by Terry Wane Benton<\/p>\n
The exercise of thought upon ideas to sort the true from the false, the stronger idea from the weaker idea. It is thinking through the available evidence to reach a conclusion. The book of John sets forth a propositional statement that says God came in human flesh, then reasons from one piece of testimony to another to prove the proposition is actually true. God either did come in the flesh, or He did not. John reasons upon testimonial evidence to conclude that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. There is reason for faith in Jesus Christ. It is not a blind leap of unreasonable faith. Some can be unreasonable, but the basis for trust in Jesus is not unreasonable.<\/p>\n
Those who use reasoning take the words Jesus spoke and reach the necessary inference that only God could have sent Him, and Jesus spoke things that only God could promise and fulfill. We take the eyewitness testimony of His miracles and necessarily infer that “no man can do these miracles except God be with Him<\/em>.” We take the prophets’ words about the coming Messiah, compare them to Jesus, and reach the necessary implication that only Jesus could be the prophesied Messiah of the Jews’ scriptures. We conclude that Jesus is the Christ of God, and He is divine. The evidence clearly implies it, and there is no other option because of the total evidence. Therefore, it is a necessary inference and an inescapable conclusion.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton The exercise of thought upon ideas to sort the true from the false, the stronger idea from the weaker idea. It is thinking through the available evidence to reach a conclusion. The book of John sets forth a propositional statement that says God came in human flesh, then reasons from one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[73,959,36],"class_list":["post-66279","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-jesus","tag-john","tag-reasoning"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":66519,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/jesus-believed-in-necessary-inferences\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":0},"title":"Jesus Believed in Necessary Inferences","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 12, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton He said, \"Moses wrote about Me\" (John 5:46). Still, since Moses never used the name \"Jesus,\" it would have to be a necessary implication of Moses and a necessary inference on our end to conclude that Moses wrote about Jesus. The evidence of reason is strong;\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":66482,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/two-testimonial-testaments-to-jesus\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":1},"title":"Two Testimonial Testaments to Jesus","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 10, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton Paul \"reasoned\" with the Jews for three Sabbaths (Acts 17:2f) from the Scriptures (their own Scriptures). Thus, he started with what both sides agreed was true. The Scriptures had long been settled as true and authoritative to both sides participating in the discussion. The Scriptures would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":52272,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/necessary-inference-is-absolutely-necessary\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":2},"title":"Necessary Inference Is Absolutely Necessary","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"August 21, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"by Terry Wane Benton It is truly amazing that we have brethren who actually deny that proper reasoning on the scriptures always involves the use of necessary inference. It is the most basic plank of common sense reasoning, and yet, some brethren draw an inference that they don't use inference\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25220,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/present-your-case\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":3},"title":"Present Your Case","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 4, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: I Thessalonians 5:21-22 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Apostle Paul challenges Christians everywhere to prove all things - I Thessalonians 5:21-22 \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Jude 3 tells us to contend earnestly for the faith \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0I Peter 3:15 tells us to be ready to give an answer to every question \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The Greek\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18683,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/god-cannot-be-tempted-but-jesus-was-tempted-so-is-jesus-not-god\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":4},"title":"God cannot be tempted, but Jesus was tempted; so, is Jesus not God?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"May 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: My friend, who is an Arian, gave me this puzzling logic:\u00a0 God can't be tempted, but Jesus was tempted; therefore, Jesus is not God.\u00a0 Is this true? Answer: For a Christian, it would be easy to spot this line of reasoning as a falsehood because it ends with a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":85542,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/god-was-manifest-in-the-flesh\/","url_meta":{"origin":66279,"position":5},"title":"God Was Manifest in the Flesh","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"March 11, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Tim Coffey via Guardian of Truth XL: 5 p. 8-9, March 7, 1996 Paul proclaimed, \"Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh\" (I Timothy 3:16). For those who saw Jesus in the flesh, the difficulty was not in believing that he was man, but\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66279","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66279"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66279\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66279"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66279"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66279"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}