There has been a recent resurgence of public intellectuals who affirm the value of religion. Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray are relatively popular voices who, in some way, shape, or form, recognize religion as an important aspect of society. However, when religion or Christianity in particular is advanced as a societal good, a subtle inversion occurs that actually undercuts reality, particularly the reality of the Triune God. These public voices are not exactly opposed to Christianity, particularly when compared to new atheists like Sam Harris, who sees religion as false and dangerous, but even those who affirm religion and Christian values without confessing, “Jesus is Lord,” are promoting an incomplete view of reality. It is a view of reality in which God is subject to reality rather than its source. In this conception, the Bible is not recognized as the self-disclosure of God but as one tradition’s understanding of reality. From this perspective, different faith traditions are dressing reality in religious garb.
The Truth Rising initiative from the Colson Center and Focus on the Family suggests a different arrangement. As John Stonestreet notes on Thinking Christian, the creation, fall, redemption, and restoration the Bible describes is “not the story the Bible tells, it’s the story of the world, and the Bible tells that story.” What he means is that the Bible is not a human attempt to construct a story about reality explained through a monotheistic lens, but the self-disclosure of the Triune God who alone is the source and ground of goodness, beauty, and truth. Humans do not determine what is good, beautiful, or true. They recognize the goodness, beauty, and truth flowing from and constituted by the Triune God.
Before considering Truth Rising’s fourfold “biblical account of reality” (creation, fall, redemption, restoration), it is worth pausing to introduce the Thinking Christian framework. This framework is intended to provide a practical way of pursuing something beyond a biblical worldview as a set of propositions. Its aim is to manifest that worldview in our way of being in the world. The Thinking Christian framework cultivates a shared Christian understanding that affirms truth in word and deed—an embodied testimony to God and his claim on our lives.
Four Practices for Living Out a Biblical View of Reality
The Thinking Christian framework includes four basic elements:
- Recognizing God’s Reality,
- Developing a Theological Disposition,
- Committing to Theo-logic
- Engaging in Disciplined Inquiry.
Each element involves thought, but none are purely cognitive, because we are embodied creatures embedded in particular contexts. Our thinking cannot be separated from our way of being in the world. As such, each element has implications for how we live in the world and for how we understand truth.
1. Recognizing God's Reality
Recognizing God’s reality involves submitting ourselves to the claim God makes on our lives, committing to love him with all we are and have. This recognition takes place as we (1) reorder our loves so that our loyalty to God shapes the way we relate to everything else (Deut 6:4-5; Matt 22:34-40; 1 Jn 5:1-5), (2) reorient our attention by reading of God’s word, being sensitive to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, and participating in the community of faith, so that God becomes infinitely more relevant than any other actor or factor we may encounter (Gen 22:12; Ps 111:10), and (3) Respond to God from within a given situation rather than responding to the situation as if God were irrelevant (Matt 4:1-11; 1 Samuel 24:1-22; Rev 2:8-11).
2. Developing a Theological Disposition
Developing a theological disposition involves forming a shared sense of how the world works. That sense is shaped by God’s self-disclosure, refined by the Holy Spirit, and cultivated in Christian community. This theological disposition manifests in an instinctual way of navigating the world.
3. Committing to Theo-logic
Committing to Theo-logic is the practice of reasoning with the grain of God’s reality as revealed in Christ and the Scriptures. Theo-logic reflects habits of judgment that are patient, cruciform, and faithful. It is resistant to cultural narratives, reactive opinion, and outrage cycles. Committing to Theo-logic acknowledges that the relationship with God reforms rationality.
4. Engaging in Disciplined Inquiry
Engaging in disciplined inquiry is the practice of Christian discernment. Whereas the aim of developing a theological disposition and committing to Theo-logic is to develop a deeply ingrained, almost intuitive Christian sense, disciplined inquiry is the slower, more deliberate approach to testing claims, habits, and cultural pressures. It helps believers examine issues and arguments with a calm, thoughtful, theological posture.
Together, these four elements describe a way of becoming the kind of people for whom faithfulness is not a strategy we adopt but a way of living we embody. It is not simply a matter of filtering out misinformation, but of combatting misformation—the deeper shaping of our loyalties, perceptions, desires, and judgment away from reality, particularly the reality of the Triune God. This misinformation is ultimately at stake when we address matters of truth.
The Bible’s Four-Part Story of Reality
The Truth Rising project offers a fourfold biblical account of reality: creation, fall, redemption, and restoration. The following is a reading of these four components in light of the Thinking Christian framework.
1. Creation
Genesis 1:1-2:25 offers a picture of harmony between God and humanity. Humankind is made in God’s image and blessed to multiply and exercise dominion under the authority of the Lord (Gen 1:26-28). The image of God confers dignity and obligation, though we often forget the second part. If we are to reflect and represent God in the world and for the world’s sake, we must live under God’s authority. To put it differently, we are to live with unqualified loyalty to God, recognizing that he is our Sovereign. Living under God’s authority is not burdensome but life-giving—it allows for maximal human flourishing because attending to and responding to God reflects the underlying dynamics of how the world works (Gen 2:15-17; 26:5; Deut 30:15-20; 1 Sam 12:14-15). Humanity is created to depend on God, care for his creation (Gen 2:15), and exercise authority on its behalf. Everything depends on whether humankind will live according to Theo-logic—recognizing that trusting God is always the best option—or adopt a self-centered logic that tempts them to serve themselves rather than God.
2. Fall
The Fall reflects humanity’s choice to reject Theo-logic by transgressing the boundaries God set for the proper functioning of creation (Genesis 3:1-7). The Fall is a moment of misformation in which humanity’s self-love displaces its love for God. In the conversation between the serpent and the woman, the woman takes her eyes off of God, focusing on the tree and its supposed potential, exercises her own judgment, and encourages her husband to rebel (3:6-7). She engages in undisciplined inquiry, allowing the serpent’s arguments to shake her trust in the Lord and feed her desire to be like God. As the serpent distorts God’s character, the woman is tempted with a new way of being in the world that she believes will be better than living under the Lord’s authority. The human couple’s disloyalty makes redemption necessary.
3. Redemption
The Fall leaves humanity in a self-enclosed reality characterized by disordered loves, distorted perception, and an inclination to deny God and the boundaries he sets (Gen 6:1-4). Humanity is captured by sin (Gen 4:7; Rom 6:16-19) and in need of redemption. Redemption is God’s reclaiming of our lives. When Israel is brought out of Egypt, God does not free them so that they can live on their own terms, but according to his law (Exod 19-20; Deut 6:4-25). The law is an expression of Theo-logic, reminding God’s people of their dependence on and accountability to the Lord. The Law, however, was weakened by the “flesh” (Rom 8:3), so that further redemptive action was required. The New Covenant does not abolish the law but writes it on the heart of God’s people so that we are enabled, through the Holy Spirit, to follow God’s statutes and instructions (Jer 31:31-34; Ezek 36:25-27). By redeeming us, God has drawn us out of bondage to sin and into the “newness of life” made possible by the Holy Spirit (Rom 6:4).
4. Restoration
Restoration isn’t exactly a return to the garden because in the garden, humanity had not experienced the ravages of sin. Our restoration won’t erase our memory of life under sin. Though we will no longer experience the anguish of our fallen state, the lessons we learned will stay with us. Christ himself, the firstborn of all creation (Col 1:15), retained the memory of suffering so that the obedience learned through it was not lost (Heb 4:15; 5:8). Our restoration is preceded by a life in which trials temper our faith and forge our character (Jas 1:2-4; 1 Pet 1:3-9). Our restoration will solidify our recognition of God’s reality, purify our theological disposition, cement our Theo-logic, and sharpen our ability for disciplined engagement as we live in the presence of the Triune God, deepening our knowledge of, glorifying, and enjoying him forever.
Living Out the Truth in a World of Misformation
Every time Christians point to and glorify the Triune God in word and deed, the truth is rising. It is rising because we recognize the claim “the way, the truth, and the life” (Jn 14:6) has on us. As God’s people live along the grain of reality by delighting in God’s instruction (Ps 1:2) rather than following the ways of the world (Ps 1:1), we demonstrate our understanding of how the world works and display an odd logic within it—a Theo-logic that privileges obedience over comfort and appreciation over exploitation.
The Truth Rising project reflects a deep conviction that all Christians should share: misinformation and misformation tend to go hand in hand. As God’s people, we commit to the truth not because we think doing so will fix the world, but because, having had the truth revealed to us in God’s word and in Jesus Christ, we have no other way of living except by following the only person whose life resulted in resurrection, ascension, and glorification.
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