Why do so many arguments sound logical, but we know aren’t? The problem is that we are stuck in ever-expanding contours of truth.
We love proverbs. Those statements that say something universally true about the human condition.
This is also what we love about psychology and biology. They create a sense of established order for our world and our behavior in it.
Something about our culture feeds an addiction to universalizing truth. We want to take something that is true and expand it so as to explain far more. That it isn’t just something occasionally true about us. It is true about all of us. And always.
Take Jesus’s teaching on judgment.
In Matthew 7, he says not to judge, so that you may not be judged. Sounds simple and reasonable.
But we want to figure out how to apply this. How does it work? You know, in the “real world”?
So we start pulling at the internal logic and make choices about it, stretching it to fit different contexts. We follow the logical conclusions about judgment and its relationship to community. And eventually we arrive at the most challenging of dilemmas:
Teachings are for other people and for me.
And when we make this logical leap, we find ourselves turning the camera on the speaker. Are they following the rules?
You may have already done this to me. Am I doing what I am describing?
This seems like an honest question. But we arrive here by straying from the original problem.
We ignore the internal logic.
The internal logic of Matthew 7 is pretty simple. You can’t be a good judge of another’s character if you’re blinded by your own flaws. Fix yourself so you can help others.
We must acknowledge that this passage doesn’t end in rhetorical gridlock. It ends with the assumption of helping. Think of it like the recommendation that you put on your own mask before helping someone else with theirs.
But chances are the internal logic gets sacrificed on the altar of universal truth. We want this to be more. To fit any context. Make it grow. Screw the internal logic when it stops fitting. We need something to explain everything.
Creating the Universal Solution
“Do not judge”
Let’s put a period there on the end. Judging is wrong.
And even though we’re distorting the teaching, we’re also arriving at a kind of truth. One that we do support. And it fits the faith. Sort of. Most of the time. Except, of course, when it doesn’t.
But here, we shorten it to make it easier to remember and easier to apply! Simple. Makes sense in every situation.
Somebody comes at you with judgement, you’ve got it! “Do not judge!”
Someone attacks another for their sexuality, oh, it is on! This feels so good!
Don’t be judgy!
But then they return the favor. Aren’t you just judging me?
And we feel justified, of course. But…there is something that gets all nibbley at us, isn’t there? Yeah, we know we’re right, but…aren’t we judging, too?
This is the problem of logic creep.
As much as we make it easier to apply the solution to our problems, we are applying a flawed methodology.
And what’s worse: the flaw is baked into the central argument. So any attempt to remedy the problem deals a fatal blow to the argument itself.
Jesus didn’t say in this scripture: Do not judge with a period on the end. We did that. We are taking his argument, expanding it to fit every context and then get mad when we find it doesn’t really work the way we want it to.
So we are left with a decision: be honest or lie to ourselves.
And we’d rather lie.
Universalist rhetoric trades in absolutes.
This is why we are so befuddled by so many things in our culture at the moment. The universalist impulse behind logic creep breeds permanence, objectivity, and absolutes in our thinking where evolution, subjectivity, and fluidity reign.
The tolerance paradox, which says the only people who are not allowed to have their way in an inclusive society are people who reject an inclusive society, is only illogical in absolutist terms. While it seems to violate the inherent order of inclusion, it only does so when we apply these visions as irreconcilable absolutes.
If we reject that impulse, we can see that the act of inclusion is necessarily subject to the state of the world. Which makes it a hopeful condition of humanity. And not simply the intellectual game played at by philosophers and politicians.
Rejecting logic creep takes work.
Most obvious is that it can seem illogical on the face of it. At a time when absolutes and universal truths have an iron grip on the governing order (and yet are also treated as if they are mere opinions), it is hard to communicate with others using the internal logic of the subject.
In other words, when everything is absolutes, there is no center. No nuance and moderation; complexity and growth; evolution and compassion. Only a life of rigid certainty, and yet also, no actual solutions. Life as gridlock—stuck between uncompromising absolutes.
Diagnosing logic creep takes practice. We need to practice identifying it and describing it to people we trust. Because so much of our language encourages the opposite.
It also takes greater clarity about how truth is revealed—and knowledge of its limits.
This is far from impossible (stop trading in absolutes!) nor is it the ground of cheap centrism. But it does require patience and integrity.