The other day I was sitting in my philosophy class at school and we picked where we had left off with our discussion of fallacies. To clarify, a fallacy is technically defined as statements that might sound reasonable or superficially true but are actually flawed or dishonest. Basically it's a wrong way of thinking or reasoning; it's an illogical, unsound argument. So we're flipping through this packet of tons of fallacies to learn, and we come to one called "circular reasoning."
Just so we are all on the same page, circular reasoning is a pretty simple fallacy compared to some of the others. It's when the conclusion is also its own premise. If you know what that means, awesome, if not, don't worry about it. It basically argues that A=B, therefore A=B. For example, if someone said, "A table is a surface supported by 3 or more legs," they are using circular reasoning. Since the definition of a table is a surface supported by 3 or more legs, they're basically saying a table is a table because it's a table. That is circular reasoning.
Alright, so we read about all that and I see a diagram showing an example of this fallacy. Here's what it said:
A: God exists.
B: Why should I believe that?
A: Because the Bible says God exists.
B: Why should I believe anything the Bible says?
A: Because the Bible is the inspired Word of God.
See what's happening here? There's this skeptic of the existence of God (B). When trying to find out why he should believe that God is real, he ends up nowhere because person A used circular reasoning. If he doesn't believe in the existence of God, then the fact that the Bible is the inspired word of God means absolutely nothing to him. It's a huge circle that leads to nowhere, obviously. So my question is, how do we get out of this circle? How would we deal with this situation if it ever came up? I understand that a great deal of faith is involved that wasn't mentioned in this little example here, but what would you do?
This brought up a lot of questions in my head about stuff like this. I mean, if that circular reasoning example is how people who aren't Christians and are skeptical view God, then how do we break the circle? Please share what you think...i love hearing everything y'all have to say.
Peace out rainbow trout....alexa
I think the first thing you can do is talk about what God has done in your life. I mean, you can talk about the Bible and how great it is, but really, for all they know the whole thing was made up, and they can't relate to it. But they know you, so you can tell them how you personally know God is real.
ReplyDeleteAlso (I'm going to post this), I have a list of reasons that the Bible can be proven true, but I don't suggest breaking this out until they come to you.
I loved this post-really got me thinking! Thanks!
-Erin