Everyone Has a Worldview: Do You Know Yours?
Everyone Has a Worldview: Do You Know Yours?
God expects His people to seek earnestly for the truth. As the Apostle Paul faced the humanists of his day, so the faithful and aware Christian must, if he is truly to follow Christ, face the humanists of our day.
Our children will eventually be in company with those taught totally humanistic values in the public school system. If our young people have no concept of world views (and this is the case with the vast majority), they will be totally unprepared to defend their beliefs. It is of extreme importance that our children study and understand the different world views being taught.
Philosophy simply means a thought-out way of looking at our experience in the world—a seemingly logical explanation for “the way things are.” The way we live in the world, the sense we make of our experiences in it, and the way we teach our children are all very dependent on our world view.
Secular World View vs. Christian World View
There are two main world views—a secular world view and a Christian world view (it can be divided into more categories, but for now we look at the main two). American public schools teach from a secular, humanistic world view. Christians must evaluate the subjects in a given curriculum in a radically different way from that of secular humanists.
What we trust in shapes our world view. We can identify our basic faith commitments by answering four questions:
1. Who am I?
2. Where am I?
3. What’s wrong?
4. What will make things better?
Secular World View (Taught by Public School)
1. Who am I?
I am a human being; an accident.
My species evolved from monkeys.
2. Where am I?
I am on Earth, a planet that resulted from an accident called “the Big Bang.”
3. What is wrong?
There is a lack of education and a lack of money, therefore people are frustrated, disappointed, and defeated.
4. How can it be fixed?
By getting more money, more education, etc.
Christian World View
1. Who am I?
I am a human being created by an awesome, wonderful, loving God. He put me here for a specific reason.
2. Where am I?
I am on the earth created by God. This earth is so marvelously created that if it were hung differently in the universe, one inch more or less, it would not be able to sustain life.
3. What is wrong?
Sin—disobedience to God. When sin entered the world, it broke our relationship with God, our Creator. We need our relationship with God restored.
4. How can it be fixed?
Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son, came into the world in human form and gave His life as a sacrifice for our sins. We must accept His sacrifice and make Him Lord of our life and seek God’s will and instruction in His Word.
Dualism
Dualism is a problem when we try to separate our spiritual and academic lives. Dualism is an attempt to live by two different world views, with part of life subject to one master and the rest of life subject to another.
How can we teach students from a Christian world view when it concerns spiritual things, and teach from a secular world view for academics? God intends human life to be a whole—not split between mutually contradictory motivations and purposes:
1 Corinthians 10:31-Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.
Colossians 3:17-And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.Matthew 6:24-No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.
Joshua 24:15-And if it seem evil unto you to serve the LORD, choose you this day whom ye will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land ye dwell: but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD.
Edwin H. Rain stated,”Christianity is a world and life view and not simply a series of unrelated doctrines. Christianity includes all of life. Every realm of knowledge, every aspect of life, and every factor of the universe find their places and their answers within Christianity. It is a system of truth enveloping the entire world in its grasp.” Today we are faced with a society that has rejected the Judeo-Christian tradition.
The secular world rejects the existence of moral absolutes and the idea of a Supreme Being who is the creator and sustainer of the universe. This world view is taught today through the media, the school system, and the government.
Humanistic teaching has led to permissiveness, pornography, the breakdown of the family, and abortion, to name just a few. This shift away from a Christian world view came about gradually and has changed the way people think and view life as a whole.
