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Can't Have One Without the Other: The Necessity of Worldview Analysis in Apologetics

What's the Difference?

Because I work for a worldview ministry, it is not uncommon for college students to ask, "Does that mean you do apologetics?"

My answer, of course, is the notorious non-answer: "Well, yes and no."

It is this specific confusion that I hope to address in this article. What I'd like to do is first look at what apologetics is and then relate it to what we will call worldview analysis Then we'll see what the relationship between the two should look like.

Thank God for Apologetics

Apologetics, put simply, is the art of defending the Christian faith¹ — a tradition that goes all the way back to the early church, the apostles, and even Christ Himself.²

When employed, apologetics can strengthen the faith of Christians as well as defend and promote Christianity at large. One useful way to divide apologetics is into two basic forms: negative apologetics and positive apologetics. Ronald Nash described the difference:

In negative apologetics, the major objective is producing answers to challenges to religious faith. The proper task of negative apologetics is removing obstacles to belief. … In negative apologetics, the apologist is playing defense. In positive apologetics, the apologist begins to play offense. It is one thing to show (or attempt to show) that assorted arguments against religious faith are weak or unsound; it is a rather different task to offer people reasons why they should believe. The latter is the task of positive apologetics.³

Before a Christian can successfully engage in the art of apologetics, however, he or she must first have an understanding of the concept of worldviews analysis.

The Difference a Worldview Makes

Because the term worldview has been defined elsewhere on this site,⁴ I will simply add that it is the grid through which human beings filter, interpret, and then interact with the world around them. Working from this definition, everyone necessarily has a worldview since all of us interact with our environment based upon a paradigm through which we interpret. Let's look at one example.

Consider Democritus, a prominent pre-Socratic philosopher (fifth century B.C.).⁵ Democritus saw the world as a complex composition comprised solely of atoms and the space between atoms.⁶ Democritus, therefore, filtered the world according to an atomistic worldview. His core beliefs were that atoms were all that there was, that atoms were eternal (i.e., having neither been created nor capable of being destroyed). He believed that atoms' chance combinations could explain the existence of such things as horses, spears, and even pre-Socratic philosophers. In other words, every existing thing differed only in the composition of its atoms. Democritus thus interpreted the events of the world through this atomistic framework, believing that all of reality was the result of naturalistic and mechanistic occurrences. And since the universe is essentially naturalistic, he believed it must also be devoid of any providential purpose or design or, for that matter, anything supernatural like the gods.

In the end, Democritus believed human actions to be merely mechanical, much like the operations of a machine. Therefore, human beings responded to stimuli as input and operated much like a computer, lacking any real choice or free will.

Using Democritus' worldview as an example, it is easy to see how one's presuppositions form the basis of a worldview. In the end, one's worldview is capable of either revealing the world as it truly is or distorting and tinting our perspective of the actual world — ultimately misleading us as we walk through life (e.g. Democritus' naturalistic meta-narrative shaded his views on the nature of humanity, which led to a view that is utterly contrary to what we intuit about ourselves).

One helpful way to illustrate this is to think of a worldview as the parts of a tree: the roots (our beliefs), the branches (our subsequent attitudes to such beliefs), and the fruit (our actions). As a comparative example consider the worldview of a Christian:

• Roots (Beliefs): She bases her understanding of the world on the teachings of the Bible. Therefore, she believes that there is more to reality than just material atoms and that matter is not eternal but temporary, created, and ultimately designed to serve a purpose. Moreover, she believes in the existence of immaterial souls and a supernatural God that did the creating and designing of the universe. She concludes that humanity is unique in some way, existing for a purpose that is not its own.
• Branches (Attitudes): Because of these beliefs, you can find her at times on her knees praying to God, asking Him to guide her choices and intervene in her life. She reads her Bible, seeking to know God and His will for her, her fellow Christian community, and even global humanity.
• Fruit (Actions): Because of these attitudes, she lives in an effort to obey and ultimately please her Creator. She strives to live out love — forgiving her brothers, sisters, and even her enemies, correcting those in her community, caring for the poor and widowed, and sharing her hope with the lost.⁷

Worldviews and Apologetics

With these descriptions in mind, let's look at the relationship between the two. Whenever we come into meaningful contact with another human being, we are forced to deal with his or her worldview. Therefore, worldview analysis becomes paramount for doing negative and positive apologetics.

First, in order to share Christianity with others, a Christian must: (a) have a coherent and intelligible worldview, (b) have a consistent, biblically influenced worldview, and (c) be able to defend or refute arguments against the Christian worldview (negative apologetics).⁸

Second, in order to point out the flaws of non-Christian positions, we need to be familiar with alternate positions and their inherent inconsistencies.⁹ You see, most human beings desire to live within a worldview that corresponds to what they know to be true about the world; or put negatively, most human beings feel conflicted (even uncomfortable) when they hold contradictory presuppositions or presuppositions that do not line up with reality.¹⁰ For example, the logical conclusion of Democritus' naturalism is that life has no ultimate purpose; human beings are not free to choose; and that there is no universal foundation for ethical mandates, but few naturalists are willing (or even able) to live this way.

To illustrate this further, Dr. William Provine argued in his 1994 debate with Dr. Phillip Johnson that humans, being the purposeless products of natural process, possessed no freewill. Yet by merely debating the issue of evolution he demonstrated to the Stanford audience that he believed human beings were capable of freely changing their minds. And although this apparent discrepancy did not cause Dr. Provine to change his views, the inherent inconsistency allowed the audience to freely reject his naturalistic worldview.¹¹

This example provides us with a perfect picture of what apologetic engagement looks like when aided by worldview analysis. Schaeffer described this relationship acutely when he said,

The more logical a man who holds a non-Christian position is to his own presuppositions, the further he is from the real world; and the nearer he is to the real world, the more illogical he is to his presuppositions … When we have discovered, as well as we can, a person's point of tension, the next step is to push him towards the logical conclusion of his presuppositions.¹²

Thus, a skillful Christian apologist, aided by worldview analysis, can ask a skeptic questions about his or her worldview in order to discover and point out inconsistencies. For example, the Christian above could ask a naturalist (a modern-day Democritus) the following: "You believe that the world is composed merely of matter/energy, then of what substance is that belief? We cannot touch it or measure it, perhaps some things do exist which are not physical."

C O F F E E  S H O P

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Do you think it is important to understand other worldviews in order to effectively promote a Christian one?

Join the discussion!

At this point I doubt you will have added a Christian convert to the fold, or even settled the matter entirely, but if you can defend this position, then you will have at least opened the door of possibility for supernatural entities like beliefs, emotions, moral laws, and even God. And through further interaction, more probing questions, and a better understanding of a person's beliefs, hopefully you can move him or her farther from their own worldview and closer to the God of the Bible.