As I mentioned in my last Pastor’s Blog (“Tell Me What to Think?” which you can find in the archives to the right), I have a deep concern about thinking. How can we do it well? How can we stave off the superheated assertions of “influencers” and come to rational conclusions?
One place to start, I think, is to recognize that we all have minds that work really well. Your “thinker” is as good as my “thinker.” (Of course, there are mental disabilities, which is a whole other subject. But if you’re reading this blog, and you’re willing to be interested enough in this topic to keep reading for a bit, your mind is in pretty good shape–no matter how much or how little education you have.)
How can I be so sure of this? It’s because I’m working from the presupposition that God created our minds, and that these minds–like everything else He made during Creation Week–are “very good.” Sure, sin has deformed and limited us to some degree, but our free choice remains, and so does our ability to work out correct choices if we do it in the right way. And another presupposition I work from is that the God who created our minds will guide our thinking, while leaving us free choice, if we ask Him.
Okay, what do we do with this information now that we know it? Most importantly, we should refuse to let ourselves be intimidated by people who have more education than we do. We need to enter discussions tranquilly, not defensively.
How do we do this? By learning a few thinking principles, which I’ll be introducing in future posts in this blog. I’ve been interested in logic and reasoning (and their limits) ever since I was in college. Talk to you in the next blog.