.. My answer to yathrib will be based on my own Xn worldview.
.. So I thought I'd, first, post some critical thoughts concerning it.
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a Christian Worldview
By God’s design, people as thinking, feeling, and willing beings cannot function without a governing frame of reference to help them understand life and find their way in the world. That is exactly what a worldview is and does. It provides answers to our deepest questions, and like an internal compass, it serves as our guide to life.
-David Naugle
What is a worldview? A worldview is one’s comprehensive appreciation of reality, the interpretative framework through which we make sense of the universe and our place in it; it is the dynamic lens through which we perceive, interpret and live out reality; it is our scheme for being, an internal schematic or map for navigating the complexities of life. We each have a worldview, a set of values, attitudes, meanings and beliefs we hold true concerning the nature of reality.
What is central to a Christian worldview is the belief in a Creator God who has revealed Himself (His Identity and Desire) in both the Bible and in the person of Jesus Christ. Appreciating the full deity and humanity of Jesus is essential to a Christian worldview. The Bible, moreover, declares that Jesus Himself is the basis of reality, that the universe itself was made through Him (see John 1:3; Colossians 1:16-17; and Hebrews 1:2).
What is the difference between worldview and reality? Strictly speaking, there are as many worldviews as there are thoughtful persons. Every one of us has a unique standpoint on the world; no one else (as Wilbur said above) can completely share our distinct perspective and experiences of life.
Essentially, a worldview is a mental construct, an image of the world; it is not
the objective world, but merely
a subjective appreciation of reality. If I were to believe that the sun revolves around the earth, this belief doesn’t make it so. My worldview doesn't necessitate reality. In other words, the way I view things doesn’t necessarily determine that the world is the way I want or believe it to be.
My thoughts haven’t the power to dictate reality. For example, if I were an atheist: just because my worldview negates the existence of God doesn’t mean 'there is no God.' If I were a materialist and 'blind' to the reality of spirit beings (such as angels or demons), just because I can’t see them or believe in them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. No matter what we think, or how we spin things, ultimate reality is determined by God alone, governed by His spiritual, physical and universal laws.
Again, reality is not determined by my view of it.
Or is it? Francis Schaeffer (the atheist philosopher turned Christian theologian) brings our attention to one grand example of an idea which changed the entire world—the Hegelian dialectic. Hegel’s dialectical approach to reality as it was reworked by Marx and others brought communism to the world. [[And curiously, my philosopher friends, Karl Popper held the Hegelian dialectic as responsible for fostering totalitarian modes of thought—particularly fascism.]] As we know, Lenin and Mao shaped the views of Marxism into their own peculiar ideological systems under which countless millions have suffered and died. So with this, it seems true that our ideas and views of reality do affect the world. Various communist worldviews have detrimentally determined the reality of life for over a third of the world’s population.
As individuals or nations, our beliefs affect our behaviors which, in turn, affect our world. Whether we act on the basis of truth or lies, our actions have powerful, often unforeseen and far-reaching consequences. This is the power of being human—the power to impact reality for good or evil, the power to change the world.
Being human, we are social beings, members of societies [[btw, I subscribe to a processive-relational view of the self]]. Over and above our individual worldviews are societal worldviews which, by institutional means, serve to authoritatively construct for us the ‘real’ story of how and why things are the way they are.
Jeremy Rifkins observes: 'The most interesting aspect of a society’s world view is that its individual adherents are, for the most part, unconscious of how it affects the way they do things and how they perceive the reality around them. A world view is successful to the extent that it is so internalized, from childhood on, that it goes unquestioned.’
Reality is too huge and complex for me to comprehend—in its wholeness. However, to the degree that I presently understand the world—this is my worldview. It is my ever-developing story for how everything is connected, my sum total of understandings which organizes and gives meaning to my life, to my actions, to the world. As I am a work-in-progress, so is my worldview; and I must realize that my understanding of the world is partial and imperfect. 'Now we see through a glass darkly.'
Consider the magnitude of the universe. How far can the Hubble Space Telescope peer into the depths of the universe? How far can our own eyes peer into the surface appearance of things? ‘Indeed, these are the mere edges of His ways.’ Can I really see the activity of quarks and leptons in the flesh of my hand? Honestly, no. The reality of the universe is far greater than my grasp of it.
We look to experts for understanding. Should we not look foremost to the One who created the universe, who created our sun and earth and 'all we like sheep' for understanding.
It is my position that a proper Christian worldview is unequivocally a Biblical worldview. For the Bible, as God’s revelation to man, answers the biggest questions of life:
Where did I come from? What is man? Why am I here? How am I to direct myself? What is my destiny? Is there life after death? Why does an all-good and all-loving God allow evil and suffering to exist? Why on earth would he send His own Son to die a bloody death on a cross?
It even answers the questions other worldviews lack the framework to consider. Hebrews 11:6a says that ‘by faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God.’ By faith we understand also that the Bible is the inspired Word of God, it is the lamp which lights our way (Psalms 119:105).
In April of 1990 the Hubble Space Telescope was launched into orbit above the distorting effects of Earth’s atmosphere giving the world an unprecedented view of the universe. Eighteen some years later—with Hubble nearing the end of her career—she is still capturing and sending us images after spectacular images of galaxies, nebulae, quasars, and other astronomical objects from the most wondrous reaches of space. [[It has peered back into time when the universe was only five percent of its present age. The latest estimates of the age of the universe, according to the current theoretical model for measuring space and time, is about 13.7 billion years—give or take 200 million.]] Hubble has been a powerful instrument in proving and solving many theories and mysteries of the universe, as well as generating for scientists even more questions for the next generation of space telescopes to address.
Hubble, in terms of both time and money, was a very expensive telescope. So there was a great deal of excitement in the scientific community over her successful launch. However, when the scientists back on earth began receiving Hubble’s first images they immediately discovered something critically wrong with their telescope. Hubble was relaying back blurred and fuzzy images.
The imaging problem was traced to the telescope’s primary mirror—it was the wrong shape.
It had taken years of precision to curve and polish the primary mirror to its present shape, and although the error in its construction was ever so slight—so slight that the flaw couldn’t have been detected with the human eye—nevertheless, it was significant enough to throw all the captured light of the universe out of focus. So a set of corrective lens were made and later installed in the Hubble Telescope enabling us to receive the sharp, clear images we do today, such as the amazing light echo image posted above of a 2002 outburst of Milky Way star V838.
The Hubble mistake illustrates for us the importance of having a properly shaped worldview. Our worldview is our lens on the world, the perceptual apparatus through which the issues and meanings of life come into focus. For Christians, the Bible is the mirror that God has given us to reflect and focus the Light of Life into our hearts, into the world: 'let your light so shine.'
As Christians—believers in Jesus Christ—we have the Holy Spirit living within us. And this same Spirit who inspired the writings of Scripture is the same One who will enlighten us to the meaning of the Word of God. The Bible
is God’s view, His articulated plan and purpose for the world. Now, if the world is wrong about God, it will most certainly be wrong about itself, about man.
If our mirror on the world is warped, our view of life, consequently, will be fuzzy and out of focus.
marmot
