Why Only God Can Make Sense of the Laws of Logic

Belief in the laws of logic requires presupposing the existence of the God of the Bible. There are literally no other conceivable options, because no other worldview even suggests a god with the necessary attributes to ground abstract objects like logic (and morality and mathematics).

By Joel Settecase / 4-minute read

Belief in God is a necessary precondition for logic. Laws of logic are unchanging mental abstractions which cannot float out in space or be proprietary of (changing) matter/energy, and which necessarily transcend all human minds (they would be true even if all ppl died).

Belief in logic is belief in unchanging, universal and immaterial mental rules which must necessarily exist within a mind possessing the same attributes. One must believe in an unchanging, universal, immaterial Mind. There is only one worldview which accounts for such an entity.

This is the biblical worldview. From “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” (Genesis 1:1), straight through to the “Amen” in Revelation 22:21, the Bible presents the sole worldview which accounts for logic and other abstractions we all take for granted.

In short, the God who reveals himself in the Bible is the only entity which even proposes to account for abstract objects. Even other “Abrahamic” theistic religions fall short; atheism doesn’t come close. No one has been able to come up with a suitable substitute.

Imagine if you were to try and design a worldview that could account for logic, moral absolutes, math, etc. You would need to come up with a God who was:

Unchanging (because logic doesn’t change—and neither do other abstract objects (the name philosophers give to invisible “things” like laws of logic, mathematical principles, absolute moral obligations, etc.).
Universal (because these things apply everywhere and at all times)
Immaterial (because matter is always changing, so these unchanging abstract objects, if they were grounded in changeable matter and energy, would themselves change)
Knowable (because, well, we know them) and self-revelatory. Such a God would need to be relatable and relational in his very being, revealing himself because of who he is and what he is like).

By the time you finished your imaginative process, you’d have imagined up a universal, ultimate personality with probably a few differences from the biblical God, such as a lack of triune-ness.

But then you’d read the Bible and see the doctrine of the Trinity, along with the other attributes of God (holiness, self-sacrificiality, etc.) revealed therein, which you never could have imagined, and you’d be floored by how obvious and necessary these doctrines all are.

Thank God he has revealed himself to us. The more I learn about God, the more I realize how necessary all his attributes are, and how glorious and praiseworthy he is. It’s like, “Oh, yes, of course God must be like that.” But the truth is my feeble mind wouldn’t and couldn’t have invented him.

In the person of Jesus Christ, God has revealed himself fully and perfectly. In Jesus we see the attributes of God on display, and as we behold him we not only understand God better, but we actually become more like him.

The truth of God is antithetical to the mind bent on seeking its own autonomy (“set on the flesh” as Paul puts it). True knowledge about God (necessary for true knowledge of the world) starts w/ repentance and faith in Jesus. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.”

This post was adapted from here.