The Hidden Assumption Inside You · Inspiring Philosophy Academy

The Hidden Assumption Inside You

Before you read this, give yourself five uninterrupted minutes.

No distractions. No urgency. No need to decide whether every sentence is “right” or “wrong.”

I just want you to read this with curiosity. Not about Christianity. About yourself.

Think back to the last objection to your faith that really got under your skin.

When you finally found an answer, whether it was from a book, a YouTube video, Tim, me, or your favorite apologist, how long did the relief actually last? A day? A week? Maybe a few months?

Then another objection showed up, and somehow you found yourself right back in the same place.

If that’s familiar, consider a strange possibility.

What if the answer actually worked perfectly, and the weight came back anyway?

What if the weight was never really about the answer?

Don’t answer that. Just notice what happens in you as you keep reading.

Have you ever held Christianity to a standard of proof you would never dream of applying to anything else you believe? Your memories. Your senses. The love of your family. Your closest friendships. And then called that asymmetrical standard “being intellectually honest”? Or maybe you’ve even felt that lowering that standard, even slightly, would somehow make you dishonest.

Have you ever felt like a hypocrite for praying, worshipping, or calling yourself a Christian while one unanswered question sat quietly in the back of your mind? As though sincerity required certainty.

Have you ever felt like you had to remain outside Christianity in order to judge it fairly? Like actually living the Christian life, praying, serving, worshipping, trusting, would somehow contaminate the investigation? So you stayed outside the story while trying to decide whether it was true.

Have you ever noticed that some questions don’t actually feel like questions?

They feel like threats.

Like the floor beneath you just shifted.

Like something inside you is saying, “Figure this out. Right now.”

Now notice something.

None of those experiences are actually about whether Christianity is true.

They’re about the machinery you’re using to investigate the question.

They’re about your mind.

One of the strangest things I’ve noticed over the years is this: I’ve met people who could dismantle almost every major objection to Christianity, and yet one new question could make them feel like everything was about to collapse.

Knowledge wasn’t the problem.

Something underneath the knowledge was.

Here inside IPA we’ve spent a lot of time training one particular skill. We teach you to uncover hidden assumptions. To distinguish historical questions from philosophical ones. To separate what an argument actually says from what it quietly depends on. To notice things other people miss.

But why should those skills stop the moment the argument becomes your own?

What if one of the biggest hidden assumptions in apologetics isn’t hiding inside an atheist’s argument?

What if it’s hiding inside us?

Maybe it’s the assumption that faith and honest investigation are enemies.

Maybe it’s the assumption that certainty is the entrance fee for belief.

Maybe it’s the assumption that the feeling of doubt is itself evidence that Christianity is probably false.

Maybe it’s the assumption that if you can’t answer every objection immediately, your faith must not have been very strong to begin with.

Every one of those is a claim. And you already know how to examine claims.

Here’s something I’ve slowly come to believe.

The difference between the person whose faith shatters at the first serious objection and the person whose faith deepens because of it is very often not the quality of their arguments.

It’s the health of the mind holding those arguments.

A faith secure enough to sit with difficult questions is not a weaker faith. It’s often a stronger one.

Sometimes the desperate need to resolve every doubt immediately, to find the answer tonight before you can finally breathe again, isn’t evidence that your faith runs deep.

Sometimes it’s evidence that your faith has quietly become attached to something other than Christ.

As we are building out the new courses and material for you guys this summer, one of the things I’m dedicating time to is not JUST teaching you how to answer objections, but how to understand the mind that’s answering the objections. Why some questions feel threatening. Why certain patterns keep repeating. Why the same anxiety returns even after you’ve found a good answer. And how genuine intellectual confidence is built.

For this week, I only want you to practice one thing.

The next time a difficult question appears, don’t rush.

Before you search Google.

Before you open YouTube.

Before you ask Tim or me.

Ask yourself one question:

“If I already knew there was a good answer to this, would I still feel this anxious?”

Then simply sit with whatever answer comes.

You might discover that the next thing God wants to teach you isn’t about Christianity.

It might be about the mind with which you’re investigating it.

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The Hidden Assumption Inside You