Monday, July 15, 2019

Misleading Evangelical Use Of Philosophical Phrases

Linguistic hypocrisy and the use of misleading language are not rare phenomena.  Evangelical apologists and teachers, including the incredibly over-hyped and fallacious William Lane Craig, are scarcely different than the average person in this regard, as they hijack or seemingly support certain phrases while not actually agreeing with what the phrases would normally mean.  Consider the following examples that resemble things evangelicals might say--or that they actually do say.


"Logical truths are necessary truths."

The popular Christian apologists would almost certainly affirm the truth of this sentence--but they also claim that logic is rooted in God's existence or character, which would mean that logical truths are not necessary truths, as they depend on something other than themselves and thus have no intrinsic veracity.  Many Christian apologists ultimately define logical truths as necessary truths only to deny that there is anything inherently necessary about them when pressed, as they think both that logic depends on God's existence and that nothing at all can be known with absolute certainty!


"Belief in God's existence is rational."

Evangelicals don't mean by this proposition that the existence of God can be logically proven, although it can be as long as one defines God as an uncaused cause.  When questioned thoroughly enough, they admit to meaning "rational" in the sense of "reasonable" [1]--that is, in the sense that they are subjectively persuaded by the idea that God exists, without regard for whether they know how to logically prove it or not.  The existence of an uncaused cause can be proven (and without any reliance on science [2]), a fact that cannot be altered by the stupidity of many theistic and atheistic thinkers alike.


"Sexuality is a gift from God."

Evangelicals don't actually mean that basic sexuality is a theologically positive aspect of human nature, and inherently so according to the Bible, that should be celebrated and enjoyed in all of its nonsinful manifestations (inside or outside of marriage) as Deuteronomy 4:2 permits [3].  Instead, they mean that sexuality is only to be affirmed, and even then often only in an embarrassed or shallow manner, in ways that do not upset the legalistic status quo, regardless of whether the Bible condemns a given form of sexual expression or not.


Evangelicalism has little to do with actual Christianity, despite being regarded by many Christians as a largely Biblical movement.  At best, evangelicalism is an incomplete set of ideologies.  At worst, it inverts numerous tenets of Biblical Christianity in favor of traditions and illogical preferences (the evangelical stance on moral epistemology, the nature of logic, faith and commitment, and sexuality are obvious examples).  Evangelicals might delude themselves, but their linguistic and conceptual errors are apparent to all who search for them.


[1].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2019/04/reasonableness-and-rationality.html

[2].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-uncaused-cause.html

[3].  https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2016/12/sexual-legalism.html

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