Maybe you’re scrolling through social media when you
read the headline, “Scientists Discover 150-Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Was Evolving Feathers.” Maybe
you’re sitting in class when the lecturer remarks,
“Religions probably evolved as a means for humans to
cope with uncertainty, explain the unexplainable, and exercise
social control.” Or maybe you’re listening to a sermon
when the preacher declares, “Jesus’ miracles have natural
explanations because Jesus was a natural person. After his
death, legends emerged around his name, borrowing from
pagan folklore.”1
Online, at school, in churches—unbiblical messages are
bound to confront us in everyday life. Even though we know
that messages that contradict God’s Word are not true, they
can still seem incredibly persuasive. They can lure individuals,
families, and entire societies away from the foundation
of God’s Word to the mire of human reasoning, which says
we’re not accountable to a Creator.
To combat culture’s countless lies, Christians need apologetics
training to defend their biblical worldview. But no
matter how many apologetics answers believers memorize,
we’re always bound to encounter more questions because
there will always be new information. That’s why Christians
must learn how to pursue biblical answers and think like
apologists. Believers need an accessible toolset to help them
process and deal with faith-challenging information.
Enter Critical Thinking Skills
Biblical critical thinking skills provide
that practical toolset. But what is
critical thinking, exactly? Growing up,
I suspected critical thinking was just a
buzzword that educators used for creating
assignments. But in college, I
learned that critical thinking is about
discerning whether messages are true,
logical, and worth believing. I suddenly
saw critical thinking transform from a
scrap of junk jargon into an indispensable
lie detection toolkit.
These tools include skills like spotting
faulty logic, sensing psychological
manipulation, and sorting out
facts from opinions, interpretations,
or assumptions. By applying these
tools from the starting point of God’s
Word, Christians can think through
faith-challenging messages and reach
a biblical, logical response.
Wait—Isn’t Critical Thinking Secular?
Some Christians may be concerned
because critical thinking is a concept
praised by secularists who promote
“rationality.” The word rational means
having reason or being reasonable.
Critical thinking is rational in the
sense that it involves logical reasoning.
Secularists, however, may try to incorrectly
redefine rational as “excluding
God.” This doesn’t mean critical thinking
is secular, just that the definition of
rational has been manipulated.
Ironically, however, a biblical worldview—
not a secular one—provides the
foundation for logic, making critical
thinking possible.2 We can think critically
because God is the source of absolutes.
He created a logical universe and
gave us faculties for reasoning. Unlike
messages that contradict the Bible,
God’s Word will always stand up to
scrutiny. Ultimately, Christians have
no reason to resist critical thinking and
every reason to embrace it.
How to Think About “Facts” That Challenge Your Faith
So how can you learn to think critically? Based on the tools
that helped me as a Christian in secular university, I developed
a framework that explains how to think through any faithchallenging
message in classrooms and in the culture. This
framework comes down to three rules of critical thinking: don’t
panic, break it down, and follow up.
1. Don’t Panic
This one may seem obvious. But if
you’re listening to someone making an
unbiblical argument you’ve never heard
before, you may notice your heart rate
increasing. And you may begin to wonder, What if I’m wrong about my beliefs? That’s the time to take a breath and
remember what you know: God’s Word
is true, so anything contradictory must
be false. Every untrue message is certain
to fall apart somewhere. Until you
have the chance to investigate where it
falls apart, here are a couple of tips for
warding off anxiety:
- If you’re a student who needs
to write down faith-challenging
messages when taking lecture
notes, put quotation marks around
questionable information, indicating
that you’re simply noting what
somebody said. This frees you from
feeling like you’re writing a fact. - Write down your questions
immediately. Keeping a physical
record of your questions lets you
follow up on them later. Otherwise,
you may begin to sense a mass of
nameless doubts accumulating
without being able to remember,
identify, and deal with specific
concerns.
2. Break It Down
To find out how the lies in an unbiblical message fall apart,
you can dismantle the information with these 7 Checks of
Critical Thinking:
Check 1: Check Scripture
How does this message compare
with God’s Word?
You can always detect a lie by comparing it to the truth,
and God’s Word is our ultimate source for truth. So when
you hear any message presented as a fact, compare it against
Scripture first to see whether it’s true. You’ll be best equipped
to do this if you’re deeply familiar with Scripture. That’s why
it’s so important for us as Christians to consistently fill ourselves
with God’s Word.
Check 2: Check the Challenge
Does this message challenge a
foundational doctrine or a negotiable side issue?
Sometimes as you compare a message against Scripture,
you realize it doesn’t challenge your faith so much as your
ideas about your faith. Maybe the message confronts your
opinions about certain church traditions, worship styles,
or some other nondoctrinal issue—like the question of how
many magi visited Jesus. Since the Bible doesn’t say, we can
conclude it’s a side issue. That’s very different from a doctrinal
foundation issue, like the question of Adam’s existence.
Jesus came to earth as Adam’s descendant to die because of
Adam’s sin, making Adam’s existence a foundational issue.
You can recognize challenges to foundation issues by asking,
“Does the message conflict with a clear teaching from Scripture?
Does it conflict with the big picture of what the Bible
teaches? And does it conflict with the way most Christians
have interpreted the Bible for thousands of years?”
Check 3: Check the Source
Where is this information
coming from, and how was it collected?
Sometimes, valid information comes from unreliable
sources, and invalid information comes from
reliable sources. Still, a source’s reliability lends
insight into how seriously to take a message. Relevant
experts typically serve as the most credible
human sources. But remember, even experts can
make mistakes, believe false information, and
exercise bias according to their worldviews.
Another part of checking the source involves
asking how information was collected and
whether it’s communicated accurately. Popular
articles reporting what “studies have shown”
don’t always mention details like the number
or type of participants involved in a study, the
strength of any observed effects, or other factors
that can affect how we should interpret the
studies’ results. Such articles may also draw sensational
conclusions beyond a study’s claims.
That’s why it’s important to check the original
research yourself.3
Check 4: Check the Definitions
What do the message’s
keywords mean?
Do their meanings change?
Now it’s time to clarify the definitions of keywords
in the message. Many words harbor multiple
meanings or mean different things to different people.
When I encounter words such as science, evolution,
and even Christianity, I find it helpful to consider
how those terms are being used and whether
their meanings subtly change. For instance, does
an example of evolution refer to “variation within a
created kind” (which is actually a biblical concept)
or “transformation between created kinds” (the
traditional evolutionary assertion)? If you notice a
change in a keyword’s meaning, you’ve detected a
logical fallacy called equivocation.
Check 5: Check for Propaganda
Why does this
message sound persuasive?
Propaganda is a manipulative form of communication
that tries to persuade using any means
besides logic. Instead of reasoning from facts, propaganda
relies on factors like emotion, aesthetics,
eloquence, authority, positive or negative associations,
repetition, or ridicule. Propaganda-based
arguments usually involve logical errors called
fallacies of irrelevant premises. You can catch an
irrelevant premise by asking, “Is this message true
or false because. . . ?” For example, is a message
true because many people believe it or because
someone intelligent said so? Not necessarily.4
Check 6: Check the Interpretations
Which parts of this
message are facts and which are assumptions?
Is there another
way to view the facts?
With propaganda removed, you should be left with only
facts and their interpretations. This is where observational
science and historical science come in. The facts are the
parts of the message involving observational science, which
measures and describes things in the present. For example,
we could use observational science to perform experiments
in a laboratory, identify fossil species, or analyze fingerprints
from a crime scene. The historical science in a message, however,
draws conclusions about the past based on interpretations
of facts in the present.
Guessing how a fossil formed or reconstructing what we
think happened at a crime scene would be historical science.
Red flag words like could, might, maybe, probably, possibly, and
may signal you’re dealing with possible interpretations from
historical science rather than definite facts from observational
science. To identify alternative explanations, think about ways
to interpret the same facts from a biblical perspective.
Check 7: Check the Logic
Are there any other logical errors
that should make me think twice about this message?
By now, you will have spotted many potential fallacies in a
message. But other lines of faulty logic may still lurk behind
the facts. For instance, straw man arguments reframe an
opposing viewpoint to make it seem weaker than it is. Circular
arguments presuppose the truth of the conclusions
they’re trying to prove. Faulty analogies say two things are
alike when there’s an important difference between them.
Executing a final scan for such errors ensures you don’t fall
for any lingering fallacies.
3. Follow Up
Faith crises don’t happen when Christians
begin asking questions. They happen when we
stop seeking answers. Having questions means
that we must carefully research and seek answers
from sound apologetics resources, biblical mentors,
and God himself.
Even after careful critical thinking, however,
you’ll likely still have some unresolved questions
about certain topics.
But faith crises don’t happen when Christians
begin asking questions. They happen when we
stop seeking answers. Having questions means
that we must carefully research and seek answers
from sound apologetics resources, biblical mentors,
and God himself.
Instead of panicking about questions that
may still remain, remember Peter’s response
when Jesus asked if the disciples wanted to
leave after his teachings became tough: “Simon
Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go?
You have the words of eternal life, and we have
believed, and have come to know, that you are the
Holy One of God’” (John 6:68–69).
These words encouraged me throughout university,
reminding me that the evidence for my
faith far outweighed the uncertainty of my unresolved
questions. As humans, we’ll never understand
everything. The key is to remember that
God has the answer, to ask him for it, and to trust
our concerns to him even if he never reveals the
answers while we’re here on earth.
Armed and Ready
The next time you encounter a message that contradicts Scripture, remember the three critical
thinking rules: don’t panic, break the message down with the 7 Checks of Critical Thinking,
and follow up on remaining questions. I encourage you to keep honing these tools and flexing
your mental muscles until biblical critical thinking becomes second nature. Then, whether
scrolling on social media, sitting in class, or listening to a sermon, you’ll be ready to think
through any faith-challenging message and arrive at a biblical, logical conclusion yourself.
Critical Thinking in Action
Check out this example of using the
7 Checks of Critical Thinking to
evaluate an actual news article.
Click image to enlarge.
Check 1: Check Scripture
The Bible doesn’t tell us many details
about earth’s earliest atmosphere, but
we can infer that it supported plant life
by day three. The magma ocean and
moon formation scenarios in the article
don’t appear to align with the Genesis
creation account or with the teaching
that “the earth was formed out of water
and through water by the word of God”
(2 Peter 3:5).
Check 2: Check the Challenge
Accepting any teachings in the article
that conflict with God’s Word would pose
a biblical authority issue. Also, while the
article does not state specific assumptions
about earth’s age, its naturalistic
approach implies belief in millions of
years, which challenges Scripture’s doctrine
of no death before sin.
Check 3: Check the Source
Because of the article’s apparent
naturalistic starting point, we can infer
that the author and the researchers
quoted are beginning from the
worldview of man’s word rather than
God’s Word. This will affect their
assumptions and interpretations of
facts (remember this for Check 6).
Check 4: Check the Definitions
No words seem to switch meanings in this article.
One term that may need clarification for further
discussion is “young Earth,” as biblical creationists
and evolutionists have very different ideas about
when earth was “young.” As noted above, however,
it’s safe to presume the article means “young” as
“happening 4.5 billion years ago.”
Check 5: Check for Propaganda
Some fancy, intellectual-sounding words start
coming into play here, which is fine—even necessary.
The resulting “sciency” feel can make the rest
of the article’s teaching sound true. But remember
to ask, “Is a message true because . . . it comes from
intelligent researchers who performed a high-tech
experiment?” Not necessarily.
Check 6: Check the Interpretations
What was the observational science in this experiment?
The facts that we can see in the present
include all the measurements and observations
made in the lab, along with observations about
how earth currently compares to Venus. All the
assumptions about earth’s early conditions which
formed the basis of the experiment, however, were
evolutionary historical science—as signaled by the
red flag words such as “probably,” “may have,” and
“would have.”
Check 7: Check the Logic
Fallacies would come into play if someone argued
that this experiment “proved” the existence of a
magma ocean 4.5 billion years ago. For instance,
arguing, “If a magma ocean existed 4.5 billion years
ago, then oxygen levels in earth’s mantle would
match those of marbles melted in the presence of
high CO2. They do. Therefore, a magma ocean must
have existed 4.5 billion years ago.” However, there
could be other reasons for the CO2 levels in earth’s
mantle. This is a fallacy “affirming the consequent.”
SourceThis article originally appeared on answersingenesis.org
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