Who Cares? The Benefits of Worldview Study

Who Cares? Why Study Worldview?

Worldview is the conceptual lens through which we see, understand, and interpret the world and our place within it. Everyone has a worldview, and your worldview exerts strong influence upon you via confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. Once in place, and particularly once they have been consciously examined, worldviews do not change with ease. Peripheral worldview beliefs might be adjusted, but core affirmations are only altered under great evidential or experiential duress.

All that said, who really cares? So worldview exists, and affects us. So what? Why should anyone bother learning about worldviews in general, their own worldview in particular? Are worldview thought and study simply intellectually stimulating and informative? Or do they add something to our intellectual and spiritual life? Briefly and tentatively, I suggest that there are seven potential areas of benefit to understanding and studying worldview.

First, worldview study can help us live more consciously and consistently within our worldview. If we are conscious of the worldview we hold, and can identify the core beliefs within it, we can become more aware of potential or actual inconsistencies within our worldview, or between our worldview and our practice. In short, worldview study helps us to talk the talk consistently, and to walk the walk as well. Conscious reflection and logical analysis are essential elements to holding a coherent worldview and living out our worldview consistently. While some people may have no problem living inconsistently or holding an incoherent worldview, we are convinced that most people (particularly intentionally thoughtful people) desire to be consistent in their intellectual, moral, and spiritual lives.

Second, worldview study can aid us in becoming more fully self-aware. Evaluating our worldview beliefs helps to uncover what our worldview is and how it came to be what it is. Learning to think worldview-ishly helps to expose our unconscious worldview presuppositions to the light of reflective exploration and analysis. Often we will find that we were not aware of how some events or influences in our past had so strongly shaped who we are and what we believe. Examining our worldview and exposing our fundamental presuppositions to rigorous scrutiny will help us become more aware of what we believe and why we believe it. We hold

this to be a self-evidently valuable goal.

Third, worldview study can strengthen our commitment to aspects of our worldview that are accurate representations of the way the world really is. When we hold our worldview unconsciously, we are liable to have that worldview challenged and overturned by a thoughtful critic. If our preexisting worldview (or at least large parts of it) was false, then of course change would be beneficial. However, if our preexisting worldview components were accurate, and are replaced by largely false beliefs and practices, then conversion is a negative outcome. For example, if our Sally Smith had engaged in worldview study and examination as part of her high school education or youth group discipleship, she could be adequately prepared for possible (and actual) objections and attacks against her faith that she encountered in college. Being aware of what she believes, how she came to believe it, and why she believes it can help her to hold more strongly to worldview beliefs that are worth holding tightly. As evangelical Christians, we are naturally convinced that the broad contours of a Christian worldview are not only meaningful and satisfactory, but also objectively true about the world. Hence, it is our desire that Christians (young and old) intentionally examine the content and reasonability of their faith—that is, that they understand their Christian worldview and be prepared to defend it.

Fourth, awareness of worldview thought can help spur the Christian to develop a more intentional and thorough Christian worldview. On the one hand, worldview thought will show us areas of life where we have failed to apply the insights of Scripture. On the other hand, worldview awareness can reduce our vulnerability to the infiltration of alien worldviews. As Michael Goheen and Craig Bartholomew note, “If we refuse to develop and indwell a Christian worldview, we will merely leave ourselves vulnerable to the influence of the worldviews present in the culture that surrounds us.” Worldview awareness and examination can help the disciple of Christ to live more faithfully according to a thorough Christian worldview.

Fifth, a grasp of worldview—worldview meaning, components, contours, and analysis—enables us to better understand the people around us. In my hometown of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, there are over a million people. The Chinese community numbers over seventy thousand; there are tens of thousands of immigrants from Sudan, Ethiopia, Iran, Pakistan, India, Lebanon, and many other countries and cultures. Two blocks from my home church is 107th Avenue, known as the Avenue of the Nations for its vibrant multicultural diversity. In Edmonton we had a saying, “You don’t need to go see the world; the world has come to our doorstep.” Our urban centers and increasingly also our smaller towns are marked by a strong diversity, not only in ethnicity but also in worldview. Understanding that our neighbors have a worldview, and that it is quite distinct from our own, can help us a great deal in understanding the way that they think and act. We can be open-minded concerning others’ beliefs and how they came to be formed, seeking to see as they see so as to know them better. So, for the purposes of loving our neighbor as ourselves, it is essential to grasp the nature and influence of worldview.

Sixth, understanding worldview and its impact can aid us in building bridges with neighbors who hold different worldviews—with those bridges ideally leading to the cross of Jesus Christ. If your neighbor comes from a Hindu or Buddhist worldview, where the goal of religious life is to escape the constant cycle of suffering, death, and rebirth (reincarnation and samsara), sharing with them the Christian promise of eternal life may sound more like a threat than a reward. Bridges need to be built, concepts need to be understood, perhaps deconstructed, before we can effectively share the gospel.

Finally, for Christians, worldview study can help us to know and love God more truly and fully. Christians ought to desire to see the world the way that God sees the world; that is, they should want to develop a more consistently Christian worldview. Certainly we must remember that the

Lord God warns us:

My thoughts are not your thoughts,

neither are your ways my ways. . . .

As the heavens are higher than the earth,

so are my ways higher than your ways

and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Is 55:8-9)

At the same time, we must remember that the Lord also entreats us:

Come now, let us settle the matter. . . .

Though your sins are like scarlet,

they shall be as white as snow;

though they are red as crimson,

they shall be like wool.

If you are willing and obedient,

you will eat the good things of the land. (Is 1:18-19)

So, while we will never attain to the very mind of God in all its fullness, we are nonetheless encouraged to reason with God, to develop our minds to know and understand our Lord more fully. Indeed, developing a Christian mind and building a Christian worldview are seen as essential to our discipleship and sanctification. Jesus tells us that the greatest commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Mt 22:37). Sadly, the development of the Christian mind is often left behind in contemporary Christianity, to our own loss and peril. Jesus’ commandment is to love God with all our being—heart, soul, and mind. Failure to love God with our mind, to cultivate a consciously Christian worldview, is simply failing to become a mature disciple of Christ.

The apostle Paul exhorts believers to cultivate the mind of Christ: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will” (Rom 12:2). Part of our intellectual renewal involves being conscious and wary of alternative worldviews that vie for our allegiance: “See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ” (Col 2:8). The Christian is to follow Paul’s example: “We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Cor 10:5).

Again, we must be careful to retain appropriate humility, acknowledging that we will never possess the authoritative, fully correct Christian worldview. That is to say, I will never see things exactly the way God sees things, simply because (I know this sounds shocking) I am not God. We must always be prepared to have our minds transformed by the knowledge of Christ; we must remain open to seeing the error of some of our worldview beliefs and changing our understanding accordingly. However, worldview humility and openness are not the same as worldview skepticism or tentativeness. Paul exemplifies an appropriate balance between confidence in what we are persuaded of and humility regarding what we have not yet attained:

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus. All of us, then, who are mature should take such a view of things. And if on some point you think differently, that too God will make clear to you. Only let us live up to what we have already attained. (Phil 3:12-16)

Why study worldview? In short, I am convinced that if you (a) learn to recognize the existence and importance of worldview, (b) understand the components of your own (and others’) worldview, and (c) examine your worldview for consistency and truth, you will subsequently become a more mature disciple of Jesus Christ, embracing his truth and living according to it.

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. Buy on Amazon!