The following is an excerpt from STR Enhanced Solid Ground July 2012 by Greg Koukl.


“Jesus never condemned homosexuality.” 


Though this is only a single sentence, it’s actually a full argument in shorthand, streamlined for brevity. The conclusion didn’t need to be stated. I got the point. I was wrong for attacking homosexuality on moral grounds. Because Jesus never condemned homosexuality, it is therefore morally acceptable behavior.

“Are you saying that if Jesus doesn’t
specifically condemn something, then
He condones it?” 


Notice, though, that the conclusion is not the only thing taken for granted here. The minor premise is stated and the conclusion is assumed, but what of the major premise, our first step in the argument? The unspoken major premise—the invisible wall
holding up this argument—contained a serious flaw that went undetected.

We can determine if this is a problem by asking what kind of major premise is needed to make this argument work. The full argument would have to look something like this: “Whatever Jesus did not explicitly condemn is morally acceptable. Jesus never explicitly condemned homosexuality. Therefore, homosexuality is morally acceptable.”

The form of this argument is good; nothing amiss here. But look closer at the major premise. It seems this statement is clearly false. It’s not true that whatever Jesus didn’t directly condemn is morally acceptable. Jesus never explicitly condemned slavery, child abuse, wife-beating, or even gaybashing, for that matter, but this proves nothing about His moral opinion on those issues.

Many Christians are caught flat-footed here, sensing something is wrong, but not knowing what it is. Sometimes we have to look more closely to identify the unspoken premise before we can see the problem clearly. In this case, that can be done by making the invisible wall visible.

Page 6 of STR's July 2012 issue of Solid Ground - http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/Enhanced_Solid_Ground_July_2012.pdf?docID=6382&autologin=true 
 
The following is an excerpt from STR Enhanced Solid Ground July 2012 by Greg Koukl. 


  • "Either Jesus is not God or God is not a trinity. "

This is a failure of equivocation, but the problem is difficult for most to see at first. It has to do with the troublesome word, “is.” There are at least five meanings for the word “is.”

Resolving the equivocation in this argument requires distinguishing between the “is” of essential predication (“Aristotle is human”) and the “is” of identity (“Aristotle is the author of the Nichomachean Ethics”). There are also the parts/whole “is” (“Aristotle is skin and bones”), the “is” of accidental predication (“Aristotle is white”), and the “is” of existence (“Aristotle is”). 

When Christianity teaches that Jesus is God, it doesn’t mean that Jesus and God are exactly identical. Jesus is different from the Father. He shares the Father’s essential nature, but He is not everything that God is. God subsists in three persons; Jesus is only one of those persons.


  • “Jesus is God. Mary is the mother of Jesus. Therefore, Mary is the mother of God.”

The form here seems correct—the conclusion follows from the premises. It also seems that the individual statements are true. But something’s wrong here. God is not the kind of being that has a mother. Where did we go wrong?

The problem becomes more obvious when we take it a step further: “Mary is the mother of God. God is a trinity. Therefore, Mary is the mother of the Trinity.” This, of course, is patently false. But why is there a problem if the form is sound and the claims are in order?

The trouble lies with the terms. There’s an equivocation here on the clause “Jesus is God” in the first syllogism. Jesus is a very unusual individual. Yes, He is God, but He’s also fully human. Jesus is one person with two natures, the nature of God and the nature of man.

When we say Jesus is God, we are not saying His humanity is divine. That would be a contradiction. We are saying He is God in that He has a divine nature. Mary is the mother Jesus in the sense that she’s the mother of His humanity. She is the mother
of His human nature, not His divine nature.

Equivocation—lack of clarity—on these terms makes a false conclusion seem sound. The claims are right. The form is right. But the conclusion is false because the meanings of the terms are equivocal.


Page 5 of STR's July 2012 issue of Solid Ground - http://www.str.org/site/DocServer/Enhanced_Solid_Ground_July_2012.pdf?docID=6382&autologin=true