Circular Reasoning: A Christian's Best Friend

30 minutes before the deadline, and I'm not sure what to write about today. I figured I would go with my old standby, something that's been bugging me since I learned about Free Will and all that jazz.

There is a verse in the Bible that puts forth that once you are saved, you are always saved. Forgive me if I don't point out the verse, but as I've stated before, I'm under a certain time pressure. Just pretend for a second I know what I'm talking about. This verse causes a lot of problems, because we see a lot of times, firsthand, how someone professes to believe in Jesus, and then later on either stops caring about Jesus or altogether rejects him. This obviously goes counter to the Bible, and since the Bible is always right... we're in a quandry. What to do? Oh no! The sky is falling!

So, theologians and learned people use a special type of logic to appease the uneasy crowd. It goes something like this:
Statement A: Once you are saved you are always saved.
Statement B: Someone was saved, but has now fallen away.
Conclusion: Therefore that person was never saved in the first place.
Result: Both statements are now true.

So, if you look at each statement, by itself, they are all logical and true. However, the proof of the conclusion is contained within statement A. That makes it circular. Now, if someone was saved, and dies still believing in God, one would conclude that he was always saved. So basically, as people, we cannot know if someone was truly saved until they're dead. If a person believes in God, then falls away, then believes in God again, then falls away, then believes and dies... a person would say he was always saved. Does this make sense to you?

Now, I'm not saying that the Bible was wrong. This verse is hundred percent correct. What I am saying is that, we can't judge a person as saved or unsaved. That's not up to us, because we can't see into each other's hearts, and we can't see into the future. So what that means is, we need to take it on faith when someone says they're saved. If they prove you wrong, then you were wrong, not God. Or you could go the total opposite way, and not believe in people's salvation until they're at their deathbed, coughing up a lung. But that way leads to cynicism and isolation. It's not the way I would like to go, personally. My boss once said, "Trust is given, not earned." And that is something I believe.