Supplemental Material for the Beautiful World series
Seven Western World Views Since the Middle Ages
Rev. Curtis Buthe
January 2013
Last Sunday we started to study the concept of a World View and why it’s
important to understand what our own world view is. A world view is defined as:
The framework you use to interpret the world and your place in it.
I’ve compiled the information below from various sources, including a book, The
Universe Next Door, by James Sire. I first read Sire’s book more than 30 years
ago, but Sire has rewritten and updated the book in just the last 6 years, and it’s
now in it’s 5th edition. It’s still one of the best “beginner” books on world views,
past and present. I’m also including a bibliography of a couple of other books I’ve
been reading in preparation for this World View sermon series.
As you read the summaries here, notice the flow of thought that takes place as
one world view leads to, or evolves into, the next. You’ll begin to see how there is
a trajectory of thinking and understanding our world. That’s important, and it helps
us to understand why people look at the world today as they do.
We’ll look at these world views and develop their basic ideas:
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Christian Theism: A personal God creates, ordains and sustains all things.
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Deism: I am a cog in the Watchmaker’s universe.
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Naturalism: I am only matter and machine.
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Nihilism: I find no meaning to life.
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Existentialism: I create value in an absurd universe.
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New Age Pantheistic Monism: In seeking a higher consciousness, I am one
with the cosmos.
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Postmodernism: I create my reality through language.
Christian Theism: A personal God creates, ordains and sustains all things.
From early middle ages until end of 17th century, Christian Theism was dominant
in the western world. There may have been many brands of the faith, but all of
culture and life was, in one way or another, wrapped up in a world view that saw
God as central to life. Much of this world view was mandatory in the political and
cultural structures of the world. There wasn’t any choice about what you would
believe. God as creator and ordainer of the world and authority (church, king,
power) is what you believed. In this pre-enlightenment era, most people didn’t
think critically; they didn’t question whether their beliefs were right or not. In
some ways, the era of Christian theism was like the conservative muslim world
today. In both eras, people have no choice about what they believe, at least
publicly.
Christian Theism held that:
* The most important reality is God, who is revealed in the bible. God is a
trinity, good, all powerful, and personal - he wants to know and be known.
* The universe is created by God, and God is intimately involved in continual
creation - he is involved in the universe constantly. Humans are God’s
partners in this continual care and creation of our earth.
* Humans are created in God’s image - moral beings, creative, personal,
intelligent, unique beings. Humans are like God.
* God reveals himself through creation and “special revelation” - prophets,
writings, commandments, Jesus, etc.
* Humankind is created good in God’s image, full of glory, but now fallen,
defaced. Capable of restoration through Christ.
* Death leads to either eternal life with God, or eternal separation.
* Ethics stem from God. God is good and expresses moral laws and principles.
God gives standards of right and wrong. Jesus is the living Word, the
ultimate standard of good, of what it means to be a whole, glorified human.
Humans are not the measure of morality - God is.
* History is linear - leading to a fulfillment of God’s purposes for humanity and
his creation.
These are beliefs that many Christians still hold. Yet for a few centuries leading up
to the Protestant Reformation in the 1500’s, people grew increasingly disenchanted
with the hypocrisy, fraud, and scandals in the Catholic church. Luther, a Catholic
priest, protested (where we get the term “Protest-ant”) against the Church and
began to teach that believers should be able to read the bible in their own language,
confess their sins to God, and were saved by grace, not works. In other words, he
questioned the authority and power structures that had existed for a thousand years.
His ideas resonated. The invention of the printing press (Gutenberg, 1439) and
subsequent printing advancements, meant that common people could, for the first
time, read their own copy of the bible. The individual began to have more spiritual
choices. Christian theism continued to be the predominant western view
throughout the Reformation, but the trajectory towards Deism was prepared.
In the 1600-1700’s, as people continued to be disenchanted with the Church,
the Age of Reason began, leading to the Enlightenment (1700’s-1800’s).
Philosophers such as Descartes, Kant, Spinoza taught that supreme knowledge,
including human ideas concerning ethics and morality come from reason and
learning, not from revelations from God. Belief in the supernatural is based on
human superstitions alone.
Deism: I am a cog in the Watchmaker’s universe.
Deism was, in great measure, a reaction to the problems and failures of
Christian Theism of the previous centuries. Deism explores humankind and the
world through the Enlightenment and scientific eye. There were different
permutations of Deism. Some historians have labeled “Warm Deism” as describing
a God who is slightly more personal or involved (Franklin and Jefferson advocated
this view), verses a “Cold Deism” which sees God as utterly impersonal and
removed from the universe after creation.
In general, the Deist believes in God; a God who created and then abandoned
the universe. It has often been called a “clockwork” view of the universe or
creation. God created the universe like a watch, wound it up and then it tick away.
God rules the world through established laws of nature. Human beings have free
will and God does not control their thought.
Man is a rational being, who can reach perfection through education. Humans are
part of the clockwork, not a special part. God is rational, and so he created his
universe to be rational, orderly, knowable. You can see how this view fit well with
scientific enquiry and thinking.
Deism maintains that Man can dismiss miracles and divine inspiration as
superstition.
Authors: Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine explored
morality and the inalienable rights of human beings from a Deistic perspective.
Others: John Locke, Voltaire
Basic beliefs of Diesm:
* God is not fully personal, not sovereign over human affairs.
* Unchangeable laws of nature (science)
* Man’s ability to reach perfection
* The inalienable right to freedom (stemming from the need for the individual
to think and act apart from the power of the Church and State)
* Ethics & morals - the universe reveals what is right. Humans are good,
unless they choose evil. Rational thought reveals what is right vs wrong.
* History is linear - the course of creation was pre-determined at creation. The
meaning of events is understood as human reason discovers them.
Deism, is now on the endangered species list. The modern remnant, or revival of
Deism is perhaps the concept of Intelligent Design, which held by many scientists.
Many people in our culture probably still believe in a god, but the most common
belief is a cousin of Deism: God is impersonal; a force or intelligence who created
the cosmos, but is not involved.
There is one generational exception: Young people:
A study by University of North Carolina sociologists examined the religious beliefs
of teenagers (Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American
Teenagers, 2005, by Christian Smith and Melissa Lundquist Denton). Their
conclusion was that most of these teenagers adhered to what they called moralistic
therapeutic deism. They summed up this world view as follows.
1. A God exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life
on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the
Bible and by most religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is
needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.
In this view God, who is ultimate reality, makes no demand on his creation to be
holy, righteous or even very good. "As one 17-year-old conservative Protestant girl
from Florida told the researchers, `God's all around you, all the time. He believes
in forgiving people and he's there to guide us, for somebody to talk to and help us
through our problems. Of course, he doesn't talk back."
Naturalism: Naturalism: I am only matter and machine.
Naturalism evolved out of Deism, and began to gain strength during
Enlightenment. It’s modern-day outgrowth is Humanism. Naturalism states that
the laws of nature are responsible for how the universe operates. Nothing exists
beyond the natural universe or, if perchance a god does exist, it has no current
relationship with, or implications for, the natural universe.
* Reason is the sole criteria for truth.
* The most important reality is matter, which exists eternally and is all there is.
* The universe is a closed system - there is no god or power outside of matter
that has any impact or influence up on it.
* Reason and science makes the universe knowable.
* No room for miracles or a spiritual dimension to life. Science exists in
opposition to religion or faith. No compatibility between faith and reason/
science.
* Humans are complex biological machines; personality is a creation of that
complexity. Humans are unique among animals.
* Ethics is related only to human beings. Traditionally, Naturalism maintains a
respect for personal dignity, affirmation of love, commitment to truth and
honesty. Jesus was a teacher of high ethical and moral values. But values are
constructed by people/society, so they shift with time. There is no natural law
that determines right and wrong.
* Death brings an extinction of personality and the individual. When life ends,
the matter decays into other forms, the person disappears.
"No fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an
individual life beyond the grave." - Bertrand Russell
* History is a linear stream of events linked by cause and effect, but with no
central purpose.
Naturalism assumes no god, no spirit, no life beyond the grave. It sees human
beings as the makers of value. While it disallows that we are the center of the
universe by virtue of design, it allows us to place ourselves there and to make of
ourselves and for ourselves something of value.
To sum up Naturalism:
"Man is the highest animal. The fact that he alone is capable of making such a
judgment is, in itself, part of the evidence that this decision is correct.” - George
Gaylord Simpson
Nihilism: I find no meaning to life.
Nihilism comes from the Latin word meaning “nothing.” Nihilism says that
life is without meaning, purpose, or intrinsic value. No morality, or values that are
True. Moral nihilists assert that morality does not inherently exist, and that any
established moral values are abstractly contrived.
It even denies the reality of existence itself. Which means, of course,
Nihilism doesn’t exist either! In other words, nihilism is the negation of
everything-knowledge, ethics, beauty, reality. Nihilism continues the evolution of
thought, of a world view that moves farther from purpose and meaning into . . .
nothing. Truly understanding Nihilism is very complex, but the end point in
nihilism isn’t hard to understand - it’s a total loss of meaning for everything. There
is a sense of total despair of ever seeing ourselves and our world as anything
significant.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr., in a parody of Genesis 1 in Cat’s Cradle, puts it this way:
In the beginning God created the earth, and he looked upon it in His cosmic
loneliness. And God said, "Let Us make creatures out of mud, so mud can see
what We have done." And God created every living creature that now moveth,
and one was man. Mud as man alone could speak. God leaned close as mud as
man sat up, looked around and spoke. Man blinked. "What is the purpose of all
this?" he asked politely. "Everything must have a purpose?" asked God.
"Certainly," said man. "Then I leave it to you to think of one for all this," said
God. And he went away.
Nihilism states that if the world is to have meaning, we have to come up with
ourselves. Any Maker has no sense of our value, no sense of obligation towards us.
Existentialism: I create value in an absurd universe.
Nihilism is a rather depressing view of everything - or nothing. There is an
intrinsic absurdity to it. So, in answer to the dark absurdity of Nihilism,
Existentialism developed early in the 20th century.
The experience of the individual is primary in Existentialism. If all I can be
sure of is “me” and that I exist - “**I think therefore I am” - then it’s up to me to
create value, morals, beauty . . . everything in this existence.
(**Actually Descartes said this: “I noticed that while I was trying to think
everything false, it was necessary that I, who was thinking this, was something.
And observing that this truth, "I am thinking, therefore I exist "[cogito ergo
sum] was so firm and sure that all the most extravagant suppositions of the
skeptics were incapable of shaking it, I decided that I could accept it without
scruple as the first principle of philosophy I was seeking. Discourse on Method,
Descartes, 1637)
Existentialism says that moral and scientific thinking together do not suffice to
understand human existence. So the highest goal for humans is to be “authentic;”
to be true to your own personality, spirit and character. (Being authentic is in vogue
today, but apparently it’s nothing new!). Existentialism minimizes science, denies
any absolute truths or values, but stresses human freedom and experience.
* Humans are complex machines
* Each person is free in regard to their nature and destiny.
* In order to become an authentic person, one must revolt and create their own
value. (an answer to Nihilism)
* Ethics is comprised of good actions and choices. A good action is a
consciously chosen action. Knowledge is subjective; truth is often
paradoxical.
* The core commitment of each person is to themselves.
* History is only a record of events - uncertain and unimportant. But it is a myth
that teaches us important things to help us live our own lives. Many historians
believe that Existentialism was a primary factor in Hitler’s Nazi movement;
Hitler was doing nothing more than exercising his Existentialist freedom to
create his own destiny. His core commitment was to himself, and his actions
were, therefore good.
Nietzsche worried about such a possibility. One of his most famous quotes is from
The Gay Science, (1882) where he wrote,
“God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort
ourselves, the murderers of all murderers?
Nietzsche meant not the physical death of God, but rather the death of the idea of
God in modern society. He worried about the direction of a society that no longer
had roots for defining good end evil.
Hitler (and every 20th century dictator, perhaps) believed what Satre put forth:
"To choose to be this or that is to affirm at the same time the value of what we
choose, because we can never choose evil. We always choose the good.” Sartre, Existentialism
So the good is whatever an individual chooses; “good” is entirely subjective; good
is not measured by a standard outside the individual human dimension.
New Age Pantheistic Monism (NAPM): In seeking a higher consciousness, I am
one with the cosmos.
There are actually two world views here that I’ve combined into one, for the sake
of brevity and because they meld well with each other. I’ve combined Eastern
Pantheistic Monism with New Age ideas. Both, somewhat surprisingly, borrow
ideas from animism. The New Age movement in the west borrows ideas from
virtually every world view. It takes a smorgasbord view of religions and
philosophies. This evolution from Existentialism is logical, since each person
creates their own meaning and reality. Why not take freely from anything that
“works?” NAPM is also similar to naturalism, because it denies the existence of a
transcendent, personal God. The only Lord of the universe, is you and me.
* Self is the most important reality.
* Borrows from Naturalism the hope of evolutionary change for humanity.
“We’re about to enter a new era, become new beings.”
* Emphasizes mystical experiences that transcend time, space and morality.
Reason is not a guide to reality. Deepak Chopra, who has become one of the
more active and visible New Age promoters, in his recent book, The Third
Jesus, says that the essence of each of us is a “. . . speck of God, the soul
substance of everyone that never became separated from its source . In the
state of God-consciousness a person creates his or her own reality.”
* Within a cosmic consciousness, ordinary categories of space, time and
morality fade away.
* Physical death is not the end of self. No fear of death. Death is simply
“passing.” We now talk of someone who has died as someone who has
“passed away.”
* Reality is understood because of our ability to have a God-consciousness.
* History is of little importance, but humanity is headed towards deification; we
are becoming God; that’s what unity with the cosmos is all about.
Postmodernism: I create my reality through language.
Postmodernism is a term that only began to be used about 30 years ago, first
referring to architectural styles as being “postmodern.” It is difficult to define,
though it refers to a pluralism of perspectives. Here’s how Sire defines it in The
Universe Next Door:
No longer is there a single story, a meta-narrative (in our terms a worldview),
that holds Western culture together. It is not just that there have long been many
stories, each of which gives its binding power to the social group that takes it as
its own. The naturalists have their story, the pantheists theirs, the Christians
theirs, ad infinitum. With postmodernism no story can have any more credibility
than any other. All stories are equally valid, being so validated by the
community that lives by them. - James W. Sire. The Universe Next Door: A
Basic Worldview Catalog
There’s a simple, everyday phrase that youth (and others) often use today which
reveals how imbedded our postmodern mindset has become: People used to say,
when expressing an opinion or belief (conviction?), “I think that it’s cold enough to
snow today.” Today, young people say, “I feel like it’s cold enough to rain.” Even
when expressing an opinion that might otherwise appear to be a moral or ethical
conviction, they will say, “I feel like that’s wrong” or “I feel like you’re being
racist.” I believe that’s a very postmodern way of thinking . . . or is it feeling?
Hmm.
Postmodernism:
* There are no meta-narratives; no Big Story that explains all other stories.
(Logically, if there are not meta-narratives, then Postmodernism can’t be the
Big Story either.)
* Truth is relative, based on our own experiences and personal stories (I feel
like . . . ). If it “works” it’s true.
* Stories create communities that stick together and have unity.
* Key idea: All stories mask their own play for power in society. “Knowledge is
power” (Francis Bacon). Every story is an attempt to spin events to gain
power for your way of seeing things. So any story, except your own, is
oppressive.
* Therefore, ethics, like knowledge, is only a linguistic construct; a grab for
power. Social good is whatever society decides it is.
* Truth is replaced by Tolerance. Since there is no Truth, or source of ultimate
Truth, the highest good is for any and all truths to be tolerated. By tolerating
everything, no one meta-narrative can gain power.
* Foundation for postmodernism lies in Naturalism; the belief that matter exists
eternally, God does not.
Here’s an observation that is my own, although I’m sure others have
considered it as well:
The rise of social media and technology accelerates and strengthens the power
of postmodernism. Is it any wonder that individual stories are so powerful when,
through media, everyone can tell their own story in movies, songs, blogs, tweets,
and posts? Personal computers, smart phones, tablets and social media such as
blogs, Facebook, Youtube all give the individual the ability to constantly “tell their
story.” The individual no longer waits for a newspaper article to come out that
reflects their views - they write it on their Facebook wall or blog for all to see. We
no longer have to wait for a documentary to come out that advocates a cause we
feel passionately about - we film a movie on our smartphone and upload it to
Youtube! And we can narrate to the world not just what we put on our toast for
breakfast, but our take on everything that happens in the world. Constantly.
Instantly. Postmodernism on steroids.
When we consider the nature of postmodernism and how it’s supercharged by
technology, we can easily understand why today’s society is constantly morphing.
Values and social institutions that were constants for generations are now framed as
restrictive of human freedom and as dying meta-narratives which are losing their
grip on society. Since the idea of a cohesive Big Story that makes sense of the
world is rejected by postmodernism, Tolerance trumps truth. No longer is there an
objective source of ethical or moral good.
Conclusion
We all like to think that we hold our views based on our own well-thought out
and rational perspectives (that developed in a vacuum). Yet our world view is
formed by many factors. Our current world views have been influenced by those
who lived hundreds and thousands of years before us. World views, from the time
of the middle ages, have followed a very logical path that has lead us to where we
are today.
Looking back, it strikes me that, historically, people have repeatedly turned
away from Christianity, not due to competing world views, but because Christians
have failed to faithfully live out our own Meta-Narrative: The Gospel.
Over and over, Christians have abandoned our own world view, and failed to
represent the Big Story of the Gospel in biblically faithful ways. This is what
Jeremiah warned of as well. We’ve allowed our own faith to be co-opted by
movements and lesser world views. It’s not that we’ve lost, or are losing, a
“culture war” - that’s another lesser world view in itself these days. Instead, we’ve
simply failed to live faithfully.
May these words guide us in living in a broken and lost world:
Watch out for people who try to dazzle you with big words and intellectual
double-talk. They want to drag you off into endless arguments that never amount
to anything. They spread their ideas through the empty traditions of human
beings and the empty superstitions of spirit beings.
But that’s not the way of Christ. Everything of God gets expressed in him, so you
can see and hear him clearly. You don’t need a telescope, a microscope, or a
horoscope to realize the fullness of Christ, and the emptiness of the universe
without him. When you come to him, that fullness comes together for you, too.
His power extends over everything. Colossians 2:8-10 (The Message)
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For Further Reading:
The Universe Next Door (A Basic Worldview Catalog) 5th Edition, by James Sire
Why You Think The Way You Do (The Story of Western Worldviews from Rome to Home),
by Glenn Sunshine
Portals: Entering Your Neighbors World, by Glenn Sunshine
Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church,
by Kenda Creasy Dean