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And such limits raise questions about the human mind's ability to comprehend God.
Some, from both East and West, question whether God can be known at all. Others,
including some within the Christian tradition, have suggested that at the very least, God's nature
creates a scandal for the human intellect. Tertullian is alleged to have at least implied, "I believe
because it is absurd."
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Most Christians have been less cavalier, affirming that God can be
genuinely understood by the human mind, but also that the finite human mind can only grasp a
"portion" of God's infinite being. The history of Christian reflection demonstrates these limits in
its many intellectual conflicts involving the nature of God. During the last half of the twentieth
century, this diversity has multiplied as the nature of God has been "reimagined" in many novel
ways. The purposes of this chapter are to explore how the limitations of human reason may have
contributed to such confusion and how best to understand the complexity of the God of the
Bible.
Human Reason, Formal Logic, and Their Relation
The ability to use formal logic is clearly one of the human mind's most impressive
capacities. But what exactly is formal logic? Logic as a discipline is the study of the methods
and principles for distinguishing good from bad reasoning.
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Good reasoning is reasoning which
has adequate support, demonstrated with deductive and/or inductive arguments. Some
arguments, however, are poorly arranged (e.g. a logical fallacy), while others have false
premises. Both lead to unwarranted conclusions. Logic, then, consists of the rules and
procedures that have been identified for formulating correct conclusions based on appropriate
evidence.
Human reason, on the other hand, refers to the human mind's ability to make use of the