Logic is something each one of us uses every day. Every decision we make is based on a some form of reasoning. Whether that reasoning is good or not is irrelevant. Every person, when making a decision weighs whether that decision will be beneficial or not and how much they are willing to sacrifice to get the result they want. This is why most New Years resolutions peter out after about a month. The logic that dictated the resolution fails to compete with the effort needed to perform it. However, many people do not realize that logic is actually a huge part of the origins debate. In this article, we will explore what logic is and why it is critical to origins.
Logic is not a universally agreed upon topic. There are numerous systems of logic with different approaches but largely logic can be boiled down to using the process of deductive reasoning to determine the consequences of a given action and thus decide whether said action is profitable. In the context of origins, logic is frequently used to form arguments. A common evolutionary one is ” Such and such organ has no function. Therefore it must be vestigial”. A similar creationist argument might be “The human eye is extremely complex. It must have come into being all at once rather than over a long period of time. Therefore it could not have evolved.” Thus logic for the purposes of the origins debate may be defined as the formation of arguments using deductive reasoning.
This leads to the question of what is deductive reasoning? Deductive reasoning is essentially taking a starting point and tracing it to reach a conclusion that matches up with the evidence. Essentially, deductive reasoning follows the old Sherlock Holmes premise. The fictional detective, famous for using deductive reasoning, had a saying that went “If you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be true.” This essentially is deductive reasoning in a nutshell. It seeks to eliminate all false conclusions to reach the true one.
The astute members of my audience may have noticed that I have yet to even reference origins. I will explain why in a moment. For now consider a concept. In order to make an argument, you must assume a few things. The first assumption you are making is that your brain is functioning correctly. This may seem obvious but think about it for a moment. Why are people considered crazy and committed to mental institutes? Because they have ceased to function in a logical way due to some form of mental illness. Therefore, in order to argue logically, the mind must be functioning properly. However, few if any of those committed to an a mental institute believe that they are acting illogically. Thus belief that one is acting logically does not constitute proof that one is acting logically. Therefore, to argue, it must be implicitly assumed that one’s mind is functioning correctly.
A second assumption for having a logical argument is that things happen in an organized, logical fashion. Logic is useless if events and ideas do not follow any organized pattern. If events and ideas simply happen or appear randomly, without any overarching design or purpose, then it is impossible to trace a reason for them. Thus it is impossible to use deductive reasoning, because there is no reasonable explanation. This being the case, it must be assumed that processes and ideas follow a logical pathway which can be discovered by the use of deductive reasoning.
A third assumption is that there are true and false statements. This is important because deductive reasoning requires arriving at a true result. However, if true and false do not exist or are relative then logic is useless because deductive reasoning no longer applies. If truth is relative, then logic no longer applies because the true conclusion no longer exists. Logic only works if there is an ultimate truth to be deduced. Thus it must be assumed that there exists a single true answer for every argument. There must be a single true answer, for, if there were multiple, the laws of logic would also no longer be of use. If there were multiple equally true answers to a given problem, then logic no longer applies because deductive reasoning is built to reach a single true conclusion. Therefore, in order to argue logically, there must be a single true answer to every logical question.
If all of that is true, and it is, then the idea of origins is massively impacted. Logic requires that the human brain be functioning properly. However, each person must assume this about themselves. The only way we can be certain our brains are functioning correctly is to believe that they were designed to function that way in the first place. Otherwise it is just an assumption. Further, since logic only works in an ordered system, to argue logically, one must assume that the universe itself is ordered and arose by an orderly process. Further, there can be only one explanation for a given problem. From that we can deduce the following. The human brain must have been designed to function logically in an orderly fashion or arguments are senseless. It then follows naturally that the universe itself also must have been put together in an orderly fashion and that there must be a single true explanation for that order and design.
The above paragraph is critical to understanding why logic is important to origins. Without logic, we cannot form arguments, yet logic itself argues for the existence of a designer. It demands order, not random chance, defying evolutionary explanation. Since they insist that the world came into being by chance and that everything which formed thereafter arose due to a blind chance guided process, they must believe that the human brain formed the same way. If that is so, how can they trust their own reasoning? After all, their brain is merely a pile of random chemical reacting together with no logic behind its structure. This is the difficult enigma for evolutionists. They must either admit to the brain’s design so that they may argue logically, or they must deny the brains design, and admit to not being able to trust their own logic. Creationists should never fail to stress this point because logic is no problem for them. Creationists do not attempt to deny the obvious design in nature. They embrace it, thus embracing the fact that the brain was designed. By thus admitting the brain was designed, they acknowledge One higher than themselves Who has the ability to form the human brain so that, barring injury or illness, it will attempt to think in a logical fashion. Logic stands as a barrier that evolution cannot cross.
Harry
In His Image 