Welcome to Christian Worldview Basics

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Welcome to Christian Worldview Basics

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Christian Worldview Basics

• A Lecture by John Mulford, Ph.D.

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What is a World View?

• a persons worldview is a collection of his
  presuppositions or convictions about reality,
  which represent his total outlook on life
• Hoffecker, p. ix.

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A Worldview . . .

• Is the sum total of what one believes about
  existence life and death mind and matter
• Helps us see interrelationships
• Gives us a map of life from which we get our
  bearings
• Helps us cope with new ideas and experiences

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A Worldview. . .

• Improves our thinking efficiently
• Sets priorities about subjects to ponder
• Tells us information to screen out as unimportant

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For example. . .

• A person who considers abortion to be murder
  would not waste time studying how good or bad
  women feel after having an abortion. The results
  would have no relevance. They would have nothing
  about whether abortion is good or bad.

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How do worldviews affect every aspect of our
thoughts, attitudes and actions?
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Hoffecker says . . .

• ones worldview affects every dimension of life

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How?

• By touching the
• Dimensions of life

• Intellectual
• Physical
• Social
• Economic
• Moral

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• Intellectual
• what they believe is true about themselves and
• their place in history
• Physical
• how they treat or mistreat their bodies by
• eating
• sleeping
• exercising
• Social
• How they interact with . . .
• Friends and enemies
• Rich and poor
• Strong and weak
• Economic
• Why they work
• How they spend their wages
• Moral
• Ethical guidelines for thinking about justice

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Why the need for a worldview?

• Unifies thought and life
• Defines meaning and purpose of life
• Provides hope
• Guides thoughts and beliefs
• Determines what one holds as valuable
• Determines what is worth contemplating
• Guides action

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The need for a worldview can be summarized as . .
. .

• how to spend time and valuable resources, such
  as time, money, love, energy and talent.
• From Contours of a Christian Worldview by Holmes,
  p. 3-5

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Worldviews Described

• Those who study worldviews describe them as
  coherent systems and distinguished by a few major
  themes.

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Worldviews Address

• creator
• creation
• mans relationship to the rest of creation
• mans nature

• who/what defines meaning
• purpose of life and sets standards
• who/what controls course of the universe, and
  everything in it

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Worldview Basics

• there are a limited number of basic worldviews
  because people have a common nature and common
  worlds (environments).
• Contours of a Christian Worldview by Holmes, p. 32

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Works Cited

• Hoffecker, W. Andrew (1986). Building a
  Christian worldview (vol. 1). Phillipsburg, NJ
  Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company.
• Holmes, Arthur F. (1983). Contours of a World
  View. Grand Rapids, MI William B. Eerdmans
  Publishing Company.

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The End

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