Beyond Logic

by

Perspectives

Oboedire | August 19, 2025 

As I work my way through the swamp of imperialism, I find myself saying or hear others saying, “I don’t understand how anyone could believe that. It doesn’t make sense.”

But here’s the thing: it makes sense to the person who believes it. Our beliefs always seem logical. Why? Because they affirm our values. The determining factor in life is not logic, but virtue. Our minds make sense of things on the basis of our ethics.

I used to think about philosophy as a thought process rooted in logic. But when I took the time to listen to philosophers (ancient and modern), I learned they are lovers of wisdom, and wisdom is the life that flows from the classical virtues. In Stoicism, for example, these are the virtues of courage, temperance, justice, and wisdom. Today we sum them up in the phrase “the common good.” Logic is the servant of our convictions.

So, if someone thinks one race, gender, or sexual orientation is superior to the others, they will be supremacists in someway. They will logically devise beliefs and behaviors that manifest their morality. They never call their attitudes and actions immoral. Their beliefs and practices are logical to them because they express their values.

Life is formed beyond logic. So when we find ourselves thinking that someone’s words and deeds “do not make sense,” it’s not because they are illogical but because they arise from a different value system.

And what is true of others is true of us too. Consequently, for those of us who are in the Judeo-Christian tradition, holiness is the aim—behavior rooted in the qualities Paul named the fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23). In other religions, the idea of having “a good heart” is the way it’s described. But whatever we name it, it is life beyond logic. It is conduct shaped by the character-istics we hold. We do what we are.