Teaching Value-Based Reasoning

Jacob and Esau

By Pastor Bill Neil

Most, if not all, of the decisions we make and the opinions we hold are produced by a process of reasoning.

We have a responsibility to help our children develop a healthy process of reasoning.

What is bad reasoning? It doesn’t mean bad decisions, because reasoning is not an action. It is a process. That process may concern decisions about yourself, another person, or even a situation.

The  International Journal of Philosophical Studies says that reason is a term that refers to the capacity human beings have to make sense of things, to establish and verify facts, and to change or justify practices, institutions, and beliefs.

Miriam Webster defines reason as: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense; especially: something that supports a conclusion or explains a fact.

This is why it’s so important to train our children in the Art of Reason, as Proverbs 22:6 tells us: “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”

The word train here means to narrow, to initiate or discipline.

If anything you can help your children develop reasoning skills it will be the narrowing of the playing field.

The philosophy of reasoning involves a number of proven factors, storage and retrieval skills being at the foundation. The thinker is able to transfer information to and from long-term memory.

This is one reason younger siblings tend to avoid the spanks their older siblings had.

He did that and got spanked so I’m not going to do that. She got burned when she touched the hot stove so I’m not going to touch the hot stove.

This part of reasoning is visceral. God has placed this ability in the make-up of every human being.

Matching skills are also instinctive, but desperately need to be shaped and trained. There are five aspects of matching reasoning skills: categorization, extrapolation, analogical, evaluation of logic and evaluation of value.

Some scriptural examples include matching sin to death, as in Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Also, matching believing in Jesus to eternal life, as in John 3:36: “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life; whoever does not obey the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains on him.”

When all is said and done the cornerstone to all conclusive reasoning lies in the evaluation of value.

This is the process of matching information to an internalized value system and analyzing each concept or solution by those values. Here’s one of the keys to protecting our kids from bad reasoning: Impart a biblically based value system of reasoning.

Or, as Pastor Warner puts it, “Teach your children to think biblically.”

One of the enemies to healthy valued based reasoning is emotional reasoning.

For example: a young boy likes a girl at school; She doesn’t believe as he does, but she’s smart, nice and really pretty. A young girl likes the captain of the football team. He does party a little, but she is struck by how he always pays attention to her and how he treats her differently than all the other guys.

Emotional reasoning will always block the way for valued based reasoning.

Whenever reasoning has crossed over into the emotional minefield, watch out. Nothing that a parent does at this point is fair. You don’t understand. You don’t remember what it was like being a teenager in love.

An example in the Bible where we can see emotions completely dominating a decision is found in Genesis 25:30-32, where Esau has lost all value based reasoning. He has become so emotional over his own situation that he is willing to give away the most vital asset for his future.

“And Esau said to Jacob, ‘Let me eat some of that red stew, for I am exhausted!’ (Therefore his name was called Edom). Jacob said, "Sell me your birthright now." Esau said, "I am about to die; of what use is a birthright to me?"

The reality to this story is that bad reasoning can impact generations to come. Emotional reasoning will cause you to lose sight of consequences, your family, your children, and your future.

Esau says, “What use is this birthright to me?” The point is that the birthright wasn’t just for Esau, but emotions blinded him.

Something else that erodes the evaluation of values is hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy is so confusing to a child. "Do what I say, not as I do" disrupts this whole process of valued based reasoning.

When children consistently see their parents living a different life at home than they do in public, this has a long-term negative impact. The lines of value become blurred.

James 1:8 tells us “A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways.” The double-minded make everything around them unstable as well. Pop culture is chipping away at values on every level and with every possible medium: music, media, movies, and the new peer pressure, social networking.

The only way to counterweight a dysfunctional pop culture is with an intact family. Real culture always protects from pop culture. We have to ask the question: Who’s constructing the value system in our child's life? Especially where it concerns  destructive attitudes and decisions that can hurt their future: sexuality, independence, love, lust, and infatuation?

Once you impart a biblically based value system of reasoning in your son and daughter they will be able to move into the final skill set of reasoning: executive procedures also known as common sense reasoning.

It consists of elaboration or inferred reasoning, problem solving (gathering information in order to calculate) and composing ideas (this is the place where impressions and opinions are formed).

This is what was lacking in Esau when it came to how he felt about his situation, his birthright, and his future.

As parents we must anticipate bad reasoning. Expect your children to process incorrectly. Don’t be surprised.

As much as we train, teach, instruct, and come to church, our kids will still think things and do things that make you double-take. When they leave you scratching your head, don’t panic! Don’t parent with your head in the sand.

When we read about Esau and the trouble he had with Jacob, all we have to do is look at verse 28 of Genesis chapter 25 to see where the improper judgment and reasoning was birthed: “Isaac loved Esau because he ate of his game, but Rebekah loved Jacob.”

So, you don’t think that this kind of parenting is going to cause problems between siblings? You don’t think that this is going to cause some critical thinking issues, some reasoning problems, when it comes to judging life’s value?

Parents must avoid favoritism. Acts 10:34 says, “So Peter opened his mouth and said: ‘Truly I understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears Him and does what is right is acceptable to Him.’”

Favoritism removes any objectivity in reasoning.

Fear is another interruption to healthy reasoning. You can hear this in Esau’s reasoning: “I’m going to die.”

Esau was completely out of balance. Fear a lot of times is birthed out of an unhealthy focus on self. As it tells us in II Timothy 1:7, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind/reasoning.”

Faith is the end place to which we want to bring our children. To believe God for all of life.

He knows the beginning to the end. If you want to direct your child’s reasoning toward a biblical conclusion, help them to compose ideas from a biblical point of reasoning.

Here are a few things that parents must anticipate:

Quitting due to fear of failure, fear of looking stupid to peers, and discouragement. Teach them to fight through. They will be stronger for it.

Entitlement – Every child gets to an age when they feel like they deserve to be treated like an adult. We will say something like, “then stop acting like a baby.” Nonetheless, this is a very natural process.

Love, Lust, and Infatuation – You are going to have to help your kids find their way off of Fantasy Island. Please don’t panic when your teen has a crush or wants to talk about John in Math class. “I deserve a girlfriend because everyone else has a girlfriend.”

The execution of value based reasoning is so important right here. We are taking on more than just the emotions of our children, but the emotions of friends, words in a song, scenes in a movie, advertisements in a magazine, along with their own self-image.

The Blame Game – This starts early and can continue throughout life. However, training in personal responsibility reasoning has to be a parental priority.

Always needing to be right is steeped in pride. “It’s the woman you gave me; it’s the serpent…”

Rebellion – Josh McDowall says, “Rules without relationship lead to rebellion.” Relationship reasoning will help solve the rebellion problem, not just rules reasoning.

Not wanting to go to church – There has to be a directing of desire and a careful consideration of the influences in this area. Why, is always a good place to start.

All of these come along with the turf of child development and really cannot be fought against, but they can be influenced properly. As Allen Bloom puts it: “Teaching our children is simply flowing with nature.”