Menu Content/Inhalt
Home arrow Worldview Basics arrow What is a worldview?
What is a worldview? Print E-mail
Written by stevebishop   
Saturday, 20 January 2007

Whether we realise it or not we all have a worldview. The term worldview should not to be mistaken for an understanding of the global nature of Christianity, is rather the way in which we perceive, or view, the world. It derives from a German word Weltanschauung.

The New Testament scholar Tom Wright in his The New Testament as the People of God (London: SPCK, 1992) defines a worldview thus:

Worldviews are ... the basic stuff of human existence, the lens through which the world is seen, the blueprint for how one should live in it and above all the sense of identity and place which enables human beings to be what they are.

A worldview is the fundamental assumptions about how the world is constructed. It affects our feelings, ideas, actions and values. It is shaped is shaped by several interrelated features:

STORY

 

PRAXIS            QUESTIONS

 

 SYMBOLS

Worldviews provide stories through which humans see reality. These stories in turn provide answers to the basic worldview questions. Questions such as:

  • Who are we?
  • Why are we here?
  • Where are we?
  • What is wrong?
  • What is the solution?

The answers to these ultimate questions are based on faith commitments, there is no way we can rationally justify the answers we give to them. We can never prove our answers to be wrong or right. They are accepted by faith.

The story provided by a worldview and the answers it provides are expressed in the cultural symbols of a society. These symbols can be either events or artefacts - or both. Finally, worldviews as well as providing a way of viewing reality provide a "way-of-being-in-the-world", praxis. Worldviews provide both a vision of life and a vision for life. That it why it is so important to discern the worldview(s) at work in education.


Worldviews operate at a pre-theoretical level. Our worldview may even be incoherent and inconsistent, but it will still mould us. Whether or not we are able to articulate our worldview is irrelevant, it will still influence how we think and live in the world; as Polanyi put it: "We know more than we can tell."

A simple illustration will indicate the effect of a worldview on action. Those who regard nature as god (pantheists) will treat the earth with care and reverence, at worst their actions will be environmentally benign. Those who regard the earth as a resource of raw materials (atheistic materialists), will treat environmental issues with disdain. They will have no respect for the earth in their treatment of it. At best they will be environmentally benign, at worst an environmental disaster. MosCom Component not yet installed.
Last Updated ( Sunday, 10 August 2008 )
 
< Prev
[ Back ]