Taking on a Christian Worldview

My boys love cannonballs. Not the round spheres that you fire from a cannon, but the kind you do in a swimming pool – jumping into the water curled up like a ball to make a big splash. On a recent vacation, my boys and I were having a cannonball contest in a hotel pool that we had all to ourselves. However, after a few minutes of splashing sensations, a mother and her toddler came into the pool as well. I assumed my boys would’ve taken the cue and suspended the contest, but I was wrong. My youngest son saw the others but was somehow oblivious to the fact that his splashing might get bystanders wet. He proceeded to do yet another prize-winning cannonball splash within the general proximity of the now freshly soaked duo. In his zeal, my son didn’t realize the ripple effect that his splash would have on people surrounding him.

Much like the splash from my son’s cannonball, a Christian worldview has a ripple effect that reaches out and affects all areas of a Christian’s life.

Viewing the ripple effect of worldviews

Think of a worldview as a series of three concentric circles, such as the one shown in Figure 13-1. Each of the circles are interrelated:

Inner circle (authority): In the center of your life is some sort of authority, the one you hand the keys over to to make the calls on everything. This authority is God, society, another person, you, or some combination of these. People who believe in some concept of God give some or all of the control to that God. People who don’t believe in any supernatural being (called naturalists) take it all on themselves or, as is more often the case, split the duties between society and themselves.

Middle circle (facts and values): The decision maker(s) from the inner circle determines facts (what’s fact and what’s fiction) and values (what’s right and what’s wrong). A Christian believes that God is the authority of both facts (based on the reality that he started everything in the first place) and values (as he revealed in the Bible). On the other hand, a naturalist often defers questions of fact to science, but when it comes to values, the decisions are personal or are based on what’s good for society as a whole.

Outer circle (world around you): The two inner circles tend to be assumptions that you actually put into practice in the outer circle. Think of this layer as the place that you actually live. You interact with nature and other people and live with your problems and dreams. But again, the assumptions that you make in the inner circles dictate your understanding of reality in the world around you. A naturalist, believing that no higher power exists, makes decisions and value judgments that are very different from someone who believes in a Creator God who’s involved with his creation.

Figure 13-1: A worldview is the framework for all your beliefs.

Authority

Objective Facts

Subjective Values

World

Me

Others

A worldview also provides a framework that enables you to ask the key questions of life. As shown in Figure 13-2, the answers to the questions in each of the circles affect the answers in the layers outside of it.

Finally, a worldview encompasses all fields and disciplines of study, as shown in Figure 13-3. The reason is that when you look at disciplines in the outer circle, you see that you can’t consider them apart from the innermost circles; the core has the most authority in your life and affects the angle at which you approach all the other disciplines. Take the following examples:

Education: When you look at education from a worldview perspective, the very idea of a “value-free” education doesn’t make sense. All education is influenced in some shape or form by values. These values may be based on a naturalist, Christian, or Hindu worldview, but they’re values nonetheless. Education is a field that you can’t pursue in a vacuum, because you always have an underlying authority that helps you make education decisions and determine the ethics of education.

Science: Scientists often tout their discipline as being separate from religion, but even scientific theories have underlying religious assumptions. If, for example, a scientist is a naturalist, then she has already made the call that God doesn’t exist (which is, by definition, a religious, not a scientific, question). This assumption then impacts her science, forcing her to come up with theories, such as evolution, that explain how a godless world came into existence. (Turn to Chapter 16 for more on Christianity and science.)

Entertainment: Even the entertainment you watch has an underlying worldview, whether you realize it or not. Consider the underlying assumptions of three recent blockbuster films. Although X-Men is fantasy fare, the film has an underlying worldview that assumes evolution as fact. Castaway doesn’t deal with evolution, but it does have an unstated worldview that ignores God, treating him as a non-factor during times of trouble. As a result, the shipwrecked main character, played by Tom Hanks, must solve his own problem and not turn to God for help. In contrast, Signs has a worldview that suggests that nothing is an accident and that a God does exist who engineers circumstances in this world.

Although not every song, TV show, or film has an explicitly stated worldview, look for the unspoken assumptions that undergird the story or song.

Figure 13-2: A worldview provides answers to the key questions of life.

Who decides?

What is true/false?

What is wrong/right?

Who am I?

What is the world, and how should I relate to it?

How do I interact with others?

Figure 13-3: A worldview encompasses all disciplines of study.

Theology (Religion)

Logic, Philosophy

Ethics

Education

Law

Arts & Culture

Physical sciences

Psychology

Sociology

Economics

Politics

History