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Presuppositions

This note belongs with My Method of Simple Study and Pursue Truth.
There I describe how I read Scripture and how I grow in it; here I’m naming the starting assumptions I bring to that process.

Everybody has presuppositions, even if they deny it.

A presupposition is simply a belief you start with—a thing you assume is true before you ever begin to argue, study, or debate.

You presuppose, for example, that your own mind is rational and capable of weighing facts and drawing sound conclusions. But you cannot prove that without using the very mind you’re trying to justify. That’s a logical circle.

That’s how presuppositions work. They’re unavoidable.
The real question is:

Will I be honest about mine, and am I willing to challenge them if truth demands it?

I care more about truth than comfort.
That’s why I start here—and why I aim, in Pursue Truth, to live out the same commitment I bring to study.

Foundational Presupposition

I presuppose that the Holy Scriptures—contained in the Old and New Testaments of the Bible—are true and understandable.

I’ll go further: I believe that if the Bible were not true, we would lack a deep, coherent basis for trusting our reasoning, our investigation of the world, or our judgments about good and evil.

That’s a bold claim. It should be. Truth claims ought to be tested.
So I don’t want this to be a slogan. I want it to be a starting point you can actually examine.

The question I keep coming back to is:

Does this starting point hold up under honest, careful examination, or does it collapse into contradiction?

My conviction is that this presupposition does hold up. What I write, study, and practice—including the pattern laid out in Pursue Truth—is my attempt to explore that openly and invite anyone willing to think carefully and honestly to follow along.

If you reject the idea that the Bible is true, I’m not shocked or threatened. There are plenty of voices that start with “The Bible is false” and build from there.

What I’m doing is the opposite: I’m exploring what follows if the Bible is true.

The issue is not whether you already agree with me.
The issue is: are you willing to examine a starting point other than your own, or are you too committed to your own presuppositions to let them be questioned?

Truth Is Knowable

Here’s another crucial presupposition:

Truth is real, and truth is knowable.

If that’s so, then you and I can:

If you deny that truth can be known in any meaningful way, then there’s no real point in arguing with anyone about anything—least of all with me.

If no one can know what is true, then:

For those who insist, “There are no absolute truths,” I have one simple question:

Are you absolutely certain about that?

If the answer is yes, you’ve just affirmed at least one absolute truth.
If the answer is no, your statement refutes itself.

Either way, radical skepticism about knowable truth can’t stand on its own feet.

This is why, when I talk about how to Pursue Truth, I do so with the confidence that truth is both real and reachable—not exhaustively, but meaningfully.

The Scriptures Are Profitable

Because I believe God has spoken in the Scriptures, I also believe His words carry real authority and real power.

Few books have been as banned, burned, twisted, and hated as the one that exposes humanity’s corruption with such relentless clarity. And few books have so consistently transformed individual lives and entire cultures as the one that claims to be the very word of God.

Its power is not merely claimed; it is historically, personally, and spiritually demonstrated. But I’m not asking you to grant all of that upfront.

My posture is simple:

I want to speak where God’s Word speaks, stay silent where it is silent, and let God do the heavy lifting in your mind and heart.

Here is what I affirm:

These aren’t abstract doctrines to me.
They are the rails my thinking runs on, the ground my life stands on, and the assumptions underneath both My Method of Simple Study and the way I try to Pursue Truth day by day.

If you’re willing to test these claims honestly, then you’re exactly the kind of person I’m talking to—and exactly the kind of person I’m writing all of this for.