Christian Slogans Pt. 3

My second post about Christian Slogans was even more popular than the first. If you can think of any to tackle, send me a message or leave it in the comments, and I’ll try to include in my next post. Here are some more slogans! Enjoy! 

“God is not logical.” I would love to hear the logic behind this. Everything, and I don’t mean everything in the world or universe, I mean EVERYTHING, like God, angels, and the rules which limit their abilities, so metaphysically everything is ruled by the laws of logic. There is nothing to which the laws of logic do not apply. Now, for some reason, people don’t like this. Maybe they know they aren’t the clearest thinkers who cannot reason within the rules of logic, and so by downplaying it, they can get away with a lot of their own beliefs without the fear of being illogical. That’s like ignoring “STOP” signs on the road because you don’t want to come face to face that you’re a bad driver. But we can prove this false anyways. There is the Law of Non-Contradiction. This says that both A and ~A cannot be true in the same way. This is obvious. We use contradictions all the time to prove someone wrong. So, let’s take “God is not logical.” This is used to contradict the notion “God is logical” and demonstrate that proposition false. But if so, then you are using the Law of Non-Contradiction to God, saying God is not Logical and not not Logical (or Non-Logical and ~Non-Logical). But then the Laws of Logic DO apply to God still, saying He is one but not the other, even when you try to use this, so the statement is self-refuting and necessarily false. I wonder how people read John 1:1 when it says Jesus is the Logos, from which we derive Logic. Cognitive dissonance, no doubt. 

“That’s just man’s wisdom.” Unless God Himself uttered that sentence, that too is just mans wisdom. This slogan is meant to be dismissive, and so the sentence, when uttered by man, dismisses itself, and so we ask, “Why are you still talking?” But clearly there is nothing wise about this slogan. Like the previous slogan, this one probably stems from people’s intellectual insecurity. They probably disagreed with someone, heard a rational well thought out case, didn’t know how to respond, and tried to dismiss it as “mans wisdom.” All wisdom, no matter what, comes from God. For example, let’s say Confucius says something wise, like “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” In fact he said something very similar. He said this before Jesus was born. Now, if this is true, we should expect Jesus to agree with this. But wait! Isn’t that man’s wisdom? Well, sure, but what matters is, is it true? If it is, then it existed in God before God created anything at all (because God is truth), and so Confucius has not invented this truth, but merely discovered it. In the exact same way, when a man spits out wisdom, it is not merely his, but God’s, and that is nothing to dismiss. 

“How is that guarding their heart?” This comes from a passage in Proverbs, but the way it is used today is very detached from that application. The way it is applied today is very immature, applied to a couple of the opposite sex. A typical scenario might include a male and female at In-N-Out together say at 11pm. Now, when my roommate comes home from his Christian dinner I ask, “How is that guarding her heart?” A couple of things have just happened. First, I asked a rhetorical question, and rhetorical questions should not be answered. They are statements phrased as questions, so we should treat them like statements, and the statement is, “You are not guarding her heart.” Secondly, by phrasing the statement as a question, the burden of proof is shifted. When someone is making a statement, they have to give reasons and evidence for the truth of that statement. None was given for the statement “You are not guarding her heart.” Yet the person who utters this statement expects it to be refuted or given a satisfactory answer, when it isn’t the job of the accused at all to do that. In a court of law this is called “Guilty until proven innocent” or something like that. Thirdly, there is another rhetorical trick at play. Imagine I asked a parent, “How is that protecting your child?” and they’re just eating a taco. The parent replies, “It’s not…” and I gasped, “You’re not protecting your kids! Where’s child services when you need them?” What I’m doing is I’m making it sound like they’re exposing their child to danger by their not protecting them, but that’s silly. Their eating a taco is not protecting their child, but it isn’t exposing their child to any harm either. In the same way, if one admits that a certain action is not guarding a persons heart, it doesn’t follow that they are in any way exposing it to any danger either. Finally, hearts shouldn’t be so guarded. You know what you call a heart so guarded it’s impenetrable? A hardened heart. God doesn’t speak fondly of those hearts. Let’s say I’m at dinner with a girl, as I was just the other night. I want to win her heart over. In order for that to happen, she needs to let her guard down. That means her heart needs to be exposed. I’m not saying totally exposed, but as much as I have earned, little by little, until we’re married and we’re one flesh. But isn’t this contrary to Proverbs 4:23? No, not at all. The section seems to start with verse 20. We read guides for listening (v20), seeing (v21) speaking (v24), and walking (v26). But because certain restrictions and guides apply, do we then say we ought not listen, see, speak or walk? No, never. Then why do we say we ought to always block off hearts? Because there is an immature and overly controlling view of persons in this slogan, and that’s not guarding my heart.