Every Believer Confident, Part 9
May 29, 2025 | by: Dale Thiele | 0 Comments
Posted in: Pastoral Encouragement
Logical Mistakes to Avoid
This is a multi-part series interacting with Mark J. Farnham’s new book, Every Believer Confident: Apologetics for the Ordinary Christian. Farnham is the founder and director of Apologetics for the Church and professor of apologetics at Lancaster Bible College and Capital Seminary. He states, “The purpose of this book is to help you to know, appreciate, firmly grasp, proclaim, and defend the Christian faith. My ultimate goal is to strengthen your faith, so you can confidently and effectively persuade unbelievers to believe in Jesus Christ” (p. 16). Let’s dig into the book together and see how our faith might be strengthened.
A common objection raised against the Christian faith is that it is not logical. Logic, however, is a gift of God who created this world and everything in it. The truth will be, must be, logical. “While it is true that Christians can be illogical and irrational, the Christian faith is neither of these things. The Christian faith is the only belief system that reflects the nature of the world and of truth as it is” (p. 151). Therefore, we ought to be logical as we defend and commend the Christian faith, while challenging our conversation partners logic, or lack thereof, behind their false beliefs. Farnham uses this chapter to equip us with some logic tools.
“Logic is the art and science of reasoning well” (p. 152). Logical fallacies are, therefore, “flaws in reasoning that at first hearing seem to be true but on examination are found to be false” (p. 152). Farnham explains several logical fallacies with examples of how Christians and unbelievers might use each. The aim in this lesson is twofold: help Christians avoid using these logical fallacies and help Christians discern logical fallacies behind false beliefs. Let me briefly highlight several of the logical fallacies Farnham touches on.
“Under an appeal to authority, a claim is defended or advanced on the basis of those who believe it” (p. 153). Christians might appeal to Albert Einstein because he believed in a “higher power.” Unbelievers might appeal to the Royal Academy of Science, where 93% of the members do not believe in God. Farnham says, “Nothing is ever true because of who said it” (p. 154).
“People who employ personal attack ignore an actual argument and instead criticize the one who offers it” (p. 155). Christians may try to discredit Mormonism based upon the questionable character of its founder, Jospeh Smith. Unbelievers might reject Christian apologists that they perceive to be uneducated. Personal attacks not only are rude and inconsiderate, but they also distract “from the real issue of the debate by focusing on the other person” (p. 156).
A “false cause involves attributing a cause to an event or idea that is not its actual cause” (p. 156). Christians may say something like, “The reason crime is on the rise is that people have stopped going to church” (p. 156). Unbelievers might say the opposite, that violent crime has declined because church attendance has fallen. “Only when we can demonstrate definitively that one thing causes another should we link them together as cause and effect” (p. 157).
“A red herring is an argument that seems to support a person’s position but in reality has nothing to do with the topic at hand” (p. 157). A Christian might say that Christianity is the truth because Christians build so many beautiful buildings in the world. An unbeliever might deny the existence of God because God did not answer his prayer. These arguments do not demonstrate a logical connection with the topic on hand.
“Hasty generalization draws a conclusion about everything of a particular kind based on one or a few examples” (p. 159). A Christian might say that all atheists are dangerous and immoral people based upon an interaction with one individual. An unbeliever might say all churches only want money because he witnessed one church make a financial appeal. We must be careful not to make generalized judgments based upon a limited scope of evidence.
“Begging the question involves assuming that something is true without proving it” (p. 160). A Christian might say, “Evolution cannot explain the origin of life on earth because it is not true” (p. 160). An unbeliever may beg the question by saying, “Science has disproved the existence of God because there is no scientific evidence for God” (p. 161).
These are some of the logical fallacies common in discussions over the truth of Christianity. On the one hand, we do not want to be caught using these and, thus, leading another to reject Christianity because of our lack of logic. On the other hand, we want to be discerning enough of the fallacies someone might use against our defense of the faith. Like most of the disciplines of apologetics, “detecting logical fallacies takes much time and practice” (p. 163), but this becomes an essential tool in our ability to defend the Christian faith. Let’s be praying that our unbelieving conversation partners may be called out of the darkness of falsehood into the glorious light of the truth of Christ.
