*(This is a first draft and therefore a work in progress.)

Worldview is an essential aspect being. By definition a worldview, if it is coherent in any sense of the word, dresses the fundamental questions of human existence. For example: Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong? What happens to me when I die?[1] After all, it is illogical to entertain a worldview that is internally incoherent, muddled, and contradictory. Would it make sense to assert an outlook that obviously contradicts the available evidence? Certainly not. To give an example, as a Christian I espouse a theistic worldview. In other words, I attribute my very being and my destiny to God (the Christian God). Likewise, I also attribute the meaning and morality of my life to God.[2] The Christian worldview would be logically, philosophically, and intellectually untenable if it could account for existence and morality, yet not for meaning and destiny. This is an important point. In order for a worldview to be viable it must adequately account for all of the following: life's origin, meaning, morality, and destiny – all without internal contradiction and all without external incoherence. Indeed I am setting forth an elevated standard. Yet it is not only the Christian worldview which must meet this standard. This same standard must apply to any worldview making truth claims in the public arena of ideas.

With this in mind, let us now turn our attention to a brief examination of the primary worldview being asserted by 21st century culture in the Western world. Please keep in mind the criteria I have set out above. Please also note that this is not a purely academic exercise. Our observations will offer practical benefits and, if I might be so bold, spiritual relevance.

So what is our culture telling us? (Don't take my word for it. Simply observe and see if what I am saying is so.) First, culture is telling us that truth is relative. Said another way, it is inappropriate to claim that objective truth (absolute truth) exists, and it is oppressive to claim possession of objective truth. Truth is internal for each individual – it is a private matter not to be imposed upon others.[3] In this process, revelation (objective truth) has been supplanted by reason (subjective truth).[4] This results in an inner-morality apart from objective truth (absolute truth). This, by the way, is Satan's oldest lie.[5] The serpent in the Garden of Eden tempted Eve by saying, "Did God really say?..." Eve allowed her own subjective reason to enter into the moral conversation, thus she ate of the fruit which was forbidden. And the rest, as they say, is history – in this case literally. Man still wants to be his own judge – the captain of his own soul.[6]

So let's examine the statement that culture is practically screaming at us:

"All truth is relative."

Is this statement even logical or coherent? Philosophically, does this statement include itself or exclude itself?[7] In other words, if the statement includes itself, then the statement itself is relative and therefore cannot be trusted as objective. If the statement excludes itself, then it is positing a universal truth while at the same time exempting itself from the very reality it is asserting. Either way, the result is non-sense.

Coherent or not, this way of thinking prevails in media, education, politics, law, spirituality, et al. It is therefore important to follow this line of thinking through to its logical conclusion. In the political realm the search for truth has been abandoned in favor of political arguments over rights and privileges.[8] Thus we find politicians uttering words like these: I personally believe such and such is wrong, but who am I to impose my moral judgment upon others? (This rather looks like a veiled political expediency.) How in the name of reason can any sensible human-being say I personally believe [something] is wrong but politically it is the right thing to do?[9] As Ravi Zacharias once remarked, "The politically correct culture is one of the most slanderous invasions of reality that has ever taken place."[10] Such is a world where truth is made, not found.[11] Furthermore, where truth is denied, therapy remains. The critical question shifts from "What is true?" to "What makes me feel good?"[12] The pursuit of self-esteem and pleasure becomes the end-all be-all. Inevitably authority is overthrown, correction is defied, and permissiveness abounds.[13]

Contemporary culture is thus rightly defined as a revolt against truth.[14] We have become our own best friend, our own therapist, our own priest, and our own lawgiver.[15] As a culture we have lost our sense of reason, our sense of meaning, and inevitably our sense of shame.[16] Plurality tells us that, despite the evidence, all worldviews are created equal. Relativism results and reason is shattered.[17] Privatization has erected a wall between public and private life creating a hyper-individualism which leads to a loss of purpose.[18] Secularization, which ousts religious ideas, institutions, and interpretations from the public sector, inevitably fuels hedonism and results in a loss of dignity.[19] Thus the outworking of pure secularism proves fatal. In this way, the philosophical systems of secularism are also doomed from the start. Pure Rationalism fails because human reason, unaided, always falls short. Existentialism (emphasizes the 'now' and human experience) likewise fails because the senses are debilitated and ultimately cannot empirically explain all of reality.[20] Strangely, post-moderns deny the existence of absolute truth in the first place, thereby rendering philosophical and epistemological systems of thought superfluous. From all this we find that, in short, the corruption of man is at once the most empirically verifiable reality and the most intellectually resisted fact.[21] This is a key assertion.

Secularism assumes that people are moral for religious reasons, i.e. because of their worldview. But what if this order is turned on its head? What if it is also true that morality can influence an individual's worldview?[22] Pointedly, what if people are atheists for moral reasons? What if people tend to resist truth because of its implications morally, rationally, experientially, etc.? It must be noted that, as Alister McGrath puts it, "In the end any worldview goes beyond the available evidence (emphasis added)."[24] George McDonald once said that "to give truth to him who loves it not is but to give him more plentiful material for misinterpretation."[25] Could it be that the problem with those who oppose a theistic worldview (belief in God) isn't a lack of evidence, but the suppression of evidence?[26] Put another way, do atheists, agnostics, deists, scientific naturalists, etc. dismiss Christianity merely because of a lack of evidence, or do they hold to philosophical pre-commitments which exclude faith in the first place?[27] If this is so, faithlessness becomes a deliberate act of the will. Thus Volitionalism falls into the same fundamental flaws as Rationalism and Existentialism.[28] As Ravi Zacharias astutely observes, "Intent is prior to content. The first test [of truth] is not the veracity of the information but the truthfulness of the person."[29] This insight applies also to the world of science. As Aldous Huxley famously wrote:

"We are living now, not in the delicious intoxication induced by the early successes of science, but in a rather grisly morning-after, when it has become apparent that what triumphant science has done hitherto is to improve the means for achieving unimproved or actually deteriorated ends."[30]

In other words, scientific and technological advances have only allowed humanity to sin in more sophisticated ways. Fundamentally it must be conceded that science, as wonderful and exhilarating as it can be, cannot directly address the fundamental questions of human existence. As Peter Medawar points out, "Against dogmatic materialists [scientific naturalists] we must insist that these [fundamental questions of existence] are genuine questions, not psuedoquestions asked by simpletons and only answered by charlatans."[31]

To summarize, contemporary culture espouses a worldview that is internally contradictory and externally incoherent with reality. This folly has produced a generation where the greatest irrationality imaginable prevails.[32] Skepticism is the hallmark of the university and education denies the possibility of knowing. Images of falsehoods abound in media. We have been conditioned to see with the eye devoid of a conscience,[33] to listen with our eyes and think with our feelings.[34] As Albert Mohler recently wrote:

"The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered. The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."[35]

Mohler continues:

"Television and mass culture have so shaped the American consciousness that many citizens are now intellectually unable to sustain a serious moral conversation. Those who attempt to engage the American people in a serious moral conversation are met with immediate dismissal or --more worrisome still-- blank stares….Looking within, Americans have adopted a therapeutic worldview which has transformed all issues of right and wrong into newly created categories of authenticity, self esteem, codependencies, and various psychological fads which basically tell us that we are victims, not responsible moral agents. A cult of self-worship has developed, substituting a search for the inner child in place of the worship of the transcendent God."[36]

In no way do I intended to assert that culture is unimportant. I am simply saying that culture – and its philosophical assumptions – have fallen from grace and that society at-large is in need of redemption. There is an answer to this dark night of the soul that has descended upon the Western world. Ravi Zacharias, who I must acknowledge as the impetus for this brief writing, summarizes beautifully:

"Awake though that sleepest, says the Word. If the light within you has become darkness, how great is the darkness indeed. Rationalism, Volitionalism, Empiricism has seen a dark day when it does not recognize that the only light that can brighten it is the light of Christ, reason aided by Him, will strengthened by Him, the sensitivities energized by Him. How marvelous to know that as bankrupt as such as setting is, the answer is so clear."[37]

The God of the Bible makes sense of human origins. Jesus Christ infuses our lives with meaning from start to finish, offering truth, love, belongingness, security, and a profound sense of gratitude and wonder.[38] Jesus Christ makes sense of the morality that is so obviously written upon the human heart, for at His Cross on Calvary He laid down an absolute standard of right and wrong by which humanity is either judged or rescued. Thus Jesus Christ also categorically makes sense of human destiny – in short, immortality. All mankind will dwell eternally either in the splendor of Heaven or the horror of Hell – each extreme lying far beyond the ability of human reason and experience to describe or comprehend. Christianity indeed offers a coherent worldview that is internally coherent, philosophically respectable, and intellectually defensible.



Endnotes
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[1] http://www.rzim.org/includes/printer_frien...print.php?id=18
[2] Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig, "The Top 5 Questions." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD210.
[3] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., "Transforming Culture: Christian Truth Confronts Post-Christian America."
http://albertmohler.com/article_print.php?cid=1
[4] Ravi Zacharias, "Cultural Relativism and the Emasculation of Truth." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD203.
http://www.rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=L...tail&id=273
http://www.rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=L...tail&id=272
[5] Ibid.
[6] Alister E. McGrath, "Christian Theology: An Introduction (Third Edition)." (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2001), 424.
[7] Ravi Zacharias, "Secularization: Its Control and Power." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD125.
[8] Mohler, "Transforming Culture." http://albertmohler.com/article_print.php?cid=1
[9] Zacharias, "Cultural Relativism," CD203.
[10] Ibid.
[11] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., "Ministry is Stranger Than it Used to Be: The Challenge of Postmodernism."
http://albertmohler.com/article_print.php?cid=2
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.
[14] Ibid.
[15] Mohler, "Transforming Culture." http://albertmohler.com/article_print.php?cid=1
[16] Zacharias, "Secularization," CD125.
[17] Ibid.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Ibid.
[21] Ravi Zacharias, "Absolute Truth in Relative Terms." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD201.
http://rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=LMPT&...tail&id=581
http://rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=LMPT&...tail&id=587
[22] R. Albert Mohler, Jr., "Is this How the West Really Lost God?"
http://albertmohler.com/blog_print.php?id=984
[23] Ravi Zacharias, "Postures of the Mind, Affections of the Heart." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD161.
[24] Alister Mcgrath "Open Forum - the God Delusion."
www.citychurchsf.org/openforum/Audio/OF_Alister_McGrath.mp3
[25] Zacharias, "Cultural Relativism," CD203.
[26] Ravi Zacharias and William Lane Craig, "The Anatomy of Faith and the Quest for Reason." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries: CD163.
[27] Zacharias, "Postures of the Mind," CD161.
[28] Zacharias, "Cultural Relativism," CD203.
[29] Ibid.
[30] Ravi Zacharias, "The Reason for the Ruin." Ravi Zacharias International Ministries:
http://www.rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=L...tail&id=294
http://www.rzim.org/radio/archives.php?p=L...tail&id=293
[31] Alister Mcgrath "Open Forum - the God Delusion."
www.citychurchsf.org/openforum/Audio/OF_Alister_McGrath.mp3
[32] Zacharias, "Cultural Relativism," CD203.
[33] Ibid.
[34] Ibid.
[35] Mohler, "Transforming Culture." http://albertmohler.com/article_print.php?cid=1
[36] Ibid.
[37] Zecharias and Craig, "Top 5 Questions." RZIM: CD210.
[38] Ibid.

good article. Do you mind if I link to this in the thread "Unusual Bible Code Lookup Request"? Especially this part:

QUOTE

The God of the Bible makes sense of human origins. Jesus Christ infuses our lives with meaning from start to finish, offering truth, love, belongingness, security, and a profound sense of gratitude and wonder.[38] Jesus Christ makes sense of the morality that is so obviously written upon the human heart, for at His Cross on Calvary He laid down an absolute standard of right and wrong by which humanity is either judged or rescued. Thus Jesus Christ also categorically makes sense of human destiny – in short, immortality. All mankind will dwell eternally either in the splendor of Heaven or the horror of Hell – each extreme lying far beyond the ability of human reason and experience to describe or comprehend. Christianity indeed offers a coherent worldview that is internally coherent, philosophically respectable, and intellectually defensible.

why would this be hooked up to your opinion?

I don't mind mmddll, go for it. Thank you for asking. Signet, are you asking me? If so could you elaborate on your question? Thanks...

i guess at this point it is none of my business...



except the man that has his own agenda...pink floyd is the training ground
and aside from that point...he would like to get close to someone that is
legitimate...in the Lord.

self appointed saviors are a dime a dozen...and those that yeild their
heart are quiet before God...until released to go forth...

so, apparently this one is released to seek your information, praise God,
and will assimilate it and use it responsibly...not for self gain or name.

Dude, what? I have no idea what your trying to say to me. Sorry .

i am not a dude...

ask the man...he seems to have all he answers...

this is for mmddll...

i understand that a private discussion and apology was not sufficient,
so here a public one for bringing up your pink floyd research and for
implying that you get carried away with your theories and numbers.
we have pm'd and em'd...so if this isnt sufficient, then, mmddll,
you need to take it up with a higher authority. i can't help you.