Latest / The Immutable Word / EP030 The Equivocation Fallacy (#9)

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EP030 The Equivocation Fallacy (#9) · The Immutable Word

0:00
So, how's your week been? It's Monday, man. I'll let you know Friday. Yeah, don't ask.
0:07
Yeah, never mind. I'll check back with you at the end of the week. Exactly.
0:12
Hey, but it's been pretty nice, though, right? I mean, with the heat wave across
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Texas, across the nation, it might have been hot.
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Yeah, big storm in the Pacific, kind of brought in some cool weather, a lot of rain, so.
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Yeah, you know, with all this heat, you know what's cool? fallacies.
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Sorry. Sorry. Take that back. I apologize.
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Forgiven. Forgiven. 70 times 7. There you go.
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But yeah, we're back on fallacies. We're on number 9 now. So we're getting close.
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Yep. Got one more after this one. Which one are we talking about today?
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Talking about equivocation, equivocation, equivocating. Yeah.
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Another very common fallacy. Yeah.
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You know, one thing I was listening to another podcast today,
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covering apologetics, very good. I think it's a very good topic.
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They covered some good details.
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And they kind of touched on kind of an aspect of Christians not,
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or like being, you know, trying to be too intellectual, you know, for their own good.
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You know, the Bible says knowledge puffeth up, but charity edifieth.
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So charity is always going to be the goal for any Christian.
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And, you know, but it got to it got me to thinking like, you know,
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I want to kind of as a disclaimer, I want to make sure that,
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you know, some of our our listeners understand that we're not,
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you know, trying to make people too smart for their own good. Right.
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And remind everybody that the idea is not to win the argument,
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but to win the individual.
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The reason why we cover fallacies is only simply just because our dedication
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and commitment should be to the truth, right?
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And you cannot have a good conversation with somebody, an honest conversation,
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a good dialogue where you actually learn something from each other unless you
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eliminate the fallacies.
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Okay? The fallacies, again, it's a...
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It's like a, it's a shortcut to a good conversation. It's a shortcut to good reasons.
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Instead of me thinking through the conversation or through the claims or through
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the conclusions, instead of me thinking through it, I'm just going to jump to
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a conclusion. I'm just going to ignore all the facts.
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And I'm just going to tell you what I think. Who cares whether I'm right or not?
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Who cares if I'm making a good, valid point?
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And so forth and so on, right? And then what you're going to do is you're just
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going to misrepresent me anyway.
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You know what I mean? You're just going to say things that I don't even really believe.
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And then we can just get into a shouting match and just say,
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you know what, that's the reason why I'll never be like you.
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And you'll be like, yeah, that's the reason why I'll never be like you.
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And then the point is, is that the communication breaks down,
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the conversation breaks down, the dialogue breaks down. There is no exchange of information.
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There is no consideration of arguments.
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There's no reflection, no meditation.
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So learning fallacies isn't just about trying to be smart and trying to be intellectual
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and trying to be philosophical. That's not what it is.
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Learning fallacies is literally learning how to think the right way that God expects us to.
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He wants us to think properly and orderly.
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He wants us to provide evidence and to show people and give people good reasons.
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Because here's the thing. Nobody You don't want to trick somebody Into believing something.
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Even the gospel. If the Bible is right and the gospel is right and the contents
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of the Word of God is right and the arguments that the Word of God makes is right,
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you don't need to short circuit anything or shortcut anything.
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You just got to present it as honestly and as clearly as possible.
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And the only way you can do that is to learn how not to commit fallacies.
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Fallacies, So it's not just, again, it's not an intellectual exercise.
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It's an exercise in being honest and being fair and representing our Savior the right way.
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That's what it comes down to. Yeah, it does. I mean, at the end of the day,
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it's just having an honest conversation.
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Yeah. And that's really what it is. And it seems to be this misconception of
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fallacies and, okay, the only reason you want to learn fallacies is because
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you want to demonstrate your academic, you know.
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Knowledge right and it seems
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like there's a shift away from her there's apprehension from
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from learning to think critically and that you know that's that's another thing
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too like the the biggest i've been thinking about the biggest downfall of our
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society in this current age is the ability to think critically and this is what
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it's all about yeah i think we've demonstrated over the last eight, nine,
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well, now nine policy episodes that is required of us as Christians to think
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critically because that's thinking like God and not to have any kind of error in thinking.
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We're not supposed to. Well, you know, critical thinking implies,
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it implies that we're not God, that we have to be careful how we think through things. Yeah.
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Are we thinking correctly? Are we thinking in a way that honors God?
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Are we thinking coherently?
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Are we thinking consistently?
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Or are we letting our emotions, you know, override our thinking process?
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Are we making our experience, you know, trump good reasoning and meditation and reflection?
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That's the whole problem is the critical thinking is I'm being critical about
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what I'm going to eventually accept as being true.
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So, you know, people, the reason why people get involved in cults,
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the reason why people get involved in false beliefs or people,
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you know, get drawn away from their Christian faith is because they don't think critically.
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So, you know, to me, it's like when God commands us, like, for example,
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Romans chapter 12, verse 2, you know, be not conformed to this world,
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but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Well, how do you renew your mind?
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What's that verse imply? That, oh, the world thinks a certain way.
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And I've grown up in this world.
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I've been accustomed to the culture, you know, the social cues and stuff,
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you know, media, entertainment, all this other stuff has literally clouded my
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ability to think correctly.
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So how am I going to renew my mind?
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Well, I've got to base it off of absolute truth, which is the word of God.
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So, to think correctly is to think biblically, and to think biblically is to avoid fallacies.
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So, critical thinking is biblical thinking at the end of the day. So, yeah, agreed.
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Well, let's get right into it. So we're talking about equivocation.
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And the definition, if you don't mind me reading it out, is equivocation uses
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the same word with different meanings to mislead or confuse.
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Key ideas around that would be word shifts, hidden switch, also known by a semantic
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shift, double meaning fallacy, ambiguity fallacy,
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verbal deceptions, and lexical ambiguity.
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So you're just changing the meaning.
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Yeah, another one that wasn't in the list is like bait and switch.
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So what it is is you're throwing out a word and I'm switching it.
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And the reason why you would do that is because I'm trying to trick you into
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accepting something by changing.
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I'm using the same word, but that same word now has a different meaning.
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And you'll find that in the implication of the conversation or the argument.
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Is it like clickbait on YouTube?
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They have a catchy title. No, okay, probably not. Well, I mean,
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it could. It could, you know.
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You know, like, I'm trying to think of an example, but they could use a word and throw the word out.
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But when you get into the video, find out it has nothing to do with the word
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from what you assumed it meant.
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So that would be an example of an equivocation, you know.
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And equivocation, you know, you can obviously guess it, but the word equal,
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you're making the word equal to something that it's not equal to.
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You're equivocating. So, you know, you'll hear it all the time.
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Somebody will talk about, you know, well, we do have a couple examples.
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It might be easier just to kind of go into the example. Yeah,
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let's go right into it. So, like, for example, and this is where they'll attack Christians, right?
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And they'll go, faith is blind, so Christianity rejects evidence.
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That's the argument they'll make.
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So the problem is, is that they're changing the definition of the word faith
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to just blind acceptance without evidence. Okay.
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But, and this is also a form of a straw man, but they're doing it through equivocating the word faith.
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So when they go, oh, you just have faith to trust in God.
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But what they mean by faith is blind evidence, no evidence whatsoever to believe that God exists.
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But the biblical definition of faith, Hebrews 11.1, for example,
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faith is the substance. It's substantive.
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It has substance to it.
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Faith is the substance of things not seen. The evidence, that's what it says, of things hoped for.
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So faith has to do with evidence and good reasons.
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When we say faith, biblically speaking, what we're saying is that we have good
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reasons and evidence to believe something is true.
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The word of God has given us the evidence that's necessary to place our faith or trust in something.
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So faith isn't blind. But this argument says, oh, well, faith is blind.
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Well, that faith that they're describing is not the biblical faith.
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They just changed the meaning of the word in the argument.
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But notice the last part of that says, so Christianity rejects what? Evidence.
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Oh, so you mean faith has nothing to do with evidence?
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Well, your definition of faith
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doesn't. But that's not the definition of faith from the Word of God.
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So not only are you misrepresenting the word faith, you're equivocating it and
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associating it with blind faith. Now, there is such a thing as blind faith.
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But God's against blind faith. There's nothing in, like, let me give you an example.
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Remember when Jesus Christ was talking to his disciples and he asked them about
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John the Baptist, right? No, no, no. I'm sorry.
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John the Baptist is in prison. Two disciples come from John the Baptist and
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they say, hey, you know, John the Baptist sent us.
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Are you the Messiah? Are you who you say you are?
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Jesus Christ could have said, well, you should have just, you should just believe.
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Why He needs to believe. What did he tell the disciples? Go back and tell John the works that you see.
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Tell him you see the blind getting their sight. You see people getting fed.
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You see the lame walk, you know, and so forth and so on. That's scientific. It's observation.
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Yeah. Jesus Christ says, no, no, no, no. What you need to do is go tell John
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that there is physical evidence that I am the Messiah.
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That's what he said. So Jesus Christ didn't associate faith as being blind.
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He associated faith with evidence.
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And that's why this is an equivocation. They're changing, the atheist is changing
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the word faith to mean blind faith, when that is not what is taught in the Word of God.
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Our faith has nothing to do with being blind. Paul, whenever he said,
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look, he says, he was making a case for the resurrection, 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
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So the first five verses, or the first nine verses, actually, you know what he does?
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First, he states what the gospel is, unless you believed in vain,
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how that Christ died for us.
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According to the scriptures, he was buried and on the third day rose again, right?
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And then he said he was seen above 500 witnesses.
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Then he was seen of Cephas, Peter, and James and the apostles.
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Then lastly, he was seen of me as one born out of due time.
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So why was Paul appealing to eyewitness historical testimony as evidence?
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If you just, you should just believe it
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because we said it. because he was demonstrating that faith is not blind.
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So again, that's why that statement, oh, faith is blind, so Christianity rejects
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evidence. No, that's an equivocation of the word faith.
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You just changed the definition of good, reasonable faith with blind faith.
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They are not the same thing.
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So that's an example of one. Another example. I'm sorry, did you have something,
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any thoughts around that?
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No, I was actually interested in the other example. So the other example,
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this is common with creationists.
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So an evolutionist will say, well, evolutionists change over time.
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That's what they'll say. So bacteria becoming birds is proven.
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But the problem is, is they're equivocating the word change.
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So what we believe as change is that there's adaptation.
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Species are made with a broad set of DNA to where they can change and adapt
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to certain environments.
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Like so, for example, say a dog, if it stays in cold weather longer,
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will eventually grow thicker and longer fur.
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But that thicker and longer fur was already engineered and scripted inside of that dog's DNA.
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It adapted to its environment.
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But when an evolutionist says change, what they're saying is macro evolution.
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A worm or like a fish turns into a bird or an ape turns into a man.
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One thing changes into something completely different. completely different.
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So they changed the word change.
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It's an equivocation of, you know, because the statement is evolution has changed
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over time. Now, wait a minute, mate.
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You just equivocated the word evolution and change with something that's adaptation.
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Minor differences in coloring, skin texture, things like that,
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to going from one entire completely different kind, like the animal kind to the mankind.
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Yeah. It's trickery. Yeah. So that's exactly what equivocation is.
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You just change the meaning of the word. Yeah.
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Oh, yeah, sorry. No, and here's another one. It's kind of a simple version,
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right? Hot dogs are meat, so they're nutritious.
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I don't know about all that. So what's the equivocation, right?
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Meat being substance versus quality.
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That's not, no, no, no. That's different forms of whatever you, the leftovers of meat.
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But it's not meat like as in, you know, a beef steak, right?
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It's completely different.
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So you're changing the word over time, you know?
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And, you know, I mean, all kinds of words.
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I'll give you a popular example. Remember back in the 90s, you know,
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when we would say something was good, we said it was bad.
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Oh, man, that's bad. That's wicked. That's wicked good, right?
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That's wicked good. I don't know how Boston says it. I'm not going to try. Exactly.
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But you see, what they're doing is they're changing the meaning of the word.
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But how do you figure out the change? Well, you got to listen to the statement that's being made.
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Like, you know what I mean? And we'll get to how to address it here in just
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a minute. You're wicked smart. Yeah, you're wicked smart. You're wicked smart.
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But, you know, the thing is, is they're changing the word wicked because now
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it's just like the word gay, right?
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I mean, there's an equivocation of the word gay today because gay back in the
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1600s was happy, emotionally, you know, content and things like that.
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Well, that's not what it means today.
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All right. And so there's an equivocation. So you got to be careful because
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words mean things. Words matter.
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God, I mean, over and over again, he appealed to his words, his W-O-R-D-S.
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Not just his principles, not just his good thoughts, right? It was words.
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And so you got to be careful. Words matter.
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So in scripture, matter of fact, in Genesis 3, 5, there's an example of equivocation.
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Satan, remember, he's talking to Eve.
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And the first thing he says is, yea, if God said, right?
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He questions, challenges God. And then she says, well, yeah,
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he said that we can eat of every tree, but we can't eat of the tree of good knowledge.
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And she added to it, she says, and not even touch it.
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And then what did Satan respond with? In verse 5, he's like,
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oh, well, God knows that in a day that you eat thereof, ye shall know good and evil.
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So he redefines knowing good and evil to imply what?
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Divine enlightenment, not moral corruption.
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When God says, he goes, if you eat of it, you're going to know good and evil
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of the tree of good and evil.
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Then you're going to corrupt your moral purity because they were sinless at that point.
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Adam and Eve were sinless, but as soon as they introduced evil into their mind,
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they just corrupted their intellect. Okay.
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But what is, what is Satan saying? Oh, no, no, no. God knows that if you know
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good and evil, you're going to be like gods.
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So he's redefining that term, that phrase good and evil to mean enlightenment.
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Oh, you're going to have your, your intellect and your understanding and your
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ability to understand truth is now going to be opened up.
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So you can see that in modern day education, right? It's desire for knowledge. Yeah.
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You need to be enlightened. You need to understand the truth.
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If you understood it the way I did, so what they're doing, again,
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it's an equivocation. So you got to be careful when you equivocate.
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You know, preachers can do this behind a pulpit. A preacher can sit there and
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say, well, you know what?
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You're right with God if you do A, B, C, right?
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You show up to church. You dress right. You pay your tithe. You do this and that.
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And what they're doing is they're equivocating being spiritual with doing good deeds.
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There's nothing in the word of God that says doing good deeds makes you spiritual.
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So it's a failure to understand the word spiritual, and what they're doing is
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equivocating doing good deeds with being spiritual, as in that you're filled with the Holy Spirit.
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The Holy Spirit is moving and reacting with your mind, your intellect,
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your will, and your life, and you're walking in a way that pleases God because
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the Spirit is producing fruit.
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That's different than you just showing up to church dressed in a tie and a suit
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or paying your tithes or giving to missions or showing up for calling, right?
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Or soul winning or whatever. And so that's an equivocation.
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You can't equivocate doing good things with being spiritual, two different things.
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But that's what they'll say. They'll go, well, you're just not spiritual. What did they just do?
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So when they go, oh, you didn't show up for church Sunday morning?
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Man you you must not be spiritual well what
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did they do they just equivocated the word spiritual with
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good deeds and i'd wager i'd wager if you ask them
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what spiritual that they would even they don't know most people don't and we
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and we probably and i know that i've got some thoughts and some notes i've been
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writing down about defining what it means to be spiritual because i think it
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is an important distinction but the point is is that the tendency is if you don't do,
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if you're not a good person and don't do A, B, C, you're not spiritual.
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The Bible even talks about in Galatians 3, you know, in Galatians 5,
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for example, that, you know, in other places where Paul's talking about,
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he's like, well, you think you're now perfected in the flesh?
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How did you become perfect in the flesh? You can't become perfect in the flesh.
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The whole point of Paul's argument in Romans 7 and other places is that your
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flesh can never be perfect.
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He says, well, then how do you serve God? Oh, with your mind.
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How do I serve God with the law of my mind? It's a spiritual endeavor.
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And then of course, what does Paul say in 1 Corinthians 2?
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He goes, because we have the Holy Spirit, we can understand spiritual things.
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He says, ye that are spiritual, he that is spiritual is judged of no man.
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Well, listen, if, and again, they understand that they're equivocating the word
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spiritual with being a good person, being, you know, being, you know,
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you attend church on a regular basis. You don't miss any services.
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You say amen during the service. You go down to the altar call.
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Whatever the case is, if you attach any kind of physical, fleshly activity with
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trying to serve God and please God, you're perverting the word spiritual.
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You're equivocating good deeds with being spiritual, as in the Holy Spirit producing
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fruit in your life. There's a very big difference.
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So, it's equivocation.
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And the implications are pretty severe.
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Yep. Because you associated with Satan doing this very thing,
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manipulating what? Scripture.
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That's right. God's words to make it mean something else. Changing the words
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of God to mean something else. Isn't that what he did with Jesus Christ in Matthew
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4 when he's tempting them?
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He says, hey, why don't you throw yourself down from this temple?
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Because am I not correct? You know, he's talking to Jesus Christ.
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He goes, but doesn't the scripture say that the angels will bear you up if you
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dash your foot against a stone?
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So what he was trying to say, he was trying to use what the word of God said
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as far as Jesus Christ being protected by the angels and the heavenly hosts
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and so forth and so on and not being harmed, which is a second Advent reference, by the way.
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You know, he's trying to, he's, this is the first Advent of Christ,
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but he's trying to shove out of context and try to make an application right
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then and there in the first Advent of a second Advent passage.
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But what he's trying to say is he's trying to equivocate.
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Obedience to God and God's protection through rebellion, because he was equivocating.
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Oh, if you just throw yourself from this out of your own will,
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remember Jesus says, I've come to do the will of my Father, not my will.
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He was in submission to God's will. The purpose of him being there,
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the goal of Jesus Christ's first advent was to fulfill the will of God, not his own will.
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That shows you there's two distinct persons, that the Father and the Son are not the same person.
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Same God, not same person. But what he was trying to do is the devil was taking
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scripture and changing the meaning of scripture and making a false application
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by equivocating that phrase.
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So anyway, equivocations, it can get really tricky.
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And that's why, and this is what I would tell people, this is why you got to
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be careful with what you're hearing.
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Listen to what the statement is being made and ask questions.
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Now, when you say, say, for example, the evolutionist, you know,
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it's change over time. Okay.
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So let me stop you there. So when you say evolution is change over time.
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So are you saying that evolution, when you say evolution, what you mean is that
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a monkey will eventually turn into a man.
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You're talking about an entire species change, Or you're talking about entire
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kingdom change from the animal kingdom to human, whatever, right?
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Are you trying to say that there isn't, is this what you're saying?
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That molecules to man exists?
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Because that's what you're arguing for. Because if you say, well,
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there's change over time. Look at those, look at those birds.
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They change their beak sizes.
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Or, you know, these lizards change their skin color.
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Or look at that dog. It grew thicker fur and it can now adapt to colder,
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you know, colder environments. Wait a minute.
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That's not macroevolution. That's
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not changing from one species to another species. A dog stole a dog. Yeah.
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A dog didn't turn into a frog or a hog. Yeah, what you're saying is adaptation.
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That's very different than macroevolution. And so that's why you got to ask
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that question. Wait a minute.
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When you say this, what do you mean exactly by that?
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You know, this gets by a lot of people. Probably most people because it's just
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like, it's very academic sounding.
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Yeah. Well, watch a National Geographic documentary. They'll throw those evolutionary
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terms out like they're nothing.
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And they assume that the hearer and the viewer that's watching that is just
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automatically going to accept it blindly. They accept blind faith.
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But that's what they assume. And so there's no questioning. That's why it's
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good to stop and say, wait a minute, what claim exactly is being made here?
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What exactly is the argument they're making? And what do they mean by evolution here? You know, so.
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What do you mean by change? There's that question.
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I mean, it's a hard hitting question. Yeah, absolutely.
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And I think that kind of leads into, well, what is the Christian,
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how does the Christian exercise discernment around that, right?
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Like, how do they, what are some things that they can do? And,
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you know, well, there's a couple of things. One, define your terms, man.
25:45
Define your terms. When you say, when you say faith, what do you mean by faith?
25:52
Are you talking about blind trust?
25:55
Or are you talking about trusting something you have good evidence to believe?
25:59
Which faith are you talking about?
26:02
Because it sounds like from your statement, you're talking about blind faith,
26:06
which has nothing to do with biblical faith.
26:08
And it's important to, so we need to define our terms here, right?
26:13
It's like one man said, once the one side determines the definitions, they've won the debate.
26:19
And so you got to be careful, man, define your terms. What do you mean by that, right?
26:25
When you say this, what exactly am I supposed, what exactly are you telling me to believe?
26:31
Or what exactly are you telling me to understand based off of that word, right? Right.
26:37
Another one is to trace the usage of the word. Listen to the statements being
26:41
made. You know, how are they using this word evolution?
26:45
Listen to the entire argument all the way through and listen how that maybe
26:50
that, man, there's like this subtle definition change or this subtle use of
26:55
this word evolution or this subtle word of faith.
26:59
You keep using it, but you're changing the context and the application through
27:03
the entire conversation.
27:04
It's like you meant faith here, but then all of a sudden, three or four sentences,
27:09
you said the word faith again, but you were completely taking it out of context.
27:14
So trace the usage of the word through the entire conversation and start to
27:17
finish. You have to be very, very aware of what's going on.
27:21
You have to get your detection system, how the words are being used.
27:25
And there's a term in cybersecurity in the technology sector, low and slow.
27:32
That's how a lot of breaches happen because they're just really low,
27:35
slow, don't pay attention to me.
27:37
They're able to get- Right, distractions. Yeah, distraction.
27:41
There you go. And that's kind of like how that equivocation works.
27:44
It's like, again, it's like, you know, pay attention to the left hand,
27:48
don't pay attention to the right hand. Nothing's going on over here.
27:50
Right. And so that equivocation, that's why that, you know, tracing again,
27:54
the usage of the word, which is real similar to the third thing about,
27:58
you know, spot check and the tactics is, is comparing the context, right?
28:03
That's, and you know what you could do for all three of these things? Ask questions. Yeah.
28:08
Ask good probing questions, right?
28:12
Here's an example. Do you mean the same thing by that word here?
28:18
So you said the word faith. So again, do you mean blind, unmitigated faith that
28:26
doesn't rely on any evidence?
28:28
Or are you saying having faith in something I have good evidence to believe is true.
28:34
Like, for example, if I said, look, I'm going to sit in this chair.
28:38
I'm looking at the chair. It's got four legs.
28:41
I just saw another person sit in it. So I watched. I had observable evidence.
28:46
You know, I went over there and I felt the chair. I moved it around.
28:49
It feels pretty solid, right? It looks like there's nothing falling apart.
28:53
It's looked like it's in good condition.
28:55
Based off of the observable evidence, based off of my feel and touch test, right?
29:01
Based off of the fact that I saw somebody else sit in it, my inference,
29:05
I'm going to infer that I can now sit in it as well.
29:08
I'm going to put faith in what I believe to be true.
29:11
That's the biblical faith we're talking about. But if I say,
29:15
you know what, somebody blindfolds me, walks me into a room I've never been
29:20
in, shows me something that looks like a chair, it could be a cake for all I know, right?
29:26
And they go, go ahead, sit in it. Very delicious chair. Sit in that chair.
29:31
Trust me, you want to sit in that chair. Listen to the conversation.
29:34
Like, why do you want me to sit in this chair so badly?
29:37
I've never seen that chair. I don't know whether it's a real chair.
29:40
And you know what I mean? The point is, is you're going to sit there and you're
29:44
going to question things if you think it's not true.
29:46
But the problem with equivocation, it's not that obvious.
29:50
It's one of those things, again, it's subtle, right?
29:53
You know, somebody goes like, for example, you go to a car salesman
29:56
man i tell you what man man this is a good
29:59
solid car now what
30:02
you don't know is this car you know it had 500 000
30:05
miles on it they dialed back the odometer back to
30:08
show it 75 000 miles where do i sign it's been in accidents
30:11
it's got it's got you know bond what is it called uh
30:14
yeah bondo all over it right it's been
30:17
a you know the head on collision it's been in a flood it's been
30:19
in all this other stuff but he's he's equivocating
30:23
the word good car with piece of junk you see
30:26
what i'm saying and so but you think but the
30:29
thing is is like you start asking questions like you know
30:32
so so has this car ever been in an accident well
30:35
what do you mean by accident you know what i mean so he's he starts throwing
30:39
it back at you but you're saying like no wait a minute you said good car well
30:43
the car's got character it's got character exactly so that's unique that those
30:48
are those are those are ways that equivocation is so dangerous right so it's
30:53
one of those super subtle fallacies,
30:56
but you've got to be careful. You got to say, wait a minute.
30:59
What is this person saying? And again, you say, does that word mean what you're saying it means?
31:07
Can you help clarify that definition for me? When you say this, is this what you mean?
31:13
Well, you said this earlier in the conversation, but when you say good car,
31:18
are you saying that it's dependable, it's never been an accident,
31:21
that if I check the car facts,
31:24
that the odometer is going to be valid and you're going to show me history?
31:28
When you say good car, Is that what you mean?
31:30
Oh, no, no. What I mean good is it's like you said, it's got character.
31:34
No, you just equivocated. So anyway, so equivocation is obviously it's,
31:40
it's a subtle, tricky, tricky fallacy, man. It really is.
31:45
And, and why obviously why it matters is because, you know, when we're trying
31:49
to like, say, for example, as a Christian, I'm going to tell somebody that they
31:53
need to have faith and put their trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. Right.
31:57
So the Catholic, I'm going to use a Catholic, for example, in John chapter six,
32:03
they read about Jesus Christ saying, hey, you need to you need to eat my flesh, drink my blood.
32:07
So what they're doing, when Jesus
32:10
Christ defines that earlier in that chapter, he says that what faith,
32:16
belief in him means, or eating and drinking his, you know, eating his flesh,
32:22
drinking his blood, what that means is believing the message that God sent Jesus Christ.
32:27
It's belief is what he's saying.
32:30
That's what Jesus Christ defined it as. But the Roman Catholic equivocates eating
32:35
his flesh, drinking his blood as cannibalism, as literally eating his flesh
32:39
and drinking his literal blood. And they believe in transubstantiation.
32:44
You transfer the substance of Jesus Christ into the wafer and the wine.
32:52
That's transubstantiation. Okay, so what they're doing is, is they're equivocating
32:58
eating my flesh, drinking my blood.
33:00
They're equivocating that, but the Bible defines that as belief in Christ.
33:06
Two big different things. It's not cannibalism. So why does that matter?
33:10
It's because whenever we're trying to witness to somebody, we need to avoid
33:14
doctrinal error, right?
33:17
We need to make a commitment that's protecting doctrinal clarity and honors
33:22
God truth. That means we can't manipulate words.
33:25
We can't sit there and mix words around and change it here because I think it
33:29
would be less offensive.
33:31
You know what I mean? You can't do that. You know, if I say,
33:35
like, for example, hell, here's a perfect equivocation.
33:39
Billy Graham years ago said, well, hell is separation from God.
33:43
Hell is not a literal burning fire, a place of fire and brimstone. That's not hell.
33:49
So what they're doing is they're changing hell and equivocating the word hell
33:53
with separation from God. That's not separation from God.
33:57
Matter of fact, in the book of Psalms, David says, if I make my bed in hell, thou art there with me.
34:05
Thy spirit is with me. That means God is right there next to the person.
34:09
The Bible says in Hebrews chapter 10, I believe, that our God is a consuming fire.
34:15
What hell is, is the removal of God's grace and mercy.
34:20
So there is no more grace and mercy. And you have the pure, unmitigated wrath
34:25
of God now without his mercy.
34:27
So burning in hell is not the absence of God.
34:31
It is God in his truest form to a sinner that's never received Jesus Christ.
34:37
So we're not going to equivocate the word hell. When we say hell, what we mean is a literal.
34:45
Burning place of fire and brimstone where somebody's torment goes up in a sense
34:51
forever and ever and ever. That's what we mean by hell.
34:55
We're not going to equivocate and go, oh, well, what we really mean is it's whatever.
35:00
It's separation from God, you know, or it's purgatory, whatever you want to
35:05
call it, you can equivocate all you want. But again, that's what you address.
35:08
You're like, wait a minute, you keep equivocating because hell does not mean
35:12
separation from God. It means a place of real conscious torment.
35:18
So anyway, that's why defining your terms is so important, right?
35:22
And obviously sound doctrine, sound speech, and so forth and so on,
35:26
that's what we're trying to argue for.
35:28
The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4.2, for example, it tells us not to handle
35:33
the word of God deceitfully.
35:36
That means if God says something that's offensive, then guess what?
35:41
We've got to say it exactly the way God said it. I don't know how many times
35:44
I've been on the street and somebody goes, you know, oh, you're just pushing people away.
35:49
And I always ask them, pushing people away from what?
35:51
You're pushing people away from God. I'm like, oh, wait a minute.
35:54
They were with God in the first place?
35:58
Most people I'm preaching to don't care about God. They'll never darken the doors of a church.
36:04
They'll never open up a Bible and read it.
36:07
I said, I'm pushing them away to where? Hell number two? They're already on their way to hell.
36:13
And I said, the people that do believe, most people that have an honest relationship
36:18
with God and have trusted Jesus Christ as their Savior are probably going to
36:21
appreciate what we're doing on the street.
36:24
Matter of fact, I would. I don't care if you're not the same denomination as I am.
36:28
If I hear somebody preaching the gospel, I'll go shake their hand and say,
36:32
thank you for doing this.
36:33
So the point is, is, again, we're not supposed to manipulate and handle the
36:38
word of God deceitfully. We've got to be honest with it.
36:40
So we can't equivocate. We've got to make sure that we mean,
36:45
that we say what we mean and we mean what we say, basically.
36:48
The Bible says in Proverbs 11, 1, a false balance is an abomination to the Lord.
36:54
So if you're using a word two different ways, you're wavering between them.
36:59
You're unstable and you're not providing a balanced, clear view of what the word of God says.
37:04
So again, it's about handling the word of God, you know, faithfully and not manipulating it.
37:10
So that's why the deceitfulness, the trickery, just how messed up the equivocation
37:18
is, is that it's so subtle.
37:21
Most Christians will fall for it. It's easy to commit because you're changing
37:26
the definition in the middle of the sentence You know,
37:29
you just got to be clear and sometimes that's why whenever sometimes when i'm
37:33
witness to somebody i'll say listen You need to believe on christ Now some people
37:38
will equivocate that phrase to mean baptism.
37:41
I'll say hey, are you saved though? This is what they'll say.
37:45
Yes, I was baptized when I was eight They just equivocated the word Saved with
37:51
what baptism They just changed the meaning of the word.
37:55
That's why I'll say, listen, when I say save, what I mean is you trust in the
38:01
finished work of Christ on the cross, not baptism, or not church membership.
38:05
That's what I'll say to you.
38:07
And I'll tell them this. I'll say, listen, you can't go to heaven by trusting
38:11
your church. You can't go to heaven by joining a church. You can't go to heaven by being baptized.
38:16
You can't go to heaven by keeping the sacraments. you can
38:19
only go to heaven by trusting the finished work of
38:22
jesus christ on the cross of calvary that's what i'll tell them
38:25
and that's why we don't equivocate we
38:28
clarify we tell we tell them exactly what we mean by that particular word we're
38:34
using and then we try to be consistent obviously in the rest of our claims or
38:38
arguments so that's equivocation yeah that's it's a hard hitting one we've covered
38:44
a lot of them but like this one's a hard hitting one because there's.
38:48
There's some consequences as a Christian by committing this particular fallacy.
38:53
And I've been thinking about it as we've been talking about it in this episode
38:56
where, let's go back to the, let's turn the tables real quick before we wrap this up.
39:02
Christians committing this fallacy saying that you're spiritual only if you
39:07
do this or that, which is counter to what the Word of God actually defines what being spiritual is.
39:14
Here's the thing, it's right out of Satan's playbook. and a Christian,
39:19
a pastor, or whoever is playing right into that to manipulate an audience or
39:24
a congregation to do this sort of performance type Christianity that's out there.
39:31
Yeah, because if you can't just preach the clear,
39:35
unmitigated Word of God without having to change definitions or change wording
39:39
or appeal to emotions or appeal to some other anecdotal whatever example that
39:46
you try to convince them, and you can't just appeal to the Word of God,
39:50
then that's the very definition of handling the Word of God deceitfully.
39:54
Bingo. And here's the other part of it, too. If you shy away from, you know, the quotes,
40:01
academic component of critical thinking and studying your Bible,
40:06
if you're standing up there and God's telling you, why did you handle my word deceitfully.
40:15
There's no reason for it. You can't say, well, I didn't know.
40:20
Nobody told me that I was doing it this way. You still have no excuse because
40:24
we're commanded to study.
40:26
Yeah. I mean, if you take a good fundamentalist, Baptist, independent Christian, right?
40:32
And you were to say, look, by committing this fallacy, equivocating,
40:37
by changing definitions of words like being spiritual, being a good Christian,
40:41
being faithful. What do you mean by faithful?
40:44
Well, you know, faithful means whatever, right? Are you a good Christian soldier or whatever?
40:49
And they come up with what they mean behind that is completely different than
40:53
what the word of God means.
40:55
Then you're no better than a Muslim. You're no better than a Mormon or a JW
40:59
that is falsifying the gospel, that is twisting the message of the word of God.
41:05
You could talk to a Mormon, and you know what a Mormon's going to tell you?
41:08
Absolutely, I have faith in Christ. That's what they'll tell you.
41:12
Well, I've been a Christian my entire life. Yeah, I've been part of the LDS church.
41:17
You know, I grew up in the LDS church. My parents are elders in the LDS church.
41:21
I was an LDS missionary for two years. So I've been serving God.
41:27
But all that language is equivocating because what they mean by Jesus Christ
41:33
is the brother of the devil.
41:35
What they mean by God is who was once a man who became a God and I'm going to be like God one day.
41:42
What I'm, what they mean is that's what they mean.
41:46
They're equivocating the word gospel. They're equivocating the word faith.
41:50
They're equivocating the word Jesus Christ. Okay.
41:54
They're changing it because that is not what it, well, guess what?
41:57
The fundamentalist, independent, fighting, fundamentalist Christian that is
42:02
a King James Bible believer that's faithful to church that says,
42:05
you are not spiritual if you don't wear a tie to church, is doing the same exact thing as a Mormon is.
42:11
That's exactly what you're doing. you're equivocating, hands down.
42:15
Now, you know, people are going to listen to this, oh, you're against ties? No, that's a straw man.
42:20
That's not what we're doing. What we're saying is be careful the words you use
42:26
and make sure that that word means exactly what the Word of God says it means.
42:32
If you try to insert your meaning behind it because you want to try to weaponize
42:39
that word against somebody, then what you're doing is equivocating.
42:43
And that is a fallacy, and committing a fallacy is an error in thinking,
42:47
and not thinking like God is violation of God's commandments. It's a sin, period.
42:53
Yeah, it's why you call it your final authority. It's not your authority or
42:59
the authority that you come up with. It's your final authority.
43:02
So, we've got to take this seriously, we
43:06
gotta take this seriously and we gotta study the
43:08
book to think critically so you
43:12
gotta check the logical you gotta check the logical carfax right that's right
43:16
all right so that's the end of that one that's number nine for us we got one
43:22
more left i i i'm not i'm trying to figure out which one of these fallacies
43:27
are my favorite ones i mean they're all really good they're all good to No,
43:31
and there's obviously a lot more than 10.
43:34
I don't know if I have a favorite one. All I know is I could say that there's
43:38
a few that I hear the most.
43:41
I would maybe say this one. Would you disagree or? Equivocation?
43:45
I hear equivocation quite a bit. I'd say that and maybe Red Herring.
43:51
For me, it's Red Herring and Straw Man. Oh, there you go, Straw Man.
43:54
The Straw Man, Red Herring, probably the most. So we'd say top three.
43:58
Straw Man, Red Herring, Equivocation?
44:02
I don't know. I think the next one we're going to do is a pretty strong contender.
44:05
All right. That means you got to stay tuned. You got to build the suspense.
44:09
All right, we'll wrap it up with that one. As always, if anybody has any questions,
44:14
comments, you know where to reach out to us.
44:16
Email address is theimmutableword at gmail.com.
44:20
If you're just now tuning in, you're a new listener, thanks for tuning in with us.
44:25
We started this series several episodes back. I can't even remember the first episode.
44:31
Maybe it's a single digit. I don't know. But if you look through the channel,
44:34
you'll see the introduction to fallacies.
44:36
Be sure to check it out so that way you can start from the beginning and maybe
44:39
work your way up to the latest one.
44:41
But anyways, that's it. I hope everybody has a good night. Thanks for listening,
44:45
and we'll see you on the next one.