Christ or Chaos: Why Only the Biblical Worldview Holds Up to Reality

I recently went on the Campfire Apologetics show with Mark Hudson, and we had an excellent conversation about what makes a worldview true, and why the biblical worldview is the only one that actually holds up to reality. 

Introduction

If you believe that life is an illusion—but you don’t live like it is—then either your beliefs are wrong, or your beliefs are wrong. That’s not a throwaway line. It’s the foundational contradiction that lies at the heart of modern unbelief. We live in a world where people affirm one thing with their lips and deny it with their lives. And that inconsistency is a flashing warning light that something deeper is broken. What’s broken? Their worldview.

Welcome to the campfire.

Some of the best conversations I’ve ever had didn’t happen in lecture halls or on platforms. They happened around literal fires—trail life campouts with my boys, backyard fire pits with cigars and scotch, in the sauna after a lift at the gym, and yes, even podcast recordings like this one with my friend Mark Hudson on Campfire Apologetics. In those places, men—both Christian and non-Christian alike—talk about real things: life, death, purpose, meaning, angels, demons, eschatology, and even the Nephilim. But beneath all those topics, there’s a deeper question: how do you know what you know? That’s where worldviews come in.

What is true about worldview?

The question of worldview isn’t academic—it’s ultimate. And here’s the truth: everyone has a worldview. Everyone. It doesn’t matter if they’ve never read a philosophy book or don’t consider themselves religious. A worldview is the framework by which we interpret all of life. It’s the lens we use to understand everything—from whether God exists, to how we should live, to why suffering exists, to what happens when we die.

There are lots of definitions for "worldview." Some say it’s just your assumptions about reality. Others frame it narratively—like the story you believe you’re in. Some folks today argue against even using the term, saying it has too much religious baggage. But ironically, the reason it feels so religious is because it is. The term Weltanschauung (worldview) was first popularized by German philosophers, but it was the Dutch Reformed thinkers—like Abraham Kuyper and Herman Bavinck—who Christianized it and showed that every worldview ultimately comes down to your view of God.

I define a worldview as a system—a network of beliefs, presuppositions, and assumptions through which we interpret reality. It’s like a pair of glasses: if the lenses are distorted, everything looks blurry. If your worldview is faulty, your perception of reality will be too.

Here’s another analogy I like. A worldview is a well. When you’re thirsty for answers, you draw from it. But what’s in your well? Clean, nourishing truth—or toxic contradictions? Because we’re all constantly drawing from our worldview. Whether we’re discussing politics, raising our kids, watching the news, or deciding how to live—every single one of us is living out our worldview, moment by moment.

What are the three main components of a Christian worldview?

So what makes a worldview true? It must be three things: comprehensible, coherent, and correspondent.

Comprehensible means you can express it in meaningful language. Communication itself presupposes that truth can be conveyed. You can’t say, "There is no truth" without claiming it’s true. You can’t say, "We can’t communicate" while communicating that idea. Francis Schaeffer illustrated this beautifully with a young skeptic who insisted communication was impossible. Schaeffer simply said, "Pass the salt." The young man passed it. Point proven. We can communicate.

Coherent means it all holds together without contradiction. You can’t say, “There’s no objective morality,” and then turn around and complain about injustice. If there’s no such thing as right and wrong, then there’s nothing to complain about. But the moment someone says something is wrong—racism, rape, murder—they’ve stepped into my worldview.

Correspondent means it matches reality. If you say the world is an illusion but live like it isn’t—checking for trucks before crossing the street—you’ve already disproven your own worldview. You don’t live according to your stated beliefs because you can’t. Reality won’t let you. That’s God’s common grace at work. Even the staunchest atheist still lives in God’s world and can’t help but act like it.

What is the biblical perspective of truth?

This brings us to the Bible. The Bible isn’t just a source of spiritual insight—it’s the foundation for all knowledge. You want logic? That’s rooted in God’s own rational nature. You want moral truth? That flows from God’s character. You want science and the uniformity of nature? Only the God who spoke creation into being can account for that. The atheist borrows all these things but can’t ground them in his own worldview. He’s like a rebellious child sitting on his father’s lap to slap him. He needs the lap to do it.

Biblical worldview vs secular worldview

And this matters—because false worldviews have consequences.

When you teach kids that they’re nothing but evolved animals, the product of random chance acting on matter, don’t be surprised when they act like it. Don’t be shocked when despair sets in, or when they adopt demon pronouns, or when they see no meaning in life and no reason not to destroy it—their own or someone else’s. The problem isn’t just behavior. It’s foundational. It’s worldview.

I’ll give you a terrifying historical example: Adolf Hitler. Most people think Hitler’s hatred of the Jews was based on white supremacy. But it actually ran deeper. Hitler hated Genesis. Why? Because Genesis says humans are made in God’s image and have dominion over nature. Hitler, on the other hand, embraced a one-ist, neo-pagan, Darwinian worldview that saw humanity as part of nature—not over it. He hated the Jews because they gave us Genesis. He hated Christians for the same reason. It wasn’t just racism—it was rebellion against God’s authority. That’s what false worldviews do. They fuel genocide, eugenics, and unspeakable evil.

But it also shows up closer to home. It shows up when a teenager is told he’s an accident of nature. When he’s told there’s no God, no ultimate meaning, no judgment. And then we wonder why he spirals into despair. We’ve removed the only anchor he has. We’ve handed him a worldview of chaos and said, “Now go find your identity.”

You can’t know who you are if you deny your Creator. You can’t find your purpose if you reject the one who made you. Identity apart from Christ isn’t just false—it’s exhausting. Because if you’re not made by God, then you have to invent yourself. You have to invent your own meaning. But you can’t even begin to define yourself without reference to everything else. And you don’t know everything. You’re finite. You’re a speck.

The importance of a Christian worldview

So what happens? We get exhausted. We lose our grip. And chaos creeps in. That’s why we say it’s Christ or chaos. Those are the only two options.

This is why presuppositional apologetics matters. Not because it’s clever, but because it’s true. Because it starts with the right foundation. Because it uses the sword of the Spirit to cut down to the bone of the issue. We don’t just argue evidence—we expose presuppositions. We show the unbeliever that without God, you don’t get logic, science, morality, or even knowledge itself. You get nothing. So we reduce the unbelieving worldview to absurdity—not because we hate the unbeliever, but because we love them. We want them to see the futility of their rebellion and the beauty of the truth.

That truth is found in Jesus Christ, the Logos made flesh. The one who gives meaning to the cosmos, who defines us, who redeems us, and who sends us out to speak truth into a chaotic world.

So don’t flinch. Don’t flatter the skeptic. Don’t water it down to make it nice. Be kind, but don’t be neutral. There is no neutral ground. Stand on the rock.

This article was adapted by ChatGPT from my episode of "Campfire Apologetics" with Mark Hudson.

▶️ Watch the full discussion with Mark Hudson on Campfire Apologetics here.

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