Common logical fallacies

Most bad arguments about OSAS are not bad because the exegesis is dishonest. They are bad because a logical move has been made so often that it feels like exegesis. This page names the moves, so you can recognize them in your own thinking as well as your friend's.

1. Begging the question: "They were never really saved"

The argument:

1. Genuine believers cannot lose salvation.
2. This person lost salvation (or left the faith).
3. Therefore this person was never a genuine believer.

The conclusion is already contained in premise 1. The argument is valid but uninformative: it can explain any defection whatsoever, and therefore it cannot be falsified by any evidence. That does not make it false. It makes it useless as an argument, because it does no work beyond restating the position.

The fix: ask whether the text that describes the defection gives any indication that the person was never genuine. Sometimes it does (1 John 2:19, where the false teachers denied the Father and the Son). Often it does not (Heb 6:4-8; 10:26-31; Rom 11:17-22; 2 Pet 2:20-22).

2. Equivocation on "eternal"

"Eternal life" can mean:

• a life that lasts forever, once possessed;
• the life of the age to come, which is qualitatively eternal because it is God's own life;
• a present participation in the risen Christ, which is eternal in its source and character.

The OSAS argument often slides from the second/third sense to the first: because the life is eternal, the possession of it cannot end. But the New Testament can speak of eternal life as a present possession (John 5:24) and still warn that the one who does not abide does not have life (1 John 5:12). The eternity of the life does not answer the question of whether a person can cease to participate in it.

The fix: ask which sense the text is using, and whether the text itself connects the possession to continuing faith.

3. False dilemma: grace or conditions

The move: "If continuing in Christ is necessary, then salvation is by works."

This is a false dilemma. Scripture distinguishes means from merit. Faith is the instrument by which we receive Christ; it is not a wage. Continuing in faith is the continuation of receiving, not a payment. A branch does not earn its sap by remaining in the vine; it receives it. But a branch that is cut off does not receive it.

The same false dilemma appears as: "Either salvation is unconditional or it is earned." The biblical category is covenantal: a gift received by faith, lived in faith, and not earned by either.

The fix: ask what "condition" means. A condition can be a means of receiving, not a price of buying.

4. Illegitimate totality transfer

The move: "The Greek word menō means 'remain,' therefore John 15 is about perseverance." Or: "The Greek word harpazō means 'snatch by force,' therefore John 10:28 has nothing to do with walking away."

Both observations are true and insufficient. Words have ranges; context decides which sense is active. Menō can mean "stay," "dwell," "continue," "remain," and John uses it in several ways. Harpazō does mean "snatch," but the question is what the sentence is promising: protection from external force, or protection from every possible self-chosen departure.

The fix: show the usage in context and at least one parallel. A lexicon is a servant of exegesis, not a substitute for it.

5. Selective citation

The move: build a doctrine from the promises and never read the warnings; or build it from the warnings and never read the promises.

The first produces presumption; the second produces despair. The canon has both, and the task is to hold them together.

The fix: for every security text, read the warning passages in the same book. For every warning, read the promises in the same book. Hebrews is the test case: it has some of the strongest warnings and some of the strongest assurances (7:25; 13:5-6).

6. Misapplied promise

The move: take a promise made to a particular group and apply it to a different group.

Examples:

• "I will never blot his name out of the book of life" (Rev 3:5) is a promise to the one who conquers. It is not a promise to someone who has stopped conquering.
• "He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion" (Phil 1:6) is Paul's confidence about the Philippian partners in the gospel, not a blanket guarantee to everyone who ever made a profession.
• "Nothing can separate us from the love of God" (Rom 8:38-39) is spoken to those who love God and are called according to his purpose (8:28), in a passage that also says "if you live according to the flesh you will die" (8:13).

The fix: identify the audience and the conditions in the text before applying the promise.

7. Category mistake: gift means unconditional possession

The move: "Salvation is a gift, and a gift cannot be taken back."

A gift can be refused, neglected, or abandoned. The New Testament calls salvation a gift and also warns against neglecting it (Heb 2:3), insulting the Spirit of grace (Heb 10:29), and failing to obtain the grace of God (Heb 12:15). "Gift" answers the question of price, not the question of perseverance.

The fix: distinguish the gift's source (grace), its means (faith), and its continuance (abiding). The gift is free; the receiving is a relationship.

8. Appeal to comfort

The move: "If I could lose my salvation, I could never have peace."

This is a real pastoral concern, not a frivolous one. But comfort is not an argument. The question is whether the comfort is grounded in what God has actually promised. A peace built on a false premise is not peace; it is numbness. The gospel offers a better comfort: not "nothing you do matters," but "nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ — and he will keep you as you abide in him."

The fix: distinguish the assurance of the promises from the presumption of a system. The promises are strong enough to comfort; the warnings are strong enough to keep us honest.

9. Genetic fallacy

The move: "That's an Arminian/Catholic/works-righteousness view."

The origin of an idea does not settle its truth. Arminians, Catholics, Wesleyans, and Orthodox Christians have all affirmed conditional security; so have some Baptists, Anabaptists, and Pentecostals. That is irrelevant unless you can show that the view is exegetically wrong. (The same fallacy runs the other way: "Calvinists are just following Augustine.")

The fix: argue the text, not the tribe.

10. "No true Scotsman"

The move: "No true Christian would ever leave the faith." When pressed with an example: "Then he wasn't a true Christian."

This is the popular form of the begging-the-question fallacy. It may be true in a particular case, but as a universal rule it is unfalsifiable. The New Testament itself speaks of people who "believed for a while" and then fell away (Luke 8:13), who "made shipwreck of their faith" (1 Tim 1:19), and who "departed from the faith" (1 Tim 4:1). If the only way to preserve the system is to redefine every defector as a non-Christian, the system has stopped describing the world the Bible describes.

The fix: ask what evidence would count, in principle, as a genuine believer falling away. If the answer is "none," the view is not empirical or exegetical; it is definitional.

11. Over-realized eschatology

The move: treat glorification as already complete. "I am already seated with Christ in the heavenly places, so my future is settled."

Believers are indeed raised with Christ and seated with him (Eph 2:6; Col 3:1-4). But the New Testament also says that our life is hidden, that we await the revealing, that we must appear before the judgment seat, and that we are being saved (present tense) with a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Pet 1:5). The "already" does not cancel the "not yet."

The fix: keep the indicative and the imperative together. "You are risen with Christ" (indicative) grounds "seek the things above" (imperative), not the reverse.

12. Confusing description with prescription

The move: "David committed adultery and murder and was still called a man after God's own heart; therefore sin does not jeopardize salvation."

David's sin was real, and so was his repentance (Psalm 51). The narrative describes a believer who fell, was confronted, repented, and was restored. It does not prescribe sin, and it does not say that a person who refuses to repent remains in God's favor. The same Bible says of David's son Solomon that his heart turned away, and the kingdom was torn from him.

The fix: ask whether the text describes a stumble with repentance or a settled departure without it.

13. The false dilemma of assurance

The move: "Either I can be certain of my salvation, or I can have no assurance at all."

Scripture offers a third option: confidence in Christ that is compatible with watchfulness. "I know whom I have believed" (2 Tim 1:12) and "take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart" (Heb 3:12) are not contradictory. The first is trust in a person; the second is a warning against drifting from him.

The fix: distinguish the ground of assurance (Christ's work and promise) from the evidence of assurance (the Spirit's fruit and witness), and from the posture of assurance (humble, watchful, prayerful).

See also

• The method: text over system
• The two errors
• You teach salvation by works
• If I can lose it, I can never be assured
• They were never really saved