What's In A Worldview? Part I - Questions all Worldviews Answer
Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. Purchase via Amazon
Philosophers, educators, sociologists, missiologists,
and anthropologists alike can agree that worldview is an important concept to
understand and apply. Furthermore, scholars in each discipline agree that there
is an identifiable set of common components to worldview. Some
scholars propose categories of thought or belief as
the common components to worldview. Other scholars suggest that all worldviews
address a set of unavoidable common questions.
I contend that it is best to approach universal
worldview components with four core questions in mind: What is our nature? What
is our world? What is our problem? What is our end? On one hand, asking such
questions helps to bring worldview commitments to the surface in a way that
categories or classifications may not; the route of questioning embodies the
still-valuable Socratic method of philosophical inquiry. Furthermore, approaching
worldviews via questions is more attuned to the predominantly storied or
narrative structure of worldview. Thus, we believe that our worldview—conscious
or not, consistent or not—answers four
fundamental questions (actually, four sets of questions) about life, the
universe, and everything. Each question (or set of questions) has multiple
possible answers that can be given in the form of stories or propositions;
together, the answers compose a comprehensive view of reality. The questions
posed for and answered by every worldview have been asked by thinking persons
for millennia.
The way that I present these questions makes them seem
independent of one another. In reality, none of the questions exists in
isolation. Like most questions and answers in philosophy and in life in
general, these questions are intricately intertwined and interrelated. Answers
to the first question have grave implications for the remaining questions; answers
to the second question often entail necessary responses to other questions, and
so forth. Hence, one’s worldview contains
a holistic, wrapped-up-together set of answers to all the worldview questions.
What is our nature? We
begin here because this is where thinking, reflective human beings begin. The
question, what is our nature?, may not have logical priority, but it does have
chronological and existential priority. In order to ask questions about our
place in the universe or the existence (or lack thereof) of a deity, one needs
first to exist as a rational, reflective agent. I ask questions about my own
nature and composition before asking questions about other human beings or a
hypothetical deity. When I eventually ask questions about other human beings
and God, I may refine or alter my understanding of who/what I am, but this does
not change the fact that I ask the existential questions first. Thus, the first
necessary component of worldview involves questions regarding the nature of the
self, the human being.
What is our nature? Who am I? What does it mean to be
human? What distinguishes me from other living creatures? Are we the product of
random mutation and natural selection? Are we the handiwork of a divine
Creator? Are we purely physical, material beings? Do we have an immaterial soul
or spirit as well? Do we have free will, or are our actions determined by our
biochemistry?
What is our world? When
a newborn baby is unceremoniously expelled from the warm comfort of the mother’s
womb, I can almost hear the unexpressed words in the baby’s
plaintive cry: Where am I? What is the nature of this strange, cold, and bright
environment? As that infant
grows and is nurtured, the child gains and develops an
understanding of the external world.
What is our world? What is the nature and character of
the physical world? Is the physical world ordered or chaotic? Is it a closed
system (deterministic) or an open system (orderable by free-willed creatures)?
Is matter eternal and uncreated, divine and coeternal with deity, or temporal
and created? Answering the question, what is our world?, involves an
understanding of cosmology—the nature of
the world. Our worldview, however, does not stop there. In answering this
question, worldview proceeds to ask questions in the realm of philosophy of
religion and theology. What is fundamental reality or ultimate reality? Is the
universe all that is, all that ever was, and all that ever will be? Or is there
a supernatural reality? Is this simply a physical universe, or is it a universe
charged with the grandeur of God? If God exists, what is God like? Personal or
impersonal? Unitary or triune? If God does not exist, what is ultimate reality?
Note the inevitable relationship between this question and the previous one. If
ultimate reality is the physical universe, and there is nothing beyond it, then
of necessity human beings are strictly physical creatures. If there is no
spiritual or nonphysical side to the cosmos, there cannot be a spiritual or
soulish side to human beings either.
What is our problem? The
newborn infant experiences the external world as a place of discomfort. Warmth
and security have been shattered by a forced move into a colder, insecure
world. The child cannot help but ask, what’s
wrong? One constant feature of human thought and civilization has been the
unshakable impression that something is amiss in the human universe. Thus, we
ask, What is our problem? What is wrong with us as human beings, and how can it
be solved? What is wrong with the world, and how can it be solved? Every person
and every worldview acknowledges that there is something wrong with both the
world and with each person as an individual in the world. Things are not the
way they ought to be. What is wrong with all human beings? Is it sinful
rebellion against our Divine Maker? Is it ignorance, religious superstition, or
lack of education? Is it the illusion of personal desires? Is it corrupting
social, political, and economic structures? Furthermore, after identifying the
problem, how can
we go about fixing it?
What is our end? The
Greek word telos (τέλος) carries
connotations of purpose, end, goal, and destination. This final worldview question
is best understood in the multifaceted light of telos. What is our end?
Worldview addresses our origins: What is our nature as human beings, and where
did we come from? Worldview must also address our end: Where are we going? Is
there any meaning and purpose in life, or are we random creatures in a
purposeless, meaningless universe? Do we create our own purpose and meaning? Or
do we rightly seek to fulfill some purpose for which we were created?
In addition to questions of meaning and purpose in
this life, human beings also ponder their postmortem fate. What happens to us
after we die? Is physical death the end of human existence? Are we absorbed
into an infinite, impersonal ultimate reality? Are we judged at the throne of God
Almighty for an eternity with him in heaven or an eternity without him in hell?
What in a worldview? The answers we give to these four
worldview questions compose our worldview.
For more on Worldview, its nature and impact, worldview analysis, the contours of Christian worldview, and worldview comparison, please check out our recently-published Worldview textbook:
Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. Purchase via Amazon
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