A Confused Mind: Reasoning

For the first post in this series click here .

The next section in Chapter 10 "A Confused Mind" is: Reasoning Leads to Confusion

"A large percentage of God's people are admittedly confused. Why? As we have seen, one reason is wondering. Another is reasoning. The dictionary partially defines the word "reasoning" in the noun form as an "underlying fact or motive that provides logical sense for a premise or occurrence" and in the verb form as "to use the faculty of reason: think logically."

"A simple way to say it is, reasoning occurs when a person tries to figure out the "why" behind something. Reasoning causes the mind to revolve around and around a situation, issue or event attempting to understand all its intricate component parts. We are reasoning when we dissect a statement or teaching to see if it is logical, and disregard it if it is not.

"Satan frequently steals the will of God from us due to reasoning. The Lord may direct us to do a certain thing, but if it does not make sense - if it is not logical - we may be tempted to disregard it. What God leads a person to do does not always make logical sense to his mind. His spirit may affirm it and His mind reject it, especially if it would be out of the ordinary or unpleasant or if it would require personal sacrifice or discomfort."


Let's take this a paragraph at a time...

Ms. Meyer is saying "reasoning" is a CAUSE and the EFFECT is "confusion".
Is this true?
Actually, being UNABLE to reason RESULTS in confusion.
Confusion occurs when more than one contradictory thoughts are seen as true.
The purpose of reasoning is to remove the contradictory thoughts.
I can be contrastive and try to see where she is right...perhaps she means that the BEGINNING of the reasoning process results in confusion because there are more than one possibilities. If THIS is what she meant, then the solution would be either: 1. to continue the reasoning process until the contradictions are removed OR 2. not try to understand.
The problem with option #2 is that we are learning this from Ms. Meyer in a book she wrote...for what purpose? For us to understand!
In fact, the second sentence in the first paragraph is one word: Why?
She wants us to know the "WHY?" in the first paragraph...Ms. Meyer can't say reasoning (undertanding the WHY) is wrong IF she is attempting to explain to us the WHY.

In the second paragraph, Ms. Meyer leads off with saying that reasoning is trying to figure out the "why?"
So, Ms. Meyer appealed to our reasoning process (according to her definitions) in this section.
She ends this paragraph saying that reasoning is used to determine if a teaching should be regarded or not.

In the third paragraph, Ms. Meyer makes reasoning a tool of the devil!
Ms. Meyer specifically writes about something making logical sense to a person's mind.
If she understood the concepts of contrastive and comparative, this passage would make sense.

Truth is proven contrastively .
This is God's way of thinking.
Our flesh thinks comparatively.
Comparative thinking leads to errors even though it looks logical on the surface.
We can know something is true if we think God's way (contrastively) instead of our way (comparatively).
I've also written about man's way of thinking (cognition) and HOW God wants us to think (meta-cognition)

Because Ms. Meyer doesn't distinguish between these two ways, she throws out BOTH ways of thinking.
She tries to say we are supposed to let the spirit affirm it...but this is a feeling and feelings can be wrong.
Also, you CAN'T throw out man's way of thinking because it is in our nature. So choosing not to think intentionally (meta-cogition) results in us thinking like an animal...it is impossible to stop thinking completely! Ms. Meyer is advocating man's way of thinking!

Comparative is when we try to be right immediately and shade the facts in order to avoid discomfort .
Ms. Meyer even recognizes this with her mention of discomfort at the end of the section.
Comparative thinking ONLY occurs when we ONLY see the facts that agree with us.
The ULTIMATE ABUSE of comparative thinking is shown when people CHANGE THE FACTS.
Contrastive is when we try to prove ourselves wrong.
Contrastive thinking actively looks for facts that disagree with us.

Her idea of being led of the spirit is grace .
So this section is confusing because Ms. Meyer has eliminated the ONLY way to determine truth (contrastive thinking) because she can't distinguish the difference between God's way of thinking and the flesh's way of thinking...THEN she hijacks grace and tries to use it to replace thinking.
Remember, Ephesians 2:8 says we are saved by grace through faith.
We are supposed to let God's influence reflect in our lives AFTER we have checked it with faith (UNDERSTANDING and EXPERIENCE).
Ms. Meyer is advocating grace without faith.

This wouldn't be so bad, except that the section begins like this:

Reasoning Leads to Confusion
...O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves?...
Matthew 16:8 KJV

This is not a Bible verse!
Ms. Meyer has CHANGED THE BIBLE TO PROVE HER POINT THAT CONTRASTIVE THINKING IS WRONG!!!!!!

Said in a simpler way: Ms. Meyer has used fleshly thinking to prove we shouldn't use fleshly thinking.
This is a contradiction...she needs her flawed method to work in order to prove it is wrong!

The Bible actually says, "O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because you have brought no bread?"

Ms. Meyer replaced a comma with a question mark...and then put ellipses (three dots) AFTER the question mark.
If she wanted to shade the data AND be accurate, she should have put the ellipses BEFORE the question mark to show there was more to the verse BEFORE it hit the question mark.
A lot of people who are comparative with the Bible do this: take the Bible out of context.
However, it was worse than that...she changed the facts.
She took words out of Jesus' mouth that tell us to participate in meta-cognition and changed them so that Jesus is telling us NOT to think intentionally!

I'm particularly sensitive to this because one of the characteristics of the Bible that make it DIFFERENT from every other religious book is that IT GIVES A REASON AND DOESN'T CONTRADICT.
Other religious books tell us WHAT to do...but they don't tell us WHY.
If they did, they would contradict...the key to EVERYTHING is in the WHY.
This chapter of Ms. Meyer's book is beginning to tell us NOT to go after the WHY.

In my Bible, every "for", "that", and "because" is circled. Why?
BECAUSE the BEST part of every verse comes AFTER these words...it is the explanation...the WHY.
Look at what word she cut out: BECAUSE...
Taking THAT word out and everything that follows COMPLETELY changes the meaning of Jesus' words.
Jesus' point in that passage was that the disciples SHOULD REASON and they had REASONED incorrectly!

God wants us to know the WHY (meta-cognition)...otherwise our beliefs are based on feelings...and other religions would be JUST AS RIGHT because those people would feel the same as us.

The ENTIRE Bible says to KNOW and UNDERSTAND.
This can ONLY be done accurately with contrastive thinking.
The entire Bible says if we think with our flesh (comparative thinking) then we will be wrong.

I Peter 3:15
But sanctify the Lord God in your hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear:

We are supposed to KNOW the REASON...

We are supposed to UNDERSTAND the WHY...

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