What is the law of the excluded middle?

119 As to contradiction or an excluded middle, I must add used in the same sense. Thus, snow is white; snow is not white. If snow is white, what is not white is not snow. What is red snow? It is in all its essential qualities what makes it snow, but it has been coloured in some way; and contradiction is simply such negatives that is, says the affirmation is not true, consequently the negative cannot be true if it is. But this supposes the term used in the same sense. A man is one single I, but there are body, soul, and spirit, which may be separated. But what Mill says is, as usual, wrong (p. 321); for an unmeaning proposition is none at all - is not true nor false, not as a proposition, but because it is not one at all. He is wrong, too, as to matter. What is infinitely divisible cannot be said to be not infinitely divisible. Whether matter exists or not has nothing to do with the question. The existence of matter is another proposition, the truth of which is assumed in the one we are treating of, as is always the case mentally. The incapacity of Mr. Mill in analysing is really astounding. Nor has sight or touch anything to do with it. Thus, if chemistry has shewn, as alleged in the atomic theory, that divisibility cannot be carried farther, then the up to that divisible thing is not infinitely divisible. Infinite divisibility may be applied to space without matter in thought. If I get space, I get extension; and if I do, I can conceive part of it.

120 In the quotations from Spencer we get the usual reference of everything to experience. Now as to phenomena I should insist on it. But reasoning has nothing to do with it. I know, without any phenomenon, that when I say a thing is not, I do not mean that it is, but to contradict it, that I am saying that the proposition is not true; if it is true, it is not true to say it is not. I have nothing to do here with the experience of objects, beyond which these men cannot get. I say, whales are mammals; it is said that whales are not mammals. If I use the word in the same sense both cannot be true, because one says the other is not, and it cannot be true and not true in the same sense. Yet I have no experience of whales - never saw one to examine it - only I know that in the usual ordinary sense of the term it is a great fish; but I have no experience of the matter; only I know what a proposition is, and what not means.

But if all be relative and relation, according to logic by the doctrine of excluded middle there must be an absolute. Not that this makes us know anything but that there must be the thing. For the truth of excluded middle is, I suspect, always simply that the term is really a negative or involves one - that is, proves that there is an intuitive consciousness that there is the thing negatived, not that we know it, and I suspect is never true but in the case of the absolute. Thus, if I say, It is good or bad, it is only if I view the term absolutely that I can say so. It is a colour, therefore not white or black, both which negative absolutely all colour. It is when a term implies that it embraces in its nature all but its opposite. Both need not (indeed cannot) be absolute, but one must be; and the reasoning is always from the non-absolute to the absolute, which can exist without anything else existing. Nothing else can; for a thing, not being absolute, is in relation. It is simply therefore the proof of the intuition of the existence of the absolute.

How often are God's people discomfited, even those who are on the right side. There is a right and a wrong side, and sometimes you will hear people say, Is not that view wrong? Is not that the wrong side to take? Quite so; one would not dare for a moment to take the wrong side. Well, is not this the right side? Is it not right to reject that evil, and so on? Not quite so fast. There are three sides to a thing, more often than two. People sometimes say there are two sides, and if A is right, then B is wrong. And if A is wrong, then B is right. Is there not another side? Suppose both are wrong. Ah, beloved, that is the point. There is the side of one and the side of the other, and there is God's side; and the point is to take His side, no matter though it seems the slow side at first, rather than the harsh, careless judgment of evil, which by its very severity lessens the sense of sin in the soul.

How often are God's people discomfited, even those who are on the right side. There is a right and a wrong side, and sometimes you will hear people say, Is not that view wrong? Is not that the wrong side to take? Quite so; one would not dare for a moment to take the wrong side. Well, is not this the right side? Is it not right to reject that evil, and so on? Not quite so fast. There are three sides to a thing, more often than two. People sometimes say there are two sides, and if A is right, then B is wrong. And if A is wrong, then B is right. Is there not another side? Suppose both are wrong. Ah, beloved, that is the point. There is the side of one and the side of the other, and there is God's side; and the point is to take His side, no matter though it seems the slow side at first, rather than the harsh, careless judgment of evil, which by its very severity lessens the sense of sin in the soul.

It is striking, to begin with, that in his three acts of the mind, he only speaks of 'doubt,' 'inference,' and 'assent.' He makes 'assent' different from 'inference,' and there he is right. I have often said, an inference is only 'must,' or therefore never really 'is.' Belief of a fact never rests on an inference, but on intuition, sight, etc., or testimony. But a man's disbelieving is not believing the contradictory. Religion is revealed - rather God and His truth; I do not believe it - I do not think there is adequate evidence and do not believe it. But I do not believe there is none. If we put truth instead of revealed religion - and the truth is - this depends on a religion being in question as revealed. Now certain things being presented to me as revealed, my being unable to receive them is not my saying there is no revealed religion. And when truth is presented to me, it must be specific truth (and there can, if it embraces all our relationship to God, be but one) but if truth be presented to me, my disbelief of it, seeing it must be positive, is not saying 'there is none.' According to Dr. Newman there are three modes of holding and three ways of enunciating propositions - each corresponding to each - three mental acts. Taking free-trade as an example, he says: "These three mental acts are doubt, inference and assent. A question is the expression of a doubt; a conclusion is the expression of an act of inference; and an assertion is the expression of an act of assent. To doubt, for instance, is not to see one's way to hold that free-trade is or is not a benefit; to infer, is to hold on sufficient grounds that free-trade may, must, or should be a benefit; to assent to the proposition, is to hold that free-trade is a benefit." "And, in fact, these three modes of entertaining propositions - doubting them, inferring them, assenting to them, are so distinct in their action, that, when they are severally carried out into the intellectual habits of an individual, they become the principles and notes of three distinct states or characters of mind. For instance, in the case of revealed religion, according as one or other of these is paramount within him, a man is a sceptic as regards it; or a philosopher, thinking it more or less probable considered as a conclusion of reason; or he has an unhesitating faith in it, and is recognised as a believer. If he simply disbelieves, or dissents, he is assenting to the contradictory of the thesis, viz., that there is no revelation." This is quite false.

92 But his logic is wholly at fault too, the comprehension of the word wholly left out. In page 6, he says: "We cannot assent to a proposition, without some intelligent apprehension of it; whereas we need not understand it at all in order to infer it. We cannot give our assent to the proposition that 'x is z,' till we are told something about one or other of the terms; but we can infer, if 'x is Y, and Y is z, that x is z, whether we know the meaning of x and z' or no." Thus the "is" is absolute, i.e., x must be all Y, and Y must be all x to be always true. Thus, snow is white, white is a colour, therefore snow is a colour. This is nice logic!

Two opposite things cannot occupy the same space at the same time.

Now, Christ declares, “He that is not with Me is against Me” (Matt. 12:30). He shows that there is no middle ground.

There is no middle class. Scripture makes that plain. Listen: "He that believeth on Him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already." And again: "He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him" (John 3:18, 36). You are a believer or an unbeliever; you are free from condemnation or condemned already; you have everlasting life or the wrath of God abides upon you. Which is it? Some say, "I'm on the fence." That cannot be, because there is no fence. A valley lay between the Israelites and the uncircumcised. And a distance that no line can measure God has put between His people and the world.

Note there is no neutrality as to position or practice in this verse. No person can say, “I am not with Christ, but I am NOT against Him.” It is either a case of “with” or “against.” Nor can a person say, “Though I do not gather, I do NOT scatter.” It is either a case of “gathering” or “scattering.” One counts two on a division. How searching this is!

To Laodicea, the last phase of the church on earth, He says," Thou art neither cold nor hot, so then because thou art lukewarm and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth." (Rev. 3:16-17.) That is, when the assembly becomes definitely "neutral," it is nauseous and abominable to Him. But let other passages of scripture testify.

"He that is not with me is against me, and he that gathereth not with me scattereth." (Luke 11:23.) Here indifference and neutrality are excluded. "He that is not against us is for us." (Mark 9:40) "He that receiveth you receiveth me, and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me." (Matt. 10:40.) In all these passages there is not the slightest hint of neutrality — "No man can serve two masters — ye cannot serve God and mammon." (Matt. 6:24.) Nay. We must be either against the Lord or for Him, we must receive Him or reject Him, we must be either gathering with Him or scattering, nor is it left for us to choose to be neutral, as to anything that affects Him as Head. It is already settled by Him, "Ye cannot."