A worldview is the lens through which we see the world and how we perceive it. It’s what we think, what we believe, and what ideas influence us. Many of us have not considered our worldview, but whatever our worldview is, it impacts all areas of our lives, even if we’ve never thought about it.
Right now, the number of ideas that we are bombarded with daily is like a plate of spaghetti, interwoven so we can’t determine where one idea begins and another ends. To properly untangle the confusing messages we hear regularly, we need a system to categorize them effectively. This way, we untangle the mess, make sense of it, and determine whether the ideas align with our beliefs. Understanding worldview is one of the most effective tools to untangle the messages, categorize them into the proper “Worldview Container,” and quickly identify if an idea is biblical or not.
One of the easiest ways to spot the difference between a Biblical Worldview and a Postmodern Worldview is through the topic of evil—most specifically, what constitutes evil and who perpetrates it. For Christians with a Biblical Worldview, we would say evil is idolatry, stealing, lying, greed, murder, sexual immorality, etc., because the Bible tells us these are sins. For someone with a Postmodern Worldview, they would say the only evils in the world are injustice and oppression.
A worldview goes beyond what we think about evil, and it impacts how we think about meaning, purpose, work, death, goodness, morality, authority, social causes, and more. It even goes beyond these broader intellectual topics and affects our everyday lives. Our worldview impacts everything we do, like how we react to sin in our lives, love other people, handle conflict, spend our time and money, and even how we think about family and our identity.
Much of categorizing a worldview comes down to answering these four who, why, what, and how worldview questions that Chuck Colson and Nancy Pearcey lay out in their book How Now Shall We Live:
- Who or what created the world, including humans, and why are we here?
- Why does evil exist, and what is considered evil?
- What can we do to make the world better and fix what evil has messed up?
- How should we live our daily lives based on all this?
If someone searched how many worldviews exist, the responses would range from four to eight, but the most prevailing belief systems in our world today can be summed up by focusing on the four worldviews that authors W. Gary Phillips, William E. Brown, and John Stonestreet outline in their book Making Sense of Your World. The four worldviews include: Naturalism, Transcendentalism, Theism, and Postmodernism.
Each of the four overarching worldviews covered in the Worldview Prepared curriculum include other worldviews that fall under them. For example, one worldview reviewed in Worldview Prepared is Theism, which is the overarching worldview that Christianity’s Biblical Worldview falls under.
One way to remember the four overarching Worldviews is with the letter “S:”
Naturalism = Science;
Transcendentalism = Spirituality;
Theism = Submitted;
Postmodern = Social Justice.
What is the Biblical Worldview?
Understanding the Biblical Worldview is foundational to everything taught in the Worldview Prepared curriculum. Grasping key concepts of the Biblical Worldview will help your student easily identify the differences between the Biblical Worldview and the other worldviews covered, allowing them to sort through and categorize various worldviews into their proper “Worldview Container.”
The term Biblical Worldview, rather than Christian Worldview, has emerged as a way to differentiate between a worldview founded on historic Christian beliefs based on the Bible rather than progressive christian beliefs based on culture and the Postmodern Worldview. Referencing the Biblical Worldview means the Bible is true (infallible), accurate (inerrant), and the authoritative (inspired) Word of God. In other words, the Bible is the truth of all reality and the primary way God has revealed Himself to humanity, alongside His Spirit and creation.
Part of understanding the Biblical Worldview is recognizing the four main parts of the Bible’s metanarrative. Metanarrative refers to a broader story being told through the whole of Scripture versus individual books or chapters. The Biblical Worldview begins in Genesis 1 with “in the beginning” and ends in Revelation 22 with the complete restoration of God’s creation to Him. The Biblical Worldview includes all of Scripture. The four parts of the Biblical Worldview as outlined in How Now Shall We Live include: 1) Creation in Genesis 1, moves to 2) the Fall in Genesis 3, then continues to 3) Jesus’ Redemption in the Gospel accounts, and concludes with 4) Restoration when Jesus returns to make all things new in Revelation.
These four parts are titled: Creation, Fall, Redemption, and Restoration and they are based on a foundational theology, or study, of God and His Word. By recognizing key concepts of the four broader parts of the Bible’s metanarrative, Christians can more effectively share the Gospel with those who have a Postmodern Worldview, for example, which focuses on self, specifically one’s identity and purpose, rather than God. Important implications exist, too, for viewing God’s Word in these four parts, mainly because of the Postmodern Worldview’s obsession with identity and purpose. Since identity has become a central theme in society, understanding where a person’s identity comes from—the Creator, not the self—is essential to knowing who we are as humans. Starting with Creation in Genesis 1 teaches us this and is, therefore, critical to having a biblical perspective of humanity.
Learning about the four parts of the Biblical Worldview will also act as a filter through which to sort all other worldviews and determine whether they are biblical or not. When reviewing any worldview, ask the four worldview questions according to that worldview…
- Who or what created the world, including humans, and why are we here?
- Why does evil exist, and what is considered evil?
- What can we do to make the world better and fix what evil has messed up?
- How should we live our daily lives based on all this?
Answering these questions will help your student identify the differences between the Biblical Worldview and other worldviews.
Now that we’ve learned about what worldview is and the four-parts of the Biblical Worldview, in our next Prepared Parent blog, we will learn the Biblical Worldview’s answers to these questions.
