Yes, I am serious. You asked if the logic holds water in your original post. I said no because it is a faulty syllogism.

Your argument requires you to establish a bunch of other premises. The syllogism you laid out is defective. That's my only point. Whatever your argument is, it is not supported by the syllogism you presented.

It's syllogism 101: your conclusion must not add additional terms not included in the premises.

Just to review:

Quite true, no issue at all with this. It tells us how we should love God.

Also no argument with the truth here. It tells us how we should love our neighbor. Note the command to love our neighbor has a different standard: "as yourself", not "with all your heart", etc. So the command is a separate and independent command, not subject to the first (because that command was directed to our behavior to God).

Your conclusions introduce new elements:


"If you strive to love God completely. . . ."

Nothing in either of the two premises discusses your striving or desire. The command is a command, regardless of your desire.

"you will love yourself in a godly manner, . . . ."

There is nothing in the two premises that states that any result comes from loving God in the right manner. So this is another element introduce that was not included in the premises.

And there is nothing at all in the premises that support the "thus allowing you to love your neighbor" clause. It's a completely new element.

Same with the second conclusion, for the same reasons:

Of course the first clause is true, but nothing in the premises support those terms—that is, there is nothing in the premises that describes God's love at all. It is an introduced element.
And there is no imperative "should" in either of the premises that connects our "self love" to God's love at all.

BTW, the Matt. 22:40 quote also clearly establishes that the two commands are logically independent of each other (otherwise Jesus would have said something like: "on this one commandment the other necessarily follows").

Again, whatever your argument is, it is not supported by your syllogism. That is all I'm saying, nothing more. I suggest a different approach.

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R.Vic Bottomly
Providence Reformed Baptist Church, Tacoma, WA

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Question: Are you saying in the original post that as we love God more we love ourselves in a more godly way and we should then seek to love others in that same godly way we have come to love ourselves?

Note: I always took this verse to mean that, we already love ourselves in that our main goal in life is self-preservation by way of food, clothes, shelter, water etc. and we should then seek to love others in this way. I guess one could say that we should seek to do these things for others, put their primary needs above our own and in this way we are loving God the way he has commanded since Jesus states, after listing some ways that one would show love to Christ,

Matthew 25:31-46
31“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne. 32Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. 33And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. 34Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers,£ you did it to me.’
41“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, 43I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not clothe me, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ 44Then they also will answer, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to you?’ 45Then he will answer them, saying, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 46And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
(ESV)

Just thinking

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Erick Bohndorf PCA, KS
http://qayaqtraveler.blogspot.com/
Jeremiah 23:16,17, "Thus says the Lord of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of the Lord. 17They say continually to those who despise the word of the Lord, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you."

I think you proved my point by attempting to refute it.

see bolded

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-JD
1Thess5:21
Ordained Deacon, PCA
Serving in the SBC
MS

Team blog: ChristianSkepticism.org | Personal:...a Longmire rambles | facebook

This is exactly what I've been trying to tell you for some time now, JD. You really do need to read a logic textbook before attempting to impress everyone by whipping out syllogisms. I don't know why you haven't listened to me, but maybe now that someone else is raising the same objections you will take heed.

__________________
Davidius
Husband of Emilia
Member: First Reformed Presbyterian Church of Durham (RPCNA) - Durham, NC
Student: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, German Literature and Classics

This may explain the old adage about Baptists being Methodists with shoes, and Presbyterians being Baptists who can read. To round out the adage, Lutherans might qualify as Presbyterians who drink to excess, and Episcopalians as Lutherans who know when to say when. - D.G. Hart

JD, I won't use the head banging smiley, but I really think you are missing the point.

An analogy to what I perceive your point to be. My commands to a child:

"You shall, with great joy and thanksgiving, eat everything on the plate that I put there."

"And a second command, similar to the first (like unto it): finish your juice."

Just because I said "like unto it" doesn't mean one is logically connected to the other. They are two separate commands, similar because they deal with consuming something, but the objects of the command are different.

That's as far as I can go. Follow David's advice and go back to the logic texts.

Quite honestly, JD, I think your bolded part doesnt do what you think it does. The second is "like unto the first" only because it instructs us as to HOW we are to love. The thing to which our love to God is compared is not necessarily AT ALL related to the thing to which our love to neighbor is compared.

BTW, when I say "not necessarily" there I'm not expressing a lack of certainty, as we usually mean today when we say "not necessarily" - i.e. I'm not saying "well, it could be, but it ain't necessarily so".

Rather, what I'm emphasizing is that with these two verses juxtaposed, there is no NECESSARY connection between the two. Loving God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength is unquestionably a good thing - these two verses together do NOT NECESSARILY mean that self-love is good or bad. This is because there is no NECESSARY connection between the two things to which our love to God and our love to neighbor are compared in verse 37 and in verse 39, respectively.

__________________
Todd K. Pedlar
member, First Congregational Church, (CCCC) Cresco, IA
http://semperubi.rtrc.net

"Many men, after a long conversion, see more of the workings of sin in their hearts than ever they did before or at their first conversion. Now, such men have not an increase of sin, but an increase of illumination and light" (Christopher Love)


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ok - ya'll bear with the weaker brother:

You are asserting that Jesus was not logically connecting the 2 commandments? Even though he was answering a specific question?

What is the greatest command?

You are saying he added the neighbor portion as an "Oh, by the way?"

Why do you think I am trying to impress anyone, Dave?

If it will make the nitpickers happy, I will use "syllogistic-like" when I employ the form.

Maybe:

Statement 1 that is true or contains truth.

Statement 2 that is true or contains truth.

Leads me to make some conclusions.

I am much more concerned about the content and context than getting logic 101 lessons - it is a red herring.

OK, brother, I'm not trying to be harsh. I'm critical because you asked for criticism in the OP.

The original question in the passage was "which is the greatest commandment?" Jesus answered that there were two greatest commandments. So he corrected a misconception that they were previously arguing about (while skillfully negating their trap) and, at the same time, set out the foundation for the entire law.

So the second is not a "by the way." Jesus said it was an equal commandment. So now we understand better that there are two distinct commandments that undergird the whole law: one focused on God, the other focused on the one aspect of God's creation that bears his image: your neighbor. Just as we see in the 10 commandments. They are interrelated because they both deal with love, but their focus (objective) is separate.

I was presupposing constructive criticism

so - they are interrelated but they are not interrelated like I am proposing?

That is - there is appropriate, valid and God-centered self-love.

Help me work through this - are these valid premises?

p1 - As a Christian, I must love God with all myself - this is the greatest commandment

p2 - As a Christian, I must love my neighbor like I love myself - this is the 2nd greatest commandment and it is like (equal) to p1

If those premises are valid, then would this conclusion not be accurate?

C1 - As a Christian, I must love my neighbor like I love myself - when I am loving God with all myself.

or

As a Christian, I must love my neighbor like I love myself loving God.

or the converse:

As a Christian, I must not love my neighbor like I love myself when I am not loving God with all myself.

oh, BTW ...

This is what you said in the OP:

After such an opening statement, I would have expected you to be already familiar with logic 101, and if not, to be willing to take some time to look into it if you really want to use syllogisms.

Also, to say that it's a red herring to request that you follow the rules of formal logic when using formal logic is no good. You chose to make comments about the way you think, and you chose to argue syllogistically. If you are "wont" to thinking in syllogisms, I don't see why you get so defensive when we expect real ones.

So if you're so concerned about content and context, it would be better to just have a normal discussion.

Congratulations on 3000 posts.

I'd say I am more of an informal logician which is why I like the syllogism, but may break some of the formal structure.

Thus in terms of rather than - in strict adherence to

Also - see above as I am working to "toe the line" more, my brother.

JD, I do wish you would have left out the syllogistic format in your first post. It's a darn good question and I would have enjoyed seeing it discussed. Unfortunately this has just become a 'I can logic higher than you' contest and we will never know the answer to your question.

I think we will learn who has the least amount of patience soon. I'll probably close it at that point and we can start again.

Remember everyone, God gave us logic and reason to make the scriptures MORE understandable, not more complex and abstruse. Unfortunately the logic text books rarely deal with winning people, only winning arguments.

__________________
Bob Vigneault (Bawb Vēēn-yo)
I just know there's got to be a pony in here somewhere!

The Heartbeat of Heaven (blog) MySpace (Music), MySpace (Personal)
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Bless you, Bob, me too!

I don't get it. Can you rephrase this in the form of a syllogism?

__________________
--chRis
Psalm 115:1

Christopher Reeder
Husband to Kara, Father to Abigail (7), Caleb (6), Grace (4 1/2), Zoë (2 1/2), Elijah (1) and Baby Girl due 8/6/08

Member: Pilgrim Presbyterian Church (OPC), Raleigh, NC

Bob,

JD asked a question a