<quote from Real Faith & Reason>
Let’s consider the same thought process that we applied to reality and science and see how it works with God’s revelation as we hear, read, or remember Scripture. And notice there’s no difference in the thought process thinkers use for rationalized science or rationalized theology. Both of them fall flat on the same principle. They both come from the wrong source. The wrong source is neither observation of the created world nor what God wrote in Scripture. Instead, the wrong source is the fallen, sin-cursed human mind, or worse, demonic influence.
While the human mind tries to interpret using the confirmation bias process, we must choose the right source, which is divine revelation. So we allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of Scripture to us. And we also allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the meaning of the created world to us. It’s even why we allow Him to reveal the meaning and purpose of our experiences and observations day by day and minute by minute in every situation.
Our choices for interpreting Scripture are similar to our choices for interpreting any other part of reality with the same circular confirmation bias, worldview, presuppositions, and filter, reasoning in a circle on the left and divine revelation without fallacy on the right. You choose which one to follow. The influencers of the devil, culture, and flesh plus the assumptions that flow naturally from the worldview are inputs into the filter, and they resist the truth that comes from Scripture. They “help” us interpret Scripture. Whatever makes it through the filter is fed into the worldview as confirmation bias.
On the right hand, God interprets Scripture through divine revelation, which builds up Christ in you. To be clear, God speaks, and His faith comes by the rhema or utterance of God. Christ is the logos or utterance of God. God spoke and created the universe by His utterance. Interestingly, when we read “Create in me a clean heart, oh God,” in Psalm 51:10, the Hebrew word “bara” that’s translated as “create” is the same word that’s used to describe the way God created (bara) the heavens and the earth. And He did it by His utterance. He is the one who builds up Christ in you.
As we absorb the choice we have before us, we consider that some thinkers claim that the fallen natural human mind can understand Scripture without God or His revelation. These thinkers claim that we don’t need the Holy Spirit to interpret Scripture. The basis of this claim is that they think the fallen human mind is basically good. They would say, “The human mind was, after all, created by God, wasn’t it?” However, God doesn’t teach that the human mind is basically good. To the contrary, we can’t find “human goodness” in Scripture, but rather, the human mind’s unreliability is a major theme of Scripture.
According to a second story, some thinkers claim that we can simply shift our minds into neutral. In effect, they say that we shift into neutral and read Scripture, but by making this claim, they’re also claiming that we can trust our fallen minds to avoid misinterpreting Scripture. They’re also saying that we don’t need the Holy Spirit, we don’t need the unction from the Father, yet that isn’t what God says through Scripture.
“And as for you, the anointing you received from Him remains in you, and you do not need anyone to teach you. But just as His true and genuine anointing teaches you about all things, so remain in Him as you have been taught.” (1 John 2:27 Berean Study Bible)
By this Scripture, we know that the “shifting our minds into neutral” philosophy doesn’t come from God. And we don’t find that philosophy in Scripture.
In summary, the first story is that we can trust the human mind and the second story is we can think in a neutral and unbiased way. These two dangerous stories are tricks of the enemy of our souls, and both of these stories assure deception and leave us open to doctrines of demons. In refuting these stories, God says the human mind is deceitful and desperately wicked, and He commands us to seek Him with our whole mind.
We see that God has a reason for telling us to seek Him with everything that’s in us. If we seek God, we enquire of God. God asks us to enquire of Him, and not only does God ask us to seek Him, but seeking God isn’t something that God only mentions a few times through Scripture. Just the opposite, seeking God is a major theme of Scripture, not a suggestion but a command.
We need to clarify one other point about seeking God. Techniques like mind blanking, sensory deprivation, and guided imagery are different from seeking God. Seeking God isn’t a trance state. In fact, we don’t dare open our minds to whatever pops into them from whatever source, which is why we guard our innermost minds, for out of the innermost mind flows life.
</end quote>
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