#19: Everyone Has a Worldview
Even if They Don't Know It
Every single person has a worldview, whether they know it, whether they can articulate it, or whether they acknowledge it.
Simply put, everyone has a worldview.
What is worldview?
Trying to make sense of the world and to discern our place in it has occupied the hearts and minds of thinking people since the beginning of history. We all grapple with humanity’s basic questions at some point, or at many points, during our lives. And, underlying the way we confront and ultimately answer these questions is a series of basic assumptions, presuppositions, and convictions about reality. Taken together, these form one’s outlook on life … one’s worldview.
Worldview is the set of fundamental beliefs through which we see the world and find our place in it. These fundamental beliefs create the standards by which - and through which - we define reality, manage order and disorder, and understand both the physical and metaphysical worlds.
Worldview shapes our values, informs our decision making, assists in the management of our daily lives, influences our thinking and perception, and, at its most fundamental level, provides the reason for our existence.
Worldview influences every single dimension of life, including the intellectual, physical, social, economic, and moral. While many of us engage with our worldviews consciously, many do not. For them, it's a subconscious undertaking of which they are completely unaware.
Worldview is the lens, the framework, the grid through which we see, filter, and process everything.
Worldview as “Metanarrative”
Worldview functions like a “metanarrative” of sorts. It’s not an exact parallel, but I think it’s useful for illustrative purposes.
A metanarrative, also called a “grand narrative,” is one large overarching, comprehensive, all-encompassing story within which all other stories exist. A metanarrative includes explanations for all of life’s events and circumstances which, in turn, provides its adherents with a framework for their beliefs. Metanarratives give us meaning, purpose, and instructions for how we should live. We all need a worldview that makes sense of our reality and a defining story to explain our role in it.
All world religions - secular and sacred - provide a metanarrative, replete with instructions for understanding and conducting our lives. But, we need not look only to the secular or sacred for metanarrative, we can plop on the couch and press play on Star Wars, Superman, or The Lord of the Rings. Each presents a grand story with belief in a higher power and a battle between good and evil.
While all worldviews include a metanarrative, or a grand story that gives us meaning, they also deal with entire systems of thought. They combine the concepts of origin, purpose, and destiny into one unified ethic, one source of “truth” so to speak.
Each worldview presents a fixed comprehensive view of reality. But, caveat emptor, buyer beware - not all of them are coherent, cogent, or complete, despite their claims to be.
The process of adopting a worldview takes time. And, one may change or evolve their worldview as they grow, change, and learn new things. One may even adhere to several contradictory worldviews. Although operating out of multiple worldviews is quite common these days, it only creates chaos and confusion for individuals, families, communities, and society writ large. It’s also why so many of us are exhausted and stressed out by the dissonance that defines our daily lives.
Worldview Answers the Big Questions
At its core, a worldview is what answers the big questions, such as …
Who am I?
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
What am I supposed to do?
Where am I going?
What is true and what is false?
According to Belgian philosopher Leo Apostel, a complete worldview comprises six (6) elements:
An explanation of the world.
A futurology, answering the question "Where are we heading?"
An axiology, or moral philosophy, that articulates values and provides answers to ethical questions, such as "What should we do?"
A praxeology, or methodology, or theory of action that tells us how we should attain our goals. (This is also called “praxis.”)
An epistemology, or theory of knowledge that helps us know what is true and what is false.
An etiology, or explanation of causes or reasons for why things are the way they are. A complete worldview should contain an account of its own "building blocks," its origins and construction.
In The Universe Next Door, author James W. Sire captures Apostel’s six elements in his definition of worldview.
Per Sire, a worldview is …
a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart
that can be expressed as a story in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true, or entirely false)
which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and
that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.
We aren’t born with a worldview, rather it is shaped over time by our parents, teachers, mentors, friends, society, and culture. Once we grow up, we may adhere to the worldview we developed during childhood, or we may alter or abandon it altogether in favor of a different understanding of the world.
Worldview Addresses Attitude, Ideology, Religion, and Philosophy
Some worldviews offer a view and vision for life defined by morals, values, and ethical standards. Biblical worldview is but one example. Others offer a view and vision for life defined by the absence of morals, values, and ethical standards. Nihilistic worldviews fall into this category.
Comprehensive, or complete, worldviews have become so refined over time that they’ve been codified into systems or creeds, such as Naturalism, Pantheism, and Theism (more below).
Worldviews are so central to our understanding of the world and our place in it that they become inextricably linked with the identity of those who hold it. It is nearly impossible to understand an individual, a community, or a nation, without understanding the worldview to which he/she/it subscribes. Naturally then, until we have a competent grasp on the various worldviews to which people, communities, and nations subscribe, we cannot know anything substantive about them.
Public Service Announcement
When we present as holders of a particular worldview, we must be able to articulate it to an 8th grader, defend all its elements against the critics’ claims, and stand by it - unashamedly and unapologetically - regardless of the consequences. Anything short of this reveals one’s ignorance and hypocrisy.
Three Worldview Categories
While there are more than three specific worldviews, the following are the broadest categories under which all others fall. These worldviews compete for the allegiance of the hearts and minds of not only Americans, but people everywhere.
Naturalism
Pantheism
Theism
Here’s a quick tip of the iceberg explanation of these views.
Although these are high level explanations, you may recognize yourself in one (or more?) of these broad categories.
NO GOD » Naturalism, aka humanism, is a worldview contending that God does not exist, and that all of reality can be explained in the physical realm without reference to a supernatural order. People do not have souls, free will, or any non-physical essence that transcends a determined future. Darwinian evolution is a naturalistic worldview. This means that the universe, man, and everything in it comes from matter, or physical material. Man comes from himself - an accident of an impersonal universe without design, direction, or purpose.
Secular humanism, Marxism/Leninism, existentialism, nihilism, and hedonism are metanarratives of the naturalistic worldview. In each, ultimate reality is limited to the physical aka the material world. Everything operates inside a closed system, inside the box.
IMPERSONAL GOD » Pantheism is a worldview claiming that God exists, but God is not personal. God is nature and nature is God. All of nature is divine, so everything is God.
Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Scientology, and Wicca are examples of pantheistic worldviews. In each, ultimate reality cannot be found in the material world, it can only be found in the spiritual or psychic realms aka “energy.”
Pantheistic worldviews are the polar opposite of naturalistic worldviews. They operate complete outside of the box without reference to or recognition of what’s inside the box.
PERSONAL GOD » Theism is a worldview asserting that not only does God exist, but that God is the Creator of the universe and all things in it. Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are all theistic worldviews, although they splinter quite a bit in the details (they have diverging metanarratives). In theism, God is infinite, personal (not ethereal or mystical), and is the sole source of all truth.
Islam, Judaism, and Biblical Christianity each claim that ultimate reality is defined by a personal God who created both the physical and material universe. Theism is the only worldview category that recognizes the physical body (immanent) and the spiritual soul (transcendent) as part and parcel of a unified reality of both the universe and mankind. Everything operates in an open system, functioning both inside and outside of the box.
—
Without diving any deeper, can you begin to see …
… how one’s worldview impacts one’s view of the entire world and everything in it?
… how one’s worldview impacts the nature and scope of what is true or false, what can be known or must remain unknown?
… how one’s worldview impacts the value and purpose of humanity?
Before I continue, I would like to acknowledge an emerging fourth category of “worldview”: Postmodernism.
Postmodernism is a different animal in that it claims to reject the idea of worldview or metanarrative altogether on the basis that ultimate reality is socially constructed and is not grounded in anything outside of language, which, ironically, is a metanarrative in and of itself. There is no objective reality, no objective truth, and no fixed meaning for anything. As such, it is, by its own definition, incapable of creating a complete worldview. In the end, it becomes nothing more than the darkest type of naturalistic nihilism of which once can conceive.
We see this playing out today in deconstructionism, a concept introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in the 20th century. One of deconstruction’s primary tenets is the idea that texts do not have any true, stable, or fixed meaning because they necessarily flow from the biases of the author/s which are an insufficient basis for authoritative reliance. This applies to any text, including legal and religious texts. Hence, neither the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, nor the Holy Bible express anything that is true and therefore cannot be relied on as valid sources of authority. They were merely linguistic expressions incorporating outmoded thinking that has no applicability to the contemporary world. I’ll dedicate a post, or several, to this issue, but wanted to be sure I mentioned it here first.
Journey to the Truth
When I began my journey to finding the truth, that is the real, objective, stable, “true for everyone at all times” truth, it didn’t take long before I was exploring the concept of worldview, a term I’d only heard in passing until a couple of years ago.
Understanding worldview was the golden ticket. It was the very thing I needed to understand my life, what was happening in it, and what was happening to it.
It was the key to finding the floor of my frustration and confusion.
It was the shovel I needed to dig and dig until I found the ultimate source of knowledge, meaning, and order; it was the shovel I needed to hit the intellectual, philosophical, and spiritual “pay dirt” I so desperately desired to find. It was (and still is) the thing needed to construct a complete, consistent, and coherent worldview that made sense of the world not just to me, but for all of humanity.
In worldview, I found the thing, the concept, the key, the tool that would lead me to the “single source of truth”.
The single source of truth on which I could rely, in which I could believe, and on which I could stake my life.
My journey has also revealed the words and expressions needed to explain why we have so much social discord, misunderstanding, and fracturing of relationships on a daily basis, in all manner of environments, and across so many cultures. The words are coming, and the capacity to express them is underway … I’m a work in progress, with “progress” being the operative term.
Call to Action
Since my initial eureka moment of discovering the breadth and depth of worldview, I’ve been listening, learning, wrestling, and working through the logical consequences that flow from implementing each of them from “beginning to end.” It is through this process that I am finding the competence and confidence necessary to stand, deliver, and defend what I know is the real, objective, stable, “true for everyone at all times” truth.
It’s kind of like getting married … you either know that you know that you know, or you don’t. I’ve experienced marriage both ways.
I can finally answer …
Who am I?
Where did I come from?
Why am I here?
What am I supposed to do?
Where am I going?
What is true and what is false?
Now that I have a better grasp on worldview and how it governs every dimension of our existence, including the intellectual, physical, social, economic, and moral, I can share what I’ve learned more effectively and more precisely.
The issue of worldview is so fundamental, so important, and so determinative of our individual lives, our families, our communities, our nation, and our world that we must approach it as thoughtfully, diligently, and factually as possible.
While millions of people adhere to many different worldviews at different times and in different places, many remain confused about what all of “it” means. Yet, they’re curious, because it is in our nature to seek answers to things we do not know or understand.
Worldview is a big topic, a tough topic, but it lies beneath everything else. It is the foundation on which the world stands and the axis on which it turns.
A Closing Thought
My preferences and biases are well-known, but I didn’t adopt them without undertaking a long, hard, and often desperate search to find, know, and trust in what is true, what is good, and what is real.
I am on the next leg of the journey now, but it was just 5 minutes ago that I was driving the struggle bus.
To those who are still on the “searching” leg of your journey, and to those who are just getting started … keep going. Take your time and do the work. The truth is there, and if you really want to know what is true, what is good, and what is real, you too will hit “pay dirt.”
Here’s to making sense of our world, together!
xo,
Kelley
November 10, 2023
But I actually came here because of something else. I wanted to kindly and very respectfully offer a devil's advocate case for social constructionism. Social constructionism has been a game changer for my in my psychology studies and I just felt my spirit led me to it. I would not say that social constructionism necessary questions everything to the degree that it claims realities don't exist. It it merely a tool through which someone is enabled to see consider how some concepts are constructed through language, and continue to be constructed throughout cultural change and history. This tool can be used in conjunction with hard facts or truth without being a contradiction but just a potential to understand a topic deeper. For example, the biological reality of two sexes, women and men, are real, they exist. Now as a social constructionist I would be interested in how different cultures in the world have certain traits classically associated with women and identify how feminity is 'constructed' in those cultures through language. But that doesn't make women relative and does not claim that sex itself is constructed is not real.
But of course I know that it's been used that way and I understand that it's driven many people crazy how suddenly nothing is real anymore and everything is relative and just socially constructed. I myself are guilty of this. But as the smart Nina Powers has described, it really can be seen as an analysis tool to understands shifts in meaning in society used in conjunction with hard facts and truths.
Kelley, this is a great article and a wonderful story of how this analysis has shaped your thinking profoundly.
As a psychology graduate working at getting my research career started late in life, one of my main interests lies in the different sort of realities we live based on, as you say here, our worldviews. They shape your entire being and thinking because everything you experience is cognitively processed accordingly. It also means, because of pattern recognition, that we tend to have our worldview confirmed because we specifically process things in that way. While some people find that a pessimistic interpretation, I see immense utopian potential in this instead. I feel a sort of purpose in human kind to come together with our sometimes quite unique interpretations of everything in the world based on our very specific worldview perceptions and interpretations. For example, someone believing in God will identify beauty and meaning in something that to someone else seems meaningless and ordinary, and this person's views can be enhanced that way. While this wasn't purpose of your article, I do see a beauty in the potential of people coming together in mutual respect and love to see new things about the world based on their own worldviews.