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What’s in a Worldview?
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A worldview consists of “the fundamental assumptions that we have that we use to make sense of the world.”
-Dr. Adam Blehm
In the lesson, Dr. Blehm defines a worldview as “the fundamental assumptions that we have that we use to make sense of the world.” We may or may not have consciously thought these through, but they show themselves in the way that we think about the world and make decisions in life. This is a key point – there can be a significant difference between what we might say we believe and how we actually behave.
Dr. Blehm identifies four key elements of a worldview in particular:
- Do we believe and act as if God really exists?
- What is the true basis for our decisions about right and wrong?
- What is our sense of what is ultimately real?
- What do we believe a human being is (and more importantly, what do our actions indicate that we believe human beings are)?
You’ll notice that we have worded these questions to get at the true nature of what we believe. There is frequently a human disconnect between what we say we believe and how we actually behave. It is how we behave that is the truest indicator of what we believe, not what we say. As James 2:18 indicates, our actions reveal the true nature of our faith, not our words.
If we truly believe that God exists, it will impact our lives in the most profound way possible. If we really believe God is God, he is the most important, most fundamental, and most real thing. In fact, he is the only thing that must exist. Everything else is unnecessary.
If we truly believe in God, then God cannot be a “tack on” to our lives. God, by definition, is the most important thing in our existence – more important than our own lives, the lives of our family, the existence of our country, even the survival of our planet. If God exists, he is “all in all” (1 Cor. 15:28). Our lives can’t be the same if we truly believe in God!
What is the basis for right and wrong? Is it just a feeling or a sentiment? Is it just a matter of opinion – you have your beliefs, and I have mine? Is it just cultural – my people believe this, and your people believe that?
Is there an objective basis for reality? Is it just something we come to agree about and hire some people to enforce? Is it the greatest good for the greatest number? Or is it grounded in the nature of God and revealed to us in the Scriptures?
Although in some ways it can seem a less central question, our approaches to life can differ significantly depending on what we treat as the center of reality. For example, are ideas the most important thing? Some people operate more or less on the assumption that everything will fall into place if they can just get their ideas straight.
Others are very concrete. Ideas are irrelevant to them, the stuff of people who don’t actually do anything in the world. Seeing is believing. Other people are “so heavenly-minded they’re no earthly good.”
Are we simply animals and nothing more? Do our lives really matter? What about the lives of other people? Is it true, as Shakespeare put it, that “all the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players” with entrances and exits, but none all that significant?
Or is there something more to us? Are humans intrinsically valuable in some way? Do we have an eternal destiny that the other creatures around us do not?
Dr. Blehm only mentions the four questions above, but James Sire, in The Universe Next Door, mentions a few others as well:
- What happens at death? Do humans continue to live in heaven or hell, for example?
- How do we know things? Where does truth come from, and how can we know what is true?
- What is the meaning of human history? Is it going somewhere, or is it just an endless cycle repeating the same thing over and over again?
Our underlying assumptions about all these things affect how we interpret the world and how we act in it. On some of these questions, Christians have very clear understandings and assumptions. Others explain some of the reasons why people can talk past each other and misunderstand one another.