In philosophy, there is a term: “a priori assumptions.” An a priori assumption is a very basic belief we hold usually without empirical evidence. These are beliefs we use as filters to view the world.
I am a retired photographer, so I’ll use a photographic example. In photography we have a No. 25 filter. It is a deep red filter. It’s so red that it filters out all other colors.
A priori assumptions are like my No. 25 filter. They filter out the things that don’t match the filter’s standard. Atheists have an atheist filter. They view the world through the a priori assumption there is no God. As such, when we speak to them about God, their filter springs into action and tells them we must be wrong. What we’re saying doesn’t make sense because it doesn’t make it through their filter.
We have the same issue with cults. There are Mormon filters, Christian Science filters, and Jehovah’s Witness filters. There are also Muslim filters, Hindu filters, etc. When I tell a Jehovah’s Witness Jesus is God, they think, “That can’t be true. My filter, my a priori assumption, doesn’t match that idea.” And, so it’s rejected.
We Christians are no different. We have a Christian filter. We look at the world through the Bible and see sinful acts. We look at drunkenness, drugs, adultery, and so on, and see those as sins. Sin in our own lives, though, clouds that filter. It makes it harder to see the temptations we face as sinful. It makes it easier to yield our will to them, so we need to keep our filter clean. We need to confess our sins daily.
At this point, it would be good to talk a little about what truth is. Truth is whatever corresponds to reality. This is called the Correspondence Theory of Truth. There are others. Another is called the Coherence Theory of Truth. It says that something is true only if it matches, coheres to, what we already accept as true. Believe it or not, this is how we’ve arrived at most of what we think is true.
We believe Donald Trump was elected President of the United States in 2016 because we were told by someone, usually several people that we trust, so we believe it as true. Most of us didn’t experience it firsthand. We heard it from someone we trusted and it matched what we already believed.
Many of our a priori assumptions are from hearsay. That JW I spoke of earlier, she believed I was wrong when I said Jesus was God because someone she trusted told her so, the Watchtower Organization. Because she trusts them, she turns over her worldview, her filtering, to them.
This sounds foolish, but we all do this. I believe the Bible is true. I’ve examined it, checked it out historically, internally, and externally. I am convinced it is true and base my worldview on it. Now, the Bible is my filter through which I view the world. When I run into others who disagree, I believe they’re wrong because they disagree with what I believe to be true. Still, what I believe came mostly from someone else: historians, theologians, apologists, philosophers.
There are other evidences I rely on such as my personal relationship with Christ, my experiencing His presence, and our interaction, but others claim they’ve had the same experience.
Along with this, God has a filter as well. He has a “Jesus” filter He uses when He looks at His children. Though we may have sin in our lives, though we are unworthy of standing in His presence, the Father holds up His filter and sees only Jesus when He looks at us. Jesus has cleansed us of all sin. We are perfect in the Father’s eyes, through His filter.
Why is this important?
Why I think this is something we need to understand as Christians is we experience the filters of others standing in the way of their accepting Christ.
You cannot often logically argue a person out of a position they have come to illogically. In other words, when we talk with an atheist, a cultist, or someone of another religion, we are telling them things that simply cannot pass through their filter.
What can pass through their filter is the Holy Spirit. We can plant an idea and water that idea, but it is God who can overcome the rejection of that idea:
I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. 7 So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Cor 3:6-7)
Believers Armed and Dangerous 