Don't Fall For These Logical Fallacies
"When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways." - 1 Corinthians 13:11
During my seminary years, the conservative Christian world issued many dire warnings about the effects of postmodernism in our culture and in the church. It would lead to the “death of truth,” they said. I don’t hear nearly as much talk about postmodernism these days. A Google Ngram search confirms that usage of the word peaked around the turn of the millennium and has steadily declined ever since.
Does this mean postmodernism died? No. Quite the opposite. We don’t need to talk about postmodernism anymore because it has become the cultural “factory setting” for how people think about reality and truth. Anytime you hear someone speak of “your truth” or “my truth,” they are expressing a way of thinking that is only possible in a postmodern world.
According to Wikipedia, “Postmodernism says that there is no real truth. It says that knowledge is always made or invented and not discovered. Because knowledge is made by people, a person cannot know something for sure - all ideas and facts are ‘believed’ instead of ‘known’.” Simply put, postmodernism, as a philosophy, “rejects concepts of rationality, objectivity, and universal truth.”
In other words, postmodernism killed truth. It produces nothing but radical self-sovereignty and absurdity. Since there is no objective truth that exists outside of ourselves, everyone determines his or her (or they/them/ze/zir, etc.) own “truth,” such as pregnant men. When words have no objective meaning, every individual gets to write their own dictionary. When truth no longer corresponds to reality, everyone gets to create their own reality like an RPG avatar and demand everyone else accommodate.
Logical Fallacies: Postmodern Thinking in Action
As an unfortunate consequence of postmodern thinking, logical fallacies have become more prevalent, even among Christians. Logical fallacies are flaws in reasoning that make false claims sound more convincing. Some use logical fallacies out of ignorance, which this article aims to correct. Others use logical fallacies more nefariously to deceive people through rhetorical sleights of hand. They have become a powerful tool that short-circuits our ability to think rationally about the most important cultural issues of our day.
There’s no “official” list of logical fallacies or standardized set of labels for them. Ordinary people commit logical fallacies all the time without even realizing it. Nevertheless, our Christian duty is to be sober minded (1 Pet 1:13), to put away falsehood, and to clearly speak truth to one another (Eph 4:25). This means, as much as possible, to avoid use of logical fallacies and detect when they are used against us. Here are a few of the most common logical fallacies I’ve observed being used against Christians, with a brief example or two for how they are used against conservative Christians and our views.
False Dilemma (or False Dichotomy): Presenting two options as the only possibilities when others exist. For example: “Trans kids are more likely to commit suicide if their parents don’t affirm them. So would you rather have a living daughter or a dead son?”
Circular Reasoning: Making an argument that assumes the conclusion in the premise. For example, “The Bible doesn’t condemn all forms of homosexuality, only violent acts of homosexuality. The Bible doesn’t address committed, loving, gay relationships.” This is a logical fallacy because it assumes an unbiblical distinction between different kinds of homosexuality.
Genetic fallacy: Accepting or dismissing an argument based on the source of the information instead of its content. For example, “I don’t agree with complementarianism because Mark Driscoll teaches it.”
Appeal to Authority: Arguing that something is true simply because an authority says it is. For example, “My view is correct because I know Hebrew and Greek and have a PhD on this subject.” Another example, “Everyone should ‘trust the science’ and get the COVID vaccine.”
Ad Hominem: Attacking the person rather than the argument itself. For example, “theobros oppose women pastors because they’re just insecure and intimidated by capable women.” Another example, “you oppose homosexuality because you’re a closeted homosexual yourself.”
Straw Man: Misrepresenting or exaggerating someone's argument to make it easier to attack. For example: “Christian nationalists want to force people to convert at gunpoint!”
Appeal to Emotion: Using emotional appeals rather than logical arguments to persuade. For example: “Christians should accept homosexuality because homosexuals have been historically oppressed and mistreated.”
Appeal to Ignorance: Arguing that something is true because it hasn't been proven false. For example: “Show me where the Bible says two gay men can’t get married.”
Fallacy of Composition (or anecdotal reasoning): Assuming what’s true of the part must also be true of the whole. For example, “Stop saying that ‘women are the weaker sex.’ Sally is stronger than most men I know!”
Hasty Generalization: Arguing for a broad conclusion based on a small or biased sample size. For example, “Frank is a conservative who is abusive to his wife. Thus, conservatism makes men abusive!”
Sweeping Generalization: Dismissing a general truth because an exception to the rule exists. In other words, exceptions on the margin are used to invalidate the general truth. For example, “Homosexuality should not be considered ‘unnatural’ because even some species of animals engage in homosexual behavior.”
Bulverism (coined by CS Lewis): Discrediting an opponent by ascribing some psychological motive behind his argument. It’s a form of ad hominem fallacy. For example, “you’re opposed to women pastors because your mother was overbearing and deeply wounded you.” Another example, “you only hold that view because you’re clinging to your power and privilege.”
Bandwagon Fallacy: Arguing that something is true or correct because it is popular. For example, “How can gay marriage be wrong when 70% of Christians support it?” Another example: “Since most people believe in evolution, Christians are wrong about the origin of life."
Association Fallacy: Assigning negative qualities to one thing because of an irrelevant association with another thing. For example, “the way Christian men talk about the patriarchy sounds just like ISIS!” Another version of this is “Godwin’s law,” an internet adage that says the longer an online discussion grows, the greater the probability of someone being compared to Hitler or the Nazis.
Equivocation: Using a word in different senses in different parts of an argument, leading to a false conclusion. For example, “Conservatives aren’t truly ‘pro-life’ because most of them support the death penalty."
Confirmation Bias: Asserting something to be true because it confirms pre-existing beliefs while disregarding evidence to the contrary. For example, “Here’s another headline about a conservative pastor involved in a scandal. This just proves that all conservative pastors are bad men.”
Red Herring: Introducing an irrelevant topic to divert attention from the original issue. For example, person A says, “I believe marriage is between one man and one woman.” Person B responds, “How can you say that when the church has a history of scandal and corruption?”
False Analogy: Assuming that because two things are alike in one or more respects, they are necessarily alike in some other respect. For example, “opposing gay marriage is based on bigotry and prejudice just like those racists who oppose interracial marriage.”
False cause: Incorrectly assuming a causation from some correlation. Since one event followed another, it must have been caused by the first event. For example, “Some gay people share this unique genetic characteristic. Therefore, homosexuality is a genetic condition caused by a ‘gay gene.’”
Conclusion
Most likely, many of these examples look familiar to you. Perhaps they’ve been used against you in a disagreement, or you’ve even used them against someone else. As Christians, we must stand for the truth, and use truthful arguments when defending the truth. The Apostle Paul wrote, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways” (1 Cor 13:11).
God is the ultimate reality upon which all reality depends (Gen 1:1-2, John 1:1-5). Jesus Christ is the full revelation of the truth of God (John 1:14, 17; Heb 1:1-2) Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life (John 14:6). The words of Christ are “spirit and life” (John 6:63). Jesus promises that the Holy Spirit will “guide [us] into all truth” (John 16:13).
Rational thought is possible because the world God created is orderly, consistent, observable, and real. God is the ultimate source of everything true, good, and beautiful. The Christian worldview produced great achievements in science, mathematics, literature, and art because we are people who understand that this is God’s world, we live in it at his pleasure, and in him we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). What God has “concealed” in the world he beckons us to come and “search things out” (Prov 25:2).
God is a rational God who relates to man in rational ways. The beginning of Isaiah’s prophecy is a simple invitation: “Come now, let us reason together, says the LORD” (Isaiah 1:18). Jesus tells us the heart of the Christian faith is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30). James says the “wisdom from above” is “open to reason” (3:17). In short, Christians must reject foolish, postmodern thinking and use our God-given minds for his glory.
(And everyone who disagrees with me is a Nazi.)
** Michael and fellow CTM contributor Wade Thomas host the “Current Reality Podcast” and they discussed these logical fallacies in a recent episode. Apple | Spotify