Naming the Elephant: Worldview as a Concept (21 page)

What is much more painful is to find contradictions in core beliefs. One believes that God is good but cannot reconcile this with evil in the world. Frank, a graduate student in literature, believes, on the one hand, that his understanding of the role of men and women in the church is largely correct and, on the other hand, that the social science he has been reading as a backdrop to his literary studies is basically sound. But he suddenly discovers that if the latter is a true reading of the way things are, the former is an ideological construct that oppresses women. This sets up a cognitive dissonance that demands resolution at a worldview level.

On a simpler level, Mary has fallen in love with Jeff and believes that she now understands true romance. She takes a course in psychology (which she takes to discover the truth about her inner self), and she learns that so-called romantic love is really due to the action of a couple of specific glands. Actually, it is possible for Mary to believe both of these so long as she keeps them in separate compartments in her mind.

One inconsistency is quite common. Some self-confessed Christians believe in reincarnation. I am convinced that those who do this have not understood very well just what Christianity teaches. For if it is true that each person is made in the image of God, then each person is unique. The doctrine of the resurrection of the body at the end of human history assures that each person is that same person and that person alone. But reincarnation involves the notion that one individual at death reverts to a state in which he or she can return as another individual in another body. This happens not just once but over and over. The two concepts of what happens at death—resurrection and multiple, perhaps eternal, reincarnations—cannot both be the way things are. One precludes the other.

If we are to have a Christian worldview, we will want to eliminate the contradictions in our worldview. We should, as Orr describes, strain after “a universal point of view—a grouping and grasping of things together in their unity.”
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That is what we should do. What do we actually do? . . . Ah, well, that’s often something else.

The basic constitution of reality.
A worldview, as I have said many times above, is concerned about
the way things are
. It is first and foremost an ontological commitment. It is the final answer to the question, What holds up the world? Every question—those that focus on epistemology or ethics or final meaning—assumes an ontology.

The close connection between ontology and epistemology is easy to see: one can
know
only what
is
. But there is an equally close connection between ontology and ethics. Ethics deals with the good. But the good must exist in order to be dealt with. So what is the good? Is it what one or more people say it is? Is it an inherent characteristic of external reality? Is it what God is? Is it what he says it is? Whatever it is, it is something.

I suggest that in worldview terms the concept of good is a universal pretheoretical given, that it is a part of everyone’s innate, initial constitution as a human being. As social philosopher James Q. Wilson says, everyone has a moral sense: “Virtually everyone, beginning at a very young age, makes moral judgments that, though they may vary greatly in complexity, sophistication, and wisdom, distinguish between actions on the grounds that some are right and others wrong.”
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Two questions then arise. First, what accounts for this universal sense of right and wrong? Second, why do people’s notions of right and wrong vary so widely? Wilson attempts to account for the universality of the moral sense by showing how it could have arisen through the long and totally natural evolutionary process of the survival of the fittest. But even if this could account for the development of this sense, it cannot account for the reality behind the sense. The moral sense demands that there really be a difference between right and wrong, not just that one senses a difference.

For there to be a difference in reality, there must be a difference between what
is
and what
ought to be
. With naturalism—the notion that everything that exists is only matter in motion—there is only what is. Matter in motion is not a moral category. One cannot derive the moral (
ought
) from the nonmoral (the totally natural
is
).
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The fact that the moral sense is universal is what Peter Berger would call a “signal of transcendence,” a sign that there is something more to the world than matter in motion.
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Of course, naturalists, as much as Christians and other religionists, have a moral sense. If they were to analyze more fully why they have this sense, they might develop a cognitive dissidence that would lead them to change their mind. But it is, as I have noted, always possible to have internal contradictions in the worldviews that we actually hold.

Provides the foundation on which we live.
While worldview analysts note the relationship between worldview and human behavior, few, if any of them, make the lived-out aspect a matter of definition. That was certainly the case in my former
Universe Next Door
definition. In this refined definition I have tried to correct that deficiency.

The point is, our worldview is not precisely what we may state it to be. It is what is actualized in our behavior. We live our worldview or it isn’t our worldview. What we actually hold, for example, about the nature of fundamental reality may not be what we say.

Here is a simple test. On one side of a sheet of paper, write what you believe about prayer. Now turn over the sheet and write down how much and how often you pray. Or vary that. On one side of a sheet of paper, write down what you believe about God that supports what you believe about prayer. Now turn over the sheet and write what your prayer life indicates about what you really believe about God. Christians are often less spiritual than their stated worldview would require.

An academic illustration is also apt. Often first-year philosophy students bridle at any notion that they have moral obligations. “What’s true for you doesn’t have to be true for me,” they say. “Truth is anything I want it to be, especially with regard to ethics.” “I’m okay. You’re okay. And that’s okay. Okay?” Nonetheless, if after they received good grades on their exams and papers the professor were to flunk them at the end of the semester, they would angrily protest, “That’s not fair!” Relativists are always more ethical than their worldview would allow. There are no utter relativists.

Worldview: A Refined Definition, Part 2

The questions.
The second part of a refined definition of
worldview
involves the list of questions that generate the specific worldview presuppositions. As I indicated in chapter five, I still believe the seven questions given in the first three editions of
The Universe Next Door
are comprehensive. They cover the foundational issues in ontology, epistemology and ethics. I would still exclude aesthetics from the list for reasons of less relevance to how our lives are lived. I know this will disturb some of my very good friends (I know who you are!), and I will be happy to say, “Mea culpa” but still go on sinning. In any case, the seven questions remain, and I will add an eighth to make explicit the issues of desire and love.

Nonetheless, they can be expanded, fleshed out, as it were, to include the perspectives of the broad range of secular and Christian analysts. Here is my attempt to do so.

1. What is prime reality—the really real?
   

   This is, as I have not been afraid to repeat, the question of questions. The chief answers are God and matter (that is, matter and energy in a complex but determinate relationship). If God is the answer, then further questions need to be answered: What is the basic character of God—personal or impersonal (if personal, one or many), omnipotent or limited, ignorant or knowing (if knowing, omniscient or limited), good or indifferent?
   

2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
   

   From Robert Redfield: What is confronted? What is the nature of the not-man? What is the source of the orderliness of things? From Walsh and Middleton: Where am I?
   

3. What is a human being?
   

   This issue has spawned a variety of questions that a worldview is poised to answer. From Wilhelm Dilthey: Where did I come from? Why do I exist? From Walsh and Middleton: Who am I?
   

4. What happens to a person at death?
   

   Dilthey: What will become of me? (Dilthey says, “This is the most general question of all questions and the one that most concerns me.”
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   I agree with the second half of the sentence but not the first.)
   

5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?
   

   I did not find this class of question listed by any worldview analyst, but surely it is a vital one. The answer links epistemology to ontology.
   

6. How do we know what is right and wrong?
   

   From Orr: Is the constitution of things good or evil? By what ultimate principles ought human beings to be guided in the framing and ordering of their life? What rational justification does the nature of things afford for the higher sentiments of duty and religion? What’s wrong (with others, me, the universe)? From Redfield: What is humankind called upon to do?
   

7. What is the meaning of human history?
   

   From Orr: What is the true end of existence? From Walsh and Middleton: What’s the remedy for what’s wrong? What master story ties my life to the lives of others living and dead? What story ties together all the elements of one’s worldview? From Wright: What time is it?
   

   Earlier editions of this book listed only seven questions, but these do not adequately encompass the notion of a worldview as a
   commitment
   or
   a matter of the heart.
   Nor do they explicitly include those seemingly nonrational matters of “heart’s desire” and love. So I am adding the following question to flesh out the personal implications of the rather intellectual and abstract character of the first seven questions.
   

8. What personal, life-orienting core commitments are consistent with each worldview?
   

   One’s fundamental, core commitments are tied to matters of the heart, especially desire and love. What do you want? At what are you aiming to be? What do you love?
   

Within any given worldview such core commitments may vary widely. For example, a Christian might say to fulfill the will of God, or to seek first the kingdom of God, or to obey God and enjoy him forever, or be devoted to knowing God or loving God. Each will lead to a somewhat different specific grasp of the Christian worldview.

A naturalist might say to realize their personal potential for experiencing life, or to do as much good as they can for others, or to live in a world of inner peace in a world of social diversity and conflict. The question and its answers reveal the variety of ways the intellectual commitments are worked out in individual lives. They recognize the importance of seeing one’s own worldview within the context not only of vastly different worldviews but the community of one’s own worldview fellow travelers. Each person, in other words, ends up having his or her own take on reality. And though it is extremely useful to identify the nature of a few (say, five to ten) generic worldviews, it is important in identifying and assessing one’s own worldview to pay attention to its unique features, the most important of which is one’s own answer to this eighth question.
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The Difference the Difference Makes

What difference does the refined definition make to worldview analysis? The main difference is a shift of focus from propositions and stories to the heart that grasps and understands them. With the locus of a worldview in the heart, we will be careful to respect the depth of its roots in each person. We will be loath to think simple arguments—or perhaps the most sophisticated of arguments—will dislodge any presupposition from its operating position in the life of an individual. We will be more willing to talk about
conversion
than of a mere change of mind when we see a person’s worldview change. Some errors in worldview will become apparent and be eliminated only with much prayer and supplication. That will be true of our own errors as much as those of others whose views we try to change.

Second, the explicit presuppositions of anyone’s worldview may not change, but their lived-out character will be emphasized. Whether we are looking at our own worldview, that of another person, or that of a whole society, age or culture, our attention will be drawn to the behavioral dimension. A society, a religion or a community may proclaim itself to be peaceful or equally honoring of men and women or slaves and free. A church may say it honors God and seeks first his kingdom. A nation may say it treats all its citizens equally. An individual may claim to believe in a God of shalom—peace with justice. But we will take into account how each behaves.

Third, because the mainstay of one’s worldview is ontological, a commitment to a specific notion of fundamental reality, we will take a person’s notion of God or nature or themselves to be the most important aspect of their character. Their support or rejection of any ethical principle—say, prochoice or prolife—is less fundamental than the notion of what is ultimately real. Christians proclaiming either ethical principle do so primarily from an understanding of who God is; each side will have a somewhat different notion—perhaps small, perhaps very large indeed. A change of position on this issue will mean a worldview change at a deep level.

In the final chapter, we will turn our attention to the ways in which worldview analysis can enhance our own worldview and provide a greater insight into how we can live in a pluralistic world—where it is not only ignorant armies that clash by night but intelligent people who clash by day.

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Intelligent People Who Clash by Day

Worldviews as a Tool for Analysis

. . . The world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.