Words of Wisdom - No 3

Os Guinness writes:

There are two main ways in which our minds can be affected by faulty presuppositions. The first is by allowing pre-Christian presuppositions to remain after we have come to faith … The second main way in which a Christian’s mind can be affected is by allowing alien presuppositions to enter and dominate afterward … Whether the problem is the result of old presuppositions that have not been rooted out or of alien presuppositions that have filtered in, the effect is the same. The presuppositions are wrong, so the picture of God is wrong too. Faith is out of focus, not seeing God as he is, and temptation to doubt is inevitable. When such temptation comes, it is an amber light to warn of the worldliness of mind into which we are slipping.

Don’t miss one point: If God really were like our picture of him, then the doubt would be valid. But it is our picture of God, not God, that is at fault, and the doubt is fuelled solely by misunderstanding. Sometimes when I listen to people who say they have lost their faith, I am far less surprised than they expect. If their view of God is what they say, then it is only surprising that they did not reject it much earlier.

FROM: Os Guinness, God in the Dark (Crossway Books, Wheaton, Illinois, 1996), pp 63-65.