Presuppositions

heymikey80 · Aug 15, 2009

I dunno, it's kind of a Twilight Zone feeling I get trying to put things in these terms.

CTers see more continuity from OT to NT.
Yet dispensationalists often see the OT as a "learning ground" of examples for God's people, failing to complete the actual continuity link.
And NCTers see one kind of break, specifically at the OT/NT line.

I have seen CTers and Dispensationalists try to work from the OT as a lens for the new. There's some validity in the approach. It's just incomplete. Others -- CTers, too -- have a tendency to neglect this valid approach, to "figuratize" the OT as if that's "spiritualizing" it, and thus neglecting the actual validity of this approach.

That's important. The OT recipients' view is important. But it's clearly more than that. Were we to solely take account of Abraham's view of the children of Abraham, I'm unsure how we could leap through the hoop that Abraham was thinking about ... us.

I'm personally taken by the idea that Jesus was subverting the human dissipation and corruption of the OT covenant, making it less than it was, when they should've been looking forward to something so much greater that it promised.

And if that were our primary example to take away from the Old Testament "lens", we'd probably recognize the OT "lens" wasn't sufficient and naturally conclude we're searching for more.

myways · Aug 16, 2009

I think that understanding the Bible from the point of view of the original recipiants gives us a broader understanding of the Bible...

...while...

...understanding the Bible from the point of view of further revelation gives us a deeper understanding.

It seems that it would be easy for someone taking either approach to presume that his approach is more complete than the other side's.
We should absolutly be trying to do both, not either/or.
--dave

heymikey80 · Aug 16, 2009

That's a good point. We get outside ourselves looking across history at how different recipients should've understood the Bible's statements. We get a healthy skepticism of our importance. I've seen that in covenant theologians who simply try to understand what the words were saying as-penned.

As revelation progresses and accumulates, we do see a deeper and more-developed picture of who the Writer of Scripture is -- the Spirit of God. And if we're careful not to deal with imaginary interpretations, we do get to a fuller picture of God, and how God sees us.

msortwell · Aug 27, 2009

heymikey80 said:
That's a good point. We get outside ourselves looking across history at how different recipients should've understood the Bible's statements. We get a healthy skepticism of our importance. I've seen that in covenant theologians who simply try to understand what the words were saying as-penned.

As revelation progresses and accumulates, we do see a deeper and more-developed picture of who the Writer of Scripture is -- the Spirit of God. And if we're careful not to deal with imaginary interpretations, we do get to a fuller picture of God, and how God sees us.

And it SEEMS (chime in if any disagree) that much of the ability (or willingness) to gain this deeper/fuller meaning of text stems from the Bible student's willingness to see the Scriptures as asingle organic whole or as a set of separate communications intended for separate peoples at separate times. The question would be, "Are such considerations of the Text based upon presupposition or the application of a biblical principle?"

RTE (Road to Emmaus) · Aug 30, 2009

Msortwell,

"Are such considerations of the Text based upon presupposition or the application of a biblical principle?"
There is actually no such thing as a biblical principle, apart from one that is presupposed.

Regarding the thread topic, dispensationalists presuppose that the bible is the Word of God, whereas CTs know it is (merely) the word of God, and that, as Oswald Chambers put is, God must respeak the scriptures to us in order for any of it to make sense, at which point it becomes the Word of God.

Only God, is the Word of God.

PS: I have spoken with you on other websites under the name "Colossians", which name I unfortunately could not reinstate on this site.

myways · Sep 1, 2009

2 sam 22:
21 “The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
I have not done evil by turning from my God.
23 All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
24 I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
25 The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness [fn6] in his sight.

Using deductive logic we see that this song of david can't be primarily interpreted in the plain sense. And so we call it prophetic of Jesus. My question is: What do persons of different pressupositions say how a text like this should affect our approach to the rest of the BIble? Is it reasonable for a Dispy to say that this is an exception and that the rest of the Bible should still favor the plain meaning of the words, or is it a real contradiction?

msortwell · Sep 1, 2009

RTE (Road to Emmaus) said:
There is actually no such thing as a biblical principle, apart from one that is presupposed.

Regarding the thread topic, dispensationalists presuppose that the bible is the Word of God, whereas CTs know it is (merely) the word of God, and that, as Oswald Chambers put is, God must respeak the scriptures to us in order for any of it to make sense, at which point it becomes the Word of God.

Only God, is the Word of God.

PS: I have spoken with you on other websites under the name "Colossians", which name I unfortunately could not reinstate on this site.

I can't recall. Did I consider your side of our previous discussions to be as nonsensical as this post of yours?

msortwell · Sep 1, 2009

myways said:
2 sam 22:
21 The Lord has dealt with me according to my righteousness;
according to the cleanness of my hands he has rewarded me.
22 For I have kept the ways of the Lord;
I have not done evil by turning from my God.
23 All his laws are before me;
I have not turned away from his decrees.
24 I have been blameless before him
and have kept myself from sin.
25 The Lord has rewarded me according to my righteousness,
according to my cleanness [fn6] in his sight.

Using deductive logic we see that this song of david can't be primarily interpreted in the plain sense. And so we call it prophetic of Jesus. My question is: What do persons of different pressupositions say how a text like this should affect our approach to the rest of the BIble? Is it reasonable for a Dispy to say that this is an exception and that the rest of the Bible should still favor the plain meaning of the words, or is it a real contradiction?

There is a "thumb rule" applied by some Dspys that states, "When the plain sense makes perfect/good sense, seek no other sense." Those applying this thumb rule to this text would have to seek a sense other than the literal.

The sad part is when students of the Bible embrace nonsense rather than abandon a literal/plain interpretation.

myways · Sep 4, 2009

therefore God speaks plainly here and figuratively there but never stacks two meanings for one text/prophesy/law/command/etc?
That makes me grouchy.

msortwell · Sep 6, 2009

myways said:
therefore God speaks plainly here and figuratively there but never stacks two meanings for one text/prophesy/law/command/etc?
That makes me grouchy.

I am sorry, but what makes you grouchy?

myways · Sep 7, 2009

its the implication that

if a text has an acceptable literal meaning,
then it does not have further meaning

this does not follow. on what basis does God restrict Himself to only giving a spiritual meaning to texts that don't otherwise make sense and not to passages that do in fact have a sensible literal meaning.

there's no reason that "making sense" should disqualify a text from having a deeper meaning. Why then does the dispy's rule of thumb above give that as an interpretation guidline?

dave

GrinningDwarf · Sep 27, 2009

msortwell said:
I am interested in those presuppositions admitted to by those ascribing to a particular theological system (CTers or Dispys identifying their OWN presuppositions).

Here's my presupposition....

Jesus taught His disciples for three years before the crucifiction. He then came back and gave them even more intensive instruction, beginning with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to whom "beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." These disciples knew how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament scriptures in light of Himself, and this is what they passed on to us in the Gospels and the epistles. Therefore, the New Testament tells us what the Old Testament meant, and not vice versa.

So for instance, when dispensationalists say that we need to use Daniel to help us understand Revelation, they've got it backwards. And when Paul tells us in Romans 4 that God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled through faith in Christ and not through a literal land promise to the nation of Israel, and that the recipients of those promises are Jews and Gentiles who put their faith and trust in Christ, then we are not the ones 'spiritualizing' the text; the disciples/apostles are passing on what Jesus had taught them.

msortwell · Oct 23, 2009

GrinningDwarf said:
Here's my presupposition....

Jesus taught His disciples for three years before the crucifiction. He then came back and gave them even more intensive instruction, beginning with the disciples on the road to Emmaus, to whom "beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures." These disciples knew how Jesus interpreted the Old Testament scriptures in light of Himself, and this is what they passed on to us in the Gospels and the epistles. Therefore, the New Testament tells us what the Old Testament meant, and not vice versa.

So for instance, when dispensationalists say that we need to use Daniel to help us understand Revelation, they've got it backwards. And when Paul tells us in Romans 4 that God's promise to Abraham is fulfilled through faith in Christ and not through a literal land promise to the nation of Israel, and that the recipients of those promises are Jews and Gentiles who put their faith and trust in Christ, then we are not the ones 'spiritualizing' the text; the disciples/apostles are passing on what Jesus had taught them.

I have one minor objection to your description. It seems that the understanding of the fulfillment of Gods promises to Abraham that you have obtained from Romans 4 is expressly taught in Galatians 3. Therefore, it would seem to be more of a straight grammatical interpretation than presupposition. On the other hand, deviating from the plain meaning of Galatians 3 to hold doggedly to a higher-than-biblical view of national Israel would seem to require that presupposition be allowed to supplant an historical-grammatical hermeneutic.

myways · Oct 23, 2009

Since we're touching on it, I'd like to bring up two huge pressuppositions that influences our interpretation of what the Bible says about the Covenants.
We make a disasterous mistake when we read Rom4/Gal3 and assume
1. that when Paul talks about the Law (rom4:12-16/gal 3:17-25) vs the Promise (Gal 3: 16,17) he is talking about the Covenants per se. He absolutly is not. Herein he is talking about justification, contrasting works (Law) vs faith (Promise.) And
2. that the fulfillment of the Promise is either literal or spiritual and not both.
The the subject of the Promise, and the subject of the Law are the same covenant. The Promise merely illustraites God's terms and the Law illustrates Man's terms. And, since God cannot fulfill His side of the covenant because of Man's infidelity, and Man cannot fulfill his side of the covenant because of his spiritual brokenness, they need a mediator. The God-Man (as "one" fulfills both sides. Gal 3:20)

The Covenant is God's terms for relating rightly to Him and the Inheritance thereof

Man's side:
In the literal mode (Covenant of Works [organic justification])
Christ, the perfect Man, fulfills the Covenant by His Life (ending in his death on a cross Phl 2:8)
In the spiritual mode (Covenant of Grace [imputed justification])
Christ, the lowly Ox, fulfills the Covenant by His Death (to present Himself to the Father on our behalf in Heaven's Tabernacle Heb 9:11,12)

God's side:
In the literal mode (Covnenat of Works [physical dominian of Canaan])
Christ, the Lion of Judah, fulfills the Covenant by His Return (wherein He singlehandedly conqurs the region and reigns as Israel's King Rev 12:5/19:15)
In the spiritual mode (Covenant of Grace [spiritual dominan of the Canaan of our hearts])
Christ, the soaring Eagle, fulfills the Covenant by His Ascent (wherefrom He pours out His Spirit to conqur the Canaan of our hearts and populate it with His fruits as numerous as the stars in the sky Act 1:5-9/2:33)

The message of the Bible therein is that:
The fulfillment of the Law is attained by: Us being "in Christ" (Phil 3:8,9)
and
The fulfillment of the Promise is granted by: "Christ [being] in [us]" (Col 1:27)

I think it's very elegant and wonderfully Christocentric.
Ezk 1

Presuppositions

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