The Reason of Reason_How Reason, Logic, and Intelligibility Together are Evidence for God

by Scott Cherry

  That would be revelation. Do you agree that that would have put a whole different spin on things? The fact of this human revelation would not nullify all of my other assumptions, because everything else I could know about the bird would still have been true: It was an anomaly. But note that I would also have applied my reason to the revelation. Did I have a neighbor named Jason who moved? Did he live nearby? Did we know each other personally? Did he have a cockatiel? Did he have like me enough to do leave his beloved pet with me? If the answers to all these questions, or some of them, were no I probably would have rejected the content of the revelation. But still I would have had to account for the note on my door containing the revelation. On the other hand, if the answers to all these questions were yes I could reasonably have believed the note entirely, without question or with maybe only few questions. The known facts would have sufficiently corroborated the revelation. (Corroboration is a vital tool of reason we use in everyday life and in courtrooms.) This, then, is the role of revelation: to provide information or explanation that cannot be had any other way, i.e. to ‘connect the dots’ or to give us the whole picture to the puzzle. But even so, reason is always necessary to corroborate the revelation with other known facts. Reason enables us to determine whether the revelation is credible, or not. So if there really is divine revelation, as I believe there is, the power of reason to perceive and test it is quite impressive.

  Consider this one more proposition on this subject: Just as reason is, or would be, necessary to perceive revelation, the latter is, or would be necessary to explain reason. For the sake of discussion let’s imagine that the cockatiel represents reason. The plain fact is that reason is. Somehow, some way the faculty of reason has made its way into our yards, as it were, into our reality. It has lodged itself into our minds and it is an essential part of human functionality. How? Why? I assert, as do others, that the presence and operation of reason in the human being is flatly inexplicable without revelation. Without it we can only guess in evolutionary terms how and why we are rational. But divine revelation claims to have the answer. It claims to know why and to tell us why: A divine and rational being has endowed us with this power, and in so doing has made the human somewhat like itself. I am speaking of God, of course, the Creator. Immediately your reason kicks in, as it always must, and you either accept or reject this idea. Well and good. Either way, if there is a reason for reason, a purpose, a meaning, other than the blind forces of nature, you could only know it through divine revelation. Reason alone cannot account for itself through any of the rational disciplines. The reason for reason would have to be revealed.

  Coming back to Walid, it was quite proper for him to expect good logic from me, although I was not convinced that the problem was one of deductive logic nor that the faulty logic was coming from me. The fascinating thing was that he assumed both the existence and the value of logic and imposed it on me. And I didn’t object because I assumed it too. You see, we both presupposed that good logic is necessary for good reasoning, because it is! Everybody agrees. Neither of us felt it was necessary to prove to the other that our conversation should be based on valid logic. What Walid also presupposed was intelligibility. He did so unconsciously, as we all do all the time, whenever we are reasoning about something. The very notion of reason is premised on intelligibility. Reason only works because there is first something to reason about, and that something is such that it can be analyzed through the use of reason and logic. The truth about something can be attained, or we would not even try.

  At every level, good reasoning skills are required if two or more parties are trying to arrive at and agree on what’s true. But why is this so? Who, or what forces of nature, determined that reason should be so essential to meaningful communication, and to the discovery of truth? Indeed, why are people so intent on discovering the truth or convincing others of what’s true? We all seem to believe that there is truth to be discovered—even in the mundane things of everyday life—and that by reason we can discover it; or at least we act as though we do in our discussions, even with our friends and spouses.

  When we need to take a bus somewhere, for example, even when reading the bus schedule we apply reason that an intelligent person created the schedule and that it will work. (This is also how simple faith operates on a rudimentary level, by the way.) Ergo, if we wait at a certain place that’s identifiable as a bus stop, a bus will arrive at a predictable time and take us to a predictable place by another predictable time. We make allowances for driver and mechanical error, of course; but not much for the schedule itself. If the bus is sometimes a few minutes late we are not surprised, and we are willing to wait. If it is sometimes early we reason correctly that we have to get to the bus stop early so as not to miss it. If the bus is always 20 minutes late we use reason to adjust our travel plans in some way, unless we have no options. If that bus never comes to the place where the schedule says it should, we reasonably conclude that the schedule is just plain wrong, and we stop going to that bus stop. What do we call a person who keeps on going to a bus stop where the bus never shows up? That’s right, a fool.

  But again, who, or what forces of nature, determined that there are such things as true and false, and that they are intelligible by reason? Does reality have to be this way? Could it have been different? Yes, in theory, it could have been different. But can you even imagine a world without reason? (If you even try, of course, you would be using a kind of reason. So ironically, you can only imagine a world without reason because there is such a thing as reason.) Life as we know it would not be possible. Even animals employ by a type of reason that we call instinct. But why do their instincts work? I mean, how is it that every year at the same time certain birds can migrate thousands of miles and back again at particular seasons, and not get lost? Well, from one perspective it’s partly because both seasons and geography are predictable. If they were random, at least these kinds of instincts would be impossible.

  Back to my young friend Kevin. The interesting thing to me is that people often say things to each other that mean something similar to what he said to me. We generally expect other people to be reasonable, and again, they expect it of us. This is a proper and reasonable expectation among rational beings, which we are. (We do not have the same expectation of animals.) So when we are accused of being unreasonable, our most common defense is not to argue that we are not rational beings, or that we don’t have to be, and it is therefore an unfair expectation. Rather, we defend our reasoning (i.e. our logic) which is itself a kind of reasoning. We defend our premises, the support for our premises, and/or our conclusions. The outcome of that is, either we conclude there is something wrong with our own reasoning, or with the other person’s, or both.

  If that fails we might reject the expectation, but we don’t really reject it. In those cases we just give up trying, or we are determined to get what we want even if our reasoning is faulty. This is not uncommon. Indeed, we usually want to be reasonable, and we do not object to the other person’s expectation that we should be. We expect good reason of ourselves, and we certainly expect it from others, even when we release ourselves from its obligation. The brute fact is, we cannot escape this expectation, nor should we want to because it is reasonable.

  Moreover, we must expect people to be reasonable because that is our ‘programming’ if you will. It’s how we are and how we have to be. It is impossible for us to be any other way, even if we tried. Moreover, this is how we need to be in order to function in a world that operates by reason; it is highly intelligible, predictable and measurable, all of which is necessary for life and civilization. What I said in reference to animals’ instincts applies to humans every bit as much. Here, if you have detected by inference (a kind of reason) my allusion to the anthropic principle, i.e. the fine-tuning of the universe and the planet we live on, you would be quite right. So however it came to be that humans have these incredible powers of reason by which we can actually work wonders, we are conveniently in a R
eality that is accessible to reason. Did it have to be this way? Maybe not. But it is.

  Chapter 7

  The Logic of Reason and Laws of Logic

  So far we have only alluded to logic, but we cannot do justice to a discussion of reason without giving some attention to logic. Just as reason is self-evident, so also is logic. Now we are getting to the very heart of this discussion. Logic is a subcategory of reason, but it is the foundation for it. By logic I don’t mean the formal study of Logic, which is kind of like math. (I took a Logic course in my second year of college. I thought it would be interesting, but I was wrong!) I mean the rules or laws by which we all think. If reasoning, in the simplest terms, is the processing of information, the laws of logic are the fundamental rules or axioms by which reason operates. Without them there could be no such thing as reason. And like the natural laws, i.e. gravity and entropy, no one invented the laws of logic; they only discovered and described them. As far as we know they have always been operational.

  At the risk of stating the obvious for the philosophers and logicians, let’s consider some examples of the laws of logic. Even for the novice these should seem like no-brainers, because they are innate to the human. I do not intend to give an exhaustive list of these laws, only a sampling of them. You could find them many of them online or in a philosophy textbook, but maybe not all of them, because some I made up myself. Also, I have attempted to describe them succinctly in my own words.

  List 2

  Laws of Logic (Axioms)

  The Law of Axioms, or Self-Evident Truths: In our Reality there are logical axioms, self-evident truths that can neither be proved or disproved. They just are. This and the other laws of logic are such. In our everyday reasoning we simply presuppose these axioms.

  The Law of Reality, or Existence: Existence is Reality (even if it is illusion). Something exists, for at least you and I exist, and one cannot deny one’s own existence. Also, our perception of other things exists. Science depends on the correspondence of perception to Reality.

  The Law of Validity: Some kinds of reasoning are valid and some are not. A person’s reasoning can be analyzed and determined as valid or invalid based on the rules of reason and the laws of logic. It’s not uncommon for a person’s argument to be invalid, but this must be detected.

  The Law of Deduction: A conclusion must always follow from its premises. Any argument may be valid or invalid (i.e. do the premises relate?), true or not true. A valid conclusion must have premises that lead to it, though it may still be false. It is only true if all the premises are true.

  The Law of Veracity 1: True and false exist; they are real categories. A fact or claim can be true or it can be false, and true is inherently better than false (except insofar as something’s falsity is true). The strength of an argument depends on the truth value of its premises and conclusion.

  The Law of Veracity 2: Every argument has premises and conclusions, some simple and some complex. The strength of the conclusion depends on the truth values of the premises, and a true conclusion is always the desired outcome, not a false one (except in deception).

  The Law of Antithesis: Everything has its opposite, or at least the possibility thereof. Everything necessarily entails the existence or the possibility of its opposite or its non-being—its antithesis. Examples: A entails non-A; up entails down; good entails bad; hot and cold, yes and no, etc.

  The Law of Non-Contradiction: Something that is cannot be its own antithesis. There is such a thing as a logical contradiction but it is rationally invalid and disallowed. A thing cannot be its own opposite at the same time and in the same sense. A cannot simultaneously be non-A.

  The Law of Causality, or Cause-and-Effect: Every effect has a cause. There are no exceptions. Causes always precede effects, and effects may in turn become causes for other things. Thus there are primary causes, secondary ones, tertiary ones, ad infinitum.

  The Law of Chronology: Time as we know it by experience is linear. There is a one-directional flow of time in which future events become present ones, which in turn become history as soon as they have happened. This is why history can be studied and calendars work.

  The Law of Ontology: Whatever begins to exist has a beginning. All things that exist or ever existed had a beginning except the first thing, whatever that is believed to be. The first thing must be eternal and self-existent. It was the first cause because something cannot create itself.

  The Law of Cosmology: Nothing cannot produce something, i.e. existence cannot come out of non-existence. Whatever existed first, it was something, not nothing, and it was necessarily the source of everything else. Therefore, all things except one are contingent, not self-existent.

  The Law of Category: When comparing two or more things they must be compared in the same category for that comparison to be valid. Example: Oil and water can be compared in several ways as fluids, but not as things necessary to irrigate one’s crops or satisfy one’s thirst.

  The Law of Intelligence: There is such a thing as intelligence as distinct from non-intelligence. Only living beings can have intelligence, e.g. person but not plants. Intelligence always comes from equally intelligent sources, or more intelligent ones. High intelligence begets reason.

  The Law of Information: Information exists (or at least the illusion of it). All life is ordered and consists of coded information, which also produces functionality. They depend on the ability to successfully process and use information, which only comes from intelligent sources.

  The Law of Assumption: In many situations assumptions must be made. We often do not have all the facts and information we need to achieve 100% certainty about something, and/or we do not know the future outcome. But we must make many decisions based on what we know.

  The Law of Inference: Intelligence and information can usually be inferred by highly intelligent beings, e.g. the human. Design, for example, depends on both and can also be readily inferred. That which exhibits these and appears to be designed, therefore, probably is.

  The Law of Intelligibility: Reality is ordered and largely intelligible to the human mind. That is, truth about Reality is subject to rational inquiry through science and other disciplines. Thus it is knowable, though not easily knowable in many cases.

  The Order and Function of Logic

  So, how'd you do on the thought experiment? You may not accept all of these as laws of logic, or axioms, but certainly you will accept some of them at least. Indeed, I would be very surprised to hear someone say they reject them all, and then they would have to convince me of that. So I think you will readily agree that axioms exist. We can think of these laws of logic in the same way we think of natural laws. They just are. And naturalistically, nobody can explain why they are, that is, why they exist. But this is a question we must ask. Why do axioms exist? Let’s take one of them as an example, the Law of Causality. As stated above, every effect must have a cause, or causes. This axiom is fundamental to all rational thinking. It is so basic that we do not even question it. We presuppose it. When you see the printed words on this page, for example, you do not wonder if an intelligent source produced them, you simply presuppose it because you know that it is the effect of some cause. You may wonder who produced them if that is not obvious, but you know with confidence, and even with certainty, that someone (or something) produced them. The cause was me. It is an undisputed fact that writing is always caused by a writer, and there are no exceptions.

  Or consider a tree, because I am looking at a tree right now. If you think about it the tree you presuppose several things about it. First, you presuppose that it had a beginning because all trees have a beginning (a separate but related law); and also that it had a cause because all trees are effects of their causes. You know it did not just appear there for no reason. You may confidently infer that somehow a seed of that kind of tree produced that tree. There are a few variables to consider about how and when that tree came to be in that place; but that it grew from a seed in the ground at some ti
me in the past (the law of chronology) is simply non-negotiable. On the other side of the equation, every cause has an effect, major or minor, measurable or non-measurable. Moreover, every cause has effects whether known or unknown, predictable or unpredictable. If you plant an acorn (a seed), for example, the potential effect of that acorn is (always and only) an oak tree. Under the right conditions, or supplemental causes, you can predict that an oak tree will be the result or effect of planting that acorn.

  It is because this law of logic is true that science can be done, for science is basically a system of reason by which observable effects are studied to find their causes, which are presupposed. The tree is a very simplistic example, of course, and we could consider many other examples to illustrate the point. But I trust this will suffice. Now, if the law of causation were indeed the only law of logic, or axiom, it would be sufficient to ask the question: Why is there such a thing as a law of causation? Why does it exist? Why is it inviolable? Where did it come from? Choose from my list any of the axioms that you affirm and the same questions may be asked. Needless to say humanity did not invent this law. Just as the laws of nature were not produced by scientists, the laws of logic were not produced by logicians or philosophers. Rather, they were merely identified and described, and they were operational before anyone could do so. They seem to be written into the very fabric of Reality. Logic and reason as we know them simply could not function without the law of Causality. Nothing at all would make sense! We can specu-late about a Reality not governed by Causality, but we can hardly imagine that kind of Reality. Therefore it is fair and reasonable to ponder the source of its axiomatic existence.