The method of testing a claim (dokimazō)
Status: Working notes Faith & Logic Published August 25, 2026
“The first principle is that you must not fool yourself — and you are the easiest person to fool.” — Richard P. Feynman, “Cargo Cult Science” (1974)
“I did my research” is often not research. It is a search arranged to confirm a conclusion already chosen. Familiar wording is not verification. A collection of agreeing pages is not a list of independent witnesses.
The first audiences already had a word for the work itself. Paul’s charge is to test them (dokimazete) — δοκιμάζετε — to assay. First hearers knew the bench: the coin is tried in order to see whether it is gold. Proverbs 17:3 already places persons in that furnace: the crucible is for silver, the furnace for gold, and the LORD tests hearts. Claims receive the same trial. So does the person who holds them. The Bereans in Acts 17:11 applied that motion to Scripture. They examined (anakrinontes) — ἀνακρίνοντες — daily, not once, and not only the speaker they preferred. 2 Timothy 2:15 states the same standard from the other side of the work: a straight cut (orthotomeō) — ὀρθοτομέω — that can be inspected. This page applies that cut to sources and to claims.
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.” — 2 Timothy 2:15
A published method does not make the writer unbiased. It makes the handling open to failure. The moves below can be used against any argument, including those written here.
A claim is a sentence offered as true. It is not yet an argument. An argument is premises offered to establish a conclusion. The work begins when those two are named.
Premise: What is offered as given. It may be a verse in context, a table, a dated event, or a confession marked as such. If it has been introduced without being stated, it is not yet a premise. It is an undeclared assumption.
Conclusion: What is said to follow. One sentence. If two conclusions stand in one sentence, separate them before either is tested.
The argument is the relation between those two. Length is not that relation. Agreement in a discussion is not that relation.
These are three methods of inference — the step from what is given to what is said to follow. They do not bear the same weight.
Deduction: If the premises are true and the form holds, the conclusion must follow. It does not add content the premises did not already contain. A valid syllogism can still be empty if the premises are false.
Induction: The premises make the conclusion more probable. Strength is a matter of degree. Sample size, independence, and base rate all count. One account is not a pattern.
Abduction: Inference to the explanation that covers the facts with the least strain. Occam’s razor limits extra entities here. It does not prove that the simplest story is true. Abduction is how a working hypothesis is formed. It is not how a confession is established.
Calculation: Treat a mid-stakes inductive step from one independent observation as raising confidence from 0.5 to 0.6. Ten independent observations of the same kind can compound. Ten reprints of one observation cannot.