christian worldview essay pdf

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

A Christian Worldview - study manual

This paper is a collection of study guides on the structure and content of a Christian worldview, and explores how this should be operative in Christian life today.

Related Papers

Journal of Adult Theological Education

Paul Ethington

A worldview may be described as “the big picture,” or more accurately as “that set of presuppositions that one brings to bear upon all his perceptions.” We are best defined by what we do, not what we say and think. But, in truth, our worldview sets the direction for our life. It determines the path we follow and the goals we seek. It guides us in deciding how to live our lives. We want our worldview to be internally consistent, reasonable and pragmatic. Most of all we want to know its authority. On what is it based? If you are a Christian, you need to know that it is based on God’s Word. We each need to know that we have a thoroughly Christian worldview.” Since Christianity is a distinctly historical faith, I have attempted through a short history of “the philosophy of history” to show that distinction. If our worldview is merely cultural reflection, we will be inevitably confused. We will become subject to secular humanism and cultural captivity. From this the Christian needs to be set free. While we think we would be able to study world religions and just choose the best one, in reality, each religion is largely dissimilar to the others. This book will show that Christianity, if it be a religion at all, is unique from them all. And, it is so distinctly incompatible with other cultural or religious worldviews that we cannot successfully live in both the conviction of our Christian faith and in the persuasion of the world around us. Hopefully, this book will make clear the uniquely Christian worldview.

Religious Studies Review

Leslie Wickman

Thomas E . Jones

Geoff Gertzen

Knud Jørgensen

The Christianity of the future will be manifold and diverse, just as there will be a multiplicity of many world views (living faiths). This double plurality is the everyday life of religious encounter. It is therefore essential for us to understand the world of religious plurality. It is essential to struggle with a Christian theology of religion that may help us to meet the religious other. And it is essential to tackle what we mean when witnessing to Christ as the unique Lord and Saviour.

Celine Benoit

Jeremy G . A . Ive

Work in progress

Stephen king King

Christianity: Beliefs and teachings ■ The nature of God 'What is God like?' When Christians talk and write about the nature of God they are essentially trying to answer this question. Christians believe there is only one God, this belief in one God is known as monotheism, so Christianity is a monotheistic religion. Christians use a variety of words to describe the nature of God. ▶ omnipotent (all powerful) ▶ omnipresent (everywhere) ▶ omniscient (all knowing) ▶ omnibenevolent (all loving) ▶ transcendent (outside of this world). Christians also believe that God is timeless and eternal. All of these ideas are found in the Christian Bible, which is made up of the Old and New Testaments believed to be part of God's revelation to humanity. God is the creator and the giver of all life: 'In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.' Genesis 1:1 All Christians believe that God created everything and is still involved with the world in a mysterious way. In the Genesis text God is clearly seen as the creator of the universe and all that it contains. Humankind is made in a special way in the image of God. 'Then God said, "Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness. . .' Genesis 1:26 This spiritual likeness enables all human beings to have some understanding of God's nature. Christians believe all we know about God is through God showing or revealing himself to people and this process is known as 'revelation'.

Inkedhubwriters

Dr James Mwita

This book sheds light while giving an excellent grounding in an overall knowledge and understanding the bibilical concepts based on relevant model adopted to understand Christian ethics has the Biblical worldview at its core. It dictates all the levels in the model. The biblical worldview represents the foundational assumption of Christian ethics. The biblical worldview has practical and ethical consequences across the life spectrum, including defining the principles, truths, and beliefs we value, affecting the rules we live by and discerning between good and evil and therefore morality, and impacting the decisions we make and actions we take, thus determining all the aspects of the model. This course is packed with interesting facts about the bible and yet it is founded deeply on scholarly perspective.

RELATED PAPERS

ARMINDA MARGARITA GIBAJA OVIEDO

Gerardo Acosta

Financial Fairplay im Profifußball

Ludwig Hierl

Mitra Boiler

4th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON DIGITAL ARTS, Porto, Portugal, 7-8 Novembro, 2008. In Artech 2008 Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Digital Arts. Ed. Álvaro Barbosa: 2008. ISBN 978-989-95776-3-3. p. 266-269

Artificial Intelligence for Engineering Design, Analysis and Manufacturing

Indian Pediatrics

Nandini Mundkur

Baiyun Gong

The Journal of Spinal Cord Medicine

Amgad Hanna

The Journal of Academic Social Science Studies

Mehmet Ali Çalgan

Actualidades Biológicas

Tito Machado

Child & Family Social Work

Ioanna-Maria Gertsou

The Journal of Chemical Physics

Carlos Vega

Revista Cubana De Obstetricia Y Ginecologia

Mirtha Valdés

Cuadernos de Turismo

Luis Alberto Ceruto Santander

Jurnal Ilmiah Administrasi Publik

Endah Setyowati

Wilson Furtado Roberto

Fitopatologia Brasileira

Daniel Terao

IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing

Vijay Madisetti

Anais do V Simpósio de Bioquímica e Biotecnologia

Nehemias Pereira

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

Romina Herrera

Frontiers in Microbiology

Franck Chauvat

Preventive Veterinary Medicine

Advanced Interaction in Cultural Heritage

Areti Damala

Disability and Rehabilitation

Carlee Holmes

See More Documents Like This

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

How to Develop and Maintain a Christian Worldview

The poison of subjectivism - thoughts on an essay by c.s. lewis.

Click here to open a Print - Friendly PDF

For me, and I suspect for many people, the writings of C.S. Lewis have become an important supplement in my daily walk with God. Lewis himself knew the importance of reading God’s Word daily and spending time in prayer and reflection. These are hallmarks of the mature believer.

Followers of Christ also need to be equipped to navigate and live out their faith in a culture that is increasingly secularized. Many have argued that we are living in a post-Christian era. It is critical, therefore, to develop and maintain a Christian worldview where, with the help of the Holy Spirit, believers put every thought through the independent filter of our Christian faith.

My favorite Lewis piece is the essay, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” which can readily be found in Christian Reflections . I’ve read and reread it dozens of times, and it has done more to shape my worldview than anything else save God’s Word. Though published almost seventy years ago, here Lewis warns us of the “apparently innocent idea... that will certainly end our species (and, in my view, damn our souls) if it is not crushed; that fatal supposition that men can create values, that a community can choose its ‘ideology’ as men choose their clothes.” 1

Today we’ve been told by professional moralists like Dr. Phil and Oprah that we can look within ourselves to find the values necessary to make the right decisions. Good, or God, can be found within each person based on his or her own individual feelings or preferences. But by reading “The Poison of Subjectivism,” believers can understand the fallacy of this thinking and lay a foundation for a solid Christian worldview.

Prophetically, Lewis begins by warning us to beware of those who want to overthrow “traditional judgment of value” in the hope of finding something more “real or solid on which to base a new scheme of values.” 2  Just in the past twenty years there have been seismic shifts within society at large on issues such as marriage, sexuality, and the role of government. Shifts are not limited to secular society; churches and denominations struggle with doctrinal purity while fighting off the influences of relativism, individualism, and pluralism.

Lewis further warns that we can be conditioned to approve what reformers want society to believe is “good.” This can be done through “psychological manipulation of infants, state education and mass propaganda.” 3  Today we can see this happening by the almost irresistible forces of technology, both visual and audible. According to a recent study cited in  Charisma  magazine, the average seventeen-year-old has spent 63,835 hours either watching movies, videos, and television programs or playing video games, compared to only two thousand hours spent with parents.

The average person sees three thousand advertisements a day! With so many forces trying to shape and mold our minds and appeal to our senses, it is critical that believers have a Christian worldview. Lewis says in  The Abolition of Man  that “without the aid of trained emotions the intellect is powerless against the animal organism.” 4  Reading God’s Word daily, personal prayer time, and interaction and accountability with and from other mature believers is the best way to train our emotions and develop and maintain a Christian worldview.

Those who push back against subjectivism are told that progress is not possible if we maintain a permanent moral standard. To continue with “an immutable moral code is to cut off all progress and acquiesce in ‘stagnation.’” 5  As the shadows grow longer over our world, objective observers can see that society is always seeking to remove the nearest restraint, in the name of fairness, freedom, or individual liberty. Once a barrier has been eradicated, the collective forces of popular culture seem to set their sights on the next barrier.

Lewis, however, reminds us that “except on the supposition of a changeless standard, progress is impossible.” 6  Or, as he says, if the train station is as mobile as the train, how can the train make any progress toward it? This is why a Christian worldview is critical; it is our train station, our independent, immutable measuring stick, without which we can do no measuring.

Where can believers and society at large go to find that changeless, immutable standard on which to base worldview? This question has already been asked and answered. Two thousand years ago, Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?” (John 18:38).

It is a question many are still asking today, including many who claim to believe in and follow Jesus yet live in a way that seems diametrically opposed to what He teaches. Fortunately Jesus has told us what truth is. In John 14:6 He says, “I am the way and the truth and the life.” In the introduction to the Gospel of John we are told that “truth came through Jesus Christ” (1:17 (NIV)). Jesus is who we are to base our worldview on.

But what does this mean specifically? If society and culture are anchored to a permanent moral standard, isn’t progress impossible? Perhaps the most important lesson from “The Poison of Subjectivism” is that “real moral advances . . . are made from within  the existing moral tradition.” 7

Once we understand that Jesus is our standard, our mission is to ensure that our thoughts, views, and beliefs (our worldview) come nearer and nearer to him. This is real progress. It involves more than asking, “What would Jesus do?” It means going deeper by putting on Christ (Gal. 3:27) and letting Him live within and through us (Gal. 2:20) with the help of the Holy Spirit on a moment-by-moment basis.

“The Poison of Subjectivism” is both a challenge and a comfort. It is a challenge in that we are warned about the direction society and individuals will take when theoretical errors remove ordinary checks to evil. Readers will be amazed at Lewis’s foresight as he accurately peers into the future and diagnoses our current condition with laser-like precision.

And yet there is also comfort. We are reminded that “what lends divinity to all else, what is the ground of all existence, is not simply a law but also a begetting love, a love begotten . . .” 8  It is here that we find the Source and maintenance of our worldview.

Notes: 1. C.S. Lewis, “The Poison of Subjectivism,” in  Christian Reflections , ed. Walter Hooper, (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1995), 73. 2. Ibid., 74. 3. Ibid., 81. 4. C.S. Lewis,  The Abolition of Man  (New York: Touchstone Books, 1996), 36. 5. “The Poison of Subjectivism”, p. 76. 6. Ibid., 76. 7. Ibid., 77. 8. Ibid., 80.

Joseph A. Kohm

Joseph A. Kohm, C.S. Lewis Institute Vice President for Development and City Director for Virginia Beach. Joe is an attorney and formerly worked as a Certified Major League Baseball Player Agent. He earned his Master’s in Management Science from the State University of New York at Oswego and both his J.D. and M.Div. from Regent University. Joe is the author of The Unknown Garden of Another’s Heart: The Surprising Friendship between C.S. Lewis and Arthur Greeves (Wipf and Stock, 2022.)

Recent Podcasts

The Side B Stories – Al Gascon Story

Former atheist Al Gascon rejected God in light... Read More

• Questions That Matter Podcast – Aaron Welty and The Heroics of Weakness by Aaron Welty, Randy Newman on March 22, 2024
• James Houston on Prayer and Spiritual Friendship by James M. Houston on March 22, 2024

Recent Publications

Isn’t Morality Relative?

It is widely accepted in the Western world... Read More

• Do Muslims and Christians Worship the Same God? by Andy Bannister on March 1, 2024
• Artificial Intelligence and Its Impacts on Humanity by John Lennox on February 13, 2024

GLOBAL EVENT: The Adventures of Eustace Clarence Scrubb (CSLI-Atlanta & CSLI-Chicago) 7:30PM ET/ 6:30PM CT

Experience a transformed life.

• Knowing and Doing
• Knowing & Doing 2012 Winter

Team Members

Contact Event Manager

Print your tickets.

April 3, 2024

Starts 9:13 pm

Connection denied by Geolocation Setting.

Reason: Blocked country: Russia

The connection was denied because this country is blocked in the Geolocation settings.

Please contact your administrator for assistance.