Program / Course 25: Theological Synthesis / Lesson 6.1
What you will learn
- Define worldview and name its main parts.
- Apply three tests to a worldview: consistency, comprehensiveness and fit with experience.
- Explain why coherence is a necessary but not a sufficient sign of truth.
- Use the tests on a sketch of your own worldview.
The big idea
A worldview is the set of basic beliefs through which a person understands reality, human life, knowledge and conduct. A good worldview can be tested in three ways. It should be consistent, with no part contradicting another. It should be comprehensive, with something to say about the main questions of life. And it should fit experience, so that it makes sense of what people actually encounter, including suffering, beauty and conscience. Passing these tests does not prove a worldview true, but failing them is a reason for concern.
Key terms
- Worldview
- A framework of basic beliefs about reality, knowledge, human beings, value and the meaning of life, through which a person interprets everything else.
- Consistency
- The absence of contradiction among the parts of a worldview.
- Comprehensiveness
- The range of questions that a worldview can address in a meaningful way.
- Explanatory power
- The ability of a worldview to account for the facts of experience without strain.
- Ad hoc
- A Latin phrase meaning for this purpose. An ad hoc explanation is added only to rescue a view from an objection, without independent support.
- Internal critique
- A criticism that shows a view conflicts with its own principles, as opposed to criticism from outside.
- Livability
- The extent to which a person can consistently live according to a worldview without contradicting it in practice.
Background
The word worldview comes from the German Weltanschauung, popularized in the nineteenth century. Christian writers such as Abraham Kuyper and James Orr used it to describe the Christian faith as a comprehensive vision of life, and many others have followed. Not all Christians like the term, since it can make faith sound like a philosophy. But the idea is useful, since everyone has a set of basic beliefs, whether or not they have examined them.
The three tests in this lesson are borrowed from philosophy and are used by many thinkers of different views. They are not specific to Christianity, which is an advantage. A student can use them on any view, including the one they hold, and expect that others will accept them as fair.
Step-by-step explanation
Step 1: The parts of a worldview
A worldview can be thought of as answers to a set of questions. What is ultimately real? (metaphysics) What is a human being? (anthropology) How does anyone know? (epistemology) What is good, and how should anyone live? (ethics) What is wrong with the world, and what is the remedy? What happens at the end? The course so far has given material on each.
A student’s worldview is not the same as their statement of it. Habits, fears and loyalties belong to it too. A first step is to write down the stated answers, and a second is to look at what one’s life suggests.
Step 2: The test of consistency
Does any part of the worldview contradict another? A person who holds that nothing can be known with certainty and also that this is certain has an internal conflict. A Christian who affirms the goodness of creation while treating the body as a prison has one too. Consistency also asks whether beliefs fit with the way one lives.
Consistency is checked by laying out the claims side by side. If two seem to conflict, use the method of the last module: state both, find the collision, consider responses. A tension that has a reasonable resolution does not count as inconsistency.
Step 3: The test of comprehensiveness
Does the worldview speak to the main questions, or does it leave large areas blank? A view that explains the physical world but has nothing to say about love, death or moral obligation is limited. The Christian view claims to address all of these, but a claim to address is not the same as a good answer, and each answer needs support.
A warning: comprehensiveness can be bought cheaply by vague answers. Ask whether the answer says anything specific enough to be tested.
Step 4: The test of fit with experience
A worldview should make sense of what people encounter: the sense of right and wrong, beauty, suffering, love, the sense that the world is intelligible, evil, hope and death. Christians argue that their account explains these well, for example by saying that conscience reflects a moral order and that suffering is real but not the last word. Critics argue that the same experiences are better explained by naturalism, or that the Christian account does not do justice to the scale of suffering.
Ask also about the explanations offered. If a worldview has to add a new ad hoc explanation for every difficulty, that is a sign of strain. But a worldview may also have unresolved difficulties without being false, and every worldview has some.
Step 5: What the tests cannot do
A worldview can pass all three tests and be false, since a consistent, comprehensive story can be a fiction. The tests are most useful in comparing rivals and in finding weaknesses. They also leave room for the evidence of history, including the claims about Jesus, which a worldview must either account for or explain away. The final judgment will include the claims of Scripture, the historical evidence and the witness of the church, as well as these tests.
- What are my answers to the main worldview questions?
- Do any of my answers contradict each other?
- What questions does my worldview not address?
- Which experiences does it explain best, and which worst?
- Do I add explanations only to defend my view?
- Do I live as I say I believe?
Examples
An internal inconsistency
A person says that all religions are equally true and also that her own faith alone is the way to God. When she sees the two claims side by side, she must either qualify one or accept that she has a conflict.
A limit of comprehensiveness
A strictly materialist view explains much about the physical world. Some critics argue that it has difficulty with consciousness and moral obligation, while its defenders argue that these are explained by evolution and brain science. The disagreement shows that comprehensiveness is judged by the quality of the answers.
Suffering and fit
A Christian and a skeptic look at the same suffering. The skeptic says it is hard to reconcile with a good and powerful God. The Christian says that the Bible takes suffering seriously, with Job and the Psalms and the cross, and that the account of a fallen world fits the experience. Whether it fits well is a matter on which thoughtful people differ.
Different perspectives
Catholic
Catholic thought has long held that faith and reason form a unified vision of reality, as in the great medieval syntheses. The Catechism presents Christianity as a whole, from creation to the last things, and Catholic social teaching applies it to all areas of life. Coherence is treated as a mark of truth, though not a proof.
Orthodox
Orthodox theologians describe the faith as an integrated life of worship, prayer and doctrine, and warn against reducing it to an intellectual system. They hold that the tradition forms a harmonious whole, and that the test of its coherence is found in the liturgy and the lives of the saints.
Protestant
Reformed writers such as Kuyper and Francis Schaeffer taught the importance of a comprehensive Christian worldview. Others, including some Lutherans and Anabaptists, are cautious about turning faith into a worldview, since it may make faith an ideology. Presuppositional apologists argue that only the Christian worldview is internally coherent, a claim that others contest.
Philosophical views
Philosophers distinguish coherence theories of truth from correspondence theories. Many hold that coherence is a mark of justified belief but that truth is a matter of fitting reality. Others note that the Duhem-Quine point from the philosophy of science shows that any theory can be saved from a counterexample by adjusting other beliefs, which is why simplicity and independent support also matter.
Why it matters
The final synthesis must be coherent, and this lesson supplies the tests. It also teaches charity toward other views, since it shows that every worldview faces difficulties. A student who understands how worldviews are tested is less likely to be shaken by a single objection and less likely to think that a single answer settles a question.
Common misunderstandings
Misunderstanding: A coherent worldview must be true.
Correction: A false worldview can be coherent. Coherence is necessary for truth in the sense that contradictory views cannot be wholly true, but it is not sufficient.
Misunderstanding: Christianity is just one more worldview, competing on equal terms.
Correction: Christians say that their faith is rooted in events and in a person, and not only in a system of ideas. Whether or not one agrees, the claim means that the tests of a worldview are not the whole story.
Misunderstanding: A worldview with unanswered questions is a failure.
Correction: Every worldview has unanswered questions. What matters is how serious they are and whether the view gives reasons for its answers.
Misunderstanding: A worldview is a list of beliefs one states.
Correction: It is also reflected in what one loves, fears and does. A statement that conflicts with one’s life suggests that the stated worldview is not the operative one.
Knowledge check
What are the three tests of a worldview?
Consistency: no part of it contradicts another. Comprehensiveness: it speaks meaningfully to the main questions of life. Fit with experience: it makes sense of what people actually encounter, including conscience, beauty and suffering. A view that does well on all three is stronger, though not thereby proved.
Why is coherence not enough to show a worldview is true?
Because a false view can be internally consistent and comprehensive, as a well-made fiction can be. Truth requires fit with reality, and so evidence from history, experience and reasoning is needed alongside the tests of coherence.
What is an ad hoc explanation, and why is it a warning sign?
It is an explanation added only to rescue a view from an objection, without independent support. If a worldview needs a new one for every difficulty, it may be under strain. Some difficulties can be answered without such moves, so each case needs judgment.
What does it mean to say a worldview must be livable?
That a person can live by it without contradicting it in practice. If someone professes a belief but acts as if it were false, the stated worldview and the working one differ. Livability is an informal check on whether a view has really been adopted.
Think it through
- Which of the three tests do you think your own worldview handles best, and which worst?
- What is the hardest experience for your worldview to explain?
- How would a thoughtful critic describe your worldview, and what would you say in reply?
Independent assignment
Test my worldview
In your own notebook, write 500 to 700 words. Sketch your worldview in six short answers (reality, the human person, knowledge, ethics, what is wrong and its remedy, the end). Then apply the three tests: name one possible inconsistency, one gap and one experience that fits poorly. Say what you will do about each.
Further study
- C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity A readable case for the fit of Christianity with experience.
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Fallacies Common errors in testing a view.
- Huston Smith, The World’s Religions Other worldviews presented sympathetically.
- Richard Swinburne, The Existence of God A cumulative argument by an analytic philosopher.
- William Lane Craig, Reasonable Faith: Christian Truth and Apologetics An argumentative defense of the Christian worldview.
- Romans 12:2 The renewing of the mind.
- Colossians 1:17 In him all things hold together.
- Proverbs 1:7 The fear of the Lord as the beginning of knowledge.