This leads to the conclusion that Truth, in order to be True, must be consistent. It cannot change with the circumstances. It cannot be subject to opinion. Indeed, it must, if we would have useful opinion, be the basis for opinion. If in fact Truth is essential, being an essential character of unchanging God, then Truth is itself unchanging. Here is where logic begins to weigh in; and I must note that Logic is also among those essential characteristics of God. God is Logic, or Reason if you prefer.
Now, at this juncture, I suppose I must inject a caution. To say that God is A, B, or C, is not the same as saying that A, B, or C is God. In the former statement we declare that the totality of A, B, or C is to be found in Him – the ideal or perfect expression of A, B, or C is that quality as expressed by Him. In the latter statement, we assign A, B, or C a position of ultimate authority and utter independence, which no characteristic can possibly possess. To speak, then, in the reverse is at best to set up idols. Logic and Reason are not worthy of worship. They are expressive of the God Who Is worthy of worship.
But, this God Who is worthy of worship declares Himself to us as the Logos. We translate this as Word, and recognize in Christ the Living Word of God, but that term doesn’t capture the full scope of what God says He is in that name. No, in Christ, what we have is the full expression of God’s Reason, which we might suggest is the expression of God’s Truth.
Truth being consistent, and perfectly so, permits us to recognize certain rules of logic. The simplest, most fundamental rule of logic is this: A thing cannot be its opposite under the same conditions and at the same time. If A equals B, it cannot simultaneously not equal B. If 1 + 1 equals 2, it cannot simultaneously not equal 2, not if we have the same definition of 1. Put at its most basic, A = A. We cannot have the case that A does not equal A. Taken back to the uttermost, we cannot have the case that God is not God. If that could be the case, then God was never God.
It may be observed that all of these declarations of logical identity rules require at base that we are agreed on the definition of those words describing the rule. Words, to have meaning, as I have said, must have agreed-upon meaning, True meaning. If the idea I intend to convey by the term one is not the same idea that you form upon hearing the term, then in fact we may wind up disagreeing on the result of 1 + 1. But, it is no failure of logic that has brought us to this disagreement. It is a failure more fundamental than that, a failure to establish a common, agreed upon vocabulary of Truth.
