What is a Worldview?

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What is a Worldview?

• Living at the Crossroads
• Chapter 2

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A Brief History of Worldview

• German word, weltanschauung
• Arose first in German philosophy
• Weltanschauung coined by Kant (1724-1804)
• Key word in German idealist and Romantic
  philosophy in 19th century
• Used to denote a set of beliefs that underlie
  and shape all of human thought and action.
• By 1840s it was a standard term in vocabulary of
  educated German
• Expressed global outlook on the world.

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Worldview in German Philosophy

• In German Idealism and Romanticism, worldview
  expresses a set of beliefs that are foundational
  and formative for human thinking and life.

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Underlying beliefs that are . . .

• Comprehensive
• Foundational
• Cohesive

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Appropriation of worldview in Evangelical church

• Started being used in English in 1858 gradually
  became part of English vocabulary.
• Introduced into evangelical world by Abraham
  Kuyper and James Orr end of 19th century
• In 1917 B.B. Warfield said word was newly in
  fashion in North America.
• Today widely used in evangelical circles
• How did non-Christian term become so popular in
  Christian circles?

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How did this happen?

• Important lectures by Abraham Kuyper and James
  Orr
• Orr, Kerr Lectures, Scotland, 1891
• Kuyper, Stone Lectures, Princeton, 1898
• Deep sense of need to protect the Christian faith
  from a hostile worldview
• Made popular by a whole host of writers

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Similarities between Kuyper and Orr

• Christianity has an comprehensive and unified
  view of the world
• Modern worldview is threatening gospel
• Another comprehensive and unified view of the
  world
• Fundamentally religious
• Embodied in forms of social and cultural life
• Antithetical to Christianity
• Christianitys only defence against the power of
  modernism is to develop an equally comprehensive
  worldview.

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• If the battle is to be fought with honour and
  with a hope of victory, then principle must be
  arrayed against principle then it must be felt
  that in Modernism the vast energy of an
  all-embracing life system assails us, then
  also it must be understood
  that we have to take our stand in a life system
  of equally comprehensive and
  far-reaching power (Abraham Kuyper,
  Stone Lecture 1).
• 
  

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• No one, I think, whose eyes are open to the
  signs of the times, can fail to perceive that if
  Christianity is to be effectually defended from
  the attacks made upon it, it is the comprehensive
  method that is rapidly becoming the more urgent.
  The opposition which Christianity has to
  encounter is no longer confined to special
  doctrines . . . but extends to the whole manner
  of conceiving the world. . . . It is no longer an
  opposition of detail, but of principle. The
  circumstance necessitates an equal extension of
  the line of defence. It is the Christian view of
  things in general which is attacked, and it
  is by an exposition and vindication of the
  Christian view of things as a whole that the
  attack can most successfully be met
  (James Orr, Kerr Lecture 1).

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Difference between Kuyper and Orr

• Orr concerned for defending Christian theology
• Kuyper concerned for whole of cultural and public
  lifepolitics, art, scholarship, etc.

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Term made popular by

• Carl F. H. Henry
• Francis Schaeffer
• Al Wolters
• Brian Walsh and Richard Middleton
• James Sire
• Colson and Pearcey
• Arthur Holmes

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Worldview functioned in two ways in
evangelicalism

• Protect the integrity, comprehensiveness of
  Christian faith help Christians not to be men
  and women who were double-minded.
• Provide tool to pursue Christian scholarship,
  politics, etc. in faithfulness to gospel

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James Sires Revised Definition of Worldview

• A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental
  orientation of the heart, that can be expressed
  as a story or in a set of presuppositions
  (assumptions which may be true, partially true or
  entirely false) which we hold (consciously or
  subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently)
  about the basic constitution of reality, and that
  provides the foundation on which we live and move
  and have our being.

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Three important shifts

• Worldview is first religious, not rational
• Worldview is first a story, not a system
• Worldview is first embodied, then articulated

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Criticisms of Christian appropriation of
worldview

• Intellectualizes the gospel
• Relativizes the gospel
• Disconnected from Scripture and vulnerable to
  idolatrous spirits of the age
• Leads to unhealthy activism
• Leads to the neglect poor and marginalized

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Definition of worldview

• Worldview is an articulation of the basic
  beliefs embedded in a shared grand story that are
  rooted in a faith commitment and that give shape
  and direction to the whole of our individual and
  corporate lives.

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Summary of elements of a worldview

• Takes form of a grand story

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Form of a Story

• Narrative is a central category for
  understanding human life. (Walsh/Middleton)
• A worldview is story-formed we could say that
  a worldview is a kind of condensation or
  shorthand . . . of a life- shaping story.
  (Fernhout)

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What is the real story?

• I can only answer the question What am I to
  do? if I can answer the prior question Of what
  story do I find myself a part? (MacIntyre)
• The way we understand human life depends on
  what conception we have of the human story. What
  is the real story of which my life story is
  part? (Newbigin)

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Summary of elements of a worldview

• Takes form of a grand story
• Fundamental beliefs embedded in grand story
• Rooted in religious faith commitment

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Christ or and Idol

• Ones worldview, then, and indeed the worldview
  of a whole culture, is rooted in a faith stancea
  stance in relation to that which is taken to be
  ultimate, an ultimate concern. From a Christian
  perspective, this ultimacy will either be
  appropriately directed to the one who is
  Ultimateor to a pseudo-ultimacy, a pseudo-god,
  an idol. (Walsh)

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Religious Nature of Human Beings
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Summary of elements of a worldview

• Takes form of a grand story
• Fundamental beliefs embedded in grand story
• Rooted in religious faith commitment
• Shapes the whole of our communal lives

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Communal nature of worldview

• Shared by community

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Culture Common way of life rooted in a shared
story
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Communal nature of worldview

• Shared by community
• Issues in communal way of life
• Shapes and unifies communal life
• Socialized into this communal way of life

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Socialization

• If a cultures vision leads to certain
  child-rearing, educational, and economic
  practices, then those practices will themselves
  socialize the children to live in terms of that
  vision (Middleton/Walsh).

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Communal nature of worldview

• Shared by community
• Issues in communal way of life
• Shapes and unifies communal life
• Socialized into this communal way of life
• Often unconscious

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Often Unconscious

• Worldviews . . . are like the foundations of a
  house vital, but invisible. They are that
  through which, not at which, a society or an
  individual normally looks they form the grid
  according to which humans organize reality, not
  bits of reality that offer themselves for
  organization. They are not usually called up to
  consciousness or discussion unless they are
  challenged or flouted fairly explicitly . . .
  (NT
  Wright).

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Summary of elements of a worldview

• Takes form of a grand story
• Fundamental beliefs embedded in grand story
• Rooted in religious faith commitment
• Shapes the whole our communal life
• Shapes the whole of our lives

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Shape the Whole of Our Lives

• Storied visions OF and FOR life (Walsh)
• Shape the way we
• See the world
• Interpret the world
• Live in the world

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Summary of elements of a worldview

• Takes form of a grand story
• Fundamental beliefs embedded in grand story
• Rooted in religious faith commitment
• Communal nature
• Shapes the whole of our lives
• All have worldview few articulate it

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Scripture and Worldview

• Scripture
• Biblical theology (our narrative telling of the
  biblical story)
• Christian worldview (setting out of the
  comprehensive framework of a Christians basic
  beliefs about things as embedded in the drama of
  Scripture in interaction with our cultures basic
  beliefs)
• Systematic theology and Christian philosophy
  (which reflect on Christian beliefs at a more
  theoretical level)

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Worldview Missional Imperative

• Mediates between gospel and human life
• By explicating basic categories of Biblical story
• By clarifying their relationship
• By defending the gospel against error
• By providing a foundation for the churchs
  mission in public life