Tools of Apologetics 1.17.7
Logic and Fallacies of Logic
Fallacies Of Induction 2
6. Fallacies Due To Human Nature
Humans are supposed to be objective and rational in their thinking, but that isn’t always true. On the contrary, many ideas and concepts have such power to influence and subdue people’s minds so deeply that they find it difficult to break free from the subtle influence of these erroneous ideas. Logic demands that inferences be based only upon principles of Logic Every non-logical influence is to be rejected to safeguard truth. However, many influences are so subtle and powerful that they many times colour the interpretations and inferences of even the most learned thinkers. Some of the most common influences are:
1 - The influence of tribe.
2 - The influence of nature.
3 - The influence of the market-place.
4 - The influence of popular ideas.
Let us look at each one in detail:
1- The influence of tribe: Here the word "tribe" refers to any closely knit or closely identifying group. It is easier for any idea to make its home within a given group than across groups. Group identity and mutual acceptance aid easy mass acceptance or rejection of ideas. At times certain false ideas become widespread and popular in almost every group of people, and almost everyone in that group presupposes or accepts this idea as "the given". All evaluations are influenced by these presuppositions. Consequently the evaluations, judgments and inferences made under these influences will be biased and prejudiced. The process of logic will be distorted, and the conclusions arrived at will be false.
People who belong to the "liberal" (or, more appropriately, the radical) wing of theology are a good example of this. Their conclusions are so heavily influenced by the beliefs of their "tribe" that most of them are not willing to listen seriously to people of differing inclinations. Many of them even refuse to consider scholars having a different viewpoint as men of learning, even if they are competent scholars. The influence of tribe is strong enough to deny the scholarship of others on non scholarly bases.
2. Influence of nature: In addition to the subtle influence of tribe, all people have their own subtle ideas and fancies that influence their judgments. One’s educational background, type of friends, and the type of books that one reads, all influence one’s perspective. This makes some people narrow-minded, others conservative and still others radical in their outlook.
Some people perceive only the bad and disappointing points, while others have a more mature perception. Very few people are able to break away from the prejudices of their individual perspective to view all the sides of a given problem. A logically sound inference is not possible without breaking away from one’s personal biases. This is the reason why research papers and monographs are first scrutinized or critiqued by other experts before publication.
3. Influence of the market-place: All words have primary meanings: the meanings found in dictionaries. However, language is such a dynamic entity that phrases and words may be used to imply or communicate non-standard meanings. When inappropriate words, or words with wrong implications tagged on to them, are used to describe people, things, or ideas, a great deal of confusion and misunderstanding results. In such a subjective environment, some widely used terms might even represent things that do not exist or are false.
Wrong or improper terms, when used mindlessly and repeatedly, confuse the issues instead of clarifying them. This is known as the influence of the market place, and this is the root cause of many logical fallacies. An interesting example of this fallacy is seen in almost every popular Christian/Non-Christian religious dialogue. Most people who indulge in such communication are not trained for the task. They don’t have even the remotest idea about "presuppositions". Consequently, they naively assume that the meaning attached to theological terms in the Christian marketplace are identical to the meanings attached to these words in, say, the Hindu marketplace.
However, the meaning and purpose attached by different religions to words like sin, salvation, after-life, justification, grace, saviour and righteousness, etc. are radically different from one another. Therefore, whenever people belonging to different religions discuss theological subjects, the vocabulary they use might be the same, but the meaning they attach to these words is different. All people interpret the vocabulary (and consequently, the statements) according to the influence of the "market-place" around them.
Thus inter-religious dialogues continue endlessly, without arriving at any meaningful conclusion. This is one example of the error of logic due to the influence of the market place. The error cited above can be eliminated only if each party defines the theological words before they use them. This has been done in Christian/Hindu dialogues by many who practice what is called "pre-suppositional apologetics". Not surprisingly, this kind of apologetics results in definite conclusions.
4. Influence of popular ideas: It has been noted throughout history that different ideas and opinions catch the fancy of different people. These ideas differ from society to society and generation to generation and they influence almost everyone in a given population. These ideas might originate from religious leaders, philosophers, propagandists, or even from the scientific community, but what distinguishes them is the near total control that they exert upon the thinking of people. Since they subject all their evaluations for truth to these opinions, many fallacies and considerable error are introduced in the resulting inferences.
For example, in the middle ages Aristotelian philosophy and a number of extreme religious (non-Biblical) ideas dominated people’s minds. Consequently they rejected several scientific discoveries because these did not adjust well to these popular ideas. Today the hypothesis of mega-evolution and related hypotheses have taken the same place. Secular humanism has gained wide popularity. Most people judge even issues of life and death with these hypotheses firmly established at the back of their minds, and end up compromising the process of logic.
The present views about the worthlessness of human foetuses can be traced to the influence of evolution. At the same time, the psychological deification of man can be traced to the influence of humanism. The influences of tribes, nature, market place, and popular ideas are very obvious in much contemporary writings critical of the Bible and the Christian faith. Any work that counters these critics without first exposing their biases, prejudices and presuppositions will only result in an endless series of inconclusive charges and countercharges. However, if the biases are exposed first, it becomes easy to demonstrate that the critics are not expounding the results of researches. Rather, they are using research as a pretext to project their presuppositions as their conclusions! This is a fallacy of logic.
Conclusion!!
Induction and deduction are powerful tools of logical reasoning. All logical reasoning must be governed by rules of induction and deduction. This is not easy because of the variety of rules, the complexity of everyday problems and our perpetual desire to reach quick conclusions. Consequently, many popular inferences are rendered wrong and even ridiculous.
When people attack the Bible and the Christian faith, a good number of them are so prejudiced that an objective, logical analysis is rendered impossible. In fact most of them start with the assumption that they must demonstrate that the Bible is indeed full of errors and this only makes the matters worse. This bias encourages them to overlook even the most basic principles of logic. But the rules of logic are so clear and penetrating that anyone with a good background in logic can analyze them and expose their errors and biases.
Interestingly, a few persons among these critics have a good background in formal logic. Instead of using this knowledge to provide an objective analysis, they use their knowledge of logic only to confuse and throw people off the track. It is much more difficult to take this group to task, compared to the uninitiated, because their knowledge of logic makes their presentation deceptively subtle. Only a very good acquaintance with logic and much reading/analysis of this type of writing will equip apologists competently for the task.
A statement, writing, or lecture of a critic might contain more than one fallacy of logic. At times many of these fallacies might be mingled with one another in such a way that separating them one from another might become nearly impossible. The problem might be complicated further because of a limitation of logic — the classification of errors cannot be made strictly exclusive, nor can they be made exhaustive. This implies that apologists must always expect some overlap, and also an element of surprise when they meet, for the first time, with a category of error that they had not studied before.
An overlap of errors makes the task of apologists tough, but strengthens their thesis. They can demonstrate that the critic’s argument suffers from multiple errors of logic. At the same time apologists’ previous background in logic and apologetics will help them not only to oppose new categories of fallacies, but also to detect the precise reasons why this argument depends upon a fallacy of logic.
Logic is not, for most people, an easy subject. Many who aspire to become apologists will surely discover this. However, a mastery of fallacies of logic will make them accurate expositors of Christian evidences. In fact no apologist will ever be able to rise above ambiguity without mastering a certain minimum syllabus of logic. Thus even if candidates for apologetics find logic uninteresting, they must discipline themselves to study it. Very soon they will become interested, and once they start applying it to combat the errors of critics they will admit that now there is no turning back.
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