Tips for Critical Thinking: What is Reason?

Social media reveals how poorly we think.

The advent of social media and our latent social media addictions really expose the lack of critical thinking skills in our culture today—and that’s a sad thing! One example, MAVEN had a viral clip on Instagram last year with Christian apologist Christopher Yuan as he discussed the barrage of LGBT propaganda besetting our kids in popular culture and public schools. For whatever reason, the algorithmic overlords picked up the video and it received numerous responses. Many people in the comments were adamant that what Christopher was talking about was not happening:

“Well, I don't see this in my school so it's not happening at all.”

“No this is false. I'm a teacher and I haven't seen any of this.” 

Pause for a second; think about that response. Is this sound reasoning?

One way to check for poor thinking in various claims or ideas is to show a counter-example. This helps people see the claim’s reasoning more clearly. Let’s take that same reasoning process of “Well, I teach in a school and I haven't seen LBGT propaganda taught, therefore, it's not happening” and come up with a counter-example: 

In the ocean, people claim that some have been attacked by sharks. Have you ever been attacked by a shark? Have you ever seen someone attacked by a shark? If you answered no (and I sincerely hope you did), then it must be that shark attacks don't happen.

This is the same reasoning process. Absurd, right?

Now, social media isn’t really the place to win people over with complex arguments, but it does expose how entrenched in bad thinking we can be. Today, we seem to be surrounded by so much bad thinking that we would be careless if we thought we or our kids were immune. How do we equip our kids and our families with the tools they need to spot these big mistakes? How do we keep ourselves from these pitfalls? 

What is Reason?

“Reason” is simply the mind’s ability to think, understand, and come to conclusions about the world. We do this all the time. You’re doing it right now as you read: You’re taking in the words on the page and (hopefully) making sense of it. 

Reasoning comes naturally to us because of our nature as human beings made in God’s image. Part of that image means we are rational creatures with this potentiality for reason: to think, understand, look for evidence, and draw conclusions. 

Even kids do this (and if you’re a parent, you can likely attest to this). When a four-year-old discovers that their Lego set has been kicked over, their mind may immediately flash to their younger sibling who, based on previous experience, is notorious for destructive Lego set hit-and-runs. They’ve been gathering evidence for two years and now have enough to convict (i.e. scream out their sibling’s name and let the rampage ensue.) In their little mind, they are reasoning—exhibiting, in a simple way, one of the beautiful expressions of God's image.

Set An Example By Reasoning Well

Truth is, the vast majority of us have never received formal training in good thinking: logic or reasoning. Critical thinking training used to be a staple of education at the most basic level. It was how you honed your reasoning skills and prepared to enter the real world. But since this faculty of reason is rooted in the image of God, we want to make sure we steward this ability well, not just for us but as an example to our kids.

Back to our opening example of poor thinking: “Well, I teach in a school and I haven't seen LGBT propaganda taught therefore it's not happening.” As we demonstrated with the shark attack counterexample, this objection is purely based on experience. Experience (or lived experience) is a bit of a buzz phrase in our culture that is heavily emphasized as a type of evidence. Experiences are wrapped up in our emotions and perceptions. Sure, our experiences are important—they certainly shape us—but we don't want to base our reasoning on our experiences alone.

Critical thinking puts boundaries around our experiences. It keeps us from extrapolating from a personal experience and applying it to everyone else. It doesn’t discredit what we go through but it also keeps us from being self-absorbed. 

If we prop ourselves up as the center of the universe or make our experiences the standard of all authority, then we won't we won't be humble people. We won't listen well to others. We won't be teachable. Instead, we will be people who think we have everything all figured out. Reasoning well is directly connected to living well and to good and honorable character.

We want to demonstrate to the little ones watching us that we can take thinking about things seriously and can put feelings aside at times, especially when we're presented with facts about something. 

We want to equip you—whether you’re a parent, grandparent, or anyone who’s a stakeholder in the life of a child—to set an example as someone who takes thinking seriously and goes about life in a thoughtful and reflective way. Over the next couple of articles, we’ll outline several useful strategies for sharpening your critical thinking skills. Stay tuned.