Can a Leopard Change its Spots? Worldview Conservatism & Adjustment

Can a Leopard Change Its Spots? Worldview Conservatism and Conversion

In my past few blog posts, I have noted the influence that worldview exerts on us through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. A logical conclusion from the noted influences of worldview is simple and straightforward: once a worldview is in place within the individual’s heart, the individual tends (all other things being equal) to preserve that worldview. That is, worldviews are inherently conservative. Individuals spend their formative years developing their worldviews through a complex interaction of sociocultural influences—for example, family, education, religion, and economic situation. A worldview may develop with some intentionality and choice, or it might arise and grow entirely unconsciously and unintentionally. Either way, once worldview is established, it is firmly entrenched and exerts tremendous influence on how a person thinks, wills, and acts.

Core worldview presuppositions tend to be stubbornly held. A small amount of contrary evidence does not convince someone to abandon one worldview and adopt a different one. In other words, worldviews are not changed unless they have to be. In the 2009 movie Race to Witch Mountain, Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson stars as Jack Bruno, a taxi driver who unwittingly drives two alien “teenagers” around Las Vegas. Weird things start happening right after Bruno picks them up—the teenage boy stops a pursuing car by letting it smash itself on his body—but Bruno does not immediately conclude that the teens are alien beings. After all, Bruno is convinced that aliens do not exist. Such beliefs do not change easily.

Nonetheless, worldviews (and components of worldviews) are not unalterable. If they were, then without exception individuals would adhere to their parents’ religious worldviews. There are simply too many counterexamples of individuals who have moved from one worldview to another to believe that worldviews are cemented in place. [E.g., C. S. Lewis (from atheism to Christian theism), Antony Flew (from atheism to deism), Bart Ehrman (from Christian theism to agnosticism), and Michael Shermer (from Christian theism to robust atheism).] Worldviews change in two ways: adjustment and conversion. Today, I want to look at worldview adjustment. 

Worldview adjustment.

Given the inherent conservatism of worldview, we will always seek to accommodate new data or information within our existing worldview. Sometimes, however, this can happen only with an adjustment to the overarching worldview. At this point, it is helpful to distinguish between two levels of worldview beliefs. At the center of one’s worldview is the worldview core—beliefs that are so essential and nonnegotiable that to give them up entails leaving the worldview behind entirely. For example, a young Christian man who gives up belief in the existence of a transcendent divine being ceases to hold a Christian theistic worldview; he may continue to call himself a Christian, but his worldview is not a Christian worldview. The core has been compromised, and he has moved from one overarching worldview into a different one. That new worldview may be a work in progress for a period of time, but the rejection of core worldview beliefs results in worldview conversion.

Not all beliefs, however, reside at the conceptual core of a worldview. For example, belief in an afterlife is essential to a Christian theistic worldview. When I became a Christian, my previous naturalistic worldview belief in postmortem extinction was replaced with belief in personal resurrection to eternal life. Over time, I learned that there are nuances within Christian afterlife beliefs. Some hold that immediately after one’s physical death one will be raised with a new body in the presence of God, to dwell with him forever. Others hold that following one’s death one will experience a period of “soul sleep”—a time of unconsciousness that will last until the second coming of Jesus inaugurates the bodily resurrection of all believers. Others hold that upon physical death one’s nonmaterial soul (or spirit) experiences a period of disembodied bliss in the presence of God Almighty while awaiting the bodily resurrection that will obtain after the second coming of Christ—what N. T. Wright calls life-after-death and life-after-life-after-death. Christian theists can very reasonably alter their positions on the postmortem fate of Christian believers without rejecting the core of their worldviews. That is, changing the specifics of afterlife beliefs does not result in moving from one worldview to another. Rather, it results in worldview adjustment.

Worldviews can be helpfully pictured as a series of concentric circles (please forgive my inability to insert pictures ... use your imagination!). The central circle, the smallest one, is the worldview core, a set of nonnegotiable presuppositions, beliefs, and stories without which the worldview collapses. A naturalistic worldview might include in its core beliefs that (a) the universe is composed of only material things; (b) human beings are strictly physical creatures, composed of a material body and lacking a spiritual or soul-ish element; and (c) there is no transcendent or supernatural being or god who can give direction, purpose, or meaning to life. The core beliefs of an Islamic worldview would probably focus on beliefs that (a) Allah is One, (b) Muhammad is his messenger, and (c) the Qur’an is his Word. The core beliefs of a Buddhist worldview would probably center on the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Noble Path. The worldview core of Christian theism would focus on the narrative themes of creation, fall, and redemption. The outer two circles represent increasingly flexible (negotiable) worldview beliefs. For a naturalistic worldview, the second tier of worldview beliefs might include things like the truthfulness of Darwinian evolution (natural selection acting on random mutation) as the explanation for the variety of life on earth. The third tier, the worldview periphery, might include beliefs like an understanding of humanity’s most immediate creaturely predecessor in the evolutionary chain. The peripheral circle of worldview beliefs represents the most disposable or alterable elements of the worldview. Beliefs that fall in the outer two circles, outside the core, can be altered or replaced without affecting the overarching worldview.

For example, the relative absence of transitional species in the fossil record has not led most evolutionary theorists to abandon their primary commitment to a purposeless, random process of evolution and common descent. Rather, the worldview periphery is slightly tweaked to explain the lack of supporting evidence. Hence, Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould proposed the idea of punctuated equilibrium, whereby new species arise very quickly with a large number of mutative changes present in them. Punctuated equilibrium is not precisely the same as classical Darwinian evolution, which requires changes to occur over long periods of time. But the fundamental worldview remains the same: the process of biological evolution occurs through random mutation and natural selection and is not governed by any type of intelligent designer.

Worldview adherents will frequently change second- and third-tier beliefs without any discernible effect on the overarching view of life, the universe, and everything. Nonetheless, sometimes changing even these peripheral beliefs will have an impact on other elements, if the individual thinks through the process.

For example, naturalists embrace, as a worldview core, the belief that the physical universe is all there is. As a secondary belief, they might become convinced that everything that occurs in the physical universe is the result of biochemical and physical necessity—material things responding necessarily to universal physical and chemical laws. That is, we live in a deterministic universe. They might first become convinced of this as a relatively peripheral matter, as a result of scientific inquiry and investigation. Upon philosophical reflection, however, they may acknowledge that if the physical universe is deterministic, and human beings are strictly physical creatures, then, logically, human beings are determined creatures. In other words, free will is an illusion. In reality, all our choices are the result of biochemical necessity. Such a realization would have ripple effects throughout their worldview. What begins as a peripheral adjustment, then, can filter down to other levels of the worldview.

That begs the question, “Can worldviews change?” And if so, how? I’ll return to those questions later this week.

For more on worldview adjustment, and all things worldview, check out:

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 on Amazon!