What is your view of the world? Each person has a worldview. This implies these views are both personal and that there are many different worldviews. While they are conceivable and likeable, it does not mean that all worldviews are credible and rational. Because of this, worldviews contradict each other.
How do we define a worldview? It is the way in which we see the world and all things in it. It is the way we try to fit all things together as we interpret and judge reality. In other words, our worldview is how we make sense of the world in which we live.
The Biblical Worldview:
To understand the Bible and life, we must place it within the sphere of the biblical worldview. In 1 Corinthians 1:17-31, we find what might be considered God’s (biblical) worldview. And it gives us the answer to the clash of cultures. The theme of this text is God’s Wisdom vs. Man’s Wisdom. The Bible presents God’s worldview as the only authoritative one.
God’s Creation of Man:
To speak of God creating man “in His image” (Gen. 1:26) involves the totality of man—the moral, mental, emotional, physical, relational aspects of life, etc. (cf. Matt. 22:37-40). When God created man, He gave man various responsibilities which are all relational. First, God gave man the responsibility of dominion over the physical world and all things therein (Gen. 1:26-2:15). Second, God gave man the responsibility of honoring, obeying, and serving Him with promise of reward and punishment depending on our actions (Gen. 2:16-17). Third, God gave man the responsibility, of embracing the relationships, formed within the biblical worldview beginning with man’s relationship in the home and marriage which are foundational to society.
The Role of Man’s Free Will:
Responsibility implies free will; meaning man can choose to obey or choose to disobey God. The biblical worldview reveals the sad story of man exercising his free will resulting in sin. The result of man’s disobedience to God resulted in the first secular worldview. As Genesis 3 closes there exists two worldviews—God’s and man’s. As time progressed and man continued to reject God’s biblical worldview, man developed various competing and contradictory secular worldviews. These secular worldviews continue to compete and conflict with God’s biblical worldview. Some secular world views are:
- Atheism: the philosophy that denies the existence of God. It is truly a belief of unbelief.
- Agnosticism: the philosophy that enough evidence does not exist to know if God exists or does not exist; such as, God may exist, or God may not exist. We cannot determine which.
- Darwinism: the philosophy that all things have their origin from the development of biological life resulting from a one-celled organism. In this development of life, to some Darwinian philosophers, man just happened to be the highest form of evolution which currently continues to work.
- Determinism: the philosophy that all events, including human choices, are determined by previous causes.
- Empiricism: the philosophy that all of man’s knowledge comes from his senses; therefore, we can only know things by seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching.
- Existentialism: the philosophy that all truth is subjective and individualistic and is not universal, objective, and absolute.
- Humanism: the philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively. Thus critical thinking and evidence (rationalism and empiricism) are preferred over acceptance of dogma or superstition.
It is easy to understand why and how these secular worldviews conflict with God’s biblical worldview. Yet, we must always understand, God’s view is right!