HTCG 05

Chapter 5: Logical Thinking and Psychological Understanding

Section A: Logic and Psychology

Boman separates between logic (impartial and objective) and psychology (engaging sympathetically) in approaching reality — thinking versus understanding. But in actual experience, the two are inseparable. Still, he says, we must keep a theoretical distinction for the sake of scholarship.

Section B: The Warrant for the Two Viewpoints

He mentions Kant (logic) and Bergson (psychology) as two schools of thought debating on where to begin. What’s the foundation of knowing? Boman outlines the two approaches and concludes that they are both mistaken when they try to exclude the other.

He goes on to identify the Hebrew with the psychological and Greek as primarily logical. It would be a mistake to assume that the Hebrew approach is more primitive and less developed; it is simply different. Boman approaches the idea that the Hebrews were so focused on morals and moral reasoning that they considered systematic logic as a hindrance to human redemption.

Section C: The Independence of the Israelite Thinker

The genius of Hebrew writers was not in creativity as innovation. On the contrary, they always claimed to restore the ancient ways. This was carried into church theology with its claim to being apostolic. Rather, the genius was in absorbing foreign material and reworking it to remove idolatrous traces and confirm the singularity of Jehovah. Some sections of the Old Testament are clearly the product of very independent minds.

Unfortunately, it’s all spoiled again by Boman’s JEPD theory and partitioning of the text into primitive versus developed theology.

Section D: The Formal Peculiarity of Each Kind of Thinking

Boman reviews the Greek emphasis on thinking with their eyes, and contrasts it with the well established notion that Hebrews thought with their ears. Instead of visions of things, it was for the Hebrews the word spoken and heard.

The Greek concept of truth was something unveiled and seen clearly. For the Hebrews truth was a matter of being faithful and consistent to your calling. Hebrews were not interested in what can be verified as objectively accurate; they were interested in personal commitment to what was declared by higher authority.

In Greek, the word logos was derived from lego — “gather”. Thus, it meant collection and analysis of data. The Hebrew word for “understanding” is bin (literally: dismember, separate), from which root we gain the word binah — comprehension, discernment, insight. The image is to carve off the junk and keep the meat. Once the moral purpose is identified, nothing else matters.

I believe Boman misses when he tries to explain how parables are aimed at overcoming the initial psychological resistance people have to something they are told. It’s not about psychology, but moral truth in the heart. Parables are meant to point out something for exploration so that people will find the Lord in their own contemplations.

He’s correct when he identifies similar Hebrew words as ways of making a moral point, versus the Greek furnishing a proof. Boman mushes up the effort to explain the Hebrew use of the concept of “seeing” truth. In the Hebrew mind, the term “seeing” refers to recognition of someone or something you already know. When Hebrews argue, the point is that others “see” — recognize the character of God in their words.