The Lordship of Christ (Part 1 of 2)

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DreadPirate,

This is actually a two-part series. In part 2, Romans 10:10 further explains Romans 10:9.

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Comment Part 1: The narrator asserts that the formal logical statement

‘if P and Q then R’

*requires* that both P and Q be true for R to be true. However, this particular formal logical construction says *precisely nothing* about R in the case that either P or Q is false. It simply says that in the case that *both* P and Q are true, R will be also.

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Comment Part 2: One would need a second proposition in addition to the first to be able to sustain the case that R is false if either P or Q are false:

‘if not P or not Q then not R’

This second statement can be in no way inferred from the first. It is a distinct proposition.

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Comment Part 3: One would, of course, be free to combine those two statements more succinctly, like this:

‘if and only if P and Q then R’

But, that is now a very different statement from the one under discussion by the narrator of the video, and not analogous to Romans 10:9.

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Comment Part 4: However, rather than deal with formal logic, let’s go to Scripture for a counter example:

‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved.’ (Mark 16:16a)

Here we have a logical statement of the form ‘if P and Q then R’:

if there is one

P: ‘who believes’

and

Q: ‘is baptized’

then he

R: ‘will be saved’

What about the situation where Q is false, and the person is not baptized?

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Comment Part 5: According to the narrator of the video, salvation must be impossible for such a man. But we have a counter example in Scripture in the person of the thief on the cross, who believed but was not baptized. Jesus said to him:

‘And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”’ (Luke 23:43)

And indeed, the second part of Mark 16:16 is very interesting in that it does not mention baptism (the Q of our example).

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Comment Part 6: Here’s the full verse of Mark 16:16:

‘He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned.’

Thus, the narrator’s entire line of argument with respect to statements of the form ‘if P and Q then R’ is shown to be false, both as a matter of formal logic and in terms of the grammatical constructs of New Testament Greek language. His rewording of Romans 10:9 is therefore to read into it something that it does not say.

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Comment Part 7: Wikipedia, that fount of sometimes accurate knowledge, actually has a good write-up on the ‘material conditional’, for those in need of a refresher.

As indicated there, p -> q is always a true statement in formal logic, except in the sole case when p is true and q is false. Thus, if p is false, you know *nothing* at all about the value of q based only upon the material implication p -> q, as q might be either true or false.

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Comment Part 8: Googling ‘negative inference fallacy paul dixon’ will lead to an article by Paul S. Dixon that might well prove helpful to anyone seeking to understand the problem here.