I recently started looking into what it means to have “understanding” biblically. Understanding is frequently synonymous with wisdom and prudence in God’s Word. Here is something I said in that first part:
There is no way to escape that ultimately you cannot have a basis for understanding without something you rely on. Wisdom is established through something you have faith/trust in—even when there’s ultimately no hard evidence proving it right in man’s limited perspective (yet, that might not be entirely true…). The only authentically authoritative resource to mankind that by all appearances remains truthful to history, science, law and all other matters is the Bible. Yes, the age old book that Christians swear by.
Before you determine how the world ticks, get to know what makes it tick.
Why man is forced to rely on something outside of his own understanding to accurately reason a view of the world around him (and what makes it tick) is because he is finite. he can’t no the laws and principles that govern the universe without gathering observation outside of his physical limitations.
Some people never pursue this sort of understanding—for various reasons. One reason is they don’t know what to base their understanding on. To a lot of people it is obvious man shouldn’t be trusted for this gathering this information (knowledge) on his own because he is finite, and this is a good position to hold. If man is the biggest, smartest and absolute authoritative creature on what makes the world go round, then we’re all in a heap of trouble…
The knowledge that man requires outside of himself must be an authoritative source that is more than finite; infinite. Science demonstrates for us that there is nothing physically infinite in the universe. Without something that could/does proceed and out-exist the physical world in the future, you don’t have something that can give you this sort of higher knowledge. I call it “higher” knowledge because it requires a power greater than what man possesses.
Inevitably, man is faced with a big decision: either believe in whatever he wants to believe that man can fathom, or take someone’s word for it that God has communicated His divine authority of what makes the world tick to someone other than yourself so you might know the “secret knowledge” otherwise hidden from man entirely. Either way you choose to think and view the world you are processing your beliefs by a method called “presuppositionalism.” That million dollar word basically means if you have “faith” in what you cannot physically prove then you are making some assumptions that are prerequisites to understanding the rest of the properties of the world. Inevitably, no one can totally prove much of anything physically, so everyone has presuppositions about the world whether they like it or not. In the end, whatever you call reality, it requires that you have some faith that it is so.
The Bible, to date, is the most authentic account of foundational presuppositions one can find. Without such a significant work, I don’t know how you can accurately account for much of the physical, soulful, or spiritual properties of this world.
