Part II: Structure of worldviews

* A Structure of a Worldview answers five questions:

1. Who or what is ultimate in which all things are derived (what determines the nature of the cosmos)?
2. Who or what is man?
3. What is the basis of morality?
4. What structure or purpose does existence have?
5. What meaning does history have?

That it does not matter what a man believes is a statement heard on every side today.

The statement caries a fearful implication. If a man is a philosopher in the sense with which we started, what he believes tells him what the world is for. How can men who disagree about what the world is for agree about any of the minutiae of daily conduct? The statement really means that it does not matter what a man believes so long as he doesn't take his beliefs seriously. Anyone can observe that this is the status to which religious belief has been reduced for many years.    ---Richard Weaver Ideas have Consequences (p23)

What Answers do the Bible Provide?

1. Who or what is ultimate in which all things are derived (what determines the nature of the cosmos)?

* God is ultimate in whom all things are derived. God is the sovereign over all the universe. He is dependent on no one.

Who has directed the Spirit of the Lord, Or as His counselor has taught Him? Is 40:13

If I were hungry, I would not tell you: For the world is mine, and all its fullness Ps 50:12

Yet, all things are dependent on Him.

And He is before all things and in Him all things consist. Col 1:17

...upholding all things by the Word of His power... Heb 1:3

Thus He is self-sufficient and self existent, He was not created, He just IS. Thus, He is the only one who can truly say about His own essence,"I AM" (Ex 3:14)

*He is all powerful.

Self-existence presupposes ever-enduring and independent power.

Is anything too hard for the Lord? Gen 18:14a

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The everlasting God, the Lord, The creator of the ends of the earth, Neither fails nor is weary. There is no searching of His understanding. Is 40:28

*He is distinct from His creation.

Hallmarks of all nonchristian ideas about God fail to make this distinction. It is not a very obvious mistake to make, and has plagued Christian thought off and on for centuries.

It makes the only difference between man and God is His greater level of being. It leaves room for man to excel into godhood, and for us to judge God according to our own conscious. This is confusion of substance or being, is also known as the great chain of being. It is the hallmark of all heresies.

Examples:

• Jehovah Witnesses believe that Jesus Christ is a created being denying His deity. Mormons believe that man becomes a god after death as a result of his salvation. General consensus of this belief leads one to believe that nature or man needs to be elevated on the chain as opposed to being reconciled to God. Man's greatest problem is not sin, but his finitude.

 

Proper view of God and His creation makes a clear unbridgable gap between the two. Man can not become God, he is a created being. This is not a negative thing, but a truth that sets us free to be what we were created for. Our finitude enables us to be at peace with God and to be the unique individuals we were created to be.

Though God is sovereign, He has made Himself known through His creation.

The heavens declare the glory of God; And the firmament shows His handiwork. Day unto day utters speech, and night unto night reveals knowledge. Ps 19:1,2

And For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against the all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, because what may be known of God is manifest in them, for God has shown it to them. For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Ro 1:18-20

*Man's sin has blinded him from this revelation of God in His creation that we are surrounded by, thus another avenue was needed: God's Word. Here God has revealed to us His purpose and design for us and all creation.

For this commandment which I command you today, it is not too mysterious for you, nor is it far off. It is not in heaven, that you should say, 'Who will ascend into heaven for us and bring it to us, that we may hear it and do it' De 30:11,12

* He is Triune. He is three persons one God. He is both one and diverse. Since all of reality is derived from Him, all truth reverts back to the triune God, thus truth is both united and diverse. All knowledge comes back to the one and true God, thus all knowledge is related to each other.