School of Suffering

Do you have a Christian World view that sustains and comforts you in those dark hours of suffering? Here are some of the ingredients you to can come to know and possess to give you a mindset that’s in God centred and inline with His Gospel.

Getting started:

The term ‘worldview’ may not be immediately recognisable to you, so you need to start with the idea, which will be most recognisable.

“The ultimate questions of life lie deep within the heart of everyone. Who am I? Where am I going? What's it all about? Is there a god? How can I live and die happily? And everyone answers such questions, if only partially or implicitly. The answer you give to these queries about the human condition may be called your worldview or vision of life.”

James H. Olthius, On Worldviews

“What you regard as real, true, good and beautiful shapes the world around us. Our life decisions, priorities, relationships, values and goals are determined by our worldview.”

Peter Heslam Wanted: A Contemporary Christian Worldview

1. HOW MIGHT YOU DEFINE ‘WORLDVIEW’?

A worldview is a set of assumptions which you hold about the basic makeup of our world. These assumptions (or bias) influence how you look at our world (things and relationships) and what you see or expect to see. Our assumptions or bias may be true, partially true or entirely false, and may be held consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently.

James Sire The Universe Next Door

2. WHO HAS A WORLDVIEW?

Everyone has a worldview, even though they may not be aware of it or be able to articulate it logically, because it is necessary if you are to think about or evaluate anything.

Worldviews cannot be dismissed as the plaything of academic. They are not just ‘intellectual ideas’ but have intensely practical consequences, determining how you live and act in both the ‘big’ and ‘little’ aspects of everyday life. In fact, they are an essential ingredient in the life of every person and in every society because they give context, meaning and purpose to our lives individually and as a society.

3. HOW DO YOU ‘MEET’ DIFFERENT WORLDVIEWS IN EVERYDAY LIFE?

As you observe and think about events and relationships on a daily basis, you express our own worldview. As you speak to others you intersect with their worldview.

Exercise: Explain the following

[1] The occurrence of rain and drought.

[2] Why that child was severely maimed in that car accident.

[3] The evil you see reported in the news daily.

[4] Why culling Kangaroos is different from Hitler ‘culling’ the Jews

Two people might observe the same event in the physical world or in relationships between people, but explain it in entirely different ways. Their explanation will, in large part, reflect their worldview.

4. WHAT ARE THE ‘BASIC BELIEFS’ THAT FORM A WORLDVIEW?

1. What is really real? [God, the gods, the physical cosmos]
2. What is the nature of the world around us? [Created or autonomous; chaotic or orderly; matter or spirit; do you have subjective personal relationship to the world or is it objectively apart from us]
3. What is a person? [A complex machine, a sleeping god; just another animal; made in the image of God]
4. What happens to a person at death? [ Extinction; reincarnation; a shadowy ‘existence’ somewhere else; transformation to a higher state]
5. Is it possible to know anything with certainty? [How do you know what you know; Is truth relative; What is the standard of truth; Can you know certainly about God; Does God make known things to his world]
6. How do you know what is right and wrong? [is this a personal choice based on feeling; is it a cultural imposition; is there an absolute ethic to which every person should conform]
7. What is the meaning of human history? [is it heading somewhere specific; is it cyclical or circular; is it God’s story; what are the implications of all the above in terms of governance; how should society be formed and ordered and controlled]

EXERCISE:

Identify the worldviews contained in the following three poems. How does each writer view life and his experience of it?

“Behold, you know not anything;

I can but trust that good shall fall

At last – far off – at last, to all

And every winter change to spring.

So runs my dream, but what am I?

An infant crying in the night;

An infant crying for light;

And with no language but a cry.”

Alfred Lord Tennyson, In Memoriam, 1850, poem 54 (Written after the death of a close friend)

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Psalm 8

1 O LORD, our Lord,
how majestic is your name in all the earth!
You have set your glory
above the heavens.

2 From the lips of children and infants
you have ordained praise]
because of your enemies,
to silence the foe and the avenger.

3 When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,

4 what is man that you are mindful of him,
the son of man that you care for him?

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A man said to the universe:

“Sir, I exist.”

“However,” replied the universe,

“The fact has not created in me

A sense of obligation.”

Stephen Crane, from War is kind and other lines, 1899

A worldview is built according to how you answer the ultimate questions of life. Many questions may be built into give a more and more complex worldview, but you started with the four questions basic to any and every worldview.

1. Is there a God? Are there many gods?
2. Is there a spiritual side to life or does the universe consist of only what I can see, hear, taste, touch and smell?
3. Where did everything come from? Why is everything here?
4. Is history going somewhere or does it just go around in circles?

2. Who am I?

1. Is there purpose in living? What is the purpose of living?
   What is ‘basic human nature’?

3. What’s wrong in this world?

1. Why is life more painful than it is pleasurable?

4. What’s the remedy?

1. How do I have a happy and fulfilled life?
2. How do I cope when life becomes unbearable?
3. What’s going to happen when I die? Does heaven exist? Does Hell exist?
4. How can I know what’s true and false?

Every person who lives and thinks at any level has a worldview, a set of assumptions which they hold about the basic makeup of our world. It may be true or not true or partially true. They may be aware of their worldview or they may not realize it drives their daily living.

Most likely, in large part, it was originally inherited and has become their ‘faith’ because they believe it gives the true picture of reality. It explains the universe and our existence in it. It explains history as a whole and our life history in particular. It explains the cause of problems in our world and reveals the way to salvation and healing.

But for most people, their worldview is not static. It is consistently being examined and refined as you interact with other people and as you respond to life experiences, in order to make our worldview actually work in our daily living. Whatever worldview you have, it will always be seen in what you do and say.

Towards a Biblical World View

Several Bible passages used to formulate a basic Christian worldview (a Christian response to the four basic questions of life).

Colossians 2:8 clearly states there are two broad ‘philosophies’ or ‘worldviews’ – Christian (centered on Christ) and non-Christian (centered on ourselves as the point of reference).

Towards a Christian World View

You will consider how this works out in our world today in terms of the four major worldview categories. This will help us see how you need to refine our Christian worldview, and also help us see the similarities and differences so that you may be more confident in our Christian worldview.

To think about:

1. Why, as Christians, do you need to be precise and detailed in our worldview statements? For example: It is not enough to say “You believe in God”.

2. What is the dominant worldview in your country? Why has the traditional Christian worldview largely been rejected?

3. How does each worldview category ‘stack up’? That is, how does each explain reality (relationships and life experiences individually and at a ‘global village’ level?

4. Examine the “World View” of John Calvin. Why is it so profound and what attitude does it reflect? Put it into your own words.

“Our wisdom, in so far as it ought to be deemed true and solid Wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves. But as these are connected together by many ties, it is not easy to determine which of the two precedes and gives birth to the other. For, in the first place, no man can survey himself without forthwith turning his thoughts towards the God in whom he lives and moves; because it is perfectly obvious, that the endowments which you possess cannot possibly be from ourselves; nay, that our very being is nothing else than subsistence in God alone.

In the second place, those blessings which unceasingly distil to us from heaven are like streams conducting us to the fountain. Here, again, the infinitude of good which resides in God becomes more apparent from our poverty. In particular, the miserable ruin into which the revolt of the first man has plunged us, compels us to turn our eyes upwards; not only that while hungry and famishing you may thence ask what you want, but being aroused by fear may learn humility.

For as there exists in man something like a world of misery, and ever since you you’re strip of the divine attire our naked shame discloses an immense series of disgraceful properties every man, being stung by the consciousness of his own unhappiness, in this way necessarily obtains at least some knowledge of God. Thus, our feeling of ignorance, vanity, want, weakness, in short, depravity and corruption, reminds us (see Calvin on John 4:10), that in the Lord, and none but He, does the true light of wisdom, solid virtue, exuberant goodness. You are accordingly urged by our own evil things to consider the good things of God; and, indeed, you cannot aspire to Him in earnest until you have begun to be displeased with ourselves. For what man is not disposed to rest in himself? Who, in fact, does not thus rest, as long as he is unknown to himself; that is, as long as he is contented with his own endowments, and unconscious or unmindful of his misery? Every person, therefore, on coming to the knowledge of himself, is not only urged to seek God, but is also led as by the hand to find him.” John Calvin