Quotes about Assumptions

Our faith doesn't magically make our assumptions about Jesus and the Bible true. Faith can't turn a falsehood into truth. Rightly understood, it's not a blind belief in the unbelievable; it's a rational belief based on a preponderance of evidence.

I have argued elsewhere that it is time for a fresh integration of different modes and methods of study, taking full account of these cultural assumptions and allowing the texts themselves to offer their own challenge, their own alternative points of view.

Another part of the problem is that exegetes have for years simply not been trained in the political thinking of the ancient world, so that just as we have exported sixteenth-century theology back into ancient Galatia and made Paul's letter address our post-Reformation concerns in their own terms, we have exported modern political assumptions back into ancient Asia Minor and made Revelation, and Paul too for that matter, address our political anxieties in their own terms.

To get a message across to people, you must address their assumptions, questions, objections, hopes, fears, and aspirations.

There is no pure "theology" to be contrasted to "feminist theology" or "Black theology," because the supposed pure theology is driven by its own encultured concerns and assumptions.

The problem isn't the Bible. The problem is coming to the Bible with expectations it's not set up to bear.

All too often in life, we see people do what we want them to do and we say nothing, assuming that the behavior has become natural for them, an easy standard.

It is impossible to begin investigation without assumptions, for they all are founded on ideas and canons which have their basis in the rational and moral nature of man.

We have a dangerous tendency to misunderstand, minimize, and even manipulate the gospel in order to accommodate our assumptions and our desires.

When my brain begs me to doubt God, as it most certainly does, I find relief for my unbelief by laying down my human assessments and assumptions; I turn from the Tree of Knowledge and fix my gaze on the Tree of Life.

Which has really gotten me thinking about all the many times I assign thoughts to others that they never actually think. I hold them accountable to harsh judgments they never make. And I own a rejection from them they never gave me.

the Self stakes out its own territory within us to assure getting its own way, ordering our world to its likings. It has imbedded assumptions and privileges in our psyche; there is a momentum to its desires, motives, and presence in us. I call this the Self Life.