Lesson 3 of a multipart series. Everyone has a Weltanschauung and most don’t know it. Defining a Worldview. What is prime reality – the really real? (i.e. God) What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us? What is a human being? What happens to a person at death? Why is it possible to know anything at all? How do we know what is right and wrong? What is the meaning of human history?

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5. Weltanschauung?
• Weltanschauung is the German word for
worldview
• It is a term used by philosophers and
theologians
• It is a academic term

6. Worldviews
• In order to answer objections to Christianity
we need to uncover people’s basic beliefs.
• Not just belief in God, but their underlying
beliefs concerning a number of questions.
• How people answer those questions
determines how they view and respond to
event in their lives.

7. Worldview.
A worldview is how one views or interprets reality. The
German word is Weltanschauung, meaning a “world and life
view,” or “a paradigm.” It is the framework through which or
by which one makes sense of the data of life. A worldview
makes a world of difference in one’s view of God, origins, evil,
human nature, values, and destiny.
Baker Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics
A worldview is the overall perspective from which one sees
and interprets the world or a collection of beliefs about life
and the universe held by an individual or a group.
thefreedictionary.com

8. People’s true beliefs
• A person’s real worldview may not be what
they profess.
• People act out their true beliefs, not what
they want to believe or what they profess to
believe.
• They may not even realize the contradiction
between what they say the belief and how
they respond to life’s events.

9. Good Worldviews
• A good worldview is one which has at least
the following three traits:
– Internal consistency
• non-contradictory
– Logically valid
• free from logical fallacies
– Explanatory power
• fits the real world as we experience it

10. “The most significant rational reason that keeps arguments from
being persuasive is the gap that often exists between the
worldview of the presenter and that of the audience. Arguments
rest on background assumptions – ideas that are taken so much
for granted that they don’t have to be articulated.” (92)
“Worldviews are rooted deep in the heart. They are fundamental
commitments. They seem so true that one cannot image them
being otherwise. …These assumptions reside in the background of
all our thinking.” (94)
Sire, James W.; Why Good Arguments Often Fail

11. Worldviews influence personal meaning,
values, and the way people act and think.
Thus if you change a person’s worldview,
you change people’s values and the way
they think and act.

12. War of Worldviews
• “Ideas have consequences.”
• If our worldview greatly impacts the way we
act, what we value and how we interpret the
events of life, then some people might have
an interest in changing it.
• There are many competing worldviews today.
• Most of them are an outright opposition to
Christianity.
• Some even hostile…

13. The shot across the bow…
“Education is thus a most powerful ally of humanism. What can
the theistic Sunday schools, meeting for an hour once a week, and
teaching only a fraction of the children, do to stem the tide of a
five-day program of humanistic teaching?”
- Charles Francis Potter
C. S. Lewis comments on this war of worldviews…
“Enemy occupied territory – that is what this world is. Christianity
is the story of how the rightful king has landed… and is calling us
to take part in a great campaign of sabotage.”
- C. S. Lewis

15. Seven Basic Questions
1. What is prime reality – the really real? (i.e. God)
2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the
world around us?
3. What is a human being?
4. What happens to a person at death?
5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
7. What is the meaning of human history?
James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door

16. Class Discussion
• How does the answer to the previous seven
questions, affect a person thinking?
• Currently being debates is the answer to the
question, “What is a human being?”
– What if the answer is, the product of random chance?
– Given that answer, what is the value of human life?
– Abortion, Euthanasia and Transhumanism are based
on the idea that humans are the product of random
chance. When we talk to someone about one of
these issues where should we start?

17. Worldviews About God
• Theism - An infinite, personal God exists
beyond and in the universe.
• Deism - God is beyond the universe, but not in
it.
• Atheism - No God exists beyond or in the
universe.
• Pantheism - God is the All or God is the entire
Universe.
Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics

18. Worldviews About God
• Panentheism - God is in the universe, as a
mind is in a body.
• Finite Godism - A finite God exists beyond and
in the universe.
• Polytheism - Many gods exist beyond the
world and in it.
Baker encyclopedia of Christian apologetics

19. Worldviews
• Scientism - only science can define truth.
• Pluralism - all religions are equally true or
valid.
• Relativism - there is not absolute right or
wrong.
• Naturalism - only natural laws and forces
operate in the universe.

20. Worldviews
• Supernaturalism - there is something beyond
the natural material realm that controls
events not natural law.
• Materialism - the only things that exist in the
Universe are matter and energy.

21. Worldviews
• Humanism - prime importance to human
rather than divine or supernatural matters.
• Secular humanism - embraces human reason,
ethics, and justice while specifically rejecting
religious dogma, supernaturalism,
pseudoscience or superstition as the basis of
morality and decision-making.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular_humanism

22. Worldviews
• Moralistic Therapeutic Deism - a form of
deism where God is seen as a moral guide and
as an answer to our emotional problems.
• God is reduced to a “combination of Divine
Butler and Cosmic Therapist.”
– Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton

23. Exercise:
Watch a popular TV show, preferably one you don’t normally
watch. Every TV show, movie, book will reinforce a worldview and
possible undermined other worldviews. This exercise is to help
you ’watch’ media more critically.
• What worldview & values are being portrayed or condoned?
• What worldview & values are being undermined, mocked,
condemned or attacked?
• How are worldviews and values portrayed? (statements,
actions, situations, imagery, emotional)
Be prepared to discuss your discoveries at the next class.