CTS - Worldview Defined Flashcards

Dunno if this will be helpful or not, lol

Al Wolters’ Definition of Worldview

The comprehensive framework of one’s basic/fundamental beliefs/convictions about (all) things.

James Sire’s Definition of Worldview

A commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart expressed as a story as in a set of presuppositions about the basic constitution of reality which provides the foundation on which we live.

Explicit Worldview

What you think / what you know

Implicit Worldview

What you love / what you desire / Whom you serve.

Features of a Worldview (general)

1) Everyone Has one

2) Worldviews are communal, not private

3) Worldview affects culture, which reinforces worldview

4) Worldviews are intensely spiritual

5) Language influences worldview

Biblical Worldview Framework

• Creation: - accounts for the true, good, and beautiful

• Fall: - accounts for the bad, ugly, and false

• Redemption: - Accounts for how to redress/restore the bad, false, ugly. 

• Consummation: - Envisions the future full of true, good, and beautiful.

Consumerism Worldview

• Premise: Happiness is derived from the acquisition of goods or experiences. 

• Problem: lack of goods or experiences

• Solution: Increased consumption

• Future: Economic growth = greater prosperity

Postmodernism Worldview

• Premise: There is no universal truth or objective reality

• Problem: Universal claims, lust for power, imposition of views leading to oppression

• Solution: Deconstruction of the system, look past what they are saying/doing to what their repressed/hidden motives are. (Think Marx, Freud)

• Future: Dystopia

James Sire’s Worldview Formation Questions

1. What is Prime Reality/the really real?

2. What is the nature of external reality (the world around us)?

3. What is a human being?

4. What happens to people at death?

5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?

6. How do we know right from wrong?

7. What is the meaning of human history/life?

Walsh and Middleton (and DeJong’s) Worldview Formation Questions

1. Where am I?

2. Who am I?

3. What’s the problem?

4. What’s the remedy?

5. (DeJong) What Time is it?

Head/Hand/Heart Worldview formation

• Head: - Shape beliefs through education, homelife, etc

• Hand: - Shape behaviours through training, practice, habits, etc

• Heart: - Shape loves/desires through grace, training of mind + body, prayer, etc.