In chapter four, The Christian Worldview, Groothius defines and delimits Christianity in order to properly defend it. Groothius thinks it is best to define Christianity according to its doctrines or its worldview. Groothius states that “a worldview is forged out of beliefs that have the most consequences for a comprehensive vision of reality…Our worldview shapes who we are and what we do. We are driven by our deepest beliefs and interpret the world according to them.”
The Christian Worldview as Truth-Claiming
Contemporary writers influenced by Ludwig Wittgenstein, particularly Don Cupitt and D. Z. Phillips reject the worldview of objective truth for Christianity. For example, belief in “the last judgment” is not literal but is only stressing the value of being responsible. This view is called “religious nonrealism.”
Of course, this is just another example of abandoning the literal, consistent, historical, grammatical interpretation of Scripture. This is another why hermeneutics is important. Groothius states that “the very articulation of the Christian worldview may have a weighty apologetic effect, even apart from its philosophical defense.
Source of Ultimate Authority: The Scripture
All worldviews have some basis for authority. For Christianity that basis is the sixty-six books of the Bible.
Epistemology: How We Know What We Know
The Gospels indicate that Jesus had a well-formed epistemology. He believed that objective truth is knowable (realism), that factual evidence is crucial in supporting truth claims, that noncontradiciton is a necessary test for truth, etc.
In a Nutshell: Creation, Fall, and Redemption
Taking the Bible as the ultimate authority for Christian thought, we can organize a Christian worldview into three broad categories: creation, fall, and redemption. I would add the Church for this age and the kingdom for the age to come.
Ultimate Reality: God
The Creator of the universe and humans is personal. He is part of the three Person Trinity. So, He did not create humans because He was lonely. The Trinity fellowshipped with each other in eternity past. This personal God is also a God of Love. So, He did not create humans to have someone to love. For the three Persons of the Trinity loved each other from eternity past. This is in stark contrast to naturalism and pantheism; both are impersonal and loveless entities.
Human Beings: Question Marks in Search of an Answer
The Christian worldview esteems humans as having been made in the image of God and refuses to reduce them to the unintended byproducts of time, matter, and natural laws. Man is both material and immaterial. But he is not the product solely of earth. Chesterson wrote: Earth “is our sister not our mother.” The Jewish philosopher Abraham Heschel wrote: “The Bible is not man’s theology, but God’s anthropology.”
Since the fall, man lives east of Eden in a totally deprave state alienated from God. What is our hope?
Salvation: From God, For Us
History, then, has a purpose: it is the theater of a divine drama of judgment and restoration. Through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, God pursues us with the remedy for our sinfulness.
Source of Morality
Ethics, according to the Christian conception, is anchored in the reality of a personal and moral God who is free to interact with his creation to impart moral knowledge through conscience and Scriptures.
History and The Afterlife
Jesus spoke of the afterlife through his teachings on the kingdom of God.
A Very Small Nutshell: The Touchstone Proposition
William Halverson claims that at the core of every worldview lies a “touchstone proposition which is the fundamental truth about reality and serves as a criterion to determine which other propositions may or may not count as candidates for belief.”
Christian Existence: Living in the Truth
The Christian worldview summons people to follow Christ, to recognize and obey the truth that sets them free. “To the Jews who had believed him Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’” (John 8:31-32).