Reason and Compromise

The natural man looks only to natural reason and his intellect for truth. With reason, we are limited by self-deception and pride. We are also limited by ignorance. And reason is basically a spiritually dead thing because their mind becomes their god. That's the problem with reason, and why you cannot mix it with faith.

The Church has merged reason and faith together and made it very acceptable and palatable. We have to find out where the origins of this philosophy came in, because that's what it is, it's a development of man's philosophy to merge faith and reason together and really take the spirit of God out of everything. By bringing in reason and giving everyone the idea that they can reason anything into existence and it is of God, and of course it is not, it's a creation of man's mind. You cannot reason Truth into existence, it always has been and always will be. And to use your reasonable mind to try to conjure up what Truth is, it's an impossibility, and you end up with a lie.

What we're going to show you in this article is why reason was brought about, for the purpose of compromise, and it's admitted that it was for compromise.

New Testament Verses

In the New Testament, the word "reason" is used nineteen times, but there's five different Greek words that are translated as "reason." So we see the arbitrary and capriciousness of the word "reason." We're not into disputing over certain words, but we certainly want to be diligent about the words that we use, because they do have an effect on our walk.

Christ used the word "reason" (Greek #1260, dialogizomai) four times, and it was always in criticism, either of his disciples or of the Pharisees when they reasoned.

Matthew 16:8, "...O ye of little faith, why reason ye among yourselves, because ye have brought no bread?"

Mark 8:17, "...Why reason ye, because ye have no bread? perceive ye not yet, neither understand? have ye your heart yet hardened?"

Notice the contrast in this next verse between "spirit" and "reason." The problem with reasoning is that it's all spiritless.

Mark 2:8, "And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts?"

The whole subject of repentance is to lay down your own reason and come into agreement with God and His Truth. This is truly being a little child, because you don't see little children reasoning things when they're pure of heart. That's what we're supposed to put to death, the way we think about things, our thoughts and actions, our life that we had as the children of disobedience before Christ. Paul said we were all once the children of disobedience (Ephesians 2:2), but when we let Christ in our life and we truly have a repentant heart, then we're going to learn to be children of obedience rather than disobedience. And more so every day as we lay down our life and carry that cross and crucify the deeds and the thoughts of the flesh.

This problem goes back to the beginning, when the serpent in the garden of Eden asked Eve to reason! "Hath God really said...? Let's reason this out. Think about this with your own understanding, Eve. Ye shall not surely die!" (Genesis 2).

Verses on Reason

Isaiah 1:18, "Come now, and let us reason together, saith the LORD:"

In the above verse, God is not saying to add your own thinking to His! God's not asking you for your opinion, He's not going to change his mind about what he says. He is basically saying "agree with me." The word in the Hebrew and Greek in this verse is a very unique word, and the word "reason" does not belong here. You can tell what the meaning of this word is by simply reading this verse in context; it's in the context of being reproved. So, even when they mistranslate something, God always sees to it that His Word is preserved and that the Truth is there. What the word "reason" here means is "solemnly affirm" or "rebuke" It is derived from the Greek word dialogizomai.

Vines Expository Dictionary defines reason as, "dialogizomai: Chiefly of thoughts and considerations which are more or less objectionable. For example, of the disciples who reasoned together through a mistaken view of Christ's teaching regarding heaven; of their reasoning as to who was the greatest among them, "were you reasoning," "you disputed"; of the scribes and Pharisees criticizing Christ's claims to forgive sins; of the chief priests and elders considering how to answer Christ's question regarding John's baptism; of the wicked husbandman and their purpose to murder their heir and seize his inheritance; of the rich man who reasoned within himself as to where to bestow his fruits, etc."

So, when it's properly used, it's used in the negative sense. Scripture shows that you never want to look to your reasoning, and you never mix faith and reason.

Comparing the Septuagint with the King James

Let's go to the Old Testament and compare some of verses where, in the King James, the word "reason" is used, but in the Septuagint (LXX) you don't find the word "reason." But not always, of course, because, like in Isaiah 1:18, both the Septuagint (LXX) and the King James Version (KJV) use the word 'reason' and it was not properly done there, but in other places it was done properly. We find that translations are done by man, and they're not perfect, there's going to be error there and that's why we must be diligent when we read scripture, we must look at the original words and go to the meaning of them in the original language so that we are not mislead by other men's errors.

We have to know what we're saying, and the only way we know what we're saying is when we use the words of the Lord, when we speak as he spoke, then we understand one another. But if we use humanistic words to describe what we're trying to say, there's no way for us to understand, because you go to the natural man's dictionaries and they'll have ten definitions for one word! And there's no way you can communicate that way, and there's no truth in the communication when you don't understand what each one is saying. So we have to go back to the pure language of God (Zephaniah 3:9). And part of this pure language is to "not do iniquity, nor speak lies; neither shall a deceitful tongue be found in their mouth" (Zephaniah 3:13).

If we understand what we're saying to one another, we'll know when deceit is being used, but if we listen to the natural man talk, especially through man's law, that's all based upon deceit. Legal fictions, things that are not truth but taken as truth, that's called deceit. And when you do things according to man's law and man's reason, you end up lost because there's no truth there. The adversary has a way for everyone to be trapped in his system. The law of man, the commerce game, and all of these things are never going to set anyone free, they're just going to entangle you more.

The thing is to throw off all those entanglements and be free. John 8:36, "If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." It does not say you shall be freed by man's law, but by the blood of Christ. There's no other redemption process. Why give life to something that's dead? Is it not an idol? Are you not breathing life into an idol? It's a molten image, and if you give life to it, then you're worshipping that image that someone else created. What has really changed? But, it seems very reasonable to do so, and that's where the problem of reason comes in. And that's creating God in your own image.

1 Samuel 12:7 (KJV), "Now therefore stand still, that I may reason with you before the LORD..."

1 Kings 12:7 (LXX), "And now stand still, and I will judge you before the LORD..."

Now, the word for "judge" in the Septuagint (LXX) is alencho, and it means "to convict, rebuke, reprove." The word 'reason' does not belong here, it just does not fit.

Job 9:14 (KJV), "How much less shall I answer him, and choose out my words to reason with him?"

Job 9:14 (LXX), "Oh then that he would hearken to me, or judge my cause."

In other words, you're not going to be reasoning with God, He's going to judge your cause!

Job 15:3 (KJV), "Should he reason with unprofitable talk?"

Job 15:2-6 (LXX), "Will a wise man give for an answer a mere breath of wisdom? and does he fill up the pain of his belly, reasoning with improper sayings, and with words wherein is no profit? Hast not thou moreover cast off fear, and accomplished such words before the Lord? Thou art guilty by the words of thy mouth, neither hast thou discerned the words of the mighty. Let thine own mouth, and not me, reprove thee: and thy lips shall testify against thee."

The word "reason" is properly used here in both the King James and the Septuagint. So, when someone calls you "unreasonable," that is actually a compliment, because the natural man looks to everything that is reasonable, and if it's unreasonable, it doesn't fit into his scheme of things, his world order. But when you're eye is fixed on the Truth, you are unreasonable, because there is no room for compromise.

The Reasonable Man Test

The natural man has come up with a reasonable man test to determine what a reasonable man is. And this reasonable man test was designed by a U.S. Supreme Court Justice for 34 years, Oliver Wendell Holmes, who confessed to the public that, "I do not know what the Truth is." This quote is rather lengthy, but shows the depravity of the natural man.

This is from a book called The American Problem of Government, by Chester C. Maxi (1949), page 439. "The reasonable man test" is a section of his book, and reads:

"The difference between justice Holmes and the majority of the US Supreme court was essentially this: the majority members thought they should declare the law unconstitutional if they themselves could see no reasonable relation between the means and the end. Holmes thought that the basis of the decision should not be the opinion of the judges on the matter of means and ends, but of a hypothetical reasonable man. The judges probably would have differed just as widely what "a rational and fair man necessarily would admit" as they did in their personal opinion. There were millions of eminently reasonable men in the United States, some of whom could easily see a reasonable connection between a ten hour law and the promotion of public health and others of whom could not see it at all." (They were discussing a law that had to do with minimum wage). "If the judges were to be guided by the opinions of all reasonable men it would be necessary to take a national referendum before they could decide. If by the opinion of any reasonable man they should uphold the law, even though only one reasonable man in the entire country could see the real and substantial relation between the end and the means."

In other words, the Supreme Court was talking one day and said, "let's take a poll, let's have a national referendum," and then one of them jumped up and said, "No, no. That's ok. All we need is one hypothetical reasonable man. And we'll base all our decisions upon that." And what this is is evolution of the law, because it's man's law and he could evolve it however he wants to. And this hypothetical reasonable man is what Holmes and Roscoe Pound, who was close friends with Oliver Wendell Holmes, created. Roscoe Pound even wrote a book called The Evolution of Law. The hypothetical reasonable man has been imputed to every man, woman and child in the United States in the form of a strawman. So, they don't need the real people anymore, they have all their hypothetical strawmen. And they can make them say what ever they want. They can poll the strawmen and make their decision that way. It's kind of like being god and having your own little universe, having your own planet and pushing around your own people like pawns on a chessboard. The natural man who takes control of things is his own god and he lords over everyone.

This book goes on to say:

"If by the opinion of a reasonable man in the abstract, each judge had as much right as any other to impute opinions to such a creature." (So, everything's reduced to opinions). "We have dealt at some length on the cleavage between the judges of the New York Bake Shop case because of the belief held by multitudes of self-styled liberals that Justice Holmes had the answer to the problem of substantive due process. In eloquent and forceful dissenting opinions in the case of the Kansas law forbidding coercion of any person to join a labor union, in the case of the District of Columbia minimum wage law, in the case of the Nebraska law requiring teaching in both public and poroqueal schools to be in the English language, and in various other cases in which the court found a legislative act unconstitutional on the ground that it violated substantial due process, Justice Holmes pressed home his point. However, he did not go to the extreme of insisting that the court should uphold all legislative acts regardless of character. A consistent adherence to his reasonable man doctrine certainly should have led him to that position, for in every legislative majority, it must be assumed that there are some fair and reasonable men." (So, now we're dealing in assumptions here. We're back to a fiction).

"But Justice Holmes was unwilling to give up entirely the principle of substantive due process. For him, as for judges less inclined to give the legislature the benefit of the doubt, there were limits beyond which the law making power could not constitutionally go. One of these limits was exceeded by the Oregon Compulsory Education Act of 1922. This law was not enacted by the State legislature, but by the voters of themselves by means of the direct initiative. A majority of the voters of Oregon have solemnly enacted that every child between the ages of eight and sixteen should be sent to a public school, and it was a misdemeanor, save under special circumstances, to send such a child to a private school. The Supreme Court of the United States declared the law contrary to substantive due process and therefore unconstitutional. Justice Holmes did not dissent. Did he conceive that not one of the thousands of persons that voted to enact that law was a rational being, that not a single one had a reasoned belief that there was a strong probability that the cause of public education would be helped by the measure adopted? He did not say." (So, he stayed silent on that whole question. Now, this is where it gets interesting).

"A year later, however, Justice Holmes dissenting from the decision of the Supreme court holding void the minimum wage law the District of Columbia, restated his reasonable man doctrine in somewhat different terms. "The criterion of constitutionality," He said, "is not whether we believe the law to be for the public good. We certainly cannot be prepared to deny that a reasonable man reasonably might have that belief in view of the legislation of Great Britain Victoria and a number of the states of this Union. The belief is fortified by a very remarkable collection of documents submitted on behalf of the appellants, material here I concede only as showing that the belief reasonably may be held." The controlling factor according to this restatement should not be what a reasonable man thinks, but what he reasonably might think. It is difficult to see how this refinement could help. Justice Holmes was impressed by a mass of documentary evidence which left no doubt in his mind that a reasonable man might reasonably believe that a minimum wage law would promote public welfare in various ways. But there were reasonable men in deed, Justices of the Supreme Court who deduced the very opposite conclusion from the same documentary evidence."

In other words, a reasonable man does not exist, there is no such thing. And they admit this, because it's called a "hypothetical reasonable man." So we see this hypothetical reasonable man is just arbitrary and capricious because we have several justices on the Supreme Court that disagree on what a reasonable man might do. You know, they spent a lot of time talking about reasonable this and reasonable that to come up with opposite conclusions, when all they had to do was look at each other and say, "How do you feel about that? Well, my feelings are...I feel we should...and I feel we shouldn't...well, let's take a vote!" But then they wouldn't have justified their year's salary if it had been that simple.

What Does Reasonable Mean?

"Reasonable" is one of those ambiguous terms that the natural man has created to try to give himself some appearance of truth. They try to have substance without truth.

All of the following words are taken from David Melanchoff's Dictionary of American Legal Usage. He was a professor of Law at UCSA. He wrote this dictionary in 1992. And this isn't some obscure dictionary, this is a dictionary all lawyers are very much aware of. On page 539, it defines the term 'reasonable.'

Reasonable: "Means in the law what it means in ordinary English; rational, just, fair minded, not too much and not too little, etc. Reasonable means what you want it to mean. In the words of Ambrose Bierce, "hospitable to persuasion, dissuasion and evasion." Reasonable has no precise legal meaning, it is flexible; that is its virtue and only utility for the law."

He also defines the "reasonable man."

Reasonable Man: "The law's hypothetical creature who has what society tends to regard as a normal dose of virtue and acceptable frailty. The reasonable man's hypothetical action or reaction in any situation is the law's standard of reasonable conduct for real people in similar circumstances. The reasonable man also goes by other names. For example, an ordinary reasonable man, a reasonable man of ordinary prudence, and is frequently equated with varieties of prudent man. But the reasonable man is more active in tort law, especially negligence and criminal law, than in the typical business life of prudent man."

And they went from the "reasonable man" to the "reasonable person" so that the women's liberation is not insulted.

Reasonable Person: "Everything that a reasonable man ever was or hopes to be without what some regard as a sexist taint. Never restricted to males, the reasonable man now faces fierce competition. The reasonable person is often the substitute of choice in treatises, miscellaneous writings and in numerous opinions. Yet the announced death of the reasonable man is an exaggeration. A requiem is premature. Reasonable man is embedded in history, in far flung legislation, in legal literature, and in decision old and new. It works in nooks and crannies of the law beyond reach of outlawry. It cannot be ignored."

So you see that the reasonable man and the reasonable person has a real good foothold in man's law, mainly because man's law does not deal in the truth, so they have to go to the hypotheticals.

Reasonable Certainty: "Sort of certain. The expression does little to improve on the uncertain rigors of certainty. Not quite ambiguous as reasonable uncertainty."

Reasonably Possible: "A marvel of imprecise guesswork and a counter to the quest for absolutes."

So, he fully admits here that man's law does not look for absolutes. There is no longer any truth in anything that they do. They want everything to be ambiguous.

Reasonably Probably: "A judges loose calculation of the odds favoring a particular outcome. For example, that the defendant would have been acquitted if her lawyer had not dozed."

So now we're into gambling and luck. Let's throw the dice and see what happens. He's fully showing the depravity of the thinking of the judges. He's even making a joke of it..."if the lawyer had not dozed." But it's actually a very serious thing, especially if your life is hanging in some lawyer's hand.

Reasonable and Probable Cause: "A redundancy."

In other words, they mean exactly the same thing. Now, we will go and see what probable cause is. This is exactly what God meant when he said "...but let your yea be yea; and your nay, nay; lest ye fall into condemnation" (James 5:12). People don't understand that, but probable cause is not a nay or a yea, it's something other. And God says whatever is not of these is evil! So, we're talking about evil in the real world.

Probable Cause: "A reasonable, particularized basis for believing that a particular act is justified. Most commonly describes the legally proper basis for an arrest, a search, an arrest warrant or a search warrant, a criminal prosecution, a civil action. The language of probable cause is not standardized, either in constitutional opinions or others. It is sometimes described in terms of fair probability that something is so, of what would warrant belief by a cautious or prudent man, even of suspicion rather than belief. Usually probable cause is distinguished from hunch."

So, what we're seeing here is that probable cause has no standard, the reasonable man has no standard, reason has no standard. It's arbitrary and capricious, and that's why we must all put it behind us. Because when you put on the mind of Christ, that is doing away with your reason. Because He did not reason, He chided His disciples, the Pharisees and everyone else for "reasoning together." Especially Peter, he always got his foot stuck in his mouth. Look at when Jesus "turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan" (Matthew 16:23). Jesus called Peter "Satan" because he was using his own reasoning! He was being a "reasonable man."

Notice in many of the above definitions, the "prudent man" is mentioned several times. So, we're going to look at this same dictionary to see that all these terms mean the same thing.

Prudence: "One of those marvelous virtues of ordinary English vague enough to find a natural home in the law. Depending on who describes it, prudence can be one or more of all these; practical wisdom, care, circumspection, skill and management of business affairs, good judgment, discretion, and working out means to ends, etc. If that is not vague enough, prudence can be and is easily qualified as common, ordinary or reasonable prudence qualified by words, but indistinguishable from each other or from prudence. With so much to choose from, prudence is almost a perfect standard by which to measure those who must be measured by imperfect judges."

Prudent Man: "The law's measuring rod for prudence. long before the law embraced prudence, a man and a woman was often described as having prudence or being prudent. In creating a hypothetical creature to make quick use of the wonderful flexibility of those words, the law typically called the creature the prudent man. The creature is now also called the prudent person. Sometimes both in the same writing. Under either title, the vagueness remains."

Prudent Man Rule: "In general, a rule, also called the prudent man test, that, in this case, this person's conduct ought to be measured against what might be expected as a prudent man or person or director, etc. under similar circumstances. Calling this a rule or test gives an impression of some order out of vagueness. Prudent man rules vary by jurisdiction, statute, and area of law, etc. Typically, they invoke the magic word prudent or prudence. Also typically they rely on redundancy and some specifics."

In that quote concerning Justice Holmes, the term "substantive due process" was used. Well, look let's look at this word.

Substantial: "Is as flexible in the law as in ordinary English. This is its reason for continued existence in law. Long use of substantial in combination, for example substantial evidence, can produce an impression of precision which is lacking. The word is an alert. What substantial Fastens itself to becomes infected with substantial's flexibility, a place for discretion."

So, what we see again is that it's all arbitrary and capricious, and it gives power to the beast. Now, we were talking earlier about "reasonable," but what may not occur to them is that the word "unreasonable" is used in the US Constitution, and it has to do with searches and seizures.

Search and Seizure: "A short collective reference to the forth amendment to the US Constitution which reads, "The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized." Search and Seizure is a short distributive reference to the kind of government activity that may constitute a search or a seizure in a constitutional sense. Special characteristics of the search and seizure are described in this century along with the distinctive terry stop. A description of the ongoing constitutional struggle over permissible and impermissible search and seizure is the province of cases, classes, journals, and treatises."

Everyone wonders why the government is violating their constitutional rights. Well, it's "reasonable" to do so, because they have "probable cause," which is also very reasonable. And today, they don't need a warrant to search you, because they've "reasoned" that out.

Search: "In general, a hunt by government agents with or without a search warrant for people, property, or communications believed to bear or evidence the taint of crime. It is a hunt by physical or scientific intrusion without the consent of the hunted or of those with the right to control the property or the communication. It is a hunt for what is not in plain view."

Seizure: "The act of government agents in taking possession of property, or learning the details of communications in connection with a search. The act of government agents in physically restraining a person or implicitly threatening that restraint upon any intent to walk away. Actual or implied, the restraint is without the consent of the person restrained as an incident of law enforcement. It is a seizure whether labeled an arrest or a mere temporary restraint called a stop. "

So, by using such words as "unreasonable" and "probable cause" in the Constitution, it has become very arbitrary and capricious. So, if you're looking to the constitution for any kind of protection, you can pretty much forget it.

Beyond a Reasonable Doubt: "Means beyond a reasonable doubt. Tortured explanations are worthless. A juror wrestles with conscience to decide whether the civilized decency of the presumption of innocence saves the accused or has been stretched to thin for the saving. The system asks too much when it instructs a juror to dissect out of reasonable doubt some nuisance or precise meaning where generations of lawyers have found none. The only precision here is the awesome implication of the presumption of innocence, innocence until proved guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. that is a sufficient reason to hang onto the phrase and to leave it alone."

So, what he's saying here is that they're hanging onto it but you're better off leaving it alone because it's another one of those arbitrary and capricious creatures of the law. People can't understand why they can't get any justice in the courts. Well, it's because there is none there to begin with! You're in a private court run by a privately administered law by private men and the merchants of the earth. That's what those courts are all about. And they're going to rape you of your substance any way they can, and they do it through the language of man's law.

Reason has no Substance

Someone might claim that reason does have its place. For example, if someone builds a house, they have reasons for putting windows on certain sides of the house and not on others because of the heat that would come in from the sun. This has become part of our speech pattern and education. We're taught to say "the reason I did this, the reason I did that." But even the word "reason" does not belong there, because this was not the reason you did it, it was the purpose behind what you did. In other words, this is the substance of why you're doing something, not the reason.

There's no substance to reason. We're brought up in the English language to put the word "reason" in there, but it's the wrong word.