(a.k.a. Fallacy of the Alternative Disjunct, False Exclusionary Disjunct, Affirming One Disjunct, The Alternative Syllogism, Asserting an Alternative, Improper Disjunctive Syllogism, Fallacy of the Disjunctive Syllogism, or Fallacy of Exclusion)
Thinking that one claim being true makes another claim false when they’re not proved mutually exclusive
Believing that one of two claims is false if the other is true when they aren’t mutually exclusive
Examples:
Christians have to decide whether they’re going to keep themselves pure from sin or love their neighbors. They must love their neighbors. Therefore, they don’t need to keep themselves pure.
We can’t separate loving our neighbors from keeping ourselves pure from sin since sin is the absence of love. The two terms aren’t mutually exclusive. In fact, they depend on each other, so that’s an example of the logical fallacy of affirming the disjunct.
Did God give us a mind to use, or are we going to look to God for revelation? We must use the mind God gave us. Therefore, we don’t look to God for revelation.
Using our minds and receiving God’s revelation aren’t mutually exclusive, so that’s another example of the logical fallacy of affirming the disjunct. In fact, God created our minds to be joined to Him, and our minds don’t work properly without the flow of the Holy Spirit. Our minds can’t know anything about anything without divine revelation. The walk in the Spirit is one of allowing the Holy Spirit to form Christ in our minds fully and to die to the deceitful and desperately wicked fleshly carnal mind completely.
On the other hand, we know of cases where one of two choices must be true, but both can’t be true. These cases wouldn’t commit this fallacy. For example, if our two choices are “God created everything,” and “God didn’t create everything,” those two statements are mutually exclusive. So, if we can prove that God created everything, we can eliminate every theory that claims that God didn’t create everything. And God proves that He created everything by divine revelation. Therefore, all theories that claim that God didn’t create everything are false. This case doesn’t commit the fallacy of affirming the disjunct.
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