What is a presupposition? We all have them. There is a common saying that comes to mind when we think along the lines of pre-conceived opinions. “Opinions are like (a certain body part), everyone has one.”
Presuppositions are very similar to opinions with the exception that generally our opinions are formed by our presuppositions. If I, being a Christian, believe that God has revealed who he is through the pages of the Bible, then the Bible is going to be the basis through which I judge everything. If someone believes that God doesn’t exist, then everything that they do and think will be filtered through that lens. The irony is that the evidence that the atheist holds so dearly is the exact same evidence that the believers in God hold to as well. The only difference between the two is which lens they choose to view the evidence through. All the evidence is the same.
The differences between the theist and the atheist are easy to recognize, but the differences between those who believe in God are much more difficult to distinguish. Why is that? Presuppositions. My goal here is not to question the different beliefs of the different theistic religions; that will be handled later. My goal is to examine why those who call themselves “Christians” have so many differing beliefs. I’m not talking about the peripheral issues that often cause people to separate along denominational lines, but the issues that distort the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The biggest question regarding presuppositions is the question of authority. Who or what is the final authority in all matters? For the Christian, it must be the Scriptures because it is only through them that we are able to know anything pertaining to what we believe regarding Jesus Christ. It is only through the pages of the Bible that we are able to find out who he is, how he lived, what he taught and did, and ultimately how he procured our salvation through his death, burial, and resurrection. We find all these things out in the New Testament, but if anyone thinks that Old Testament is unnecessary because they do not teach us about the life and death of Jesus Christ; they are sadly mistaken. It is through the OT that we learn the history of the promised Messiah right from the very beginning. God’s purpose of sending the Son finds its origins even before the foundation of the world. The Scriptures, both Old and New testaments, provide us with a complete picture of redemptive history. This is a very brief summary of the Scriptures say but throughout this series I will be providing more details as I explore the theology of the Bible and how we should live according to it, regardless of what society tries to tell us.
Recently, Gospel Coalition tweeted a quote from Matt Chandler, which stated that “If you’re not confident in the authority of the Scriptures, you’ll be a slave to what sounds right.” This quote is pretty much the point I’m trying to make. If the Scriptures are not your authority, then anything goes. What really happens is that we set ourselves up as the ultimate authority which means that we evaluate everything through the lens that makes the most sense to us. Unfortunately, this is what is happening to many who profess to be Christians. It does not make sense to contradict the teachings of the one you claim to follow.
Allow me to provide an example, of which I’m sure I will catch some heat but it is more important for me to accurately represent the clear teaching of Scripture than to be fall in line with the current cultural mindset. The amazingly fast ideology of the current culture is that all people, regardless of sexual orientation deserve the right to marry if they so choose. The necessary questions to ask are: What is marriage? Where did the idea of marriage come from? What is the purpose of marriage? The answers to these questions, especially the last are not going to be what most people would expect. Let’s first examine where the concept of marriage did not come from. There is no way that the concept of marriage could ever arise out of an evolutionary mindset. Why not? If evolution is the correct interpretation of how we got here today, then the idea of one man and one woman coming together in order to assure that there are offspring in order to continue the line, makes no sense. What makes sense is that a man should have as many women as possible in order to assure more offspring and then if some of the women produce weaker offspring than they should be eliminated so that the weaker of the species will die off. The idea of a woman with woman or a man with a man makes even less sense because they cannot produce offspring.
So the concept of marriage must have arisen out of completely different worldview and there are really only two options, an evolutionary or secular worldview or a religious worldview. The religious viewpoint introduces someone that many people do not like, namely God and the God that it introduces is the God of the Bible. God ordained marriage right from the beginning when he created Adam and Eve and gave them the responsibility to be fruitful and multiply (Gen. 1:28), but there was also another aspect to the institution of marriage. It was not good that man should be alone (Gen. 2:18) so God created Eve. The institution of marriage is designed to be an intimate relationship between a man and a woman to bring glory to God by (1) putting on display the intimacy that is shared among the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit and (2) to provide an example of the true marriage, Christ and his bride, the Church. The intimacy spoken of has been distorted ever since sin entered the world. True intimacy deals with truly knowing the person as another person, not just sexually. I, being a man, can be intimate with another man by letting that person truly know who I am because if we are both believers than we are both part of the one body that is the body of Christ, but that intimacy is different from the intimacy that share with my wife because we have become one flesh (Gen. 2:24). Any other relationship does not become one flesh. Offspring is a secondary purpose of marriage because it produces more people to become sons and daughters of God. A marriage between a man and a woman that does not produce offspring is still a marriage because of the reasons stated above, but a relationship between people of the same gender is not a marriage because it distorts the concept of marriage. So, why did I say all that?
There is this mindset among many that believe that marriage can be between any two consenting adults who truly love one another and make each other happy. If you notice I never said anything about love or happiness in the above paragraph. I love my wife, but I don’t love her because of how she makes me feel, which would be a self-centered love. If the love I have for my wife is based on how she makes me feel, then isn’t the main object of my love, myself? I am only able to love my wife because has God first loved me and has given me the ability to love her. My love for her should be driven by what is best for her. It is driven by the desire to see her grow in holiness as she grows in the knowledge of her Savior (once again the intimacy issue).
The argument put forth by the LBGT community is that everyone deserves to be happy and to be able to share their lives with the one that they love and makes them happy. This is where presuppositions come back into play. God has declared that homosexuality is a sin, just as adultery, lying, gossip, murder and a multitude of other things. But that does not sit well with how people think, so they must attempt to argue that interpretation (that homosexuality is sin) is wrong or that the homosexuality of today is different than it was during the times of the biblical writings. The argument usually falls along the lines that committed, monogamous homosexual relationships that would result in “marriage” are foreign to the homosexuality that is described in the Bible. The truth is that we, humans, are not as advanced as we think we are. If anything, I think we are getting progressively worse because not only to we embrace and celebrate sin, but we applaud and confirm those who take it to higher levels. Conversely, we, as a society seek to destroy those who call sin, sin.
I would like to deal with the concept of what I deserve. According to the Scriptures, I do not deserve love or to be happy, I deserve wrath because I am a wicked, vile sinner who if it were not for the grace of God applied to my life through the cross of Christ, I would be spending eternity separated from God in hell.
I realize that I have gone quite long in this first post, but I do believe that it is crucial that we understand the importance of living according to the Scriptures if we are going to claim the name of Christian. How we view the world is crucial to how we live, therefore, it is of utmost importance that if we say we believe in God, then we must learn who he has revealed himself to be in the pages of the Bible.