Logic and Theology: Grad School Speech

On my Facebook page a few weeks ago I asked people why they do, or do not believe in the existence of God. As part of my graduate studies I needed to deliver two speeches. I chose to do one that would illustrate a primary reason for my faith.

Here is the transcript for my 3 minute speech given during my Master's Degree studies. For your amusement I have included the class critique of the speech (it gets cut off) so the video is about 6 minutes long. I do want to say that Dr. Mike Hazel is a fantastic teacher and researcher. I miss him and the other GU faculty.

Video: Logic and Theology
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Transcript: Logic and Theology

Jefferson and Adams. Lewis and Clark, Antony & Cleopatra, peanut butter & chocolate, Narcissus and well, Narcissus. Over the eons there have been many great pairings. Pairings of people, things or ideas. I have found that the discipline of logic can be a great pairing with theology – the study of the nature of God.

C.S. Lewis, a professor at Cambridge University had this to say about Jesus Christ. “I am trying to prevent anyone from the foolish statement, ‘I am ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher.” By applying logic to the life of Jesus he developed the idea of the “trilemma” a choice between 3 mutually exclusive choices.

You may recall that Jesus was killed because he claimed to be God. This was blasphemy of the most heinous sort to the Jewish rulers and this was the reason they used to get Jesus killed.

When someone makes a claim to be God there are really only 3 choices. The claim is true, or the claim is false. If the claim is false the person was either lying, or crazy. So the three choices are God, crazy or liar.

Dr. Henry Cloud, a psychologist in So.Cal. tells the story of a missionary woman who had been out on the mission field for too long. She was elderly and hospitalized for mental illness. One day, she walked out into the hall, let her robe fall off, and standing there naked proclaimed, “I am Mary, Mother of God.” Clearly, that was not the case and she was in fact, delusional.

When Jesus says that He is God he did not display any type of delusional behavior and his other statements have been recognized through the ages as profound. In fact, Jesus’ teachings are respected by religions outside of Christianity! I don’t know many people who would claim to knowingly follow a delusional person. And if he did I doubt he would convince many others to follow.

Of course Jesus spoke a lot about love and being truthful. In fact, he even said that everything he said was true. Juxtapose that with the claim to be God and things become problematic. To claim to be God, to tell others to be truthful and say that everything you say is truth is strong stuff. If he was not God and knew He was not God then he was a first rate liar, he let himself be killed for a lie by not denying that he was God, and he hypocritically told others to be truthful, while He was lying. That is not what great moral teachers are made of. Great moral teachers are men and women of integrity, not bold-faced liars.

That leaves us with option three; Jesus was God just as he claimed. If that is the case, then everything he said was true and needs to be included in His teaching, not just the stuff we like. And if that is true the option of “Jesus was a good moral teacher” is also off the table.

I am not going to tell you what to do with this information; I am merely suggesting that logic and theology make a great pair. Logic can help bring theological ideas into focus without compromising the intellect, or the spirit of faith.
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What about you? I would enjoy hearing your reasons for your belief, whether you believe there is a God or believe there is not a God.

Thanks for stopping by.

Mike