Dear Brothers and Sisters,

The foundational presupposition, the axiom upon which all our Christian reason and logic is founded and proceeds from, is the truth, that there is a Living, Rational, Personal, Infinitely Good, Warm, All Powerful, and All Knowing Spiritual Being, whom has bid us to call Him Father. He gives us for our mental/spiritual grounding this cornerstone in His very first Words to us. "In the beginning God..." Gen.1:1

It is He who is the ultimate living REALITY behind the creation and all the non-living mechanics by which this world is maintained. His Life and Actions are the ultimate truth of REALITY, not the philosophical rivers of "Materialistic Industrialization" and "Scientific Enlightenment" that we have been born upon, which lay claim to deity, and desire to carry the thought paradigms of our world.

Industrialization has given us cold and efficient machines, producers of an abundance of material possessions, but not warm living humans. The Enlightenment has worshiped the finite results of the calculating methods of scientific inquiry but not the infinite Wisdom of the Personal Living God. They offer many things, they are useful and efficient, but they are cold and do not have Life in and of themselves and their promises are failing in our world.

Beware of these two current ubiquitous imposters to His Throne and TEACH YOUR CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN THAT THE ULTIMATE REALITY BEHIND ALL THINGS IS FOUND IN A WARM LIVING PERSONAL GOD WHO CALLS THEM TO HIMSELF AND DESIRES TO BE THEIR FATHER, THE LIVING ANCHOR OF THEIR GRASP OF REALITY IN THIS WORLD.

Because, "In the beginning God..." is where we all must begin...and find our contented destination.

May God Bless,

Jonny

Dear Sisters and Brothers:

As we seek to grow in our relationship with our Father in the culture we live in today, we must seek to become aware of Poisonous Presuppositions surrounding us and our children, and instead to seek to see things through our Father’s eyes. The story of Job in the Bible presents us with one such presupposition which he was basing his expectations and actions upon which God corrected him for. In short, Job thought “he knew” what “justice” was, and how God should administer it. God showed him that though he was basically correct in the limited things he knew about, the whole picture, and hence the administration of it, was far beyond his limited ability to grasp. The effect of this was to humble him, to dissuade him from his dependence merely upon his own human knowledge and cause him to better see the world from God’s perspective.

So, presuppositions are underlying beliefs that are assumed or taken for granted that become foundations for logical constructions such as research, arguments, or courses of action. They are taken by us like axioms in math, being understood as self-evident truths that we either have never thought to examine closely or that we assume to need no proof, being obvious or widely accepted.

A presupposition of application might be like your confidence in building your house on a plot of ground that you assumed was safe and healthy and that all the authorities assumed so and gave you clearance to build upon, but then discovering years later after many unexplainable illnesses, smells, and strange structural problems to the house, that it was built on a former county landfill. For years it exerted an invisible toxic influence on your family and house, with no logical explanation, until you discovered that your presupposition of the health and safety of your building location had been misplaced from the beginning.  And now everything made sense, but at a great loss.

And people can pose their presuppositions as being axiomatic (self-evident) in their teaching, logic, arguments, or as a basis for their actions in order to accomplish their own ends or prove their own argument. In our example above the landowner who sold you the land might claim that the county gave clearance through “their authority” and that that was the end of the argument. That there was no further obligation on his part to inform you of anything, all other considerations were not valid.

Or a presupposition of theory in our world around us is this: “There is no such thing as the super-natural, it is all wishful thinking, the only things that matter are what we can detect with our senses, this is “scientific fact”, therefore most of the Bible is myth and is to be disregarded.” I.E., “men suppress the truth in unrighteousness” Rom. 1:18. On what basis is the exclusion of the super-natural based? Simply a presupposition, assumption, or desire of the one who asserts such that it cannot be in order to lead to the “proof” of their argument. In our world today this is the dominant accepted philosophical presupposition of the materialist industrialized world. And it is exclusive, if you don’t believe it you are considered “uneducated” or a fool.

The unspoken imposition of one’s “axiomatic” presuppositions often frames the inclusion or exclusion of evidence, the pattern of logical construction, and ultimately the final outcome of all logical argument, research, or construction of actions. This “framing the argument” can be a way of ensuring the outcome of the argument, or research from the very beginning, and it may be used consciously and maliciously to take advantage of others, or in purely uncircumspect naivety. Evidence to the contrary of the “accepted frame” is either actively suppressed or simply ignored in favor of evidence that fits the presuppositional frame.

But more often it is commonly used by us to “comfort” ourselves. We use it to comfort and assure our minds that the world around us is as we have understood or as we desire it to be. As Simon and Garfunkel observed and noted in their Lyrics from the song “The Boxer” in 1967, “Still a man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest”. The presuppositions we are willing to accept frequently lead to the desired outcomes for our desired needs. Yet, if there is anything that being a disciple of Jesus is about, it is about setting aside or coming out of our comfort zones in order to “SEEK” to know and live in the truth as our Father has revealed it. It requires of us Faith, Faith in the presuppositions of what our Father, transcendent above us, has revealed to us about the setting that we live in. That He is our Father, the Creator and Sustainer of our world, but that it is a fallen world due to our own sin with many dangers and traps to be avoided, and yet that “He is a Rewarder of those who “SEEK” Him”. So that “SEEKING” His viewpoint, His means and methods, His goals, becomes the standard mode of operation for His children, His disciples, as we navigate our world. Bringing all our thoughts “captive to the obedience of Christ”, “destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God” II Cor. 10:5. So that it is not merely for our perceived benefit that we consciously SEEK to examine our presuppositions when we become aware of them, but our DUTY according to Paul to actively, self-consciously root them out as we grow in our apprenticeship with our Lord, that like Job we may better see the world from our Fathers perspective and build upon His revealed, trustworthy “presuppositions”.

“In times of change, "learners" inherit the earth, while the "learned" find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists.” – Eric Hoffer.

Next:  Poisonous Presupposition No.1:  Hubris of the Human Mind, the mistaken sufficiency and worship of human knowledge.

May God Bless,

Jonny

Dear Sisters and Brothers,

In our world today “Education” is touted as the answer to everything. We take it for granted as a presupposition of fact that more research, discovery, and information will soon give us all the answers we seek and make all our lives and the whole world the utopia we long for. Like the earth in the 2300’s that the Star Trek TV series presents, we will finally achieve universal peace and prosperity through knowledge, reason, and logic. Leaving now only the “continuing mission to explore strange new worlds” to add to our knowledge for our own corporate and individual perfection. This visionary image is an accurate representation of the utopian expectation of our times. We will be “SAVED” by our knowledge…. whenever we get enough of it, …which by the way is always just around the corner. Then “human reason” and that “knowledge” will be enthroned as the emancipators and sources of the enlightenment of the human race.

Though in some ways we may not be totally incorrect if we think highly of our thinking and knowledge. Our Father tells us that we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds Rom.12:1. This places our minds and the knowledge we receive through them in a key role of high importance to us just as a small rudder that steers a whole ship. Our minds are a vehicle for growth, accomplishment, and a hope for betterment in all areas of our lives, so they have a high place. But our minds are not omnipotent in their capabilities as sometimes inferred to in various ways by our culture, and they can never be omniscient.

We are finite and our knowledge, even as a whole, is very limited. The presupposition held by most of our culture is the assertion of the sovereign independence of humanity, that humankind is the apex of “evolution” and hence “lords” of the earth. This narrows and focuses our attention on our own knowledge and accomplishments, exalting them and misdirecting us from the truth of our finitude. So, though our historic collection of human knowledge, not being measured by God’s yardstick, may appear very high with reference to own finite standard of measure, in truth it is not according to God’s absolute standard.

 We are finite beings with finite means, we can only gather a few small pieces at a time of an infinite puzzle and then seek to assemble the puzzle in as comprehensible a way as possible, adding to the collection over time and adjusting the perceived outcome of the picture as we go. Yet all along the way many of our “experts”, the priests of our secular religion, make dogmatic declarations and authoritarian assertions of great certainty regarding the meaning of these partially assemble pieces, seeking to maintain their cloak of legitimacy as those who are in touch with “Heaven”, just as the wizard in the Wizard of OZ and priests and shamans of pagan religions. But we and they are finite and very limited beings and all the knowledge that any human could gather in a lifetime, or even all the collective knowledge gathered from all the humans that have ever lived, seems clearly to be but as an ant hill when one only just considers the vastness of space around us. We have seen now that surrounding us are myriads of stars, with myriads of light years between them, in myriad of galaxies, myriads of light years across, with myriads of stars themselves, and then the question arises … does the universe end somewhere …or not? Or concerning life on our planet, can we create life, or prohibit death, do we even really know what it is? And what about matter, what is our world is made of, where did it come from? If there was a Big Bang, how did that happen? Who lit the fuse? Was there anything before it? And if not, then what exactly is nothing?

These are questions like those that God asked Job and reproved him with to help him see his smallness and Gods greatness, for God can answer all the questions. Yet such questions should not cause us to feel our smallness and impotence but be filled with joy and wonder at the glory of our Father Creator.

It is when we forget to keep our place in God’s order that temptation gives us opportunity to exalt our capabilities and forget our weaknesses. And this is especially true for those who do not have the restraining Grace of God in their lives. For as J.C. Ryle noted, “We know nothing of humility by nature, for we are all born proud. And as Paul testified, “Knowledge puffs up” I Cor. 8:1. And soon we begin to imagine ourselves as creators as Yuval Noah Harari author of Homo Deus (Man God) 2015 said, “If we succeed (with trans-humanism), and there’s a very good chance we will, then very soon, we will be beyond the god of the bible”.

But there is also another foundational influence we may be less aware of because we were born into a culture that is still riding the wave of the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution.

Those of us in the West were born into the influence of Enlightenment and Industrial thinking as a presuppositionary or foundational cultural influence. It serves as an axiomatic foundation for the thinking and way of life of the culture we assume to be standard or normal and it surrounds us in every conceivable way.

 Beginning only 3-400 years ago and truly advancing only in the last 150 years, “The Industrial Revolution marked a major turning point in history. Comparable only to humanity's adoption of agriculture with respect to material advancement”. “Economic historians agree that the onset of the Industrial Revolution is the most important event in human history since the domestication of animals and plants.” But this has not been true for all of history, for everywhere on earth, or even for Biblical history.

And our culture coming out of the “Enlightenment” has been often “enlightened” with false lights. “If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Matt.6:23b:”

Enlightenment philosophers from a similar time period as the Industrial Revolution generally made “graven images’ out of God’s “secondary causes”, such as man’s reason and knowledge, science in general, and the worldly mechanisms of physics, chemistry, etc.., fueling the birth and amoral progress of the Industrial revolution. “The main ideas that dominated Enlightenment thinking included: Deism – the belief in the existence of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.” So, “Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of “reason”, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition.” They substituted and assigned God’s “secondary causes” of governing the world, for the Prime or “First Cause” of all things, (God Himself) eliminating a moral God, the true first cause for the amoral mechanizations we use in the world. They replaced the “Personal”, God, and left only the mechanics as “god” (as in Darwinism) of which we then become like. As A.W. Tozer once said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God”. And this error of a “mechanical god” has continued and metastasized into many different avenues up until today creating the “mechanism” of man’s reason and knowledge as our cultures tool for all our answers to the issues we face in the world and our ultimate “salvation”.  So that the exercise of “Faith” in a Personal God, which is the polar opposite of this mechanism, then is naturally viewed as superstitious or irrational, a useless tool. And this is because of Enlightenment presuppositions about reality, a poisonous set of presuppositions which Christians in the West contend with consciously and unconsciously on a daily basis. 

But Faith is what is exactly required here, it completes us because our finitude as creatures depends on an infinite Creator. A transcendent Creator that can counsel us with complete knowledge. We were made for Him. As we can understand the concepts and possibility of eternity and infinity, complete knowledge and wisdom, we cannot attain to them, and we are in-complete. As King Solomon wrote: “He has also set eternity in their heart, yet so that man will not find out the work which God has done from the beginning even to the end.” Ecc 3:11 And as Jesus said to us, "apart from me you can do nothing" Jn. 15:51 of any eternal value. And it is to this foundational "presupposition" of our continuing dependence upon revelation and salvation from an all- knowing Personal God that we must return our individual minds, our educational establishment, our culture, and the way we build our civilizations in the world henceforth. We must reject the visionary claims of an independent human sovereignty and the abusive experiment of the "Enlightenment" and Industrial utopia, and now answer the question anew...."How shall we then live?" Francis Schaeffer .

May God Bless,

Jonny

Dear Brothers and Sisters:

Question: Why are we really afraid of A.I. (Artificial Intelligence)?

Answer: Is it because that down deep we know it has no Soul and that we may get in over our heads?

For years, or at least since Mary Shelley wrote her novel “Frankenstein” in 1818, a continuing theme expressed in books and movies has been our fear that our “creations” (mechanical and otherwise) might just get out of hand, rival us, and then possibly enslave us, or seek to do away with us. Consider a small portion of the better-known train of popular books, movies, or shows that feature this fear as a central theme in their stories: Terminator (Skynet), The Matrix, Battle Star Galactica (the Cylons), Star Trek (the Borg) and other installments from the various Star Trek series, “Star Trek The Motion Picture” with V’Ger, “The Wrath of Kahn” with Kahn and the genetically engineered “Augments”, “I Robot”, and the list continues. And this does not even include the list of “non sentient” things we could create that might end humanity, the Atom Bomb, “global warming”, runaway diseases “I Am Legend”, “World War Z”, “The Walking Dead”.

This reflects what I believe is a general cultural uneasiness or suspicion of the possibilities of what our “creativity” might produce, and an understanding that it might just have dire consequences.

But why this underlying suspicion and fear repeatedly expressed in our popular cultural commentary and errr…” entertainment”? Perhaps it is because we know deep down that we are only “secondary” creators, that we don’t really have control over the whole process, and that we are flawed with sin. Are we deep down fearful that our flawed and sinful natures could easily be unleashed through our creations upon ourselves and on the world as Mr. Hyde was upon Dr. Jekyll in Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”?  

As Christians we believe that God our Father allows us to participate with Him in creative activity on earth as a Father teaches and allows his children learn and imitate his own work and workmanship as they mature. In the realm of Providence this is called “secondary causes” and we participate in that realm as “secondary creators”. Our Father uses the participation of our work and involvement to accomplish His will just like he did with Adam when he creatively named the animals in the garden of Eden. And also, with Abraham in the fulfillment of the Promises He has made us through His Covenant. “For I have chosen him, so that “he may command his children and his household” after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice, so that the LORD may “bring upon” Abraham what He has spoken about him.” So, He does use our works and faithfulness in the accomplishment of His Will.

But they are no substitute for Him, the “First Cause”.

The Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter 5:2,3 Has a good explanation of the relationship between God our Father being the first cause in Providence and His use of second causes and the creativity that we are invited and allowed to participate in.

2."God is the first cause, and in relationship to him everything happens unchangeably and infallibly. However, by this same providence, he orders things to happen from secondary causes (physics, chemistry, mechanics, etc.). As a result of these secondary causes, some things must inevitably happen; others may or may not happen depending on the voluntary intentions of the agents involved; and some things do not have to happen but may, depending on other conditions.

3. God uses ordinary means (physics, chemistry, mechanics, etc.) to work out his providence day by day. But, as he pleases, he may work without, beyond, or contrary to these means."

So how are these getting confused?

Our culture coming out of the “Enlightenment” has been often “enlightened” with false lights. Matt.6:23b:” If then the light that is in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!” Enlightenment philosophers generally made “graven images out of God’s “secondary causes”, such as man’s reason, and the worldly mechanisms of physics, chemistry, etc.., fueling the birth and amoral progress of the Industrial revolution. “The main ideas that dominated Enlightenment thinking included: Deism – the belief in the existence of a creator who does not intervene in the universe.” “Central to Enlightenment thought were the use and celebration of reason, the power by which humans understand the universe and improve their own condition.” They substituted and assigned God’s “secondary causes” of governing the world, for the Prime or “First Cause” of all things, (Himself) eliminating a moral God, the true first cause for the amoral mechanizations of the world. Replacing the “Person”, God, and leaving only the mechanics as “god” (i.e., Darwinism) of which we then become like. As A.W. Tozer once said, “We tend by a secret law of the soul, to move toward our mental image of God”. Then we ourselves and the societies we create begin to take on the characteristics of this “soulless” non-personal god as expressed in George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984. And this error has continued and metastasized into many different avenues up until today.

So, knowing that we do not create life (something that only God who has Life in and of Himself can do) He being the Primary cause of all things. Is what we really fear, is that we (as secondary creators) we might be capable of creating a soulless reproduction of ourselves without the possibility of the life giving / governing influence of our Father? For even in man, as Blaise Pascal said, “There is a God shaped vacuum in the heart of every man which cannot be filled by any created thing, but only by God, the Creator, made known through Jesus.” And in this soulless vacuum we create without God, what “spirit” might govern it? Because “No one is “GOOD” except God alone.” Mk.10:18. And if that is true, then what we create without His guidance will not be …“Good”, and this present infatuation with the A.I. and transhumanism merely the latest ugly self-conscious expression of an epistemology based upon men’s fallen aspirations to “play God”.

So, deep down do we suspect we may get in over our heads like “The Sorcerer's Apprentice” in the Disney Movie “Fantasia 1940” where only the “Master” can control and rescue us from our errr… “experiments” that are beyond the bounds set by our Masters training and care?

May God Bless,

Jonny