Quotes About Worldview

The danger is that is Christians do not consciously develop a biblical approach to a subject, then we will unconsciously absorb some other philosophical approach.

A biblically based worldview is capable of affirming the best insights of secular philosophies without ever falling into reductionism.

A Christian approach to any field needs to be both critical and constructive. We cannot simply borrow from the results of secular scholarship as though that were spiritually neutral territory discovered by people whose minds are completely open and objective- that is, *as though the fall had never happened*.

As with every aspect of our sanctification, the renewal of the mind may be painful and difficult. It requires hard work and discipline, inspired by a sacrificial love for Christ and a burning desire to build up His body, the Church. Developing a Christian worldview means submitting our entire self to God, in an act of devotion and service to Him.

Many Christians with Ph.D.'s have simply absorbed a two-track approach to their subject, treating science or sociology or history as though it consisted of religiously neutral knowledge, where biblical truth has nothing important to say.

Liberals often say, "If you're against abortion, don't have one. If you're against assisted suicide, don't do it. But don't impose your views on others." At first, that might sound fair. But what progressives fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like—a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it.

Young people are trying to live out a worldview that does not match their true nature, and it is tearing them apart with its pain and heartache.

C. S. Lewis put it this way: "The Christian and the Materialist hold different beliefs about the universe. They can't both be right. The one who is wrong will act in a way which simply doesn't fit the real universe.

Christianity is total truth—consistent, coherent, and comprehensive. It can be lived out in the real worldview without contradicting our most basic human experience.

A reductionistic worldview leads to a lower view of humanity—and thus of the human mind. It reduces human reason to something less than reason. Yet the only way any worldview can argue its own case is by using reason. By discrediting reason, it undermines its own case. It is self-defeating.

Just as scientists test a theory by taking it into the lab and mixing chemicals in a test tube to see if the results confirm the theory, so we test a worldview by taking it into the laboratory of ordinary life.

Only people who understand that Christianity is true to the real world are capable of the relaxed confidence that allows them to be open, patient, and loving toward those who differ from them.

But what progressives fail to understand is that every social practice rests on certain assumptions of what the world is like—a worldview. When a society accepts the practice, it absorbs the worldview that justifies it.

In today's pluralistic, multicultural world, no one can survive long on secondhand ideas. Some Christians seem to think the way to avoid being "conformed to this world" (Rom. 12:2) is by avoiding "worldly" ideas. A better strategy is to learn the skills to critically evaluate them.

We've limited Christianity to salvation and sanctification," he said. But "Christianity is the truth about everything. If you say you have a Christian worldview, that means you see the world through that lens—not just how people get saved and what to stay away from." 17

The Bible teaches that, without God, people are morally lost. But they are also intellectually lost because they are trying to live within the limits of a worldview that is too cramped and narrow to account for their own humanity. They are forced to place their entire hope for dignity and meaning in an upper-story realm that they themselves regard as irrational and unknowable—nothing but necessary falsehoods.

In their original historical context, these verses were astonishing. In the ancient world, virtually all the major "isms"—Platonism, neo-Platonism, Gnosticism, Manichaeism, Hindu pantheism—taught a low view of the material world. In these philosophies, salvation was conceived as a complete break between matter and spirit, a flight from the physical world. To make that break, adherents adopted a regimen of asceticism to suppress bodily urges and desires.

The problem is that many people treat morality as a list of rules. But in reality, every moral system rests on a worldview. In every decision we make, we are not just deciding what we want to do. We are expressing our view of the purpose of human life.

worldview, the convictions by which we direct our lives.

When we hear people talk about ideas that are false, yet necessary for a humane social order, that is a signal that they have bumped up against the hard edge of a reality that does not fit their worldview. They have stumbled upon the truths of general revelation. And they are seeking to suppress those truths by demoting them to useful fictions.

Ever since Kant, the phrase as if has come to signal truths that people are compelled to hold, even though they cannot account for those truths within their own worldview. They live as if Christianity were true, even though their worldview denies it. Instead of giving up their worldview in the face of contrary facts, they endure a severe mental schizophrenia.

The problem is that many people treat morality as a list of rules. But in reality, every moral system rests on a worldview. In every decision we make, we are not just deciding what we want to do. We are expressing our view of the purpose of human life. In the words of theologian Stanley Hauerwas, a moral act "cannot be seen as just an isolated act, but involves fundamental options about the nature and significance of life itself.

We live in a moral wasteland where human beings are desperately seeking answers to hard questions about life and sexuality. But there is hope. In the wasteland we can cultivate a garden. We can discover a reality-based morality that expresses a positive, life-affirming view of the human person—one that is more inspiring, more appealing, and more liberating than the secular worldview.

I had believed that my homeland was the whole world, just as when I was a child I believed that our street was the whole homeland. As I grew up so the street grew smaller. But when my being reached out beyond the homeland, the earth shrank and new feelings, that I was larger than before, filled me.