Presuppositional Truth

This graphic on Presuppositional Truth presents a foundational concept in soul care and biblical counseling: there are no neutral facts. Every person who walks into the counseling room carries a subjective lens—a preloaded, interpretive filter shaped by their background, beliefs, assumptions, and Adamic fallenness. Whether someone is regenerated or not, they are interpreting life, relationships, and events through a lens. This idea, drawn from the work of Cornelius Van Til, helps us avoid the common error of assuming that facts speak for themselves. They don’t. People interpret facts, and that interpretation reveals their worldview.

Interpreting the Apple: Two Lenses, Two Conclusions

The apple at the top of both columns in the graphic represents a fact: a shared experience, an event, a circumstance, or an object. Both the Christian and the non-Christian are looking at the same apple. But how they interpret it diverges entirely.

• The Christian, informed by a God-centered, truth-rooted, and redemptive worldview, sees the apple as an act of creation, a reason to give glory to God. Their presupposition is that God exists, that He defines reality, and that He has revealed Himself through His Word and world.
• The non-Christian, shaped by a self-help, person-centered, and autonomous worldview, may view the apple as the product of evolution, a source of personal benefit, or simply as morally and theologically neutral. But the ultimate conclusion is the same: the glory goes to self.

This isn’t about who is more logical. Both individuals are using reason. The difference lies in the presuppositional starting point: one begins with God, the other begins with man. The interpretive grid each person brings to the situation is shaped by their core allegiance, and there is no such thing as an unfiltered response.

Implications for Soul Care

When a couple walks into the counseling room and shares “the same story,” you may find yourself hearing two completely different accounts of what happened. It would be a serious error to assume one is lying simply because their interpretations conflict. You’re not hearing objective history—you’re hearing filtered perspectives. And if you don’t take time to ask questions that unpack their shaping influences, histories, presuppositions, and offender/offended patterns, you’ll misdiagnose the problem. This is where presuppositional truth matters in real time.

Case Study: Biff Misjudges a Wife as Lying

Biff, a biblical counselor, is working with a married couple. The husband is articulate, calm, and orderly in his account. The wife’s account of the same events, however, seems exaggerated, emotional, and inconsistent. Biff concludes: she’s lying.

But what Biff doesn’t know—because he hasn’t asked—is that this woman was raised under an abusive father who used “submission” to control and shame her. Her conscience and emotional instincts are still calibrated by a distorted experience of authority. Her interpretive grid is colored by fear, hyper-vigilance, and survival reflexes. So when her husband raises his voice or makes a demand—even a mild one—she perceives it as danger. She’s not lying. She’s interpreting. And that’s exactly what Biff missed.

The husband, meanwhile, is frustrated that his wife overreacts to his leadership. But he hasn’t considered her history. He views her resistance as rebellion, not as the fruit of horrible shaping influences. If he understood that her resistance comes from miscalibrated fear—not from disdain—it would profoundly change how he shepherds her.

A Path Forward

1. For Biff (the Counselor): Biff needs to go back to foundational training. He must remember that “the purposes in a man’s heart are like deep water, but a man of understanding will draw them out” (Proverbs 20:5). That requires patience, listening, and theological depth. He must repent of the presumption that conflicting stories mean dishonesty and recommit to understanding the why behind the what.
2. For the Husband: He must learn to love his wife with understanding (1 Peter 3:7). That means studying her past, recognizing her sensitivities, and not using his authority as a blunt instrument. Godly leadership does not demand submission; it cultivates safety.
3. For the Wife: She needs space to recalibrate her interpretive grid through sound teaching, discipleship, and safe relationships. She isn’t defined by her past, but her past has shaped how she sees the present. She must learn to reinterpret her husband’s leadership through the lens of Scripture, not fear.

Presuppositional truth teaches us that nobody walks into a counseling room as a blank slate. Everyone is interpreting life through a worldview. The task of biblical soul care is not to force people to adopt “our view,” but to expose faulty filters, clarify truth, and redirect the glory back to God.

Find all our graphics here.

Peace,
Rick