A Claim Cannot Disown What It Entails

Article 2 of 10 — No Parachute: Following a Doctrine to Its Final Destination

A man publishes a sentence. Readers begin telling him what it means. Some import claims he never made. Others identify an unwelcome conclusion with uncomfortable precision.

The writer replies, “I did not say that.”

He may be right. No critic may substitute a harsher proposition and condemn the substitute. Yet intention is not the sole measure of a claim. A writer may have said less than his opponent alleges, or he may have committed himself to more than he understood.

That is the question beneath many doctrinal disputes: who owns the consequences of a proposition?

What Consequence Means

When a conclusion is entailed, the premises cannot all be true while the conclusion is false. The relation is stronger than persuasion. A valid argument may be awkwardly expressed and emotionally unwelcome. If its premises are true and its terms remain fixed, the conclusion follows.

The familiar example is enough:

1. All men are mortal.
2. Socrates is a man.
3. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

Socrates does not escape mortality by disliking the conclusion. A critic of the argument may challenge either premise or expose a change in meaning. He may not grant both premises in the same sense and declare the conclusion optional.

The same rule governs theology:

1. God cannot lie.
2. God promised a particular result.
3. A theory entails that the result did not occur.
4. Therefore, the theory entails that a promise of God failed.

The burden lies in the second and third premises. Did God make the alleged promise? What did he promise? Does the theory really deny its fulfilment? Until those questions are answered, the critic has only a valid conditional. Once they are answered, the author’s good intention cannot loosen the connection.

A person governs the claims he deliberately makes. A proposition has a rational content which includes what necessarily follows from it. The first concerns profession and culpability; the second concerns truth.

Theological polemic often dresses weaker relations in the language of entailment.

Association says that Arians used an argument, so everyone who uses it is an Arian. Vocabulary does not carry guilt by itself.

Historical origin says that a doctrine arose among rationalists, so it must entail rationalism. Genealogy can expose controlling assumptions, but an idea may be removed from its original system or defended on another ground.

Psychological tendency identifies a slippery road. A weak view of Scripture may make further compromise easier without making that compromise logically necessary.

Probable consequence concerns what human beings or institutions are likely to do. It can support a serious warning, but probability is not deduction.

Rhetorical resemblance says that a theory “sounds Roman Catholic” or “feels like liberalism.” Resemblance may suggest a useful question. It proves nothing until the propositions are compared.

These distinctions do not weaken a severe conclusion. They make it credible. If every danger is called an entailment, readers soon learn to discount the word. Necessity should be claimed only where denial of the conclusion would contradict the premises.

Validity Is Not Enough

A valid argument may still contain a false premise:

1. Every printed Bible is immediately inspired.
2. This volume is a printed Bible.
3. Therefore, this volume is immediately inspired.

The conclusion follows, but the first premise is false. Immediate inspiration belongs to the prophetic and apostolic writings as given by God. A faithful translation bears divine authority derivatively because it faithfully represents the inspired Hebrew and Greek. Printing a Bible is not a new act of inspiration.

A sound argument requires valid reasoning and true premises. That distinction is indispensable when the conclusion is heresy or atheism. A critic may build a flawless chain from a position the advocate never held, smuggle a disputed interpretation into a premise, or use the same word in two senses. Logic connects claims; it does not manufacture their truth.

The Westminster Confession joins both disciplines when it receives what is “expressly set down in Scripture” and what “by good and necessary consequence may be deduced from Scripture.” From Scripture governs the premises. Necessary consequence governs the inference.

Descriptions of another man’s doctrine require the same care. His public words should be quoted in context, with qualifications and denials acknowledged. A critic is not free to improve his case by making the opponent’s doctrine worse than it is.

The Honest Answer to an Unwanted Conclusion

No finite person has traced every remote implication of every belief. A newly recognized consequence may expose an old sentence as careless. That human limitation calls for humility and correction, not immunity from reason.

Four replies engage a demonstrated entailment:

1. “I withdraw or revise the original claim.”
2. “I reject this indispensable premise, and here is the reason.”
3. “The argument uses the same term in two different senses.”
4. “The inference fails at this stated point.”

“That was not my intention” answers a different question. It may show that the writer did not consciously affirm the conclusion. It may bear upon his knowledge or culpability. It does not show that the conclusion fails to follow.

The moral duty begins when the contradiction is made clear. A Christian may need time to examine the exegesis, definitions, and logic. He may discover that the critic’s route is defective. If he cannot break it, loyalty to truth requires him to abandon the premise rather than protect it with an orthodox disclaimer.

A claim cannot disown what it entails. Its advocate can qualify, correct, or retract it. Until then, its necessary consequences remain part of what he is rationally committed to affirming.

The destination may surprise the passenger. Surprise does not move the runway.

Sources and Notes

• J. C. Beall and Greg Restall, “Logical Consequence,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, revised May 17, 2024.
• The Westminster Confession of Faith (1647), 1.6.
• Scripture quotations are from the Authorized Version.