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Let
us consider the basic aspects of a contemporary worldview. For this analysis we
will consider eight questions carefully depicted by Professor James W. Sire in
his work The Universe Next Door. There are other depictions of worldview that
we might consider, but this form is direct and to the point in the clearest way
possible. We will examine each of these eight areas of the mosaic of
perspectives in the world and particularly reference their importance to how
people identify themselves in our society in regard to race, ethnicity, gender
and group socialization. I will be defending the thesis that these areas of
identity are fundamental to establishing a worldview based on objective truth
and knowledge of one’s self and the world, the past, and the future. Yet we
will also see that God is able through His divine prevenient grace to draw any
person, from any worldview, no matter how near or far from himself, to win them
to His son Jesus Christ.
One:
“What is prime reality- the really real?” (Sire, 2020, p. 8) What is the core
reality of the universe and everything? Is it life and order, is it chaos and
disorder? How does it all fit together? Many worldviews seem contradictory.
They espouse a belief in God, but fail to live as if God were really real. Or
they claim to believe in only a pitiless universe of howling nothingness but
cry out for justice in the world with burning hot anger. But what justice
exists in a pitiless universe? There is none. This is the most important
question in my view: What is at the base of the structure on which you are
forming your worldview?
For
each of these areas of concern, race, ethnicity, gender, and group socialization
we see certain factors that influence toward certain worldviews. But it’s
important to note that each of these factors, race, ethnicity, gender, and
group socialization are facets of worldviews built upon the bottom base, but
they do not really define the bottom base. If our ancestors hail from a nation
like Poland, like mine, I found myself raised in a Catholic church. Another may
be more disconnected from their ethnicity. Some may take great stock in their
race and form their identity around it, others may not. Obviously, the way a
man and a woman grow up and live, will be very different from each other, and
ethnicity and race will play into that dynamic as well. So will group
socialization. Of each of these areas I believe group socialization is by far
the most important because there the individual will find the influences of
others, to even have a proper understanding of their gender, ethnicity, or
race. In the group, we find our identity, whether it’s in a church, in a sports
team, in a family unit, a university, or in a political/activist organization.
I
would say that one will often not even consider this first question as they
form their worldview. The worldview forms based on these areas of gender,
ethnicity, race and group, and later as the individual grows and develops and
ages, at some point they may eventually look back and ask the question, “What
is prime reality?” From what I can tell from those I encounter on a daily
basis, most do not even consider the big question of what prime reality is. They
are busy defining themselves, making their plans, and living their lives, and
the question of prime reality is missed entirely. This was also true for me,
for many years of my early life, teens, and twenties. Let’s continue.
Two:
“What is the nature of external reality (that is, the world around us)?” (Sire,
2020, p. 8) What is happening on this messed up world called Earth? That is the
question all people seem to wrestle with. It doesn’t matter if they are
Christian, deist, naturalist, socialist, capitalist, Freudian, or Jungian, it’s
a question on every person’s mind, what went wrong here? Once again we
see that these areas of self-definition in society will play into this dynamic
of understanding the problem with the world.
For a Christian, we understand the world went wrong when Adam and Eve
joined Satan’s rebellion against God in the perfect garden of Eden. And as a result,
all of reality was cursed and became fallen. For a deist, they may consider the
brokenness of the universe to be the work of a disinterested deity who created
and disappeared. For a naturalist, they may consider the brokenness of the
world to be a result of the concept of survival of the fittest, that evolution
is vicious and without remorse in how it plays out. For a post-modernist, they
might say that the evil of the world is a result of western colonization and
imperialism and abuse by westerners of the developing world. For a modernist or
utopian, they might believe that the constant progress of society has not yet
reached its perfection, but someday humanity will transcend all darkness and
evil, and form an idyllic society. Ethnicity, race, gender, and group identity
will all play a part in these definitions. It all depends on experience. The
family unit will influence an individual toward their preferred religion, or
lack of religion. One’s social peers, those of similar race and ethnicity will
influence the individual toward certain social, political, and religious
beliefs. It’s all a game of influence, to a certain extent. Yet, we also see a
sovereign God in the world drawing people out of Islam and toward himself,
drawing people out of Post-modernism and toward himself, drawing people out of
political radicalism and toward himself, drawing people away from nihilism and
toward himself. That is the beautiful thing about an infinite God, he can
overcome any false worldview, with the objectively true worldview. And that is
one contention I want to make very clearly, there is a worldview in which one
is able to perceive ultimate truth albeit in a limited sense. And there are
worldviews where people are believing and living by things that are not true. This
must certainly be the case.
Three:
“What is a human being?” (Sire, 2020, p. 8) What does it meant to be human? How
does it all fit together? Am I born free? Do I have liberty? Am I just dancing
to my DNA or do I have real choices to make? Once again, race, ethnicity,
gender, and group socialization will all influence how someone answers these
sorts of questions. Someone with an identity strongly rooted in their gender
will identify who they are as a person more fundamentally in that way. I’m a
woman, hear me roar, I’m a man, this is my core identity. Increasingly in the
United States we see people identifying themselves and building much of their
identity on their race. They form their basic identity as a person as claiming
to be a person of color, or a Latino, or Indian, or Asian. And it becomes
absolutely vital to their identity. And often this leads to group identity
linked to race. It’s the same with gender, particularly as gender has been
redefined to define an individual’s sexual preferences. This becomes over time
much more than simply a personal preference for the individual, but instead
becomes a core part of their identity and this link often expresses itself in
who the individual socializes with. But once again I think to the largest
degree we see the question of what is a human played out in group
socialization. More and more so this is the direction fragmentation of group
identity has taken in the United States. There are thousands of different
denominations of churches. There are thousands of different interest groups.
One might identify as an introvert and claim their identity in that. One might
identify as their Meyers-Briggs type, or their Enneagram type. Others identify
based on interests, some gather for special feudal festivals and dress up like
knights in armor and maidens and joust together. Others gather in groups to
play video games, others in Silicon Valley gather together for elite explicit
sexual activities. We see an increasing fragmentation of society, as more and
more groups and subgroups form and begin to identify themselves in unique ways
in the group setting. But let’s continue.
Four:
“What happens to a person after death?” (Sire, 2020, p. 9) To me this question
is often the question of worldview that is left out. We humans have an uncanny
ability to avoid questions and thoughts that we find disturbing. This is one we
often ignore. Though in American culture I find the milquetoast therapeutic
deism perspective fairly common, indicating that pretty much everybody goes to
heaven. Of course, as Christians we know that isn’t true. In fact, most people
do not go to heaven, as far as I can tell. Now, whether an individual is a
person of color of South African ethnicity female in gender and finds group
socialization in a Baptist evangelical church, or an individual is Caucasian,
of French descent, male, and gathers with group organizers at the local
political office, both individuals may be equally uninterested in the question
of what happens after death. Each of their worldviews may tend toward one
conclusion or another, but it is my belief that God can grasp hold of either of
them, and draw them to himself. Though that person certainly has free will and
may either resist this pulling or engage with this pulling positively. But one
worldview may be “closer” to a biblical Christian worldview than another. Now a
man who considers himself an agnostic but loves to take walks at night and
wonder at the mystery of the stars may actually be closer to knowing God than
someone gathering at a Lutheran church on Sundays where dead religion is
practiced and finds himself inoculated with dead religion from a knowledge of
the living God. So worldview can be a deceptive measure of how close someone
actually is to knowing God. Appearances can certainly be deceiving when
examining one’s worldview.
Five:
“Why is it possible to know anything at all?” (Sire, 2020, p. 9) Interestingly
enough, in our current contemporary times, it’s not a given to say that truth
is fixed and objective. We live in a time of deconstructionism and
post-modernism. We live in a time when the phrase is often repeated: “All truth
is relative.” But is everything really relative? For a Christian we know that truth
is objective. If two plus two equals four, that truth is true for everyone,
everywhere, at every time, and in every place. It’s a constant. But for a
post-modernist or atheist, they might simply believe that truth is relative,
for one, it may seem this way, for another it may seem different, and they are
both right. But then again, why should one believe such a contention in the
first place, by that standard, wouldn’t the statement of all truth being
relative be a relative statement, which means it wouldn’t always be true for
everyone? We see much in the United States being redefined and reshaped to fit
personal preferences. This is in itself an expression of worldview. If nothing
is absolutely true and all things are relative, then it follows that redefining
basic realities of society like gender, identity, sexuality, and so on, is
completely reasonable, since the only guiding principle is what feels right in
regard to personal preference. This progressive redefinition of things in
society like race, gender, marriage, and sanctity of life, can be linked back
to particular worldviews; worldviews of the past, deism and Christianity, in
contention with presently powerful worldviews like naturalism, nihilism and
extremism. One seeks to hold to past norms of societal definition while the
other seeks to redefine societal norms. Next we consider morality.
Six:
“How do we know what is right and wrong?” (Sire, 2020, p. 9) This question
links closely with question five. How do we know what is ethical? For
Christians our measuring rod is the word of God, the Bible. We examine
everything in the world, in the universe, and use the Bible as our guide to
understand what is right and wrong. For
a woman who is a feminist, they may be influenced by the writers of the
feminist movement when considering what is right and wrong. For a man who is a
Marxist, he would be influenced by the writings of Marx and Engels, on what is
right and wrong. For many in our world today, their guide for what is true and
not true, what is right and wrong is the television, the news media, and they
base their beliefs on what those networks share. For many of the wealthy in our
society they will tend to share the beliefs of the academic elites, the
scientific establishment, the think tanks, Hollywood, and the news media.
Very
often in our society we get our ideas of right and wrong from many different
sources. As we access these sources, social media, news media, friends, family,
church, schools, and so on, narratives begin to take hold in our minds. Race,
ethnicity, gender, and group socialization all play a part in which of the
predominant narratives we follow and define ourselves with. There are
increasingly various narratives at play in our society today as fragmentation
of culture expands; a progressive narrative, a liberal narrative, a centrist
narrative, a conservative narrative, a libertarian narrative, and a conspiracy
theory narrative just to name a few. All of these narratives express themselves
in different ways, and one’s gender, race, ethnicity, and group socialization
will all play a role in which of these narratives the individual will glob
onto. Much of this will relate back to one’s understanding of human history.
Seven:
“What is the meaning of human history?” (Sire, 2020, p. 9) This question came
into common discussion over the last few years in the United States in regard
to the 1619 project. How would Americans define themselves? How would they see
their history? Which narrative would prevail, the concept of America as a nation
founded on slavery and imperialism, or the narrative that America was founded
for religious freedom and economic prosperity? The meaning of human history for
a Jewish person would probably be linked in many ways to the holocaust, the
establishment of the nation of Israel, and antisemitism in the United States.
For a Cuban American they might base much of their understanding of human
history on Fidel Castro and communism and fleeing that nation to the United
States. For a woman who has experienced domestic violence, or abuse, they might
see human history in the context of the liberation of women from limited rights
and mistreatment in the past. One’s identity in their race, gender, ethnicity,
and social group will influence how one views history. All of this connects
deeply with personal experience. So finally, we consider practical application.
Eight:
“What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consistent with this
worldview?” (Sire, 2020, p. 9). As Del Tackett said in his landmark work
through Focus on the Family, The Truth Project, he asked the simple
question: “Do you believe, what you believe, is really real?” That is the
question that comes to mind when considering core commitments. As Christians we
can claim a belief structure, but do we really live as if it were real? That is
the question each worldview must answer.
Professor Frank Turek
wrote the book Stealing from God with the supposition that atheists had
to steal things like morality and truth from Christians to make their arguments
for why God didn’t exist.
The true test of a worldview in my view is in the question: Is it livable? Is it really livable, once removing all systemic contradiction from its practice? That is the final and most important question for each worldview: How do I put it into practice? And having put it into practice, is it livable? Can we flourish? But that is not necessarily a test of its validity, is it? The ultimate test of its validity is whether it’s actually real or not. And that is a question only God can answer for us.
References
Sire, J. W. (2020). The universe next door: A basic worldview catalog. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, an imprint of InterVarsity Press.
