Contrasting Worldviews
Buried deep in the human psyche are timeless questions, questions that surface frequently and suddenly throughout one’s lifetime. Every person capable of rational thought thinks these things. There are no exceptions. There are no exclusions.
- Who am I? (identity)
- Why am I here? (purpose)
- What is going to happen to me? (future, life after death)
- Where did I come from, and how and when did all this start? (origins)
No human being operates without a bias, a predisposition to believe one idea over another. In religious terms we would call that bias “faith.”
The naturalist believes that there is no supernatural force in existence and that man has reached the stage in eternity where he is able to direct the evolutionary development of the universe. The creationist believes that a Creator God exists and that the creatures of that God must seek to understand the Creator’s will.
The common data that both believers share will be interpreted in the light of the belief system (worldview, faith) that the individual holds. When we ask the questions that plague our minds (why is the world so full of evil? Or, why can’t we all get along? Or, why can’t we seem to get “enough?” Or, is it always going to be this way?), the answers come from our worldview. What we believe will frame our reactions, our priorities, and our expectations.
The Bible describes the many facets of belief systems (worldviews) in their simplest and most fundament form: truth or lie.
The ultimate contrast is between the revelation of the Creator-God who cannot lie (Hebrews 6:18) and the great adversary, Satan, who is the “father” of the lie (John 8:44). The Bible provides a comprehensive and logically consistent body of answers and explanations to all of the critical worldview issues: who (including Who), what, where, when, how, and why. In fact, the Bible even has an explanation for why we have such different viewpoints on the critical worldview issues. The Bible also predicts cause-and-effect connections between the kind of worldview we have, the kind of actions we take in life, and the impact of those actions, both here and in the hereafter.