I can't remember if Dialetheism is a correctly used Theological word to describe an apparent contradiction in the Bible. If not, please give me some insight to the proper word.
I've not got a single instance of Dialetheism in my library (not even Perseus [;)] ). But I believe Paradox would be a better word for an apparent contradiction. IIRC Sproul deals with this in essential truths of the christian faith.
Yup
[quote]
paradox is an apparent contradiction that under closer scrutiny yields resolution.
R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1996).
Paradox, Mystery, and Contradiction
I am looking for a word other than paradox. There is a word, and I believe it is Greek, maybe Latin for a Biblical Apparent Contradiction.
I have searched online, but, I heard, or read it someplace and now I can't track it down.
Thanks for your input, I appreciate it!
Yup [quote] paradox is an apparent contradiction that under closer scrutiny yields resolution. R. C. Sproul, Essential Truths of the Christian Faith (Wheaton, Ill.: Tyndale House, 1996). Paradox, Mystery, and Contradiction
Hmmm...
Antinomy A contradiction or tension between two or more laws, rules, or principles, each of which is held to be true.
Millard J. Erickson, The Concise Dictionary of Christian Theology, Rev. ed., 1st Crossway ed. (Wheaton, Ill.: Crossway Books, 2001), 14.
PDT also fills this out:
antinomy. The bringing together of two principles, statements or laws that, even though appearing to be contradictory to or in tension with one another, are both believed to be true. A theological example of an antinomy is the belief in both the absolute sovereignty of God and human free will. Although both are held to be true, there is a tension between God’s will and our human will that cannot be easily or fully understood. See also paradox.
Stanley Grenz, David Guretzki and Cherith Fee Nordling, Pocket Dictionary of Theological Terms (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1999), 12.
Thomas,
Thank you sir, this is the word I am looking for! Do you know how this is pronounced? [Y]
Do you know how this is pronounced?
"Ant Enemy" or An TIN emy
Google gives a pronunciation icon at the start of a define:antinomy search.
You might want to look at Paradox in Christian Theology by James Anderson, in the Theological Studies Collection (alas, pricey collection and the books in it are not yet available unbundled). It has a whole section on the subject of Dialetheism:
4.4 Dialetheism
Thefirst of the two identified strategies for resolving the problem of paradox byrevising our laws of logic—namely, the rejection of deductive rules such as modus ponens—does not seem at allpromising. The second option is to reject the law of non-contradiction: theprinciple that no statement can be both true and false. Understandably, thisapproach is not a popular one among those attempting to address the problem ofparadox in Christian theology, particularly those with a professed concern topreserve both rationality and orthodoxy. The comments of Thomas Morris typifythe disdain of scholars for this escape route:
It should, however, be clear that the strategy ofdefending the doctrine [of the Incarnation] by devaluing the status of logicalconsistency has very little to be said for it from a philosophical perspective.It is just a desperation move which embraces incoherence to avoid its sting.19
Evenso, despite widespread disapproval the approach has been advocated by a handfulof writers.20 A relatively recent example is provided by John Dahms inan article challenging the ‘unlimited applicability’ of logic.21Dahms’ article is of particular relevance because its author claims that hisstance is motivated, at least in part, by the paradoxicality of certain centralChristian doctrines. In what follows, I will explain why Dahms’ specificproposal is unsatisfactory before turning to assess the general philosophicalview that contradictions can be true.
Dahms introduceshis case by explaining what he means by the term ‘logic’:
The basic laws or principles of logic are commonlysaid to be three in number: the law of identity, the law of contradiction andthe law of excluded middle.… [T]hese three are at least the foremost of thelaws of thought. Moreover, though the other two apparently cannot be derivedfrom it, writers often mention the law of contradiction when they have logicgenerally in mind.22
Dahmsnotes that ‘orthodox thinkers commonly believe that logic is of unlimitedapplicability’; for example, they believe that for every proposition p, itis not the case that p is both trueand false.23 In the remainder of his article, Dahms focuses primarilyon the law of non-contradiction and argues, first, that there are good non-theological grounds for holding thatthe law is limited in its applicability, and second, that from a Christianperspective there are also good theological grounds for granting the truth ofsome contradictions.
Concerning thenon-theological grounds for rejecting the unlimited applicability of logic,Dahms cites five reasons: (i) the problem of irrational numbers; (ii) Zeno’sparadox of Achilles and the tortoise; (iii) apparent exceptions to theprinciple that ‘according to logic the whole is equal to the sum of the parts’;(iv) the ethical problem according to which a virtuous action must be ‘bothdetermined and free, which is a contradiction’; and (v) apparent exceptions tologic in the realm of aesthetics (e.g., ‘harmonic discord’ in music).24Whether any of these amount to good reasons for rejecting the law ofnon-contradiction is debatable at best.25 But rather than engaging ina detailed critique of this part of Dahms’ case, I propose instead to focus onhis discussion of contradictions within Christiantheology; for even if Dahms were right about accepting contradictions in non-theological areas, it would notimmediately follow that he has offered a satisfactory solution to the problemof doctrinal paradox.
Turning tomatters theological, Dahms writes:
It is especially surprising that orthodox Christiansshould hold to the universal applicability of logic. Various doctrines of thefaith provide problems for such a view.26
Hecites four examples: (i) the fall of Satan (according to which, evil mustderive from good); (ii) the biblical view of the cross (according to which,human sin is necessary to God and therefore ultimately good); (iii) thedoctrine of the Incarnation; and (iv) the doctrine of the Trinity. In eachcase, Dahms suggests, the Christian who affirms these doctrines must therebyimplicitly affirm some contradictory truth. Thus, ‘it ought to be quite clearthat the doctrines of historic Christianity are not always compatible with thelaw of contradiction.’27
I will notcontest Dahms’ claim that these four Christian doctrines are paradoxical (i.e.,at least apparently contradictory);indeed, I have already indicated substantial agreement regarding his third andfourth examples. The relevant question is whether Dahms’ recommendation thatChristians revise their understanding of the law of non-contradictionconstitutes a satisfactory solution to the problem. A number of objectionsimmediately suggest themselves.
First, as Iobserved in the preceding section, elementary principles of logic areintuitively held to be necessary truths with a high degree of certainty: psychological certainty, at the veryleast, if not rational certainty (asmany epistemologists would insist). As with modusponens, so with the law of non-contradiction: it lacks plausibility toclaim that doctrinal statements, however well supported, could be warranted tosuch a degree as to justify abandoning belief in these intuitive laws of logic.Dahms might counter that the Christian’s policy for belief revision should becontextualized by the particular religious convictions and faith commitments ofthe church community; but whether or not this line would persuade Christianscholars, it hardly satisfies as a response to the extra-mural charge thatorthodox Christian beliefs are irrational.
Secondly, itmight be objected that Dahms’ position is self-refuting since, as he himselfconcedes, he has assumed the laws oflogic by way of arguing for theirlimited applicability:
It is to be emphasized that we have not stated thatlogic is valueless, only that it is not always applicable. Logicalargumentation is frequent in the Bible. Logic was one of the things that madeit possible to put men on the moon. We have used logic in this paper.28
Althoughthis objection might initially seem decisive, matters are not sostraightforward. For while Dahms has clearly assumed some logical principles—he would presumably insist that hisarguments are valid and his stated conclusions about the use of logic are notboth true and false—it is difficult to show that he has assumed the unlimited applicability of the laws oflogic. However suspicious, it is entirely consistent with Dahm’s thesis tomaintain that logic applies to the statements contained within his article, butnot to certain other statements.29 One might then object thatit is incumbent on Dahms to provide and justify some set of criteria, which canbe reliably and concretely applied, so as to distinguish those instances wherelogic is applicable from those where it is not. As it turns out, Dahmsanticipates this obligation and proposes the following rule of demarcation:
It would appear that [logic] is thoroughly reliablewhen dealing with the nominal (being) but not when dealing with the verbal(becoming) or the aesthetic. Our reliance on logic in this paper is justifiedby the fact that we only use it of the existential and the aesthetic when weare considering them in the abstract.30
Itis not wholly clear what distinctions Dahms means to draw with his categoriesof ‘nominal’, ‘verbal’, and ‘aesthetic’. The idea seems to be, roughly, thatthe following claims hold:
(7) Logic is always applicable to statementsdescribing some static state ofaffairs (e.g., ‘God is good’) but not to statements describing some dynamic state of affairs (e.g., ‘theSpirit proceeds from the Father’) or expressing some aesthetic judgement.
(8) Logic is always applicable to statementsconcerned with any of these three areas inthe abstract—in other words, statements about the statements referred to in(7).
Regardlessof how Dahms’ distinctions cash out, his position (and variations on the sametheme) can be expressed more generally as follows:
(9) The law of non-contradiction applies toall statements except those concerned non-abstractlywith subject matter M.
Thequalifier non-abstractly is essentialto avoid self-refutation. Although (9) itself is concerned with subject matter M, it is only concerned with M in the abstract. One who affirms (9)is not thereby committed to holding that the law of non-contradiction does notapply to (9) and hence is not vulnerable to the objection that the negation of (9) cannot be excluded.
This generalposition on the limited applicability of the law of non-contradiction may beimmune to a straightforward reductio adabsurdum, but I suggest that it is untenable because the criterion itrecommends cannot be applied in practice. If the stance expressed by (9) is tobe viable, then it must be possible for one to judge, for any statement S, whether or not S is concerned non-abstractly with subject matter M (whatever M may be). However, in order to determine that S is concerned non-abstractly with M, one must also be able to judge whether or not claims of thefollowing two forms are true (where Xidentifies some non-linguistic, non-conceptual item, e.g., Socrates, theAtlantic Ocean, or my favourite shirt):
(10) Sis about X.
(11) Xfalls under subject matter M.
Itshould be evident, however, that if both (10) and (11) are true, then they are both concerned non-abstractly with subjectmatter M (since they both directstatements about X). Therefore,according to (9), it is possible for (10) to be both true and false andlikewise for (11). But if that is so, then one cannot make a reliable judgementabout whether (10) and (11) are true or not—and thus one cannot make a reliablejudgement about whether or not S isconcerned non-abstractly with M.
If we considerDahms’ position as a specific instance of (9), we can see how this cashes outin practice. Consider the claim, ‘Madrid is in Spain.’ Does the law ofnon-contradiction apply to this statement? As a precondition of answering thisquestion, it must be possible in principle to judge (i) that the statement isabout Madrid and (ii) that Madrid falls under either the verbal or theaesthetic.31 Yet if Madrid doesfall under either the verbal or the aesthetic then, on Dahms’ view, judgements(i) and (ii) are not subject to the law of non-contradiction, in which casethey could be false as well as true. And if one cannot establish that both (i)and (ii) are not false, then one could never in principle determine that the law of non-contradiction is notapplicable to the claim ‘Madrid is in Spain’—or to any other non-abstractclaim.
It appears thatDahms’ thesis that logic applies only to statements concerned with particularsubject matters cannot be observed in practice, even if correct in theory.Nevertheless, the general thesis that some contradictions can be true,irrespective of subject matter, has been seriously considered and competentlydefended by a number of philosophers in the last two decades. This view, dubbeddialetheism by Graham Priest andRichard Routley, holds that there are true contradictions; that is, there arestatements that are both true and false.32 The paradigm example of a dialetheia is the so-called Liarparadox:
(12) This sentence is not true.
Is(12) true or not? If it is true, then(by its own testimony) it must be nottrue; but if it is not true, thenit must be true (since what it saysto be the case is the case). The Liarparadox has proven remarkably resistant to explanations as to why it does notforce us to concede that some statements are both true and false (and thus thatsome contradictions are true).33 Self-referential paradoxesof this kind have been taken by some philosophers as a compelling reason forembracing dialetheism.34
Dialetheismitself is surprisingly difficult to refute, not least because attemptedrefutations frequently presuppose the principle they purport to prove, viz.that no statement can be both true and false. Similarly, objections based onthe principle that anything whatsoever can be inferred from a contradiction (ex contradictione quodlibet, as theScholastic maxim put it) fail to unseat the dialetheist since they merely takefor granted a classical rule of inference which (as Priest has shown) can berejected without any intolerable consequences. The persistent dialetheist willcheerfully advocate a paraconsistent logic in place of classical logic so as toavoid the spectre of ‘logical explosion’.
Another argumentsometimes raised against dialetheism runs as follows. A statement is onlymeaningful if it rules something out; but if the law of non-contradiction doesnot hold, then no statement automatically rules out its negation or, a fortiori, any other statement; therefore,the meaningfulness of language presupposes the law of non-contradiction. Inreply, the dialetheist can point out that the statement ‘everything is true’ isclearly meaningful (even if obviously false) and yet it rules nothing out (byvirtue of ruling everything in).
Aftersympathetically considering the various objections levelled at dialetheism, R.M. Sainsbury laments:
With some distress, I come to the conclusion thatnone of the objections I review ought to force a resourceful rational dialetheistto admit defeat.35
Howeverdistressing this conclusion, it would seem to be a fair assessment of thedebate. As such, it would be foolhardy for me to attempt a decisive refutationof dialetheism simpliciter, whenothers better equipped and more determined have failed. Nevertheless, it shouldnot be thought that this concession thereby opens the door to embracingdialetheism as a satisfactory solution to the problem of paradox in Christiantheology. On the contrary, I suggest that there are at least three good reasonsfor rejecting this application ofdialetheism: two are of considerable weight, while the third is weightierstill.36
The first issimply this: theological dialetheism has the odd consequence that God believessome falsehoods (about God, no less) and invites us to do likewise. Thiscriticism may not be decisive, but it seems hard to reconcile this outcome withthe biblical emphasis on promoting truth and eschewing untruth (e.g., Ps. 52:3;Eph. 4:25; 1 John 4:6).
The secondreason is the observation, made several times previously, that the law ofnon-contradiction enjoys considerable primafacie support by way of the phenomenology and ubiquity of belief in it. Ifnothing else, this indicates that a rejection of the law should serve only as alast resort in attempting to address the problem of paradox. Moreover, thissolution is likely to endear itself only to those standing within the Christian faith (and even then will be deemed a bitterpill). As a defensive strategy to counter the charge of irrationality levelledat Christian doctrines, it lacks plausibility and smacks of special pleading.
The thirdargument for rejecting theological dialetheism runs as follows. If dialetheismwere to be adopted by Christians as a response to the problem of paradox indoctrines such as the Trinity and the Incarnation, then presumably the desireto preserve an orthodox interpretation of those doctrines would feature as asignificant motivation. After all, if one were unconcerned about maintainingorthodoxy, then one would be more inclined to revise or reject the problematicdoctrines themselves than the laws of logic. Yet for believers such as these,embracing dialetheism would have a direct and quite unacceptable consequence,namely, that one could no longer objectto heterodox theological statements. For example, an orthodox explicationof the doctrine of the Trinity would likely include the following statements:
(13) The Father is God.
(14) The Son is God.
(15) The Father is not the Son.
Theparadox arises because on the most natural interpretation, the conjunction of(13) and (14) implies the negation of(15). Now, the Christian dialetheist would presumably concede this entailmentbut would argue that affirming (13), (14) and (15) is not irrational because some contradictions are true—including, one assumes, thefollowing contradictory statement:
(16) The Father is not the Son and the Fatheris the Son.
However,even on a paraconsistent logic such as that preferred by the dialetheist, onecan logically infer from (16) this heterodox modalist claim:37
(17) The Father is the Son.
Theproblem is obvious: advocating dialetheism in order to preserve orthodoxyironically ends up making its preservation irrelevant,since it involves the joint affirmation of both orthodox and heterodoxtheological claims. It should go without saying that this solution would hardlyhave appealed to those Christian thinkers who were responsible for forging statementsof orthodox doctrine in the fires of the trinitarian and christologicalcontroversies. It follows on a theological dialetheist view that these debateswere all so much wasted breath: Athanasius and Arius should simply haveconcluded that they were both rightabout the deity of Christ, in spite of the logical incompatibility of theirviews; likewise Cyril and Nestorius on the relationship between Jesus and theLogos. As a solution to the problem of paradox, dialetheism only savesrationality at the expense of trivialising orthodoxy.[1]
19 Morris, TheLogic of God Incarnate, 25.
20 The most famous of which is often said to be SørenKierkegaard. However, it is questionable whether Kierkegaard understood theparadoxes of the Christian faith to be actual logical contradictions. See C.Stephen Evans, Faith Beyond Reason(Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1998), 80–83. A more recent example maybe provided by David Cunningham, who contends that theology ‘should not bedrawn into that realm of enterprises that must conform to the true/falsedichotomies of Boolean logic.’ Cunningham, TheseThree are One, 35–36. Elsewhere in the same volume, Cunningham seemsinclined toward a form of anti-realism, suggesting as he does that while theTrinity is problematic in ‘conceptual worlds such as arithmetic, formal logic,and analytic philosophy’, there are nonetheless alternative conceptual schemesin terms of which threeness and oneness are not incompatible. Cunningham, These Three are One, 127. This suggeststhat there is no objective fact of the matter regarding the logicality of theTrinity; it all depends on how one thinks about it. I will not attempt todisentangle Cunningham’s position here, since I argue that both anti-realismand dialetheism are inadequate responses to the trinitarian paradox; thuswhichever approach Cunningham means to endorse, it is misguided.
21 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’. See also Norman L.Geisler, ‘ “Avoid. Contradictions” (1 Timothy 6:20): A Reply to JohnDahms’, Journal of the EvangelicalTheological Society 22.1 (1979), 55–65; John v. Dahms, ‘A TrinitarianEpistemology Defended: A Rejoinder to Normal Geisler’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22.2 (1979), 133–48;Norman L. Geisler, ‘Avoid AllContradictions: A Surrejoinder to John Dahms’, Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society 22.2 (1979), 149–59.My analysis of Dahms’ thesis differs in significant respects from Geisler’s.
22 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 369.
23 Dahms expresses the law of non-contradiction interms of things rather than propositions or statements, e.g., ‘nothing can be both A and not-A’. Thisdifference does not affect my analysis, however, since on realist assumptionsit follows from Dahms’ characterisation that the statement ‘X is A’ cannot be bothtrue and false.
24 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 370–72.
25 Indeed, Dahms’ reasoning here seems plagued byconfusions. For example, in his first argument he confuses irrational numbers (i.e., those which cannot be expressed as thedivision of one natural number by another) with imaginary numbers (i.e., those which can be expressed as the squareroot of a negative real number)—and in any case, the concept of irrationalnumbers has nothing to do with logical violations. Dahms thus fails to show whyaccepting irrational (or imaginary) numbers forces us to concede exceptions toany of the three classical laws of logic.
26 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 372.
27 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 375.
28 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 375.
29 Indeed, this is Dahms’ own defenceagainst Geisler’s charge of self-defeat. Dahms, ‘A Trinitarian EpistemologyDefended’, 141–42.
30 Dahms, ‘How Reliable is Logic?’, 378.
31 I am not claiming that thesejudgements must always be consciously made when evaluating the applicability oflogic to the target statement; my claim is merely that if these judgementscould not be reliably made in principlethen neither can the overall evaluation of the target statement.
32 Graham Priest, Richard Routley, andJean Norman (eds), Paraconsistent Logic:Essays on the Inconsistent (Munich: Philosophia Verlag, 1989), xx. Thisneologism is a compound of the Greek words for ‘two’ and ‘truth’. A dialetheia is thus a ‘two-way truth’: astatement that evaluates to both true and false.
33 For an analysis of attempts to resolvethe Liar paradox and its close relatives, see R. M. Sainsbury, Paradoxes (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 2nd edn, 1995), 107–29; Rescher, Paradoxes, 193–215.
34 Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 135; Priest, Routley, and Norman (eds), Paraconsistent Logic, 503–10.Dialetheism has also been advocated on the basis of theological considerations; in this respect, Dahms is preceded byPeter Damiani, Meister Eckhart, and Nicholas of Cusa. Priest, Routley, and Norman(eds), Paraconsistent Logic, 18–20.
35 Sainsbury, Paradoxes, 136.
36 It should be noted that all threepoints count also against the ‘limited applicability’ thesis of Dahms, inaddition to the specific objections raised earlier.
37 The rule of inference in question, oneshared by classical and paraconsistent logics, is the ‘Rule of Simplification’:p and q, therefore q.
[1]James Anderson, Paradox in ChristianTheology: An Analysis of Its Presence, Character, and Epistemic Status,Paternoster Theological Monographs (Milton Keynes, UK; Waynesboro, GA:Paternoster, 2007), 117-26.
Thanks Rosie!
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/dialetheism/ and http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-paraconsistent/give you an answer which is why:
P.S. Vyrso has just been added to this reading list
... two identified strategies for resolving the problem of paradox by revising our laws of logic—namely, the rejection of deductive rules such as modus ponens [and, secondly] to reject the law of non-contradiction: the principle that no statement can be both true and false. Understandably, this approach is not a popular one among those attempting to address the problem of paradox in Christian theology, particularly those with a professed concern to preserve both rationality and orthodoxy. The comments of Thomas Morris typify the disdain of scholars for this escape route: ... It is just a desperation move which embraces incoherence to avoid its sting.
... two identified strategies for resolving the problem of paradox by revising our laws of logic—namely, the rejection of deductive rules such as modus ponens [and, secondly] to reject the law of non-contradiction: the principle that no statement can be both true and false. Understandably, this approach is not a popular one among those attempting to address the problem of paradox in Christian theology, particularly those with a professed concern to preserve both rationality and orthodoxy.
The comments of Thomas Morris typify the disdain of scholars for this escape route: ... It is just a desperation move which embraces incoherence to avoid its sting.
I'd say Mr. Morris has hit the nail on the head. Nevertheless, paradox and its close companion, irrationality, thrive. Discard logic and one can make the Scriptures (and anything else that bothers) say whatever is desired. "In the beginning was the Logos" really means "two plus two equals chocolate bunnies". It sort of reminds me of Lucy VanPelt in the Peanuts comic strip who used to do jigsaw puzzles by using a pair of scissors to trim the pieces to fit. It's all so-o-o-o easy when you make up your own rules ...
Thanks MJ!
