The prophetic ministry is
important to the propagation of the gospel as long as it is tailored
towards teaching God's righteous counsel. Prophesies must align with the
objective and logical faith for it to be valid as truth from God.
God does not contradict Himself neither does His word . Therefore , a
prophet must be well grounded in God's written word to avoid misleading
his or her audience. God reveals Himself through His word . The young
prophet Samuel spent much time in God's word than the older prophet Eli
did .The scriptures says 1 Sam 3:21KJV " And the Lord appeared again in
Shiloh: for the Lord revealed himself to Samuel in Shiloh by the word of
the Lord."
Eli was operating by subjective logic like a lot
of modern prophets do , he never saw the need for an in-dept analysis of
God's word. He worked by signs while Samuel worked by faith that came
from studying the revealed word of God. Eli;s ministry was soon replaced
by the teaching prophetic ministry of young Samuel.
The
subjective analysis of God based on external manifestations is
detrimental to a healthy spiritual growth, Jesus said in Luke 17:20
KJV..."The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:" The word
observation is the Greek word.
'parateresis' which means: from
inspection, i.e. ocular evidence (visions): A lot of persons have fallen
into traps by following visions instead of logical reasoning .
One of such common traps is :Post Hoc Fallacy
Explanation
The Latin phrase “post hoc ergo propter hoc” means, literally, “after
this therefore because of this.” The post hoc fallacy is committed when
it is assumed that because one thing occurred after another, it must
have occurred as a result of it. Mere temporal succession, however, does
not entail causal succession. Just because one thing follows another
does not mean that it was caused by it. This fallacy is closely related
to the cum hoc fallacy.
Example
(1) Most people who are read the last rites die shortly afterwards.
Therefore:
(2) Priests are going around killing people with magic words!
This argument commits the post hoc fallacy because it infers a causal connection based solely on temporal order.
Real-World Examples
One example of the post hoc flaw is the evidence often given for the
efficacy of prayer. Prayer does work but not all results are as a result
of prayers.Satan answers prayers too.A typical example is the
circumstance behind the birth of Ishmael in Gen.16:2-5 and the seer and
evangelist in Acts 16:16-19 When someone reasons that as they prayed
for something and it then happened, it therefore must have happened
because they prayed for it, they commit the post hoc fallacy. The
correlation between the prayer and the event could result from
coincidence, rather than cause, so does not prove that a particular prayer worked . For example, praying that one should not get caught while smuggling cocaine aboard a U.S bound flight does not mean God answered if one was successful.
Superstitions often arise from people
committing the post hoc fallacy. Consider, for example, a sportsman who
adopts a pre-match ritual because one time he did something before a
game he got a good result. The reasoning here is presumably that on the
first occasion the activity preceded the success, so the activity must
have contributed to the success, so repeating the activity is likely to
lead to a recurrence of the success. This is a classic example of the
post hoc fallacy in action.
Inputs by : logicalfallacies.info
By Rev. Michael Benson Ajayi.
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