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Logical Fallacies and Biblical Proof Texts

Example 1:

--God will accomplish everything he desires.(Isaiah 46:10)
--God desires that all the world be saved. (2 Peter 3:9)
--Therefore God will save everyone.

In this example, the problem is that God desires more than just one thing:

"And it shall come about that as the Lord delighted over you to prosper you, and multiply you, so the Lord will delight over you to make you perish and destroy you. . ." (Deut. 28:63).

"Then the master told his servant, 'Go out to the roads and country lanes and make them come in, so that my house will be full. I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet.' " (Luke 14:23-24)

God desired to bless Israel, but also to destroy it in response to their rebellion. The master desired to invite certain people to his banquet, but after they rejected him he desired to exclude them. Clearly, God desires all to be saved, but he also desires to destroy the disobedient and rebellious. So the proper logical construction would be as follows:

--God will accomplish everything he desires.(Isaiah 46:10)
--God desires that all the world be saved. (2 Peter 3:9)
--God desires to destroy the wicked. (Psalm 92:7)
--Therefore God will save everyone who does not reject him.


Example 2:

--Every tongue that confesses to God will be saved. (Romans 10:9-10)
--God will make every tongue confess to him. (Rom. 14:11, Philip. 2:10-11)
--Therefore God will save everyone.

The fallacy here is that confession with the tongue is assumed to be the ONLY thing required for salvation. But there is one other required element:

"That if you confess with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved." (Romans 10:9-10).

The scriptures make it clear that belief is more than simple mental assent. James tells us that “even the demons believe—and shudder” (James 2:19). In Hebrews we read that “without faith it is impossible to please God” (Hebrews 11:6). Obviously, demons don’t have to be convinced that God exists; they shudder because they know he does! And they don’t have ‘faith’ in him, because faith is “being certain of what we DON’T SEE” (Hebrews 11:1). (This is also why it will be forever too late to be saved after this life, because we will all SEE God and can thus never acquire FAITH.)

So what exactly is ‘saving faith’? In Matthew 7:21-27 Jesus tells us that it involves obedience, putting into practice the will of the Father. This is faith and works in unison. James says that faith without works is dead (James 2:26), and here in Matthew Jesus is saying that works without faith is dead. So to be saved, one must do obedient works out of the motivation of faith.

Here, then, is the proper logical construction for this example:

--Every tongue that confesses to God out of faith will be saved.
--God will make every tongue confess to him, but not everyone will have faith.
--Therefore God will save everyone who confesses and believes.

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