Logical Fallacies

Learning to recognize logical fallacies is a key to good hermeneutics and exegesis.

During our tithing discussion we surfaced a logical fallacy that has plagued the church: the argument from silence (a kind of argument from ignorance: argumentum ad ignorantiam). The specific example mentioned was the argument that musical instruments should not be used in church worship, since instruments are not mentioned in connection with worship in the NT (although see Rev 5.8). To argue thus from silence would rid our church services of hymn books, all electronics, even church buildings. Nothing can be proven from silence alone.

On the subject of tithing, therefore, while the NT offers no explicit instruction to tithe, and while I contend that to overemphasize tithing is to obscure more important NT principles, to ban tithing on the basis of the NT’s silence would be fallacious and heretical! Our approach to the issue of tithing in our teaching and preaching must be similar to Christ’s in Mat 23.23: we must urge people to fulfill the greater priorities of faith without discrediting a healthy discipline of tithing.

posted by Roderick of TMin @ 4:30 PM