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Hillside O’Malley SDA Church

David Shin

Prized Presupposition

On the screen I have a picture of a gentleman whose name is Michael Kearney.

He was a child prodigy and having our own son, we've been watching his developmental markers.

And when I first read of his account, I thought that this was fiction, but this is true.

He's listed in the Guinness Book World Records, and here are some of his notable milestones that he reached at an early age.

Michael Kearney spoke his first words at 4 months.

At the age of 6 months, he said to his pediatrician, I have a left ear infection.

When Michael was 4, he was given multiple choice diagnostic tests for Johns Hopkins Precocious Math Program.

Without Having studied specifically for the exam, Michael achieved a perfect score.

He graduated college at the age of 10, receiving a bachelor's degree in anthropology from the University of South Alabama in 1994, and in 1994, Kearney and his parents were on The Tonight Show.

He received his master's degree in biochemistry at the age of 14.

His 118-page thesis was entitled, and I can't even pronounce this, kinetic isotope effects of thymidine phosphorylase.

He received his second master's degree in computer science and received his doctorate degree, his PhD, in chemistry.

Now, when it comes to information and data, the smarter you are and the higher your IQ determines the rate that you can absorb that data as we saw in Michael Kearney's IQ that was obviously off the charts.

Your intelligence can determine the rate and also the depth in which you can understand things like science, mathematics, astrophysics, and so on.

But when it comes to more complex matters, I shouldn't say more complex, but I should say when it comes to specifically spiritual matters, we see that intelligence and IQ do not play as critical a role in determining and understanding truth.

As we see in the example of the Pharisees, the Pharisees were brilliant, they were intelligent, they were the best of the best, they were the cream of the crop, and they had IQs that were off the charts, they had memorized large portions of scripture, if not indeed the entire Old Testament for some of them.

These individuals were highly intelligent, yet they missed the Messiah.

The greatest revelation in history was missed by the most brilliant and genius minds in Israel.

Because naturally, we assume that intelligence enables us to understand, quote, objective truth.

And yet, here was the greatest revelation of truth in history, and the most brilliant erudite minds in Israel missed the Messiah.

That is because in the understanding of truth, there is not only a projection of the evidence onto us, but There is also what we call presuppositions that we impose onto the object that we are trying to understand.

So when it comes to the science of knowing, not only is the information projecting onto us, but we are also projecting onto the information as well.

Now during the time of the Enlightenment, it was assumed that reason was pure, and that you could arrive at objective truth.

And if we just apply reason and rationale and logic, we will arrive at absolute truth.

But with the postmodern revolution, there was this understanding that not only does information project onto us, but we also project onto information presuppositions, biases, prejudice that skew and color our understanding.

Now don't worry, Quentin, I'm not going down this road.

Or else you would be without a pastor very soon.

When it comes to our current political climate, people look at the same thing and arrive at opposite conclusions.

So much so that sometimes I wonder if we're in the same universe.

I wonder if we're in a parallel universe.

We're looking at the same data, the same information, yet arriving at such diametrically opposed conclusions.

That is because not only are we looking at information and the information projecting onto us, but we bring with us to the task of understanding a lot of baggage, cultural baggage, theological baggage, baggage that you've grown up with.

Being an American, you bring certain presuppositions to the table, determining how you understand the information.

Oh, I didn't know these came at these rates.

Okay, presuppositions are, when it comes to the science of knowing, are deep, unstated beliefs.

Many times they are implicit and even unconscious.

Sometimes you are not even aware that we have certain biases and presuppositions and prejudices.

We think that we are coming to the table with objectivity, but that is really not the case.

All of us are bringing something to the table.

Furthermore, they are fundamental assumptions upon which all other concepts and ideas are interpreted.

These are the lenses through which you understand and skew and color things according to your own foundational presuppositions.

Now I wanna do a little bit of an exercise with you here, and what I'm going to do is I'm going to plant a presupposition in your mind that is going to determine how you see things in this sequence.

Now, here is the first presupposition that I'm going to plant in your mind.

I think I used this illustration in a little different way, so bear with me.

Here is the first presupposition that I want to plant in your mind.

Do you see the drawing of the young lady?

So here is the presupposition that I'm going to plan in your mind, this drawing of a young lady and I'm going to, in the next picture, the next drawing, I'm going to put on the screen a different picture with this lens.

Okay, we have just shown you this picture.

Do you see the young lady in this picture?

Now, what has just happened is that in the first picture I have planted this presupposition.

What has happened is that you have used this presupposition to determine what you see in the next picture, which is a young lady.

Now what I'm going to do now is I'm going to plant a different presupposition.

I'm going to plant a presupposition of an older lady.

Here is the second presupposition I'm going to plant.

And now what I'm going to do is show you the exact same picture in the second frame here that I showed you before.

You're looking at the exact same picture that I showed you earlier.

The difference is, on the 2 accounts, you had 2 different parameters, presuppositions, that were planted in your brain by me.

And determining, or depending on which picture you see first will determine what you see in the second picture.

What this illustrates is that in the task of interpretation, in the task of understanding, in the task of recognizing what is ultimate reality, we bring and project ideas onto the idea.

And we come to sometimes diametrically opposite conclusions determined by the idea that was planted first.

What I want to point out today is that presuppositions are powerful because presuppositions determine how you interpret ultimate reality.

Now, I have another slide here on the screen This is of a shark Now if you take a marine biologist and a seminary student and you ask them to analyze the shark, they will arrive at different levels of understanding.

Who will arrive at a better understanding?

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Prized Presupposition

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