ON REASON AND LOGIC

REASON AND LOGIC: Blessing of Curse?

  Reasoning is merely cognition – using the mind to process knowledge – so that it will have utility in life. Reasoning is how people exist in their environment. Intellect is the ability to use the knowledge, apply it, and come to conclusions.
  Logic is the process inferring from some idea to concluding the truth. Truth should be the ultimate goal of everyone, but to be honest, people most often come to conclusions which are biased. Why? Because that is easier, often more appealing, and provides comfort to those who are intellectually challenged. People in general would rathe live a lie because falsehoods are less stressful.
  God’s ultimate truth was essentially, displease Me by dishonoring My Will and you will die. Because people do what they want to do, their reasoning is short-circuited. Because they are not willing to conform to the standards set by God, they rationalize in many ways: (1) God is not real, (2) God would not be so punitive, (3) God’s grace relieves me of responsibility, (4) God operated differently in olden times before Jesus, (5) or even, disrespect for God because pleasure is more appealing than contentment. The latter was the sin of Adam and Eve.
  They knew God, believed in Him, realized that they were created, but thought God would not care if they pleasured that one time. As such, they were irreverent to God’s Will, and died. Satan used their limited knowledge-base against them. All they knew before sin was goodness: good light (Gen 1:4), good things which were visible (Gen 1:10), good plant life (Gen 1:12), good sun and moon (Gen 1:18), good oceanic and avian animals (Gen 1:21), good land living animals – even creeping things like serpents (Gen 1:25), and also men and women (Gen 1:26-27).
  The totality of all the creation was “very good.” (Gen 1:31). On the seventh day, God rested from all the good things He had made. Since God made everything, and no one else, “only God is good” (Mark 10:18) in which Jesus implied that he Is God. The Jews used faulty reasoning, as sin blinded them. They knew that God was one substance that was invisible. They had been punished repeatedly for not understanding that. Through conditioning, God convinced them that there is only one God.

Then there comes Jesus, implying that he is God. The inference that the Jews made was that this mere tradesman was not God! Then throughout Jesus’s ministry, they ignored fact after fact, and finally in the end, their conclusion was that Jesus is not God. Then they killed him for their presumption. Their faulty reasoning and poor logic killed God, at least for a short time, as Jesus demonstrated to them again, that indeed, he is God. Even after the resurrection, Jews whose logic had failed them, still disbelieved… and they do to this day.
  God made two other good things. They are what I call, “Decision Trees.” The two trees in the middle of the Garden of Eden were for mankind to use their reasoning. It was God’s way of judging their allegiance. Actually, it was God’s way for them to decide to whom they would have allegiance. By eating of one of the two trees, decided who was their true “god.” Eating of the Tree of Life was allowable, and eating of that tree inferred immortality because eating of that tree was good, and that inferred God’s goodness.
  Eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil provided a second choice. It provided pleasurable things which appeased the bodies of the two. Adam saw that Eve did not die after eating, and concluded that since she didn’t die, he would not… so he ate. Adam’s logic was flawed because his knowledge base was limited. He didn’t understand death! Most people still do not or they would do something about it.
  Death is isolation from God, and loss of His Spirit from the human soul. It leaves the body alone to face perishing for eternity without a chance for reprieve, all the while suffering.
  Logical people would choose immortality over perishing forever. However, many “free-thinkers” have limited knowledge. They deny what they cannot see nor understand. Their inference is that an invisible God does not exist, and an unseen place is mythological. Why? They have a limited knowledge base. They fail to see the unseen. It can be detected, but it takes a special type of vision to see into the unseen.
  Scripture likens that ability to a “sea of glass” (Rev 4:6, 15:2). To see through that glass, it must be transparent. Children have the ability to see God when adults cannot. We are to be as the little children, Jesus said (Mat 18:3).
  Seeing the unseen is conversion, as Jesus indicated. Children merely accept things unseen because they do not rely only on logic. They are known for making an inference, and accepting it without proof. Children, therefore, are not held accountable for things they cannot understand.
  On the other hand, adults are accountable. Adam and Eve were two different cases: Eve was as the “child” since God had not revealed the crime nor the punishment to her. She innocently believed the deception of the Serpent. Adam, however, knew the crime and punishment, but ate anyway. He made God out to be the liar when it was the Serpent all the time!
  Adam heard God’s Voice, but nowhere does scripture say that he saw God. Adam and Eve both saw the Serpent as he was both real and invisible. But one thing they missed with their limited knowledge. That was not a real snake but Lucifer posing as one. They believed something which was not real because it seemed so real to them!
  Many Muslims believe that Judas Iscariot is Isa (Jesus). Jesus - the Tree of Life - died on a tree (cross), and right before that, Judas died on his tree by hanging. Jesus’s sacrifice set Christians free from deception, sin, and even death. Judas’s tree merely set him free from guilt, but he still paid the penalty of death. He still did not understand, that Jesus would have forgiven him, and could not because Satan was residing in Judas just as in the Serpent of the forbidden tree (Luke 22:3).
  The Serpent lied but told much truth. Everything he said was truthful but one thing: they would indeed die! Eve looked at the Serpent’s arguments: everything is “good” as it was, and they would no longer be in the image of God, but “as gods” themselves. There was even truth to them becoming “as gods” because they did gain more of the knowledge of God.
  God knew “good” and He knew “evil.” Lucifer had been evil before, and God condemned him to death; not that moment, but his immortality was struck from him. The Serpent knew death because he was more cunning than any of the beasts. (Gen 3:1). Why? He had the knowledge of evil because Lucifer was in the animal.
  Theretofore Adam and Eve knew only what they saw, and all that they saw was good. Their knowledge base was missing the knowledge of evil. They did gain more knowledge, and their reference increased to good and evil, hence the name of the tree.
  Before they ate, they had no knowledge of evil, so they trusted the Serpent for which they had tangible evidence. Eve thought God had said, neither touch the tree. (Gen 3:3). Eve did not have the totality of God’s Will because God had told Adam, not her. She didn’t have all the facts. People never do, but merely think that they have all the knowledge. We find out later, that is pride, as it was with Lucifer.
  People still like to think like that! By denying the unseen and God’s Existence, they magnify their knowledge over the omniscience of God. They indeed become “as gods” but in their own minds. They live the lie instilled by the Serpent of old. They think they are thinking freely, but their cognition has been clouded by self-worth, or better yet, self-aggrandizement.
  Logic and reason were chaotic from the Serpent. It was organized deception, with the recipients proud of their conclusions, until at least, the truth struck them. Then they covered themselves with fig leaves as wrong people still do. When people find that they have fell for scams, many in their pride, cover their foolishness. I do that often as well when I make mistakes! You do too.
  Eve thought that it was important to actually touch the tree for tangible proof since that would provide more evidence. The Serpent made the inference that she would not die, and what did she do? Asked for more evidence. It should have been enough that God said, “Do not eat, or you will die!” Children would generally believe that, but not Eve. She had to try it. Adam needed more evidence, and Eve did not seem to die!
  “Evidence” is tricky. Scatomas are when things are not as they truly exist. On time, I saw in my mind’s eye that I was the first car between me and the mortal accident. I could actually envision that! However, it turned out that there was another car between me and the accident victim. My “evidence” was dismissed because “smart me” didn’t see things that really happened, but how I wanted to see them. I wanted to be the most credible witness, but my scatoma made me unreliable!
  “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1). Conversion is the implication that what we see is not all that there is! People have always believed that physical things exist, but had no knowledge that atoms made up physical things because they were too microscopic to see. Some proposed that atoms existed. That was faith. The invention of the microscope proved their implication as true.
  The unseen may exist as well. In fact, I believe that it has been detected, but still not recognized because of inherent bias. I believe that the measurement of what is called “antimatter” is evidence of the unseen realm. Because scientists do not have the knowledge of God, they fail to believe their own discovery.
  Now back to the two trees: Not only were they certainly real trees, but metaphorical trees as well. The Tree of Life is a metaphor for God (Rev 22:2) with the visible tree trunk, leaves, and fruit; metaphors for Jesus. The twelve fruits of the tree are the Doctrine of God.
  The forbidden tree is also metaphoric as well as real. It must have been a fig tree, but that’s besides the point. Being evil and deceptive, it represents the Beast and his many fruits from the law of sin. They appear to be good fruits but they are evil. The Serpent was how Lucifer appeared to mankind in the beginning. The “Wisdom Tree” which I call “The Philosophy Tree” presents good and true knowledge co-mingled with evil. It takes God’s Word to discern what is truth and what is not.
  Free-thinkers are not free in their thinking, but are delusional. Their knowledge base is incomplete and corrupted. Their thoughts include the false knowledge of the world. Conversion to faith in God and the unseen reveals more truth than is in the limited knowledge base of so-called “free-thinkers.” Jesus refers to conversion as being set free from deception, and says that “the truth will make you free” (John 8:32). What truth is that? That there is much more than meets the eyes, and that your knowledge is pitifully limited by the evidence of only the things of the world.
  That should be enough. The evidence for God is the creation (Ephes 3:9; Col 1:16), yet people still do not believe it was created… although Albert Einstein and Michio Kaku concluded that it was! True believers can see through that sea of glass and see God on his throne. I cannot see God face-to-face, but I see the evidence that He is real. Not only can I see God in the creation, but also in the evidence from scripture. The Bible is internally consistent throughout, and the main thread is that there are things unseen, and that Christians will exist for eternity in that unseen place!
  Logic is that all existence did not just happen, but was planned, powered, materialized from nothing, and was ordered. It is illogical to see existence and credit it to chance.
  The implication is that God created it all, and what we see is evidence for God because that is what makes a god. Logic reveals to me that people are the fittest, and God served and preserved them from themselves, and will continue to do so in the future. Yes, God has a plan for us (Jer 29:11). Things are going according to His plan for the prophets have revealed in advance God’s Plan for us. He knew Israel’s and Judah’s fate, and he knows the sinners’ fates and the fates of Christians, but ironically, it was not by fate, but by faith in God’s Plan!