About Me

Who I am

With John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace,” I can say,

I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am

John Newton

By the grace of God, I am a Husband and Father, a deacon, and a mechanical engineer.

Disclaimer: although I am a deacon, the views that I express on my blog are my own and do not necessarily reflect the official position of my church. In fact, many of the topics I write on are part of in-house debates (or rather friendly discussions).

My Interests

As a young man, I read Isaac Watts’ book on Logic (Logic: The Right Use of Reason in the Inquiry After Truth). In it, Watts recommends that every Christian should continually study two things: theology and his profession. Ever since then, I have endeavored to follow his advice.

As a convinced Reformed Baptist, my interest in theology lies both in the wider reformed tradition, and specifically in the reformed baptist tradition both modern and historic.

As an engineer, my professional interests are in all things STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). My posts will almost always deal with my interest in theology rather than STEM; however, expect that my professional interests will flavor even my posts about theology.

The reason for this is that the foundations for STEM resolve themselves into two main topics: language and logic (with significant overlap between them). It is my belief that what we (mankind in general) have learned in these two areas may be of some use in theological discourse.

As Watts defined logic in the title of his book, logic is merely the right use of reason in the inquiry after truth. No doubt, it should be the goal of every Christian thinking about theology to seek after the truth of God’s word. Therefore, logic must be learned. The study of the use of language is at least as important, since God chose to reveal Himself primarily and supremely in the form of the written word in the Bible.

Logic

Categorical logic (think Aristotle) used to be the norm in theological discourse. Unfortunately, knowledge of this has nearly disappeared in the modern/post-modern world and it really shows, especially on Facebook. Practice with syllogisms is very helpful in spotting blatant fallacies in common use as well as in forming valid and sound arguments.

One reason categorical logic fell out of favor was based on a valid concern; albeit, the reaction to this concern provides a perfect instance of throwing the baby out with the bathwater. The concern with this form of logic is that it relies on the use of natural language which is highly susceptible to equivocation. However, if sufficient care is taken, this concern may be resolved. Only in the most exacting of situations will the use of natural language prove inadequate in logical inquiry. To ignore categorical logic for this reason is as foolish as it would be to ignore Newtonian Mechanics because Quantum Mechanics discovered that Newtonian Mechanics does not hold at the extremely large and extremely small scale. However, it just so happens that most of the reality that we deal with as humans is not at these extreme scales, so Newtonian Mechanics is still extraordinarily useful. So too is categorical logic.

All this to say, I believe present day theological discourse would be much helped by practicing more categorical logic. Nevertheless, this is not the only way that I believe logic can be helpful. In response to the perceived shortcomings of categorical logic, another form of logic was developed, namely, propositional logic. These two forms are entirely consistent with one another, but provide different perspectives and are practiced differently.

It is not necessary to describe all the differences between these two forms, but the main difference is that propositional logic does not require the use of natural language. Instead, it may be practiced entirely in its own language that looks a good deal like algebra.

Now you may be wondering right about now how something like algebra can have anything to do with theology, but I believe it does. In the early 20th century, many significant discoveries were made in propositional logic that had implications on the limits of logical systems and by extension math. I believe these discoveries extend even further though, and impinge on the doing of systematic theology.

At their best, systematic theologies are systems of logic corresponding to the truth we learn about God by His revelation of Himself. However, as Kurt Godel discovered in 1931, such systems can never be complete, that is, they cannot yield all the true statements about their subject. Here, the subject is God and what He has revealed about Himself. This means, even if a systematic theology is entirely consistent with God’s revelation for instance, it will still miss truths revealed in His revelation (both natural and special). This is not to discount the utility of systematic theology, but it does mean that if we want to glean as much as we can from the Bible and natural revelation, we will need more than systematic theology. What is called biblical theology can help here, since it takes into account the literary character of the Bible. Much more could be said here, but I will continue.

Language

This is where we come to the need to understand natural language on its own terms. Formal logic, both categorical and propositional, can only go so far in understanding theology as revealed in Scripture. the Bible is not a systematic theology. Overarchingly, the Bible is a narrative written in common human languages, that is, natural language.

Perhaps more prevalent then logical mistakes in theology are mistakes in misusing language. In doing systematic theology, natural language must be constrained to reduce equivocation. The result is a contrived dialect of natural language. This contrived language of systematic theology is not a bad thing in itself and is even necessary for its purposes, but untold mistakes arise at the interface of this contrived language and natural language.

An example is in order. The word ‘justified’ has a very specific meaning in systematic theology. However, when we read this word in the Bible (which does not speak in our contrived language, but in natural language) we may be led to believe that the Apostles Paul and James contradict each other on the question of whether we are justified by works or faith. However, if we let the context of the immediate point each are making help us in interpreting their separate uses of this term, we find that the contradiction dissolves into nothing.

The mistake can also go the other way. Instead of treating natural language as if it were contrived, we can use the terms of our contrived language fluidly in the manner that terms are used in natural language. In natural language, the fluid use of terms is not as much a problem, since the audience knows to extrapolate the meaning of the terms by the perceived intent of the author. However, when we use the contrived or stipulated terms of systematic theology fluidly, we are bound to spur confusion, since many in the audience will assume the stipulated meaning rather than the intended meaning. I have found that even respectable authors fall into this mistake.

My Intentions

I will wrap up by stating my intentions for writing on this blog. I will echo what the Puritan Samual Bolton said, “My main aim is to convince the judgement, not to irritate the affections” (The True Bounds of Christian Freedom). Although much of what I will write will be controversial, I hope to always keep my tone respectful and charitable. I seek the truth, not the embarrassment of the other side of the argument.

I also aim to initiate interaction. Many of the opinions I will express are in developmental form, so I appreciate constructive criticism. I will consider it a success if each of my posts results in someone correcting my errors. I have already enjoyed this kind of success. As much as I am eager to teach others what I have learned, I am even more eager to learn more.

The truth is best found by careful use of logic and it is best communicated by the clear use of language. I hope that I will succeed in each of these things myself and also help others do the same specifically in the arena of theology and related philosophy.