It seems almost impossible to have any contact with day to day events in this country without soon coming across some discussion about the issue of transgender persons, those individuals, “whose gender expression or behavior does not conform to that typically associated with the sex to which they were assigned at birth” (Answers to Your Questions About Transgender People, Gender Identity and Gender Expression, APA).
In early 2015, the suicide of a young man from the Cincinnati are who identified as female garnered national and international attention. The case of Olympic champion Bruce Jenner has been an even more high-profile case of transgenderism. Now, the state of North Carolina is grabbing headlines for its so-called “bathroom bill” which requires all persons to use the public restroom that corresponds to the sex assigned to them on their birth certificate.
Since transgenderism has become such a high profile issue, it is important for Christians to think through matter carefully. Below are a few common intellectual fallacies related to transgenderism that Christians ought to avoid, in order to speak effectively to aggressive and unbiblical transgender movement.
The Bible is not a textbook on transgenderism
Many individuals, perhaps even some believers, labor under the assertion that the Bible has nothing to say about transgenderism. This then becomes an excuse for seeking truth about transgenderism, not from the Word of God, but from secularists of one sort or another.
Many people believe that modern science furnishes us with truth about transgenderism. But science is not a source of truth. Any truth.
At its best, science can provide useful opinion on this or that topic. But it can never provide truth in the sense of giving us final, once and for all objectively factual statements.
There are two main reasons for this. First, science relies on observation. That is to say, science is empirical. But empiricism is deeply flawed. “Seeing is believing,” is a common empirical expression. But probably all of us have had our eyes play tricks on us. Observation is not so reliable as we would like to think.
Second, the scientific process of experimentation relies on the logical fallacy of asserting the consequent to reach its conclusions. To steal an everyday example John Robbins has used, consider the statement: If my battery is dead, my car won’t start. Most of us would agree with this proposition. But then we decide to do an experiment and try to start our car. We turn the key and, lo and behold, our car won’t start. Therefore, we conclude, our battery must be dead.
Now any good mechanic could spot the problem here: there are other reasons that a car won’t start that have nothing to do with the battery being dead. Jumping to the conclusion that the battery must be dead is an example of asserting the consequent. This is a logical fallacy. And it is the same logical fallacy that underlies the entire enterprise of scientific experimentation.
And because science is based on a logical fallacy, it can never furnish us with truth. The most science can do is provide us with useful opinion. Nothing more.
By contrast, the Bible is a complete system of revealed truth.
To cite just one passage from Scripture that makes this claim, “All Scripture is inspired by God (God breathed) and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work (2 Timothy 3:16, 17). This includes the good work of Christian commentary on current events, even the issue of transgenderism.
To quote John Robbins, “The Bible is a textbook – or rather, the Bible is the textbook. Let all other books conform. And let us, as Christians, reject the sophistry of those who devalue the Scriptures by making them inadequate for all our intellectual needs” (Robbins, Is the Bible a Textbook?).
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Riding the coattails of the successful homosexual movement, transgender advocates have enjoyed tremendous success in recent years. Transgenderism, the medical term is gender dysphoria, upholds the claim that it is possible to make a separation between the biological sex of an individual and that same person’s gender identity.
This past week, what has it brought? Quite a bit and nothing good. At least that’s how it looks from where I sit. Among the gifts that came our way were a flip-flopping president, wars and rumors of wars, and the traditional IRS tax deadline.
