by Scott Cherry
Introducing the Logos
Allow me to introduce the Logos, a Greek word pronounced loh-gos or law-gos. In ancient Greek philosophy it was thought to be the rational principle that governs and develops the universe…
An eternal, unchanging truth…A unifying and liberating revelatory force which reconciles the human with the divine; the rationality in the human mind which seeks to attain universal understanding and harmony, the universal intelligence…1
The Logos can also be seen in the Jewish and Christian scriptures of the Bible, which book-end Greek philosophy. Both animate and personify the Logos uniquely. In the wisdom literature of the Hebrew Scriptures (Job, Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Solomon and Ecclesiastes) we encounter Wisdom in her full strength and splendor, which could be the pre-cursor to the Greek idea. This is especially evident in chapter 8 of Proverbs where it is poetically personified in the first person:
“The Lord possessed me at the beginning of his work,
the first of his acts of old.
Ages ago I was set up, at the first, before the beginning
of the earth.
When there were no depths I was brought forth,
when there were no springs abounding with water.
Before the mountains had been shaped,
before the hills, I was brought forth,
before he had made the earth with its fields,
or the first of the dust of the world.
When he established the heavens, I was there;
when he drew a circle on the face of the deep,
when he made firm the skies above,
when he established the fountains of the deep,
when he assigned to the sea its limit,
so that the waters might not transgress his command,
when he marked out the foundations of the earth,
then I was beside him, like a master workman,
and I was daily his delight.”
Having emerged centuries later, Christian theology seems to have assumed the classical meaning of logos and adds an even more personal dimension than the much older Hebrew Wisdom, because John uses it to refer to the word of God who is Jesus himself. John was Jesus’s closest follower and the only one not to die as a martyr. His novel use of this term can be found in his gospel, the fourth in the New Testament of the Bible, in verses 1 and 14, which in English is usually rendered “the Word”. I’ve included these two verses here with some of their context to show the full meaning ascribed to it.
In the beginning was the Word [Logos], and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him was not anything made that was made. …14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us… *Then it is rooted in history by the words in v. 15 that “John bore witness about him…” (1:1-3, 14a, 15a)
Therefore, it seems reasonable to me that we may think of the Logos as both an impersonal principle and a personal one if we are equally generous to their respective proponents. So I hope you will not think me too sentimental if I sometimes speak of the Logos as my friend. Why? Because if there is any truth to St. John’s biography of him, that is how Jesus spoke of himself to his disciples:
“You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.” (New Testament, Gospel of John 15:14-15)
Chapter 2
The Logos Principle—Active Ingredients
“At the end of the days…my reason returned to me…”
—Nebuchadnezzar the Great of Babylon (605-562 BC)
Book of Daniel, chapter 4
Let me be quite forthright about my thesis: Reason exists and a personal, trans-imminent God is the best explanation for it. Reason is self-evident, as are logic, intelligibility. These all exist, indisputably. Therefore a Maximally Intelligent Being exists who is the Progenitor of the whole Rational Order. This is the notion of the Logos spoken of by the ancient Greek philosophers and by John the Christian Apostle. And that is the subject of this book. The Logos principle, as I call it, is strong evidence for theism over non-theism—particularly for Christian theism due to the sub-principle of complementarity which I will define.
This, then, is an exploration of the role of the Logos principle in the human experience and the condition which we often refer to as Reality, or Order. It is an attempt to answer the four questions in chapter one and others related to it. Again, they are…
Why do reason and logic work?
Why do we believe and trust in them?
Why do we expect things to make sense?
Why does anything make sense at all?
First we will talk about Reason as a major subset of the Logos. In doing so I assume that it is entirely unnecessary for me to assert the importance and pervasiveness of reason in everyday life. Nevertheless I will. You may have a very high view of reason, a very low view, or one that is somewhere in between. But whatever your view you would not deny that reason is an indispensable part of your daily life. It is a vital element of how you function and part of what defines you as a human. Nobody wants to lose their ability to reason or have it compromised by even a small degree. This is why people fear Alzheimer’s disease, for example, and why it is so devastating for the person who contracts it as well as for his/her caretakers. Many of us greatly value higher education and spend a lifetime trying to expand our powers of reason, but nobody deliberately tries to decrease them, not even people who say that they rely on faith alone. The first part of this discussion will touch on the relationship between reason and faith, but we are concerned primarily with reason, and logic, a closely related subset of reason.
We don’t have much trouble considering the human experience without the power to reason, or to think logically. This is true for several reasons. It is partly due to the ubiquitous presence of very young children whose cognitive abilities have not fully developed yet. It’s also due to our awareness of and acquaintance with people who are mentally disabled. Regarding children, adults know they are characterized by their lesser capacity to reason owing to their young age and their related stages of cognitive development and/or levels of education, formal or informal. We are not alarmed that a child cannot reason like an adult because they are not supposed to be able to, e.g. very small children cannot even use language yet, a very clear tool by which we evaluate rationality. But children are supposed to make progress in that direction, and if they don’t there is something wrong. For every age we make measured allowances for the child, but only for a period of time corresponding to their age. Normally we expect a child to increase in his/her language and reasoning skills, whose parents and teachers naturally become alarmed if this does not happen predictably with respect to certain indicators. This is as it should be; everybody knows that humans are supposed to be this way as they grow up, and as observers we use reason to gauge this. It is a true and accurate use of inductive reasoning to believe this about humans. For adults we know there is a range of acceptability for ourselves and others, and we use the same kind of reason to assess this. That is how we identify something abnormal about an adult with respect to their thinking.
Losing One’s Mind: the Defining Nature of Reason
There is a story that captures this point so dramatically it would make a great movie. If an adult human does not have the power of reason there is something wrong, and we look for an explanation, for we know intuitively and psychologically there has to be one. That is what we see in this poignant example from ancient history. There was a King named Nebuchadnezzar, the most famous emperor of Babylon, the ancient Mesopotamian Empire that was situated in today’s Iraq. The Babylonian empire succeeded the previous Assyrian empire, and was later succeeded by the Persian Empire. In the early 6th century B.C. Nebuchadnezzar’s armies invaded the Hebrew kingdom of Judah, and in 586 B.C. he sacked the city of Jerusal
em. Many thousands of Jews were taken captive to Babylon, including Daniel. The accounts of this conquest are found in several portions of the Hebrew Scriptures, but this particular story is found only in chapter 4 of the Book of Daniel, in the Old Testament of the Bible, or the Hebrew Tanach.
For the sake of this analysis it does not matter whether one takes this story as true history or not. I do, but it is every bit as poignant even if you don’t. I recommend you read the whole chapter, but here’s the gist of it. Having established a large empire, Nebuchadnezzar was drunk with his own power, glory and wealth. One night he had a dream that troubled him, and which Daniel interpreted for him. The thrust of it was to inform the king that his vanity was offensive to God and he would be punished. And guess what the punishment was? He would temporarily lose his powers of reason and become like an animal. Here is part of the text of the story from the book of Daniel, chapter 4:28-33 and 36-37:
At the end of twelve months [Nebuchadnezzar] was walking on the roof of the royal palace of Babylon, and the king answered and said, “Is not this great Babylon, which I have built by my mighty power as a royal residence and for the glory of my majesty?” While the words were still in the king's mouth, there fell a voice from heaven, “O King Nebuchadnezzar, to you it is spoken: The kingdom has departed from you, and you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. And you shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and seven periods of time [years] shall pass over you, until you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will.” Immediately the word was fulfilled against Nebuchadnezzar. He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers and his nails were like birds' claws.
Nebuchadnezzar Restored (vv. 36-37)
At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored him who lives forever… At the same time my reason returned to me, and for the glory of my kingdom, my majesty and splendor returned to me.
Let’s analyze this a little. (Analyzing is, of course, still another skill of reason we need for this and many other thinking tasks.) We’ll skip over many interesting points to get to the main ones related to reason. First, in the beginning paragraph the text does not say anything about reason, and yet it doesn’t have to. We can readily understand what happened to the king by inferring it (important reasoning skill #4). The text states that He was driven from among men and ate grass like an ox, and his body was wet with the dew of heaven till his hair grew as long as eagles' feathers and his nails were like birds' claws. Hmm, this is not normal. Something went wrong, and yes, we can know it. Simply put, normal grown men are not supposed to act this way (especially not kings). This segment of text doesn’t say anything about his reason, and yet we know, by inference, it has everything to do with his reason. We don’t even need it to be more specific. At first the king seemed to have all his wits about him (his reason); at least there was no indication of the opposite. Besides, we know that one does not usually become a powerful king if one thinks and acts like an animal. Why is that?
Intuitions about Reason
There is a normal expectation in place for an adult that does not fit this description. When a person’s behavior is animal-like, we know there is a “short circuit” or a “loose wire” somewhere in the cranial area, a malfunction, a systems error, or a virus, to use the vernacular. We readily expect this kind of behavior from animals, but not people—not even children or the disabled. Obviously, if this were the account of an animal acting like an animal, we would think nothing of it. But we rightly believe that healthy people do not, should not—and truly cannot—act this way, especially not for seven years. Normal human rationality precludes all of these. Neither does anybody want to become animal-like. Even if a person wishes to be a certain animal for some period of time, they still want to retain their human capacity for reason, identity, self-awareness, and a host of other uniquely human attributes. They certainly do not want to abandon them. Again, human rationality, among other qualities, dictates this, and it can be no other way. I realize these are very confident assertions for which I am offering no empirical evidence, but I’m certain there is almost global consensus. In making these assertions, once again, I am relying on inductive reason alone, inferring from particular to universal, and back again.
Humans’ innate capacity for rational thinking, or reasoning, is precisely the differentiating attribute in humanness vs. the non-humanness of animals. (I am using this particular attribute to encompass others that are not the focus of this chapter.) In other words, the uniquely human power of reason is one of the fundamental things that makes humans human, and makes us act like humans instead of animals. Conversely, it’s the absence of this capacity that makes animals act like animals, or the way they’re supposed to act. This is why we’re so amused or surprised to see an animal performing a human-like behavior. To stretch the imagination beyond credulity, consider this scenario in reverse, in which an animal gained the uniquely human power of rationality and became a human-like king for seven years. Such stories do exist, such as in Planet of the Apes and an old sitcom I used to watch called “Mr. Ed” about a sentient horse. But more incredulous would be to think of that as a judgment or punishment for the animal, a step down. From the human perspective, that could only be a step up for the animal. We all view the power to reason, with all its corollary abilities such as language, to be superior to the opposite.
But why are all these things intuitively true? Why does King Nebuchadnezzar’s behavior seem abnormal and even undesirable to us, and why do we correctly infer that there must have been a breakdown or an anomaly stemming from the faculty of reason? Why are people vastly more intelligent and rational than animals, even the next closest to humans—the chimpanzee. As you read this, why do you assume that I am a human and not a chimp? (I know you do; and I assume the same about you.) On the other hand, why aren’t we humans a lot more like animals such that what happened to Nebuchadnezzar would not seem unusual or uncommon at all? Why would it seem strange to imagine that they are? I submit to you that it has everything to do with the way we are “wired”. When a child is born we presuppose that its wired-ness will produce reason. We are ‘wired’ for Reason.
The next passage in our case study is very explicit on this point. Interestingly, it switches to the first person in which Nebuchadnezzar himself gives us his own commentary on his experience. Once he could tell us he does tell us, not once but twice: His reason returned to him! Fortunately for him the condition was not permanent. Once his powers of reason were “rebooted” he became normal again, including some important adjustments in the area of humility. It’s interesting to consider that while he was in animal mode he could not have been fully aware of his state, for that was the very faculty that had been compromised (as a consequence of his pride). When it was restored, perhaps by degrees, only then did he become fully aware of his curse and his deliverance from it. That’s because the faculty of reason is a necessary quality for humanness (i.e. essential) including one’s self-awareness, will, identity, virtue and other things that lower animals do not possess, at least to the degree that they exist in humans. I assert that there is no good naturalistic explanation for why humans as a species possess them.
Chapter 3
Meta-Cognition: Reasoning about Reason
All this so far has been to illustrate the self-evident existence of Reason. This is the first premise of my argument which is hardly controversial. In making this claim I’m using reason, and you’re using reason to understand it. Agree or disagree, either way your reason is involved. One cannot deny reason any more than one can deny his own existence. So even if I am wrong it still does not negate reason on my part, only flawed reasoning, which I think is interesting. As I’ve already said, the existence and practice of reason are self-evident. I presuppose it, and I a
ssume you do too.
Most people don’t try to refute the existence of reason; I wonder if I could find even .01%. Of course, there’s always somebody who will try to refute everything, but you could not even attempt to refute reason without using reason in the attempt. Therefore, even to try is a self-defeating exercise. More to the point, why would anyone want to refute reason? (Surprisingly, some do; I wonder if it stems from their aversion to the apparent theistic implications.) Most humans are glad we can reason and that we are rational beings. So another way of stating my first premise is that humans are rational beings and therefore reason exists. Let’s build on this.
Humans depend on reason every day to function in life in both basic and complex ways. We cannot see reason, of course, but we don’t have to. We can know reason is real when we observe its functionality—or the lack thereof—in ourselves and in others. We can hear reason in action when people talk and relate to each other, when they study and discuss things aloud. We can easily observe people making decisions (good and bad) and living out the consequences (good and bad). We can see this happening when people are doing their jobs and every manner of task. On a personal level, we can easily be aware of and reflect on our own reasoning-in-action when tackling life’s problems and their possible solutions, comparing the options and their possible outcomes. In short, we can reason about reason and I’m doing it right now. I can reflect on the quality of logic about things. I think that’s cool. This is a simple enough proposition so far. But the next proposition will be tougher to swallow for some: Because reason exists, therefore God exists. By this I am not saying that through our powers of reason we can be certain of the existence of God (though that is a possible implication). Rather, I’m saying that the existence of reason and its corollaries are very strong evidence for God.