Worldviews & Cultural

Apologetics

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. . . . Love your neighbour as yourself.

Mark 12:30–31, NIV

Works of art ‘are not simply the oozings of subconscious impulses; they are the result of beliefs and goals on the part of the artist.’

Nicholas Wolterstor!

All stories teach, whether the story-teller intends them to or not. They teach the world we create. They teach the morality we live by. They teach it much more e!ectively than moral precepts and instructions.

Philip Pullman

Surface see it as entertainment

Middle realise that there is a message

Deep realise traces of worldviews

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Traditionally, most philosophical investigation took place in the universities, and most spiritual reflection took place in the churches. However, in recent years that seems to have changed. Now, arguably, most philosophical investigation and spiritual reflection takes place in the cinema.

Nick Pollard

! No single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!’

Abraham Kuyper

WORLDVIEWS‘‘

’’A worldview is a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart . . .

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. . . that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) . . .

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. . . which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality . . .

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. . . and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

James Sire, Naming the Elephant, p. 122

To think intelligently today, means to think worldviewishly, to come to terms with the mosaic of meaning systems which make up modern thinking.

Os Guinness

© Jordan Brock, used under a Creative Commons licence

lenses

My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. . . . Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough. I will see what others have invented. Even the eyes of all humanity are not enough. . . .

. . . in reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself.

C.S. Lewis, ‘An Experiment in

Criticism’

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A worldview is an interpretation of influences, experiences, circumstances and insight.

J. Mark BertrandRethinking Worldview

REALITY ontology

What is the nature of reality?

cosmos time

HUMANITY ontology anthropology

What is a human being? self community

KNOWLEDGE epistemologyWhy is it possible to know

anything at all?

hermeneutics MORALITY ethics

How do we know what is right and wrong?

value community

SOLUTION TO THE MOST BASIC HUMAN PROBLEM

SALVATION soteriology

What do human beings need above all else? FIRST-ORDER ISSUES ontology

epistemology hermeneutics

ENGAGING WITH WORLDVIEWS

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How to relate the Christian worldview to a non-Christian world has been the dilemma of Christian spokespersons since the apostle Paul addressed the Stoic and Epicurean philosophers in Athens.

Kenneth D. Boa & Robert M. Bowman Jr.

Faith Has Its Reasons

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Communication is far more interesting, creative, and spiritual than most scholars and students recognize. The study of communication should take us beyond the ordinary in life to ultimate matters of life and death.

Quentin Schultze, Communicating for Life, p. 14

double listening

These voices will often contradict one another, but our purpose in listening to them both is to discover how they relate to each other. Double listening is indispensable to Christian discipleship and Christian mission.

John StottThe Contemporary Christian

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The Bible wants us to receive people’s questions, and to ask our own questions about reality. Not asking questions means our faith is weak. It means we don’t trust God to sustain us in the process of crisis and confusion. . . .

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There is no growth without asking questions. In verses five and seven of the fourth chapter of Proverbs, we are commanded to get wisdom. This means that we don’t already have it. One of the ways to start getting it is by asking questions.

Ellis PotterThree Theories of Everything

POSITIVE DECONSTRUCTION

Identify the worldview(analyse)

Analyse the worldview(evaluate)

Coherence –does it make sense?

correspondence –does it fit with reality?

pragmatism –does it work?

A"rm the truth(celebrate)

Discern the error(challenge)

points of contact points of tension

REALITY

humanity

knowledge

Where do we find wisdom?

morality

salvation

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Spirituality concerns how humans relate to reality – to themselves, to each other, to the world around them and (most importantly) to ultimate reality –via their worldview beliefs, concomitant attitudes and subsequent behaviour.

Peter S. Williams

Practices (orthopraxy – actions)

Attitudes (orthopathy – attitudes)

Worldview (orthodoxy – beliefs)

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I am only interested in an apologetic that leads in two directions, and the one is to lead people to Christ, as Saviour, and the other is that after they are Christians, for them to realize the lordship of Christ in the whole of life . . . if Christianity is truth, it ought to touch on the whole of life . . .

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Christianity must never be reduced merely to an intellectual system . . . After all, if God is there, it isn’t just an answer to an intellectual question… we’re called upon to adore him, to be in relationship to him, and, incidentally, to obey him.

Francis Schae!er

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Likewise, apologetics isn’t just about getting people to change their minds, but their fundamental spiritual allegiance; and spirituality is a matter of worldview beliefs married to attitudes that sustain actions.

Peter S. Williams

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Our hope is to bring facets of the richness of the gospel to bear on the lives, beliefs, values, and identities of lost human beings.

Gregory E. Ganssle

What does it see as the point of life?

What do humans need in order to flourish?

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