A Systematic Declaration of Faith and Reason: Foundational Axioms and Theorems (v2)
Tuning my core theology
Preamble
This framework distinguishes between axioms and theorems.
Axioms are foundational commitments that cannot be derived from something more basic within the system. They are starting points, not conclusions. Every coherent system of thought rests on axioms, whether acknowledged or not. The question is not whether one has axioms, but whether one’s axioms are self-grounding or arbitrary, explanatorily powerful or deficient.
Theorems are propositions derived from the axioms through valid reasoning. In this framework, the theorems are derived from Scripture (Axiom 2) using the faculties of spirit and reason that God has given and invited us to employ. They have the status of binding doctrine because Scripture is the norm, but they have the logical structure of conclusions, not premises.
The framework is thus properly Sola Scriptura: one ontological axiom establishing that God is the ground of all reality, one epistemological axiom establishing Scripture as the norm for knowing what God has revealed, and all doctrinal content derived therefrom.
Modal clarification: In this framework, teleological necessity refers to certainty of fulfillment grounded in God’s decreed end; historical necessity refers to the inevitability of events within that order; moral responsibility refers to culpability arising from voluntary acts of self-rule; and efficient causation refers to direct production of an act by an agent. The framework affirms teleological and historical necessity while denying that God is the efficient cause of sin.
Epistemic grounding: All worldviews face epistemic circularity; we cannot step outside our cognitive faculties to validate them. The question is not whether a worldview involves circularity but what kind of circle it operates within. Christianity’s circle is anchored in history at a point that can be independently investigated: the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Unlike circles that float untethered (naturalism) or hover with explanatory resources but no concrete demonstration (generic theism), Christianity explicitly offers a falsification condition: “If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile” (1 Corinthians 15:17). This framework rests on that anchored foundation.
Axioms
Axiom 1
God is real and the necessary uncreated, causeless source of all being (ontology), knowing (epistemology), and purpose (teleology).
Psalm 90:2; Isaiah 40:28; Revelation 1:8; Acts 17:28; Colossians 1:16–17; John 1:3; Proverbs 1:7; Colossians 2:3; Isaiah 46:10; Ephesians 1:11; Romans 11:36
Axiom 2
The sixty-six books of the Bible are the sole inscripturated revelation given to the church and the final norm for all doctrine and practice. General revelation provides efficient knowledge of God’s existence and moral order (Romans 1:19–20, 2:14–15), but only Scripture provides sufficient knowledge concerning the means of salvation and godly living (2 Timothy 3:15–17, Psalm 19:7–11).
The Bible’s authority is intrinsic, grounded in its divine origin, and recognized through the Spirit’s testimony operating in concert with sound reason. God invites His creatures to reason with Him (Isaiah 1:18), and believers are commanded to love Him with all their heart, soul, mind, and strength (Deuteronomy 6:5, Mark 12:30). Tradition, experience, and empirical inquiry may inform interpretation but cannot override or supplement Scripture’s teaching.
Theorems
Derived from Scripture via Spirit and reason
Theorem 1: Divine Character
God is maximally good, just, and truthful. God’s moral character is coherent and non-deceptive.
Psalm 25:8; Psalm 89:14; Numbers 23:19; Titus 1:2; James 1:17
Theorem 2: Divine Grounding
God is the ultimate ground of moral and metaphysical truth. Moral facts are grounded in God’s nature, not consensus, utility, or biology.
Colossians 1:17; John 1:1–3; Leviticus 19:2; Romans 2:14–15
Theorem 3: Trinity
God exists eternally as one being in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Each person fully shares the divine nature, is distinct in relation, and acts in unified purpose. The Father decrees, the Son accomplishes, the Spirit applies.
Ephesians 1:3–14; Matthew 28:19; 2 Corinthians 13:14; John 1:1–3; John 14:16–17; John 15:26
Theorem 4: Christ as Logos
The eternal Son, Jesus Christ, is the Logos through whom and for whom all things were created. All of creation’s history, including its inscripturated record, finds its telos and coherence in Him as Judge and Redeemer.
John 1:1–3; Colossians 1:16–17; Hebrews 1:2–3; Romans 11:36; Acts 17:31; 2 Corinthians 5:10
Theorem 5: Christ as Moral Exemplar
Jesus Christ is the human exemplar of God’s transcendent moral character. In the Incarnation, the invisible God’s nature is rendered visible in human life. Christ does not merely teach God’s moral will; He embodies it. What God is essentially, Christ displays historically. The content of divine goodness is therefore not an abstraction to be philosophically derived but a life to be observed.
John 14:9; Colossians 1:15; Hebrews 1:3; John 1:14, 18; 2 Corinthians 4:4; 1 John 4:8–10
Theorem 6: Christ as Interpretive Authority
Jesus Christ is the authoritative interpreter of Scripture. As the Logos through whom all things were made (Theorem 4), He is the one to whom the Scriptures point and the one whose reading of them is definitive. He affirmed the Old Testament’s full authority, identified Himself as its fulfillment, and opened its meaning by showing that it concerns Him. The entire canon has a unified meaning because it has a unified subject: Christ is the hinge on which the Old Testament’s anticipation and the New Testament’s revelation turn. No interpretation of Scripture that contradicts His teaching or His self-understanding can be correct.
Luke 24:27, 44–45; Matthew 5:17–18; John 5:39–40, 46; John 10:35; Matthew 19:4–6; Matthew 22:29–32
Theorem 7: Imago Dei
Humans are created in the Imago Dei as necessarily self-relating moral agents. Christ is the true and perfect image of God (Theorem 5); human beings are derivative images who find their proper orientation in conformity to Him. Within God’s eternal decree to glorify the Son as Redeemer and Judge, this self-orientation makes rebellion necessary in the order of history, though never compelled in any particular act.
Scripture consistently addresses humans as deliberative subjects capable of genuine choice and responsibility. They are called to choose obedience or rebellion (Deuteronomy 30:19; Joshua 24:15) and are treated as inwardly aware moral agents.
Jesus’ moral teaching explicitly presupposes reflexive self-relation. The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” assumes that humans already relate to themselves as subjects of value, concern, and responsibility (Leviticus 19:18; Mark 12:31).
Given God’s eternal decree to glorify the Son as Redeemer and Judge (Ephesians 1:9–11; Revelation 13:8; Acts 2:23), the creation of finite, self-relating agents entails that rebellion is necessary in the order of history. This necessity is teleological, not efficient. Accordingly, necessity here denotes certainty of outcome within the decreed order, not compulsion of the will in any particular moral act.
This does not make God the author of sin. Scripture explicitly denies that God tempts or morally causes evil (James 1:13). God decrees the end and the historical order in which it is achieved; the moral quality of rebellion belongs entirely to the creature’s act of self-rule.
Genesis 1:26–27; Genesis 9:6; James 3:9; Romans 2:14–15; Romans 8:29; Colossians 3:10; Hebrews 4:15
Theorem 8: The Fall
The Fall was the teleologically necessary historical unfolding of the decree that the Son be glorified as Redeemer. It introduced disorder and death as the condition requiring redemption, not inherited guilt. Guilt arises from personal rebellion within that condition. The contrast between Adam’s grasp for autonomy (”you will be like God”) and Christ’s submission (”not my will but yours”) displays the pattern of sin and the pattern of righteousness.
Revelation 13:8; 1 Peter 1:19–20; Genesis 3:5, 17–19; Romans 5:12; Romans 8:20–22; Ezekiel 18:20; Luke 22:42; Philippians 2:8
Theorem 9: Sin
Sin is fundamentally the preference for autonomy over God’s authority. Sin is culpable self-rule, not mere ignorance. It is the creature’s assertion of interpretive and moral independence from the Creator.
Genesis 3:5; Isaiah 14:13–14; Romans 1:21–23; James 4:17
Theorem 10: Graduated Accountability
God judges justly according to the light given, knowledge, and capacity. The Spirit distributes gifts and applies redemption according to His will. Accountability is real; the exact thresholds are not exhaustively revealed (Deuteronomy 29:29). What Scripture establishes is the principle of proportional judgment, not its precise calculus.
Hebrews 2:4; John 3:8; Luke 12:47–48; Romans 2:12–16; Acts 17:30
Theorem 11: Christ’s Unique Identity
Jesus Christ uniquely shares the divine identity and accomplishes redemption. Christ is fully divine and fully human, the decisive revelation and sole mediator between God and man.
John 1:1–14; Colossians 2:9; Hebrews 1:3; Philippians 2:5–11; 1 Timothy 2:5; Acts 4:12
Theorem 12: Resurrection
Jesus Christ was bodily raised from the dead. The resurrection vindicates His claims, confirms His identity as the Son of God, and grounds the Christian’s rational confidence that the character displayed in His life is the character of ultimate reality. It is the historical anchor of Christian faith: if Christ has not been raised, faith is futile and believers are still in their sins. Because He has been raised, the epistemic circle of Christian belief touches down in investigable history.
1 Corinthians 15:3–8, 14–17; Romans 1:4; Acts 2:24, 32; Acts 17:31; Matthew 28:5–6; John 20:24–29
Theorem 13: Repentance Over Revision
Practice-failure does not revise truth; it triggers repentance. When behavior conflicts with the framework, the framework stays put. The presence of the Spirit’s work is evidenced by His fruit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
1 John 1:8–10; 2 Timothy 2:13; Romans 3:3–4; Psalm 51:4; Galatians 5:22–23
Theorem Dependency Map
The following shows the logical relationships between theorems:
Theorems 1–2 (Divine Character and Grounding) follow directly from Axiom 1.
Theorem 3 (Trinity) establishes the personal structure within which the Son’s work is understood.
Theorem 4 (Christ as Logos) depends on Theorem 3 and establishes Christ’s relation to creation.
Theorem 5 (Christ as Moral Exemplar) depends on Theorems 1–2 (God’s character) and Theorem 4 (Christ as Logos incarnate).
Theorem 6 (Christ as Interpretive Authority) depends on Theorem 4 (Logos) and Axiom 2 (Scripture as norm).
Theorem 7 (Imago Dei) depends on Theorem 5 (Christ as the true image) and Theorem 4 (decree to glorify the Son).
Theorem 8 (The Fall) depends on Theorems 4, 7, and 9.
Theorem 9 (Sin) depends on Theorem 7 (self-relating agency).
Theorem 10 (Graduated Accountability) depends on Theorems 1–2 (God’s justice) and Axiom 2 (Scripture’s limits).
Theorem 11 (Christ’s Unique Identity) synthesizes Theorems 3–5.
Theorem 12 (Resurrection) depends on Theorem 11 and provides the epistemic anchor referenced in the Preamble.
Theorem 13 (Repentance Over Revision) functions as a methodological guardrail for the entire framework.
This declaration is offered as a coherent framework of faith and reason under Scripture, not as an exhaustive system, and stands open to correction only by the Word of God rightly understood.