Video Transcript: Structuring an Argument and Making Theories

Henry Reyenga - Henry Reyenga here with Dr. Roy Clouser. Again, and we're in this philosophy class. And we're gonna ask ourselves, why is the structure of an  argument even important? Why study logic? Why do philosophers care that  there's clear, concise understandings to verify for making even true statements  themselves? So as we look at this, and you're going to go in depth with different  forms of logic and structural arguments, and so forth, so we're not going to even  get into all the weeds here. I just want to ask you, why is logic and studying  logic, whether it's inductive, deductive, whether it's, you know, in probably all  kinds of different ways of logic and theories of logic. So we will talk about some  of that, too. But why is that important?  

Dr, Clouser - It's very important. What happens in philosophy as in sciences, as  people offer theories to explain the data that they're looking at. And the theory is  an educated guess. It fills an explanatory gap in knowledge. Okay, simple.  Here's a super simple example. I have red paint, I have blue paint, I mix the  paint, and the paint turns purple. What else is true? That makes it turns purple.  What doesn't turn brown or green or something else? I can't get the answer that  by sticking my head in the paint, no matter how closely I look, it's not going to  work. Okay, so I make guesses. And guesses might go like this. Paint is made of tiny particles called molecules. Molecules stick together in certain formations.  One formation reflects the red wavelengths of light and other reflects blue.  When you mix them together, they come together in another formation that  reflects purple. And that explains why the paint looks purple. Okay, those are  guesses. And then we try to give arguments to show that the guesses are true.  And other people give arguments to show that there are holes in our arguments, okay. And an argument means giving reasons for a belief, okay, reasons are  called premises, and the belief defendants called the conclusion. So logic is a  way of testing those arguments. You can you learn a logical system that allows  you to take the reasons the premises, put them into a logical code and notation,  okay, put the conclusion being defended into the same code. And you can then  with logical rules that are self evident, construct a proof that the conclusion  follows that is, if the premises are true, the conclusion has to be true. Or if that's  not true, you can find that it's not a valid argument, these premises can be true,  the conclusion still be false. So you have yet to give me enough reasons to  believe this conclusion. And that's the way people in the sciences and in  philosophy go with each other. They test theories by arguing, seeing what can  be argued against them, they sometimes test empirically that does something  turn out the way the theory predicts. But it's all done with against the  background of the reasons for the reasons against and weighing evidence, and  then coming to conclusion about the theory. 

Henry Reyenga - So what's the benefit? For someone studying in ministry or  enterprise or anything else? What's the benefit for learning how to think  logically?  

Dr, Clouser - okay, I couldn't quote you. So what some people have said to me,  okay, on the, on the train going into Rutgers University one day where I taught  logic, and I bumped into a man I knew, from years before, and he greeted me  and I said, How's things going? What are you doing? He's vice president of the  Philadelphia National Bank. He said, Where are you headed? Going to Rutgers.  I have a logic class. That was the single most important, most practical and  useful course I ever had, as an undergraduate, he said, when I go before the  board of the bank, I test all my arguments, I check them out, make sure they're  valid. Every conclusion I draw is really supported by the premise. I'm not going  to go in there and have them catch me in a bad argument and make a fool of  myself. So that's one, one. So  

Henry Reyenga - one of them that is just that when you're a leader, you are  expected to articulate and communicate knowledge, insights, that matter. You  want to make sure that what you're communicating makes sense. Yes. So one  benefit is that you're a leader, and you want to communicate that which makes  sense. 

Dr, Clouser - Even if you're not, and you want to become one. You want to do  work. That's tight logically. Right? Right. If somebody notices that you committed a fallacy, right? Your conclusion doesn't follow from the reasons you gave.  Right? You don't want that. That's that's true in business is true in the military.  It's true in ministry. The other guy who told me did that was a lawyer. He said,  before I go to court, I sit down, I take all my arguments and make sure that  they're logically valid, nobody's going to catch me in a fallacy, so,  

Henry Reyenga - so one benefit is, as a leader, a Christian leader, you want to  test what you're saying. Now, again, a lot of this after you get the hang of it, you  intuitively feel when something even logical fallacy. 

Dr, Clouser – That's true, when you get . Yes, yes, they're getting you can hear  people make mistakes, you can picture it. And of course, this is true about  sermons, too. Right? I mean, you don't want to get up and give a bunch of  reasons, throw a conclusion that doesn't follow from them. Or maybe somebody  in the congregation who's gonna notice. It, even if people don't have that  training, if you leave it hanging like that, a lot of people will sense anyway, that  something is wrong, it didn't connect. And there'll be right they won't be able to  put their finger on it. But there'll be right. 

Henry Reyenga - So what you're saying is not only new, the second benefit is  that even if someone didn't study logic, there is sort of a intuitive, does that  make sense? Sense? Yes, that people have. So you know, they will hear what  you have to say. That's right. Now, a lot of people think logic is hard to study.  Some people think it's boring. Some people think that, you know, logic is only for the PhD, the Dr, Clousers out there. Is it for new leaders that are like at Christian Leaders Institute?  

Dr, Clouser - why look, logic used to be the basis of education. If you go back  hundreds of years, people started out learning, grammar, rhetoric, and logic that  was called the trivium. Right, three basic things. And that was called, they were  supposed to be the ABCs, without which you could know anything else. So you  learned grammar, so you could write coherently, you learned rhetoric, so you  could speak coherently. And you learned logic, so that the arguments you gave  for your conclusions really followed, okay. And in recent times, in the US, and  Britain and Canada, at least I can speak for them. logic was a required subject  of everybody entering college. And unfortunately, a lot of them a lot of colleges  have dropped that. It's not a requirement anymore. But it should be in fact, to my humble opinion, logic should be taught in high school, high school students are  already being exposed to theories about a whole lot of things, right? You, if  you're going for a college degree are going to take a number of courses, you're  going to encounter course, after course, after course, where you'll you'll be  exposed to different theories on same subject. Same things explained this way,  by this theory, this way, by this theory, this way, by this theory, how will you judge who's giving the better reasons? How would you test it, it'd be just going to flip a  coin. No, you check out whether the premises looked true and whether they  really entail the conclusion. And if more than one does, then you start examining the premises in the same way. It gives you a way to check it out, and applies not only to theories, philosophy and science, but obviously we're saying applies to  business and applies to law,applies to of sermons. and  

Henry Reyenga – And ministry. I will tell you over the years of ministry, pastoral  care ministry, there are many times when my logic training, helped me. I'll give  you an example. Okay, so I remember 10 years maybe in the ministry, and so,  you know, everything sounded fine. And I noticed that one of the people I was  counseling always did the ad hominem fallacy. Okay, so explain to everybody  what the ad hominem fallacy is. 

Dr, Clouser - it means instead of addressing the issue you attack the person,  right. So, right after the war, II World War, Winston Churchill got in financial  trouble with his own finances, eventually straightened that out. But he was 

proposing a budget for the for Britain, and somebody said, You're proposing a  budget for Britain and you can't straighten out your own household? Right? Well, that's, that's irrelevant. His budget still might have been, right. Right. So that's  attacking the person instead of dealing with the issue, right.  

Henry Reyenga - So what I noticed is that you know, first is like, in the first I  mean 15, 20 minutes, I kind of got I was sucked into that person. Oh, really?  And then I would face it, you know? Well, so really, your bitterness is taking the  joy away from your life. Okay, so we'd have just a few moments to talk about  that about, you know, like the Lord's Prayer, forgive us our debts as we forgive  our debtors or forgive our trespasses for your tres our trespasses been forgiven. Okay, so, so anyway, so there is a point, and I know that this person's life was  just defined by that bitterness. But then every time we got to that place, the  issue was forgiveness. The ad hominem argument would kick in at first. You're  right. How could you forgive that person? How can you forgive that person, but  really, the issue is, their bitterness was bringing them great unhappiness, okay.  And so often is, hey, this is ad hominem. It was a counseling moment. And it's  so it allowed me to sort of say, you know, in some ways, again, I didn't say  there's a logical fallacy here, because there Minister, you don't do that. You  know, in some ways, the issue is your getting to that bitterness. That's why  you're coming to see me in your life is very bitter because of it. Okay, so we can  keep talking about why you can have convinced yourself for that bitterness, or  you can expose a lot. Expose actually a logical fail, fail or logic, that person  laughs What do you mean, what it was called the epidemiological fallacy, where  you take attacking the person is taking you away from your own journey.  

Dr, Clouser - Even if the person is in the right has the right to feel resentful, that  they can be eaten alive by their resentment, they have to let go of it. Right. And,  of course, that's what the Lord's Prayer is actually dangerous. You ask God,  forgive me my trespass, as I forgive others, if you don't forgive others, what do  you say? And don't forgive me right?  

Henry Reyenga - Now, yeah, that's like really clear logic. So we're back to the  structure of logic and the Christian faith. How does that connect to mean is so  who invented logic in your mind?  

Dr, Clouser - I think that logic consists of rules and laws about whether one  belief entails another okay, and that that's part of the Law Order of the world.  God has built logical laws into the world and into human consciousness in a way that people naturally try to isolate those laws and use them consciously, not just  unconsciously. In the same way. The world really has quantity. And though we 

invent numbers to represent it, the laws that hold between the numbers aren't  just invention, they are discoveries. And so  

Henry Reyenga - We don't invent mathematic and logical principles, that we  discover them. There God's laws already. Yes.  

Dr, Clouser - Amazing holds together. You know the history of logic. The people  who helped develop it, chief among whom is Aristotle, ancient Greek  philosopher, died about 300 BC. But he made logical laws divine. They were  parts of the divine being divine being as pure logic, these are the laws of it, and  because he so over, emphasized it, and actually revered it. He investigated and  found a number of the laws and worked out a logical system. That's ironic that it  takes a pagan deification of logic to discover a lot of its rules as  

Henry Reyenga - like a little sidetrack here, would you say that? That That  happens often that we see something so amazing in God's creation that we  ultimately deify it? I mean, is that a common human? That's what we need to be  willing to guard against? Yeah, right. Like we've discover logic. And the next  thing you know, we want to somehow deify it or we discover numbers and want  to sing songs to numbers. Did everybody, did anybody ever sing songs to  numbers?  

Dr, Clouser - No, but they prayed to them. They pray to numbers? Yeah,  Pythagoras. 

Henry Reyenga – The Pythagoras theory, we study that. 

Dr. Clouser – The Pythagorean theorem. Pythagoras and his community,  practice mathematics, but they did it because they regarded numbers as the  divine realities out of which everything is built. So things weren't all made of  atoms for him. They're made of numbers. And that's why when we do  calculations correctly, it always, reality always corresponds to it So in my first  book, I have a copy of the Pythagorean prayer to the number 10. Actually  worship numbers. It begins bless us divine number, thou that generates gods  and men. For number begins with the holy the pure unity until it comes to the  plurality of 10. And the 10 is called the mother and keyholder of all things,  number 10.  

Henry Reyenga - So when you take Christian philosophy after this class, you  can take that class and you're going to talk about some of the dynamics of  making an aspect of creation, deifying it, 

Dr, Clouser - that's right, turning some part of creation, some particular aspect of it into the self existent reality that generates the rest. And that's called  naturalism, as opposed to super naturalism, which means no, there's a  transcendent God, Creator, who creates all this. This isn't self sufficient self  existent,  

Henry Reyenga – Gotcha. Okay, so back to logic, what are the studies of logic  that you have observed over the years, the types of logic that are out there right  now, and again, we may not get into all of them in this class, or even at Christian Leaders Institute because, in a sense, we're not offering you a Logic Bachelor  degree in anything in philosophy. But what are if you were to actually get into the study of logic, what are the different types of logic out there?  

Dr. Clouser - I just finished a logic course. So I'll tell you what we did. 

Henry Reyenga - Okay. You can take that here at Christian Leaders when it's  available.  

Dr, Clouser - We started with Aristotle's logic because it shows you how it's  possible to see that language also can be made to be precise. And there are  rules that let you see what certain reasons entail.  

Henry Reyenga - So what type of logic is that called? What is that called?  

Dr, Clouser – That's the syllogism? syllogism logic of Aristotle, right? He  invented the syllogism, if you have two premises and a conclusion. And if the  premises are only about classes of things. Like all animals are dogs. All dogs  are living things. All animals are living things. Just two premises. Gotcha. Get  the conclusion if there are about classes. Gotcha. But if you want to put in  something about an individual then it doesn't work, so if you put all humans are  mortal, Socrates is a human. You can't even write that. Right. Therefore  Socrates is mortal. You can't write that either. Right? Because Socrates, all  Socrates, it's not some. Socrates isn't the class, it's an individual. All right. So  you can't do that you can't do relations. But it introduces the idea of entitlement.  If certain things are true, something else has to be right. I actually heard a  Christian professor, say, to a group of people or students, they asked him about  somebody's argument who disagreed with him. And he said this other thinkers,  premises were true. And his logic was perfect. But his conclusion was false.  Which shows he didn't know anything, whatever about logic. Interesting. What if  an argument is valid? If its premises are true, the conclusion has to be false.  Has to be true. It can't be false. That's logically impossible to contradict yourself.

Right? Right. So he just showed he didn't know anything, whatever he was  talking about. I'm sorry.  

Henry Reyenga - So one type of logic into the Aristotle type of logic, what are  some other ones.  

Dr, Clouser - Then we go to what was developed in the early 20th century.  Henry Reyenga - Okay, so well hold that the Aristotle type logic held sway  Dr, Clouser - from 300 BCE to early the early 1900s 

Henry Reyenga – That's like almost 5000 years. Well, be three 300 BC, so 25  2400 years. It's a long is a long time. Okay, so I got my numbers right now. Let's  so let's go to that. So now you go all the way forward to the 20th century.  

Dr, Clouser - In the 20th century, Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell  collaborated on a book called Principia Mathematica, okay. They were  concerned about the fact that mathematics has way outstripped its logical basis. Logical basis is just a syllogism, right? You're getting non Euclidean geometry  and algebra, and people are going crazy. It's got to be there's got to be a logic  that handles it. So they put together a logic that's called the calculus of  sentences. And in that, they're able to take compound statements, not just  simple ones, not just two premises but a number so they can do conjunctions,  disjunctions implications, and so on and it worked out beautifully. It was a great  achievement. And within 30 years, less than 30 years, people had added  quantifiers. To this. They have a predicate calculus, the man associated with  publishing Gottlob Frege, German. And he found a way to make some  distinguished subjects and predicates, and add relations and so on. And it was  the same rules of replacement and inference, you can construct proofs. So, now that becomes the shorthand into which things in argument stated in language  are translated into this shorthand, then you can apply the rules to the shorthand. So, it's called a predicate calculus. So we end with that. And I even end with  certain propositions in relational logic,  

Henry Reyenga - you're talking about when in the logic course that you here at  Christian leaders Institute. So we're gonna get into some of that. One more  thing. And then we're going to end this discussion. And that is this concept of  taking, like Greek as a language, do things like that? Because we offer Greek 1,  2, 3 here. We, you know, Greek it was the Bible, written, the New Testament  was written out of Koine Greek. Is there something about taking Greek that just  makes it helps you think more logically? And why? 

Dr, Clouser - Okay, I think so and why. I think the two greatest aids to training  your mind are the study of logic, and Greek, Greek, and  

Henry Reyenga - I studied Greek. I will tell you all that, you know, I took  philosophy and with logic and learned all the silly, the syllogisms, and, and all of  that, but when I took Greek, it seemed like, things came together for me even  better. It's like, I started realizing relationships. Yes. And  

Dr, Clouser - Because it's such a nuanced language, because it reflects all kinds of shades of meaning. And so yes, it's complicated. There are over 20 forms of  the word, the, as you know. But you can do things, in Greek, you make  distinctions and so on that, that are difficult to make in others. You can make  them, you know, it takes a lot of words, to get to it. So for example, when Christ  hung on the cross, the last thing he said is it is finished. Alright, in Greek,  tetelestai. And what that one word means in Greek is a project begun in the past to continue to the present, has now been completed will have effects to the  future. One word, right. And that's why no translation really conveys all that it  means Right, right. Yeah. There are other places, I think, the opening of the  book of Hebrews, one that annoys me that people don't translate all the nuance  that's there. It says, God, who in different times in different ways, spoke to our  ancestors by prophets, has in these last days, spoken through his son, who is  appointed heir of everything, right. But the Greek says, God, who in many times  in different ways, began and continued to talk to our ancestors by prophets. has  in these last days finished speaking. His son whom he has appointed heir of  everything. So the two verbs the verb is talk, not spoke, but it's imperfect. The  first case in action begun and continued. In the second case, it's an action  completed, aorist tense, right over Yeah, that's why there's no more revelation  from God. That's where there are no more books. The Bible, the Bible is what it  is because complete the church has always said that, and that's the reason,  right? Calvin cites.  

Henry Reyenga - Well, if you notice the logic, imperfect tense, and in Greek,  you'll learn the aorist tense the completed tense, which is extremely logical and  that English doesn't have that kind of feature, like Greek has. So we have to be  more intentional at times. But when you take Greek it starts helping you think  that way because you go, Oh, that's imperfect. That's the aorist that, again,  we're going far afield, but what we're talking about is the benefits to studying  logic. The benefits of this study of taking philosophy, the benefits of taking the  logic class. One last thing. And we'll conclude this segment, logic and  arrogance. Now, one thing that I noticed in myself when I learned logic and I  realized that you start seeing the world of people speaking illogically where 

they're using fallacies, one after the other. And then you realize in yourself that  you're using a fallacy. And then someone uses a logical fallacy to make their  point. And truth happens anyway. And you are arguing logically, there were logic  arguing, which is illogically but still obsolete, but still, it didn't go your way. And  you realize the hand of God was even defying logic in that moment of ministry.  And it's really unfortunate, and then what starts happening, the tempter comes  into your mind, and you start like looking at the world critically, and you know, all  of those things. So in a lot of ways, is great. And logic is, sometimes logic may  bring correctness, but it still doesn't bring truth. And sometimes, like, the humility of realizing that, that God is at work and or, you know, humility is a higher virtue  than being the answer, man that one that passes on knowledge puffs up. Love  builds up. I think it's good, because you can get all this and you could get  empowered to be a little monster.  

Dr, Clouser - Yes. Okay. That's, that's true. There are people that can use this to  become a royal pain, right? Of course, that's not advisable. No. And that's not  love. That's right. But by being able to see what's wrong with another argument,  doesn't mean that you use that as club to beat somebody over the head. You  take it apart, maybe in some gentle and kinder way, and try to find something  that you agree with, with the other person and show them that maybe what they  agree with you one rules this one out right, or makes it unlikely or something.  There are, there are kind of ways to do it. It doesn't have to be brutal, and I'm a  know it all. I'm gonna beat you up intellectually, that's no place for that. Very  unChristian.  

Henry Reyenga - Well, and again, in ministry training, we want to be diakonos.  servants. But we also want to be wise and I always reflected on when Jesus  once said to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. His point being like,  look, know your logic, know your mathematics, know, your ministry training,  understand that this is very important. On the other hand, love people, you  know, if I can speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but I have not love, I'm resounding gong. Or if I have a logic that can move science but have not love, I  am still nothing. 

Dr, Clouser - You know, this is applies to something, even if you're doing work  with other philosophers and people that are supposed to know logic, that know  better than to give you an invalid argument. But the reason for being able to  construct the argument into the logical shorthand and the conclusion, suppose  you can construct the proof, it's not a bad argument. The point of doing that isn't, haha, you made a mistake that's childish, the point of doing that is that when  you do, you can then see very often, what other premises it would take to make  the set of premises Yeah, to the conclusion. And then you are uncovering the 

assumptions this other person has that may even be unconscious to that  person. But they're the unspoken assumptions that make the argument valid.  And now you can evaluate those too long with the argument. Given that opens  up, the whole discussion, gets at the hidden assumptions behind things, and so  makes the whole exchange more profitable for both people.  

Henry Reyenga - So in that case, the logic is about love. And it's really about  serving your neighbor and serving them in a way that brings out the best in them and yourself. So anyway, thanks, Doctor. This was a great discussion about why we dive into understanding the structure of arguments and logic and all of those  things. And as we develop this, you'll start seeing that the Lord will use good  critical thinking to uncover his mysteries and mercy. So till next time, you