By now my readers should know that I believe that worldview thinkingTM is a virus that has infected the minds of many American Evangelicals. Reasons for my negative evaluation include: worldview thinking diminishes, not enhances, actual thinking; in practice worldview thinking amounts to another form ideology (which worldview's proponents denounce in others; it reduces Christianity to a few (perhaps as few as four or five) beliefs, thus leaving out swathes of important Christian teachings; and worldview thinking ignores wisdom, a category of intellectual activity that the Scriptures hold in very high esteem.
What, if not worldview? In other words, is there a better way to relate the truths of the Christian faith as historically confessed to the issues of the day? As a matter of fact there is. Go here for a podcast by Alastair McGrath in which he discussed the virtues of the "illumination" approach as succinctly described by CS Lewis: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen. Not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else."
In other words, after one has reasonably mastered a field of study, one may look to the received Christian tradition to make sense of the whole of it. Knowledge, in distinction from information, exhibits a connectedness with other bodies of knowledge including the philosophical and the theological. In other words, knowledge examines collected information in terms of truth. Many survive on mere information and technical know-how but, as we should know, the unexamined life is not worth living. Wisdom, in turn, takes knowledge and orients it toward the practice of living (and not merely thinking about thinking). Yet examination--turning information into knowledge (and knowledge into wisdom)--requires illumination, which the Christian tradition supplies.
The most helpful thing that worldview studies gave me, (I did not take the class offered at Regent) was a profound appreciation for living in God's world. It served as an antidote to the subjectivity with which we live.
ReplyDeleteTechnology has allowed people to define their own reality in so many ways. Social media rooms create microcosims of social deviants being able to live free of all criticism. Augmented reality allows the superimposed images of unicorns or other fictional material take over the identity of someone. As some Americans progress now to augmenting their physical bodies by destruction and reconstruction of sexual organs we find ourselves stuck living in a world increasingly hostile the traditional wisdom of the judeo-christian worldview which held the paradigm for so long.
Alas, I agree though. "Worldview Thinking" has spawned a few bastard children that have done more harm than good. It stymied healthy conversations about scriptural uniquness, boiled down complex doctrines into vague categories of morality, and gave some a false sense of security to the extent of revelation and that of mystery. A good metaphor will always amount to just that - a metaphor. As always, they have limits.
Thank you for the links.