Knowing and Owning our Starting Points

The “LOGOS revealed” is much more than “Jesus Loves Me this I Know”.

Here is where we are tripping. Assuming that the “Logos” is no more than “Immanuel, God is with us” , we attempt to balance The Faith on a one- legged stool.

The Church Fathers understood the LOGOS to be the fount of all knowledge. Hence the catholic church began schools; monastery schools turned into the Cathedral School which transitioned into The University of Oxford, Cambridge etc; And up until 20- 50 years ago, students across the world have flocked into the West and the US to get the best university education. Yet the framework, of Biblical Theism on which western education was built, has been removed from the entire enterprise long before we were born.

No, it isn’t only an experience with the Grace of God. The “Logos” is equally much ado about “Epistemology”. What is really true about all of reality? How does the entire body of knowledge make sense as a whole, who in Christ holds all things together? Colossians 1: 17

Hebrews 11: 36. For from Him, and through Him, and to Him are all things. To Him be Glory for ever.

We didn’t grow up with it; the Modern Church in the West doesn’t perceive how to rest on not 1, but 2, ( I think 3) legs of the stool.

Do we know the biblical starting points on which we build an entire cognitive scaffolding? We need to become very comfortable with this mechanism because it is strong enough to offer to the entire community.

Before we go further– TAKE THE QUIZ.

QUIZ: Here is a sample of biblical answers. Identify the philosophical category the answers reveal. (answers are on the next post). Here are the categories:

teleology, metaphysics, immortality of the soul, anthropology, epistemology, theology, cosmology, ontology, ethics/morality

1. ..General revelation through the natural world around; special revelation through the Scriptures, the Decalogue and person of Christ _______________________
2. …history is linear, irreversible, localized in time and space; meta-narrative with a beginning, middle and end; sequence of events is the record of a divine Sovereign God moving in the affairs of men, revealing His purposes. ___________________
3. created ‘imago deo’, with dignity, personality, rationality, morality, creativity; agent of free-will; with innate moral and natural law. ___________________________
4. Infinite, personal, and Triune; transcendent, eternal, omniscient, omnipotent; absolute standard of good. __________________________________________
5. Create ex nihilo; out of nothing, complex, beautiful, uniformity of cause and effect; orderly- not random, undetermined ____________________________________
6. ethics and morals are objective and transcendent; 10 commandments reveal sacred boundaries for protection and ownership. _________________________
7. the physical body dies; soul lives forever, death is a gate to eternal life with God or complete separation from Him; destined to die once and after that the judgement. ________________________________________________________________

These answers are not exhaustive, there are more, but we will call this set of answers Biblical Theism–the biblical set of answer to the universal philosophical questions. And this set of answers are completely different than other worldviews. The complicating mechanisms are Deism, Naturalism, Pantheism, Islam, Existentialism, Nihilism, and others. The deeper we can understand the complicating gears that turn the cranks, the more effective we can become with people across the globe.

Let’s not be fooled. All starting points are of a religious nature. People believe things because we bank it up to someone/thing we trust. Across the globe, The Tripitaka informs the Buddhist, The Koran informs the Muslim, The Analects inform Confucius China, the Upanishads and The Vedas inform the Indian Hindu and Jainist, while the Torah informs the Jew and the Bible informs the Christian. For many Naturalists in the West, the science of mother earth, or the Book of Nature is the starting point.

Each of these sacred texts have different answers to the philosophical questions posted yesterday.

Extra Credit: Do you know the reason why Biblical Theism is the BEST metaphysical framework available today? Explain in a 5 page essay.

Hint: “Just because it’s true” is not the right answer.

Nor is ‘its all a walk of faith anyway.”

These comments reveal a deep seated ‘intellectual laziness’ from which we must turn away, for it keeps the Church immature, and not allowed ‘to grow up into the Head‘. The starting points of Biblical Theism are far more complex, intelligible, interlocking and interwoven, reasonable, and logical for such a simplistic answer.

At this point, I’m guessing some, or many, will begin to check out— because.. you don’t need to know it.

Why bother thinking through? I get it; you feel no need to dive this deep.

Here is my answer:

1. You may not feel the need to, but your children and grandchildren need you to teach them. A failure to develop the mind keeps the Church juvenile. We grow up into maturity when we put on the Mind of Christ who knows everything about everything.
2. Like a huge mega- picture puzzle, after we get the framework in place, every piece of all of reality fits together with interlocking precision. Getting the big picture erected and pushing it into the public square along side of the love of Christ is the new frontier of evangelism in the west.
3. LOVING our neighbors by providing education is meeting a basic need; it is rebuilding a foundational institution in society .

We need to keep on …. thinking; To Think or not to Think is hardly the question.

But lets go up for air; we need to get this out in the open so we can take a good look at it.

After all, Biblical Theism in Education has been buried for a long, long, long time.

To see it more clearly, check into next post– Biblical Theism: The Foundational View in the West