Galt Lines

Many years ago, I stumbled upon the following logical equation: A is not non-A.

Or, to put it in mathematical terms: A ≠ non-A.

What that means is something cannot both be and not be at the same time.

My mind was blown. My life was changed. From that point forward, I saw things more clearly than ever before. Why? Because I realized absolute truth exists. More over, it exists whether or not I decide that it does.

Example: Either 2 + 2 = 4 or (by some mathematical gymnastics) 2 + 2 = 7. But the equation cannot equal four and seven at the same time.

Example: A human being cannot be a human and a tree at the same time. (Or ever, for that matter — although decomposition may make that a moot point.)

Either something is, or it is not.

Either/or.

Lately, I’ve stumbled on another logical equation gaining popularity: A =/≠ non-A.

To put it another way, people today see nothing wrong with entertaining two opposing thoughts in their mind at the same time. They are able to declare A equals both A and non-A.

Mark R. Levin’s brilliant book Liberty and Tyranny is a terrific case in point.

I gave copies of Mark’s book to friends and family. A few of them responded by shelving it and declaring they don’t believe all of its contents. They offered no reason why. They just don’t believe some of it.

Yet, Mark’s book is not open to interpretation. It draws a line in the sand. It states propositional truth; that is, this is right. That is wrong.

The same people who chose not to believe Mark’s book are against the Obama administration’s attack on Talk Radio (via the so-called “Fairness Doctrine”) because they philosophically like Talk Radio. They are against the Obama administration’s attack on gun ownership because they are philosophically in favor of owning guns and, in fact, own guns. They are against Obama’s radical views in favor of abortion because they are philosophically pro-life.

They are against government corruption, waste, fraud, and lies. Yet, they refuse to see that Obama’s administration is rife with all four. One of these people calls Rush Limbaugh a “hypocrite,” yet fails to acknowledge that Barack Obama lives by a different set of standards than what he sets forth for the American people, which is the very definition of hypocrisy.

They are for the issue of global warming, for “stimulus” packages, and for socialized (government-run) health care. They think Obama is a swell guy doing a swell job.

How can that be? How can people only see (and be against) certain parts of a person’s character but not see the whole of his character from which the parts spring? How can some see Barack Obama as the most dangerous President this country has ever seen and others see Obama as America’s savior?

Where I learned the formula that changed my way of thinking was in books written by the late Francis A. Schaeffer, one of the most brilliant Christian thinkers I’ve ever encountered. His book A Christian Manifesto opens with a paragraph I’ve never forgotten, even though I first read it over 20 years ago:

The basic problem of the Christians in this country in the last eighty years or so, in regard to society and in regard to government, is that they have seen things in bits and pieces instead of totals. They have very gradually become disturbed over permissiveness, pornography, the public schools, the breakdown of the family, and finally abortion. But they have not seen this as a totality — each thing being a part, a symptom, of a much larger problem.

The answer to my question, therefore, is that people today pick and choose what is true or not based on their own personal beliefs, not on what is or is not true. They do not see things as “a totality,” to use Schaeffer’s words. They see things in bits and pieces — and they only react if what they see personally offends them.

That concept has to sink in before you read on.

Truth no longer applies to something self-evidently true. It applies to that which people say is true at any given moment.

Such a thinking process alarms me. In fact, it scares me. It is not possible to reason with someone who decides truth is in the mind of the beholder.

Either/Or thinking is extremely rude. Either something is true or it is not. It demands a choice must be made.

But people don’t like rudeness. They don’t like inconvenience. They don’t like to choose. So they don’t. They simply exist with their two opposing thoughts in their minds, believing such a condition is okay.

It’s not okay. It’s schizophrenic.

It’s no wonder people no longer understand the Preamble to the Declaration of Independence:

“We hold these Truths to be self-evident…”

Self-evident? In a world that no longer believes absolute truth exists, how can people see anything as self-evident? What was self-evident to the men who drafted the Declaration of Independence is not self-evident to people of the 21s century.

How can people regain their sanity and learn to think logically?

It stars with a simple formula: A is not non-A.