Worldviews in Transition

Pastor Dave Monreal, Lead Pastor

How did we get here? I posed this question last week after delving into Postmodernism the week before. Postmodernism is just the latest Worldview to influence Western Civilization. As I said last week, this is a complex issue that needs to consider influences from philosophy, technology, world events, urbanization, economics, politics, education, modernity, secularization, radical relativism, biblical illiteracy, dominance of pop culture, rugged “individualism,” multiculturalism, and the therapeutic culture. Last week I examined just one of those influences, the impact the printing press had on emphasizing the importance of literacy and shaping how we view children and how television and video is reshaping how we think. Children are becoming “little adults” again having unfiltered access to all material. This week I would like to take a step back and look at the broad flow of thought from the time of Christ to now.

In many ways this will be an oversimplification. Over the first few centuries following the resurrection of Christ, Christianity slowly took hold and ultimately dominated western thought and culture. From the 300s to the 1600s most people assumed biblical morality and a belief in a supreme being described in the Bible. They were not all believers. Likely most were unbelievers. However, in Europe, western Asia, and northern Africa, Christian assumptions dominated the thinking in education, art, science, and philosophy. Things began to shift in the 1500s and 1600s during the Renaissance as they rediscovered Greek philosophy and Roman thought. This had a profound impact in philosophy and theology. Reason began to replace revelation as the foundation of our understanding. Christian Theism gave way to Deism briefly and then to Naturalism, the belief there is no God and all that exists is random chance over time in a closed system.

Even as this shift occurred in philosophy and academics there was an ongoing influence of Judeo-Christian ethics that permeated society generally. In the 1700s and 1800s there was a general belief in the goodness of man and the inevitability of progress. It seemed like the world was getting better and better. Technological breakthroughs were making life easier. Science was answering more and more questions people had without pointing to a creator or the need for divine intervention. There was a great deal of optimism and a general belief in the goodness of man.

Philosophers began to question some of the assumptions of naturalism and the optimistic view many held. Events such as the Civil War in the United States and World War 1 in Europe shattered the belief that progress was inevitable and the world was getting better and better. Philosophers such as Immanuel Kant began to question our reliance on our sense perception arguing that we could not know the world as it really is, we could only know our inward perception of reality. There became this divide between the unknown objective world and the subjective knowledge mediated through our senses.

In the 20th century others took these ideas and said that the world is absurd and unknowable, but one must make personal meaning by staring into the absurdity of the abyss and choose to find meaning in the meaningless. This worldview was known as Existentialism and set the stage for our present Postmodernism. Some took Naturalism to its logical conclusions and said if there is no God there is no meaning. If there is no God, there is no right and wrong. If there is no God, there is no purpose. This anti-worldview is known as Nihilism (which means nothing-ism).

Postmodernism says there is no truth only perspectives. Truth claims are really power grabs by wanting to maintain power. One needs to deconstruct the beliefs, ideas, and institutions to free ourselves from their constraints. There is no TRUTH, only personal “truths.” Morality is a matter of personal preference. Everything is only perspective, and one must reject any attempt to assert objective morality. People have radical autonomy and meaning is determined solely by the individual. Perception is reality and subjective “truth” is more important than any “objective” reality. With this in mind we can begin to understand the animosity the world has against biblical Christianity and the challenge we have reaching them for Christ.