The phrase good and necessary consequence was used more commonly several centuries ago to express the idea which would today fall under the general heading of

logic Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the science of deductively valid inferences or of logical truths. It is a formal science investigating how conclusions follow from premises ...

; that is, to reason validly by logical deduction or better,

deductive reasoning Deductive reasoning is the mental process of drawing deductive inferences. An inference is deductively valid if its conclusion follows logically from its premises, i.e. if it is impossible for the premises to be true and the conclusion to be fals ...

. Even more particularly, it would be understood in terms of

term logic In philosophy, term logic, also known as traditional logic, syllogistic logic or Aristotelian logic, is a loose name for an approach to formal logic that began with Aristotle and was developed further in ancient history mostly by his followers, th ...

, also known as traditional logic. Many today would also consider good and necessary consequence to be part of formal logic, which deals with the ''form'' (or logical form) of arguments as to which are valid or invalid. In this context, one may better understand the word "good" in the phrase "good and necessary consequence" more technically as intending a "valid argument form." One of the best recognized articulations of the authoritative and morally binding use of good and necessary consequence to make deductions from Scripture appears in probably the most famous of

Protestant Protestantism is a Christian denomination, branch of Christianity that follows the theological tenets of the Reformation, Protestant Reformation, a movement that began seeking to reform the Catholic Church from within in the 16th century agai ...

confessions of faith A creed, also known as a confession of faith, a symbol, or a statement of faith, is a statement of the shared beliefs of a community (often a religious community) in a form which is structured by subjects which summarize its core tenets. The ea ...

, the

Westminster Confession of Faith The Westminster Confession of Faith is a Reformed confession of faith. Drawn up by the 1646 Westminster Assembly as part of the Westminster Standards to be a confession of the Church of England, it became and remains the " subordinate standard" ...

(1646), Chapter 1, sec. 6, as well as in others, including the

Heidelberg Catechism The Heidelberg Catechism (1563), one of the Three Forms of Unity, is a Protestant confessional document taking the form of a series of questions and answers, for use in teaching Calvinist Christian doctrine. It was published in 1563 in Heidelberg, ...

, and the

Belgic Confession The ''Confession of Faith'', popularly known as the Belgic Confession, is a doctrinal standard document to which many of the Reformed churches subscribe. The Confession forms part of the Three Forms of Unity of the Reformed Church, which are still ...

References

* Carlos Bovell, ''By Good and Necessary Consequence: A Preliminary Genealogy of Biblicist Foundationalism'' (WIPF and Stock), 2009. Term logic Deductive reasoning {{Christian-theology-stub