man is one. The flesh will scream that sin is still in charge, and if you stay on this fleshly focus, you will become delusional and it might “feel” like there is a second distinct part of your inner man; that is a lie from the pits of hell, and Satan thinks you are dumb enough to fall for it. But you will not. You are strong. God has given you a sound mind and an incorruptible mind. The verse still says that Grace has dominion and control over you, not something else.
The more you renew your mind on the Word, the more the Spirit keeps saying yes inside you — yes, you are a child, yes, these promises are yours, yes, this is who you are.
The inner man is one, and that one is already new, already held, already incorruptible, already wall-to-wall Holy Ghost.
I saw a post today calling Vincent Cheung and Gordon Clark “hyper” on God’s sovereignty, as if they had cleared the Reformed fence and run off with the livestock. The picture in that post was already more honest than the accusation. A. W. Pink barely fits inside the fence. He is scraping the rail. Jonathan Edwards is halfway in and halfway out, because occasionalism will not stay seated where the confession wants it. Then Clark, and particularly Vincent, are the ones said to have jumped. Jumped what? Jumped the fence of Reformed tradition and Reformed orthodoxy. That is the whole charge. The word “hyper” is doing the dishonest work. It is not hyper relative to Scripture. It is hyper relative to a confession, a century, a mood in the study. Scripture never got the memo that there was an upper bound short of “all.”
Here is the flip they will not make. They say Vincent jumped the fence of Reformed tradition. What they have done, by denying the inference, is jump and leave the fence of Scripture. You cannot deny the inference without denying the major premise the text affirms. Tradition is the pen they are defending. Scripture is the fence they left. We do not grade doctrine by how nervous Westminster got. We grade it by what the text says, and then we let the inference land where the text already put it.
Rhetoric is an add-on. It comes after the statement is clear. Most of the time you find people holding a handful of rhetoric with no clear statement underneath it. Strip the rhetoric and you are back in grammar school. Start with the category. All, some, or none. The Bible’s category is all.
Ephesians 1:11: God works all things according to the counsel of His will. Not some things, with a polite exemption for the awkward ones. All. Isaiah 45 does not clear its throat and say, “I form the light and then carefully distance myself from the darkness by means of a secondary cause and a mystery box.” It says, “I form light and I create darkness; I make peace and I create evil; I am Yahweh; I do all these things” (Isaiah 45:7). And He does not say it once, as a stray line. Isaiah 46 picks it up again: “I am God and there is none besides me, God and there is none like me, who from the beginning declares the end… My plan shall stand, and I will accomplish all my wishes,” and then He calls a bird of prey from the east and the man of His plan from a far country. “I have spoken; I will bring it to being. I have formed it; I will do it” (Isaiah 46:9–11). That is the motif. “None besides me” is not a slogan about monotheism in the abstract. In the context, it is His own definition of what it means that He is God. He created. He is now grasping and pushing the creation. He knows the future because there is no other real cause that can stop the plan. Control over humans, human choices, good, evil, and material things. To say there is no dualism in Christian ontology is only a philosophy way of saying the Scriptural line, “There is none besides me.”
It is not only the prophet and the king. Psalm 104 is not a throne-room vision. It is the night. “You make darkness, and it is night, when all the beasts of the forest creep about. The young lions roar for their prey, seeking their food from God” (Psalm 104:20–21). The lion does not forage from a system God wound up and walked away from. He seeks his food from God. That is the cleanest line in the Book for the ordinary meal. The same hand that forms light and creates darkness puts the prey in the mouth of the predator.
The same is true in the realm of knowledge. God first put knowledge in the man, and He continues to put it there. It is not observation climbing up into a blank mind. Isaiah 28 walks through the farmer. He does not plow all day. He levels the surface. He scatters dill, sows cumin, puts wheat in rows, barley in its place, and emmer as the border. “He is rightly instructed; his God teaches him… For he is rightly instructed; his God teaches him. Dill is not threshed with a threshing sledge… This also comes from the LORD of hosts; he is wonderful in counsel and excellent in wisdom” (Isaiah 28:26–29). Practical knowledge, the kind a man uses with his hands, is God teaching him. Spiritual knowledge is the same causality with the lights turned up. “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). The god of this age blinds. God shines. The knowledge is put in. It is not scraped off the surface of things. And God withholds it the same way He gives it. “The wings of the ostrich wave proudly, but are they the pinions and plumage of love? … For God has made her forget wisdom and given her no share in understanding” (Job 39:13–17). The ostrich is not uninformed because she skipped class. God did not give her the share.
Whether it is invisible knowledge, or a random eagle that no man sees leaving the cliff, God says He does it. “Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars and spreads his wings toward the south? Is it at your command that the eagle mounts up and makes his nest on high? On the rock he dwells and makes his home, on the rocky crag and stronghold. From there he spies out the prey; his eyes behold it from far away” (Job 39:26–29). Not by your understanding. At His command. The text’s other picture is the bird of prey He calls, and the man of His plan He summons (Isaiah 46:11). Even rain is not a natural leak from a cloud that God then permits. Jeremiah asks the question and answers it. “Are there any among the idols of the nations who cause rain to pour? Or can the heavens give showers? Is it not you, O Yahweh our God? Therefore we hope in you, for you do all these things” (Jeremiah 14:22). The sky, the wind, the water, and the cloud are put on the same shelf as the wooden idol. They have no inherent power to cause the shower. Yahweh does all these things. And in all these things, the lion’s meal, the farmer’s rows, the light shone in the heart, the wisdom withheld from the ostrich, the eagle leaving a cliff no man is watching, there is none besides God.
Scripture shows Him directly and absolutely controlling, creating, and causing reality at every basic level. I say basic because there are potentially infinite aspects of reality, and the Bible would be infinitely long if it had to narrate every one. In light of who God is, it only has to show Him controlling the basic aspects to conclude that He controls all. Some verses simply say the all. “In him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). “He sustains all things by the word of His power” (Hebrews 1:3). That includes the inside of the thoughts, the subject and the predicate and the desire. “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the LORD; he turns it wherever he will” (Proverbs 21:1). If He turns the height of man, He turns the rest. It includes the random act, the card and the dice. “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). It includes the destiny before the man is born. “Though they were not yet born and had done nothing either good or bad… not because of works but because of him who calls” (Romans 9:11). Paul took a few verses from the Old Testament in Romans 3 and said, “all have sinned.” When God, at every basic part of spiritual and material reality, says “I control this,” and then says there is none besides Him who does it, the doctrine is that He controls all things. The clay does not get a vote, and the clay does not get to call the potter hyper for using both hands. Isaiah 45 already asked the question. “Does the clay say to the one who fashions it, ‘What are you making?’ and ‘Your work has no hands’?” (Isaiah 45:9). Romans 9 starts the lump neutral, before they had done good or evil, and the Potter makes one vessel for mercy and one for destruction. Paul’s opponent understood the position perfectly: who has resisted His will? Paul does not walk it back. He tells the object to stop answering back to the One who molded it.
So the category statement is this:
All things are things directly controlled by God.
Sin is a thing. Evil is a thing. Adam’s fall is a thing that happened. David’s census is a thing that happened. The lying spirit in Ahab’s prophets is a thing that happened, and the text does not say the LORD allowed it to wander in. It says the LORD put it there. Job’s friends comforted him for all the evil the LORD had brought on him, and that line is not one of the bad counselors. It is the narrator, under inspiration, closing the book. If all things are things God controls, then these things are things God controls. The “all” already contained them.
And the inference is not a commentary on the Bible. It is what the Bible asserts. A logical deduction adds no new information. It points at what the premise already swallowed. So the Bible asserts that Oshea sinned, through the major premise that all have sinned, and that assertion is just as binding as if the text said, “Oshea has sinned.” They are equally statements given by Scripture. One is not less Scripture than the other. Oshea’s sin is not less Scripture than “all have sinned,” because Oshea is already contained in the major premise. Same grammar, same authority, on the decree. “God caused this sin” is not less Scripture than “God works all things.” Denying the particular is denying the verse. You did not protect the text. You left it.
This is where the classic move shows its hand. They want the major premise. They will print “God is sovereign over all” on the wall. Then they see where the inference goes, and they suddenly discover a zone where logic is asked to clock out and sit in the hallway. If God controls all things, then God controls sin and evil. That is the definition of metaphysical authorship. They like the poster. They hate the homework. So they affirm the universal and deny the particular, and they call the man who refused to do that the one who jumped the fence. He did not. They did. They jumped the fence of Scripture the moment the particular was exempted.
Watch the same trick somewhere they cannot hide. Paul says all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Category form: all humans are those who have sinned. Therefore Oshea has sinned, and that “therefore” is Scripture, not an optional garnish. Now suppose I keep the major premise, because it sounds orthodox, and then I announce that John Wesley never sinned, John Calvin never sinned, Billy Graham never sinned, Andrew Wommack never sinned. I have not protected the text. I have denied it. Denying the consequent denies the antecedent. A categorical syllogism and a propositional one are the same coin. Flip one face and the other face is gone. Paul already ran this play in 1 Corinthians 15. Deny the resurrection of the dead and you have already denied that Christ was raised. You do not get a participation trophy for affirming the opening line while strangling every particular that makes the opening line true.
If the inference can be denied, then the Bible can say God is God of gods and Lord of lords, and there can still be some gods He is not God over and some lords He is not Lord over. Deuteronomy 10, Psalm 136, 1 Timothy 6, and Revelation 17 all become posters on a wall. The moment you exempt one lord, “Lord of lords” was a hymn, not a doctrine. If the inference can be denied, then Jesus is the Savior of all who believe, and John Wesley is saved, Billy Graham is saved, Andrew Wommack is saved, and Jesus is not their Savior. You kept the slogan and fired the Person. If the inference can be denied, then all the saints will be with Christ, and Wesley is a saint, and Wesley is in hell. The marriage supper still has a place card with his name on it, and the place card is a lie. If the inference can be denied, then by His stripes you were healed, the “you” of Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2:24, and the stripes were not for Billy Graham, and the stripes were not for Andrew Wommack, and Matthew 8:17 carried sickness for a category that somehow does not contain the people in the category. If the inference can be denied, then the Ten Commandments address all human beings, the law speaks so that every mouth is stopped, and there is a province in Asia full of human beings the commandments never reached. If the inference can be denied, then there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, and Wesley is in Christ, and Wesley is condemned. If the inference can be denied, then whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved, and Graham called, and Graham is not saved. On and on. There is no exit. Every universal in the Book dies the same death the moment one particular is handed a hall pass.
If inference is not always binding, then it is not always true that every human has sinned, and Wesley gets his exemption, and a village in Asia gets a vacation from the Ten Commandments, and the God of gods has a few lords He does not lord. If that is not allowed, then inference is always binding. You do not get to suspend it when the particular is sin and the universal is God’s control. The Bible uses this grammar on purpose. Jesus appeals to the law of non-contradiction. Grace is not law. Law is not grace. A thing is not its contradictory. If you say the inference does not always matter, you have already said the major premise does not always matter. You just said it with a hymnbook in your hand. If God is not the author of sin, then the laws of identity and contradiction are not always binding and so grace really is works, and works is also grace.
Some try to slip out by saying the major premise only needs a qualification. Nothing wrong with the premise, they say. It just needs clarity. An exception to the rule. Here is the problem. If you say all humans are those who have sinned, and then you say there is a group in East Africa who have never sinned, even though they are humans, you did not qualify the premise. You contradicted it. “All humans are those who have sinned” and “some humans have not sinned” cannot both be true of the same subject in the same respect. Calling the second sentence clarity, a qualification, or a nuance does not change the relation. It still denies what the first affirmed. It still violates identity and non-contradiction.
A real qualification changes the subject or the predicate before the universal is asserted. “All morally accountable humans have sinned” is a different claim from “all humans have sinned.” The class was narrowed first. By saying “All morally accountable humans have sinned,” one leaves room in the major premise for some humans who are not morally accountable, such as a particular village in Asia. With that being the case, it would not be a contradiction to say some humans are not accountable.
However, what the objector does is different. He affirms the universal, then adds a member of the same class that lacks the predicate. The same holds for sovereignty. “God is absolutely sovereign” and “all things are things controlled by God” already fix the predicate. Absolute means without remainder. All means every member of the class. To follow that with “some things are not controlled by God,” or “human choices fall outside His control,” or “evil is an exception,” is not to refine the claim. It is to assert that the same subject both has and lacks the same predicate. Partial control is a coherent idea. It is simply a different idea. It is the claim that God controls some things and not others. Anyone is free to defend that claim. What he is not free to do is defend it under the name of absolute sovereignty, as if the exception were a footnote rather than a replacement of the predicate. The word “absolute” does not survive the exception. Once the exception is admitted, the proposition on the table is no longer the one that was stated.
So here is the tell. If Reformed theology affirms that all things are things controlled by God, and then refuses the inference that sin and evil are included in the all, it never affirmed the major premise. It affirmed a slogan, and then left the fence of Scripture while accusing the consistent reader of leaving the fence of tradition. Pink is already on the rail. Edwards already has a foot out, because occasionalism is just the premise being allowed to mean what it says. Vincent did not jump Scripture. The bounds of Scripture are “all.” The man who stops the syllogism where the confession gets sweaty is the one who left.
And the panic underneath the denial is a category smash. “If God authors sin, then God is a sinner.” Sin is lawlessness, 1 John 3:4. Lawlessness is a man breaking a command addressed to man. No law was ever addressed to God. There is no authority over Him to hold Him to one. Accusing the Author of being the sinner is the same move as calling the novelist a lion because he wrote a lion, or calling God a river because He caused a river. God is not what He authors. God is not what He causes. If that sentence feels hard, it is because pantheism has been sitting in the chair where Scripture should be. How much slower is the color green than the number 7? That is the intellectual level of “God sinned by causing a man to sin.” Ex lex is already too small. The potential of a law over God does not exist. Holy, holy, holy is categorical separation, not a really impressive compliance record.
As Vincent Cheung as talk us, accountability does not rescue the denial either. Romans 9 is asked the question in plain speech. If God causes it, why does He still find fault? Paul’s answer is not freedom. The answer is the Potter. Responsibility assumes a sovereign over you, not a zone He is forbidden to touch. Pharaoh did not resist the causality. He was still judged. The elect do not resist the Spirit who sanctifies them. Same metaphysics, opposite vessel. Freedom was never the foundation. Authority was.
This is not a puzzle for the back of the book. If God causes all things, then He caused the fall, the census, the lying spirit, the hardening, the disaster, and the prosperity. If you will not say that, you do not believe Ephesians 1:11. You believe an edited version that keeps the religious reputation and hands the awkward verses to mystery. Mystery is what you say when you have already denied the premise and you need a religious word for the violation of identity and non-contradiction. You would not let a man do this to “all have sinned.” You would not let him say that “Oshea has sinned” is less Scripture than the verse that contains it. You would not let him do it to the stripes on Jesus’ back. You would not let him do it to the God of gods. Do not let him do it to the decree, or to God’s control of every aspect of reality.
Affirm the inference or stop claiming the premise. There is no third category. All, or you have already slipped into some, and some is dualism with a Reformed accent. The God of Scripture is not embarrassed by His own decrees. He forms the light and creates the darkness, and He does not ask the clay to proofread the work. Believe Him as He has spoken. Then take the pen He put in your hand, the promises already yes in Jesus, and command the mountain. The same sovereignty that authored the story is the sovereignty that backed the stripes, the resurrection, and the authority He gave you. So, open your mouth and command the mountain to get out of your way. Tell sickness to leave and be healed and happy.
When Scripture declares it’s impossible for God to lie (Hebrews 6:18), it’s not slapping a limitation on Him like some cosmic speed limit; rather, it’s positively affirming that He is truth incarnate, the Logic through whom all reality logically follows (John 1:1). This Logos isn’t some vague ideal—it’s the very Law of Non-Contradiction in divine personhood. The law of non-contradiction is simply naming a constant motion of God’s mind or describing how the premises in God’s system-of-thinking is always arranged in, and then giving a name to that constant motion or ordering. Because this motion is so constant in His own Mind, if we don’t follow that motion, then we stop thinking; we stop ceasing being a mind. Meaning God doesn’t affirm and deny the same thing simultaneously, to do otherwise is to be non-God. Because God is the law of noncontradiction, it means He is not anti-logic. Or to say it another way, because God is God, He is not non-God.
Also, His power isn’t a separate toolbox He dips into when the mood strikes; no, His choices and His omnipotence, are the same thing; they are perfect oneness. What He decrees isn’t a casual suggestion that might fizzle out—it’s as eternally binding and real as His own existence. That’s why in Romans 9:17, Paul personifies Scripture as directly confronting Pharaoh, when it was God who did so; thus scripture is regarded as God Himself. In Galatians 3:8, Scripture “foresaw” and “announced” the gospel to Abraham, when it was God who told those things. Frankly, to treat God’s word as anything less is like trying to separate the heat from the fire—you end up with neither.
Now, tether this to the prayer of faith for healing, and the necessity becomes glaringly obvious, almost comically so if it weren’t so profound. If God’s nature is necessary—meaning He must be truthful, logical, and all-powerful without contradiction—then His fulfillment of faith-filled prayers is equally non-negotiable. James 5:15 doesn’t hedge with “might” or “if it aligns with some mysterious plan”; it boldly states the prayer of faith will heal the sick, period. This flows straight from God’s self-sworn oath to Abraham, expanded in the New Covenant through Christ’s atonement, where Jesus bore our infirmities so we wouldn’t have to (Isaiah 53:4-5). To suggest otherwise—that God could promise healing on demand of faith but then withhold it—would make Him a cosmic bait-and-switch artist, violating His own non-contradictory nature. It would be the same as saying God is also non-God. It’s the kind of theology that leaves folks limping along in unbelief, blaming “God’s will” when the real culprit is their own hesitation to grab hold of His word. But for those who get it, this necessity isn’t a burden; it’s liberation, turning every prayer into a direct line to the God who isn’t non-God.
Answered prayers aren’t some optional perk in the Christian life, like an extra scoop of ice cream on your sundae. No, they’re woven into the very fabric of who God is—His unchangeable nature, His unbreakable promises, and His absolute sovereignty. If God is truth, if He’s the Logos who spoke creation into being, then His word isn’t just reliable; it’s as necessary as His existence is necessary. Deny that, and you’re not just doubting prayer—you’re tinkering with the nature and existence of God Himself. And trust me, that’s a fool’s errand, like trying to outwit gravity while jumping off a cliff.
Take Luke 13:16, where Jesus heals a woman bent over for 18 years. He doesn’t frame it as a nice gesture or a sign to wow the crowd. Instead, He declares it “necessary” because she’s a daughter of Abraham. Necessary? That’s a strong word. It’s the kind of language you use for gravity pulling you down or the sun rising in the east. Why? Because God swore by Himself to Abraham—a promise of blessings that includes healing, prosperity, and miracles, as Galatians 3 spells out. God doesn’t make casual vows; He stakes His own name on them. Hebrews 6:13-18 drives this home: God swore by Himself since there’s no one greater, and it’s “impossible for God to lie.” His resolve is unchangeable, sealed with an oath. So, when Jesus heals her, it’s not optional—it’s God being faithful to His word, which is as integral to Him as His power, logic, infinity, immutability or eternity.
Now, picture this: God, the ultimate sovereign, predestines everything down to the last atom’s twitch. Yet, in His wisdom, He ties answered prayers to faith, making them a direct outflow of His nature. It’s not that our faith twists God’s arm. He relates to us on our level, so that faith unlocks what He’s already decreed. Jesus says in Mark 11:24, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” That’s not hyperbole—it’s the blueprint. If God’s nature is truth, then His promises aren’t pie-in-the-sky wishes; they’re ironclad necessities. Deny answered prayers on demand of faith, and you’re saying God is also non-God, or affirming a square is a circle.
This ties into the broader theology of God’s sovereignty, which isn’t some cold, fatalistic machine but a personal, intellectual decree from a God who’s “really, really intelligent.” In Systematic Theology, we see that God’s decrees aren’t arbitrary; they’re the logic of His causality, flowing from His attributes like immutability and love. He hates sickness as much as sin because both stem from the Fall, and He’s sworn to crush them under the New Covenant. Jesus bore our infirmities (Isaiah 53:4-5, as Matthew 8:17 applies it), so healing isn’t a maybe—it’s a must when faith aligns with His promise. Cessationists might squirm here, arguing miracles were just to confirm the message, but that’s like saying the sun only shines to wake you up in the morning. No, miracles are part of Abraham’s blessing, ongoing and necessary because God’s oath doesn’t expire. To say God’s promise has expired is to say God has expired. God say God doesn’t heal on the demand of faith, because that has expired is to say God has expired. As Paul notes in Galatians 3, we’re grafted in, so the Spirit and miracles are our inheritance. To say otherwise is to call God, non-God.
Consider the flip side: unbelief blocks miracles, as Jesus “could not” do many in His hometown (Mark 6:5-6). Not “would not”—could not. Why? Because the way God sovereignly decides to relations to us in on the relative level; and on this level faith is how we relate back to Him. Thus, faith is “how” His power flows to us. It’s not limiting God; it’s honoring how He set up the system. If answered prayers weren’t necessary, Jesus wouldn’t have rebuked the disciples for their lack. In John 14:12-14, He promises believers will do greater works, asking anything in His name. It’s the necessity of God shining through us. Deny it, and you’re left with a gutted gospel—forgiveness without power, like a car without an engine. Amusing in theory, but useless on the road.
Hebrews reinforces this: God wants to show the “unchangeableness of His resolve” through answered prayers, giving us “powerful encouragement” (6:17-18). It’s not about us earning it; it’s about God being God. His nature demands He fulfill what He swore—blessings for the heirs, including healing on faith’s demand. James 5:15 echoes: the prayer of faith will heal the sick. Will, not might. That’s necessity baked in. If God is immutable, then His yes is yes (Matthew 5:37). To waffle on this is to embrace superstition, like those who twist “God’s will” into fatalism: “Pray, but whatever happens will sovereignly happens.”. That’s not sovereignty; that’s Eastern mysticism disguised as a Christian drag queen. God’s sovereignty is the same as His choices and the same as Him being the law of non-contradiction; thus His sovereign decrees are specific—like healing for faith—and delivers, without being contradictive.
In the end, answered prayers are as necessary as God’s nature is necessary. As a daughter or son of Abraham through Christ, claim it. God swore by Himself—He is true, He is the law of non-contradiction. So pray boldly, believe fiercely, and watch reality bend to His word. It’s not magic; it’s reality bowing faith. And if that sounds too good, remember: God’s goodness, is bigger than our doubts and it is bigger than reality.
The Logic of Necessity: God’s Oaths and Our Faith
Diving deeper, let’s unpack the logic. God’s promise to Abraham isn’t a vague nod; it’s a deductive powerhouse. Premise: God swears by Himself to bless Abraham’s seed (Genesis 22:16-18). Premise: We’re that seed through faith in Christ (Galatians 3:29). Conclusion: Blessings, including miracles and the Spirit, are ours. Hebrews 6 seals it: two unchangeable things—His promise and oath—make it impossible for God to deceive. Impossible. That’s the law of non-contradiction at work: God can’t be true and false simultaneously.
So, when Jesus says it’s “necessary” to heal Abraham’s daughter, He’s applying this logic. Satan’s bondage? Unacceptable under the oath. Faith releases it because God’s nature necessitates fulfillment. The faithless try to dodge—”that was then. Paul’s Galatians argument hammers it: miracles aren’t apostolic perks; they’re Abrahamic promises, post-cross. To sideline them is to sideline God’s integrity, immutability, eternality, infinity, sovereignty and logic.
Frankly, too many theologians play word games, diluting “necessary” to “maybe if God’s in the mood.” But Scripture’s frank: God’s mood is His word. He wants us healed, prosperous, empowered—more than we do. Remember the bible’s maximum, “All things are possible for people with faith.” Why? Because God’s nature makes it so. Deny answered prayers, and you’re denying the God who swore them into being.
Practical Punch: Living the Necessity
How do we live this? Start with confession: affirm God’s oaths as your reality. Psalm 103:2-3—He forgives all sins, heals all diseases. Not some; all. Pray with that necessity in mind. If doubt creeps, cry like the father in Mark 9: “Help my unbelief!” Jesus honored that—necessity met honesty with miracle.
In ethics, this means obedience: faith isn’t optional; it’s commanded. Resist Satan (James 4:7), heal the sick (Matthew 10:8). It’s not showboating; it’s aligning with God’s unchangeable resolve.
Ultimately, answered prayers glorify God, by affirming God is God. They’re necessary because He is. The faithless unanswered prayer doctrine affirm God is non-God.
After my own studies and discussions with Grok xAI, I’ll outline a step-by-step breakdown of modern science. Some still believe science is rational, deductive, and logical. We’ll dissect the process and reveal it’s anti-logical from start to finish, despite using modus tollens.
Karl Popper exposed the anti-logical nature of scientific experimentation, particularly the nonsense of affirming the consequent. To counter induction’s irrationality and this fallacy, Popper proposed scientists use modus tollens to invalidate hypotheses. Modus tollens is a valid deductive form. Yet, if you lack upfront truth, affirming the consequent is the only way to positively affirm a claim, if the logic is to correctly correspond to your actions. Popper aimed to minimize this by favoring deduction. The catch? At best, modus tollens can say something is wrong—it can’t confirm truth. Today, top scientists recognize induction and science’s irrationality, leaning into falsification for better experiments.
If we admit science offers no truth, only pragmatic usefulness, then adding modus tollens at the end enhances practical outcomes. We support this. As noted, science fulfils God’s command to dominate the world for practical benefits—a blessing He ordained. But that’s all science is. Even when its utility seems impressive, its statements about reality are false.
Since the scientific process is rooted in inductive and observational fallacies, it’s irrational and anti-logic. Slapping modus tollens on the end doesn’t erase this irrationality; it just improves pragmatic results. It’s right to acknowledge science’s baked-in anti-logic and compensate with deduction—if we clarify this is for usefulness, not knowledge.
Before detailing the process, let’s define falsification. Grok xAI (2024) put it this way: “The origin of falsification, per Popper, is rooted in the idea that a hypothesis must be scientific if an experiment or observation could prove it false. This was a direct jab at the inductivists and verificationists of his time. Popper’s philosophy was like saying, ‘Science isn’t about piling up evidence for your theory; it’s about daring it to fail.’” This is accurate but needs unpacking to avoid confusion. Popper critiqued scientific experimentation (i.e., “verification”) that relied wholly on affirming the consequent to link hypotheses to reality.”
Grok calls it a “jab at inductivists,” which can mislead. Even with modus tollens, science remains overwhelmingly inductive. Though Popper shifted “verification” to the “pre-hypothesis” stage rather than the endpoint, falsification swims in a sea of inductive reasoning and observation. Grok was correct that “Popper would have it… it must be possible to conceive of an experiment or observation that could prove it false.” Popper’s falsification operates within “inductive observation” and “inductive experiment.”
Thus, despite jabbing inductivists, Popper’s method still employs induction. Science isn’t one thing—it’s a process. I once heard a scientist claim, “Science is only deductive because it’s only about falsification, specifically modus tollens.” This misrepresents Popper’s approach, which integrates induction and observation. When I asked Grok (2024), it responded, “Absolutely not! Popper argued a theory must be falsifiable, aligning with modus tollens’ deductive logic to disprove it. But induction isn’t sidelined:
Initial Phase: Science starts with observation and inductive reasoning to form hypotheses.
Ongoing Nature: As hypotheses are tested, scientists refine them with new observations and inductive leaps, keeping induction central.” Since falsification uses induction, it’s inherently irrational, violating the laws of identity and contradiction. It’s a systematic affirmation of false premises in unsound arguments, pretending to deny something.
Calling “science deductive” is false. I wouldn’t even say it’s inductive and deductive—its “deduction” is unsound. I wouldn’t label an unsound argument deductive unless we’re pretending in a fantasy world. Generously, we could call science heavily inductive with some deduction tacked on.
This matters for Christians. The Bible uses only sound arguments, rejects induction’s anti-logic, and shows our observations can be wrong. It dismisses empirical observation and induction for knowledge. Thus, falsification isn’t a biblical standard and can’t yield knowledge. Some fools hybridize this irrational human method with the Bible’s rational approach, claiming falsification aids understanding Scripture and truth. This is blasphemy—melding the irrational with God’s rational system defames His mind as irrational or endorsing irrationality. Similarly, fake presuppositionalists claim the Bible ratifies observation and empiricism for knowledge—nonsense.
Another reason to reject falsification: its maxim—“something must be provably wrong to have credibility”—is false. The law of contradiction (LoC) isn’t falsifiable; denying it requires using it. Self-authenticating truths, like the LoC, render falsification inapplicable. At best, falsification fits inductive observations. The Bible, as shown in epistemology, is self-authenticating—unfalsifiable. It can’t be proven wrong because any attempt presupposes it; Scripture declares itself true and all else false. We don’t use falsification to read the Bible or find truth. If it’s such a great rule for Christians, why doesn’t its maxim apply to Scripture?
Note the maxim says “for credibility,” not “to prove true.” Falsification is negative—it can’t produce positive claims without violating logic. Since the Bible rejects observation, empiricism, and induction for knowledge, and falsification uses them, Christians don’t employ it for knowledge. Even using modus tollens—directly, in reductio ad absurdum, or falsification—is only negative, offering no positive truth. When someone says, “I don’t see God healing today,” it’s wrong not because of falsification but because Scripture rejects inductive observation outright.
There’s nothing wrong with modus tollens to show something is false—Scripture uses this deduction. St. Augustine and Paul (1 Corinthians 15) did too, free of empiricism or observation assumptions. But if someone uses empiricism as a standard, showing documented healings should convince them if they’re consistent. We can use modus tollens to refute them with their own flawed epistemology. The catch? Induction’s conclusions don’t logically follow premises, so they can reject evidence due to its inherent uncertainty. Even a deductive argument using observation—ours or theirs—becomes unsound, leaving conclusions skeptical. Induction offers no logical binding to accept any conclusion—you can dismiss or embrace as you please.
As a Christian, the Bible says God heals, and on faith’s demand, He will (John 15: Jesus predestined us to ask and receive). I expect healings. My observations are private knowledge—and if I applied these with deductions from Scripture “for myself,” then my self-knowledge is what the bible asserts. But shifting private to public knowledge violates logic’s laws. Scripture alone is our starting point for knowledge about healing. Anyone using inductive observations to argue miracle healing is a fool, rejecting the Bible as the sole epistemic foundation.[1] Such debates aren’t about healing but epistemology—Scripture’s deductive logic versus induction’s fallacy. Tell them they’ve abandoned Christian doctrine on knowledge and logic; if they don’t repent, boycott and excommunicate them.
The Scientific Process
Observation and Hypothesis Formation (Inductive Step)
Note: “Scientific experimentation (affirming the consequent)” has been pushed back to “hypothesis formation.” Scientists observe phenomena in nature or data, noticing that when event A occurs, phenomenon B follows. This resembles affirming the consequent: “If A, then B; B happens, so A caused it.”
Example 1: (A) Rain occurs, (B) my yard gets wet. (B) I see my yard wet, so I hypothesize (A) it rained.
Example 2: (A) Bacteria add chemical X to solution H, (B) it turns red. (B) I see it red, so I hypothesize (A) bacteria added X.
Formulating the Hypothesis (Setting Up for Modus Ponens)
Initially, scientists observe B (a fallacy) to check their idea. If testing’s possible, they run preliminary affirming-the-consequent experiments for merit. Then, they frame hypotheses as modus ponens: “If A, then B; A, thus B.” They pretend a necessary connection exists to apply modus tollens later—not to affirm the consequent but to predict outcomes. They say, “If hypothesis (A) is true, under these conditions, we’ll see (B).” In layman’s terms, this is logical voodoo, a void, or superstition. Two ways this bait-and-switch happens:
Vincent Cheung’s Example (A Gang of Pandas):
“If (A) is a cause, then (B) is a result. B happens, thus A caused it.”
Restated as modus ponens with B and A flipped, using a false conclusion to build an argument.
Direct Pretence: Pretending inductive “If A, then B” is real or pretend it’s a necessary connection. This is like misstating a math problem to reflect reality. If I buy 4 apples at $1 each, calling it calculus is delusional if it doesn’t match reality. Scientists engage reality via affirming the consequent due to observation—they can’t avoid it. Restating it as modus ponens is delusional because it doesn’t mirror their actual interaction with phenomena.
Experimental Design (Testing via Modus Ponens)
Scientists design experiments controlling A to see if B follows, mimicking modus ponens:
If hypothesis A is true, under specific conditions, B occurs (If A, then B).
They ensure A is present.
They check if B happens (A leads to B). This isn’t just to affirm the hypothesis (a fallacy) but to test predictions under control. Yet, problems still abound:
The setup stems from a fallacy—using a false conclusion from observation and affirming the consequent to fake a connection. This restated logic doesn’t reflect their real-world engagement; it’s fabricated.
They only pretend it’s modus ponens—in name only. Some admit the connection is merely sufficient, making falsification tentative, not necessary, contradicting the very definition of logical inference.
Controlled tests can’t rule out infinite unknowns (e.g., heat affecting results unbeknownst to a scientist ignorant of it). Vincent Cheung notes, “The idea is simple. To know that any experiment is “constructed properly” the scientist’s knowledge must be “bigger” than the experiment. But if his knowledge is already “bigger” than the experiment, then he hardly needs to perform the experiment to gain knowledge that is limited by the experiment. The only way to be sure that one has identified and controlled all variables that may affect the experiment is to possess omniscience. The conclusion is that only God can tell us about the universe.”[2]
Falsification Attempts (Modus Tollens)
Here’s the shift:
If B doesn’t occur when A is present: “If A, then B; not B, therefore not A” (hypothesis falsified). Scientists aim to confirm hypotheses (affirming the consequent), but better ones seek disproof. Misaligned results falsify, and this leads to rethinking and refinement. Yet observation and affirming-the-consequent thinking build the argument for falsification. Induction underpins science’s foundation and definition. The “deductive” arguments are unsound—born from false conclusions, misrepresenting reality. It’s deduction by pretence. Before falsification, the hypothesis’s necessary connection is unknown. Falsification deems it wrong, which says little. The experimental connection has two interpretations:
If honest (connection is sufficient or a guess), falsification is uncertain, not necessary—violating deduction’s essence.
If claiming necessity, it’s pretence, falsifying only a pretend reality, breaching contradiction and identity laws.
Finally, saying “laws are formulated by falsification” is a non-sequitur. Negative propositions can’t yield positives without adding information—violating logic. Laws from falsification can only say “this isn’t that.” Positive laws from falsification defy logic; negative isn’t positive.
The point is that observation and affirming the consequent thinking and testing is involved in formulating the argument that will be tested by falsification. Thus, induction is both the foundation of science and therefore involved in the definition of science. The so-called deductive arguments are unsound, because they are created by false conclusions and the logic does not reflect their interaction with reality. It is deduction only by pretending. Before falsification is used, it is not known if the major premise of the syllogism (hypothesis) has a necessary connection. Falsification says this unsound argument is wrong. which is not really saying that much.
The connection in their experiment can be taken in two ways. If they are honest and admit the connection, at the very best is sufficient or a guess, then if falsification is used, the falsification is only a guess, but not a necessary falsification. This violates the very definition of deduction, which is necessary. If they insist the falsification is necessary, then they violate the laws of contradiction and identity. If they want to insist their connection in their experiment is necessary, then it is only by pretending. Thus, if they use falsification, it is only falsifying a pretend reality.
Lastly, there is the part where scientists say, “laws… are formulated by falsification.” This is false. It is a non-sequitur fallacy. Remember our rules for category syllogisms? We talked about distribution of terms but also the quality and quantity of a syllogism. If the propositions of an argument are negative, you cannot get a positive out of it. The same here. Falsification can only say, this is wrong, but to then turn around and say we have a law that says, “this is this,” is to add more information than what the argument says. Laws, formulated by falsification can only say at best, “this is not that.” Every positive law stated by scientists using falsification is a violation of the laws of logic. To say negative is a positive is anti-logic.
[1] This is different from starting with the truth given by scripture, and then present your healing as “testimony” that agrees with the truth. You are saying the bible is the proof, and my testimony agrees with the truth, not the other way around.
[2] Vincent Cheung. A Gang of Pandas. Sermonettes Vol.1.
I asked Grok AI, “conclusions that do not logically follow from premises, do they adhere to the laws of contradiction and identity?”
The AI response correctly with:
“Conclusions that do not logically follow from premises, by definition, do not adhere to the principles of:
Law of Identity: If a conclusion changes or misrepresents what is being discussed or the nature of the entities involved in the premises, it fails to respect the law of identity. This law asserts that something is itself and its properties remain consistent. If the conclusion introduces or alters these properties in a way not supported by the premises, it’s not maintaining identity.
Law of Non-Contradiction: If the conclusion contradicts either the premises or itself, it clearly violates the law of non-contradiction, which states that contradictory statements cannot both be true in the same sense at the same time. A conclusion that defies the premises would be contradictory.
For example:
Premise: All dogs have fur.
Non-logical Conclusion: Therefore, some dogs have feathers.
Here, the conclusion does not adhere to:
Identity: It changes or misrepresents what it means to be a dog (with fur) by suggesting they might have feathers.
Non-Contradiction: It contradicts the premise that all dogs have fur by implying some could have feathers.
So, no, conclusions that do not logically follow from premises typically do not adhere to these fundamental laws of logic. “
——-
This is interesting because Science uses induction, which by definition, the conclusion does not logically follow from the premises. Scientific experimentation, which is affirming the consequent, does not logically follow from the premises. Observation is based on inductive logic.
This means science is a repeated and systematic denying of the laws of contradiction and identity. Scientist will try to get around this by saying we do not change “some” observations in the premise to an “all” in the conclusion, but a to “likely,” or “probable” In my experience they do in fact mean an “all,” because when they publish their journals they restate their past conclusions as Modus Ponens. However, we will ignore this. It still violates the law of contradiction and identity to go from “some” and change it to “likely.” This also is ignoring the other category errors such as “past tense observations” to conclusions about present and future tense., and etc. This is why science is not a body of knowledge.
If the laws of identity and contradiction should be so easily violated, then when Paul says grace, he does not mean grace, but something else like fish. When he says works, he really does not mean works but something else like grace. And so the statement “Jesus is the son of God,” means Jesus is not the son of God. Even though Jesus’ argument (Matthew 22:32) hinged on the identity of a “present tense” premise, it should be fine to conclude in the past tense; therefore God is not the God of the living, because He was the God of Jacob and not that He is the God of Jacob. When the bible says all our sins are forgiven, it is logical to say, they are probably forgiven, right? Induction says it is intelligent to make “past to present,” and “some to probable” interchangeable. Thus, that is how we read the bible, right?
Beyond the direct violation of contradiction and identity, this also leads to skepticism at the epistemology level. And skepticism also denies the law of contradiction.
As a Christian we understand the absolute unmovablity of logic when reading and understanding the bible; and yet, some still think science can produce knowledge, despite it systematically denying the laws of logic.
If a system-of-thinking’s epistemology ends with a skepticism, “I know that I don’t know,” then that epistemology does not exist. It does not mean knowledge does not exist, but empiricism as an epistemology is false. Knowledge is from another epistemology. The answer for knowledge is of course the bible. It is the only first principle for knowledge.
To conclude that “I know that I do not know,” is an impossibility of reality and of thinking. A contradiction, because it affirms and denies the same thing, affirms nothing. To affirm Y and then deny Y, gives no knowledge. There is no knowledge, no subjects, or predicates if an epistemology ends in skepticism, which denies the law of contradiction. I cannot deny my own existence, nor can I do it in my thoughts, without using my existence. I cannot deny the law of contradiction without using it. A contradiction does not exist. A doctrine of knowledge that leads to skepticism, which denies the law of contradiction does not exist. Any starting point that reduces to skepticism when scrutinized must be rejected, because skepticism, by its own merit, cannot assert its own truth without contradiction.
Empiricism is a logical fallacy. Sensation is not subjects or predicates, nor can one assert that it does without a category fallacy, which when taken to their essential attributes would deny the law of contradiction. To deny the law of contradiction is anti-logic. The same is for logic and mathematics. A visual input, which is a copy of something else, is not the category of logic.
Also, to use sensation to justify knowledge ends in an infinite regress of more sensations. How do you prove a sensation, except with another sensation, and so on. How do you sense you are not sensing? With a sensation? Also, transient, momentary descriptions of sensations as premises always leads to a logical fallacy when the conclusion ends with universals. To say some and all is the same thing denying the law of contradiction. To deny the law of contradiction is anti-logic. Thus, Empiricism and conclusions from them is anti-logic.
To have more information in the conclusion than the premises is a non-sequitur fallacy, because the conclusion does not logically follow if your conclusion has more information than your premises. Thus, all induction is technically a non-sequitur fallacy, because all conclusions of induction has more information than the premises. If your conclusion does not logically follow the premises, then it leads to skepticism; “you know that you do not know.” But this denies the law of contradiction. Thus, induction makes knowledge impossible because it leads to skepticism. Induction is anti-logic because it violates the law of contradiction.
Science relies on Empiricism and Induction, and thus science by extension also denies the law of contradiction by leading to skepticism. Thus, science is anti-logic. In addition to these two fallacies, scientific experimentation commits the fallacy of affirming the consequent. Affirming the consequent takes a sufficient connection in the premise, but then in the conclusion states it as a necessary one. Thus, the conclusion has more information in it than what the premise provides. This additional information makes the conclusion not logically follow from the premises. Thus, experimentation is by definition a non-sequitur fallacy. This means the conclusion leads to skepticism; it leads to, I know that I do not know. This is anti-logic, because it violates the law of contradiction. There is no logical justification to say otherwise, other than mindlessly asserting so.
Science is a triple anti-logic enterprise. There is no knowledge in the conclusions of science; there are no subjects or predicates in science. It is logically impossible to say science has knowledge without denying the laws of logic. What is worst, to attack science or deny logic? But without the law of contradiction you cannot even think. This does not mean science has no role, but it cannot be used for knowledge.
I asked Grok AI to show in formal validity,– a necessary conclusion, without additional information being added into the conclusion or committing a category error from the premises to conclusion,– sensations (empiricism) to laws of logic in the conclusion. It said it was technically impossible. It said if one includes the Socratic method or abstraction (which allows induction and category leaps not included in the premises) then you could, but if one is being strict with categories and the laws of logic, then you cannot logically go from sensation in the premise to a conclusion of something like logic, or math, ethics, universals (etc).
This just goes to show that the Socratic method is still the intellectual fudge factor morons use to manufacture knowledge when there is none. It is an intellectual ass wipe, to make their crappy conclusion seem legit. Whether it was the Socratic method or Aristotle or David Hume, or Science, all of them involve the same magical moment where one category, without justification, turns into another category and where conclusions that do not necessarily follow from the premises, do follow from the premise without logical warrant. Of course, by this irrational thinking I can define reality however I want, and this has always been the end game for fools.
Lastly, when asking the difference between definitions of Rational and Irrational, the AI said Aristotle and Russel, in the realm of logic used rational to be about deduction and necessary inference, and thus, irrational was the opposite. Irrational is about inference that do not necessarily follow from the premises. But when I asked if science was irrational, it denied it. Despite telling me the conclusions from induction and affirming the consequent do not logically follow from the premises, which is what Grok defined as irrational, it wanted to say science was not irrational. After probing it more, I again found out that it considered the Socratic method or the modern use of it called abstraction, rational. This is of course nonsense, because it involves induction and category errors. As Vincent Cheung says in Professional Morons, they have abandoned trying to be rational and magically make the irrational manufacture knowledge. Even though such a prosses violets the laws of logic, they are under the delusion they have knowledge, or they know they don’t have knowledge and will just pretend they do. And yet, these are the ones telling us they are smart, and Christians are dumb? Lol.
By definition, of being a “STARTING point,” it cannot be deduced. Consider this from a 3 premise syllogism or chain syllogism. Where does the major premise come from that starts the argument? Or if we start with a syllogism and ask where does the major premise come from, one might say, “well it comes from this previous syllogism, or premise.” We can do this for a while, and we will have three options. The first, is to say it is an infinite regress. This ends up in skepticism, and thus denies the law of contradiction.[1] Second, is to say, “I do not know.” This seeming authentic answer hides the fact that you are really saying, “I know that I do not know.” This option is stupid and a self-contradiction, and thus, it has no existence. To know that we do not know is a contradiction. To be true, it must be false at the same time. It ends up in an infinite regress of affirming and denying the same thing.[2] This problem is not limited to thinking; rather, it has ontological implications as well. For example, try saying, “I do not exist”? “You” cannot do it without using “your” existence. This shows the ontological impossibility. That is, reality stops me from doing this contradiction. It does not, and cannot exist. A square circle does not exist in my mind or reality. The law of contradiction is not only a law of thinking, it is a law of reality. If you have a contradiction, you have something that has no existence. Such stupid, non-existence is to be dismissed and tossed in the recycle bins of our minds.
Now though these are called laws of thought, and in fact, we cannot think except in accordance with them, yet they are really statements which we cannot but hold true about things. We cannot think contradictory propositions, because we see that a thing cannot have at once and not have the same character; and the so-called necessity of thought is really the apprehension of a necessity in the being of things. This we may see if we ask what would follow, were it a necessity of thought only; for then, while e.g. I could not think at once that this page is and is not white, the page itself might at once be white and not be white. But to admit this is to admit that I can think the page to have and not have the same character, in the very act of saying that I cannot think it; and this is self-contradictory. The Law of Contradiction then is metaphysical or Ontological.[3]
Since the first & second options are a thinking and ontological impossibility, then consider the other. In this third option, if we keep going back, we must eventually hit the starting point or origin of knowledge. This starting point cannot be deduced, because it is a starting premise and not a conclusion.
There are some irrational comments about this floating around, for some anti-Christian commentaries say that a first principle is not “provable” in any sense. However, provable, in the context of philosophy, logic and doctrine has a strict meaning. It means a deduction. This is true, as far as it goes. However, just because something is not deducible does not mean it is not provable in the sense of giving a logical justification or warrant for why one should pick this first principle over all others. For example, consider the aspect of the self-authenticating principle of the law of noncontradiction, that we just went over. It is not a deduction. It is not circular, because we never left from doing the law of noncontradiction.[4] Yet, it was justified as true because of its necessary and self-authenticating nature.
For a quick comment about this self-authentication of the LoC. It only works because we are only considering it on this narrow slice of reality, and we are ignoring some of the presuppositions that are needed to discuss this in the first place. For example, logic does not even give us knowledge about itself, because it is dealing with the structure of thought, and not the content (terms and premises) of thought. But more on this later.
And so, a worldview or system-of-thinking about the world, must start somewhere. The option of not knowing is implausible with reality. Thus, the next question is if your epistemology is a good one or a bad one. That is, does the starting point of your worldview make knowledge possible or not possible?
Some try to make this point vague or blur it by saying a worldview might be an interconnection of several starting points like a bridge with many supports. This appeal is a red-herring or sleight-of-hand fallacy, to divert attention away that their epistemology is in ruin. It is irrelevant, because even if so, some points would be more foundational than others; thus, if we were to discover one of these foundations were compromised, then the whole structure would fail.
For example, if one attempted to make a dual epistemology with the Scripture and something else “x,” and this “x,” was shown to be faulty, then it would falsify the scripture, which was said to have taught this hybrid epistemology.
Additionally, if one wishes to claim more than one starting point for knowledge, then if one of the epistemologies (K) makes a judgement about one of the other epistemologies (B bible), then in fact this (K) is a higher or more foundational starting point. It is the true starting point that judges the others. If empiricism (or my observations and emotions, or skin color (etc)) gives me additional knowledge that I use to judge the Bible, (if the Bible is correct on this point or that point), then empiricism is a higher starting point over the Bible. Empiricism would be my major premise in a syllogism.
In the quote below, Vincent is using the term “worldview,” but the context is relating more directly to the first principles or the presuppositional level of worldviews. His context is about “how a starting point is completely true versus only partly,” but the overall point addresses our present topic.
Suppose a given system of thought includes the following propositions: (1) X is a man, and (2) X is an accountant. If, in reality, (1) is true but (2) is false, how will a person know to affirm (1) and deny (2), unless he is already acquainted with X? Unless the system is completely true (or false), there is no way to tell which proposition is true (or false) without importing knowledge from outside of the system, and if one imports knowledge from outside of the system, then he would be evaluating the system in question by the second system from which he has gained the knowledge to evaluate the first.
That is, if worldview A is not complete true or false, then there is nothing within worldview A by which we can accurately judge a particular proposition within worldview A as true or false. If we bring in something that we know from worldview B by which we judge something within worldview A, then we are making worldview B to stand in judgment over worldview A. But if one has already obtained knowledge that is accurate, relevant, and extensive enough from worldview B by which to evaluate worldview A, then he cannot meaningfully learn anything from worldview A. He is judging it, not learning from it.[5]
To summarize, even in a so-called multi-structure of starting points, there will be one that is more foundational, and that stands first above the others to judge and evaluate them. The question is, if the starting point of your philosophy makes any knowledge possible? If not, then not only do you not have a worldview to discuss, you do not even have the knowledge to discern “if cats are planets” and “if rocks are clouds.” You have nothing.
END NOTES
[1] This impossibility of infinite regress will rear its ugly head when dealing with other ontological issues, such as if matter always existed. It is not impossible to progress forwards in time for infinity; however, if matter was eternal, then today would have never reached. You cannot say ‘matter has existed for an unreachable amount of time,’ to then say, ‘it has now reached today’. As said before, a contradiction has no existence. How stupid men become when suppressing God’s truth.
[2] To affirm the proposition, “Adam is a man” (X), is to deny the contradictory proposition, “Adam is not a man” (Y, or not-X). Likewise, to affirm the proposition, “Adam is not a man” (Y), is to deny the contradictory proposition, “Adam is a man” (X). Now, to affirm both “Adam is a man” (X) and “Adam is not a man” (Y) is only to deny both propositions in reverse order. That is, it is equivalent to denying “Adam is not a man” (Y) and “Adam is a man” (X). But then we are back to affirming the two propositions in reverse order again. When we affirm both, we deny both; when we deny both, we affirm both.
Therefore, there is no intelligible meaning in affirming two contradictory propositions. It is to say nothing and to believe nothing.
[3] H.W.B. Joseph. 1906. An introduction to LOGIC. Pg.13
[4] “Think about this. If the law of contradiction is the “ultimate” or foundational law of logic, then how can we prove the law of contradiction? Can you prove it without using it? If you can, then the law of contradiction would necessarily be a secondary law. But if you must use it to prove it, then are you being circular? Where is the circle? For something to circle back, you need to move away from it first, but how can you depart from the law of contradiction, so that you can circle back to it to make the fallacy happen? If you can understand this, then you can apply it to biblical apologetics. The only difference is that the law of contradiction has no content, so it is less likely to confuse you. But the principle is the same.”
