What Is a Worldview? Part 1

What Is a Worldview? Stories & A Definition

Excerpted from Anderson, Clark, and Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview (IVP Academic, 2017), 8-9. (To be released October 12, 2017.)

Three friends once went to a nature preserve in the African Serengeti and experienced the majestic beauty and diversity of native African wildlife—zebra, elephant, gazelle, lion, and rhinoceros. Each was awestruck by the diversity of creatures observed.

The first friend, John Luther, commented boldly: “The Lord God has definitely created an amazing array of creatures that sing his praises and declare his glory to the ends of the earth, has he not?”

The second friend, Charles Dawkins, immediately responded: “An amazing array of creatures, to be sure. But you err, my good man, in ascribing their existence to a Creator. No, these incredible animals are the result of the unguided, purposeless combination of random mutation and natural selection. We too are the product of a natural evolutionary process. Indeed, we are no different from the creatures that we see.”

The third friend, Shirley Chopra, serenely replied: “I pray you both would be enlightened to the full reality disclosed by our brothers and sisters on the nature preserve. For they too bear the same spark of divinity that lies within you and me. Do you not sense them calling to you, seeking to communicate with your spirit? We are all potential gods and goddesses; we just need to awaken to our heightened state and take hold of the possibilities that lie before us.”

The three friends see the same animals within the same nature preserve. Thus, they experience the same objective truth. Nevertheless, due to their vastly different perspectives, the three friends see different things.

Why? Simply put, John, Charles, and Shirley are experiencing a clash of worldviews. A worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. The three safari friends wear different worldview glasses; thus, although they see the same thing, they actually see the world and their place within it very differently.

In 1999, the blockbuster film The Matrix was released. It was followed by two sequels in 2003 and ranks as one of Hollywood’s most successful trilogies. The Matrix (1999) envisions a hypothetical futuristic scenario where humans have made increasingly sophisticated computers, complete with artificial intelligence. Eventually, the computers develop sufficient independent intelligence to wage war against their human creators. The computers win the battle and subsequently enslave the human race. Humans, however, are generally oblivious to this reality. Why? Because they are trapped in the Matrix. The world that people experience is an illusion—the result of an intricate computer simulation. In the real world, computers breed human beings in order to hook them up to machines and suck the heat and energy out of their bodies. The real world sees human bodies grown in vast fields, hooked up to electrical inputs to harvest their resources, and also linked to visual simulators that treat them to a virtual reality. This virtual reality resembles human life on earth as we know it (in 1999, when the movie was released). The human beings attached to these machines have the vivid experience of working normal jobs, having relationships, and so forth. The virtual reality is so compelling that people do not realize they are being manipulated and deceived.

However, a group of humans who have been awakened to the true nature of reality wage a quiet rebellion against the Matrix. In the movie, the focus is on Thomas Anderson (aka Neo), a computer hacker who questions his reality but has no concept of the true world. Morpheus and Trinity, two “liberated” humans, seek to enlighten Neo. They offer him two pills: one will return him to his virtual reality life; the other will show him what is really real. Neo famously takes the red pill, which opens his eyes to the illusion, and his world is forever changed. He will never look at things the same way again. He used to have one sense of objective reality but now has a very different perspective. Neo now sees the world through a new lens, a new theoretical structure. Basically, he has a new worldview.

Adapted from:

Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2017.

What are others saying about An Introduction to Christian Worldview?

“It’s all here: a stellar introduction to (1) the concept of worldview, (2) the contour, content, and defense of the Christian worldview, and (3) explanation and critique of alternate secular and religious worldviews. ... Here the truths of Christian faith gleam with clarity and conviction. I’m impressed.”

James W. Sire, author of The Universe Next Door and Apologetics Beyond Reason