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Worldviews in Conflict
Ronald H. Nash
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Worldviews in Conflict
Ronald H. Nash
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About This Book
This world is a battlefield in the arena of ideas. The prize is the heart and mind of humankind. In this book, Ronald Nash outlines the Christian way of looking at God, self, and the world. He holds that worldview up against the tests of reason, logic, and experience, particularly discussing the problems of evil and the alleged "nonsense" of the historic Christian doctrines and of Jesus' incarnation and resurrection. He finds the Christian worldview sound and urges Christians to equip themselves intellectually to defend the faith on that battlefield. He particularly hits the attractions to our generation of naturalism and the New Age movement, pointing out their weaknesses and pitfalls as well as those of older worldviews. "Christian theism, " he writes, "is a system that commends itself to the whole person"; but he stresses that a great difference exists between "belief that" and "belief in."
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Theology & ReligionSubtopic
Christian TheologyChapter 1
What Is a Worldview?
In its simplest terms, a worldview is a set of beliefs about the most important issues in life. The philosophical systems of great thinkers such as Plato and Aristotle were worldviews. Every mature rational human being, each reader of this book, has his or her own worldview just as surely as Plato did. It seems sometimes that few have any idea what that worldview is or even that they have one. Yet achieving awareness of our worldview is one of the most important things we can do to enhance self-understanding, and insight into the worldviews of others is essential to an understanding of what makes them tick.
Implicit in all this is the additional point that these beliefs must cohere in some way and form a system. A fancy term that can be useful here is conceptual scheme, by which I mean a pattern or arrangement of concepts (ideas). A worldview, then, is a conceptual scheme by which we consciously or unconsciously place or fit everything we believe and by which we interpret and judge reality.
One of the more important things we can do for others is to help them achieve a better understanding of their worldview. We can also assist them to improve it, which means eliminating inconsistencies and providing new information that will help fill gaps in their conceptual system. University of Michigan philosopher George Mavrodes shares this view of the importance of worldview thinking:
Providing a man with a conceptual framework in which he can see his whole life as being lived in the presence of God is analogous to teaching a man to read a strange script. We can give him a key, a sort of Rosetta stone, by telling him the meaning of one particular inscription. If he believes us he can then understand that inscription. But the test of whether he has really learned how to read the script, and also the confirmation that the translation we gave him was accurate, comes when he encounters all the other inscriptions that are scattered through his world. If he cannot read them, then he has not yet learned that language and he is still subject to the doubt that what we gave him may not have been a translation at all, but rather a message quite unrelated to what was written.1
Philosopher W. P. Alston offers another reason why worldviews are important:
It can be argued on the basis of facts concerning the nature of man and the conditions of human life that human beings have a deep-seated need to form some general picture of the total universe in which they live, in order to be able to relate their own fragmentary activities to the universe as a whole in a way meaningful to them; and that a life in which this is not carried through is a life impoverished in a most significant respect.2
The right eyeglasses can put the world into clearer focus, and the correct worldview can function in much the same way. When someone looks at the world from the perspective of the wrong worldview, the world wonāt make much sense to him. Or what he thinks makes sense will, in fact, be wrong in important respects. Putting on the right conceptual scheme, that is, viewing the world through the correct worldview, can have important repercussions for the rest of the personās understanding of events and ideas.
Most of us know people who seem incapable of seeing certain points that are obvious to us (perhaps those people view us as equally obtuse or stubborn). They often seem to have a built-in grid that filters out information and arguments and that leads them to place a peculiar twist on what seems obvious to us. While sometimes this may be the result of something peculiar to them, it is usually a consequence of their worldview. The ability of some to be open to new beliefs is often a function of the conceptual system in terms of which they approach the world and the claims of others.
Many disagreements among individuals, societies, and nations are clashes of competing worldviews. This is certainly the case between advocates of the pro-life and pro-choice positions on abortion. It is also true with regard to the growing number of conflicts between secular humanists and religious believers.
It is probably rare when the worldviews of two people match in every important detail. It may be helpful to think of different worldviews as circles that overlap to a greater or lesser degree. The following three pairs of concentric circles illustrate the relationships among three sets of worldviews.
The two circles above represent two worldviews that are similar on most issues. As an example, they might represent the conceptual schemes of two theologically conservative Christians from different denominations. Even though two such people will understandably disagree about many things, nonetheless they share a common commitment to the central beliefs of the Christian worldview.
The next pair of circles pictures the worldviews of two people who disagree more than they agree.
The two circles above do not overlap at all. They may represent the disparate worldviews of General Norman Schwartzkopf and Saddam Hussein. A bit of pastoral advice: two people whose worldviews are represented by our last pair of circles should not marry each other. A major and probably unresolvable clash of views is likely between two people whose worldviews fail to overlap at all.3
VIEWING CHRISTIANITY AS A WORLDVIEW
Instead of thinking of Christianity as a collection of theological bits and pieces to be believed or debated, we should approach our faith as a conceptual system, as a total world-and-life view. Once people understand that both Christianity and its adversaries in the world of ideas are worldviews, they will be in better position to judge the relative merits of the total Christian system. William Abraham has written:
Religious belief should be assessed as a rounded whole rather than taken in stark isolation. Christianity, for example, like other world faiths, is a complex, large-scale system of belief which must be seen as a whole before it is assessed. To break it up into disconnected parts is to mutilate and distort its true character. We can, of course, distinguish certain elements in the Christian faith, but we must still stand back and see it as a complex interaction of these elements. We need to see it as a metaphysical system, as a worldview, that is total in its scope and range.4
The case for or against Christian theism5 should be made and evaluated in terms of total systems. Christianity is not simply a religion that tells human beings how they may be forgiven, however important this information is. Christianity is also a total world-and-life view. Our faith has important things to say about the whole of human life. Once Christians understand in a systematic way how the options to Christianity are also worldviews, they will be in a better position to justify their choice of Christianity rationally. The reason many people reject our faith is not due to their problems with one or two isolated issues; it is the result of their anti-Christian conceptual scheme, which leads them to reject information and arguments that for believers provide support for the Christian worldview. Every worldview has questions it appears unable to answer satisfactorily. One might wish that all Christians were able effectively to defend their faith; therefore, our important task is to equip ourselves so that we are able to show detractors that the Christian worldview is superior rationally, morally, and existentially6 to any alternative system.
Because so many elements of a worldview are philosophical in nature, it is vital that Christians become more conscious of the importance of philosophy. Philosophy matters. It matters because the Christian worldview has an intrinsic connection to philosophy and the world of ideas. It matters because philosophy is related in a critically important way to life, culture, and religion. And it matters because the systems opposing Christianity use the methods and arguments of philosophy. Though philosophy and religion often use different language and often arrive at different conclusions, they deal with the same questions, which include questions about what exists (metaphysics), how humans should live (ethics), and how human beings know (epistemology).7
THE IMPORTANT ROLE OF PRESUPPOSITIONS
We all hold a number of beliefs that we presuppose or accept without support from other beliefs or arguments or evidence. Such presuppositions are necessary if we are to think at all. In the words of the Christian thinker Augustine (A.D. 354ā430), we must believe something before we can know anything. Whenever we think, we simply take some things for granted. The consequences of a number of these presuppositions for philosophy and religion as well as for thinking in general are often significant.
Often beginning students of geometry tend to overlook the significance of the axioms at the beginning of their textbook. They hurry over them in order to get into what they think is the more important work of solving problems. The axioms, while basic to all the subsequent proofs in the system, are themselves not proved or even provable. However, advanced students soon realize that with regard to the ultimate validity of all subsequent argumentation, these basic axioms are more important than the later problems and solutions. If the axioms are denied, the propositions deduced from the axioms do not follow since there is nothing for them to follow from; the validity of the entire system becomes suspect. In a similar way, human knowledge depends on certain assumptions that are often unexpressed, sometimes unrecognized, and frequently unproved.8
As Notre Dame philosopher Thomas Morris explains, the most important presuppositions in any personās system of beliefs
are the most basic and most general beliefs about God, man, and the world that anyone can have. They are not usually consciously entertained but rather function as the perspective from which an individual sees and interprets both the events of his own life and the various circumstances of the world around him. These presuppositions in conjunction with one another delimit the boundaries within which all other less foundational beliefs are held.9
Even scientists make important epistemological, metaphysical, and ethical assumptions. They assume, for example, that knowledge is possible and that sense experience is reliable (epistemology), that the universe is regular (metaphysics), and that scientists should be honest (ethics). Without these assumptions, which scientists cannot verify within the limits of their methodology, scientific inquiry would soon collapse.
Basic assumptions or presuppositions are important because of the way they determine the method and goal of theoretical thought. They can be compared to a train running on tracks that have no switches. Once a person commits himself to a certain set of presuppositions, his direction and destination are determined. An acceptance of the presuppositions of the Christian worldview will lead a person to conclusions very different from those that would follow a commitment, say, to the presuppositions of naturalism.10 Oneās axioms determine oneās theorems.11
THE NONTHEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF THEORETICAL THOUGHT
While the title for this section may appear unnecessarily technical, it is the best language to introduce an intensely important point. A number of Christian writers have attempted to draw attention to the fact that the kinds of theoretical thinking we find in science, philosophy, and even theology are often strongly affected by nontheoretical considerations. It is hard to ignore the personal dimension that enters into oneās acceptance and evaluation of a worldview, including a religious system like Christianity. It would be foolish to pretend that human beings always handle such matters impersonally and objectively, without reference to considerations rooted in their psychological makeup. Many people demonstrate that they are often incapable of thinking clearly about their worldview. Most of us have met people or come across the writings of those who appear so captive to a conceptual scheme that they seem incapable of giving a fair hearing to any argument or bit of evidence that appears to threaten their system. This is true of both theists and nontheists.
Sometimes people have difficulty with competing claims and systems because of philosophical presuppositions. But often their theoretical judgments seem inordinately affected by nontheoretical factors. This is the case, for example, when racial prejudice causes people to hold certain untrue beliefs about those who are objects of the prejudice. Sometimes these nontheoretical factors are unique to the particular person, rooted in his or her personal history. Some writers have suggested that another type of nontheoretical influence affects our thinking. According to them, human thoughts and actions have religious roots in the sense that they are related to the human heart, the center of our attitude toward religion.12 Human beings are never neutral with regard to God. Either we worship God as Creator and Lord, or we turn away from God. Because the heart is directed either toward God or against him, theoretical thinking is never so pure or autonomous as many would like to think. While this line of thinking raises questions that cannot be explored further in this book, it does seem that some who appear to reject Christianity on rational or theoretical grounds are, in fact, acting under the influence of nonrational factors; that is, more ultimate commitments of their hearts. People should be encouraged to dig below the surface and uncover the basic philosophical and religious presuppositions that often appear to control their thinking.
Though the influence of nontheoretical factors on peopleās thinking is often extensive, it is never total in the sense that it precludes life-altering changes. The case of Saul of Tarsusāone of early Christianityās greatest enemies, a person fanatically committed to a system that seemed to rule out any possibility of his change or conversionāencourages us to believe that no one is incapable of change. People do change conceptual systems. Conversions take place all the time. People who used to be humanists or naturalists or atheists or followers of competing religious faiths have found reasons to turn away from their old conceptual systems and embrace Christianity. Conversely, people who used to profess allegiance to Christianity reach a point where they feel they can no longer believe.
Of course, we must also recognize that many changes regarding worldviews have little or nothing to do with Christian conversion. Even the noted Christian writer C. S. Lewis admits that he abandoned a naturalistic worldview in favor of an intellectual acceptance of the Christian worldview months before his actual conversion.13 In spite of all the obstacles I have noted, people do occasionally begin to doubt conceptual systems they had accepted for years. And sometimes, as we know, people make dramatic changes in their belief systems.
Is it possible to identify a single set of necessary conditions that will always be present when people change a worldview? I doubt it. After all, as I have pointed out, many people remain unaware that they have a worldview, even though the sudden change in their lives and thoughts resulted from their exchanging one worldview for another. It does seem clear that dramatic changes like this usually require time for one to work through doubts about key elements of the worldview. Even when the change appears to have been sudden, it was in all likelihood preceded by a period of growing uncertainty and doubt. In many cases, the actual change is triggered by a significant event, often a crisis of some kind. But I have also heard people recount stories that laid out different s...