Lausanne World Pulse – Christianity and Worldviews

By Jerry Root and Justin Conrad

Thomas Kuhn’s The Structure of Scientific Revolutions¹ reminds readers that scientists see the universe through paradigms and that these paradigms are constantly changing, giving way to new data and information. Similarly, philosophers and theologians create worldviews in an attempt to explain the universe as best they comprehend. These worldviews are helpful as generalizations, and as such they make comparisons with other worldviews possible.

Proceeding Cautiously into Understanding a Christian Worldview
However, no worldview is ever complete in itself; like scientific paradigms they must give way to more coherent and expanded ones. Christians are also capable of constructing what might be called “Christian worldviews,” but they must do so with great caution. An evangelist would do well to understand the nature of worldviews: how they work and how they can be both an asset and a liability for sharing the gospel.

Christians are also capable of constructing what might be called “Christian worldviews,” but they must do so with great caution.

Although it is possible to get a sure word about any given truth, it is impossible to get a last word. Truths that are known can be plumbed deeper and be applied wider. The God who Christians seek to describe by their worldview is enormous, and the universe they seek to contain in that worldview is complex.

Furthermore, human finite understanding, not to mention human fallenness, makes the grasping of any truth a complicated process. Consequently, any true Christian worldview must be supple and capable of giving way to more robust notions concerning God and the world. The work of the evangelist is diminished if one hints that he or she has God completely understood.

A proper Christian understanding of the world does have the benefit, so Christians would say, of the guiding influence of the Holy Spirit. But, it is here that Christians must take great care. Some might go so far as to suggest that since the Apostle Paul wrote, “We have the mind of Christ” (1 Corinthians 2:16) that, in fact Christians can be confident that they possess all knowledge.

Such a suggestion would neglect that Paul speaks against the factions that existed among the Corinthian Church where some claimed to follow Paul, others claimed Peter as their leader, others still were followers of Apollos, and others claimed that their allegiance was only to Christ.

If the Corinthians had the mind of Christ in a way that suggested they had God all figured out, why was it that they were so conflicted and contention and division existed among them? Could it mean that the mind of Christ was offered to them not as an accomplished fact—they were certainly not rivals of the Divine Omniscience—but rather the mind of Christ was offered as a necessary resource.

With this resource, all true believers are under obligation to try and plumb the depths of that resource to understand as much as they can as well as they can instead of dominating others through the use of a perceived worldview. The former—plumbing the depths—will help the evangelist in his or her task, but the latter—attempts at domination—will distort God’s true redemptive plan for all humanity.

Dr. Jerry Root (left) is associate director of the Institute for Strategic Evangelism at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois, USA. He has taught in the evangelism masters program for the past eleven years. Root has invested nineteen years in student ministry, evangelism, and discipleship. Justin Conrad (right) holds a masters degree in theology from Wheaton College. He is active in theological, philosophical, and political researching and writing.