Worldviews and the "Big Four" (Part 1) (CA)

Intro/Summary of the Core Apologetic

Everyone has a “worldview”, a set of fundamental assumptions about the nature of the world that we apply to our lives. These assumptions form the foundations of our beliefs. Having a valid worldview is important, since everything we believe in, or don’t believe in, is affected by it. Some things are more directly affected than others. Support or opposition to capital punishment is closely tied to one’s worldview. Choosing menu items for Thanksgiving dinner is not necessarily a worldview issue – unless your worldview sees eating meat as immoral. Some things are purely subjective and have little to do with worldview, such as your favorite color or ice cream flavor.

In its simplest, most bare-bones form, your worldview can be expressed as the answers to four primary questions. For all intents and purposes, every question about how you see the world is an extension or combination of the “Big Four”. These questions are: Where did I come from, and how did I get to be where/what I am (Origin)? What is the nature of man and the world, and what is right or wrong about it (Condition)? What can be done to fix the “wrong” and preserve the “right” both in mankind and the world (Salvation)? And, finally, what are the ultimate purpose and destination of mankind and the world (Destiny)? These four questions – Origin, Condition, Salvation, and Destiny – are the cornerstones of your worldview. Answers to the four questions must be considered in context to each other, partially for reasons described below, and also for reasons to be explored later. Each of these questions has related secondary questions that will be discussed later.

What does it mean to have a “valid” worldview? Not every idea is true, not every opinion corresponds to reality, and what we want to be true is not always so. Some ideas are contradictory, some are impossible to prove or disprove, some are meaningless in any case. It is possible to have a worldview that is invalid, which causes a person to live with either untruth or self-contradiction, or both. It is also possible to have a valid worldview and not live it out, which causes the same problems. Living consistently with your core beliefs is a straightforward idea, at least in theory. So, the focus here will be on what makes a worldview “valid”.

For a worldview to be “valid”, it has to provide meaningful impacts on daily life. If a worldview has no influence in day-to-day living, or in one’s life at all, then it’s meaningless. For example, the belief that touching two black holes at once will make a person healthier has no connection with reality. Since doing such a thing is impossible, it really has no effect on life at all. This “meaningfulness” also implies that a valid worldview should be explanatory, or able to explain the “whys” and “hows” of the world.

A valid worldview must correlate to reality. It cannot blatantly contradict something that is categorically true. Three does not equal four, so a worldview that includes the belief that three and four are equal is invalid. Note that there is a difference between a person’s opinions about reality and what is known about reality. A worldview that teaches that there is life after death is not automatically invalid, since observed reality cannot conclusively say that there is not life after death. Disagreement with interpretation of facts is not the same thing as contradicting provable principles.

A worldview must be internally consistent to be valid. Answers to each of the “Big Four” questions cannot contradict themselves or each other, nor can their logical extensions. Using the black hole example from above, the premise that touching two Black Holes will cause healing is contradictory to what is known about black holes. If the worldview also held that black holes do not exist, or that touching them would cause a person to be killed, it would be self-contradictory and therefore invalid.

Only worldviews that are independent of “prejudicial factors” can be considered valid. That is, the answers to the “Big Four” must be objective. If one or more of the four answers relies heavily on some subjective idea, or is purely a matter of opinion, then the worldview is invalid. For instance, a worldview stating that the opinion of the majority is always the moral one is highly subjective. Majority opinion can change over time, making the morals of this worldview entirely dependent on popularity. Essentially, the worldview must be something a person exists within, not something that exists within a person. The worldview should define a person, not be defined by a person’s opinions. If the tenets of a worldview depend on the whims of anyone, it’s not objective.

Finally, a valid worldview is supported by rational, real-world supporting evidence. To some extent, this is an amalgam of the other criteria, but still worth considering on its own. Without evidence we can see and understand, there is no reason to believe that the worldview is true in the first place. This does not mean that the evidence has to be available and obvious to everyone, everywhere. It does mean that a worldview devoid of legitimate supporting evidence is invalid.

(Part 2 will describe how Biblical Christianity answers the Big Four)