Hi, I'm David Bercot, and today we're going to be continuing our discussion of how to think critically in order to arrive at truth. Specifically, we're going to be looking at three additional fallacies that often mislead people on their journey to truth. And these three fallacies are the misuse of analogy. The second one is the fallacy of etymology. It's a big word, we'll be defining that. The third one is shifting the burden of proof. So let's start with the first one, misuse of analogy.
Now this fallacy occurs when someone tries to prove their point merely by giving an analogy or illustration that's pertinent to what they're saying, but they don't provide any evidence. The important thing to always remember is that an analogy or illustration doesn't ever prove a truth. It can only illustrate a truth once you've already proven it to be true from solid evidence. And I'll just give you an example from real life.
Now, I'll tell you this, you know, before saying that, that most of my life, I did not realize that this was a fallacy. So I was heavily swayed by a good illustration of, say, a theological point. If the preacher would give a good illustration of how that works, wow, that would convince me of the truth of it, or at least, you know, persuade me or sway me in that direction, even though they hadn't offered any evidence. They've only illustrated that, if it were true, that this would be an example of how it works.
All right, so let me give you an illustration of what I'm talking about, an example. This actually happened in our church when I was attending a Bible church. And one of the articles in our statement of faith was that we believed in unconditional eternal security. That is, once saved, always saved. And this was a Sunday night discussion. I don't remember what the minister said, but something that called that into question, or could be interpreted as calling it into question.
So, you know, right there, you know, during the service, one of the elder's wives from the back of the church, she suddenly yells out, " Are you questioning eternal security? When Noah and his family got in the ark, God shut the door. " And that was all she said, like, " Oh, that proves eternal security that God shut the door of the ark. " So that proves once we're saved, God shuts the door. Well, you haven't given us any scriptures or anything. That's merely an illustration.
It doesn't prove anything, but yeah, she thought, " Yeah, I proved that point. " I'll give you another one. That particular church, not during the time that pastor I've just mentioned, was there, but after he left, all the sermons thereafter with the different pastors we had, sometimes there'd be visiting pastors. This was a visiting pastor. It seemed like no matter what passage of Scripture they were preaching from, somehow it always proved eternal security.
Or if it clearly showed that there isn't unconditional eternal security, then they would always explain why, even though it looks like that's what it's saying, it doesn't really mean that. So this pastor was preaching from 1 Corinthians 10, which is the chapter where Paul points out how the Israelites were unfaithful in the wilderness, and you know God had to destroy a number of them here and there on different occasions. And in the end, you know their bones were scattered in the wilderness.
None of them except two ever entered the Promised Land. And you know that passage ends. Now, all these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall.
Now, I mean, it would seem, I think, to anyone just objectively reading Scripture that Paul is telling us, " Look, you know the Israelites, they were rescued, saved through the Red Sea, but that didn't guarantee they would get to the Promised Land, and nearly all of them failed to reach it. And that that is an illustration applying to us, that we better take heed lest we fall and that we lose out on eternal life. I think that would be the objective interpretation.
So the preacher who was preaching on this passage to counteract that, he said, " Now, that doesn't mean that those Israelites lost their salvation. It just means you know God was spanking them because you know they were disobedient. " But they were His children. " You always love your children. That never changes. " And then he gave the illustration. He had gone camping with his boys. It was in a cabin at some state park or national park or something. And I think they were there for a couple of days.
And one night, the boys decided to play a prank on their dad, and they had gotten these walnut shells or pecan shells, crushed, you know, nutshells, and spread them all throughout his bunk, and then, you know, put the sheet and cover back over it. And so then that night when he got into bed, he was like, " Ah, what is this? " You know? And, you know, he was a little unhappy with his boys, but then all, you know, it was all in lighthearted fun, and he hugged him, and, " Oh, you're forgiven.
" See, it's just like that with God. Sure, he may be unhappy with us when we sin, but we're his children. You know, he's going to hug us and say, " It's okay. " Well, hey, that's an illustration that probably persuaded most of the people there, but it didn't prove anything. We had just seen the evidence from Scripture that says, or seems to say the exact opposite. Now, you need to give us some other Scriptures that would show that that is not Paul's meaning.
Instead, you give an illustration of what you want that verse to mean, okay? So that's the misuse of analogy. You don't use illustrations to prove something. First you prove them, then you use illustrations to explain. Okay, the fallacy of etymology, and I hate that this comes with such a big word, but etymology is the study of word origins. I mean, it's a legitimate science. But the fallacy of etymology is when we imagine that we can figure out the true meaning of a word by going back to its root origins.
Now, when you're talking about modern words, this fallacy doesn't get very far because it gets absurd very quickly. I mean, you know, we generally know what everyday words mean, and if someone comes up and says, well, now the root of that word is such and such, and so really that means, you know, blah, blah, blah. None of us are going to fall for that. I mean, for example, what would you think if someone insisted that a certain medical physician isn't really a doctor?
Because the word doctor, they point out, comes from a Latin root that means to teach. In fact, the original meaning of doctor in English was a teacher. Well, I mean, all that's interesting, but the meaning of the English word " doctor " has changed over time, just the same way the meaning of most words have. So today, outside of the academic world, where a doctor might mean a professor, the word " doctor " primarily means someone who practices medicine.
It doesn't matter what it originally meant a thousand years ago or the Latin word that it comes from. I'm going to give you another illustration, probably surprise you. Let me ask you a question. What is the seventh month of the year? Well, if you know your Latin roots, you would know that it's September, because September comes from the Latin word septem, which means seven in Latin. Likewise, October is the eighth month. It comes from the Latin word octo, which means eight.
November is the ninth month, comes from the Latin word for nine. Finally, we get to the tenth month, December, which is derived from the Latin word for ten, which is decim or decim. You're probably thinking, " Wait a minute, David, what are you talking about? December is the 12th month of the year. It's not the 10th. October's not the eighth month of the year. It's the 10th month and so on. And of course you're right. Well, is the etymology I've explained to you incorrect? No, it's not.
That's the correct etymology. December actually used to be the tenth month of the Roman calendar. September used to be the seventh month in the calendar. So what happened? Well, originally March was the first month of the Roman calendar, and so September through December made perfect sense. They were appropriately named. But then, with the advent of the Julian calendar, the Romans changed the first month of the year to January instead of March.
And then for some reason, they still kept the old names for the months of September through December. So you have names that don't fit their etymology. That occurs with a lot of things. It just doesn't work to try to prove something from etymology, the study of the original meanings or the root meanings of words. So etymology is a fascinating science. In some ways, it's a category of history. But much of the time, the original meaning of a word doesn't coincide with what that word means today.
As I said, most of our words have changed meaning over time. The real indicator of what a word means right now is how most people currently use that word. That's why dictionaries are continually updated because meanings change as populations use words in a different way than what they had been used in the past. Okay, you may think, well, this is an interesting history lesson. What does it have to do with Scripture and spiritual truth?
Well, why this fallacy is particularly important to us is that this principle is not only true in English, but it applies equally to ancient Hebrew and ancient Greek. Now, although we rarely hear anyone today commit the fallacy of etymology when discussing English words, this fallacy can be heard all across the country just about every Sunday in various pulpits throughout the country as preachers give sermons and some of them will talk about the meanings of Greek and Hebrew words.
And they love to, quote, " explain " the meanings of various Hebrew and Greek words by going back to their supposed roots or their original meanings. And I say " supposed " because sometimes with ancient languages, we don't even know the roots we're having to guess. But even when we know the root, again, it's the same fallacy that the root meaning isn't necessarily and usually isn't what it meant in the first century. Many centuries after, let's say, the Greek language began.
I'll give you an example that probably all of us have heard. I've heard it many times. The Greek word ecclesia, which our Bible translate as Church. And we've probably all heard the explanation that ecclesia comes from Greek words, root words that mean called out, and that the church is called that because we are the called out people of God. Church means the called out ones.
Well, we are the called out ones from the world, but that's really an example of the fallacy of etymology or the misuse of etymology would be a better way to phrase it. Actually, ecclesia in ancient Greece. Now, what kind of gave me a clue to this is when I was reading the early Christian writers, and I noticed none of them made reference to this. You know, today you hear it all the time, or at least I do, you know, the church, these are, you know, means the called out ones, and they never say that.
The early Christians who you would think if that was the meaning of the Greek word or the root of it, they would all be saying that, and none of them did. So, I got a little bit curious and started digging into that. In fact, I noticed that one secular source says that " Ecclesia " literally means " the gathering of those summoned. " So it's not even necessarily true that it means " called out " or " the ones called out. " I mean, that might be a way of saying it.
But yeah, another way, the gathering of those summoned. And it was the assembly in ancient Greece that they governed by calling out all of the citizens, and they would act as a legislative body or assembly to make laws or to make decisions on, you know, going to war or not going to war, things like that. So, Ecclesia came to mean the legislative body there in Greece, and then it expanded from there to mean any assembly.
And in the Septuagint, you find that the nation of Israel or Assembly of Israel is often called by that term ecclesia. And so then in the New Testament, using the term from the Septuagint, Ecclesia means the body of Christ, the believers, the gathering of all of Christ's believers. So even though it's absolutely true that we're the called out ones, it's not really honest to say that, well, the meaning of the Greek word for church is the called out ones.
Because, like I say, whatever it originally meant, which like I say, was the assembly of citizens, by the time of the New Testament, how it was used in the New Testament writings is different from what it had meant centuries and centuries before in ancient Greece. So again, the real meaning of any New Testament Greek word, and the same would be true of the Old Testament, but with Greek, it would be how was that word used by the Christians in the first century?
Not what it meant in the secular world, centuries before Christ, but what did it mean in the first century to Christians? How do they use the word? Now to be sure, some words never change very far from the root meaning. So just because someone discusses the root meaning of a Greek word doesn't mean that they're committing the fallacy of etymology. It depends on whether the root meaning coincides with what the word still meant in the first century.
So how do we know what a specific word meant to Christians living in the first century? Well, one piece of evidence is looking at its usage throughout the New Testament. In other words, look at the context around it, the point of a particular statement, it often will give us a strong clue as to the meaning of that word that we're wondering about. A second clue is looking at its usage in the Septuagint.
And this is a vital clue because the New Testament writers borrowed much of their vocabulary straight out of the Septuagint. And the Septuagint translators often coined words or gave new meanings to Greek words to fit the meaning of Hebrew Old Testament words. So looking at the Septuagint is a key crucial feature that I'm just shocked that so many Bible translators today totally ignore that. I get the impression that many of them have never even read the Septuagint.
And then a third crucial piece of evidence is how did the early Christian writers, in the first few centuries after the apostles, how did they understand the meaning of this Greek word? And again, it just shocks me. You'd think a Bible translator that would be one of the, you know, if it wasn't the first, it would be the second place they would go to. But again, I get the impression that most Bible translators, they've gone through seminary, and that's it.
They've learned Greek at seminary, whatever they were taught there, and they don't dig any further. They don't go and look and see, well, how did the early Christians understand that? And I originally became aware of this problem when I was reading the early Christian writings for the first time. This was back when I was in my mid-30s.
And I immediately realized that for quite a number of very important verses of the New Testament, these early Christians who Koine Greek, the Greek of the New Testament, this was their native tongue, that they were understanding the Greek differently than the way our Bibles translate the Greek. I don't mean just one particular translation, but our translations in general.
Now back at that time, I didn't own the necessary Greek reference tools, you know, lectionaries and Greek handbooks and various digital sources to help me decipher why the early Christians were understanding the Greek differently. All I knew is they were understanding it differently. Now, nowadays, some New Testament Greek scholars also study the secular writings in Koine Greek that are found on papyri from the 1st and 2nd, 3rd centuries.
These are often in old, say garbage dumps that they've uncovered in archaeological digs or things like that. And they will look at, you know, these will be like records of some shop, you know, merchandise and things like that. And that gives a clue. But it's not nearly as good a clue as the early Christian writings because it tells us how those words were used in the secular world. But what we particularly want to know is how were they used in the Christian world?
Because often the Christian usage of a term and the secular usage, you know, weren't the same. And I'll give you an example. The Greek word Diakonos, which means servant. And you'll see that in various secular writings from that period. And most of the time in the New Testament, that's what the word means as well. But it also took on a special meaning among Christians for an office in the Church that we know today as deacon.
I mean, Paul uses it that way in Philippians 1, verse 1, where he greets the elders and deacons, and when he talks about the qualifications of a deacon, he's using the word not in the secular sense of servant, but now this is a position in the church. Now, I've read different books and articles by some Christians today who argue that in our Bibles we should translate words literally and not turn them into special Christian terms. They would say that we should always translate Diakonos as servant, never as deacon.
Well, are they right? How would we know whether they're right or not, that when the early New Testament Christians were reading that, are they reading deacon in their mind, or are they reading servant? Well, there is an extremely important piece of evidence to look at, and that's the writings of the Latin-speaking early Christians. Okay, so they are discussing the Scriptures, but they're reading the Scriptures in Latin, and they're discussing them in Latin.
So when they come to passages like Philippians 1:1, or the passage in Timothy, where it talks about the qualifications of a deacon, do the Latin writers, do they just translate that as " servant ", which the Latin word would be " servus "? Or did they use a special ecclesiastical or church term? Well, when you go to their writings and the quotes that we have from the Latin Bibles, we find that, no, they didn't use servus S-E-R-V-US in those passages.
Instead, they took the Greek word diakonos, and they made a Latin word out of it, diaconus, almost the same. And they used that word. So it shows, yeah, already, from the time of the apostles, from that period, yes, this had taken on a special meaning. Another example is the word " Christos, " which means " anointed one. " And again, I've read, " Well, we shouldn't translate it " Christ, we should translate it " anointed one, " because that's what it literally means.
Again, well, how did the early Latin-speaking Christians handle this term? Did they translate it as anointed one, which would be unctus? No, once again, when you read the Latin writings like Tertullian people from there, you find that the Christians had taken the Greek word " Christos " and made a Latin word out of it, Christus, just changing the " o " to a " u. " And that's what they use, is Christus. Okay, well, I hope this whole discussion of etymology has not been too technical.
I hope I haven't overwhelmed you, and I apologize if I have. But the point to take away from it, even if you don't remember all of the details I've gone into, is put very little stock in any argument that is based on the root meaning or original historical meaning of any Greek or Hebrew word. If the person can't prove it from other evidence, then take it with a grain of salt, that, oh, the root meaning meant this or that.
Now, before leaving etymology, I do want to talk about what I call nonsense etymology, and that is where just because a word in one language sounds similar to a word in another language, that that means that the two words are related, or that one came from the other. Those of you who speak Spanish are familiar with probably many examples of that. I'll give you just one. In English, we have the word sin. We all know what that means. In Spanish, we have the word sin.
I'm probably not pronouncing that exactly correctly. It's spelled the same way, S-I-N, but it means " without. " It's not even a noun. No connection to the English word, but they are spelled exactly the same. So, you can't jump from languages to languages, and just because they look alike or even are identical, it doesn't mean that they come from the same origin.
And this isn't around very much today, but when I was like in my teens, it was around in various circles, strongly promulgated, and that was a theology known as British Israelism.
And this argument said that the ten tribes that supposedly disappeared, actually they didn't totally disappear, that remnants of them made their way back into Palestine, that they went across Europe and eventually settled in England, and that the English-speaking people, the English race, that were the descendants of the ten so-called lost tribes of Israel.
And one of the pieces of evidence, I was reading this booklet, you know, someone had handed it to me, took the tribe of Dan and said, " If you go across Europe, you'll find the Danube River. " Uh-huh. See, you can see the tribe of Dan was migrating. And then you get to the coast of Europe and you come to the Danish people, D-A-N-I-S-H. See, Dan once again. And then you can go over to England and there's a place called Danthorpe, England. So they made it all the way to England. That's just nonsense etymology.
You can't do that, just jump from languages to languages because words are similar. The one that is used all the time, I mean to the present day is the supposed origin of the word Easter. Now, there was a Mesopotamian goddess Ishtar that the Greeks took the name Ishtar and Hellenized it to Astarte. Well, there's a lot of pamphlets and booklets out there that say that Astarte is the same goddess as Easter. That Easter, because it sounds a little bit like Astarte. See, it's the same thing.
You have Istar, Ishtar, Astarte, Easter. But you're jumping across two different, not just two different languages, but two different language trees. The Mesopotamian languages follow one tree branch or tree root, I should say, and the Germanic, I mean, it's a totally different one. There's no relation to it at all. The Germanic word comes from the German word meaning East. It's where you know why Easter sounds like East, because that's where it comes from.
Okay, our third fallacy we want to talk about is shifting the burden of proof. Now the burden of proof means proving something, and it always falls on the person who is making a claim. It's not on the person who questions that claim or who doesn't accept it. But shifting the burden of proof occurs when someone who's making a claim tries to put the burden of proof on the other person to disprove what he's claiming.
I mean, for example, let's say that I was claiming that some prominent Christian is heavily into astrology. And maybe you respond to me, well, David, I find that hard to believe. And then I respond to you, well, can you disprove it? In other words, I'm shifting, I make a claim and instead of proving it, you can't disprove it. So see, I've made my claim. Yeah, don't ever fall for that. That's shifting the burden of proof. If I claim something, it's up to me to prove it. It's not up to you to disprove it.
And, you know, from the time I was a teenager, I mean, one place where this comes into play, I've heard the often repeated claim that the early Christians were heavily influenced by Greek philosophy. I mean, I remember hearing that when I was a teenager, and I'm in my 70s now, and this is used as a way to just dismiss what the early Christians have to say. Oh, you know, they were all influenced by Greek philosophy. You know, you can't pay attention to them.
And from my experience, when people say that, they don't offer any proof at all. And in fact, the ones who go into it more seriously and, you know, say a more scholarly book, when they do try to offer proof, all they offer is that one of the early Christians quoted one of the philosophers. Well, I mean, you know, Paul quoted a pagan poet. I mean, that doesn't prove he got his theology from there. That proves nothing just because someone quoted a pagan philosopher.
You have to remember that philosophy in the ancient world encompassed what today we would know as science, as logic, as music, as mathematics. In fact, nearly all teaching, all wisdom, which philosophy just means love of wisdom, you know, came under the category of philosophy, even religion did. So, yeah, if they quote a philosopher, I mean, they may be quoting a scientific fact because the philosophers often were the scientists.
So again, the person who makes the claim has the burden to provide sound evidence to show that his claim is true. It's not up to others to disprove the claim. That's all you have to remember about that fallacy. And I think we can all see the unfairness of making claims against, say, a modern Christian without providing proof. But somehow we think the situation is different.
If we're talking about people who are dead, if they lived a long time ago, like the early Christians, oh, well, then it's perfectly fair to make attacks, to say, " Oh, they believe this, " or, " They were into that. " And people think, " Well, I don't have to prove it. " You know, they lived long ago. It's fine for me just to say it. And if you're going to quote the early Christians, well then you better prove that they weren't into this strange thing or that strange thing. And yeah, that is just this fallacy.
Unfortunately, it's very effective. You remember I mentioned I think in probably most of these lessons that fallacies are extremely effective in persuading people. That's why they're so dangerous. I mean, if people could immediately spot them and say, " Oh, that makes no sense, that's a fallacy. " It'd be different, but see, they don't. And so it, huh, well that makes sense. And so they're very effective, but if we're looking for truth, then we're gonna be on the outlook for fallacies.
Okay, is this person using sound argument, or are they using fallacies to try to prove their point? And when they shift the burden of proof, it shows they're using a fallacy. I mean, when I first started writing and talking about the early Christians, this was still when I was in my 30s. I mean, I didn't know that much about them. I had read all of their writing, so I certainly knew more than the normal person, knew more than, you know, most pastors, but, you know, I didn't know every little item about them.
I mean, I still don't. I mean, there's always something new to learn. And when I started sharing with people about the early Christians, I mean, people threw out all kinds of claims. Well, don't you know the early Christians did this, or they did that, or they believed this, or you know, they were into this. And it was always, they felt like, see, they made that claim. Now I had to disprove it.
Well, yeah, over time, I dug out all these claims, and I was able to eventually reach a point where I could disprove them if someone brought them up. But I shouldn't have had to do that. The people throwing these things out, they're the ones who needed to prove their claims. But like I say, since it's effective in persuading people, yeah, often, even though the burden of proof isn't on you, yeah, we should be ready to prove something to be false, even though we're not the ones who should have to do it.
Okay, so let's close at this point. We've talked about three fallacies. The first one was misuse of analogy. The thing to remember on that is that an illustration, no matter how good it is, never proves something as being true. It's not evidence. You first prove it from the evidence, and then you give an illustration to explain it. We talked about the fallacy of etymology. The thing to take away from that is, don't be fooled because someone claims or even proves that the root meaning of a word was such and such.
What matters is, what did that word mean in the first century to Christians? That's what we care about, for example, on the meaning of a Greek word. And then the third one is shifting the burden of proof. And the thing to remember on it is, if someone's going to make a claim, it's up to them to prove their claim. It's not up to you to have to disprove it. Well, thanks for listening, and I hope this has helped you in learning to be a critical thinker, and God bless you.
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