Counterfeit Worldviews
Aug. 11 2006
In this part of the interview we learn that when the Woodsman is on a roll he’s hard to keep up with.
Woodsman: I’ve been arguing that, according to Romans 1:18-25, wrong views of God are not merely innocent mistakes or a result of ignorance, but a willful rejection of the true God. Sinful human beings exchange the truth about God for a lie and worship and serve the creation rather than the Creator (Rom. 1:25). Scripture says that as a result, not only do we think false thoughts about God but also about the creation (which we now invest with the attributes of God) and about ourselves.
Na: So all our thoughts are corrupted, not just the “spiritual” stuff?
W: Not only in “religious” matters, but with respect to all of our knowledge, we have become futile in our thinking and our foolish hearts have been darkened (Rom. 1:21). It’s not just that sin corrupts our will; it also corrupts our minds (the biblical term “heart” encompasses both the will and the mind).
Na [writing furiously]: Sin. Corruption. Will and mind = heart. Got it.
W: This leads to a general model for how to think about competing worldviews. You remember that before we said that a worldview involves our basic beliefs about God, ourselves, and the world . We’ve also been saying that false beliefs about God lead to false beliefs about ourselves and the world. According to Romans 1, sin involves worshipping the creature in the place of the Creator. So, when we confront a non-Christian worldview, we can ask what it teaches about God, man, and the world , expecting that it will in some way invest the creation (man and the world) with the attributes of God. We can also expect that this blurring of the Creator-creature distinction will prove foolish and futile.
Na: So if we were to look at what a worldview teaches about God, man, and the world then compare them to a biblical worldview, what would that look like?
Woodsman: Well, for example, a lot of philosophical dilemmas arise because we, humankind, make it our goal to know everything (like God); and then when we discover that we can’t know everything, we decide that we can’t know anything with certainty. The scientific method gathers facts from which we infer general laws that pertain to the whole universe. Secular scientists are confronted with the troublesome problem of induction; however, no matter how many facts we gather, the data we have observed is always infinitesimally small compared to the data we have not observed.
Na: Infenitessimally…
W: On what basis, then, can we assume that the parts of nature we have not observed will follow the same “laws” as the parts of nature that we have observed? How do I know that there are any laws in nature at all and not simply vast coincidences?
Na: That’s what I was going to ask.
W: Now I’m not claiming to have a rigorous and detailed answer to this problem, but as a Christian I know the basic presuppositions which will provide an answer. The facts of nature which the scientist studies reveal that they are the creation of God; his wisdom and power sustain each instant of space-time. I know that there is a discoverable pattern nature, not because I have infinite knowledge of nature or have investigated every fact, but because I know that God created and sustains all things according to his plan. He created me in his image so that I could investigate and discover that plan. Therefore I have a basis for certain knowledge without having infinite knowledge (like God has).
Na: That’s really helpful. We don’t have to know everything, but we can still know things with certainty.
W: Another example of how worldviews tend to invest the creation with the attributes of the Creator is the claim that the universe is self-existent and eternal, or that the laws of nature are not due to the sovereign wisdom of God but are somehow inherent in matter itself.
Na: What about more religious worldviews?
W: When you’re dealing with more explicitly religious worldviews, you should look for the ways in which they provide a counterfeit diagnosis of the human dilemma or a counterfeit solution to it. In other words, look for the religion’s substitute for the doctrine of sin and their substitute for Christ.
Non-Christian religions ask their followers to work their way to whatever paradise it offers through moral self-improvement and good works. This leads either to 1) lowering God’s holy requirements in order to make them do-able, or (2) total despair, as people see that they cannot fulfill God’s holy law or atone for their own sin.
Na: Total despair is never good.
W: Actually, it can be. Christianity completely despairs of the human capacity for self-improvement and says that only God himself can redeem sinners, through incarnation and atonement of the Son of God. Other religions are going to provide counterfeit versions of the holiness of God; counterfeit versions of the fall (which minimize the seriousness of the power and penalty of sin); and counterfeit versions of redemption (which usually depend upon human effort). Again, this broad outline is necessarily simplistic.
Na: Yeah but that’s really helpful. So, in a way you’ve got to know the one true worldview to discern what’s wrong with the others.
W: Read systematic theology.