Sophistry and the Church: Up to Our Necks in it
Biscuits Champagne by Alfonse Mucho 1896
At this moment, there is a steady stream of attempts to mislead and misinform you. Often, they can be beautifully sophisticated and come across as brilliant, scholarly, and persuasive. At its best, you have no idea you have already been deceived and you may even end up promoting it.
I speak of sophistry.
What is sophistry? ChatGPT defines it as follows,
"Sophistry refers to the use of clever but false arguments, deceptive reasoning, or misleading rhetoric to persuade or manipulate others. It often involves the use of fallacious or specious reasoning that may appear superficially plausible but is actually misleading or illogical ... the prevalence of the internet and social media in the 21st century has made it easier for sophistry to spread and proliferate ... individuals and groups with a vested interest in shaping public opinion may use sophistry to push their agenda, manipulate public opinion, or sow confusion."(1)
Where did it come from? Approximately 450 years before Christ, there was a group of Greek philosophers skilled in rhetoric (the art of written or verbal persuasion) who became known as the Sophists. If I may quote ChatGPT once more,
"They believed that truth was subjective and that what was true for one person might not be true for another. This relativistic view of truth was controversial at that time, and the Sophists were often criticized for being morally and intellectually corrupt."
Our culture’s self-centered fog of ‘my truth’ is not new and is the fertile soil within which sophistry flourishes. It is within this context of the ancient sophists that the Apostle Paul wrote in one of his letters,
"See to it that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deception, according to the tradition of men, according to the elementary principles of the world, rather than according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8)
I will confess that I have a degree in Philosophy and, even more incriminating, have articles published in secular, peer-reviewed philosophy journals. I am a Christian philosopher, among other things. With that confession out of the way, aspects of philosophy can be an excellent discipline for training in rigorous thinking, good argumentation, and expertise in logical inference but, as Paul points out, it can also be used for deception. Sophistry was central to what he warned of.
Up to our necks: Today, in the global, online world of the 21st century, sophistry has exploded to a far greater level than at any other time in human history––our culture is rife with it. It does the ‘heavy lifting’ in politics, media, special interest groups, and by individuals who find themselves with the task of persuading others about almost anything. Even the design and training of algorithms and filters to weed out 'misinformation' can be heavily nuanced by the effects of sophistry. We are swimming in a world of sophistry and our culture is drowning in it. It is distressing to observe that it is rampant within Christianity as well, especially by those who argue for a more progressive, culture-led version of Christianity and who present impressive, even scholarly arguments that certain passages in the Bible, which are out of sync with our culture today, do not actually mean what they appear to say.
The Problem: YouTube has a wealth of evidence for the truth of a quote attributed to well-known author John Grisham, "If you're gonna be stupid you gotta be tough."(2) There is a distant corollary, "If you're going to be wrong, you had better be brilliant." Consequently, some of the most impressive instances of sophistry in Christianity today lead to conclusions that on their own are so obviously false, they would otherwise fail if not for enormous work by brilliant minds who are credentialled and highly articulate. If one adds charismatic and likable to that list, the result is sophistry at its best with all the appearance of being state-of-the-art, thoughtful, scholarly, and highly persuasive.
In my teenage years, working as a farm hand, I learned that jobs that were impossible to accomplish in one concerted effort could be easily completed if they were carried out in a series of small, well-thought-through steps. In a similar way, excellent sophistry is comprised of a series of incremental thoughts that are often 98% true, emotional manipulation, and flawed arguments, none of which would do the job on their own, but their cumulative effect is to ratchet the listener slowly toward a conclusion that they would not otherwise accept in one smooth move.
Techniques of sophistry: People who use sophistry are not “out there somewhere”; every one of us uses it to varying degrees, depending upon how motivated we are to persuade others about anything at all. Probably 99 percent of people who practice sophistry do not realize it; they merely think they have developed the skill of persuasion, even if they have the occasional ethical qualm about their subtle nuances of manipulation weaving spells of verbal smoke and mirrors “for the greater good.” Similarly, the targets of sophistry, which include every one of us, seldom recognize it for what it is. Many people have a 'baloney detector' but have difficulty articulating exactly what it is that they feel slightly nervous about. There is a feeling of “being led down the garden path” but they cannot put their finger on exactly what it is that makes them vaguely uneasy. It can be a significant step forward, therefore, to awaken one's perceptive abilities to the techniques of sophistry. They are seldom used alone but usually in concert with others, with each one incrementally ratcheting the victim toward the conclusion desired by the persuader. There is a very large repertoire of techniques that would require a sizable book to fully discuss. Here are only a few:
a) A small, false assertion embedded within a larger concept that is at least intuitively accepted as true and good: The false premise must be small enough to be easily glossed over because it is packaged up within a larger, acceptable concept. The small falsity slips through the door like an uninvited person crashing a party by merging with a group of invited guests, with the result that the listener is psychologically moved one small step closer to whatever it is that the sophist wants them to embrace. Adeptly done, the victim is usually not even aware of what happened and is incrementally desensitized to the false tidbit because it is cloaked within a larger context of legitimacy.
b) A rhetorical question that introduces confusion about a previously held belief: We could describe this as “expanding the gray area,” the very opposite of what the lips of those who represent God should be doing.(3) To move a person to abandon a strongly-held belief, their defenses must be softened up. A key first step is to raise uncertainty in the person's own mind by asking a question such that the mere asking of the question causes a psychological weakening of the victim's confidence in what they believe. There is a skill described as the art of asking the right question––a powerful tool––if ethically used. It can be legitimately employed to expose a false belief, but unethically used to undermine a true belief. So ‘the art of asking the right question’ is not of itself wrong, but hinges upon whether it is used to undermine truth or expose falsity. We have a classic example in Satan's opening question to Eve, "Did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?" The mere asking of the question was designed to prepare her to question what she had otherwise simply accepted as true. Suddenly a gray area was created with no actual warrant for it being gray.
c) Associating something a person accepts as good and true with other things they find distasteful or wrong, as a psychological technique to create a negative feeling toward their initial belief: This morning I was reading an article that made heavy use of sophistry. In that process, the person stated,
"Homophobia is related to racism, for example, because heterosexuality demands a very white conception of masculinity, femininity, marriage, and family."(4)
Here, we have heterosexuality, which most people instinctively feel fine about, associated with racism and the concept of European white people who, according to current cultural narratives, are the central source of racism, and other distasteful things. Does heterosexuality really demand a "very white conception" of the things mentioned? What about heterosexuality in the creation and origin of humanity as seen in Genesis? How about Abimelech, King of the Philistines, when he called out Abraham for pretending his wife was actually his sister? He not only implied the existence of heterosexuality but also the consequences of adultery, which he was enormously relieved not to have done––almost 4,000 years ago, long before any so-called 'white' people had any influence in the matter.
The above assertion is so brazenly false that one could ask why it is being used, but it can be applied with great effect once the listener has detached themselves from their initial belief and is on an accelerating roll toward the one favored by the sophist, significantly picking up the pace of persuasion by using bolder, even false, assertions that, if used near the beginning, would have immediately put the listener off. In the case of the above quote, the person’s objective was to depose heterosexuality from its most favored status in order to prepare the audience for the suggestion that other forms of sexuality might be looked upon more favorably.
How to deal with it: A great deal more could be said about numerous subtle fallacies of persuasion, but there are two easy-to-grasp questions one can ask to help recognize sophistry in action.
1. How did we get from A to B? It can be enormously helpful to ask oneself the question, "How did I get from what I previously believed, to the new conclusion argued for by the persuader?" Break down the entire argument into the key steps or premises to see a) if the conclusion actually follows from the premises, b) if there are any missing premises, c) if at least one of the premises is very shaky and d) if there was any misrepresentation, partial truths, false dichotomies, and other unethical moves. One of the best ways to do this is to summarize the entire argument into a series of syllogisms––which are point-form summaries of the premises and their logical conclusion. Here are two simple examples of valid syllogisms:
I believe that X is true.
if A is true, then X is false.
A is true.
Therefore, X is false
Here is another example …
If A is true, then so is B.
If B is true, then so is C.
A is true.
Therefore, C is true.
Sophisticated sophistry, however, usually requires a more lengthy series of moves, making it a more difficult task to summarize into syllogisms. It is, rather, like a simmering pot into which one stirs carefully tailored questions, a certain amount of truth (better still, a lot of truth spiked with small bits of falsehood), “what we all agree on,” appeals to emotion, a dash of 'smoke and mirrors,' a large dose of what our culture accepts and rejects, spiced with the chronological fallacy that we are progressing towards a "better understanding." The whole pot is mixed, poured out, and served to the audience. They drink from the cup and go home wondering what actually happened. The next day the victim needs to sit down and attempt to reconstruct the logical progression in something like a series of syllogisms and it is at that point that missing, false, or inadequate premises can be exposed and at least some of the fog cut through.
2. Does the principle of parsimony apply? One of the best, and easiest tools to recognize sophistry is the principle of parsimony––the idea that the simplest explanation that satisfies the data or observation is more likely to be correct than a more complex and convoluted explanation. The more concise a sophist's argument is, the more easily it can be recognized for what it is. The most impressive sophistry requires an intelligent, articulate person well-practiced in the skill of getting people to question their previous beliefs and accept the belief being presented––and this is seldom short and succinct.
For example, the collection of passages in the Bible that describe and forbid sexual immorality can be classified into positive, neutral, and negative categories. When we do that, we see that 100 percent of all those passages are negative, and strongly so. The straightforward, concise explanation is that we are not permitted to engage in those activities. That concise, face-value explanation has been held throughout church history and among Christians of all ethnic groups in the world today. Recently, however, some argue that those passages allow for exceptions despite the fact that a review of those passages offers none. Those who argue for exceptions usually require writing an entire book and an enormous amount of work in their attempt to persuade the reader that the Bible means something different from what it appears to say. (5)
The principle of parsimony, when faced with two options, one of which is straightforward requiring little or no work at all, and the other requiring an enormous amount of work, indicates that the simpler, more straightforward explanation is more likely to be correct. A book-length series of arguments, each one of which falls short of compelling, is much more likely to be an impressive work of sophistry.
Understand truth: Several years ago, I began a research project on deconversion that is still ongoing, focusing on young adults who were already in various Christian leadership positions, but who had abandoned their faith and belief in God. In listening to the testimonial of each one it has become clear that it is one thing to know a list of true facts, but it is another whole level of awareness to understand why those facts are true and important. For example, they knew what the sexual moral laws are but they had virtually no understanding as to why those laws are essential for human flourishing and the avoidance of suffering. A first-pass, easy-to-observe reason is that God’s moral laws are designed to maximize human flourishing and minimize human suffering, but why and how? My point is this––there is a huge difference between biblical literacy and the deeper level of biblical understanding. Biblical literacy can be defined as a broad-based knowledge of what the Bible says––the ‘facts’ as it were. Biblical understanding can be defined as a comprehension of why those facts are what they are and how they relate to God and human beings. I have taught courses on many books of the Bible for approximately 40 years now. From my own observations, I would say that roughly 75 to 80% of adults in evangelical churches are biblically literate, but only 5 to 10% have a biblical understanding sufficient to knowledgeably understand, discuss, and explain the teachings of the Bible––and I have a vague feeling of unease that I’m being generous here.
Point: One can do an end run around a sophist work of art if one has biblical understanding. To clarify, one does not necessarily need to be able to dismantle a sophist argument in order to avoid being taken down by sophistry, if one understands why the sophist conclusion contradicts what is true. But if all one has is biblical literacy, it will be inadequate for the level of deception we face today. Every one of the deconverters I have listened to was biblically literate.
Every one of the deconverters I have listened to was biblically literate.
Final red flag: If I were to isolate a single ‘red flag’ warning that an act of sophistry is about to occur, I would go back to the original question Satan asked Eve, “Has God actually said …?”. It may come disguised as a “second look” or a “new hermeneutic” that begins by getting one to question what the Bible actually says, and then arguing that what it actually means is different from what it appears to say. So remember the question, “Has God actually said?” and acquire biblical understanding by reading it daily, contemplating it, journalling it, and discussing it, rather than being content with mere biblical literacy.
References and Notes:
In tests of my own, I have already observed that ChatGPT is susceptible to outputting misinformation as well, especially on controversial topics. Consequently, it should only be used for questions that one already has sufficient knowledge of to evaluate the answer.
John Grisham, The Testament, Arrow, London 1999.
God’s expectation of those who represent him is beautifully described in His general requirement of priests as described in Malachi, “For the lips of a priest should preserve knowledge, and men should seek instruction from his mouth; for he is the messenger of the Lord of hosts.”( New American Standard Bible: 1995 update. (1995) La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation). Unwarranted confusion and the illegitimate broadening of gray areas do not come from God but are the specialty of the one Christ referred to as “the Father of Lies”. Sophistry cultivates confusion about what otherwise should be perfectly clear. One who represents Jesus Christ should bring clarity, not confusion about what God has said in the scriptures.
Interview with Bridget Eileen Rivera in Heavy Burdens: Bridget Eileen Rivera on How LGBTQ+ Christians Experience Harm in the Church. This article contains a mix of good points that are important for Christians to take seriously, but it also has a liberal sprinkling of statements that range across the spectrum between truth and falsity, invalid associations, and misrepresentation. Crafting the article in this way makes it difficult to challenge what is wrong without also coming across as if one is disagreeing with what is right, thus the wrong is much more likely to be not mentioned or glossed over, incrementally desensitizing the audience to statements and views that should otherwise be called out––a frequent technique in sophistry.
An example of a lengthy explanation requiring an enormous amount of work to counter a much simpler, straightforward understanding, is the highly successful book by Matthew Vines, God and the Gay Christian. It contains a series of arguments, each of which contains at least one serious flaw but taken all together have persuaded many. I have meticulously worked through his arguments and have a thoughtful response available here.
Further Reading: For an interesting article discussing various sophist techniques heavily used today, see ‘Stove and Searle on the rhetorical subversion of common sense’.
Further conversation: If you would like to talk anonymously and confidentially with an online mentor about these things, you may do so here.
