PB said it is only
us the reformed who cavil at TT's linguistic carpet bombing approach.
To
Cavil:
cav•iled or cav•illed;
cav•il•ing or cav•il•ling \ˈka-və-liŋ, ˈkav-liŋ\
[Latin
cavillari to jest, cavil, from cavilla raillery; akin to Latin calvi to deceive — more at calumny]
(1542)
intransitive
verb
1: to
raise trivial and frivolous objection
Maybe
the reformed community cavils at TT's linguistic carpet bombing approach
because we, like Machen, actually care what words mean.
I will now use a
word we made up:
To Calvin:
[
from John
Calvin from French Jean Cauvean ]
intransitive
verb
1: To unleash a
devastatingly precise and cogent argument upon a biblically and logically inconsistent
statement or series of statements that would otherwise likely lead to error
I may not succeed,
but I will try.
It is as if people thought in a straight line, but Hegel came
along and said that we should think in terms of a triangle.
-[Paraphrase of] Francis Schaefer, The God Who Is There
They still connected thinking with doing and were prepared to
alter their way of life as the result of a chain of reasoning… He doesn't
think [in terms of] 'true' or 'false'.
-C.S. Lewis, 1st Screwtape Letter
Gott ist tot…
Nichts ist wahr, Alles ist erlaubt
God is dead... Nothing is true, Everything is permitted
- Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake
Tharathustra
The beast… was, and
is not... and shall come.
Revelation 17:8
You
and I, because
we are sinners, we love if then propositions”
-William
Graham Tullian Tchividjian, In The Beginning...Grace Part 7
Let, therefore,
pious readers learn to hate and detest those profane sophists, who thus
deliberately corrupt and adulterate the Scriptures, in order that they may
give some color to their delusions.
-John Calvin, Commentary on
Colossians 1:24
To flirt with
neo-orthodoxy is to play with fire.
- Cornelius Van Til
A little leaven
leaveneth the whole lump.
-Galatians 5:12
So, my friend, listen
closely; don’t treat my words casually.
The way people used to think:
X is true >>>>> X says to do y>>>>>
You do Y.
The way people think now thanks to Hegel:
X is true x is false
\ /
do whatever you want
The way Christians
are supposed to think:
Bible is true >>>>> Bible says to do
y>>>>> You do Y.
If Bible says
x>>>>>>>>>then
we do x.
The way TT talks:
Bible is true Bible
is false
\ /
do whatever you want
TT: But you won't do that.
The
way Satan talks:
The beast was The beast is not
\ /
The beast shall come
The way Sorel
talks:
You have two
options : a and b.
Choose c - the
middle way that no one else can see - except me.
(I
have used "TT" to refer to TullianTchividjian . I have used "TT:" as a shorthand to
indicate a paraphrase of what Tullian has said, and/or a logical implication
of what he has said. Actual quotations within quotation marks are fairly
accurate. )
Something
cannot both be true and false in the same way and in the same place. That way
lies madness.
TT is at war with
logic, because he has embraced the logic of contradiction. "Truth comes
in the form of contradiction. It doesn't make sense! If you see that it
doesn’t make sense, you are starting to understand." TT is
embracing the Hegelian dialectic. One can get nowhere if he assumes that everything is true, and
nothing is true, if everything and its opposite are true. "If you can
believe it, you don't understand it, because it is bigger than you can
imagine."
Let your yea be
yea, and your nay, nay; that ye fall not under judgment.
(James 5:12)
There is nothing more disturbing than the
claim that the gospel always comes in a mystical, Hegelian, and linguistically
abusive manner. TT has partially
rejected the If-then statements of
rational linear logic for an irrational Hegelian synthesis of contradiction
which says that because x is both true and false, we should irrationally leap
into chaos and confusion of non-reason without objective morals.
TT:
The gospel is a contradiction: You tell your child that if he rebels, he will
not get a reward- but he gets a reward anyway… I know! It doesn't make sense!
This is an inconsistency of policy
application, not a contradiction. Furthermore, it is not a contradiction if we
are treated according to Jesus' righteousness and not our own
unrighteousness. If some people think that words are meaningless,
they may cease thinking logically, and just be passionate about doing... whatever.
TT: You don't need
to think conditionally! You can do whatever you want! But you're not going to
do that.
TT: If we can get
people to stop using if-then thinking, then we can achieve our goal [of
them thinking the way we want.] TT is giving us a bad name as sloppy thinkers.
Is the author
responsible for articulating his meaning? No. Neil Postman clearly states that
it is the audience, not the speaker, who must figure out what the author
means. This is sarcasm. Of course TT is responsible for articulating his
meaning` Good writing is not graded on what you meant, but
what you actually expressed and successfully communicated.
"What appears to be a sloppy or
meaningless use of words may well be a completely correct use of words to
express sloppy or meaningless ideas" said an anonymous diplomat who I
think was probably John Quincy Adams. TT is not using words in a sloppy way;
He is using words to accurately express dichotomized Lutheran conceptions. How
do you determine and evaluate if his ideas are sloppy if you excuse his
careless use of words? It is an impenetrable defense. "Disregard what he
wrote, I know what he meant." Oh really? What gives you the ability to
know what he meant, when I see the opposite being explicitly expressed?
System
one(automatic fast thinking) is not bad, we would die without it; the problem
is when we resist using system two(slow reflective thinking.) One might say "You think too much; You
need to just [whatever.] You need to be less of a berean, and less orthodox(clear thinking.)
You need to be more associative and sloppy in your thinking. Heresy doesn't
come from places like this!" The
converse reply would be "You are way too cocky, prideful, and
over-confident. You need to slow down and use your reflective system, or your
are going to end up in a bad place."
Associative
thinking Is not bad, but you must be very careful when you use it. As Thomas Sowell says, anecdotes,
correlations, and means of conveyance do not establish causality. Associative
logic does not confer certainty. I had wanted to pass over this in silence. I had wanted to give TT the
benefit of the doubt. But Dad has convinced me that the implications of some
of his choices of words are perilous and may work as snares to all. To regenerate and unregenerate alike.
TT inadvertently fell into anti-intellectualism through his ignorance of
logical rules.
One
cannot get into to trouble through understanding the rules of logic, but one
can get into trouble if one is ignorant of them. The less logic one knows, the
easier it is for him to think associatively and shallowly. Linear logic can
prove. Associative logic can only assert. Using logic imprecisely will get one into trouble, not only because others
can point out where he went wrong in defining his premises, but also because
he falls into error. Logic does not get on you into trouble, one get
yourself into trouble if one does not carefully define his premises.
If what I have said is unjustified as a rebuke of what [TT] is,
it may still be useful as a rebuke of what [he] may yet become.
[Irrationality] is habit-forming.
- slightly reworded
quotation of C.S.Lewis, Reflections on The Psalms
