How I Go about Thinking

Recently I heard from one of those three or four individuals who read my blogs on a regular basis, and he told me that, as a result, he believed he was beginning to learn how to think. That, coupled with a provocative discussion another fellow–a friend--and I had, is what lies behind today’s blog.

Our intense conversation was stimulating and challenging. My friend and I appeared to have major disagreements about where we were coming from and where we were we believed it took us. We had time to stir things up a bit, but not enough to clarify much, and although as friends we retain a harmonious relationship, we left our discussion without resolving our differences. We will meet again; of that I am confident.

This kind of emotionally charged attempt to reason together is an encounter not uncommon for me. It always drives me, always, to reconsider my own thinking. As I drove home that day, reconsidering my thoughts, I began trying to do a complete review of how my thinking characteristically proceeds. What follows is a provisional statement of the essential elements of my thought processes.

Four reference points are always consulted; yes, and a fifth is also involved. These are linked interdependently.

• The Christian’s Holy Scriptures
• Logic
• Words: their usage, definition, and etymology
• The actual life context of whatever is at issue
• And to be honest, I must include my experience of life as I have seen, felt, and understood it.

Three assumptions are always present in the pattern of my thinking:

• No human statement is ever complete. It matters not whether it a sentence, a speech, an essay, a book, or a political platform that makes the statement, it can never be complete.
• There is always more to be said. Sometimes that more changes everything.
• [Thus] It is always possible that I am wrong.

The scriptures that Christians consider holy, when taken as a whole, are fuzzy. This is why they always have been and will remain, subject to interpretation. Many interpretations exist. Therefore, we can see that Christians have never reasoned from Scripture alone, although many have claimed to do just that.

Logic is equally fuzzy. None of its premises are incontrovertibly true. The reasoning process often is invalid. Inductive logic, by its very nature, cannot produce conclusions that will always prove worthy of our trust.

Trying to settle matters by logic, it is essential that we must understand and accept the premises from which we are reasoning. We must also accept the validity of the reasoning process. Otherwise, we are unlikely to agree on conclusions.

Anytime we disagree with the conclusion of someone’s reasoning, there are only two ways they can be challenged: the truth of their premises and the validity of their reasoning process. This is true at least for deductive reasoning. Since inductive reasoning always goes somewhere beyond the evidence offered in the premises, we may reasonably disagree on the conclusions. The only way to clarify the matter is to reduce it to some deductive pattern. Then it can be subjected to rigorous testing.

The meaning of words lies more in how they are used than in what dictionaries, lexica, or etymologies have to say. Nonetheless, unless we clearly stipulate how we are using language, we cannot stray far from established meaning without jeopardizing our ability to communicate.
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Personally:

• Within the Holy Scriptures, my heart, mind, emotions, and soul turn to the following passages as interpretative signposts and as illuminators of the rest of these writings:
--I John 4:16
--Matthew 7:24-27
--John 14:6
--Colossians 1:15-20
--John 1:1-18
--Ephesians 1:10
--2 Corinthians 5:17-21
╶ Revelation 5

• When I turn to logic, my major methods of testing by deduction are:
--The categorical syllogism
--The conditional syllogism
--The dilemma
╶ The reductio ad absurdum
Inductively, I turn to the ways of testing:
--Analogies
--The hypothetico-deductive method
--Simple induction

• I approach the biblical writings using a logic appropriate to stories rather than to strict propositional logic. As story, the Bible speaks with multilayered, multifaceted, and somewhat open-ended meaning.
• Therefore I concur with Jan Zwicky’s judgment that none of it--whether understood as story or parts of the story, or understood in propositional language–can be reduced to unidimensional meaning without misre-presentation of its intention.
• I also concur with Ludwig Wittgenstein when he says, “That which is ragged should be left ragged.” In spite of the ultimate clarity that is visible when we look at the big picture of the biblical theme and when we have acknowledged its unity and harmony, the Bible remains a rather ragged collection of writings.

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A couple of ideas that came up in the conversation that stimulated this little essay might clarify some small piece of what I’ve been saying.

1. The word, introvert, was used a few times. It was not clear to me how it was being used; its usage did not fit with my own. The real heart of our concerns was sabotaged by this vagueness. “Contrary to what most people think, an introvert is not simply a person who is shy. In fact, being shy has little to do with being an introvert! Shyness has an element of apprehension, nervousness and anxiety, and while an introvert may also be shy, introversion itself is not shyness. Basically, an introvert is a person who is energized by being alone and whose energy is drained by being around other people.”

In context, “introvert” was used to designate a group that was perceived to represent a representative majority of the population of the United States, if not actually most of the entire human population. The majority were identified as introverts. Among authorities, the well-established fact is that introverts constitute only about 25% of the population.

This ratio seems validated in my own life experience as, for at least sixty-five years, I’ve observed human social interaction. Day in and day out, wherever you go, the great majority of our world, as well as almost any select group, is made up of extroverted people. And, as an introvert myself, I suspect that God intended us to be so, so that we can live in societies rather than in reclusion, seclusion, and isolation.

On the other hand:
Most people believe that an extrovert is a person who is friendly and outgoing. While that may be true, that is not the true meaning of extroversion. Basically, an extrovert is a person who is energized by being around other people. This is the opposite of an introvert who is energized by being alone.
[About.com is a helpful starting point for understanding these two types of human personality.]

2. It was said that Jesus called us–whoever that might be--to be “fishers of men.”

When Jesus actually called a few fishermen to become his special trainees, he did say he would make them “fishers of men.” When, however, he called a collector of governmental revenues, he neither told him that he was to become a “fisher of men,” nor that he was to be a “revenuer for God.” When he called a fellow who was part of a quasi-military group, he said nothing to him about either “fishing” or fighting.

What we can appropriately extrapolate from ancient texts, sacred or otherwise, is another discussion altogether.
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This has been an essay into something of how, in practice, I put my concept of considerate/dialectical thinking to use. It is written to whomever it concerns, and for whatever it is worth.
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Now, in private, I will, along these lines, go about analyzing the aforementioned challenging discussion.