Worldview Thinking

Hello everyone, I know its been a while since I have posted anything, but hopefully I will be able to share some good things with you all. This post is about Worldviews.

What is a worldview? 

To put it simply, a worldview is a person's philosophy of life. It is how they view the world and come to make decisions regarding what they believe about life, death, morality, knowledge, and a variety of other philosophical topics. Whether you are a church laymen, or just a casual philosopher, it is very important that you understand the various worldviews that many people have. Why? Well, because by understanding the system that a person interprets the world through, you can better be prepared to debate, or talk, to that person.

Worldview Thinking


Believer it or not, everybody has a worldview. You, the reader, have a worldview, as do I, the writer. Our worldviews affect the way we think about life. Let me ask you a question. Have you ever debated an issue with somebody and found that you both had very different ideas on the subject? A great example of this is abortion. Lets say that you have an atheist and a christian arguing about abortion. Both sides might appeal to different scientific evidences to support their sides, but both sides may also appeal to other things. For example, the atheist, who does not believe in God, may be pro choice since they do not believe that humans are made in God's image, and therefore do no believe that we have an obligation to God to preserve the life of a child (this is not necessarily why an atheist would be pro choice, but it is a possible reason). On the other hand, the Christian, who believes that everyone is made in God's image, may be pro life because they believe that human life is sacred (since we are made in God's image). See the conflict of ideas? Take note of how both sides have different assumptions that affect the answer they give to the question of whether or not abortion is right or wrong. These assumptions, in a way, make up part of their different worldviews.

How We Come to Have a Worldview

There can be a variety of reasons why we come to have the worldview that we do. Personal experience and logical reasoning are two of the big reasons. Everything from the environment we grow up in, to our personality type can play a role. However, it is important to note that the decision to call yourself the member of a particular worldview (i.e. a Christian, an Atheist, an Existentialist, etc.) is a very big decision. Make sure that you, now being informed through this blog, take the time to really consider your beliefs. You don't simply have to believe what you were told growing up. Rather, take your worldview seriously, think it through, and make it personal. After all, it is the way you view the world. Make sure your glasses aren't cracked.

In Closing


Hopefully you can see the importance of understanding different worldviews. I will be posting some more blogs that go into more detail about different worldivews. I also would like to point out that the example above is simply an example using possible reasons that could arrived at by people holding those two worldviews. That being said, not every atheist is pro choice, and not every christian is necessarily pro life.

God bless and Jesus loves you!

- Jon

Understanding the Ontological Argument (Part 2): God's Attributes

In the last blog, I went over the argument in some detail, explaining how it works, and why it ultimately fails to prove its point. However, we must bear in mind that the Ontological argument has a unique purpose. It is basically meant to be a master argument, by which several other arguments about God can be proven. So, instead of needing to have several arguments that aim to define the nature of God, we can use one argument to prove all that needs to be proven (or at least thats the idea). The reason that this is able to work is because of Anselm's definition of God as "that than which nothing greater can be thought." If God is truly the greatest thing that can be thought, then God will always be that which it is greater to be. For how can "that than which nothing greater can be thought" ever be in any way the lesser of two things? If God is God, according to Anselm's defintion, He must always be whatever it is better to be. Does this mean that God is conditional? That is to say, that in any given situation He chooses to be what it is better to be given the current circumstances? No, what this actually means is that God is, eternally, that which it is better to be. An example of this can be found in the idea of the doctrine of immutability, which states that God cannot undergo any kind of "real or intrinsic change in any respect." (thanks to http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/immutability/ for the definition). If Anselm's definition and argument are to be true regarding God's nature, then God must be immutable, rather than changing. The reason for this is as follows.

1. God is a perfect and eternal being.
2. If God is able to change, then He cannot be perfect. Since a perfect entity cannot undergo any sort of change (for if God were able to become greater than He already is, He would not be perfect. Likewise, if He were able to become worse, He would not be perfect.)
3. Also, if God were able to undergo change, this would seem to undermine His eternal existence. Since change requires time (this means that if God were able to change, He would have to be affected by time).
4. Therefore, if God is both perfect and eternal, He must be immutable.

Hopefully you can sort of see how Anselm's argument works. It allows us to, based on Anselm's defintion of God, prove several things about God that could otherwise require several different arguments and many different scripture references.

Whether or not you agree with Anselm's argument in this context or not, I think it can be safely said that this is, at the very least, an interesting argument.

-God bless and Jesus loves you!!