Transcript Globe 1 - Biblical theology

What is a Worldview?
Living at the Crossroads
Chapter 2
A Brief History of ‘Worldview’
• German word, weltanschauung
• Arose first in German philosophy
• Weltanschauung coined by Kant (17241804)
• 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.
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.
Underlying beliefs that are . . .
• Comprehensive
• Foundational
• Cohesive
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?
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
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
• Christianity’s only defence against the
power of modernism is to develop an
equally comprehensive worldview.
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).
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).
Difference between Kuyper
and Orr
• Orr concerned for defending
Christian theology
• Kuyper concerned for whole
of cultural and public life—
politics, art, scholarship, etc.
Term made popular by:
•
Carl F. H. Henry
•
Francis Schaeffer
•
Al Wolters
•
Brian Walsh and
Richard Middleton
•
James Sire
•
Colson and Pearcey
•
Arthur Holmes
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
James Sire’s 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.
Three important shifts
• Worldview is first religious,
not rational
• Worldview is first a story, not
a system
• Worldview is first embodied,
then articulated
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
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.
Summary of elements of a worldview
• Takes form of a grand story
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 lifeshaping story.’ (Fernhout)
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)
Summary of elements of a worldview
• Takes form of a grand story
• Fundamental beliefs
embedded in grand story
• Rooted in religious faith
commitment
Christ or and Idol
One’s worldview, then, and indeed
the worldview of a whole culture, is
rooted in a faith stance—a 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
Ultimate—or to a pseudo-ultimacy, a
pseudo-god, an idol.’ (Walsh)
Religious Nature of Human Beings
Faith: Committing oneself to someone or something that
gives meaning, coherence, and shape to life.
GOD
Idol
FAITH CREATURE
Humankind
“...the question is not ‘to believe or not to
believe’ but rather in whom or in what to
believe” (Dan Beeby).
- Dan
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
Communal nature of
worldview
• Shared by community
Culture: Common way of life
rooted in a shared story
religious
core
STORY
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
Socialization
If a culture’s 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).
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
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).
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
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
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
Scripture and Worldview
• Scripture
• Biblical theology (our narrative telling
of the biblical story)
• Christian worldview (setting out of the
comprehensive framework of a
Christian’s basic beliefs about things
as embedded in the drama of
Scripture in interaction with our
culture’s basic beliefs)
• Systematic theology and Christian
philosophy (which reflect on Christian
beliefs at a more theoretical level)
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
church’s mission in public life