The Logic of Christianity 6: WHODUNNIT?

If the God of Logic exists—that is, an “agent” who “acts” in forming and animating the universe in “logical order,” using “rational communication,” in the process of accomplishing the personal “motives” of achieving “self-actualization” and developing “social” relationships—who is this God? The board game Clue® allows one to win that game, partly, by identifying all of the potential suspects and systematically eliminating each one until one has come up with the correct “agent” who “killed Mr. Boddy.” Like any good murder mystery novel, film, or television show in which the suspects are identified, scrutinized, and gradually, systematically, eliminated from consideration, we may refer to the game of Clue® as a “Whodunnit” (or, as it is more commonly spelled, “Whodunit”). Although I apologize for the fact that the term “Whodunnit” carries with it the connotation of the “agent” being involved in the commission of a crime (and, certainly, “creating and animating the universe” has not been considered to be a crime by any serious person), the same procedure that is used in Whodunnits may be logically employed for identifying which “god suspect” most logically should be credited with the formation of the universe.

THE LIST OF SUSPECTS The game of Clue® offers a finite list of possible suspects: Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mr. Green, Mrs. Peacock, and Professor Plum. Likewise, we may come up with a finite list of possible “god suspects.” It seems that, since the God we seek to identify uses “rational communication” for the purpose of developing “social” relationships with the only species to whom that God has given the ability to engage in creative “action”—namely, the human—the God we seek to identify should have, at least at some point, “communicated socially” with this human species. Marketing communication professors Moriarty, Mitchell, and Wells correctly point out that “everything communicates” (p. 55), and, as I pointed out in my post entitled The Logic of Christianity 4: “The shepherd-poet-lyricist-singer-turned-king, David, the author of many of the Psalms in the Hebrew Bible cites EMPIRICAL evidence in his poetic proclamations that God was easily detected in the formation of the universe.” This suggests that any objective observer of nature receives some communication from God, but that is not the kind of communication that is required when we suggest that the correct “god suspect” should have, at some point, “communicated socially” with this human species. If this empirical communication were the only form of communication used by the “god suspect,” we might be inclined to agree with the assessment of Albert Einstein which I pointed out in my post entitled The Logic of Christianity 3: “I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it . . . I want to know how God created this world, I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details." Einstein, of course, CAN be wrong on some details. Logically, a God capable of and motivated to communicate socially with a species that that God designed and formed to be capable of similar communicative action would be expected to engage in such social communication. Therefore, an objective thinker might logically conclude that the identity of the correct “god suspect” would be known to mankind, being one of the gods identified by various human cultures throughout history. But who are these gods? The list is still finite, but fairly extensive. [FEEL FREE TO SKIM OVER THE GOD LISTS BELOW TO ARRIVE AT FURTHER COMMENTARY.] If one were to play the GAME OF CLUE with these characters, here is the list of characters you might include in your game:

Our list of “god suspects” includes the following MESOPOTAMIAN GODS (from a list supplied by the Ancient History Encyclopedia http://www.ancient.eu/article/221/ ): ABGAL (aka, Apkallu), Adapa (the first man) Uan-dugga, En-me-duga, En-me-galanna, En-me-buluga, An-enlilda and Utu-abzu, ABSU (aka, Apsu and Abzu), ADAD, Shala, ADRAMELECH, Anamelech, AJA (aka, Aya), AMURRU (aka, Amurru and Martu), Beletseri, ANSHAR, ANTUM, ANU, (aka, An), Antu, ANUNNAKI, ANZU (aka, Zu and Imdugud), ARAZU, ARURU, ASHNAN, ASHUR, BABA (aka, Bau or Bawa), Lagash, BASMU, BEL, BELIT-TSERI, BIRDU, BULL OF HEAVEN (aka, Gugalanna), BULL-MAN, CARA, DAGON (aka, Dagan), DAMU, DAMKINA, DILMUN, DUMUZI, EA/ENKI, ELLIL, EMESH, ENBILULU, ENKIMDU, ENKIDU, ENLIL, ENMESSARA, ENTEN, Enmesh, ERESHKIGAL (aka, IRKALLA), ERRAGAL, ERIDAN, ERRA/IRRA, ESEMTU, ETANA, Balih, ETEMMU, GALLA, Igalima, GARRA (aka, Gerra), GESHTINANNA, GESHTU (aka, Geshtu-e), GIBIL, GILGAMESH (depicted as either human or god), GISHIDA (aka, Ningishzida), GUGALANNA, GULA, GUSHKIN-BANDA, HAIA, HUMBABA, IGIGI, IMDUGUD, Pazusu, INANNA (aka, Innina), ISARA, ISHKUR, ISHTAR, ISHUM, KABTA, KI, KISHAR, KITTU, KULITTA, KULLA, KULULLU, KUSAG, KUR, LAHAR, LAHMU and LAHAMU, LAMA (aka, Lamassu), LAMASHTU, LAMASSU, LUGALBANDA, MAGILUM BOAT (aka, The Boat of the West), MAMMETUM (aka, Mamitu), MARDUK, Irra, MISHARU, MUMMU, Ea Mummu, MUSHDAMMA, Ninhursag, MUSHHUSHSHU, MYLITTA, NABU, NAMMU, NAMTAR, NANA, NANAJA, NANNA-SEUN, NANSHE, NEDU, NERGAL, NETI, NIDABA, NIN-AGAL, NINGAL, NINGISHZIDA (aka, Geshida), NINGIZZIA, NINHURSAG (aka, Belet-Ili, Damgalnunna, Nintu, Nintur, Mami and Mama), NIN-ILDU, NINKASI (aka, Ninkar), NINLIL (aka, Sud), Ninazu, NINSHAR, Enshar, NINSHUBUR, NINSUN, NINURTA (aka, Ishkur), NIRAH, NISSABA, NUSKU, PAPSUKKEL, PAZUZU, QUEEN OF THE NIGHT, Liltu, QUINGU (aka, Kingu), RAMMAN (aka, Rimmon, SAKKAN (aka, Sumuqan), SCORPION PEOPLE, SEBITTI, SHAMASH, SHARA, SHERIDA, SHULPAE, SHUTU, SIDURI, SILILI (aka, The Divine Mare), SIN (aka, Nannar), SUMUQAN (aka, Sakkan), SUMUGAN (aka, Shumugan), TABLETS OF DESTINY, TAMMUZ, TIAMAT, TIAMAT'S CREATURES, Musmahhu, Usumgallu, Basmu, Ugallu, Uridimmu, Girtablullu, Umu-Debrutu, Kusarikku, UMMANU, Enuma Elish, Edana, UMUNMUTAMKAG, URSHANABI, USMU (aka, Isimud), UTNAPISHTIM (aka, Ziusudra), UTTU, UTU (aka, Shamash), ZABABA, ZAKAR (aka, Zaqar), ZARPANIT (aka, Beltia), ZALTU, and ZU.

Our list of “god suspects” also includes the following GREEK GODS (from a list supplied by the WikiPagan http://pagan.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_Deities ): Aphrodite, Apollo, Ares, Artemis, Athena, Demeter, Dionysus, Eris, Eos, Gaia, Hades, Hekate, Helios, Hephaestus, Hera, Hermes, Hestia, Pan, Poseidon, Selene, Uranus, and, of course, Zeus.

Then, there are the ROMAN GODS: Apollo, Ceres, Cupid, Diana, Janus, Juno, Jupiter, Maia, Mars, Mercury, Minerva, Neptune, Pluto, Plutus, Proserpina, Venus, Vesta, and Vulcan. Add to these the EGYPTIAN GODS: Anubis, The Aten, Atum, Bast, Bes, Geb, Hapi, Hathor, Heget, Horus, Imhotep, Isis, Khepry, Khnum, Maahes, Ma'at, Menhit, Mont, Naunet, Neith, Nephthys, Nut, Osiris, Ptah, Ra, Sekhmnet, Sobek, Set, Tefnut, and Thoth. Other AFRICAN GODS include: Obatala, Yemaya, Chango, Oshun, Elegua, Oya, Ogun, Babalu-Aye', Ochosi, and Osain. INCAN GODS include: Inti, Kon, Mama Cocha, Mama Quilla, Manco Capac, Pachacamac, Viracocha, and Zaramama. AZTEC GODS include Quetzalcoatl and Tlaloc. IRISH GODS include: Angus, Belenos, Brigid, Dana, Lugh, Dagda, Epona, Manannán mac Lir, and Kel. ANGLO-SAXON GODS include: Elves, Eostre, Frigg, Hretha, Saxnot, Shef, Thunor, Tir, Weyland, and Woden. NORSE GODS include: Asgard, Alfar, Balder, Beyla, Bil, Bragi, Byggvir, Dagr, Disir, Eir, Fenrir, Forseti, Freyja/Freya, Freyr, Frigga, Heimdall, Hel, Hoenir, Idunn, Jord, Lofn, Loki, Mani, Njord, Norns, Verdandi, Urd, Skuld, Nott, Odin, Ran, Saga, Sif, Siofn, Skadi, Snotra, Sol, Syn, Ull, Thor, Tyr, Var, Vali, Vidar, and Vor. LUSITANIAN GODS include: Endovelicus, Ataegina, and Runesocesius. ARMENIAN GODS include: Anahit, Astghik, and Vahagn. SLAVIC GODS include Belobog and Chernobog. Throw in AFRICAN GODS (Obatala, Yemaya, Chango, Oshun, Elegua, Oya, Ogun, Babalu-Aye', Ochosi, and Osain), plus deities of ORIENTAL MYSTERY RELIGIONS and IMPERIAL ROMAN CULTS (Attis, Cybele, El-Gabal, Mithras, Sol Invictus, and Endovelicus), and the URARTIAN GOD Haldi, and you already have a rather UNWIELDY GAME OF CLUE on your hands! But then, refer to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Celtic_deities for a list of nearly 300 additional CELTIC DEITIES! Finally, go to http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php?list-gods-names for a list of nearly 500 additional CHINESE DEITIES! Needless to say, our list in this blog is illustrative, but still not exhaustive.

Fortunately, for the Whodunnit question concerning the creation of the universe, we can pare down our list of substantial “god suspects” by eliminating those who are not mentioned as involved in creation or universe formation. The God of logic as we have previously argued is a God of creative logic. Only a “creator god” will fit the description. On page 50 of my book Disneology: Religious Rhetoric at Walt Disney World, I point out: “Virtually EVERY ANCIENT CULTURE offered explanations of our origins. The EGYPTIANS focused on the role of the Nile River in creation. They saw the beginning as a mass of chaotic waters, called Nu or Nun. To this beginning they added Sun, Moon, Earth, and Sky gods. The (immortal, but not eternal) Earth god and sky goddess eventually gave birth to Isis and Osiris, names better known to our generation, but Egyptian mythology (with such features as the Earth god lying on his side to form mountains) did not survive as a serious explanation of the beginnings of the world. According to an account of PHOENICIAN creation mythology dating at least as far back as the first century a.d., there was first chaos; then from a cosmic egg, creation of the universe began. MAYAN creation stories begin with sky and sea, and then the creation god Kukulkan (whose pyramid, incidentally, may be seen at the Mexico Pavilion in EPCOT) speaks the word ‘Earth,’ and the Earth rises from the sea. Following this, the thoughts of Kukulkan create mountains, trees, birds, jaguars, and snakes; finally, humans are created (first, out of mud; second, out of wood; third, as monkeys; and finally, as full-fledged humans). Vying with GENESIS as the oldest creation account is the BABYLONIAN creation myth. The Babylonian account we have is developed from SUMERIAN myths, in the 12th century b.c. According to this account, god/s did not exist at the beginning of the universe. Instead, sweet and bitter waters comingled and created many gods. Then, one god born of two others, Marduk, eventually defeated and killed the bitter waters, Tiamat, in a colossal struggle. Earth was created, followed by the moon, then the Sun. Finally, humans descended from the gods. GREEK creation mythology began with chaos, a watery state ruled by Oceanus, and as in the Babylonian account, reproductive activity on the part of the gods and goddesses produced the Greek gods. Poseidon, one of the great Greek gods (known by the ROMANS as Neptune), is featured in a fountain statue in the Italy exhibit in the ‘World Showcase’ at EPCOT.”

We may further reduce the number of possible “god suspects” who could be the God of Logic if we assume that the God who created the universe in a logical (LOGOS) fashion, and who is characterized by the ability to communicate (LOGOS), and who fashioned human beings with the capacity for using both types of LOGOS, and presumably, was therefore willing and motivated to communicate with them through LOGOS, would be a God who made himself or herself known to ancient cultures and would still be known to contemporary cultures. We may, therefore eliminate virtually all of the aforementioned gods and religions as “dead religions.” Turning then, only to CONTEMPORARILY VIABLE GODS, we may consider the following list: SHINTOISM and the JAPANESE GODS: Amaterasu, Susanoo, Tsukiyomi, Inari, Tengu, Izanami, Izanagi, The Shichifukujin, Daikoku, Ebisu, Benzaiten, Bishamonten, Fukurokuju, Jurojin, and Hotei. Shintoism is a modern-day religion for an estimated four million Japanese, but most Japanese only identify as Shintoist while not practicing any religious discipline in the religion. In China, BUDDHISM, while it is a spiritual exercise, is not considered to have any true “god” associated with it. HINDUISM, according to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_deities, is the “dominant religion of the Indian subcontinent.” It has no specified number of gods, but is popularly credited with having 330 million gods. To this list of ancient-but-contemporarily-viable-gods, it is necessary to add the ONE SINGLE GOD who is acknowledged as God by the world’s three major world religions—JUDAISM, CHRISTIANITY, and ISLAM. That one God recognized by all three of these religions is the God of Abraham.

From this list, we may eliminate Buddhism, since it has no “god” associated with it. We may eliminate Shintoism, since it now appears to be primarily just a cultural practice, not a strongly held religion. If the God of Logic (LOGOS) is defined as organizing all of the universe “logically,” we may also eliminate Hinduism, which seems to be a hodge-podge of deities from other cultures and individual preferences. Logically, then, we conclude—along with the world’s three greatest religions--that the God of Logic IS the God of Abraham. Whodunnit? Similar to solving the Game of Clue—that Colonel Mustard killed Mr. Boddy in the Kitchen with the Knife—we may conclude logically that “the God of Abraham created a Logical Universe and Logical Humans within that Logical Universe by means of the Agency of Communication/Spoken Word/LOGOS. If this is our conclusion, the next question becomes: “Which of the three major world religions best introduces us to the God of Abraham?” We’ll consider that in the next post.

The Logic of Christianity 5: The God of Logic vs. Jeffrey Dahmer

Given the premise that the universe was formed via (logical, purposeful) ACTION, it is a simple deduction that SOMEONE with “logic” and “purpose” ACTED. This was an easy syllogistic deduction for the ancient Greek philosophers, as well. The fact that the Greeks used the same word (logos) to mean both “logic” and “word” is instructive. The ancient Greek School of Philosophy Stoicism (from around 300 BC) actually named God LOGOS—the ACTIVE logic that animates the universe. Christianity agrees. John 1:1-3 states: “In the beginning was LOGOS, and LOGOS was with God, and LOGOS was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made through [LOGOS]; and without [LOGOS] was not anything made that has been made.” Before the time of the Stoics, Heraclitus (from around 535-475 BC), notices the link between “rational speech” and the “universe’s rational structure.” For him, LOGOS was that link.

The Jewish philosopher Philo of Alexandria (20 BC-50 AD), a contemporary of both Jesus and the author of the Gospel of John, writes of the Logos of God as “the bond of everything, holding all things together and binding all the parts, and prevent[ing] them from being dissolved and separated.” (Philo’s comments sound like an early recognition of the tendency toward entropy, as well as a recognition that Logos controls the tendency.) While the Book of Genesis was certainly not dependent upon Greek philosophy, it is striking that the very first chapter of the Bible presents creation in a “logical” order and claims that most steps in the creation and (logical) structuring process were tied to a creative “word.” Logic and Word go hand-in-hand in the formation of the universe, the Earth, and its inhabitants. Yet none of those inhabitants of the Earth were capable of exercising anything remotely resembling the LOGOS--the “rational speech” in comprehending and understanding the “universe’s rational structure” of which Heraclitus writes--until the advent of man. It is this (unique among carbon-based beings) capacity to exercise LOGOS that makes man “the image of God” (Genesis 1:26).

KENNETH BURKE’S PENTAD: THE JEFFRY DAHMER COUNTER-EXAMPLE Kenneth Burke teaches a five-pronged cyclical logical schema that advances the simple syllogism. He observes that there are five requirements for the performance of any “act”—whether the act is good, evil, or somewhere in between: Scene, Act, Agent, Agency, and Purpose. He calls these five terms his Pentad, and suggests that these terms form a logical “cycle.” Logically, if an Agent performs an Act within a certain Scene, the Agent would use only Agencies available in that Scene to perform the Act, for example. Therefore, the terms tend to be CONSISTENT, and any time there appears to be an INCONSISTENCY, the cycle is regenerated to produce MORE CONSISTENCY. To use an extremely evil example of action, consider Jeffrey Dahmer—the notorious serial killer, sex offender, and cannibal who raped, murdered, and dismembered seventeen men and boys, and engaged in necrophilia and cannibalism with their corpses. Despite the evil nature of his purpose, his actions were entirely CONSISTENT. The world would not have been shocked, then, if a news report of Dahmer in prison told of Dahmer murdering a fellow inmate, sexually abusing his corpse, and even cannibalizing his victim. It would have seemed consistent to the world who knew him. The AGENT (Dahmer) would be “consistent” with such an ACT (murder). And, while the SCENE had changed from Dahmer’s apartment (where many of his murders occurred), the prison scene would not seem “inconsistent” with a murder. The AGENCIES by which Dahmer murdered before his incarceration varied—blunt force, punching, strangulation, drugging, knives, etc. Some of these agencies might be available in the prison scene—no inconsistencies—but there also might be additional agencies that are found in the prison scene. The PURPOSE for which Dahmer murdered appear to be sexually related, with additional cannibalistic intent. Cannibalism in prison might have shocked us, but prison is often associated with the types of sexual purpose that Dahmer preferred—male homosexual purposes. In short, Dahmer’s ACT would be “logical.”

What, then, should one make of the report from May, 1994, that Jeffrey Dahmer had chosen to be baptized in the prison whirlpool by Roy Ratcliff, a minister of the Church of Christ, and a graduate of Oklahoma Christian University? Did the AGENT (Dahmer) actually change? It is possible. Did the AGENT only cynically pretended to convert to Christianity, as a way of becoming more acceptable to society? That is also possible. These possibilities go to an explanation of the PURPOSE of Dahmer in being baptized. Is there anything pertaining to the “death” imagery of immersion baptism (death-burial in water-resurrection from the water) that makes baptism an attractive ACT for Dahmer? Does Dahmer’s earlier request for a Bible in his cell (something that was possible in his SCENE) indicate a change in AGENCY? What is happening? We will probably never know. And, it is unnecessary for me to speculate, here, to make my point. Six months later, Dahmer was murdered by a fellow prisoner, on a work detail. Whichever explanation is offered for Dahmer’s baptism, the common denominator in all explanations is LOGICAL CONSISTENCY. Whether or not the AGENT actually converted from serial murderer and cannibal to Christian, all explanations attempt to make logical scenarios. We are gripped by the logic of Burke’s Pentad.

THE PENTADIC VIEW OF GOD In huge contrast to the life-denying ACTS of Jeffrey Dahmer, the ACTS of the AGENT who was involved in the formation of the universe are immensely more life-affirming. While Dahmer destroyed life and consumed and abused corpses, the AGENT whom the Stoics called LOGOS generated life. From the simplest single-celled plant life to the most elaborate animal life, the LOGOS infused every life form with reproductive capacity, so that as one cell or even one life form aged and died, it was replaced with multiple regenerated cells or reproduced entelechies to keep the multiple life forms alive. Furthermore, in symbiotic complexity, as one carbon-based life form died, its cells were consumed and metabolized by other carbon-based life forms, to support life in all of its variations. The purely physical aspects of the universe were coordinated with precision to enable symbiosis to be sustained. The solar warmth combined with the Earth’s minerals and with water and oxygen to sustain life. What kinds of ACTS are CONSISTENT with such an AGENT? Logical, rational, life-affirming ACTS. What AGENCIES would be used by such an AGENT in performing such ACTS? Rational thought and communication, i.e. LOGOS. Whether the AGENT “spoke,” as Genesis suggests, or simply communicated the messages implicitly in nature, studies of genetic code, atomic theory, astronomic principles, etc. contend that this agent “communicated” in some fashion. LOGOS is rational communication. For what PURPOSE, then did the LOGOS perform life-affirming ACTS through the AGENCY of Communication? In other words, what PURPOSE would motivate an AGENT capable of ACTING to create and sustain life forms through the AGENCY of LOGOS to do so?

Abraham Maslow might term such a PURPOSIVE motive as “self-actualization.” The AGENT, called LOGOS by the Stoics created logically-reproducing life forms “because it could.” And, given the existence of human AGENTS who are capable of ACTION, themselves, we must assume that this self-actualization PURPOSE extended to the desire/PURPOSE of creating and sustaining other AGENTS who (like itself) were also capable of ACTION, COMMUNICATION, and forms of CREATION. From Maslow’s motivational theory, it is clear that motives include not only the ultimate motive of self-actualization, but also the social motive. If the LOGOS could create a being, similar to itself, capable of ACTION and COMMUNICATION, that LOGOS must also have a SOCIAL PURPOSE/motive. The SCENE, then, into which the LOGOS introduced humans was one that, while logical and systematic, lacked SOCIAL INTERACTION. It is altogether CONSISTENT that LOGOS THE AGENT used LOGOS THE AGENCY to self-actualize in the ACT of creating a LOGICAL UNIVERSE capable of sustaining LIFE, and leading to a SCENE in which SOCIAL PURPOSE motivated the AGENT to create a CREATIVE, COMMUNICATIVE, ACTION-BASED life form with which LOGOS THE AGENT could communicate.

So, here are the links in the syllogistic chain we have attempted, thus far, to forge: 1. Our syllogistic chain is of the variety found in Rhetoric (the enthymeme) rather than Dialectic. It is faith-based, in the Aristotelian sense. This is not blind faith; rather, it is faith based upon proofs and results in the agreement of possibility and probability. 2. This type of (rhetorical) proof is all that is truly left to us after the logical explosion that demolished Modernism and brought us Postmodernism. 3. Action exists in the world, as evidenced by the difference between human “action” and animal “motion.” 4. Action vastly predated the advent of humans, as the very universe yields evidence of rational logical action. 5. Since an AGENT ACTED using the AGENCY of LOGOS in the formation of the universe, we may logically analyze that action to be motivated by both a self-actualization PURPOSE and a social PURPOSE. We turn, next, to a consideration of what theologies, present in the universe, would best exemplify this logical description of God.

The Logic of Christianity 3: The Four Logical Explosions of Human History

What is a “logical explosion”? The phrase “paradigm shift” was coined by Thomas Kuhn in his 1962 book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, to describe the fact that scientists do NOT passively allow their thoughts to GRADUALLY change over time, in a linear fashion. Instead, every now and then, there is an “EXPLOSION” that destroys the old paradigm and replaces it with a new paradigm. The scientific community realizes that the paradigm (or pattern of discovering truth) that it had been using is defective. The pattern no longer works satisfactorily to explain reality—as when the notion that the sun revolved around the earth no longer satisfactorily explained the relationship between our planet and sun. In the scientific community, then, a paradigm shift or scientific revolution occurs. The old pattern of detecting reality is discarded and a brand new pattern takes its place. This is a logical explosion, of sorts. The most recent major paradigm shift that rocked the world occurred somewhere close to the time I was born. It was the shift from Modernism to Postmodernism. (I will consider this Postmodern shift, later, as the Fourth Logical Explosion.) The fact that these paradigm shifts occur is actually evidence that “action” exists (as opposed to sheer “motion”). The scientists are “agents” who of their own “free will” “act” in accordance with their own “purposes.” In order to have “action,” according to Kenneth Burke, there must be an “agent” who “acts.” That agent must have “free will” to act in accordance with his own “purpose.” If there is no free will involved (as when a bird builds a nest, according to “instinct”--not free will--in the same way every other bird of its species builds it), this is not “action”—it is “motion.” A rock tumbling down the hillside is not “acting,” but it is “moving.” The rock has no free will; it is moving in accordance with the law of gravity. (Nevertheless, if an “agent” with free will “intentionally” kicks the rock to initiate its downward motion, “action” is involved.)

Following the gist of Kuhn’s “paradigm shift” terminology, but applying it to the broader sphere of the “human” community—not just the “scientific” community, as Kuhn limits his term—I detect four “MAJOR LOGICAL EXPLOSIONS” in human history. These are times when virtually all of humanity discards the old ways of viewing the world and substitutes brand new ways of viewing reality. I call these times “explosions” rather than “shifts” or even “revolutions” because their effects are seismologically far greater than even Kuhn’s paradigm shifts. They each entail drastic observable behavior changes that appear to affect virtually the entire human population (not just science). The four explosions occurred at 1) the dawn of man, 2) the time of Jesus, 3) the Renaissance, and 4) the middle of the Twentieth Century. Kuhn’s paradigm shifts cannot comprise these explosions because science (in Kuhn’s sense of the word) did not exist at the dawn of man or at the time of Jesus. Kuhn is useful in pointing to the various tremors (or paradigm shifts) that occurred during the Renaissance and afterward, but the Renaissance itself was the “explosion.” Constant “shifts” in the tectonic plates produce minor tremors that constantly reshape the earth, but a gigantic shift or earthquake, such as many fear could happen due to the San Andreas fault, might actually reshape a continent. Just as the asteroid explosion that scientists want to credit with the disappearance of the dinosaur reshaped the physical landscape, so these four logical explosions have reshaped the landscape of human logic.

THE DAWN OF MAN. Before the dawn of man, no carbon-based life forms exercised “action.” Only “motion.” There was no free will. Botanical and zoological life forms, so far as we can tell, “behaved” only in predictable, instinctive, deterministic ways. I use the term “behave” advisedly. “Behaviorism” relates to “motion;” it is a study of what animals do, not what humans do. According to Kenneth Burke, humans “act,” rather than “behave.” On page 134 of my book Implicit Rhetoric: Kenneth Burke’s Extension of Aristotle’s Concept of Entelechy, I point out:

“Burke is concerned with the essential nature of mankind (CS 219). He asserts that "a definition of [hu]man is at least implicit in any writer's comments on cultural matters" (LSA 2), and he thereupon serves notice that he rejects the reductionism of the behaviorist view of humankind (DD 11). It is human language which, for Burke, distinguishes humankind from all other animal life. Burke tells his audience at the Heinz Werner Lectures: ‘I had in mind the particular aptitude that the human biologic organism has for the learning of conventional symbol systems (such as tribal languages), our corresponding dependence upon this aptitude, and the important role it plays in the shaping of our experience.’ (DD 15) . . . I [earlier] consider the issue of determinism and free will in connection with Burke's preference for the term "motive" rather than "cause" as an explanation of human action. . . . [Burke] actually believes that human symbolicity implies free will. Otherwise, he would not have taken "sides against behaviorist reductionism" (DD 11). Yet, Burke accedes to biological determinism insofar as human animality is concerned. Burke locates the deterministic factor for humankind in the realm of human animality. He locates free will in the realm of human symbolicity.”

What kinds of “actions” did humans engage in at the dawn of man? Burke has already mentioned the use of symbols (words, language). Animals do not choose the means by which they communicate; humans do. You or I may choose to speak English, German, Spanish, Greek, Hebrew, Italian, French, etc. For an animal, there is no communicative choice. If one is a dog, one barks; a cat meows; a bird chirps; a cow moos, etc. Furthermore, the other members of the animal’s species instinctively understand the meaning of the specific animal’s communication. Not so, with humans. I do not understand Chinese, Japanese, etc. In addition to language use, Burke notes that humans design and make tools to separate them from their natural condition. Stone Age humans developed stone knives, axes, spear heads, arrows, etc. And, then, they did something with these tools that they had made that indicated an important logical explosion: They “buried” these tools with their dead! Why? The best explanation anthropologists can put forth is that these early humans “believed” in an afterlife, and wanted their dead relatives to have access to these tools in that afterlife. This is RELIGION! On page 93 of my book Disneology: Religious Rhetoric at Walt Disney World, I observe:

“Anthropologists are interested in human views of the afterlife. Dennis O’Neil, on the website ‘Evolution of Modern Humans: Archaic Human Culture’ (http://anthro.palomar.edu/homo2/mod_homo_3.htm), writes: ‘The Neandertal ritual burial of their own dead implies a belief in an afterlife. This is basically a rudimentary religious concept. Likewise, the ritual burial of cave bear trophy heads is consistent with a supernatural belief system.’”

Religious belief (the belief in the afterlife) was the first logical explosion. There were no signs of religious belief anywhere else in the animal world. The term “logos” from which the word logic is formed means “word.” A syllogistic chain (or logical sequence) began just as soon as this carbon-based being was capable of using “words.” The ability to use logic in making words was extended to using logic to make stone tools. And the ability to use logic for making words and tools gave birth to the first “logical” view of human existence in the world: there probably is an afterlife. Other logical sequences (syllogistic chains) seem to have developed in human cultures: 1. If there is an afterlife, some beings must be living in some realm beyond the mortal human realm. 2. If there are beings who are beyond mortality, they must be superior to mortal humans. 3. If beings that are superior to mortal humans exist, these beings must in some sense be more powerful than humans, and it may be in the best interest of humans to make these beings well-disposed to the weaker mortals. 4. To curry the favor of these more powerful beings, humans should sacrifice animals (and other mortal humans?) to these immortal beings. Animal (and, sometimes, human) sacrifice developed in virtually every religion on earth. Even the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans whose world empires took turns encompassing the small religious culture of Israel practiced animal sacrifice, as did Israel . . . UNTIL the time of Jesus.

THE TIME OF JESUS. The death of Jesus, somewhere around 30 AD, began a logical explosion. For Christians, the logical need for animal sacrifice was annihilated. No longer was any animal sacrifice necessary, because Jesus, as the sacrificial lamb, perfected and thus finished all need for blood sacrifice. The logical explosion ensued, throughout the empire. In 70 AD, the Jewish temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by Roman legions. The great Jewish religion, which for thousands of years had followed a code of animal sacrifice to atone for sins, immediately and totally ceased all animal sacrifice. Never again would animals be sacrificed in a priestly Jewish cult. Fewer than 300 years later, Constantine decriminalized Christianity and, in 380 AD, Christianity became the official religion of the Roman Empire. Sacrifices to the Roman pantheon of gods ceased. For a thousand years, the logic of Christianity progressively engulfed the world.

The Christian religion grew like wildfire. The civilized world embraced not only Jesus, but also the entire logical system: his God, the God of Abraham, and the moral code of ancient Judaism, the Ten Commandments (even if all humans in the world—or in the church—did not always obey the code). Even the upstart new religion of Muhammed, in the 7th Century, agreed that the one true God was the God of Abraham. Progressively, all vestiges of early pagan religions were being erased . . . UNTIL the Renaissance.

THE RENAISSANCE. The explosion began when Christians’ faith in the promised return of Jesus did not materialize at the time they expected it. John Thomas Didymus, who apparently believes that Christians should accept the conclusion that their hope in the return of Christ might well be mistaken, states the situation fairly in his article “Failed End-of-World Predictions of Jesus’ Coming: Montanists and the Ecumenical Council (1000 AD)”:

“The Ecumenical Council sitting in 999 declared solemnly that the world would end on January 1, 1000 A.D. That was the signal for mass madness. On the last day of the year, St. Peter's at Rome was filled with a crazed mass of people, weeping, trembling, screaming in fear of the Day of the Lord. They thought that God would send fire from heaven and burn the world to ashes. Many rich and wealthy people gave away their possessions to the poor to make heaven. They dressed up in sackcloth and poured ashes over themselves. The grounds of St. Peter's on new year's eve was filled with people vying to outdo each other in acts of penance and self-mortification, self-mutilation and flagellation. Some branded their skins with hot iron to prove their repentance; some were actually beaten to death by overzealous mates. But new year came and passes [sic] and nothing happened.” (Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/5476263)

And yet, something DID happen—an explosive fuse was lit! Just as it took nearly 400 years to enact the full effects of the logical explosion occurring at Jesus’ death, it took roughly 400 years from the disappointment of Jesus’ non-return in 1000 to enact the full effects of that logical explosion. The Christianized world had begun (in 1000 AD) to lose faith in Christianity as the single source of truth. The Renaissance (dating from the late 14th century AD) was a rebirth of interest in classical Greek and Roman culture and philosophy. Humans world-wide looked to other humans as the source of truth, as they systematically doubted the truth that was being fed to them by the Church. An extremely important development in this logical explosion of doubt was the work of the philosopher Rene DesCartes. In my book, Disneology: Religious Rhetoric at Walt Disney World, pages 6, I write:

“The seventeenth century philosopher Rene DesCartes . . . is credited with founding Modernism. His methodological doubt suggested that Realists should doubt everything that could be doubted. Whatever is left is truth. This is the basis of the scientific method. Scientists make propositions that they are not entirely certain of. These uncertain propositions are called ‘hypotheses.” Scientists, then, attempt to systematically ‘doubt’ their hypotheses. They conduct experiments, to see if they can disprove the hypotheses. If they cannot doubt the hypotheses, these hypotheses are considered ‘truth.’ Empiricists, following DesCartes, suggested that one could doubt everything that is not empirically verifiable (capable of being verified by sense-data—seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and feeling).”

In terms of the logic of Christianity, this move was a major blow to Christian faith. Since one cannot see, hear, taste, smell, or touch God, Empiricists could conclude that faith in God is “non-sense” (meaning literally that it is not based on “sense” data).

POSTMODERNISM. Then, I was born (around 1950) and the logical world exploded again (coincidence, not causality!) As it turns out, skepticism can be aimed not only at God and Christianity. It can also be aimed at Empiricism, Science, and even Mathematics. In terms of Empiricism, I can be fooled by my sense of sight, as when I see a mirage in the middle of the road. Hearing can be wrong, as when one has tinnitus—the hearing of sound when no external sound is present. The sense of smell can easily mistake the smell of sulfur water for rotten eggs. The sense of taste can cause one to think s/he has consumed butter, when it is actually Parkay margarine. The sense of touch can confuse having walked through hanging threads in a dark haunted house, so that one feels one has encountered spider webs and continues to have them on oneself. I continue, in Disneology: Religious Rhetoric at Walt Disney World, pages 6-7:

“[E]ven empirical evidence (sense-data) can be doubted, so Empiricism as a Modernist philosophy was largely discredited by the relentless application of methodological doubt. Mathematics was the last stronghold of Modernism. When Kurt Gödel [a friend of Einstein] demonstrated that even mathematics could be doubted—because the whole system proves itself by itself—Modernism effectively crumbled . . . . In place of Modernism, Postmodernism arose. Postmodernism could be called a Realistic philosophy in that it makes a truth claim: typically, ‘there is no truth’ or ‘there is relative truth.’ Burke is a Postmodern Realist, but he is not happy with either of these truth-related formulas. In his essay, ‘The Rhetorical Situation,’ Burke is much happier with a Postmodern truth-related formula such as ‘there is probable truth.’ Aristotle teaches that ‘probable truth’ is discovered through rhetoric. Christian Realism is close to Burke’s Postmodern view that “there is probable truth.”

WHAT A LOGICAL EXPLOSION POSTMODERNISM IS! Beginning with the Dawn of Man, humans concluded that an afterlife was logical—there is a realm beyond the grave. With the advent of Christianity, the world shifted from believing in the efficacy of animal sacrifice to please the gods. The truth was to be found in the teachings of the God of Abraham. With the Renaissance, the logical explosion began to abandon God as the source of truth and rediscover truth from human sources. Skepticism became the operative method of discovering truth. Then, around 1950, it became evident that skepticism had become bankrupt. With Gödel’s last nail in the coffin of Modernism, Postmodernists concluded that “THERE IS NO TRUTH!!!” What a scene: it is just as if the ultimate Nuclear War had taken place IN LOGIC! Instead of the pictures of the smoldering Los Angeles ruins from the Terminator movies, visualize the barren smoldering ruins of anything resembling logical truth. But, Burke points out that one cannot LOGICALLY say “There is no truth” because that statement is, in itself, a TRUTH CLAIM! If there is no truth, the statement that “there is no truth” CANNOT BE TRUE! Those (illogical) Postmodernists who still cling to the (illogical) statement that “there is no truth” continue to attempt to disparage the logic of Christianity, saying that it cannot be true, because there is NO truth. The only logical way out of this malaise is Burke’s formula: THERE IS PROBABLE TRUTH. If there is PROBABLE truth, we can reintroduce empirical data into the argument. But, we can also reintroduce non-empirical data—the logic that seems to be implicit in humanity since the dawn of man: that God and the afterlife do exist. We return full circle.

But, the new ground rules for logical argument are in the field of Rhetoric, not the field of Philosophy. As I stated in my earlier post, The Logic of Christianity 1: The Shroud, the Pope, and the Faith Continuum: “In his book, On Rhetoric, Aristotle teaches how rhetorical logic works. In rhetoric (as opposed to dialectic), the aim is not to provide absolute truth, but only possible or probable truth. It applies only to matters of which we cannot be certain. Nevertheless, although certainty is impossible, we can logically conclude that something is ‘probably’ or ‘possibly’ true. Aristotle says that the goal of this type of logic is to achieve ‘faith.’ . . . [And, as] the Bible says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6).” The next link in this logical syllogistic chain, then is to argue that “action” took place before there was “human” action. We will turn to the “intelligent design” debate to establish that some agent was using “action” in the formation of the universe.

The Logic of Christianity 2: Building a Logical Pathway--The Syllogistic Chain

I was born during the first half of the Twentieth Century . . . just barely. Actually, my mother brought me into this world just 22 days before the beginning of the second half of the century--on December 9, 1949. I grew up on a farm not far from New Salem, in Illinois, the pioneer (log cabin) settlement where Abraham Lincoln as a young adult had left his career as a rail splitter, and had begun to study law, a century earlier. In fact, the Sangamon River which borders New Salem also bordered my family’s farm.

In the first map, pictured here, our farm was located about where you see the word “Salt”—just south of “Walker’s Grove.” Note that the squiggly line from around Kilbourne (going west to east) that makes a sharp right turn south at our farm going towards Petersburg is the Sangamon River. In the second map, you will note that the river winds further south toward Springfield, the Illinois state capitol, where Lincoln’s tomb is located. If we had navigated the Sangamon River by boat from our farm to New Salem (just barely south of Petersburg), we would have been only about 10 miles away, and another 15 or 20 miles from Springfield. Even though I grew up on the banks of the Sangamon, however, I cannot recall anyone ever boating on the river. I recall it being a very muddy river. At least, the land that my dad farmed bordering the river was muddy, but that was a good thing. Our farm was located in what was called the “Sangamon River Bottoms.” Johnny Carson made jokes about finding a good piece of bottom land, but my dad had actually found it. The rich black soil (mud or silt) in the Sangamon River Bottoms produced excellent crops and a very respectable farm income. You will notice in the picture of the farmland the hills in the distance. These were actually the original banks of the Sangamon River. The river, over the centuries, had deposited layers and layers of thick black silt (mud) in the river bottoms. That silt contained extremely productive nutrients for crops.

My mom had the job of spending the money the farm brought in. She travelled frequently to downtown Springfield to shop for clothing for the family in some very nice clothing stores. There were occasions when my mom could make this trip to Springfield in a very short period of time, but that was not usually the case. Usually, my mother would need to travel north out of the bottoms to Easton, where she could choose to travel either east or west to catch another highway southward to Springfield. This doubled the travel distance and time. The problem she encountered was that the river that connected our farm to New Salem also provided an obstacle to our travels southward. There was an old Oakford Bridge across the river from the Bottoms, but it had become dilapidated and rusted out and was closed when I was very young. Another bridge from the Bottoms across the Salt Creek toward Greenview was an option, even as I grew to be a young man. This route shaved off one-half hour from the trip to Springfield. The bridge was a rusty iron structure with no side retaining walls. Wooden planks were laid across the iron frame and rattled unnervingly as we drove slowly across the single-lane bridge. But even getting to this bridge was a major feat. The only roads that connected our house to this bridge were field roads, which we called “mud roads.” The primary roads in the Bottoms were covered with gravel, and other than being very dusty to drive on, were usually passable. But the mud roads were impassable after a rain. The gooey mire would engulf the wheels of the car, if one were to attempt to drive on the road. Even if someone drove a tractor on the wet roads, and was thus able to pass, the tractor tires would leave deep tracks in the mud. Anyone who subsequently attempted to navigate the road (after the mud dried) would be obstructed by the rutted path. What, you may ask, do mud roads and bad bridges have to do with the logic of Christianity? The story I have related is a representative anecdote. The mud roads and rattling bridge are metaphors for the dilapidated and impassable state of the syllogistic chain that currently exists for Christian logic. The need for logical infrastructure repair and refurbishment for Christianity reaches back to long before my childhood in the middle of the Twentieth Century. The issues come from before Abraham Lincoln’s mid-Nineteenth Century reiteration of our founding fathers’ (late Eighteenth Century) position that all men are “created” equal. They even predate Martin Luther’s Sixteenth Century reformation cry: “Sola Scriptura” (translated: “by scripture alone”). Some pertain to a time earlier than that of Jesus, his disciples, and the New Testament. They go back to the time of Aristotle in the Fourth Century BC, and even earlier—although Aristotle provides a roadmap to get us to where we need to be. The logical refurbishment of Christianity must go back beyond Daniel, Isaiah, King David, and even Moses. This current blog series is an attempt to resurface some of the mud roads that have become impassable, to repair some crumbling bridges, and to pave the highways that will allow others to more easily follow our logical pathways. Aristotle calls the various steps one must take to build a logic a “syllogistic chain.” In my book, ArguMentor, page 165, I describe such a chain:

“[Each link in the] chain of argumentation must be completed before the next one begins. And, so on. And so on. As an arguer, one must build his/her argumentation on facts, statistics, case studies, anecdotes, examples, and syllogisms that others have established. If one moves the argument along by only one link of a chain, it is a successful argument. If one, by supplying a rebuttal for which there is no valid backing, refutes an argument, the refutation is a successful argument, until someone else comes along with a backing or inductive argument or deductive argument that moves the syllogistic chain along.” On page 93, I point out: “What Aristotle called a chain of syllogisms, Kenneth Burke (1968) called syllogistic progressive form. Syllogistic progressive form simply suggests logic in the development of any literary work. The major premise and at least one minor premise must be established as credible with the audience before conclusions can be drawn. Then, in turn, these newly established conclusions may be employed as premises for other conclusions, until one reaches the final conclusion, the point that the author is ultimately attempting to persuade his/her audience to accept. ‘In so far as the audience, from its acquaintance with the premises, feels the rightness of the conclusion, the work is formal [meaning that it has syllogistic progressive form]’" (124).

As I grew up on the farm in the 1950s and 1960s, I believed (as many Evangelical Christians do, today) that, when arguing theological issues, I could simply appeal, as did Martin Luther, to the scriptures. If the Bible clearly stated a truth proposition, the issue was resolved. In my naïveté, I assumed that the authority of the Bible had long been established. I felt that the syllogistic chain could begin with the premise that the Bible was authoritative. The only legitimate questions, then, pertained to issues of interpretation of scripture. In my undergraduate years, at a conservative Christian college, I took three years of Hellenistic Greek language courses and two years of Classical Hebrew language courses, in addition to multiple content courses covering Old and New Testament texts. As a master’s student in Rabbinic Hebrew at Indiana University, I continued my study of Classical and Mishnaic Hebrew, and added courses in Aramaic and Syriac, in addition to multiple content courses covering Old Testament and Rabbinic texts. My naïveté dissipated rapidly. My Jewish professors and classmates felt no compunction whatsoever to assist me in defending Christianity. Quite to the contrary, I found myself challenged constantly to defend my premises. It was not even a generally accepted premise in a primarily Jewish department that the Hebrew Bible was authoritative. One of my professors warned me that it was proverbial in academia: to earn a master’s degree, one must stop believing in the Bible; to earn a Ph.D., one must stop believing in God. When I wrote my master’s thesis, I invited a New Testament scholar from the University to be a part of my thesis committee. He offered even more resistance to my notions of the reliability of the New Testament than did my Jewish professors.

What had happened to the Sola Scriptura premise? I began to realize the full extent to which the syllogistic chain of Christianity had been compromised. Over the years, as I watch other young unsuspecting college students face the onslaught of critical Biblical scholarship in religion classes at various universities, I have empathy. I know what they are going through. They are hopelessly mired in a mud road, in the logic of Christianity. They cannot logically argue for the truth of a biblical proposition until they have established the premise that the Bible is reliable. This is no mean task. More than a century of concerted scholarly skepticism has targeted the credibility of the various biblical texts. Furthermore, before they could even begin to argue for the correctness of the Bible, they find themselves face-to-face with a crumbling rickety bridge of theism vs. atheism. How can one argue that the God of Judeo-Christian scriptures is the true God, if it has not been successfully argued that there even is a God? And, before one can argue that there is a God, one must grapple with the issue of whether the universe is randomly constituted, or whether there is purposeful action that produced its existence. We find ourselves precisely where Genesis begins—at the beginning of the universe. (How interesting!) We may use Aristotle’s concept of syllogistic chains to begin building a logical pathway from there.

The Logic of Christianity 1: The Shroud, the Pope, and the Faith Continuum

On May 19, 2015, I came within 15 to 20 feet of what could be minute traces of the actual physical DNA of Jesus of Nazareth, from the minutes and hours immediately following his death. My wife, Linda, and I drove a rental car five hours from Florence, Italy, to Turin, Italy, because the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist (where the Shroud of Turin is housed) had announced an Exposition of the Shroud, which would last from April 19, 2015 to June 24, 2015. As it turned out, we were going to be in Italy during that time. I was presenting a paper at a scholarly conference in Rome, so I ordered tickets (which were free of charge) to view the Shroud on May 19th. The Cathedral had conducted similar public exhibitions of the Shroud in 1998, 2000, and 2010, but we had no opportunity to view the Shroud in those years. Before we spent a few minutes in the actual presence of the Shroud, we were shown the evidence contained in the Shroud: Using a variety of scientific methods, we were able to observe visible signs of a face with thorn wounds around the head, of hands and feet that had been pierced by nails, of a back that had been scourged by whips, of a stab wound in the side--a victim of crucifixion identical to the biblical description of Jesus’ crucifixion. But was the crucifixion victim whose shroud was on display actually Jesus of Nazareth? Frankly, I do not know. The Shroud of Turin has been, perhaps, the most studied ancient artifact in history. And, there are plenty of skeptics concerning the authenticity of the Shroud. The presenters of the Exposition acknowledged the contrary arguments. For example, in 1988, carbon dating tests were performed on the cloth. These tests indicated a date of 1290-1350 a.d., but carbon dating testing is not always reliable. Once, carbon dating missed the date of the 4000 year old wrappings of a mummy by 1000 years. On the other hand, the carbon dating tests could be accurate. One’s faith in Christianity need not rest on a belief that the Shroud of Turin is the genuine burial shroud of Jesus. It may be an extremely remote possibility that the Shroud is genuine. Even so, the remotest possibility that Linda and I may have been within 15 to 20 feet of the actual physical DNA of Jesus produced a genuinely moving experience. There were no vocal skeptics at the viewing. Even if this shroud belonged to a crucifixion victim from the 13th or 14th century a.d. (the likelihood of which I am skeptical, since Christianity had, by then, long been the dominant world religion, and it seems highly questionable that someone would have been crucified, at that time, in exactly the same manner as Jesus), still the reality of physical proof of crucifixion wounds of “someone” produced reverence in the entire crowd. The point of the Shroud experience is that one need not have overwhelming faith that the Shroud belonged to Jesus in order to be moved by it. Even the tiniest, remotest inkling of a miniscule shred of possibility that we were actually in the physical presence of the DNA of Jesus was awe-inspiring. Even miniscule faith in a tiny possibility is still faith.

Two days prior to viewing the Shroud of Turin, Linda and I were in St. Peter’s Square in Vatican City. We had not known before our trip to Rome that Pope Francis would be conducting a canonization that day. The Square was packed with thousands upon thousands of people as the Pope delivered a homily and conducted services in a truly impressive “megachurch.” We were half-way back in the crowd of standing-room only spectators in the square. After a couple of hours, it seemed the service was ending. We could see on the big screens posted around the square that the Pope was visiting with a few dignitaries before leaving the scene. Then we heard some cheering in parts of the square. We saw hundreds of hands raising cameras and smart phones in various parts of the square. What was happening? The Pope, after addressing the crowd had decided to ride out through the crowds on some sort of modified golf cart. As the cheers and raised cameras seemed to get closer to us, we took a real interest in the direction in which the cameras were pointed. Then, we saw him. The Pope was riding past us, within about the same 15 to 20 foot proximity that we would later be near the Shroud. I took pictures. Linda took videos. He would stop occasionally to bless someone or kiss a child. I am almost 100% certain that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis. As with the Shroud, one’s faith in Christianity need not rest on a belief that the Pope is a genuine representative of God. There are millions of Christian Protestants who disagree with him. You might even be skeptical about my claim that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the Pope. Even if you saw the pictures I took, you might engage in skepticism, suggesting that I may have Photoshopped the pictures. Even I cannot be 100% certain that I saw him. Perhaps, he has a double. My point is, however, that I have an enormous amount of faith that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the Pope. Although I was pleased to be almost certainly in his presence (a world-renown representative of Christianity), I was more moved by that tiny, remote sliver of a possibility that I was in the presence of the physical DNA of Jesus.

Faith is a continuum. It runs all the way from the tiniest, faintest possibility that something is true (such as the faint possibility that I was within 15 to 20 feet of the actual DNA of Jesus) to the almost certain probability that something is true (such as the almost certain fact that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis). If I were convinced that there was zero, zilch, zip, nada possibility that the Shroud was genuine, I would not have driven to Turin to see it. I would have had absolutely NO faith in it. If I were fully 100% certain that I was within 15 to 20 feet of Pope Francis, I would cease to have “faith” in that proposition. What we “know for certain” is no longer faith. “Faith,” as Aristotle explains it, must admit at least two possibilities. In his book, On Rhetoric, Aristotle teaches how rhetorical logic works. In rhetoric (as opposed to dialectic), the aim is not to provide absolute truth, but only possible or probable truth. It applies only to matters of which we cannot be certain. Nevertheless, although certainty is impossible, we can logically conclude that something is “probably” or “possibly” true. Aristotle says that the goal of this type of logic is to achieve “faith.” If there is no possibility, there is no faith. If there is only one possibility, we call it truth. There is still no faith, because it is absolute truth. John 20:29 records the incident of the Apostle Thomas who demanded, after being told that Jesus was resurrected, that he be allowed to place his fingers in the nail holes in Jesus’ hands and his hand in the sword wound in Jesus’ side before he would believe. Jesus, after offering the physical terms of proof demanded by Thomas comments: “Because you have seen me, Thomas, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen, and yet have believed.” The logic of Christianity is a faith-based logic. Interestingly, the Bible says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). To understand this type of logic, we must begin by accepting the fact that we could be wrong about various propositions. In cases, for example, of Deliberative Rhetoric (for Aristotle, this means arguments about what can or should happen in the future), Aristotle understands that we cannot really “know” the future, but we can predict things that “possibly” or “probably” will happen. This is Rhetoric. The aim is to produce “faith” that a certain course of action is wiser than another. In cases of Judicial Rhetoric (for Aristotle, this means arguments about what did actually happen in the past—for example, did O. J. actually kill Ron and Nicole?), Aristotle understands that we cannot really “know” for certain what happened, but we can argue persuasively that certain things “possibly” or “probably” did happen. Similarly, when it comes to the logic of Christianity, we are operating in the realm of “faith”—the realm of Rhetoric. We admittedly do not KNOW how the universe came into existence, what happens to us after we die, whether there is meaning in our life, etc., but we can argue logically that our views on these issues are “possible” or “probable.”

This post is the beginning of a series of blog posts I will be writing on the logic of Christianity. I have begun with an illustration of the range of the faith continuum—from the just barely possible to the “almost-but-still-questionable” certain. Notice that even “just barely possible” faith can motivate us to act, as when a terminal cancer patient opts to try a highly suspect experimental treatment, with the hope of beating his/her cancer. On the other hand, even the almost certain (but still slightly questionable) assertion that smoking causes lung cancer can still fail to motivate a given individual to stop smoking. Just the fact that someone has faith in an assertion (such as that smoking causes cancer) does not mean that any given person’s actions follow his/her faith. And just the fact that someone’s faith in an assertion (such as the experimental cancer treatment) is infinitesimally small does not mean that the person’s actions will not follow his/her faith. In the realm of rhetoric, we are all agnostics. The word “agnostic” means we do not know for certain. And, rhetoric (and its logic) are only applied to those issues the truth of which we do not know for certain. In my book ArguMentor (p. 7) I discuss a study that demonstrated that even self-avowed atheists were stressed at the prospect of daring God to do harm to their children. Could you, without stress, say the following words: “I dare you, God, to strike my children with terminal cancer”? If you could not do so, without stress, there is at least a tiny, even if infinitesimally small, germ of faith in God inside of you. In Luke 17:6 and Matthew 17:20, Jesus compares faith to a grain of mustard seed. This is a very small grain indeed, but it has great growth potential. Perhaps, as you read my posts on the logic of Christianity, your mustard seed will grow.