Hello, I really enjoyed your article. I am a 17 year old who is going to a Christian school to study philosophy in the hopes of then going to law school. I have been thinking about this idea of presuppositionalism as I recently wrote a piece debunking the false dichotomy between autonomy and theonomy as prescribed by thinkers like Van Til and Bahnsen. When it comes to Theonomy, I can come up with a whole host of reasons why it is an awful idea just from the perspective of natural law. But then the Theonomist will scoff and say "you really aren't basing your philosophy on the bible, you pagan". It is just something that really bugs me. Yes, the bible corroborates itself, but nature also testifies the Glory of God. Isn't the Christian called to refer both to general and special revelation? I don't know if I have gone full Christian Humanist yet, especially because I haven't read enough yet, but I look forward to reading more in the future. All that to say, I really enjoyed your article. (also, your website loge thingy is super cool, I made mine in Canva but it is kind of generic).
I feel the need to add something here. All my beliefs go back to the bible. But some are more direct than others. For instance, my belief that murder is wrong has a more direct antecedent in scripture from that of the opinion that theocracy is wrong. I believe that I can use rational objective evidence to support my opinion that theocratic fascism is wrong, but at the end of the day, my implicit trust in such things as objective truth comes from a biblical perspective. How do I square this?
Okay, you asked for disagreement, here goes. Two questions for you: (1) of all the supernaturalisms competing for the crown of Single Source of Truth, how is an alien who lands here in 2025 to pick the one to engage with? (2) as someone who believes in objective morality, list its top 10 universal precepts, agreed by all others who aren't in your sect but are also objective moralists.
Awesome. I'd not heard of "presuppositionalism" before, but it sounds like a guaranteed path to being wrong about everything!
Substack has been recommending lots of theologians to me, and one thing that stands out is how little anyone seems to just, y'know, ask Jesus what He thinks. I know for me, Christianity describes my experience of the divine, it doesn't dictate my beliefs about the divine. How does a personal relationship with Christ fit into your own practice of theology?
What do you mean by asking Jesus what he thinks? Some people mean reading Jesus’s words in the gospel Accounts. Some people mean direct prayer seeking an answer through experience of God.
While I grew up in Pentecostal Christianity, which is much more about trying to directly hear from Jesus, I first shifted towards focusing only on the Bible. My shift that I described in the article of the last 10 years is of believing that God’s will is displayed through nature and human experience, in addition to Scripture.
To some extent, I’ve also shifted from focusing on the letters of Paul more to the words of Jesus. Jesus teaches a faith that is more about living out our faith through love of others, less about getting the details of the theology right.
Maybe that answers your question, but maybe you meant more that we can ask Christ directly. I’ve just never heard an answer!
I mostly mean direct prayer, but there's a meta-level question about what one believes the experience of direct communication with Jesus feels like. I generally regard it as an inner loving voice, loving in the sense of 1 Cor 13. Maybe others expect something more literal or more transcendental. But expecting _something_ helps root theology in experience rather than just presupposition and theory, which is why I start there. And I'll admit I've got a bit of a beef with folks who are very certain that Jesus exists but very skeptical that He talks to anyone directly, as that sounds to me like it's merely a hair's breadth from not actually believing He exists.
I very much agree with your sentence that starts "Jesus teaches a faith..." I think that holds both for the man described in the Bible and the loving inner voice that I give primacy to. Though I do really have a soft spot for (non-Deutero-)Paul; I don't think he was "doing theology" so much as translating for many different audiences. He made such a big deal about tailoring his message for his audience; I suspect he's a bit miffed that folks started treating his memos like the Word of God. It's not Paul that irks me, it's what people do with Paul.
Anyway, your answer was sufficiently "correct" to get me to subscribe. ;-) Thanks for the response! Looking forward to more!
Hello, I really enjoyed your article. I am a 17 year old who is going to a Christian school to study philosophy in the hopes of then going to law school. I have been thinking about this idea of presuppositionalism as I recently wrote a piece debunking the false dichotomy between autonomy and theonomy as prescribed by thinkers like Van Til and Bahnsen. When it comes to Theonomy, I can come up with a whole host of reasons why it is an awful idea just from the perspective of natural law. But then the Theonomist will scoff and say "you really aren't basing your philosophy on the bible, you pagan". It is just something that really bugs me. Yes, the bible corroborates itself, but nature also testifies the Glory of God. Isn't the Christian called to refer both to general and special revelation? I don't know if I have gone full Christian Humanist yet, especially because I haven't read enough yet, but I look forward to reading more in the future. All that to say, I really enjoyed your article. (also, your website loge thingy is super cool, I made mine in Canva but it is kind of generic).
I feel the need to add something here. All my beliefs go back to the bible. But some are more direct than others. For instance, my belief that murder is wrong has a more direct antecedent in scripture from that of the opinion that theocracy is wrong. I believe that I can use rational objective evidence to support my opinion that theocratic fascism is wrong, but at the end of the day, my implicit trust in such things as objective truth comes from a biblical perspective. How do I square this?
Okay, you asked for disagreement, here goes. Two questions for you: (1) of all the supernaturalisms competing for the crown of Single Source of Truth, how is an alien who lands here in 2025 to pick the one to engage with? (2) as someone who believes in objective morality, list its top 10 universal precepts, agreed by all others who aren't in your sect but are also objective moralists.
Awesome. I'd not heard of "presuppositionalism" before, but it sounds like a guaranteed path to being wrong about everything!
Substack has been recommending lots of theologians to me, and one thing that stands out is how little anyone seems to just, y'know, ask Jesus what He thinks. I know for me, Christianity describes my experience of the divine, it doesn't dictate my beliefs about the divine. How does a personal relationship with Christ fit into your own practice of theology?
Thanks for reading Jack!
What do you mean by asking Jesus what he thinks? Some people mean reading Jesus’s words in the gospel Accounts. Some people mean direct prayer seeking an answer through experience of God.
While I grew up in Pentecostal Christianity, which is much more about trying to directly hear from Jesus, I first shifted towards focusing only on the Bible. My shift that I described in the article of the last 10 years is of believing that God’s will is displayed through nature and human experience, in addition to Scripture.
To some extent, I’ve also shifted from focusing on the letters of Paul more to the words of Jesus. Jesus teaches a faith that is more about living out our faith through love of others, less about getting the details of the theology right.
Maybe that answers your question, but maybe you meant more that we can ask Christ directly. I’ve just never heard an answer!
I mostly mean direct prayer, but there's a meta-level question about what one believes the experience of direct communication with Jesus feels like. I generally regard it as an inner loving voice, loving in the sense of 1 Cor 13. Maybe others expect something more literal or more transcendental. But expecting _something_ helps root theology in experience rather than just presupposition and theory, which is why I start there. And I'll admit I've got a bit of a beef with folks who are very certain that Jesus exists but very skeptical that He talks to anyone directly, as that sounds to me like it's merely a hair's breadth from not actually believing He exists.
I very much agree with your sentence that starts "Jesus teaches a faith..." I think that holds both for the man described in the Bible and the loving inner voice that I give primacy to. Though I do really have a soft spot for (non-Deutero-)Paul; I don't think he was "doing theology" so much as translating for many different audiences. He made such a big deal about tailoring his message for his audience; I suspect he's a bit miffed that folks started treating his memos like the Word of God. It's not Paul that irks me, it's what people do with Paul.
Anyway, your answer was sufficiently "correct" to get me to subscribe. ;-) Thanks for the response! Looking forward to more!
We in the Catholic Church have a word for this. It's being "catholic" (with a small "c").