Quotes About Reasoning

We delude ourselves when we suppose than the main impact of speech lies in the words (as opposed to the voice), just as we delude ourselves when we cite logical reasons, which are actually rationalizations or justifications, for our decisions.

Mr. Degrand told me today that he had seen a notice of my Lecture in the Evening Gazette very complimentary. A few tones of the voice have done more to give me notoriety than five years of diligent reasoning. Such is life.

So too the growth of modern science depended on the premise of the individual's ability to judge evidence and argument for himself, free from the authority— though not the argument and evidence—of tradition.

Hitler said that people are not motivated by, "sound reasoning but by emotions and feelings." He must have been right for it's the only thing that explains how stupid people can be. However I have been one of those people. Admit

You ought to have fully and clearly in your own mind a good reason for everything you do, for everything you learn, for everything you eat, for everything you drink.

Reasoning at every step he treads, Man yet mistakes his way, While meaner things, whom instinct leads, Are rarely known to stray...

Instincts outsmart brains.

Ethics and Logic should be the most generally studied, because all practise them whether they have studied them or not.

Logic is one thing, and common sense another.

A mind all logic is like a knife all blade.

Meanwhile I am consoling myself for your absence by finding my advantage in it — shining like Hesperus when Hyperion has departed... I never held it my forte to be a severe reasoner, but I can see that if whatever is best is A, and B happens to be best, B must be A, however little you might have expected it beforehand.

We know that mathematicians care no more for logic than logicians for mathematics. The two eyes of exact science are mathematics and logic: the mathematical sect puts out the logical eye, the logical sect puts out the mathematical eye; each believing that it sees better with one eye than with two. The consequences are ludicrous.

Religion & Philosophy. — Religion is a man using a divining rod. Philosophy is a man using a pick and shovel.

to know that an inference is deductively valid is to know that there are no situations in which the premisses are true and the conclusion is not.

if it was so, it might be; and if it were so, it would be: but as it isn't, it ain't. That's logic.

Without faith, there is no proper understanding by which a man can judge. As Augustine well said, 'I believe in order to understand'.

When an apologist attempts to be autonomous in his reasoned argumentation he indicates that he considers God to be less certain than his own existence and that he places greater credence in his independent reasoning than in God's Word.

To reason with the non-Christian in a fashion purporting to be independent of God or independent of reliance upon revelation is to honor the unregenerate's notions of "evidence" and "verification" as legitimate and correct. However, for the Christian, it is Scripture that governs *every* aspect of his life, even his concept of "evidence" and the way he reasons with skeptics.

God's revelation is more than the best foundation for Christian reasoning; it is the only philosophically sound foundation for any reasoning whatsoever. Therefore, although the world in its own wisdom sees the word of Christ as foolishness, "the foolishness of God is wiser than men" (1 Cor. 1:18, 25).

Christians need not sit in an isolated philosophical tower, reduced to simply despising the philosophical systems of non Christians. No, by taking every thought captive to Christ, we are enabled to cast down reasoning that is exalted against the knowledge of God (cf. 2 Cor. 10:5). We must challenge the unbeliever to give a cogent and credible account of how he knows anything whatsoever, given his espoused presuppositions about reality, truth, and man (his "worldview").

Christian apologetics is a defense of religious faith, thus pertaining to the question of one's ultimate commitment in life. Apologetics entails intellectual reasoning in justification of one's beliefs, thus touching on the epistemological question of the final standard of knowledge.

The believer and the unbeliever recognize two different final standards for living including that aspect of living known as thinking, reasoning, and arguing. They are divided by their ultimate commitments, either to Christ or to some other authority (usually themselves).

A person cannot have it both ways regarding his final standard or ultimate reference point. He presupposes and reasons either according to the authority of God or according to some other authority. Attempting to be neutral about God's ultimate authority in determining what we know is a result of a bad attitude toward God's ultimate authority. It is a way of saying that one does not really need the work of Christ to save him in his reasoning.

Apologetics involves a conflict over ultimate authorities — that is, a conflict over our presuppositions or final standard. What should be the source of a person's presuppositions? For the unbeliever, it will be some authority for reasoning other than the word of God, while for the believer it is God's revelation.