In the 1970s, British philosopher Antony Flew coined the phrase, “No true Scotsman.” This expression stands for a well-known logical fallacy: A proponent of a position attempts to protect that position from counterexamples by modifying a definition after the fact, rather than revising his thinking to align with new evidence.
Flew’s example goes like this:
Person A: “No Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person B: “But my uncle Angus is a Scotsman, and he puts sugar on his porridge.”
Person A: “Ah, but no true Scotsman puts sugar on his porridge.”
Instead of accepting the counterexample, the definition of Scotsman is changed to exclude the inconvenient case. It’s a subtle workaround by which people can protect their beliefs rather than follow the evidence.
We frequently encounter this logical fallacy in theological discussions, but instead of “No true Scotsman,” the idea is, “No true Christian.” In theological circles and publications we often encounter qualifiers such as true, real, or genuine to describe believers. These terms function as protective barriers, maintaining a definition of who counts as a Christian according to the speaker’s or writer’s often subjective standards. Frequently, they are used to dismiss or explain away cases that do not fit a preferred theological model.
For example:
Person A: “No Christian would ever fall away.”
Person B: “But Demas forsook the mission, and abandoned Paul” (2 Tim 4:10).
Person A: “Demas wasn’t a true Christian.”
Rather than acknowledging the counterexample, Person A changes the category mid-argument. The result is that the claim becomes unfalsifiable. Instead of prompting a reexamination of the claim itself, anyone who appears to be a contradiction is simply declared “not a true believer.”
John MacArthur and Wayne Grudem exemplify such argumentation. MacArthur commonly taught that true believers will inevitably produce spiritual fruit and persevere in obedience. Those who fail to do so are frequently said to have never been genuinely saved:
“…real salvation cannot, and will not, fail to produce works of righteousness in the life of a true believer” (emphasis added). (MacArthur, The Gospel According to Jesus: What Is Authentic Faith? p. xiii.)
Note that MacArthur even uses the fallacy in the subtitle of the book; he qualifies Christian faith with the word authentic.
Wayne Grudem uses similar qualifying language in his discussion of the Perseverance of the Saints. He defines perseverance on the basis of who counts as “truly” born again:
The perseverance of the saints means that all those who are truly born again will be kept by God’s power and will persevere as Christians until the end of their lives, and that only those who persevere until the end have been truly born again” (emphasis added). (Grudem, Systematic Theology, p. 788.)
Both men have adopted the “No true Scotsman” fallacy. When confronted—in both the Bible and personal experience—with believers who fail to uphold these men’s theological requirements, they dismiss such people as being not “true” Christians.
The result is that when believers such as Demas, Simon (Acts 8), some readers of the book of Hebrews, and some modern-day believers fall, they are categorized as unsaved. Just as a “true Scotsman” would never use sugar on his porridge, a true Christian could never fall into serious moral or theological error.
This kind of statement is a logical fallacy. It makes as much sense as insisting that a Scotsman who likes sugar is not really a Scotsman. Both views are silly and should be rejected.
