Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept Read Free Page A

unquestioned by each of us, rarely if ever mentioned by our friends, and brought to mind only when we are challenged by a foreigner from another ideological universe.
    Seven Basic Questions
    Another way to get at what a worldview is is to see it as our essential, rock-bottom answers to the following seven questions:
What is prime reality—the really real? To this we might answer God, or the gods, or the material cosmos.
What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us? Here our answers point to whether we see the world as created or autonomous, as chaotic or orderly, as matter or spirit, or whether we emphasize our subjective, personal relationship to the world or its objectivity apart from us.
What is a human being? To this we might answer a highly complex machine, a sleeping god, a person made in the image of God, a “naked ape.”
What happens to persons at death? Here we might reply personal extinction, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on “the other side.”
Why is it possible to know anything at all? Sample answers include the idea that we are made in the image of an all-knowing God or that consciousness and rationality developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.
How do we know what is right and wrong? Again, perhaps we are made in the image of a God whose character is good; or right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good; or the notions simply developed under an impetus toward cultural or physical survival.
What is the meaning of human history? To this we might answer, to realize the purposes of God or the gods, to make a paradise on earth, to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God, and so forth.
    Within various basic worldviews other issues often arise. For example: Who is in charge of this world—God, or humans, or no one at all? Are we human beings determined or free? Are we alone the maker of values? Is God really good? Is God personal or impersonal? Does God exist at all?
    When stated in such a sequence, these questions boggle the mind. Either the answers are obvious to us and we wonder why anyone would bother to ask such questions, or else we wonder how any of them can be answered with any certainty. If we feel the answers are too obvious to consider, then we have a worldview but have no idea that many others do not share it. We should realize that we live in a pluralistic world. What is obvious to us may be “a lie from hell” to our neighbor next door. If we do not recognize that, we are certainly naive and provincial, and we have much to learn about living in today’s world. Alternatively, if we feel that none of the questions can be answered without cheating or committing intellectual suicide, we have already adopted a sort of worldview—a form of skepticism that in its extreme form leads to nihilism.
    The fact is that we cannot avoid assuming some answers to such questions. We will adopt either one stance or another. Refusing to adopt an explicit worldview will turn out to be itself a worldview or at least a philosophic position. In short, we are caught. So long as we live, we will live either the examined or the unexamined life.
    Some First Reflections
    Reflecting on this definition, one can soon see that a number of relevant issues are not addressed.
    What is the history of the concept itself? Who has used it, how and why? Isn’t the concept so tied to its philosophic origins in German Idealism that it imports into Christianity ideas that undermine the Christian faith? Is there any foundation in Scripture for worldview thinking? (This is addressed in chapter two.)
    What is the first question a worldview should answer: What is prime reality? Or, How can anyone know anything at all? That is, which is more primary—ontology or epistemology? (This is addressed in chapter three.)
    How is a worldview formed? What is the character of the