Worldview Foundations Part 2: Man and Morality

Date: September 21, 2014
Study: What’s Your Filter? Christian Apologetics and Worldview
Teacher: Casey Haase

REVIEW
Study Thesis: A Christian worldview enables us to look at all of live through scriptural lenses, which in turn equips us to defend the faith, evangelize wisely, critique unbiblical thought that pervades our culture, and bring God glory in all of life.

Worldview Definition: A commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

Six Reasons to Study Worldviews: 1) to develop ours, 2) to defend the faith, 3) to evangelize better, 4) to identify and reject false teaching, 5) to grow in cultural discernment, and 6) to glorify God in all of life.

Five Worldview Foundations: God, Reality, Man, Morality, Knowledge.

MAN AND MORALITY
Main Idea: Who are we as humans and what are we supposed to do?

Three Views of Humanity  

Worldview Foundations Part 1: God and Reality

Date: September 14, 2014
Study: What’s Your Filter? Christian Apologetics and Worldview
Teacher: Lawson Hembree

REVIEW

Study Thesis: A Christian worldview enables us to look at all of live through scriptural lenses, which in turn equips us to defend the faith, evangelize wisely, critique unbiblical thought that pervades our culture, and bring God glory in all of life.

Worldview Definition: A commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.

Six Reasons to Study Worldviews: 1) to develop ours, 2) to defend the faith, 3) to evangelize better, 4) to identify and reject false teaching, 5) to grow in cultural discernment, and 6) to glorify God in all of life.

Five Worldview Foundations: God, Reality, Man, Morality, Knowledge.

INTRO

In RC Sproul’s book Battle for Our Minds he mentions a big, beautiful Presbyterian church in Los Angeles that was very close to the epicenter of the Northridge earthquake in 1994. The congregation was both dumbfounded and ecstatic to find the building completely intact afterwards, down to the stain-glassed windows. It seemed like a miracle that the building was still standing!  Nevertheless, just to be safe, they called in the engineers to check things out. Upon investigation, they discovered that the whole building had moved off its foundation, making it unsafe and utterly useless. They had to spend millions tearing it down and rebuilding.

Our views of God and reality are the foundations of our worldview. Much like this church building in California, if the foundations are off, our whole worldview has to be torn down and rebuilt; but if it is solid, we should see be able to build a solid, useful structure on top of it.

Main Idea: The biblical consistency of our worldview depends on a correct view of God and his relation to the world.

Today we’ll be looking at the first two foundational elements of a worldview: God and reality, also known as theology and metaphysics.

Theology is simply the study of God. As Christians, this is the heart of our faith: growing in the knowledge of God. Our theology is our worldview. Metaphysics is basically the study of being or reality. Ultimately, metaphysics is about the quest for ultimate truth. RC Sproul writes, “It goes beyond the physical realm that we can see and measure. Thus, metaphysics is a philosophical attempt to bring sense and coherence out of all the incongruous elements of this world” (Sproul, Lifeviews, 99).

At the heart of a Christian approach to metaphysics is the question, “How does God relate to reality?”

IS REALITY OPEN OR CLOSED?  

Introduction to Worldviews

Date: September 7, 2014
Study: What’s Your Filter? Christian Apologetics and Worldview
Teacher: Lawson Hembree

REVIEW
Thesis for this study: a Christian worldview enables us to look at all of life through scriptural lenses, which in turn equips us to defend the faith, evangelize wisely, critique unbiblical thought that pervades our culture, and bring God glory in all of life.

Four Views of Christ and Culture: 1) Christ against culture [condemn] 2) Christ of culture [copy and consume] 3) Christ above culture [critique] 4) Christ transforming culture [cultivate and create]

WHAT IS A WORLDVIEW?
Everyone looks at the world through certain lenses. Even if you can’t see them, like contact lenses, we all have them. If, then, the world is everything that we see, our worldview is the pair of glasses that help us make sense of the world around us.

According to James Sire, a worldview is “a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.” (James Sire, Naming the Elephant, 122) 

Everyone has a worldview, though not everyone is aware of his or her worldview. Not everyone has sat down and defined exactly what they think about God, reality, knowledge, humankind, and morality. But everyone has default or automatic assumptions that inform his or her life and behavior. They are the things you believe at the deepest, gut level, sometimes without thought or reflection. A worldview is comprised of our presuppositions about life’s five most basic, fundamental issues:  

Christ and Culture

Date: August 31, 2014
Study: What’s Your Filter? Christian Apologetics and Worldview
Teacher: Kameron Slater

CHRIST AND CULTURE

Thesis for this study: A Christian worldview enables us to look at all of life through scriptural lenses, which in turn equips us to defend the faith, evangelize wisely, critique unbiblical thought that pervades our culture, and bring God glory in all of life.

Main Question: What is the relationship between Christ and culture?

Definitions of “Culture” and “The World”

1. CULTURE: the sum total of everything human beings have created. This means that culture includes things like language, political structures, foods, TV shows, the internet, highways, and more, not merely items we typically consider “cultural” such as works of art.

2. THE WORLD: “the organized system of human civilization that is actively hostile to God and alienated from God” (Worldliness, edited by C.J. Mahaney, p. 26). 

For the purpose of this study, the terms will be used interchangeably: culture/the world is a set of ideas or though processes that shape everyday life.

Four Views of Christ and Culture 
God uses our cultural creations in His work, and we use it in our sin (ie the Tower of Babel, the Tabernacle/Temple, etc). Culture is neither wholly good or wholly bad. The things that make up culture are tools of expression: they can be good or bad depending on what is being expressed. If we are expressing worship towards God, true things about His creation, or true things about our nature – that we are made in His image but fallen and sinful – then cultural creations are praiseworthy. If cultural creations express disbelief in God of false things about Him or His creation, then they are not. In fact, the Bible reflects a wide range of views towards “the world” of fallen human culture, depending on what sort of culture we are encountering. Here are a four basic orientations towards culture: