The Legacy of Inconsistency:
In Defense of Hair-Splitters

There’s a term for making unnecessary, nit-picky distinctions: it’s hair-splitting. When someone accuses you of splitting hairs, they mean that you’re going to a lot of trouble to argue about something that doesn’t really matter. One of the immutable laws of the universe is that in every theological discussion, there will be at least one hair-splitter (and a really good discussion requires at least three of them)! All of which leads the layman to ask, “Why bother? Aren’t these things too trivial to merit discussion?”

God’s logic

A fine example of this occurred to me not long ago. During the course of a discussion about God and rationality, someone made the comment, “Sometimes God isn’t logical.” Now, I knew what he meant. God’s ways are higher than our ways, and sometimes we cannot fathom the logic behind God’s actions.

But I decided to split a hair.

“Just because we don’t understand God’s actions doesn’t mean they are not the result of a coherent, logical plan,” I said.

After all, to assert that God is illogical is to say that a man can somehow comprehend logic in such a way as to measure God by that standard and determine if His actions qualify. Can a man judge God? Of course not. Therefore a man cannot conclude that ‘sometimes God isn’t logical.’

The reaction I received was typical. “Uh, yeah, I agree. I guess I should have used more precise language around you.”

Ah, the burden of being the hair-splitter! So often shrugged off, so often misunderstood. Why was it necessary for me to make such a finely grained distinction? Why couldn’t I just let it pass, since I knew that the other person didn’t really mean that God was irrational? Believe it or not, the answer is not some deep-seated flaw in my personality. I split hairs because I actually think it matters.

The logic of inconsistency

One of the consequences of being created in God’s image is having the ability to reason. Animals have intelligence, but only we have the rationality to construct arguments from observations in the quest for truth. Since we are reasoning creatures, we like consistency. Deep down we understand that two things cannot contradict one another and both be true. So we harmonize our beliefs to insure that they are consistent.

According to R. K. McGregor Wright, “compromised systems are unstable and tend without powerful restraint to slip into modes of greater consistency.”[i] What this means is that if we make a mistake and really believe it, our next step will be to harmonize our other assumptions to bring them in line with the error. In our fallen condition, consistency is more reassuring than truth. We would rather embrace a system of lies than hold on to two truths without being able to harmonize them. 

My friend didn’t think it was too great a fault to say that God is illogical. He knew that God really isn’t irrational, but wanted to point out that sometimes it seems that way. He just took a shortcut to saying it and in the process introduced a little error into his statement. But he would never have dreamed of elaborating on it. I’m sure that if I had let his comment slide, he would not have built a more elaborate theory about God’s irrationality.

The legacy of inconsistency

But that’s not to say that nobody would. McGregor Wright says that, “For every inconsistent teacher there are several of their students who are quite willing to drive the truck of heresy through the holes the master has left in the semiorthodox fence.”[ii] That’s the legacy of inconsistency: one generation’s innocent mistake becomes the next generation’s cherished assumption. The teacher who admits that God is sometimes illogical will have students who insist that God is frequently illogical. And the following generation will question whether God is ever logical.

It is far more difficult to spot the last generation’s error and weed it out than to drag truth down to the level of error we inherited.

Some mistakes seem trivial but lead to significant thought shifts. Paul teaches salvation by grace through faith apart from works. Then someone comes along and says salvation is by grace, but our works are a pre-condition for God’s grace. He might never imagine a gospel of works, but his students will soon rationalize the system and arrive at precisely that. What begins as a seemingly trivial mistake ends in an egregious error.

 And that’s why we need hair-splitters. That’s why we need people who will suffer the shrugs and sighs to insist that Christians speak with precision when they deal with doctrinal truth. We need people who care about the jots and tittles, who aren’t afraid to delve into the minutiae of the faith, who are willing to keep a thousand seemingly-pointless distinctions in the proper logical sequence.

Sometimes a far-seeing visionary can, with the aid of a telescope, make great leaps forward. The hair-splitter, armed with his magnifying glass, insures that in the meantime we don’t slip back.