ULTIMATE LOGICAL CONCLUSIONS
Cecil Hook 

In the early days of the Herald of Truth radio program, a lesson was given concerning evolution. I appropriated that ready-made discourse for my use on a broadcast. In the broadcast I emphasized that a person could not believe in evolution while believing in God and the Bible at the same time. That seemed to me to be the ultimate logical conclusion one would have to reach on the subject.

As soon as the lesson was completed, the announcer motioned for me to come to him in the control room. With an expression of bewilderment, he explained to me, "You said that a person cannot believe in evolution and believe in God and the Bible at the same time. I believe in evolution and I also believe in God and the Bible." I was taken by surprise and cannot remember how I answered him.

Could I protest that it was impossible for him to hold those beliefs while he confidently declared that he held them? Could I tell him what he believed or did not believe? I could argue that, taken to its ultimate logical conclusion, one could not believe in evolution without denying God and the Bible.

From that experience I was impressed with a lesson that has been reinforced many other times since: People often form beliefs without reasoning to the ultimate logical conclusion. And I suspect that none of us are exceptions. Let me give some specific illustrations.

Children born into, and growing up in, this world must be subjected to pain, suffering, sorrow, and death. Because the road to heaven is narrow and will be travelled by few, most people will have eternal misery in hell. A few will make it into eternal bliss, but the chances are slim. With this in view, only a cruel, fiendish sadist would bring a child into this world, gambling that its soul would be among the few. Now, is that not an ultimate logical conclusion which we are forced to reach? Yet, few of us reach that conclusion. We stop short of it and go ahead and bring children into the world. We just don't carry our reasoning to the ultimate logical conclusion.

When we consider the doctrine of election and predestination, we non-Calvinists quickly reach the ultimate logical conclusion that, if individual election is true, there would be no need for evangelism. In fact, it would be senseless and futile, for no one could change the state of the elect or non-elect. So, those who believe in election refrain from all evangelism, don't they? Not at all, for many of them are the most aggressive and diligent missionaries. They do not reason to our ultimate logical conclusion.

Millions of disciples believe that a child of God cannot sin so as to lose his soul. In our refutations of the impossibility of apostasy, we reason that the belief gives license to sin and undermines any initiative to live a clean life. So, all of the Baptists are licentious profligates, aren't they? Not really. They are known for their firm stand on moral issues. Their lives are as clean and dedicated as those who believe that they can sin so as to be lost. They do not follow our reasoning to our ultimate logical conclusion.

One may reason that the person who denies the word-for-word inspiration of the Scriptures or believes that the Bible accounts have some errors denies the validity of the Bible. We reason that, if one rejects a part, he must reject all, for the Bible stands or falls as a unit. That seems to be an ultimate logical conclusion, but many persons stop short of that conclusion.

There may be a vast difference in what is theoretical, logical, and practical, for there are gaps in our knowledge, understanding, and logic. No one can be truly consistent, and our own ultimate logical conclusions are not always so ultimate or logical. We can accept in faith without understanding ultimate logical conclusions.

Can that faith that lacks full understanding be effective in saving? If not, who then can be saved? Faith may even be based on erroneous ideas mixed with true ones and still be true faith if it leads one to Jesus. Faith itself cannot save; Jesus saves. Only that faith which leads us to accept and follow him is necessary.

Belief in the impossibility of apostasy, election, and many other questionable doctrines is harmful only if it weakens the faith or causes one to turn from holy living.

To reach "ultimate logical conclusions" and then reject all those who do not reach the same conclusions is to become a judge with a sectarian spirit. Paul forbade those who reached ultimate logical conclusions which differed concerning eating meat, observing days, and practicing circumcision from binding them on one another. —1350 Huisache, New Braunfels, TX 78130