This is the week of my faith anniversary, which means I’m in the process of challenging my faith presuppositions. I do this every year about this time because it’s the season of Lent and it’s also an anniversary.
I do this because challenging my presuppositions is how I came to the Lord
A Rainy Cabin, A Heavy Book
I was a teenager during the heady era after Congress permitted the building of the Transalaska Pipeline, when the State of Alaska collected a $900 million check for North Slope oil. They celebrated by spending it all, sometimes on silly things. At the time, clearing airfields in off-the-highway communities across Alaska seemed a little silly (probably an article in there somewhere). The State hired a bunch of teenagers to go out into the woods and, with minimal adult supervision, clear brush for runways with little more than machetes and chainsaws. It was a great time and I’m glad I was a part of it.
About halfway through my eight-week stint, three of us were relocated to another airfield. We were flying in a small bush plane and the pilot needed to stop at a miner’s cabin. Nobody had heard from “Hatter” lately and the pilot had been asked to check on him. This was a long time before cell phones and the irridium network. So we landed on a river and motored up to the dock where the miner’s boat was moored. He was fine. Something was wrong with his radio. The pilot thought he could fix it and us girls were told not to wander too far because…bears…while they fiddled with the radio.
Evening came. In northern Interior Alaska, the night doesn’t get dark, but that evening it got foggy and the pilot chose not to fly. Hatter pulled out some cots and we went to sleep. Morning came and it was pouring down rain. We weren’t going anywhere.
By lunch, I was ready to kill the other two girls. Maybe they were lovely people, but they had a limited number of conversational topics — fashion, boys, Hollywood stars. I was bored out of my mind, so I asked Hatter if I could read any of his books. He explained in his German accent that most of his books were in his native tongue. I took Spanish in high school, not German. Hatter had several Zane Grey and Louie L’Amor novels and the Bible…or I could read this book he’d picked up while visiting Switzerland that winter. I didn’t read westerns and the thought of reading the Bible made me immediately yawn, so….
I had no idea who Francis Schaeffer was. The title was a little off-putting - The God Who Is There. I didn’t grow up in a Christian household. I wasn’t an atheist, but I wasn’t a believer by any stretch of the imagination. I was basically a deist…a VERY BORED deist.
I spent that afternoon and evening and the next day reading this book. Almost as soon as I finished, the rain stopped and the pilot said “Let’s go.” Hatter walked us to the plane and asked me “What did you think?”
I admitted it was a book that needed some thought. He nodded and wished me well.
I finished out my stint on the machete crew and then went back to high school. It should have been over there. I’ve read thousands of books in my life. I’ve forgotten most of them and that book was talking about stuff I didn’t believe.
Challenging Philosophy
Except it kept kicking around in the back of my head. Shaeffer argued that absolute truth is grounded in the God who is there. To deny his existence results in a despair that was slowly (then) decimating the West (and now is threatening to wipe it out).
Shaeffer explained the line of despair arises when absolute truth is rejected. When we reject God, our philosophy splits into upper and lower stories. Above the line (upper story) faith is not open to verification, but it gives meaning to one’s life. Below the line (lower story) is where rationality resides. Facts exist and reason and knowledge are attained through science. At its base, biological life is merely a product of chance mechanisms. But the upper story informs of this non-rational world of spiritual concepts and we’re free to believe that which is not true through a “leap of faith.” This view of knowledge and human nature results in despair.
Shaeffer then argues that the Christian worldview is radically different from the mechanistic worldview that brings despair. It answers man’s deepest longings and needs consistent with our humanity. This is not a world of wishful thinking (which is what the lower story thinks of the upper story), but one of a reality where God exists. Mankind is not here by chance, but because God designed us that way to bear His image.
Shaeffer explained that man’s alienation from God, self, others, and nature has resulted in human guilt. God’s solutions to man’s plight is Jesus Christ who rescues from God’s wrath. Jesus purchased our redemption in real space time and it is not a myth, but a reality. Depending on our response to Jesus Christ, either joy or despair is a result in our human experience.
Shaeffer advised we challenge our presuppositions to understand that God is the basis of all reality, not humanity. We humans are very self-centered, so we always think we’re the center of the universe, but if we presuppose God is actually the basis of all reality, the believer must then be prepared to clarify what true-truth is and what real guilt is. Jesus must be truly treasured and disciples must be truly developed.
Shaeffer encouraged believers to be in the Bible and prayer, in community with outsiders and God’s people, and to remember how indispensible a Bible-based community is to teach objective truth rather than twisting biblical texts to meet our personal beliefs.
Christians were EVERYWHERE
Of course, those ideas existed only in a nascent form in teenage me. That I can articulate them now is only the result of decades of contemplation on the subject.
Still, The God Who is There influenced a lot of my thinking that fall. But God had another way of reaching me. Christians had been few and far between in my life. I don’t remember any of my friends talking about it the year before. But it seemed like half the people I knew and hung out with had experienced a renewal of their faith that summer and they all wanted to talk about it…with me. Nobody forced me. They just talked and they made it look fun. They invited me to church and to Christian youth activities. And someone loaned me a Bible and suggested I read the Gospel of John and then the Letter to the Romans — which I did.
Challenging my presuppositions, as Shaeffer recommends, required I give it serious thought.
Presuppositions?
A presupposition is defined as “the act of presupposing; a supposition made prior to having knowledge (as for the purpose of argument)” (presupposition. Dictionary.com, WordNet® 2.1. Princeton University).
A presupposition is based on an idea or belief that is not testable, observable, or repeatable. In other words, abstract and immaterial. How you interpret what you see, feel, and think is based on what you presuppose. Some presuppositions can be determined by observing how someone interprets the world around them. Many times people will indeed deny they have presuppositions.
I didn’t grow up in a Christian household. I “knew” some things about God because there was still a largely Christian culture in the United States when I was growing up. I realized that I presupposed God existed, but I knew nothing about him (small h deliberate for talking about the past). I kind of figured he was some sort of cosmic sugar daddy. If I prayed to him, he had to give me what I wanted. Right?
But that’s not the god (small g deliberate from talking about the past) I found in the Gospel of John. I found Jesus — who I was familiar with a version of from Godspell and Jesus Christ Superstar — who said he was the Father, God of the Universe.
That was mind-blowing! My principle presupposition was proven false! It wasn’t a one-time lesson. I spent about 15 months digging through my presuppositions and comparing them to Biblical truth.
My next presupposition to fall was that God would judge me. I know! Inconsistent! I was a teenager, all right? Give me some points for being young.
What Jesus did for us is utterly positive. He made it possible for us to live in eternity with God where there will be no pain, disease, death, sadness or suffering. Who wouldn’t want to live in a place like that?
And all I had to do was believe that Jesus is God and died for the forgiveness of my sins. Well, that seemed easy! Except that as I read the Gospel of John and then Romans, I began to realize there were costs to pay. I didn’t know what mine would be, but I suspected I would have costs if I made this decision.
My third presupposition to fall was that I still had a choice in this. God had been working in my life since I got on that bush plane and if I read the Gospel of John correctly, God chooses the believer, not the other way around. He decided to be my Savior. My choice was only in whether I would let Him be Lord of my life.
My fourth presupposition to fall was what letting Jesus be Lord of my life would mean. You always have a choice. God will not send lightning bolts from the sky if you proclaim Jesus is Lord of your life and then walk off into the world to live your life as if you hadn’t done that. Consequences for that are rarely immediate. It’s a choice, every day, to obey God and not live according to the world.
Taking the Narrow Way
On Sunday, March 27, 1977, I walked the aisle of Friendship Baptist Mission in Fairbanks, Alaska. I didn’t wholly know what I expected. I did know I was done debating with the Savior Who kindled me to life at least a year and half before. I wanted to see the next phase of this adventure He was offering me.
“Two roads diverge in a yellow wood and I took the one less traveled which made all the difference.” Robert Frost
I took the road of faith and came to understand that it is impossible to please God without faith. Anyone who comes to Him must believe He exists and rewards those who earnestly seek Him. (Hebrews 11:6)
And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him (Hebrews 11:6).
Lela Markham is an Alaska-based novelist and commentator who doesn’t write Christian books, but tries to write really good books that don’t make fun of Christians.
I’m visiting my Hawaiian-based daughter this week, so I may not be able to respond daily. I’ll catch you when I have the internet. Meanwhile, envision me living in a gazebo and showering outdoors. And between hiking rainforests and swimming on black sand beaches, I’ll be challenging my presuppositions, not to deconstruct my faith, but to see where God wants me to follow today and not decades ago. Ask me about it if you’re interested.
Lela, thank you for sharing. May God bless you in your daily walk.
Well, Lela, at the very least by sharing this you got someone to track down that book by Schaeffer online and download it. (That would be me.)