Logic, it seems to me, can only be explained by the existence of God.
By far, most people in the history of the world have believed in the existence of God. But some of course come to believe that God does not exist. Now I think it is painfully clear that people who reject God never do so only on the basis of arguments and evidence. I can say this confidently because we humans never come to our core worldview beliefs without emotions, desires and past experiences figuring in in significant ways. It is certainly true of people who come to Christian belief and it is equally true of those who come to deny those beliefs.
Though we may be, in some ways, driven by emotions or desires, there is still always a logic to our beliefs. That is, there are always reasons why we believe what we do. These reasons may be good or bad and they may or may not be formed in a very reflective way. But there is logic there whenever we form a belief.
What is logic?
But what is logic? If you think about it logic is a bit odd. We believe things on the basis of reasons. The reasons we have provide logical support for our beliefs (again, good or bad). We will even base our very lives on the logic of our core beliefs.
Suppose you have a big decision to make. You need to decide whether you will go to college. You take out a piece of paper and list out all of the reasons for and against going to college right now in your life. Let’s say there are clearly more and much stronger reasons for going to college than reasons against it. So you now believe, quite rationally, college is a good idea for you right now in your life.
What happened in that process?
Well it seems you (knowingly or unknowingly) used the principles of logic to come to a decision. In other words, you went with the reasons that accorded with the principles of logic.
An example of a principle of logic is the principle of non-contradiction (PNC). According to Aristotle:
…opposite assertions cannot be true at the same time (Metaphics IV 6 1011b13–20)
Put somewhat differently, this principle says…
for any statement A, it can’t be the case that A and not A at the same time.
This is necessarily true for any statement you want to plug in for A.
It can’t be the case that the Boston Red Sox won the World Series and did not win the World Series at the same time.
The Red Sox could win and not win the World Series in different years (and this true for this year and last year). But they could not, at the same time, both win and not win. To assert something like this is to assert something necessarily false and not even sensible.
Logic is necessary and universal
The truth of the principle of non-contradiction isn’t a matter of mere opinion (try denying the principle of noncontradiction without using it!).[1]
It is widely held that the PNC and all logical principles are objectively and universally true. Many philosophers will say they are true in all possible worlds! This means that logic is not tied to the way our world is. Whatever it is, it exists as a feature of reality that couldn’t not be the case and it is used every time we make and support a claim.
If logic is this real thing that exists outside time and space, then this entails that the natural world is not all there is. In other words, the supernatural (as in supra-natural) must exist.
Explaining logic
Now how do we explain this? It seems to me one has to say either that logical facts exist as brute facts or they are explained by God. If one says they are brute facts, then this just means they are unexplained. So this means that for logic to be explained, one is lead back to God as its explanation.
I’ll leave the technical issues aside here, but my own view is that the eternal truths of logic are grounded in the mind of God. Being aware of the principles of logic is us literally being aware of features of God’s mind. Help me out Chris Pratt?
Okay, so here then is the irony. People use logic to argue against the one thing that grounds their ability to make that very argument. And this is God.
I’m convinced that without God we are left without an adequate explanation of life’s most important aspects.
Check out my book Logic and the Way of Jesus: Thinking Critically and Christianly
[1] To deny the truth of the PNC, you’d have to say the principle is not true and we are only able to say this by the PNC. This makes the denial self-refuting.