Session 1 Home inspection
When you read the first four books of the new testament you often find Jesus engaged in conversation with His antagonists, but you also often find that His answers to their pointed, usually combative questions are often non-linear, disconnected or disassociated from the question itself. This can be a bit jarring as a reader, but it's at these moments we should be paying the closest attention. Mark 7:1-23 describes such a conversation between Jesus and a group of His antagonists over the topic of ceremonial hand washing. Jesus ignores the question entirely and instead points at the root problem beneath the questions, the problem that lies at the heart of the issue his antagonists are trying to confront Him with. I won't detail the text in depth here—it's poignant and I'd encourage you to read it for yourself—but there are two points I want to draw from it for the purpose of our discussion:
- Toward the end of the text, Jesus reminds His listeners that our natural inclinations cause some rather unfortunate things to escape our mouths if we're not tuned in to the Spirit's leading before we start talking.
- Jesus always looked for and addressed the root problem behind a confrontation, He refused to get sidetracked by misdirection. This is the pattern we must follow if we're going to find a path from conflict and confrontation to conversation and change.
These are indispensable truths to any Christian wishing to engage in a conversation with those who oppose their worldview. First, be sure you're linked to the Source of true wisdom and truth, and second, make sure you're talking about the right thing.
Debate can be intimidating, and for a Christian, it's sometimes avoided simply because of the fear that conflict of any kind is antithetical to the Christian life. Is debate a good idea? Is it something we're called to participate in? The following texts would seem to indicate we are:
- 1 Peter 3:15
- 2 Timoty 2:23-26
- Col 4:5-6
- Col 1:25-29
We are here to acquire the tools we need to meet the challenge of these texts, to prepare ourselves to respond to any question, to confront opposition with gentleness, humility, and wisdom. We are here to deepen our own faith, our own confidence in the reality of an all-encompassing God, a God that is indivisible from reality itself. We are here to discover the depth of His intelligence, in the small scope of our own understanding, and to uncover the deceptions and misdirections that have lead secular culture to where it is today. All of that starts with an examination of our own thinking and a look at the way human beings gather, process, and apply knowledge. It all starts with a look at something called worldview.
So what is a worldview and why is it worth talking about?
A worldview is just that, our view of the world, but at a very fundamental level. Worldview is a term used to describe the collection of ideas and beliefs about reality that we hold to be true and the conclusions we draw from them. It could simply be described as our view of reality. You can think of your worldview as the house your mind lives in.
Everything we do and say, the opinions we champion, the moral distinctions we make, the truths we proclaim, everything about the way we interact with the society we live in comes from, and is governed by, our worldview. For many of us, that's as deep as we care to dig. If it's part of our worldview, it's a fundamental truth, it's worth defending, worth promoting, it's valuable, and we're emotionally attached to it. This is very unfortunate.
No house comes into existence spontaneously or stands on its own without support. Beneath our worldview lie deeper issues we must address, more fundamental challenges we face as human beings. They are concepts that can be difficult to think through and are often taken for granted or ignored altogether but they must be dealt with if we're going to understand the real issues that separate our worldviews and cause so many conversations to end it anger and frustration.
Worldviews are constructed very much like a house. They require a foundation, and a collection of building materials and tools put into action by skilled hands. Would you move into a house without first inspecting it to be sure it's well constructed and that the foundation is sound? Would you stay in a house that was falling down around you? We should treat our worldiews the same way.
Home inspection
The foundation for any worldview is a concept philosophers call ontology. Ontology describes our beliefs about reality itself, what “is”, what exists and its nature. Our ontology is, in many ways, as deep into our own thinking as we can go. It encompasses the most fundamental and basic ideas we accept to be true in order to function intellectually. Rather shockingly, there's a great amount of diversity in modern ontology. You would think we all accept the same basic truths about reality, but we'll find on closer examination that we really don't.
What we build on our ontology, the tools and building materials used to construct our house, is something philosophers call epistemology. Epistemology describes our views of knowledge: how we gather it, the tools we use to process it, how we decide whether something is true or not. This concept includes things like logic, rationality, and objectivity. Based on this simple description, you would assume our ontology (the foundation of our house) should largely dictate the shape of our epistemology (the way we build our house and what we build it with), but already we are confronted with a shocking truth about modern culture: despite our surprisingly diverse ontology, we seem to mostly agree on our epistemology. We seem to all agree that logic is authoritative, that free will is a given, that knowledge and experience is objective, and that abstract information exists and can be safely transmitted through language. We believe and accept that the mind is rational and can make use of these tools to obtain and record knowledge. These are GIGANTIC assumptions, monstrously important, often in direct conflict with an individual’s ontology, and largely ignored.
I'll give you a brief example of what I'm talking about, but please don't be discouraged if all this seems difficult to digest or if the terminology is foreign to you. We'll be addressing these issues in depth as we go, so all of this will (hopefully) make sense eventually.
Materialistic/reductionist ontology believes that reality consists of nothing more than matter, energy, and the laws that direct their interaction. A person who holds this ontology does not accept the existence of a spiritual, metaphysical component to reality, in other words, they don't (can't) accept the idea that mind exists separate from or in a meta position to the physical. Realist, or Idealist ontology would assert that the mind, or the consciousness is, itself, an essential component of reality and is separate from and holds some authority over the physical/material. If an idealist were to debate with a materialist about human morality, the discussion would be completely worthless because the materialist doesn’t hold there to be such a thing as a “mind” or good/evil, in fact, they can't actually support the idea of choice at all, so following their ontology, their argument would simply be the result of a series of changes to the physical state of their brain caused by the physical input of someone speaking to them. The idealist would, conversely, be arguing from the perspective of an objective experience, where mind takes preeminence and concepts like morality are actually more fundamental than our physical reality.
This is playing king of the hill while standing on different hills. The problem is these discussions still happen, with each side vehement in their support and rationalization of opinions that are completely irrelevant to the actual issue that divides them. The debate needs to return to ontology itself, that’s where the conflict truly lies.
I view this as an incredible opportunity for the Christian apologist, if we are willing and able to stop bickering about trivial, symptomatic issues and start digging more deeply into the real differences that separate us.
So how do we go about it?
Christ told us to “build our house on the rock” which, I believe, goes beyond the spiritual meaning of focusing on Jesus as the source and foundation of our salvation (which He is) to include basing our entire worldview, our ontology and epistemology, on the existence of the Biblical God (we’ll explore this in depth in the future).
The “house” of our worldview should stand up to the flood of criticism and doubt thrown against it by the secular world, and to ensure that it does, we need to be willing to test it ourselves through self analysis and reflection. We should never even consider critiquing another’s worldview until we’ve subjected our own to the same inquisition, the same analysis, the same criticism.
So how do we examine and test a worldview?
The same way we pursue any other form of knowledge. We ask questions. Deep, and probing questions, and we view the answers with honesty and impartiality. We need to be “worldview scientists”.
The modern scientific method follows roughly the following pattern:
- Ask a question
- Research and form a hypothesis
- Perform experiments to test your hypothesis
- Record your observations, analyze and draw conclusions
- Report your findings
I propose we do essentially the same thing with our worldviews:
- Ask the right question
- Think deeply about the answer provided
- Test the answer through thought experiment
- Learn from the results of your conversation and your contemplation
- Change where necessary, grow where possible
Here's what I mean in a bit more depth:
1. Ask the spirit to take control first and foremost. Involve as little of you as possible. Ask probing questions. Look for the real issue lying behind potential misdirections. What’s the actual problem, the fundamental issue that needs resolution? Be sincere and limit emotional involvement to every extent possible.
2. Think about the issue deeply. If no answer exists via direct observation or simple logical conclusion, or if the answer provided by your interlocutor or by expert witnesses makes you uncomfortable or conflicts with your own worldview, contemplate it deeply. Does the provided answer address the question directly? Read trusted authorities (even if you don’t agree with them) to learn more about other perspectives. Search the Bible for relevant material.
3. Test the results. This one is a bit more difficult for the unpracticed, but don't worry, we'll be getting plenty of practice in future meetings. If an answer is provided, or can be extrapolated from your research, construct a rational thought experiment to see if the answer is valid. Test it using real world examples. If the answer were true, what conclusions could be drawn? What other ideas must be true? What results would be consistent with the answer? What additional issues arise as a result of this conclusion? Follow it through, see if it’s consistent with the other tenants of the worldview in question, see if it raises additional questions. Test it against scripture for your own enlightenment, but if your interlocutor is a non-believer, scripture will not work as an authority.
4. Learn from the results. If the answer is clearly inconsistent with the worldview that provides the answer, or if it can clearly be demonstrated to be fallacious, irrational, or nonsensical, don’t let it pass. If it proves true or reveals truth, accept that truth and let it influence your own views where appropriate. Remember the steps you’ve taken and the process you’ve followed. Think on what you could do better in terms of constructing your questions and pursuing an answer.
5. Grow and change as a result of the discussion. You should never conclude an honest and sincere debate as the same person you were when you started. If you do, you weren’t listening, and you weren’t being honest with yourself or with your interlocutor. Even if your own views have not been disturbed, you will have learned invaluable information about how others think and process truth, how they confront critique, how they respond to presented evidence, etc. Make use of this information. What does it tell you about yourself and about the way you do and should communicate when discussing truth? Form good conversational habits. Don’t repeat mistakes. Don’t let emotions prevent intellectual growth.
Before we meet again I encourage you to test this process out starting with with your own worldview. Ask yourself the questions secular thinkers use in criticism of Christianity. Apply this method and see what happens.
General Examples (usually asked by those who know little or nothing about Christianity):
- If God is all powerful and loving, why does he allow suffering?
- How is believing in Yahweh any different than believing in Zeus, or Vishnu?
- Why don’t we see any undeniable miracles?
- Science has proven the Bible is false, why do you still believe it?
Theological questions (usually asked by former or struggling Christians):
- Why did God approve of slavery?
- Why are women treated so poorly in the Bible?
- Why did God murder millions of people?
- How can the God of the old testament be the same God of the gospels?