Worldviews & Apologetics Series: Part 1
This blog post is the first of a multi-part series on Worldviews & Apologetics. We’re going to spend time learning about the foundations of worldviews, understanding false worldviews, upholding the Christian worldview, engaging with false worldviews, and defending the faith (apologetics).
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Imagine living your whole life with red tinted glasses, and never realizing it. You’d live your entire life thinking that everything in the world had a red hue! Or even worse, imagine living your entire life wearing kaleidoscope glasses – lenses made of broken, colored glass. Everything in life would appear distorted and discombobulated. You wouldn’t have a clear picture of anything!
Glasses are like a worldview. Your worldview is the comprehensive perspective on everything in the world. Everyone has a worldview, even if they don’t know how to name or identify it. (For more, see What are Worldviews?)
“A worldview is a way one views the whole world. And since people have vastly different views of the world, depending on the perspective from which they view the world, it is clear that one’s worldview makes a world of difference. A worldview is a way of viewing or interpreting all of reality. It is an interpretive framework through which or by which one makes sense out of the data of life and the world.” (Norman L. Geisler & William D. Watkins, Worlds Apart: A Handbook on Worldviews)
If everyone has a worldview, how do we determine which worldviews are accurate? Ultimately only God’s view of the world is the truly accurate worldview. As Christians, we believe the Bible is God’s revealed Word, therefore a biblical worldview is true and good.
Nonbelievers live their whole lives with kaleidoscope glasses on – never seeing clearly, tripping all over stuff, not living life as it was intended. When God’s Spirit awakens our hearts and we place faith in Christ, it’s like having “the eyes of your heart enlightened” (Eph. 1:8). Finally, you have an accurate worldview; finally, you can see the world clearly!
Sadly, many of us still struggle to keep our worldview from becoming diluted and comprehensively live out a biblical perspective. Christians have to continually fight to live life from God’s perspective. It is far too easy to pick up glasses that distort the world around us. Even Christians can sometimes think: Maybe God doesn’t care? Maybe people are basically good? Maybe I should just follow my natural urges? To uphold a true, biblical worldview, we must embrace Romans 12:1:
“Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”
God’s Spirit can renew our mind as we read his Word and meditate on his truth. As we dedicate ourselves to walk in prayer and Christian community, God’s Spirit can empower us to discern the will of God and live faithfully to our Christian convictions. Living transformed lives also means having a deeper understanding of how worldviews are constructed and what makes true and false worldviews.
Your worldview is the framework by which you understand every aspect of the world around you, and your worldview is built on your foundational beliefs. These foundational beliefs are your presuppositions about the world – key convictions about core issues that you pre-suppose to be true. Everyone has presuppositions, but not everyone’s presuppositions align with reality. These foundational beliefs influence the development of every other belief. For instance, if you believe there is no God, that will impact your view of right and wrong (morality). If you believe that people are basically good, that will impact your view of relationships and society.
There are five main building blocks that form the foundation of every worldview:
- God – What is your ultimate reality or higher power? (theology)
- Man – What is your view of humanity? (anthropology)
- Truth – Where do you look to obtain knowledge and find truth? (epistemology)
- Problem – What do you consider to be wrong with the world? (assessment)
- Solution – What solution do you propose to make things right? (outcome)
How a person answers these questions forms the foundation upon which the rest of their worldview is built. And like constructing a building, we need a stable, strong foundation for our worldview. This is what the foundation of the Christian worldview looks like:
- God – God is a perfect, all-powerful, good, and loving Creator who righteously judges evil and mercifully redeems his children.
- Man – Humanity is created in God’s image as both physical and spiritual creatures, yet we have rebelled against God’s reign and are now born into sin.
- Truth – Truth about the world can be found in general revelation (the created world around us), yet the complete truth about God and his path of salvation is only revealed in the Bible.
- Problem – Evil has infected every human heart and tainted all of creation because of human sin.
- Solution – Only a divine Savior can reconcile humans back to God, defeat evil, and restore this fallen world.
As we understand these building blocks, we can faithfully live out our worldview, engage with nonbelievers, and defend the Christian faith in a world filled with broken glasses.
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In Part 2, we’ll look at how some common false worldviews answer these five key questions and the other building blocks in a Worldview Pyramid.
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