Wordview Definitions: Theism

Yesterday, I discussed the importance of understanding what a worldview is and the fact that everyone has one. There are many diverse worldviews that exist today, and we can see that even within the different ideas about how the world works, there are common threads that run through each.

All worldviews start with what philosophers call a "meta-narrative" or "Grand Story". These are beliefs or ideas about God and truth. Meta-narratives are the foundation and basis of what shapes one's worldview, they inform and color all our other beliefs. They deal with how we got here, why we're here, and how to discover truth about the world around us. I want to spend some time looking at four of the most widely accepted meta-narratives by people throughout history. To be sure, all of these worldviews exist today and studying them a bit will give us a better grasp of how others ground their concept of truth.

"We Need God to Understand His Creation"

Traditional theism is the position taken by most people historically. Theism holds that there is a God (or perhaps gods) who is responsible for creating the world. It further implies that the world was created with some type of order to it; there are laws that govern how the world works. Judaism and Christianity especially hold to the idea that God has created the universe with certain features or laws that are orderly and reliable. If one were to create the same set of circumstances today (such as dropping a cannon ball off the Tower of Pisa) that he had set up a year ago, he should be able to achieve the same result.

This idea of purpose shows up everywhere. A seed that is planted and watered should grow into a tree. Introduce a fungus or virus into that tree and it can die. The traditional view holds that God created the world in a rational, predictable way. It therefore means the world is predictable and laws of physics we discover today will allow us to predict outcomes tomorrow or millennia from now.

Theism and Human Exceptionalism

Of course, physical laws like gravity are not the only things that are predictable. When God created human beings, He created them with some unique differences from all other creatures on earth. For example, animals are aware of their environment, but only humans are aware of ourselves. No matter how smart a chip or a dolphin may be, they will never wonder when they will die, or what it would be like to be another species. They are not self-aware.

Traditional Theism's Grand Story

• God exists and He created the world.
• There is an order to nature: a teleos or logical outcome to a set of circumstances.
• Truth can be known.
• Objective moral values exist

People have the capability to be aware of more than just themselves, though. We can take that awareness and apply it to others. We can sympathize with another person who's suffered a loss or tragedy. We can project what it would be like if we were in the same situation and perhaps try to prevent such a situation from occurring. We can also gain awareness of God and comprehend the concept of a divine being who would have us relate to Him and to others in particular ways.

All this means that we can have moral awareness. We have the ability to understand that there are certain things we should or shouldn't do. And if God creates with an order to things, then it follows that there is an order to the way beings with awareness of God and each other should act. Certain moral laws exist that are always true just as certain physical laws exist that are always true. If the circumstances are the same, then God expects us to behave in a specific way. Ultimately, it means that anyone who holds to traditional theism believes there are certain moral precepts that are absolutely true—true at all times for all people in all locations.

Why Worldview is Important

Photo courtesy Franz Schuier

It seems that Hollywood has fallen back in love with the 3-D movie. A big draw in the 1950s, they faded to obscurity until after the start of the new millennium. Now, some of the biggest movie titles are filmed and marketed in 3-D, even though the cost to make and show such movies is significantly higher. The reason for the cost increase is because it takes special equipment to make a movie look like it's popping off the screen.

In order to achieve the 3-D effect, two images of each scene are superimposed on the screen, each shot with a slightly different perspective. The 3-D glasses have two different lenses with a filter tuned to each of the different images. That way, when you watch the movie with the glasses, they block one image from one eye and the other image from the other. Since you look at the real world with two eyes, each having a slightly different perspective on an object because they are spaced apart, your brain automatically tries to put the images back together and assumes that the difference it sees between the images is because of depth and you therefore see the images jump from the screen and feel like they're right in front of you.

I've personally never been a big fan of the format, and that's mainly because of the glasses you're required to wear in order to see the 3-D effect. The effect isn't perfect (it still feels forced in many places) and the glasses affect the hue and clarity of the picture. Wear the wrong kind of glasses and you get a distorted picture, one that's out of focus and off color.

Looking at the world through our own set of glasses

It's not only the imaginary world of movies where this kind of distortion can occur, though. Every person on the planet receives information about how the world works from innumerable sources. All of your experiences, interactions, movies, books music and more feed you with information on how the world works and how we should understand reality. As each of us receives this information, we process it and try to relate it to other experiences in order to make sense out of all that we've received. The sum total of how we suppose God, life, the world and all of reality work is known as our "worldview". These are our "glasses" so to speak; the ideas that shape our thinking about what is true and what isn't. Its how we anticipate what may happen or what should happen. It is, you might say, our biases about the world.1

It's important to note that everyone has a worldview. Everyone has some type of bias. There's just no way to live your life with any degree of sanity without being able to associate some cause (such as reaching towards a flame) with an effect (such as the pain from a burned hand). Even though people may have never heard the term "worldview", they still have beliefs on how the world works so they hold to some type of world view. The "glasses" of their worldview can be quite different from yours or mine and it colors the world quite differently for them. Different glasses affect their understanding and they will approach situations with a different attitude.

Understanding worldview is important in apologetics. If we are presenting ideas or arguments that are tuned to a different set of glasses, the person we are speaking to will only see a distortion, and one that is probably not pleasant to look at. So think about how you can adjust your discussion to take worldview into account. By so doing, your arguments will seem anything but two-dimensional.

References

1. Sire, James W. The Universe Next Door (Downers Grove, Ill: Intervarsity Press, 1999) 16-20

Do You Need Religion to Have Morals?

I recently had a friend who posted a picture to a social media site. It was an Internet meme, one of those quick little quips that have become so popular online. This one had symbols from all the larger faith systems (and a couple of lesser ones as well) with text that read "You don't need religion to have morals. If you can't determine right from wrong, then you lack empathy, not religion." Is this right?

My first reaction to the post is that it reminds me of the objection I always hear when discussing moral grounding with atheists. I argue that the only way objective moral values and duties can exist is if they are grounded in God. In other words, in order for morals to be prescriptive (that is, how we should act), they must come from a lawgiver that is above humanity.

Now, most atheists misunderstand this argument and retort that even though they don't believe in God, they are moral people. But that isn't what I was trying to say.  I can freely admit that relatively speaking there are many atheists who act more uprightly than some people of faith. The question isn't if adherents to one faith (or no faith) are behaving morally. The question is how can a moral prescription such as "Thou shalt not commit adultery" be binding at all times for all people unless there is an authority higher than man who prescribes it?

And that's the real problem with this meme. Sure, we may all agree that things like torturing small children for no other purpose than one's own entertainment is wrong.  That's because the law of God is written on the hearts of all men (ref. Rom 2:15). However, the sticky part comes in when we consider moral laws like the prohibition against adultery. Is adultery wrong even if your spouse has already been cheating on you? Is adultery wrong if you both agree to be "swingers"? What if someone has enough empathy to make sure his or her spouse never finds out about the affair? Is it wrong then? Jesus placed an even higher demand on moral purity when he said that if you lust after a woman in your heart you are as guilty as if you committed adultery with her. Is that a lack of empathy?

There are other moral questions that become hopelessly confused when we rely on ourselves as the yardstick for morality. The famous Heinz dilemma is a good example:

Heinz's wife was near death, and her only hope was a drug that had been discovered by a pharmacist who was selling it for an exorbitant price. The drug cost $20,000 to make, and the pharmacist was selling it for $200,000. Heinz could only raise $50,000 and insurance wouldn't make up the difference. He offered what he had to the pharmacist, and when his offer was rejected, Heinz said he would pay the rest later. Still the pharmacist refused. In desperation, Heinz considered stealing the drug. Would it be wrong for him to do that?

One I've used before is should we harvest organs from a living inmate on death row if we can save the lives of five young individuals who are upstanding citizens? What if they are all brilliant scientists close to a cure for cancer and the inmate is a child-killer? Should we take his organs then? Right and wrong are sometimes not as clear as we like.

Above all, though, the biggest problem with the meme is that it assumes too little about morality. It ignores that recognizing and properly acknowledging God as our creator is itself a moral act. In fact, it is the first and most important of all our moral requirements – to love God with all our hearts, souls, minds, and strength. If we are not doing this then we are being immoral, we are not behaving as we ought to behave. Therefore it is impossible to be completely morally upright and shun God if God does indeed exist and as the source of the Good He deserves our worship.

Because God must exist in order to ground moral law, then one can't ignore God and still claim morality. Morality requires God's existence; since He exists it follows that one has not properly determined right from wrong if he is not recognizing Him as God. Thus, it is impossible to be irreligious and completely moral together.

Relativism Sinks into the Quicksand of Meaninglessness

Whenever I look at the issue of moral relativism, I find that there are many different ways it doesn't make sense. The concepts of right and wrong must be grounded in something beyond our personal opinions or feelings. One of the problems of relativism is that is sinks in the quicksand of meaningless morality. Let me explain what I mean.

If relativism is true, then societies themselves cannot advance to the betterment of its members. There are those relativists who believe that although relativism is not based in absolute values, each person living within a social framework should obey the laws and culture that the society deems proper. Polygamy, for example, is neither right nor wrong in itself. It’s simply that some societies have a history and culture of allowing polygamous relationships and others have a history of promoting monogamous relationships. Neither is really right or wrong- They just have different cultures and each should be allowed to express their preference. They believe that morality is determined by the dictates of the society.

Relativist claim: "Each society does what is right for them and we should allow them to practice the dictates of their own culture and habits"

This is a type of cultural relativism is known as Normative relativism – meaning that whatever mores the society holds should be followed. But what about those people to rally for social change? Slavery was once the majority view in the South, so should it have therefore been left in place? If a society agrees that a practice such as slavery or infanticide is acceptable, then one cannot say abolishing those practices is the right thing to do. In fact, our society today is not better than the slave-holding south, it’s just different. Relativism without a solid foundation of objective standards quickly sinks into a quicksand of moral meaninglessness where no laws or moral frame work is better than any other.

It gets worse, though.  If morality means agreeing with whatever the society says is OK right now, then anyone who stands up to those concepts would be considered immoral since they are fighting against the majority opinion.  It makes those that would push for the rights of the downtrodden to be immoral! The abolitionist movement and Dr. Martin Luther King’s civil rights protests would be categorized as immoral actions. Concepts of justice are nullified. The idea of fair laws and unfair laws disappears. If there is no absolutes to stand upon, if everything is viewed by what society says is right right now, then fighting for improving things doesn’t make any sense.

 C.S. Lewis said "A man does not call a line crooked unless he has some idea of a straight line."1 If you think about it, this is a very profound statement. There is only one way to create a straight line, you find the shortest distance between two points. However, there are many ways to be crooked: a line can have many angles, a soft arc or deviate just slightly from the intended target. Crooked lines come in all kinds of shapes, but the only thing that defines a crooked line as crooked is it is not the shortest distance between two points; it is not straight. That’s how morality works. We need to know what the objective is in order to see what deviates from it. Both individually with good and evil and as a society, an objective morality is necessary for the world to function. Otherwise we’re all slowly being pulled down by the weight of various opinions. The more people struggle to hold onto this view, the faster they sink into meaninglessness.

References

1. Lewis, C.S. Mere Christianity. (New York:Macmillan Pub. Co., 1960) 45.

Why Are Christians So Obsessed with Homosexuality?

I've spent a lot of time on university campuses lately. I get to interact with students and hear what's on their minds when it comes to questions of faith in general and Christianity in particular. Nowadays, I expect that someone will raise the issue of homosexuality, particularly the debate over homosexual marriage as we talk. It's pretty much guaranteed to come up and many times it forms the whole of my discussion with the students. Because this is such a hot-button issue, I wanted to offer a couple of thoughts on the subject that could hopefully help others when their conversations shift this way.

Let's start off with one objection that I hear all the time: "Why are you Christians so obsessed with homosexuality?" You can see that even online, the question gets asked a lot. Just look here, here, and here for some examples. It is a common refrain I hear from students when I've been talking with them about the state of marriage.

Why are evangelical Christians so obsessed with homosexual acts? Is it because, as some have claimed, that Christians are secretly suppressing their own homosexual attractions? Well, no. Such an assertion is ridiculous on its face. The Gallup organization estimates that 3.5% of the U.S. population identifies as homosexual. Even if we double that stat, there would only be 7% of evangelicals who would make up the constituency that hold to this supposed secret homosexual desire. Such a group could never hold the political clout to pass the traditional marriage laws that passed with solid majorities in 32 states and the federal Defense of Marriage act. This is simply a fallacy (known as tu quoue) that ignores the biological and moral arguments that Christians offer about the topic. But then why are Christians so obsessed with homosexuality?

Here's the answer: we aren't.

You may be shocked at reading that. You may disagree and think I'm dishonest. You may say that all you hear is Christians opposing the right for same sex couples to marry. But believe me, the last thing I want to do when I walk onto a college campus is to talk about homosexuality. It's not in the forefront of my mind. I'd much rather talk about Jesus, what salvation by grace really means, how God wants all people to renounce their sin whatever that may be and follow Him because He has a better way.

Those are the things I would like to talk about, and that's what Christianity has done historically. We've reached out to the poor and homeless; most churches have ministries that help these people within their community. We have looked to help orphans and sent people on missionary projects. We work to help folks overcome alcohol addiction or drug abuse. All these areas have a long, vibrant history within Christianity which is reflected both in the many efforts and ministries of the local church and para-church organizations like The Salvation Army. How many churches have a homosexuality ministry? They are nearly non-existent.

Actually it is other people who keep bringing up the issue of homosexuality. Activists want to change the definition of marriage, and they want to require Christian photographers and florists to service homosexual weddings. They sue Christian psychotherapists must not only take on homosexual patients, but affirm their actions.  They even want to indoctrinate children by rewriting state educational standards so that homosexuality is taught from the first grade. There's been a concerted effort to consciously and determinedly change our society so that homosexuality will appear as benign even though the science shows that it is nothing of the sort. It should be no surprise, then, that Christians and parents would respond.

When I'm at a university, the floor is wide open for questions. People can come up and ask anything, and they immediately latch onto homosexuality and continue to ask about it over and over. They then ask, "Why are you guys so obsessed with this subject?" I tell them I will give them an answer, but I want to know what their motivation was in asking the question in the first place. I will say, "I think that the changes that we're being asked to make as a society are serious and they require thought and care before  we simply jump into them. But realize that YOU are asking this question and I'm responding to it. You brought up the issue of homosexuality, not me."

Christianity didn't initiate this conflict. We should as thoughtful people should respond to the demands that others are making, but we've been playing defense from the start. Homosexuality wasn't even on most Christians' radar before the 1980's when the media began covering it in response to the AIDS epidemic. Then, after the assembly  175 homosexual activists into a forum they themselves dubbed " the War Conference", activists Kirk and Madsen produced a published manifesto with the goal to "desensitize, jam, and convert" the American public on the issue of homosexuality. That turned into a book which further pushed what Dr. Charles W. Socarides  called a plan "chilling in its diabolism, chilling in its hatred of straight America, chilling in its advocacy of lack of conscience, chilling in its brutal and naked lust not for sex but for power."

So, no, Christians are not obsessed with homosexuality. Homosexual activists and the media are.