Faulty appeals

• Amos 7:10-17; Jeremiah 38:1-6 – God’s prophets were often rejected without reasoning through their warnings. People tried to ignore or stop their message with force.

• What is it?

  • Appealing to faulty sources of authority might be very effective or persuasive, but it is faulty reasoning because it does not prove a proposition.

  • The appeal to force/fear: “You better accept my claim or there will be consequences!”

    • Daniel 3:6

    • You do not see this sort of appeal in the New Testament. The apostles did not try to force people to be baptized.

  • The appeal to emotion: attempting to persuade people by stirring powerful emotions rather than making a logical case.

    • Matthew 27:17-26

  • The appeal to pity: a particular type of the appeal to emotion that occurs when an arguer tries to persuade people to accept a position by generating sympathy for those who hold the position.

    • I Peter 3:8-9

  • The appeal to ignorance: the fallacy of appealing to the unknown; specifically, it is when a person argues that a claim is probably true simply because it has never been proven false.

  • The appeal to the majority of what’s popular: the fallacy of deciding proof by opinion polls.

    • Matthew 7:13-14

• Spiritual importance

  • Acts 4:14, 21; 5:18, 28, 40

  • What about preachers who primarily tell anecdotes and poignant stories instead of reasoning with people from the Scriptures (Acts 17:2)?

  • “What about the tribal member deep in the jungle who’s never had a Bible and doesn’t know about Jesus?”

    • John 3:36; 14:6; Acts 4:12 – We have to obey what we do know. God is the judge of all.

  • “If you teach creation in this school, we’ll sue you.”

    • This is a realistic example. David Gelernter, professor at Yale.