~ Part 5 ~
The Christian worldview and education

Our worldviews provide a coherent framework for our beliefs about things, and gives cohesion and structure for life in the world that God has made. A worldview is composed of committed and significant basic beliefs: not trivial beliefs, but ones which shape and control the way we think.

Education (simply understood) is a process by which we are introduced to and trained in the use of the knowledge gained by the intellectual endeavours of previous generations. That education passes on to us an understanding of the world, its component parts, the forces at work within it, its past, present configuration and future trends.

Because education is a human endeavour, passing on the results of human culture, it is inevitably also a religious endeavour. That is, it passes on a view of the world which has at its root a set of beliefs about that world and its relationship to God. That worldview will be either in subjection to God, and to his revelation in Scripture, or in rebellion against God, either actively or passively (that is, through indifference to God).

The education we receive, then, is not only the passing on of the codified results of human endeavour, which are themselves rooted in and shaped by a specific worldview, but the process of education itself is shaped by a worldview, and shapes us by that worldview.

The very existence of institutions of tertiary education which do not in any way acknowledge God or his calling to us to be his stewards of the earth, conveys a particular perspective on that education before it even begins!

1. What significance does it have for our study as Christians that the institutions in which that study is done are shaped by a worldview which we do not share?

   
   

2. Would tertiary institutions shaped by a Christian worldview be distinctive and identifiably different?

   
   

On the other hand, a Christian worldview is rooted in faith in God, shaped and directed by the Scriptures, and focused on our human task as God's stewards. Those who are seeking to live in faithfulness to God will struggle to shape their worldview by Scripture, but in the context of tertiary education, we are confronted by alternative worldviews which do not even consider the possibility (for the most part) that there could be a distinctive Christian perspective on the matters studied.

More to the point, many Christians also would not readily acknowledge such a position. We have so abandoned the task of seeking to engage in culture positively and distinctively that Christians have simply adopted the prevailing worldviews of the society around them, and seek to hold these in more or less uneasy association with their Christian faith. We discussed some of the strategies used to do this in Part 2.

The resulting worldviews have been sub-Christian at best and actively anti-Christian at worst. Deism is one example of how the power of a non-Christian worldview has influenced the church and robbed it of its Biblical heritage.

Deism is the view that God having once created the world according to particular natural laws, now no longer has any involvement with the world, or even with human beings, but has left them to themselves with the resources of reason and technical skills to provide the solutions to their political, social and scientific problems.

Deism is still a problem in the church, but even more damaging than theoretical Deism is the practical deism of many otherwise evangelical Christians. When it comes to theoretical issues, the possibility of a distinctive contribution of a Christian worldview and of Christian theorising is not even contemplated. To all intents and purposes, Christians have trained themselves to think identically to everyone else: they have accepted the prevailing secular worldview which governs academic life. While some distinctive Christian themes or ideas may be added to this secular worldview, that does not in itself affect its roots or fundamental character, but at best only mitigates some of the more obvious conflicts with Christian faith.

Adding on Christian material in this way achieves nothing, as the (secular) roots will not sustain this (Christian) fruit, nor can the roots give rise to the fruits. While we can artificially produce an external modification of the tree, we can never in this way achieve any change in the nature of the tree. Without repeatedly attaching fruit in this way, the tree will always appear to be what it is: a secular system.

1. What does this passage teach us in connection with the analogy above of Christian "fruits" attached to a secular "tree"?

   
   

2. Can you name any Nobel award winners who were Christians?

   
   

The Christian church has by and large failed to give careful attention to developing a self-consciously Biblical worldview by which to live. There are aspects of the Biblical perspective which have shaped our life as Christians, but they have generally been combined, to a greater or lesser extent, with elements of pagan and humanist worldviews, while the Christian faith is often reduced to issues of ethical conduct and personal piety. The bulk of the thought-life of Christians is shaped by the prevailing worldviews of our society, so that Christians are often indistinguishable from non-Christians in the way they think and interpret the world around them, apart from a limited range of ethical views.

Christians are called to live out of the distinctive worldview of the Scriptures in the whole of life, and as such cannot adopt the prevailing secular worldview presented in tertiary education. There is no exemption given in Scripture for tertiary students or staff: all who profess Christ are called to think in subjection to the Scriptures.

1. What does this passage teach us about the need to address our thinking in ways which are distinctively Christian?

   
   

2. Does it matter that Christians have not taken seriously the task of academic discipleship, learning to think theoretically in ways which are distinctively Christian?

   
   

3. Should Christians be afraid of what they might learn in tertiary education, because of the risk to their faith? How should they respond when their faith is threatened by what they learn?

   
   

What then does it mean for Christians to allow their thinking to be shaped by a distinctively Christian worldview?

The Scriptures provide us with a distinctive worldview, that is, a framework of beliefs about things, their relationships, their significance, and so on (refer back to Part One for details of the nature of a worldview).

That worldview, if it has any credibility or validity, will encompass the whole of life. Christianity is robust enough to confront the entire creation, and to orient us into studying the creation. The Christian worldview does not need to give room to alternative (pagan, secular, deist) worldviews as the basis for history, philosophy, sociology, zoology, etc., as if it were incapable of providing an orientation of its own. A worldview seeks to be comprehensive: encompassing the whole of reality, and if Christianity cannot provide such a comprehensive orientation, adequate to support the most advanced academic endeavour, then it is probably not true, or if it is true, it is so trivial as to be irrelevant to the greater proportion of daily life (which is how most people, including a vast number of Christians, actually live).

If we are to assert that Christianity is true, then it is true in everything we do, not simply for a limited area of life. Christianity is not something practiced by consenting adults in private!

This is the original command of God to human beings to care for the earth, develop it and explore it.

1. Are there any tasks which we might be engaged in today which are not governed by this passage, in other words, which we can engage in independently of our position as God's imagers to the whole creation?

   
   

2. If the Bible was to be understood as providing the essential data for our theoretical research, what disciplines could possibly be catered for in this way? What disciplines would lack any Biblical data?

   
   

It should not be taken to mean that the Bible is to provide the information or data with which our academic activities are to work. We cannot derive the information we need for zoology, geography, linguistics, or cosmology from the text of the Bible. While there may be some information there of interest to various sciences, that is not the purpose of the Bible. If that were the case, then our scientific and theoretical endeavours would have to be limited to the scant information the Bible provides.

Instead, the Bible orients us (provides direction, perspective, purpose) in all that we do, so that as we investigate the world around us, its plant and animal life, the people who live here, the lives they lead, the cultures they have developed, and so on, we will think about these in ways which are distinctively Christian.

The Bible is to act as a light on our path, whatever path that may be, so that wherever we go in God's world, we are always able to see things as God would have us see them. If the Bible was to be understood as providing the essential data for our theoretical research, as posed in the previous group exercise, then only a handful of disciplines would have any relevant data provided. The vast bulk of the disciplines, and the greatest part of even the few that did have some Biblical data, would have no intrinsic connection with God's revelation at all.

1. How does the Word of God act as a lamp to our feet and a light for our path?

   
   

2. Does it give any indication as to where our paths might lead?

   
   

3. What other passages speak of the Word of God as light for us?