Gospel and Worldview
Mar. 26 2008Nathan Sasser assists the dean of the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College and helps oversee The Clash--a worldview conference for college age singles. Nathan lectures on worldview at The Clash and here he sketches some of the basics of how an understanding of the gospel leads to a right understanding of worldview. (You can also read a brief interview with him here.)
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What is a worldview?
Your worldview is your general theory of the universe. It’s comprised of your fundamental beliefs about yourself, the world, and God. Your worldview answers fundamental questions about yourself--
*What am I?
*How can I be truly happy?
*What’s morally right and wrong?
Everyone has a god that they worship. The only distinction between worldviews is whether the object of worship is God the Creator, or this world, the creation.
—and about the world:
*Why does anything exist?
*Why does anything happen at all?
Everyone Has a Religious Worldview
In an important sense, all worldviews – even atheistic ones – are religious. Herman Bavinck says that, “The denial of the existence of God includes, in the same moment, the elevation of the creature into the place of God”[1]. In other words, everyone has a god that they worship. The only distinction between worldviews is whether the object of worship is God the Creator, or this world, the creation. If these claims seem exaggerated, consider a couple of contemporary examples.
In the opening chapter of his book The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins notes that “A quasi-mystical response to nature and the universe is common among scientists and rationalists” who do not believe in a supernatural being[2]. Dawkins writes that his awe of the universe is so similar to religious awe that some people have called him “A Very Religious Non-Believer”[3]. Dawkins virtually concedes then that he and many fellow atheists have subjective responses which very nearly approximate worship; the main difference lying only in the worship of the creation rather than God, the Creator.
Although atheist Sam Harris would deny it, he also seems to be a Very Religious Non-Believer. On the one hand, Harris deeply opposes religion (especially revelation-based religion) as irrational and immoral. While it is true that religious claims are “irrational,” because by definition, faith involves the absence of evidence, what Harris puts in place of religion is his own virtual religion. Harris has his own criterion of ultimate goodness: the happiness of sentient creatures[4] Harris has his own faith commitments: he states that the fundamental presuppositions of ethics and science are simply intuitions, brute facts for which no further reasons can be proffered[5]. Harris has his own form of spirituality: he believes that Happiness (with a capital H) can be found by way of practices such as meditation, wherein one comes to the realization that there is no such thing as “I,” no real individual self. Harris has his own mysteries: he admits that this experience of the loss of selfhood cannot be adequately communicated in words[6].
Corrupt worldviews are based on false gods, and humans adopt false gods because of their sinful resistance to the true and living God. In Romans 1:18-32 Paul argues that all human beings know God but at the same time don’t know God because they suppress the truth that they know, and that they do this by worshipping the creation in place of the Creator. They exchange the truth about God for a lie. Because everyone knows the true God deep inside, they cannot help but be religious, even if they claim to be agnostics or atheists. But because humankind is corrupted, religion always defaults to take the form of worshipping the creation instead of the Creator. Fallen people are on the one hand idolatrous (Rom. 1:18-32), and at the same time altogether godless (Ps. 14/Rom. 3:9-18).
What is a Christian Worldview?
Paul says that the idolatry of mankind has created futile thinking and darkened foolish hearts (Rom. 1:21). If this is true, then the gospel is the only hope for the restoration and renovation of all human thought. It is only possible to come to truly know God through Jesus Christ, which will result in a complete transformation of your mind and worldview.
The Bible makes the radical assertion that it is necessary to know and fear God before arriving at any true conclusions about yourself and the world. “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge” (Prov. 1:7); “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight” (Prov. 9:10). God himself provides the answer to all key worldview questions—
*What am I? An image-bearer of God, Gen. 1:26-27.
*How can I be truly happy? By knowing God, John 17:3.
*What’s morally right and wrong? What God commands—loving him and loving your neighbor.
*Why does anything exist? God willed to create it out of nothing, Gen. 1:1.
*Why does anything happen at all? God has predestined it to happen and brings it to pass by his providential power.
“God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). In this light, we see everything else differently—we see everything else truly—for the first time.
Footnotes
[1] The Philosophy of Revelation (Reprint: Scarsdale, NY: Westminster Discount Book Service), 86.
[2] The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 11.
[3] Ibid. 12.
[4] The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason, Ch 6 “A Science of Good and Evil” (New York: Norton, 2005)
[5] Ibid. 182-4.
[6] At least, that is the only way I know how to interpret footnote 19 on pages 298-9: “The recognition of the nonduality of consciousness is not susceptible to a linguistically oriented analysis…But the true mystery, whereof we cannot speak, can nevertheless be recognized.”
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Nathan Sasser is Assistant to the Dean at the Sovereign Grace Ministries Pastors College. He holds a M. Div from Westminster Theological Seminary. Nathan also helps oversee The Clash--a worldview conference for college age singles.
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