Can a Leopard Replace 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.
In my last post, I explored internal worldview
adjustments – how we can change some of our component beliefs without moving to
an entirely new overarching worldview. That exploration raised the question, “Can
worldviews change?” And if so, how? I’d like now to return to that issue.
Worldview conversion.
Worldviews
represent our understanding of the world around us. The questions involved at
the core of our worldview are foundational. Such beliefs, once developed, are
not easily altered. There is, however, an important distinction to be drawn. A
worldview that is held unconsciously is altered and even converted in a
different fashion from one that is held consciously and intentionally.
Unconscious worldviews.
Ask
yourself a few questions: What are my responses to the four core worldview
questions? When did I first become aware of the identity of my worldview? Why
do I hold my worldview? What factors went into shaping the conceptual lens
through which I see, understand, and interpret the world and my place within
it? What is the justification for my worldview beliefs? Is my worldview an accurate
reflection of reality? How do I know?
If
you have asked those questions, and provided even tentative and partial answers
to them, you have now done more worldview thinking than the vast majority of
your neighbors. Unfortunately, most people do not consciously reflect on
their worldview beliefs and the truth value of those beliefs. One of my primary
desires as a teacher and author is to stimulate conscious reflection on the
reader’s deep-seated worldview. For some of you, this may be the first time
that you have exerted intentional effort to identify and evaluate your
worldview. Many adults, even highly educated adults, have fully formed
worldviews of which they are entirely unconscious. They can identify neither
their fundamental worldview nor the reasons for
which they hold that particular worldview.
An
unconscious, unexamined worldview is more easily changed than a conscious,
examined worldview. Those who have not thought through their worldview beliefs
and justification will be more easily persuaded to change worldview—to undergo
a paradigm shift or a complete worldview conversion. Consider Sally Smith,
recently graduated from public high school. Sally has been raised within a
Christian family and community and holds a broad Christian worldview. Sally,
however, has never reflected on the source of her worldview or the reasons and
evidence that support it. Now Sally attends a large public university where she
is enrolled in freshman philosophy. Her philosophy professor rejoices in
challenging and ultimately shattering the unconscious Christian worldview of
incoming freshmen like Sally. He raises traditional objections to theistic belief
(e.g., the problems of evil and religious pluralism) and presents philosophical
defenses of naturalism (atheism) and undirected evolution. Sally’s unconscious,
unexamined worldview is ripe for the picking. There may have been excellent
rational justifications for her theistic belief, but she had never considered
them or reflected on them. Her Christian worldview may even have been an
accurate representation of reality. But being confronted with an intelligent,
thoughtful, articulate defender of an alternative worldview (and opponent of
her own worldview) results in her rejecting Christian theism.
I
believe that worldview naivete is a significant problem in the contemporary world,
particularly within the North American church. The majority of young Christians
are not learning to think in worldview terms, nor are they being taught why
they should believe what they believe; as a consequence, they are easily swayed
and can have their faith quickly deconstructed. An unconscious, unexamined
worldview can be challenged and overturned. Sadly, the worldview that replaces
the original one is often less coherent and less true than the original one.
But it is more consciously held and thus is clung to more tightly.
Conscious worldviews.
Worldviews,
when consciously held, are held tenaciously. Individuals consciously holding an
examined worldview will alter or convert their worldviews only in the face of
what is perceived as overwhelming evidence, powerfully persuasive arguments, or
existentially convincing experiences. Those who have consciously held
worldviews can adjust second- and third-level beliefs—components that are not
at the core of their worldviews. But the worldview core, while not absolutely
immune to alteration, is certainly held very strongly.
Consider
again “Monk and the Astronaut,” the episode in which Monk suspects an astronaut
of murdering a former call girl who was writing an autobiography revealing the
astronaut’s past indiscretions. Monk’s primary obstacle in solving that case
was the little problem of the suspect’s alibi: he was in a spaceship orbiting
the earth at the time of the woman’s death. Alibis cannot be more airtight than
that: “Not only was I out of the country; I was off the planet altogether!” How
does Monk deal with that alibi? Does he say, “Oh well, the guy’s got a pretty
solid alibi. He must not be the guy”? No, instead Monk says, “I don’t know how he
did it, but he did it. He’s the guy.” It takes more than an apparently airtight
alibi to convince Monk to abandon his thesis. As it happens, Monk is right. The
astronaut had set up the suicide scene the night before launching into space,
ensuring that the woman’s death would occur while he was safely beyond
suspicion in the atmosphere. The point is, Monk is not dissuaded by powerful
contradictory evidence.
As
it is with crime, so it is with worldview. Consciously held worldviews are held
tenaciously. Opposing arguments and evidence do not automatically result in
worldview conversion. For example, in April 2012 I was present for a debate
between Christian philosopher Gary Habermas and skeptic Michael Shermer on the
question, “Is There Life After Death?” [The debate was the centerpiece of the
Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological
Seminary April 13–14, 2012. The account that follows is derived from the audio
CDs of the forum along with my personal notes and recollection of the debate.
Direct quotations are transcribed from the audio.] Shermer began his opening
statement by insisting that there is “not a shred of evidence” for life after
death. Habermas then spent twenty minutes sharing evidences from near-death
experiences (NDEs) and post-death apparitions (PDAs) that demonstrate the
existence of personal consciousness, awareness, and intentionality during
conditions of heart and brain death.
Shermer
first responded to Habermas’s evidence by suggesting that the NDEs Habermas
cited are not of “the right type”; they show awareness of things in the patient’s
immediate physical proximity in cases where the patient’s brain could still
have been functioning and taking in information. Habermas responded by sharing
a number of evidential cases where patients experienced things that occurred at
a distance from their physical (and fully dead) bodies, information that was
physically impossible for them to have obtained (a red tennis shoe on the
hospital roof, the substance of a family’s dinner table five miles away, and
others). Shermer seemed to retreat to some extent, protesting that, while there
might be a few such cases, there are not very many, and we should not build
elaborate theories (that is, alter our core worldview understandings) on the
basis of exceptions to the rule. Shermer insisted that “you cannot construct a
whole new worldview based on an anomaly.” Habermas then noted that he could
supply Shermer with dozens more such cases and asked how many of them would be
sufficient to overturn Shermer’s worldview presupposition that there is no life
after death.
At
this point, Shermer simply stated, “Well, people make stuff up all the time.”
In other words, he absolutely rejected the evidence that Habermas presented,
presumably because the people that claim to have had and documented such NDEs
are conspiring together to deceive others. The evidence presented by Habermas
was not sufficient to overturn Shermer’s worldview presuppositions. How much
evidence would it take? I am not sure.
Shermer
holds his skeptical (naturalistic) worldview very consciously and intentionally.
He has examined it over years and adheres to it very tightly. Two of his core
worldview beliefs are the materiality of human beings and the cessation of
conscious existence at physical death. His worldview is not going to be
changed on the basis of a two-hour debate in which contrary arguments and
evidence are presented. It is important to note that the inherent conservatism
of worldview, and the stubborn clinging to a conscious, examined worldview
core, does not imply that the fundamental worldview cannot be changed.
Again, there are simply too many examples of worldview conversion for us to
believe that is the case.
For
example, Antony Flew was Britain’s most prominent philosophical atheist in the
latter half of the twentieth century. The philosophical world was shocked when,
in 2004, he declared that he had rejected the core beliefs of his atheistic
worldview and now embraced the existence of a deistic creator of the universe. Flew’s
atheistic worldview had been held consciously; he had examined his worldview
beliefs and in fact had written copiously on questions of divine nonexistence.
Nonetheless, his worldview changed as a result of his understanding of
contemporary evidence from cosmology and physics that points to the existence
of an intelligent designer and creator of the universe.
Thus,
we are left with three concluding thoughts. First, an unexamined and
unconscious worldview is relatively easy to alter and even entirely change,
even if the original worldview was accurate and largely true. Second, a
consciously held, examined worldview is clung to (especially the core beliefs)
very tightly and is difficult to fundamentally change. Third, though it is
difficult to fundamentally change an examined, consciously held worldview, it
is not impossible.
For more on the influence of worldview, 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
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