WHAT ARE THE THREE LAWS OF LOGIC?
WHAT ARE THE THREE LAWS OF LOGIC?
by J. P. Moreland – The Apologetics Study Bible KJV Edition 2019, Page 1708
There are three fundamental laws of logic. Suppose P is any indicative sentence,
say, “It is raining.”
The law of identity: P is P.
The law of noncontradiction: P is not non-P.
The law of the excluded middle: Either P or non-P
The law of identity says that if a statement such as “It is raining” is true, then the
statement is true. More generally, it says that the statement P is the same thing as itself
and is different from everything else. Applied to all reality, the law of identity says that
everything is itself and not something else.
The law of noncontradiction says that a statement such as “It is raining” cannot be
both true and false in the same sense. Of course it could be raining in Missouri and not
raining in Arizona, but the principle says that it cannot be raining and not raining at the same time in the same place.
The law of the excluded middle says that a statement such as “It is raining” is either
true or false. There is no other alternative.
These fundamental laws are true principles governing reality and thought and are
assumed by Scripture. Some claim they are arbitrary Western constructions, but this
is false. The basic laws of logic govern all reality and thought and are known to be
true for at least two reasons. (1) They are intuitively obvious and self-evident. Once
one understands a basic law of logic (see below), one can see that it is true. (2) Those
who deny them use these principles in their denial, demonstrating that those laws are
unavoidable and that it is self-refuting to deny them.
The basic laws of logic are neither arbitrary inventions of God nor principles that
exist completely outside God’s being. Obviously, the laws of logic are not like the laws
of nature. God may violate the latter (say, suspend gravity), but he cannot violate the
former. Those laws are rooted in God’s own nature. Indeed, some scholars think the
passage “In the beginning was the Word [Logos]” (John 1:1) is accurately translated,
“In the beginning was Logic (a divine, rational mind).” For example, even God cannot
exist and not exist at the same time, and even God cannot validly believe that red is
a color and red is not a color. When people say that God need not behave “logically,”
they are using the term in a loose sense to mean “the sensible thing from my point of
view.” Often God does not act in ways that people understand or judge to be what
they would do in the circumstances. But God never behaves illogically in the proper
sense. He does not violate in his being or thought the fundamental laws of logic.
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