Editor’s note: this is the first post in a four part mini-series of devotionals that all centre on the topic of worldview. Each post will examine one element of what constitutes a worldview and show how the Christian worldview most accurately describes life as we see it.
Everyone has a worldview, whether we know it or not. And it forms and shapes our basic assumptions, opinions, actions, and conclusions.
A worldview to has to answer four big, basic questions. Today, we tackle the first question:
Origin: where did I come from? What does it mean to be human?
Looking at other worldviews is not bad thing. Os Guinness said,
“Contrast is the mother of clarity.”
So in the spirit of contrast, some would say only materialism exists. There is no God, nothing spiritual, nothing supernatural. They would say that humans are simply physical, no soul or spirit.
How sad.
Others would say that the world was created by an all powerful creator, but, ultimately, this creator is unknowable. That must be very frustrating, never really knowing.
But, what does the Bible say? The Bible, in which we read the Word of God to us, says this,
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. (Genesis 1.1)
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. (John 1.1-4)
Humans are, at the most simple level, relational beings, we were made for community. As such, when most of us are assessing our worldview, deciding which lens we will look at the world through, most of us aren’t actually looking for a what, for pure empirical evidence, whether we know it or not most of us are actually looking for a who.
To define a truly Christian worldview, the only worldview that can consistently stand up to the deepest scrutiny, the only worldview that is airtight, internally consistent, corresponds to reality, and is liveable, to define this worldview, we must start with God.
God in Jesus. Jesus as God incarnate – literally God in the flesh – we must start with Jesus.
He explains the origins of everything. He defines the fact that as humans we have value. If we did not have value and a place in the origin of everything, then would God have given His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life?
C.S. Lewis said this on the Christian worldview:
“…if false, [it] is of no importance, and, if true, of infinite importance.”
So, origin, where do we come from, and what does it mean to be human?
The Word of God answers both; we are made by Him who set the foundations of the world, who spoke it into existence, and to be human means to be valued, and loved, by this same, real, personal, knowable God.
In our next article, we’ll examine the second big question. Meaning: is there purpose to life?
