Arguments that use the gender or race of the arguer as a reason to dismiss their opponents are fallacious. They both commit the logical fallacy called ad hominin. This fallacy is when you attack the person making the argument instead of the argument itself. As Christians who pursue the truth wherever we may find it, we should never use this kind of argumentation, and we should never accept arguments that do, even if the conclusion supports our position. 

Critical thinking seems to be on the decline. At least, that is how it feels, but I doubt that is the case. It has probably always been this way. As scripture reminds us, there is nothing new under the sun. Poor reasoning is a product of the fall. Sin affects the way we think, and we all struggle with it. In theology, we call this the noetic effects of sin. We are morally compromised, and we will often work to suppress truths that do not align with our fallen biases.
Our propensity to reason poorly is evident today in arguments made for and against controversial topics closely related to gender and race. For example, a man will argue against abortion philosophically, and the opponent will dismiss it because the arguer is male, but arguments do not have genitalia. Plenty of women make the same arguments, so the attempt to dismiss it based on gender is impotent.
Another area where this kind of bias affects reasoning is topics related to race. Many people say that one race cannot speak about the struggles of another race because race A has never experienced what it is like to be race B. Therefore, anytime someone of race A makes a point that contradicts what someone of race B says, it will be dismissed as irrelevant even if it is logical.
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Like the rest of Scripture, the psalms are both divinely inspired and thoroughly human. Even more wondrously, they are simultaneously God’s words to us and our words to God. Most important, these spiritual songs filled and expressed the heart of the eternal Word made flesh. They prophesied cosmic wholeness, and they fed the soul of the human who’d accomplish it.

Our era is marked by a deep hunger for wholeness, intactness, integrity. We’re all painfully aware that—globally, nationally, and personally—“things fall apart.” Christians know the Lord is the one in whom all things hold together (Col. 1:17) and that he’ll return to bring full healing to a fallen, fragmented world. But what happens in the meantime—when, under severe pressure, our most personal way of connecting to him collapses as well? If we’re not careful, efforts to bind up a brokenhearted faith can create further fractures within our souls.
In a moving personal reflection, James K. A. Smith describes himself as a philosopher who has lost faith in the religiously persuasive power of reason. Smith isn’t advocating an anti-intellectual faith; he’s calling for anti-intellectualism in connecting to Christian truth. He decries the emotional barrenness and pastoral ineptitude of the “baseline Platonic picture of the human person in which reason rules the passions and emotions.”
Smith’s confidence in philosophy (as he frames it) crumbled during a time of deep depression when reason couldn’t make sense of his condition, much less lift him from a pit of inexplicable despair. He lauds the presence of his counselor who, instead of offering abstract analysis, lovingly jumped in beside him.
Seeing his personal despair writ large in culture, Smith concludes that “we can’t think our way out of this mess.” Tired of trading in the “truths of the intellect,” he announces: “I’m throwing in my lot with the poets and painters, the novelists and songwriters.”
My purpose here is not to directly respond to Smith (others have done so). If Smith is merely rejecting rationalism and its residue in Western faith, then with him I say “good riddance.” His vision for creative art’s contributions to faith and human wholeness is beautiful. Yet there is a warning in the way that—in tune with our tribalistic times—Smith praises good things partly by punishing other good things for being different.
Fragmented Faith
Smith cites Hans Urs von Balthasar as motivation for a new modus operandi: “Love alone is credible; nothing else can be believed, and nothing else ought to be believed.” Smith reasons, “If love alone is credible, literature is truer than philosophy.” He wants to write with “allure rather than acuity,” in a way that works “from the imagination up. Philosophy is out because it “doesn’t ‘speak’ imagination,” and the logician “speaks a tongue that’s foreign to the heart.”
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There is only one cure for a lack of fruit in our Christian lives. It is to go back to Christ and enjoy (yes, enjoy) our union with Him. 

The Westminster Confession of Faith insists that Christians may be “certainly assured that they are in the state of grace” (18:1) and goes on to assert that this “infallible assurance of faith” is “founded upon” three considerations:

“the divine truth of the promises of salvation”
“the inward evidence of those graces unto which these promises are made”
“the testimony of the Spirit of adoption witnessing with our spirits that we are children of God” (18:2).

The possibility of “certain” and “infallible” assurance is set against the backdrop of medieval and post-Reformation Roman Catholic views that paralyzed the church with an “assurance” that was at best “conjectural” (wishful thinking), based as it was on rigorous participation in a sacramental treadmill. Few epitomized the contrast more starkly than Cardinal Bellarmine (1542–1621), the personal theologian to Pope Clement VIII and ablest leader of the Counter-Reformation, who called the Protestant doctrine of assurance “the greatest of all heresies.” What, after all, could be more offensive to a works-based and priest-imparted system of salvation than the possibility that assurance could be attained without either? If Christians can attain an assurance of eternal life apart from participation in the church’s rituals, what possible outcome could there be other than rampant antinomianism (the belief that God’s commandments are optional)?
But what exactly did the Westminster divines mean when they implied that our assurance is “founded upon” inward evidence? Behind this statement lies a practical syllogism:
(major premise) True believers demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit.(minor premise) The fruit of the Spirit is present in me.(conclusion) I am a true believer.
It should be obvious that the subjectivity of this argument is fraught with difficulty. While the certainty of salvation is grounded upon the (objective) work of Christ, the certainty of assurance is grounded upon the (objective) promises God gives us and the (subjective) discovery of those promises at work in us. And it is this latter consideration that gives rise to one or two problems.
Theologians have made a distinction between the direct and reflexive acts of faith. It is one thing to believe that Christ can save me (direct act of faith). It is another thing to believe that I have believed (reflexive act of faith). Apart from the first consideration (that Christ is both willing and able to save) there can be no assurance of faith. Indeed, it is pointless to move forward with the discussion about assurance apart from a conviction of the truthfulness of this statement: “Christ is able to save those who believe.”
Assuming, then, that there is no doubt as to the ability and willingness of Christ to save those who believe, how may I be assured that I have this belief? The answer of the New Testament at this point is clear: there is an “obedience of faith” (Rom. 1:5; 16:26). True faith manifests itself in outward, tangible ways. In other words, the New Testament draws a connection between faithfulness and the enjoyment of assurance. True believers demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, and this fruit is observable and measurable.
Four Ways of Knowing
The Apostle John addresses this very issue in his first epistle: “I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life” (1 John 5:13). Apart from belief “in the name of the Son of God,” there is no point in furthering the discussion about assurance. The question at hand is, “How can I know if my belief is genuine?” And John’s answer emphasizes four moral characteristics of the Christian life.
First, there is obedience to the commandments of God. “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments” (1 John 5:2–3). True faith is not and can never be antinomian.
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