Dialectic: Distinguishing Truth from Error

Grammar teaches us to receive words accurately. Dialectic teaches us to examine the claims made with those words.

It asks whether our definitions are clear, whether our premises are true and whether our conclusions really follow. It helps us distinguish an argument from an assertion, an explanation from an excuse, and a genuine difficulty from a verbal confusion.

Dialectic is often called logic, although the older word also suggests disciplined conversation: two people examining a question together through careful reasoning.

Its proper purpose is not to make us argumentative. It is to free the mind from contradiction, confusion and deception so that we can recognise truth more readily.

This requires more than intelligence. It requires moral honesty. Logic can show where an argument leads, but only humility will make us accept a conclusion that challenges our pride, habits or interests.

Christian dialectic is therefore an intellectual and moral discipline.

Reason Is a Gift from God

God created human beings with the ability to reason.

We do not merely experience separate sights, sounds and sensations. The mind can recognise what things are, compare them, identify causes, form judgements and draw conclusions.

This power distinguishes human thought from instinct. It allows us to ask not only what is happening, but why it is happening and whether it ought to happen.

Our reason has been wounded by sin, but it has not been destroyed. We remain capable of knowing genuine truths about creation, morality and God. At the same time, we are prone to ignorance, haste, pride and self-deception.

We may reason badly because we lack information. We may also reason badly because we do not want a particular conclusion to be true.

A person benefiting from an injustice may find complicated reasons for calling it fair. Someone attached to a sinful habit may suddenly become very sceptical about the existence of moral truth. Pride can make even a simple correction feel like a personal attack.

Dialectic trains us to notice these evasions. It asks us to slow down and examine what we are claiming.

The purpose is not to replace faith with human reasoning. It is to use faithfully the rational nature God has given us.

The First Rule: Contradictions Cannot Both Be True

The most basic principle of reasoning is that something cannot both be and not be in the same respect and at the same time.

A door cannot be completely open and completely closed at the same moment in the same sense. An action cannot be morally required and morally forbidden under precisely the same circumstances. God cannot exist and not exist in the same meaning of the words.

This is called the principle of non-contradiction.

It cannot be denied without being used. If someone says, “Contradictions can be true,” they expect us to understand their statement rather than its denial. They still depend upon a difference between what they affirm and what they reject.

This principle does not mean that reality is always simple.

A person may be physically weak yet morally courageous. An action may be pleasant in one respect and harmful in another. God is one in nature and three in Persons. Christ is one divine Person possessing both a divine nature and a human nature.

These are not contradictions because the same thing is not being affirmed and denied in the same respect.

Many apparent contradictions disappear when we make the necessary distinction.

This is why careful thinkers often say, “We must distinguish.” Distinctions are not evasions when they correspond to reality. They prevent us from forcing complex truths into crude alternatives.

Definitions Come before Arguments

People often appear to disagree when they are using the same word with different meanings.

One person may use “freedom” to mean the absence of external restraint. Another may mean the moral ability to choose what is good. A third may use it to mean permission to follow every desire.

Unless the meaning is clarified, the discussion will produce more heat than light.

The same problem occurs with words such as love, equality, justice, rights, conscience, faith and tolerance. These words carry emotional power. A speaker can gain agreement by using an attractive word without explaining what is meant.

Dialectic begins by asking for a definition.

A good definition identifies what kind of thing something is and what distinguishes it from other things of the same general kind.

A Sacrament, for example, is not merely “something religious” or “a meaningful ceremony.” The Church teaches that the Sacraments are efficacious signs of grace, instituted by Christ and entrusted to the Church, through which divine life is given to us.

The fuller definition protects the reality. If we remove grace, Christ and the Church, we are no longer describing a Sacrament in the Catholic sense.

Definitions should not be manipulated during an argument. A person must not begin with one meaning of a word and silently change to another when convenient. This error is called equivocation.

For example:

• Faith means trusting God who reveals.
• Someone then uses “faith” to mean believing without evidence or reason.
• They conclude that Christian faith is irrational.

The argument has changed the meaning of the word. The conclusion does not address what the Church means by faith.

Clear definitions do not settle every question, but they show us what question we are actually discussing.

Premises and Conclusions

An argument consists of reasons offered in support of a conclusion.

Consider this simple example:

• Every human being has an immortal soul.
• Mary is a human being.
• Therefore, Mary has an immortal soul.

The first two statements are the premises. The final statement is the conclusion. If the premises are true and the form of the argument is valid, the conclusion follows.

We must therefore ask two different questions:

1. Is the reasoning valid?
2. Are the premises true?

An argument may be logically valid while beginning from a false premise. For example:

• Everything that is popular is morally good.
• This action is popular.
• Therefore, this action is morally good.

The conclusion follows from the premises, but the first premise is false. Popularity does not determine moral goodness.

An argument may also contain true statements while reaching a conclusion that does not follow:

• Prayer is good.
• St Monica prayed faithfully.
• Therefore, everyone who prays will immediately receive exactly what they request.

The premises contain truth, but the conclusion introduces something they do not establish.

Dialectic helps us identify the hidden step.

We should ask:

• What conclusion is being proposed?
• What reasons support it?
• Is an important premise being left unstated?
• Are the premises true?
• Does the conclusion necessarily follow?
• Is the conclusion stronger than the evidence permits?

These questions are useful in theology, public debate, advertising and ordinary conversation.

Common Ways Reasoning Goes Wrong

Many errors of reasoning appear repeatedly. Learning to recognise them makes us less vulnerable to manipulation.

Attacking the Person

An argument is not refuted merely by criticising the person who presents it.

Someone may be proud, unpleasant or hypocritical and still make a true statement. Personal character may affect credibility in some circumstances, but it does not by itself determine whether an argument is valid.

If a doctor who smokes says that smoking damages health, the doctor’s inconsistency does not make the medical claim false.

Christians should certainly strive to live according to what they teach. Nevertheless, the sins of a Christian do not disprove Christianity.

We must examine the claim itself.

Misrepresenting the Argument

It is easier to defeat a weak imitation of an argument than the real argument. This is often called constructing a straw man.

Catholic teaching on Confession might be misrepresented as claiming that priests forgive sins by their own human power. That version can then be dismissed as arrogance.

But the Church teaches that Christ forgives sins through the ministry he entrusted to his Apostles and their successors. The criticism has not answered the actual teaching.

Intellectual honesty requires us to state another person’s position in a form they would recognise before attempting to refute it.

Offering a False Choice

Some arguments present only two possibilities when others exist.

We may be told that either we accept every claim made in the name of science or we reject science entirely. We may be told that either we affirm everything another person desires or we hate that person. We may be told that either God prevents every suffering or he cannot be good.

These alternatives require examination. Love does not require approval of every action. Recognition of scientific knowledge does not require accepting every philosophical claim made by a scientist. Divine goodness does not mean that creatures can never misuse freedom or that suffering cannot be permitted for a greater good.

Dialectic looks for possibilities that a false choice has concealed.

Appealing to Emotion in Place of Truth

Emotion has a proper place in human life. Compassion, grief, anger and joy can respond to real goods and evils.

But strong feeling does not make a claim true.

An advertisement may produce fear without demonstrating danger. A speaker may provoke indignation before establishing that an injustice has occurred. A moving personal story may be important while still being insufficient to settle a general moral question.

The Christian should not become cold or indifferent. We should allow truth to guide emotion so that compassion becomes wise and anger becomes just.

Christ Uses Reason

Our Lord does not present faith as the abandonment of thought.

He asks questions, exposes contradictions and draws conclusions. When accused of casting out demons by the power of Satan, he replies:

“And if Satan cast out Satan, he is divided against himself: how then shall his kingdom stand?”
— Matthew 12:26

Christ reveals the contradiction within the accusation. If Satan is destroying his own kingdom, the explanation defeats itself.

Our Lord also asks his hearers what they think, why they reason in a particular way and whether they have read the Scriptures. His questions bring hidden assumptions into the light.

Yet Christ’s purpose is not to display cleverness. He reasons in order to reveal truth, expose hypocrisy and call people to conversion.

Christian argument should follow the same pattern.

We do not reason in order to humiliate an opponent. We seek to remove obstacles to truth and help ourselves and others see more clearly.

St Paul advises:

“But the servant of the Lord must not wrangle: but be mild towards all men, apt to teach, patient, with modesty admonishing them that resist the truth.”
— 2 Timothy 2:24–25

Truth must be defended, but it should be defended in a manner appropriate to a servant of Christ.

Faith and Reason

Christian faith is not the conclusion of a merely human argument.

Faith is our assent to God who reveals. We believe because God, who can neither deceive nor be deceived, has spoken. The grace of the Holy Spirit moves and assists us in making this act of faith.

Reason can show that belief in God is not irrational. It can examine evidence for Christ’s Resurrection, defend the reliability of revelation, clarify doctrine and answer objections.

But reason cannot force supernatural faith or produce divine grace. A person may recognise that Christianity is credible while still resisting conversion.

Nor does faith permit contradiction. A mystery is above the complete grasp of reason, not contrary to reason.

The doctrine of the Holy Trinity does not teach that God is one Person and three Persons. It teaches that God is one in divine nature and three in Persons.

The Incarnation does not teach that Christ is created and uncreated in the same nature. It teaches that the one divine Person of the Son possesses both the uncreated divine nature and a created human nature.

Correct distinctions protect mysteries from being falsely presented as contradictions.

Dialectic therefore serves theology. It does not stand as judge over divine revelation, accepting only what the human mind can fully comprehend. It helps us state revealed truth accurately, draw legitimate conclusions and distinguish mystery from confusion.

Reason is a servant of sacred truth, not its master.

The Moral Discipline of Reasoning

Good reasoning requires certain virtues.

It requires humility, because we may discover that we are wrong.

It requires patience, because difficult questions cannot always be resolved quickly.

It requires justice, because another person’s argument must be represented fairly.

It requires courage, because a true conclusion may be unpopular or personally costly.

It requires charity, because the person with whom we disagree is not an obstacle to be crushed but a neighbour whose good we should desire.

Cleverness without virtue produces sophistry: the use of reasoning to make a weak position appear strong. A skilled speaker may win an argument while moving further away from truth.

The Christian thinker must prefer losing an argument to defending a falsehood.

Dialectic reaches its proper purpose when it makes the mind more obedient to reality. It teaches us to ask what is meant, what is being claimed, what reasons are offered and whether the conclusion follows.

Its goal is not endless debate. Its goal is peaceful possession of truth.

Questions for Reflection

1. Do I define important words before arguing about them?
2. Am I willing to change my position when the evidence shows that I am mistaken?
3. Do I represent another person’s argument fairly?
4. Do I use reasoning to seek truth, or principally to defend what I already want to believe?

A Practical Exercise

Consider this argument:

• If people disagree about something, there can be no objective truth about it.
• People disagree about morality.
• Therefore, there is no objective moral truth.

The conclusion follows from the premises, but is the first premise true?

People disagree about mathematics, history, medicine and the existence of God. Their disagreement does not mean that no true answer exists. It means that at least some people may be mistaken.

Rewrite the first premise more accurately:

People may disagree about something even when an objective truth exists.

Now consider one disagreement of your own. Write down:

• The exact question
• The important terms requiring definition
• Your principal reason
• The strongest reason against your position
• What evidence could show that you were mistaken

Finish by asking God for the humility to recognise truth and the courage to follow it.