Either/Or Dialogues

By: Elihu Carranza

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

This book examines the biblical, binary reality of either/or disjunctions framed as dialogues regarding God, creation, and creatures. The dialogists' names serve to depict an exchange of thoughts. The mind from which these spring is the author's, as Professor Tweedy Flynch (TF) and Professor Buck Calhoun (BC). As a man thinks, so is he. (Proverbs 23:7) As the creature thinks in his heart, his thinking finds expression in the realities of life at all levels. Such thinking is framed by and operates within the structure of a worldview.
A worldview is a set of assumptions or presuppositions that function as axioms about God and reality. They control all thought and determine all perception and behavior. Every rational creature develops and possesses a worldview whether one is acknowledged or not. These dialogues are the product of the author's worldview. The worldview is Christianity or Scripturalism,. Scripturalism can be thought of as the system of truths deduced from Scriptures alone. Its axiom is The Bible is the Word of God from which one deduces Scripturalism, the biblical worldview or frame of reference.
Each dialogue addresses a biblical disjunction, a complete disjunction. A complete disjunction has this property: to deny one alternate is to accept the other no matter which disjunct is denied. If the disjunction is symbolized as (p v q), i.e., 'either p or q,' where the letters are variables for two alternates, then to deny one, say 'not-p,' logically implies the alternate, 'q.' To reject one is to accept the alternate. Some dichotomies are incomplete disjunctions. If a disjunction is offered as a complete disjunction when in fact it is obviously not one, then it merits the label 'false dichotomy.'
The biblical disjunctions considered in these dialogues are complete, i.e., closed to a third choice or one that combines elements of the two alternates, or that allows one to switch from one to the other based on an epistemology that is self-centered and thus mutable depending on what choice satisfies the individual on any given day or occasion. Moreover, the dialogues, framed as "either/or" conversations, provide context for thought-experiments to explore the epistemologies of worldview thinking. The reality of biblical disjunctive arguments as subjects for exploration is assumed. A reader will find here no attempt to establish or argue for them as exclusive either/or options or even as moral imperatives for thought and life. If the reader seeks proof for the validity of treating the selected disjunctions as examples of biblical complete disjunctions, he or she must seek elsewhere. There is no attempt to persuade anyone or to argue for the Christian worldview known as Scripturalism. If a reader is attracted to this witness of the truth, the Bible is available for all who seek its accurate, reliable, true descriptions of events, persons, prophesies, doctrines, corrections, and instructions. These speak with the voice of ultimate authority, the voice of God, the God of Truth..