Introduction to Worldviews (Biblical Worldview Course, Session 1)
You want to lead your family in defending the Christian message. Before you can defend it, you need to be able to explain it. This course will take you through the seven biggest questions of life, and how they are answered by the biblical worldview—and its competitors.
This is Session One.
What you'll learn this session:
What a worldview is
Why it's important to have a biblical worldview
The seven questions all worldviews answer
What are some of the biggest competitors to the biblical worldview
What is a worldview?
Before I give you my definition, let’s hear from a couple of scholars. A worldview is…
A network of presuppositions… through which one interprets all human experience.”
—Jefferey Ventrella
“A set of… assumptions… which we hold… about the basic make-up of the world... They are generally unquestioned by each of us; rarely, if ever, mentioned by our friends; and only brought to mind when we are challenged by a foreigner from another ideological universe”
—James W. Sire.
Your worldview is like a pair of sunglasses—just as sunglasses color everything you so, so your worldview affects your interpretation of everything you learn and experience.
Your worldview is your perspective about all of life. It gives you the complete set of answers you would give to all the questions about the world.
My definition of a worldview: a worldview is the platform of assumptions you hold, upon which rest the way you think about, feel about, and interact with the world.
Why Think About Worldview?
Most people don't! But here are five good reasons to do so.
A Biblical Reason
Scripture is full of injunctions to think about one's worldview and to bring it in line with biblical truth.
Romans 12:2: "Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may discern what is the good, pleasing, and perfect will of God."
Colossians 2:8: "Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elements of the world, rather than Christ."
2 Tim 1:13: "Hold on to the pattern of sound teaching that you have heard from me, in the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus."
2 Tim 3:16: "All Scripture is inspired by God[a] and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."
1 John 4:1: "Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world."
Scripture tells us to watch out for false ideas and to see the world as God sees it. This argument can be made by pointing to Scripture itself. Within the Bible we have a complete, cohesive and coherent worldview, from start to finish, applying to every aspect of human experience. To my knowledge the Bible is the only purported holy book to accomplish such a feat. No other philosophical system—or at least no other religion—gets an entire worldview into a single book (not Islam, nor Judaism, nor Roman Catholicism!).
A Practical Reason
We interact more successfully with the world when we view it rightly.
Imagine someone trying to put a puzzle together upside down. Or looking through a telescope the wrong way.
Or take an example from my own life. When I was in preschool, I got very confused when the teacher put on a movie about a cartoon dragon. I didn't understand how projectors work; I was looking into it rather than at the screen.
We find our interactions with the world more profitable when we view the world truthfully.
cf. Ephesians 5:15-17: "Pay careful attention, then, to how you walk—not as unwise people but as wise— making the most of the time, because the days are evil. So don’t be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
An Existential Reason
Life is more satisfying when we live truthfully. God's word is truth, so we are more satisfied when we live in the light of that truth.
cf. 1 John 1:7: "If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin."
cf. Matthew 4:4: "He answered, “It is written: Man must not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of God."
An Evangelistic Reason
According to recent research, 95% of Americans do not have a "Bible-centered" worldview. They are living without God's answers to life's biggest questions.
They are under God’s condemnation (Jn 3:18). Unless they repent, they will perish (Lk 13:3; Jn 3:16).
Jesus commissioned us to disciple them (Matthew 28:19). Yet how can we teach what we do not understand ourselves?
A Doxological Reason
When we're talking about doxology, we are thinking about worship.
Everything we have been discussing so far brings glory to God by bringing us to worship him. As we plumb the depths of God’s word and see how it applies to every nook and cranny of our lives, we cannot help but cry out with the Apostle Paul, “Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and of the knowledge of God! How unsearchable his judgments and untraceable his ways” (Romans 11:33)!
Every worldview must answer seven questions:
What is real?
This deals with metaphysics and ontology (the study of being). What is the nature of prime reality? What is ultimately real? What is God like?
What is right?
This deals with the study of axiology (values), morality and ethics (right behavior), as well as politics (what should be allowed in a society) and virtue. What is good and how do we know? What does it mean to sin or transgress the boundaries of goodness? It also deals with the study of aesthetics: what is beauty and what is beautiful?
What can we know for sure?
This deals with epistemology, the study of knowledge. We need to know what truth is, and how do we come to know it. What kinds of beliefs count as knowledge? Is truth universal or subjective?
What does it mean to be human?
This deals with anthropology, the study of humanity. What does it mean to be human? What’s wrong with humanity? What is human nature? How do we fix what’s wrong with us?
What is the meaning of life?
Here we're dealing with teleology: questions of purpose. Have we been created for something? Are we doing what we're supposed to be doing? Are we here by random chance? Do we define our meaning? Is there a point to all this? Does God have a purpose and how do we discover it?
Where is everything headed?
We will talk about eschatology, or the study of last things. This has to do with destiny and the study of history, from start to finish. As Christians, our Bible starts with Genesis (a word meaning beginning) and goes all the way to the last book, Apocalypse, which has become synonymous with "End of the world," though that's not really what it means. But we will look at how the Bible answers questions like the following.
Where are all things headed? Will justice finally prevail? Is history more like a Greek comedy or a tragedy? Am I on the right side of history?
Who is Jesus?
This is the study of Christology. Including this answer may seem awfully specific. After all, we're Christians, and doesn't it seem "rigged" somehow to say that every worldview deals with Jesus? Well, it just goes to show you the massive global impact this one man had. Every worldview does deal with Jesus in some way, or at least most of them do. And for us as Christians there is no greater question we can be asking. Is Jesus merely a man, a created, divine being, or God? What did Jesus claim about himself and are those claims true?
Only Two Kinds of Worldviews
Ultimately there are just two kinds of worldviews: the God worldview and the Not-God worldview.
God established an antithesis between the two systems as far back as the Garden of Eden, recorded in Genesis 3:15: He said, speaking to the serpent (which is Satan), "I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel."
Satan had set up this antithesis earlier, when he tempted Eve to deny God's authority over her and to reason autonomously. God had said if she ate the forbidden fruit she would surely die (Gen 2:17). Satan said "You will certainly not die" (Gen. 3:4). At that moment two competing worldviews were set up: one true one, with God's word at the heart of it, and one false one, with Satan's lies at the heart of it.
This theme is reiterated throughout Scripture:
Matthew 12:33-35: "Brood of vipers! How can you speak good things when you are evil? For the mouth speaks from the overflow of the heart. 35 A good person produces good things from his storeroom of good, and an evil person produces evil things from his storeroom of evil."
1 Cor 2:12: "Now we have not received the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who comes from God, so that we may understand what has been freely given to us by God."
James 2:2: "You adulterous people! Don’t you know that friendship with the world is hostility toward God? So whoever wants to be the friend of the world becomes the enemy of God."
1 John 2:15-17: Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride in one’s possessions—is not from the Father, but is from the world. And the world with its lust is passing away, but the one who does the will of God remains forever."
Psalm 1 describes the two ways to live: that of the righteous and that of the wicked.
To this day, there are only two fundamental ways of looking at the world: one based on God's truth, and all the others based on Satan's lies.
Other Worldviews We Will Examine
Throughout the Biblical Worldview Course, we will be comparing the answers of the biblical worldview with worldviews falling into these categories:
Theistic (both monotheistic and polytheistic)
Atheistic (both materialistic and dualistic—those that believe in the spirit or mind as well as matter)
Agnostic (that say you can't know truth about God, the world and the self, or that all ways are equally valid)
Monistic (that say all is one)
Dualistic (that say there exists both matter and "forms," but denies God as the source of either).
Conclusion
When it comes to the biblical worldview and its competitors, there is certainly enough to think about to keep us busy for the next two months (and beyond!). All our engagement with worldview thinking should serve our efforts to fulfill the Great Commission (Matthew 28:18-20).
As we strive to make disciples, both of our neighbors and (first and foremost) our own families, we must be proclaiming the good news of the Gospel. When we engage evangelistically, we are bound to get pushback. And when we do, we'll need to be ready to defend the Christian message. And before we can defend it, we have to know what the biblical worldview says.
Thanks for joining me on this journey. To Jesus Christ be the glory.
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