My conversion to Calvinism

I'm writing this as a preface to a post I want to make where I'll reconcile God's sovereignty with man's responsibility. This is all just autobiography, and you can skip it if you aren't interested.

I didn't grow up in a church, and I was never really taught theology when I was a kid. I formed a lot of my ideas from reading the Bible by myself and just thinking. But I did hear theological phrases and such from people at school sometimes. One I remember hearing a lot was "God is in control."

When I heard that, an idea formed in my mind that was, as it turns out, not what the other person had in mind when they said it. The other person meant that God actually intervenes in everything that happens. I took it to mean that God could intervene anytime he felt like it. I thought that for the most part, God had a hands-off approach to the world, and he only intervened in the rare case of miracles or such.

I remember using an analogy to explain what I thought was meant by "God is in control." After all, I wasn't about to dispute with my better whether it was true or not. I accepted that it was true, but then explained how it could be true under my understanding. I compared it to a person driving a car. As long as the person has his hands on the steering wheel, he's in control of the direction of the car even if he doesn't happen to be turning the wheel or manipulating it at all. He could manipuate it any time he wants, but he's still in control even if he doesn't happen to be manipulating it at the moment. I figured God had the same kind of control over creation. He could intervene anytime he wanted, but that didn't mean he was intervening on a continual basis.

I don't remember hearing much about God's sovereignty until I was an adult. When I heard that phrase, "God is sovereign," an idea formed in my head that also turned out not to be what people meant. Here, I don't think I can be faulted too much. People still mean different things by saying God is sovereign. I took it to mean God is the highest authority in the universe. There's nobody above him, and he makes the rules that apply to everybody. It had nothing to do with God's intervention in the universe except in regard to judging, rewarding, and punishing.

It turns out that that's not exactly what a lot of people mean by saying God is sovereign. Although what I thought may be included in what they think, it doesn't exhaust what they think. When people say God is sovereign, they often mean the same thing my friend from high school meant when she said that "God is in control." God isn't just sovereign in his authority, but he is sovereign over all events, meaning he is in control of them.

I remember being 23 or 24 the first time I heard that there was a distinction in God's will. A girl I used to know told me that God has an active will and a permissive will. His active will included those things he actually does. His permissive will includes those things he allows to happen. Of course I bought into this distinction right away, because it cohered nicely with what I understood it to mean that "God is in control."

It was around this time, also, that I first heard of this problem of reconciling God's sovereignty with man's responsibility. With the understanding I already had in place, I couldn't figure out why it caused anybody problems at all. I figured God's sovereignty, even over human action, only implied that God could intervene if he wanted to, but human activity normally fell under God's permissive will. People don't act because God somehow causes them to act. Rather, God allows them to act freely. So God is sovereign in the fact that he is in control of people and can stop them or manipulate them any time he wants, but people are still morally responsible because God doesn't ordinarily manipulate people.

I was agnostic for a while in my early 20's, but it's also around that time that I start seriously studying the Bible. It's also about that time that I first discovered the internet. Through the internet, I ran into people of a vast variety of religious beliefs that I probably could never have done otherwise. I had my first exposure to Calvinism at that time.

I didn't fully understand Calvinism that early, but there were a few things people said that I was sympathetic to. Not that I agreed with them, but it was understandable to me how they could come to their conclusions. Through reading the Bible, I found much that seemed to be consistent with Calvinism. I always put it on the back burner, though. I figured these were isolated verses here and there, and the whole of scripture was against how the Calvinists understood them. My exposure to Calvinists was sparse enough for me to pretty much ignore them.

Two things happened, though, that made me decide I needed to educate myself on the whole question of Calvinism. First, I kept running into Calvinists more and more, and I became aware that there was serious debate on the matter going on. Second, I saw a book called The King James Only Controvery at the Christian bookstore by James White. I had run into a guy a few years earlier who thought the King James version was the only valid translation. At the time, I thought he was an anomoly, but when I saw the title of this book, I decided to get it and read it.

Through that book, I became aware of this guy named James White. It turns out that James White is the head of an apologetics ministry called Alpha and Omega, and the web site address was in the back of the book. I did some reading on the internet about White and discovered he was writing a book (or had written a book) called The Potter's Freedom, in which he defended Calvinism against Norman Geisler's book, Chosen But Free.

I went into White's chat room and interacted with the people there, almost all of whom where Calvinists. I didn't debate much with them, though, because I didn't feel myself too educated on the subject. After a lot of time being in there, though, I started wishing I knew more so I could debate with them. Eventually, I decided I could postpone my education no longer. I had to learn about the whole Calvinism vs. Arminianism debate.

I had heard enough about Calvinism and Arminianism to know that I had some disagreements with both. The Calvinists, however, didn't seem to recognize people who didn't fall into one camp or the other. Anybody who didn't fall into one camp or the other was just called "inconsistent." Since I was closer to being an Arminian than a Calvinist, I wondered if I would eventually fall into the Arminian camp once I read up on the arguments.

I decided a good place to start would be to read the books by Geisler and White. To my surprise, Geisler started his book by arguing for the sovereignty of God over all events--even human decisions. Although I had stumbled across plenty of verses that seemed to support this view (e.g. Proverbs 16:9 and 20:24), I had never heard it argued so pursuasively before. It was so pursuasive, in fact, that it caused me to change my mind right away. I wasn't at all impressed with the rest of the book, though. First, he seemed to contradict everything he had written in the first chapter. Second, his arguments just weren't that great.

Since I was so unimpressed with Geisler's book, I didn't really read White's book with anticipation about how he was going to refute Geisler. Instead, I read White's book with anticipation about how I was going to refute White. I thought maybe I'd write a critique of it.

As I read the first few chapters of White's book, I didn't think I'd have much problem critiquing his book. But then I got to chapter seven--"Jesus teaches 'Extreme Calvinism.'" In that chapter, White made what seemed to me to be an airtight case for Calvinism from John 6.

I didn't convert to Calvinism right away, though. First, I wanted to read other interpretations of John 6 and see what kind of responses there were to White's arguments. White had said at various other times that he had never seen a consistent interpretation of John 6 that got around the points he made. I wanted to know if it was true.

After reading around, I found that what White said was true. There have been numerous attempts at refuting White's arguments from John 6, and there have been all kinds of interpretations of it, but none of them come close to upsetting the case White makes for Calvinism. His case still seems to be solid to me.

Still, my conversion to Calvinism did not come easy. As I continued to read and learn about Calvinism, I discovered that it required a Copernican revolution in my worldview and in my understanding of the Bible. There were still places in the Bible that I had always understood in a way contrary to Calvinism, and it took a long time to iron them all out.

At a certain point, though, I came to realize that overall, the Bible supported Calvinism far more strongly than it supported the contrary. I decided I was a Calvinist before I got it all ironed out. In fact, I probably still don't have it completely ironed out.

There was another problem with Calvinism, though. The problem wasn't only Biblical, it was philosophical as well. In fact, the philosophical problem seemed worse than the Biblical problem. I became convinced that the Bible taught Calvinism, but Calvinism seemed to have some serious philosophical problems.

Since I'm sure non-Christians are reading this, I'll tell you that, yes, I did consider the fact that if the Bible definitely teaches Calvinism, and if Calvinism is philosophically bankrupt, it would follow that the Bible can't be the inspired word of God. I also considered that if the Bible supported both Calvinism and non-Calvinism, then the Bible is contradictory and can't be the word of God. But I'm not going to get sidetracked on those lines of thoughts now.

Anyway, the philosophical problems only increased the more I learned about Calvinism. One book in particular caused me a great deal of consternation. John Piper wrote a book called The Justification of God in which he gave a very thorough exegesis of Romans 9. From Romans 9, Piper argued for double predestination. You see some Calvinists are willing to say that God predestined people to eternal glory, but not that he predestined people to eternal damnation. Rather, God simply allows, passively, people to fall into damnation. Piper argued from Romans 9 that God creates some people for the purpose of damning them. I found that (and still find that) incredibly disturbing. Yet his case was pursuasive.

Before going into the philosophical problems with Calvinism (which is the subject of this series), I want to mention one other problem I had with Calvinism. The problem I had with it was my general impression of Calvinists themselves. There was a guy in my Monday night Bible study who was a Calvinist--a pushy one, too. He was always getting me to read his Calvinist books. Two of them that stick out in my mind were by Martin Luther and Arthur Pink. I remember thinking they were both just really nasty. James White seemed pretty rough around the edges, too. My general impression of Calvinists was that they were just some rude and nasty people.

Of course I recognized that it was fallacious to fault Calvinism just because a lot of Calvinists seemed nasty to me. I'm human, though, and I can't help that it caused me to be suspicious of Calvinism.

Anyway, one of the major philosophical problems with Calvinism in my mind was how to reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility. The first time I ever heard the problem expressed in light of Calvinism was when I read a book called Decision-Making and the Will of God by Garry Friesen and J. Robin Maxon. It turned out, though, that Calvinists were not the only ones who had a strong view of God's sovereignty (Geisler being one example). Being much influenced by William Lane Craig and J.P. Moreland, I believed libertarian free will was necessary for moral accountability. Besides, libertarian free will had a strong appeal to common sense for me.

You might wonder how I reconciled that with my Calvinism. Well, I think my view was a lot like the view of Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason. Basically, I did not think we had free will in regards to accepting or rejecting the gospel. The Bible seemed clear on that. But I figured we had free will in every other aspect of life. At the time, that seemed consistent with Calvinism to me.

It wasn't, though, and I think Koukl recognizes this. God's sovereignty must cover all moral choices, not just the choice to accept or reject the gospel. Koukl has often said on his radio show that the hardest theological problem for him is how to reconcile the fact we have moral obligations with the fact that we have an inability to obey. We are dead in sins, unable to please God apart from his intervention, necessarily sinful. You see, we have this strong intuition that "ought" implies "can." That is, we can't have a moral obligation to do something if we are unable to do it. How is it, then, that we DO have a moral obligation if we also have an inability to meet those obligations?

Dennis (the guy in my Bible study), let me borrow The Freedom of the Will by Jonathan Edwards. This book caused another Copernican revolution in my way of thinking. It completely resolved every philosophical problem I had with Calvinism. It raised problems I didn't have before, and solved those, too. Though it didn't cure me of my discomfort with double predestination, it did satisfy me intellectually. Of course I had to read it a couple of times to understand it, and there are some sections I've read several times to understand them.

The major shift in my thinking was from believing in libertarian free will to believing in compatibalism. Also, from thinking libertarian free will was necessary for morality and compatibalism was inconsistent with it to thinking libertarian free will was inconsistent with morality and compatibalism was necessary for it. That was probably the most interesting thing I got out of the book.

Most importantly, Edward's book solved the problem of how to reconcile God's sovereignty with human responsibility. I wish I could convince all my readers to read his book--especially Steve and Dagoods. I wish I could convince Greg Koukl to read it, too. Edwards covers a lot of area that I can't cover without writing a book of my own, and he argues better than I could hope to do it.

to be continued: God's sovereignty and man's responsibility, part 1

How did the disciples die?

Dagoods gives me things to write about. Today, I'm going to address a question he asked me a while back that I never answered. He read my blog on when arguments go awry. I had said something about how skeptics often misunderstand the "die for a lie" argument. Dagoods said at the end of our discussion that he doesn't respond to the "die for a lie" argument. Instead, he just asks the Christian to show how the disciples died. He asked me, "How did the disciples die, when, and was it martyrdom?"

This is a good question. You see, if they died of natural causes, then the "die for a lie" argument is faulty. So to make the "die for a lie" argument work, I've got to show that the disciples actually did die for their beliefs. If they died for their beliefs, that will demonstrate that they actually believed them with conviction.

I wrote about the historical arguments for the martyrdoms of James, Peter, and one other person I can't remember. Now I can't find where I wrote it, so I'm just going to have to go on memory. It's been a long time since I was emersed in all these historical arguments.

I suspect Dagoods would not raise the question if he were not skeptical of the accounts of Eusebius or even of some of the early Church fathers. To avoid all that, I wanted to narrow the topic to James (the brother of Jesus) and Peter. I think there is early and compelling evidence that both of them were martyred.

James was the head of the Jerusalem church, and a well-known public figure. Josephus writes about his martyrdom in the Antiquities XX.9.1:

Convening the judges of the Sanhedrin, he [Ananus, the high priest] brought before them a man named James, the brother of Jesus who was called the Christ, and certain others. He accused them of having transgressed the law, and condemned them to be stoned to death.

Now, of course, if you're really bent on being skeptical, you can find loop holes. Maybe it's Christian interpolation. Maybe James committed some unknown crime having nothing to do with being a Christian. But assuming we can say (as most do) that James really was martyred, I can answer Dagood's question. James died by being stoned in Jerusalem in 62 CE, and it was a martyrdom.

There are three lines of evidence that show that Peter was martyred. First, we have John 21:18-19 where Jesus predicts how Peter will die. Basically, he predicted that Peter would die by crucifixion. It doesn't matter who wrote John's gospel. If we assume it was written by John before Peter died, then that would show Peter died by crucifixion. If he didn't, then John's gospel would prove that Jesus was a false prophet (or that the gospel was bad), and it either would've been edited out, or the gospel wouldn't have carried much authority. But if we assume it was written by John after Peter died, or written by somebody else after Peter died, then the person who wrote it likely knew how Peter died. He put this prediction on Jesus' lips in order to make it look like Jesus made an accurate prophecy, just as Mark and Matthew have Jesus predicting the destruction of Jerusalem, which supposedly dates Mark and Matthew after 70 CE. So either way you look at it, Peter was mostly likely crucified.

The second line of evidence is 2 Peter 1:13-14 where Peter says, "I think it is right to refresh your memory as long as I live in the tent of this body, because I know that I will soon put it aside, as our Lord Jesus Christ has made clear to me." Again, we can use the same argument. It doesn't matter whether Peter actually wrote it or not. If he did, the letter would have been discredited unless Peter died soon afterwards. If he didn't, then it was likely written because the author already knew how Peter died. In both John and 2 Peter, it says that Jesus predicted his death. Only John says how, though. Nevetheless, if Peter were to die of natural causes, there would've been nothing significant about his dying, and thus no particular reason for Jesus to predict it. Nobody would think it particularly impressive, for example, if I predicted Elizabeth Taylor is going to die soon. She's pretty old. 2 Peter adds plausibility to the prediction of "how" in John. Peter was likely martyred.

Third, we have a letter by Clement of Rome to the Corinthians in 96 CE, and he says, "Peter, through unrighteous envy, endured not one or two, but numerous labors; and when he had at length suffered martyrdom, he departed to the place of glory due to him." Peter was a public figure, and unless he mysteriously disappeared, the manner of his death was most likely public information among the major Christian congregations. So there is no reason to doubt what Clement is saying, especially in light of John and 2 Peter.

I probably can't prove Paul's martyrdom to somebody who is bent on being skeptical about it, but it seems quite obvious that Paul was at least willing to die for his beliefs. In Galatians 1:13-14 and Philippians 3:4-8, Paul writes about how he gave up being a Pharisee advancing in Judaism beyond many of his own age to be a follower of Jesus, and how he suffered the loss of all things happily because of it. In 2 Corinthians 11:23-26 and 6:3-10, he writes about beatings, imprisonment, being flogged, and being exposed to death again and again. He writes about being in danger from rivers, bandits, his own countrymen, Gentiles, and even false brothers. A person bent on skepticism, of course, could always say, "That's just a lie!"

These all seem like good reasons to think James, Peter, and Paul actually believed that Jesus was the Christ. The question, of course, is why did they believe it?

The difference between moral objectivism and moral absolutism

Don't you think it's about time I start making posts again? I injured my wrist last Saturday, which has prevented me from making any bows. That has given me some time to do some reading, and reading always makes me think.

Today, I was reading a blog that Dagoods has become a member of called "Debunking Christianity." On that blog, there was a link to an entry about "Debunking Calvinism." The author, John Loftus, basically brought up the whole problem of reconciling God's sovereignty with human responsibility. He argued that if God causes John to kill Bill, then God killed Bill, not John, and God is responsible, not John. I am very axious to write a blog entry on this subject (I have wanted to for some time) because it seems like this subject comes up in almost every discussion I get into with Dagoods. We always seem to get stuck on it. I never go into detail in comment sections, so I thought I ought to spell out my arguments in a blog.

But not this blog. You see, I was thinking about this while ago, and I decided to put a pizza in the oven (I discovered Amy's pizza at the grocery store last week, and it's delicious!!!--best store bought frozen pizza I've ever had!!!) and then go to the bathroom. While walking around, my mind continued to wander. I don't know how it got there, but it got to the whole issue of moral absolutism verses moral objectivism. Usually, the two terms are used interchangeably, but Greg Koukl of Stand to Reason makes a distinction that I have found to be very helpful.

The difference, basically, is that moral absolutists don't recognize moral dilemmas, and moral objectivists do. A moral absolutist thinks that any moral imperative (like "don't lie") must be obeyed no matter what in any situation. A moral objectivist recognizes that there are situations in which two moral imperatives both apply, and one must choose the greater of two goods or the lesser of two evils (it has gotten to where every time I think of "the lesser of two evils" I think of that movie, Master and Commander).

The classic example is harboring Jews during the holocaust. Should you lie to protect them? A moral objectivist would say yes, because on the one hand, sure, it's wrong to lie. But on the other hand, we also have a moral obligation to protect innocent people, not to give them over to their doom. It's better to lie to protect them than to turn them over to their doom by telling the truth.

It's interesting how moral absolutists respond to a situation like that. They don't characterize it as choosing the lesser of two evils or the greater of two goods. Instead, they simply redefine their terms. Whereas a moral objectist might call something "justified lying," a moral absolutist wouldn't call it lying at all. They simply redefine the word "lie."

I'm getting this argument about absolutism from an article I read a while back by a popular Christian writer. I can't remember who it was, but I remember basically what he said. Usually, we define a lying as, "Saying something that isn't true knowingly." But this author defined lying as "Saying something that isn't true without justification." You see, he agreed with the moral objectivist that you should not tell the truth about the Jews you're protecting, but he did not consider that lying because it was justified. To him, it's only lying if it isn't justified.

I think this is just a word game, and an inappropriate one, too. It's inappropriate because words are defined by their use. When people talk about lying, they mean "Knowingly saying something that isn't true." They don't mean, "Saying something that isn't true without justification."

The absolutist could, of course, counter that it doesn't matter what English speaking people think of as "lying." What matters is what God says, or what the Bible says, and what it means. But I have yet to hear a lexical argument for defining the corresponding Greek and Hebrews words for "lying" as "Saying things that aren't true without justification."

But let's think about that for a minute. Suppose that is what lying means. If so, then to say, "It's wrong to lie," is a tautology. All morals derive from the principle of justification. To say that something is wrong is to say that you are not morally justified in doing it. To say it's not wrong or that it's right is to say that you are morally justified in doing it. That's why whenever people do something questionable, we always want to know what their reasons are. Sometimes we find their reasons justifiable, and sometimes we don't. If lying means, "Saying something that isn't true without justification," then saying, "It's wrong to lie," basically amounts to saying, "You are not justified in saying something that isn't true without justification." That's a tautology. By definition nobody is justified in doing anything that is not justified. That's why I find the absolutist's redefinition tactic to be flawed.

I was going to say more about pacifism, but my pizza is ready. That gives me good justification for stopping here.

What I've learned from movies

I've seen enough movies to notice a pattern.

Person A: "I have something to tell you!"

Person B: "I have something to tell you, too!"

Person A: "Well you go first!"

Person B says something disappointing to Person A that causes Person A not to say what he was going to say.

Or the scenario might look more like this:

Person A: "I have something to tell you!"

Person B: "Okay, but first let me tell you something!"

Then the same thing happens. The whole time we're sitting there thinking, "If only Person A had been allowed to go first! This whole thing could've been resolved! Augh! You idiots!"

So I've decided that if you've got something to say somebody, you should just say it. Or if they tell you they have something to say to you, then you should just listen. Otherwise, you could postpone the resolution to your drama for another hour or more.

How to make a bamboo backed ipe longbow

I haven't been motivated by anything but laziness lately, which I why I haven't added anything, but I just finished doing another build along and thought y'all might not like to have a look see, but I'd post it anyway.

Here is the build along.

The biases and motives of moral realists and non-realists

I was thinking of an example of how our biases affect how we attribute motives to others. Here are two opposing sides.

There are some people who say there are objective moral values. There are other people who say there are not objective moral values. It is interesting to notice how each side attributes motives to the other side.

[Since I brought it up, lemme make a detour here. It’s an informal logical fallacy to try to refute a position by pointing out sinister motives in the people who hold that position. That’s a form of the ad hominem fallacy, and it’s a fallacy because it suffers from irrelevance. Our motives for holding a belief have nothing to do with whether or not those beliefs are true.]

Moral non-realists will often say the reason people hold to objective standards of good and evil is because they have a sinister desire to control everybody. They figure since morals are relative, people shouldn’t impose their own personal values on other people. (Never mind the inconsistency in this position; it’s not my point.) They figure if people are trying to impose their values on everybody else, then they just have an unhealthy need to suppress, control, and manipulate other people.

Moral realists will often say the reason people deny morality is because they want to justify their own actions. Rather than submitting to objective standards of good and evil they know are true, they pretend they aren’t real. It allows them to indulge in their guilty pleasures without the guilt. A guilty pleasure without the guilt is just pleasure. (Never mind the inconsistency in this position, too; it's not my point either.) Moral realists figure since everybody knows deep down inside that there’s a difference between right and wrong, there must be some sinister motive for being in denial.

As I write the above, I must admit that my own bias is in full swing. I have heard both of the above accusations, and I find myself agreeing with the moral realists and disagreeing with the moral non-realists. And, surprise, I’m a moral realist!

What advantage is there in worrying about somebody's motives anyway? Shouldn't we be more concerned about whether or not their position is true than in whatever motivates them to embrace it? I guess that depends. If we're trying to discover the truth of the issue, then their motives are irrelevent. But if we're trying to reason with them, and reason has nothing to do with why they hold their position, then perhaps there is some advantage to exploring what their motives might be. By getting a person to be honest with themselves about their motives, maybe they will be more open to reason. It does no good, of course, to try to convince a person that they have motives when they really don't. Attributing motives falsely to people is a good way to discredit yourself with them. It also puts them on the defensive, and people never listen once they're on the defensive.

How our biases skew our conclusions about the motives of other people

Earlier tonight I read Dagoods' most recent blog entry where he said he thinks Christians avoid learning about their opposition because they are afraid. Now I don't deny that this is the case for a lot of Christians, but the lack of balance in his post got me to thinking about something. We all seem to more readily attribute sinister motives in those who are against us than in those who are for us. Seems only natural, doesn't it?

Dale Carnegie in How to Win Friends and Influence People made the same point. I don't have the book with me, but he argued in one of the first few chapters that people rarely ever blame themselves for anything. They always find some way to justify their actions. C.S. Lewis made the same observation in one of the first few chapters of Mere Christianity. He said we are so aware of the moral law that we can't bare to face the fact that we've broken it. Consequently, we always put our bad behavior down to circumstances out of our control. We let ourselves off the hook somehow. But we put our good behavior down to ourselves.

We are far more likely to blame others than to blame ourselves. We have no shortage of good excuses for our own actions. But when other people behave badly (especially when they behave badly toward us), we are not so generous. We don't extend the benefit of the doubt as readily to others as we extend the justification to ourselves.

One of the examples Dagoods brought up was that Christians often misrepresent their opposition. This was an example of what he called "lack of honest inquiry." So basically he's accusing Christians of intellectual dishonesty when they misrepresent their opposition and then make strawman arguments. Isn't it interesting that his one explanation for these misrepresentations is "lack of honest inquiry"? He doesn't even raise the possibility that some Christians could honestly have misunderstandings about their opposition. To here Dagoods tell it, you'd think this was a problem unique to Christians. Christians are deceitful scum to dishonestly misrepresent non-believers, but of course non-believers never do that.

Let's pretend that we are observing a debate between a theist and an atheist on the existence of God. Both debaters have published a number of books and articles, and we have read them all. We have studied them thoroughly, and we are equally informed on both of their views. Now let's say that while we're observing this debate we notice that both of them misrepresent the other's position. What is our gut reaction to this?

That seems to depend on whose side we're on, doesn't it? We assume our guy made an honest mistake and maybe just doesn't really understand the other guy. But we assume the other guy is intentionally misrepresenting our guy. He's being intellectually dishonest. This is one case of how our bias can influence our conclusions about the motives of others.

We can't do away with our biases, but by being aware of them, we can make a more conscious effort to be fair. We shouldn't attribute motives to people without proper justification. We should be just as harsh with ourselves when we've done wrong as we are with others when they've done wrong. And if we're going to justify our own bad behavior, then we ought to be open to possible justifications for other people's bad behavior. Easier said than done, but if truth matters, then it's worth the effort, because truth requires consistency.

How our presuppositions skew our interpretation of our experiences

Presuppositions are those background beliefs we all have that we don't really think about. Beliefs like, "My senses give me true information about the world," and "The future will resemble the past," are background beliefs that just about everybody has but that most people don't think about consciously. They just sort of automatically apply those beliefs to their experiences.

Sometimes our presuppositions are wrong. But whether they're right or wrong, they do have a big influence on how we filter information that comes our way. I was thinking about this last night and I came up with a real life example to explain what I mean.

Between the ages of 2 and 6, I lived in Abilene Texas. Out in west Texas, there aren't a whole lot of trees, but there is a whole lot of sky. With all that sky, lightening storms are pretty amazing.

Let me back up a little. I remember watching on TV where this guy had a model of the earth and the sun. He was explaining night and day. On his little model, half the earth was covered in a black shell. He rotated the shell around the earth to explain night and day.

Now the shell obviously just represented the night sky, but you have to understand how something like that would look to a five year old kid. (I'm guessing I was about 5 at the time). I thought the model literally represented the way things are. I thought there really was half a shell around the earth that rotates around the earth. The light was all around, but the shell blocked it out on half the earth.

This belief became a given to me. It acted like a presupposition. So one night I was sitting in the drive way looking at the lightening spreading out across the sky. It was pretty amazing. As I watched it, I tried to understand it, and I remember my thinking. I was looking at the black sky thinking, "That's the black shell around half the earth." Whenever I'd see the lightening, I'd also hear the thunder, and I started to draw some conclusions. I figured what was going on was that this shell was under some pressure because of the storm. Every now and then it would crack because of the pressure. The cracks would let in the light from the other side, and that's what lightening was. It would also make a loud sound when the shell cracked, and that was the thunder.

Another night, I was looking at the stars and thinking about the shell. I figured that shell must be really old since it's been rotating around the earth forever. Since it's so old, it's a bit tattered and has some holes in it. The light comes in through the holes, and that's the stars.

See how that one presupposition influenced my interpretation of my observations? That's the way presuppositions are. So we ought to try to be more conscious of them. Bad presuppositions will result in us drawing the wrong conclusions about reality and prevent us from drawing the right conclusions.