My Theological Presuppositions

Presuppositions are those predispositions, even prejudices, that we come to the examination of any new knowledge already possessing, which affect our interpretation of that knowledge. In other words, we have some ideas about things which act as givens as we build understanding of new things. We can be unaware that we possess them and incognizant of how they color our understanding of things. We even have presuppositions about God, which affect our interpretation, acceptance or, God forbid, rejection of scripture.

I am no different than anyone else in this regard. My experiences and exposures, reactions to and ruminations upon life before the Bible was in the picture color the picture of God painted after I encountered him in the scriptures. For instance, I can remember, long before I was saved, walking down my street as a twelve year old on a sunny, breezy day, when something about the color and shape and way the leaves were fluttering on a maple tree struck me with the intense conviction that there had to be an intelligent, creator God. Prior to that, I didn't think there was one, but regardless, it was not the Bible that informed that new supposition.

That experience led me to reach out to God, to attempt the occasional talk with him, even though reading the Bible was the furthest thing from my mind. I would ask the "God out there" on those occasions about things, and I took the sudden inspirations that followed in my mind as responses from him. Sometimes, the inspirations came apart from any question on my part. I believed I was learning about God from God, even though I was fifteen before I understood who Jesus truly was (that's another story), and 19 before I started reading the Bible in any serious measure.

Sadly, it was actually some time from the moment I knew who Jesus was until I was willing to drop it all and follow him (a bit over 5 years). In my very first days of actually following Jesus, I had an encounter with him in my bedroom that left an impression on me that I'm still under. My experiences, before and after, have left me with with some presuppositions concerning God that (even though these convictions existed before I began to study the Bible) have proven serviceable in the time since when I've been studying the Bible.

Let me share some with you...

We can personally interact with God. God speaks to us today, not just to folks a long time ago in a culture far, far away.

Jesus Christ is the only visible God we will ever see--God in the flesh. The Father and Spirit are incorporeal and never will be discernible through the auspices of electromagnetic radiation (though they may choose to affect the visual realm). Jesus is the only means of knowing God and to know him is to know God.

The Bible is the infallible Word of God, preserved to us inerrant by God's oversight. It was inspired by God, not created by men. If we want to know with confidence what God wants to do in our lives, the Bible is the only place to look.

Freedom of will is the essential distinction between humanity and all other creatures. It is entailed in being made like unto God and is necessary to choice, purpose, and love. Eternity will not result in an abrogation of free will but in the harmonization of it with that of God.

Do you know what some of your presuppositions concerning God are? Have they proven serviceable or a hindrance in your journey with Christ?

Economic Nightmares

There is no sustainable way to attain anything apart from being productive. Producing something is foundational to wealth and well-being. We do not live in a Star Trek world where replicators pop out whatever one wants when he or she wants it. Someone has to grow, someone has to refine, someone has to fashion everything we get. It's the only way that something can be gotten honestly (and even thievery requires effort).

In an economy where no one produces all they need on their own, what one produces has to find a need or want in what someone else doesn't produce so that exchange can fill the gaps. Markets and currency grease the wheels of this commerce. In an economy like this, reality is that if one isn't producing or hasn't produced sufficiently, that one has no means of attaining what they want or need. Without being productive, no one is in a position to have anything.

If folk live in a political environment where their needs and wants have been promised to them apart from and without regard to their productivity, it will only be a short time before that environment crashes. It is not sustainable, for wealth attained by someone other than the benefactor, and not added to by the benefactor's own production, will fritter away. Everything that people get is unbreakably tied to what they produce whether they understand the connection or not, or in fact, whether or not they are even aware of it.

When people want healthcare, or housing, or education, or any other host of things without acknowledging that they can only have such to the extent of the value they add to the mix of everyone's production, they are living in a dreamland that will eventually prove to be a disaster. Because that is so, what should be foremost on a compassionate political leader's agenda? Namely, promoting economic development that (actually) produces jobs at the broadest level possible. Once people are producing, there is room for a discussion about the distribution of the benefits of production to those that produce it, but the priority has to be getting people producing.

Throwing an evermore unsustainable stream of cash at providing benefits to non-productive people, especially while hindering economic development, can only lead to collapse or tyranny. If we keep sleeping on Main Street while that stream flows on, hoping that somehow we'll stumble into the American Dream by it, I fear the only thing we'll fumble our way into is the nightmare on Elm Street.

What God Cannot Do, Even If He Wanted To

Is there anything that God cannot do? Whatever God wants to do he certainly can do, in that there is nothing outside of himself that could possibly prevent him. That is true in regard to beings (for there are no other beings beside God at his level), or with regard to things that are abstract, like morality. In the instance of morality, there is nothing which could be imposed upon God as to measure him by, because there is nothing greater than him which could label a thing he would want to do as moral or immoral. God, in his perfections, is himself the only and final measure of what is good. Therefore, his very wanting to do a thing would be sufficient to make it moral.

Furthermore, if we tried to formulate a conception of the character of God that described him as being unable to do anything against his own nature, we would end up with a self-referent piece of fluff that neither described nor clarified anything about the actual nature of God. Besides, God has done and continues to do things we don't understand, or for which we don't have a full enough picture to be able to say whether or not it went against his nature in the first place. There is a black box phenomenon at work here. We understand God's nature to the degree we do, not because we can dissect him and see for ourselves what he is, but because we hear his word and see his actions.

All of that not withstanding, there is at least one thing God could not do even if he wanted to: God could not make a replica of himself. If God could be made, even in replica, then God wouldn't be the unmade. The great I AM wouldn't be but would begin. The Creator would be but a creation. If God could be more than one in essence, the ones being considered are not the One. If something else could be made almighty, then the almighty would be so no longer. No, the best that God could do along this line is to make someone like himself, in his image, but not him in his power and perfections.

Which brings me to another thing God could not do even if he wanted to--preserve his image in a being made in it while determining that being's actions. If a being were made in God's image, that being would have to have freewill analogous to God's, or it would not be in his image. God is not under necessity nor are his actions determined, and neither could a creature in his image be thus confined in will. This is verified by the descriptions of Adam's freedom in the Garden. He had the freedom to do a thing or to not do it, and God "waited" observationally to see what Adam would do.

So, though God is the very perfection of all that he is, in power and in ability, there are a few things that God cannot do, even if he wanted to.