I saw the following comment posted by Joel Garver on Barb’s blog (here) and thought it would be worth posting again.

One should keep in mind also, that, often a “contradiction” in this kind of context isn’t any sort of straightforward contradiction. That’s to say, it’s not as if folks generally go around affirming A and not-A at the same time.

Instead, what one sees is a person affirming A and also affirming B and someone interprets B as entailing not-A, thus implying a contradiction.

But even that entailment (e.g., B, therefore not-A) is not often so straightforward, but requires the introduction of additional premises and entailments. If, however, the person affirming A doesn’t accept those additional premises or entailments, then he or she isn’t going to accept that there’s a contradiction.

In that case, one shouldn’t be discussing so much whether or not the person affirms not-A as well as A, but what sorts of assumptions might make one suppose that B entails not-A and whether those assumptions are correct.

For instance, if I were to affirm that one receives remission of sins by faith alone, but also affirmed that one receives remission of sins in baptism when rightly received, then someone might suggest there is a contradiction there. But demonstrating such a contradiction would require assuming and then showing that baptism and faith are both here filling the same office in my theology in relation to remission of sins, which would seem to undermine faith’s exclusive role.

If I replied that, no, faith alone receives remission of sins, but that the remission of sins is promised and held out to us in Christ in baptism as much as it is in the ministry of the word or in the Lord’s Supper and is to be received only by faith in all those places, then the seeming contradiction would dissolve.

I’m just attempting here to suggest that there’s been a lack of clarity (often on various sides) in how items such as purported “contradiction” have functioned in these discussions.