The Four Key Questions of Worldview

My frustrated daughter came home from school the other day and told me about how some students cheat on homework and tests. During the lively conversation, she shared, “I can’t even imagine cheating. I mean, first, I know God would convict me. I know I would need to say ‘Sorry’ to God and to the teacher. I just couldn’t move on without making it right.”

After she vented for a while I said, “Do you recognize that you just stated your worldview? Your statement shows you understand that there’s a greater Power outside yourself. That One gives you meaning, defines your morality, and impacts your destiny. Good job!”

She obviously had not placed her comment into those areas. She was just venting! But in essence, she revealed her worldview by her reaction and response to the concept of cheating.

Jeff Myers and David Noebel define worldview in Understanding the Times as, “a pattern of ideas, beliefs, convictions, and habits that help us make sense of God, the world, and our relationship to God and the world” (6).

The Apostle Paul reveals through several of his writings that the battles we fight are not against people – but against arguments and ideas that set themselves up against God.

“The weapons we fight with are not weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” 2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Paul illuminates the spiritual war between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of darkness. In Colossians 2:8, Paul emphasizes the importance of being “on your guard” so you will not fall into deceptive philosophies which have both human and spiritual roots:

“See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the elemental spiritual forces of this world rather than on Christ.”

Every worldview that is at odds with God’s view of reality is meant to ultimately deceive, distract, destroy, and dismantle humanity.

Dr. Tom Miller, professor of Worldview at Grand Canyon University, defines worldview as, “the lens we use to interpret the world and focus our observations into a clear picture that best answers the questions of origin, meaning, morality, and destiny.”

• Origin – Where does life begin? Who began life?
• Meaning – What is the meaning of life?
• Morality – What guidance system guides a person through life?
• Destiny – Where am I going? What happens after life?

Different cultures across the globe answer these questions in diverse and contradictory ways. Thus, collisions take place! Ideas have consequences as they guide people and governments and societies in how they treat others.

Let’s not be deceived. All worldviews are not equal. BAD ones have bad ideas that lead to many victims, and some are much worse than others. The demonically inspired ideas of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels led to the horrific system of Communism/Marxism which has directly caused the death of 100 million people through the actions of Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Castro and others (See The Black Book of Communism).

On the other hand, a GOOD worldview not only aligns with reality, it blesses and benefits people. If we apply the four-question worldview test above with any religion (since identity/beliefs leads to values, which leads to behaviors) we find that Christianity answers all four questions with honesty, honor, and hope.

Because there is ONE God, God has designed a way for all ethnic groups to flourish and to be redeemed. Our cultures may differ, but the essence of our origin, meaning, morality, and destiny comes from the One God, Jesus Christ.

To see the world as God sees it, we must acknowledge and yield to the identity and mission of Jesus, even if it doesn’t match our preferences or our life’s ambitions. Romans 12:2 says, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.”

Both men and women can easily be deceived. Talk to Eve – she’ll tell you, “Yeah, I was deceived!” Talk to Buddha (who led a billion astray), or Muhammed (who led billions astray) or Joseph Smith (who led millions astray), and we see that both men and women can deceive and be deceived. It’s not hard!

Therefore, we must deeply grasp our Christian worldview. I don’t mean our Christian ideas mixed in with secular ideas. I mean we must study God’s character and seek to understand how God views the world. We must study how the Bible talks about origin, meaning, morality and destiny. As Myers and Noebel say, “The antidote to indoctrination is to tell the truth, expose people to the lies that would deceive them, show them how to refute those lies, and prepare them with the thinking skills necessary to continue resisting falsehoods.” In other words, we must prepare to defend God’s truth and reality against its harshest challengers.

Though hundreds of alternative perspectives exist, it is necessary to study the six main worldviews that impact most people – Christianity, Islam, Secularism, Marxism, New Spirituality (which includes Eastern religions and New Age mysticism), and Postmodernism. All of these seek to pull others to their side.

But before we can better grasp the five largest opposing worldviews to Christianity, we need to examine God’s view of the reality that we believe constructs the Christian worldview.

In the next blog, we will quickly lay out the Christian worldview as defined by God’s Word.