What does the Bible reveal to us about God?
To answer this, we first need to deal with our assumptions and biases. Everyone reads and interprets the Bible through a lens created by the influences of their culture, past training, life experiences, and relationships. No one can be completely free of these influences.
However, there is one concept seated within the foundation of Western civilization that is so determinative we must deal with it before we can understand the Bible and what it teaches about God. Most Christians have never addressed this issue. They read the Bible, assuming their intellect is ready to absorb and analyze information. Western Christians are unaware of how profoundly their understanding of the Bible and God is influenced by their cosmology.
Cosmology refers to one’s fundamental understanding of the origin and nature of the world. A Christian cosmology should also reveal truths about how God relates to this world.
The cosmology that has most influenced Western civilization is the Classical cosmology. It is called this because it developed during Classical antiquity.20 The cosmology developed during that period lies at the foundation of Western civilization and Christianity.
In this book, our goal is to develop FST. To be successful, we need a biblically derived cosmology. After developing that cosmology in this section, we will be able to read the Bible and more accurately understand what it reveals about God.
20: The development of the Classical cosmology is further explained in I:H.↩︎