Those Stubborn Presuppositions…
As I have said before, I am currently taking a couple classes at Liberty University. One of my classes is basically an introduction to theology. In this class and really in any theology class, the format will consist of approaching big theological topics and tackling them in about a week’s time-span before moving onto the next topic. This leaves little time to drink deeply of a topic, rather it feels like you are drinking from a fire hose and then being asked to write a paper on how it tastes. In my class this last week we were dealing with “Bibliology”-which is basically the study of the Bible, as in how we got the Bible that we have today. The topic was really boiled down to the inerrancy debate though the manuscripts and other sub-topics were dealt with as appropriately as time would permit.
I approached this topic as I approach most topics in these types of classes; I approached it with my mind basically made up. If someone would have asked me even before I started attending Liberty I would have said that the Bible is inerrant and verbally inspired by God, fair enough, case closed, mind made up, and now let’s move on. I am not recanting my belief in inerrancy by any means that is a huge-mountain (not hill) that I am willing to die on. But guess what, all the other students in the class did not agree with me, surprise, surprise. As I read the papers from the other students in the class I would constantly be criticizing (in my mind of course) their logic because they did not arrive at my conclusion. But I held this conclusion before I even came to this class to learn and didn’t they come to learn also? Now I am beginning to realize that though our presuppositions are all different, they are clearly evident in our conclusions.
I am glad that I started class coming from a reformed-conservative perspective; I do believe it is the most faithful to the biblical-evidence. I am beginning to feel sorry for those who are coming from a more liberal-arminian perspective; it seems they constantly have to diminish the power of God in the formulation of the scriptures. But I wonder how tightly my classmates are going to hold onto their presuppositions? I know coming from my perspective that I will not easily change my views and I don’t believe others will either. Why? One reason is we might just want to vindicate our particular ecclesiology. Or more likely, we are so addicted to never being wrong about our presuppositions that we would rather hold our breath until our faced turned green and then right before we passed out, our heads would begin to spin (of course) and finally once our “never-being-wrong” withdrawals passed, we would finally blurt out the phrase….”yyyour RIGHT…and I’m wrong.”
We really hold to our presuppositions very tightly, even if we have not studied the topic adequately. I know I have not studied the topic of inerrancy adequately and yet I approach the topic with an extremely biased presupposition. But then, I get irritated when others hold to presuppositions that differ from mine! I presuppose that their presuppositions must conform to my conclusions or else their holding onto presuppositions and I am not. I believe there does come an eventual point when, once we have studied the topic adequately we move pass just merely holding presuppositions because we now understand what opposing sides teach. If not, then whenever one arrived at an opposing conclusion one could just say that you got there by a faulty presupposition.
But my purpose here is to address those who tightly hold presuppositions in areas where they may have not adequately studied. Now your conclusions may be right, but without adequate knowledge of what you are talking about you are tightly gripping the thin air of ignorance. We all grip tightly our presuppositions and then we put our hands in our pockets, so as to pretend that what we are gripping doesn’t exist. And until we can pull our hands out of our pockets and peer into them we will never be doing anything other than vindicating ourselves and feeding our pride.
Current Comments