Worldview. What is it? What is yours?

[Timber Wolf]

How does your worldview affect what you believe? How does it affect your actions?

Our church is doing the FotF Truth Project.
http://www.thetruthproject.org/

This is the second time I'm taking it.

The first week's topics covered:

What is truth?

One of the questions posed was:

Why did Jesus come into the world.

The answer given was from Jn 18:37 - To testify to the truth.


The talk was closed with this question:

Do you really believe
that wha tyou believe
is really real?


So, worldview, what is it, what is yours, how does your worldview affect what you believe, how does it affect your actions?

[Cymrugirl]

My worldview is that all the world's a stage and we are merely players. Incidentally, some of the players get better lines than others.

This worldview's affects on me? I try to deliver my lines the best that I can, in hopes of getting better lines and snuggling up to the Director.

[ProfessorAlan]

Worldview (paradigm) is important, because it is very hard to change ... knowing where different people are "coming from" is critical in having productive communication with them. By "different" people, I don't necessarily mean believer vs. unbeliever, but among believers, the different backgrounds we have, the ways we've been taught, our histories with people of other groups/worldviews/paradigms ... it all gets mixed up into the melange of who we are as individuals.
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My paradigm/worldview (as of this date and time):

If I could truly understand God, He wouldn't be much of a god.

My paradigm is that what we get on this side of the veil is merely a glimpse of the Kingdom, little tastes of eternity, snippets of truth in a voice both still and small. I assume The Godhead is very, very complex, and despite having Spirit and Word, and the example of Son, and the best we can to do in terms of understanding Him is in a glass darkly. Any "truth" that is presented to me as too cut and dry, or too simplistic, I do not believe is true.

I believe that God's truth is full of what to our eyes and minds seem contradictions, but in the complexity of His being are not. A few of these we see here: 100% man and 100% human, a triune God, a religion that is simultaneously completely individualistic yet also completely communal ...... and on and on and on. I revel in how little I understand, yet how He blesses me when I think I've gotten a handle on one tiny little bit of His truth, His essence.

If I could truly understand God, He wouldn't be much of a god.

[Ransom v. Unman]

I'm a premodernist, and I happily look forward to our semi-post-apocalyptic windswept future where we will return to an agrarian economy and defend our small plots of civilisation from roving bandits.

Hopefully we'll get some good opportunities for evangelism in there somewhere, too.

[kshsj777]

Timberwolf, does FotF refer to Fundementals of the Faith?

If it does, I've been through that book and it's a really good introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity.

[Tamera]

I have determined what my world view according to Biblical truths is a couple times in my lifetime. Each time God would come in and mess me all up. I agree with Professor Alan. If I can understand God, He isn't really God.

[ProfessorAlan]

I have determined what my world view according to Biblical truths is a couple times in my lifetime. Each time God would come in and mess me all up.
Been there -- done that.

Once, I even honestly, really believed I had figured most of the big doctrines out ... :rolleyes:

Maturity is a wonderful thing.

[Ransom v. Unman]

Been there -- done that.

Once, I even honestly, really believed I had figured most of the big doctrines out ... :rolleyes:

Maturity is a wonderful thing.

And you call yourself a Christian. Tsk, tsk. :p

[kshsj777]

Well you CAN figure out the major doctrines. You probably won't understand all of them completely, but understanding and knowing are two different things.

You can know and believe that God is triune without understanding it, that Jesus is fully God and fully Man without understanding it etc.

There are plenty of things in the Bible that are PERFECTLY clear and we can know a lot of things for sure.

[Tamera]

That may be true. But knowing a doctrine and knowing how it affects every area of your life is two different things. Just like knowing about God and knowing God are different and affect our lives differently. When I think I know God, He shows more of Himself to me and lets me know I don't really know Him at all yet. Ah, but I'm willing to spend a lifetime trying.

[ProfessorAlan]

Oh, I understood totally how the will of God worked, what prayer was exactly, the role of the the early church, spiritual gifts.

I was just totally wrong.

And as certain as I am now of what I believe, I now am wise enough to know that I am still totally wrong. Well not so much wrong, it's just that I recognize that my knowledge is just so incomplete (I know this because of my life verse, "my ways are not your ways, and my thoughts are not your thoughts ... ) as to be for all practical purposes wrong.

And with Tamera, I revel in spending a lifetime trying to understand Him ... know that I never can. But now I know that's a good thing.

[Timber Wolf]

Timberwolf, does FotF refer to Fundementals of the Faith?

If it does, I've been through that book and it's a really good introduction to the basic doctrines of Christianity.

Sorry, Focus on the Family - thought I posted the link. Have to go check.

[kshsj777]

Oh Okay. Well Fundementals of the Faith would be a good book for Christians to go through.

I didn't click on the link... sorry.

[Derby]

As Temera said, I think 'knowing God' is the key, the glory of our Faith.

If a person is as 'sad' as Eleanor Rigby, of whom someone said 'her only friend was Jesus', then that person has everything needful; and if she went on to understand something of God and something of doctrines, she wouldn't have much more.

[kshsj777]

I think of wordview as the glasses that we wear. We interpert everything we observe through the glasses our of our worldview.

Our world is the same, but the reason people believe so many different things, is because of how they chose to interpret everything.

[ProfessorAlan]

I think of wordview as the glasses that we wear.
Yup, that's what pardigm means: the way we interpret/filter what we see.

Or as Bruce Cockburn put it:
"Little round planet In a big universe
Sometimes it looks blessed
Sometimes it looks cursed
Depends on what you look at, obviously
But even more it depends on the way that you see "

Your worldview is, in Cockburn's words, "the way that you see."

And, of course, that varies widely from person to person.

[Derby]

There seems to be confusion over how 'narrow' a paradigm is.

Is a paradigm a model, where a certain range of worldviews, but not all, fit that model?
Do we have to allocate worldviews to one of a number of different paradigms?
If so, perhaps each of these paradigms could be equated with a different pair of spectacles that kshsj777 mentions:

"We interpert everything we observe through the glasses of our worldview."

[ProfessorAlan]

Yes, I think this is right. The worldview is the "big picture" way we see things, while a paradigm is better defined as what we think about a particular issue, which then effects how we interpret and view events.

We each have paradigms about a range of issues, from politics to theology to relationships, etc ...

[eddif]

My world view: That a spiritual God created a physical universe and used it as a teaching opportunity. Sometimes I am looking with a microscope and should back off and look from space so as to see the overall picture . Sometimes I am looking from a distance and miss some of the parts the thing has. Sometimes I have an ancient of times viewpoint. Sometimes I am looking for a new age. At all times I hope the Holy Spirit will hand me my needed new trifocals. Let me see clearly (that I might walk in Love). For often I hear with the ear and await seeing God.

I guess I am a lot like Fred. I have a whole drawer full of glasses, and I try pairs on till I see what I perceive as the truth. Every once in a while someone suggests I try their glasses. More often than that, I try and share my glasses with others. Thank God the eyes of our understanding can improve. Truth is there to be found.

Belton

[Xenia]

I think that we (the world) are hynotized and traumatized from the consequences of the fall.

After working with the public for many years I have come to the conclusion that it is a miracle that the world runs along as smoothly as it does... Proof of a merciful God who sustains us!

I know that I know nothing except that I need to keep my guide book (Holy Bible) handy and do my best to follow two commandments...

Love the Lord my God with all my heart, soul and mind AND my neighbor as myself! It's very simple even though I constantly try to make it more complicated :)

With everyone I want to point to Jesus somehow and give Grace and Mercy, Grace and Mercy, Grace and Mercy... people are starving for it.. they are like the living dead. I can't imagine how it breaks the Father's heart.