In a 1997 Veritas Forum message at Iowa State University, Ravi Zacharias spoke about the requirements of a coherent worldview. He said there are 4 questions a worldview must answer: the questions of origins, meanings, morality and destiny.
The question of origins deals with how life came about. The question of meanings deals with the question of why life came about. The question of morality deals with questions of what is right and wrong and how we know the difference. The question of destiny deals with the question of the ultimate destinations of life.
Everyone has a worldview, that is the lens through which you look at the world, be it Christian, Muslim or Buddhist, agnostic or atheist, materialist or secularist, or any paint-by-number combination of the above, whatever other standard of thought and belief that you comprehend the world by.
Everyone has a worldview. The question is, is your worldview coherent? Does it answer the above questions? If you chose to believe in a certain system, be it religious or non-religious, it must answer these questions in order to be relevant, and it must be relevant in order to be correct. You may have an answer to the question of destiny, but if you do not have an answer to the question of morality then your worldview has a hole in it; there is then something about the way you look at the world that doesn’t make sense, because you have not provided an answer for one of the basic questions of life.
What is your worldview? Is it coherent? And does it satisfactorily answer these questions in a way that makes sense and reflects reality? If not, it may be time to look for a new way to look at the world that is logical and realistic.
I have found this in the Christian worldview.
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May 30, 2007 at 6:12 pm |
[...] We don’t have all the answers A Coherent Worldview « Minds 2 Mentes [...]
May 30, 2007 at 7:43 pm |
Thanks for the comment (reply) on my post, “we don’t have all the answers.”
Now, are you trying to answer my question with another question? By asking “why does a worldview need to be coherent” I’m suggesting that it doesn’t have to be coherent in the manner you are suggesting. Why not a questioning worldview? I do not understand how you think having coherent answers that are logical makes them the correct answers. I would like a coherent answer to this question, because you are proposing that need a worldview that is coherent. I have coherently stated why I don’t think it makes a difference, and that a worldview that “answers” the four questions doesn’t really help, considering that you’re convincing yourself that the answers are actually correct. I am asking a question about a view, whilst the four questions are asking about things that are difficult, or impossible to answer! Sorry if I’m stating the obvious, but one can try and answer coherently about a view and have it be true since the “view” or “opinion” is true to the person stating it; but but coherency in a worldview is possible but it doesn’t mean it makes a difference to truth.
Perhaps we should be pursuing this conversation between the two of us, who’s views are quite different.