Assessing Frames of Reference or Worldviews
At this point someone might respond, “OK, so Christians have a worldview. Well, so what? There is more than one worldview out there. Why settle for the Christian one?” A fair comment, for it raises the question of how we are to do quality control on worldview candidates. Let me develop further the two important criteria mentioned earlier. These criteria apply to frames of references and to worldviews—whether we have in mind the more modest existential worldview that I equate with a frame of reference or the encyclopedic that attempts to cover everything.
The first criterion is whether the frame of reference is thinkable. That is to say, when articulated does it tell a logical story in two senses of the word? Is the story internally consistent or does it contradict itself? That’s one sense. If we allow the contradictory, then anything follows. Imagine if I tried to tell someone that Christ was killed by crucifixion and that he lived to a ripe old age and had a family before passing away in his sleep. The other sense is the need for a coherent story. The elements in the story need to illuminate one another. The sub-stories of creation, fall, rescue, and restoration throw light on one another. The story of the Christ’s cross outside the walls of Jerusalem and the story of how Jack Daniels makes whisky down in Tennessee do not cohere in any obvious way. A frame of reference or worldview—at whatever level of sophistication—needs to be logically adequate.
The second criterion is livability. If I believe and embrace a particular frame of reference, am I able to live as though it were true to my experience of the world? Or will the living of life betray its inadequacy? Bertrand Russell tells the story of a woman who had discovered a philosophical view known as solipsism. Solipsism maintains that the only consciousness to be found is your own. She wrote to Russell wondering why more people weren’t solipsists. In other words, she didn’t live as though solipsism were true to fact (i.e., the actual state of affairs). We might call this criterion that of lived or existential adequacy.
Now some might say, “Wait! Christians don’t always live as though their frame of reference is true.” Sadly that can be the case. The question is whether the Christian frame of reference actually explains such existential inconsistency, the difference between the espoused and the operational. It does. Christians are forgiven but not yet perfected people. This does not excuse hypocrisy. Because so much of the New Testament was written to smarten Christians up, there is realism in its pages about human behavior this side of the ultimate restoration. For example, in the last book of the Bible, Revelation, there are several letters to various churches (Revelation 2–3). Five of the seven churches receive criticism for wrong belief or wrong behavior. Only two receive unreserved commendation. This realism is what is to be expected if the Christian frame of reference with its idea of the Fall and of a complete restoration to come is taken seriously.
An Invitation
As we have noted, an explanatory perspective on life is one thing, but the living of it is another. The danger of worldview talk is that it remains just that: talk, talk, talk. Some Christian thinkers have noted this danger. In his own inimitable style, Søren Kierkegaard imagined this scenario. When Christians die and go to heaven they will be confronted by two doors. One will have this sign on it, “Heaven.” The other will have, “Lecture on Heaven.” He thought most Christians would go to the lecture.69
Let’s look at it this way. Imagine that you are living in a condo listening to the sounds of a party in the street below. You analyze the live music. You think that it is pretty good. In fact, you are drawn to the music and the evident joy of the people in the street below. Those people really do seem to be enjoying themselves. You speculate as to why such gaiety. Someone below sees you up there and waves to you, beckoning you to come down and join the festival. She says the party is moving on and that you are welcome to come. She also adds that the party is in honor of a great one whom they are all waiting for. The invitation is there, but what will you do? Will you leave the balcony, take the elevator and step onto the road? Or is it all too easy to remain a spectator? The condo is comfortable, the air conditioning is on and you have cable. So why investigate further? Put another way, the trouble is that worldview thinking can be like sharpening a knife but never cutting anything.
Remember too what Fromm said about not only having the human need for a frame of reference, but also an object of devotion. The party is celebrating someone on whose story hangs the destiny of us all. It is beyond our scope to say more about the central who and what of the story—Jesus himself. According to the Gospel of John, “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written” (John 21:25). He also wrote that the purpose of his book—selective though it might be—was that the reader may believe that Jesus is the Christ and that by so believing may have life in his name (John 20:31). The life that John writes about is not merely biological, but life that not even physical death can undo—what he calls “eternal life.” As Gregory A. Clark suggests: “The best case for Christianity, then, is not the coherence and comprehensiveness of its worldview. Jesus himself is the most persuasive case for Christianity.”70
P.S.: Understanding the Book That Understands Me
Now someone might say, “Well, that’s only your interpretation!” Others read the story differently. Indeed they do. So then how about you do some reading for yourself? Get yourself a Bible in a modern translation. There are some good ones around: e.g., the New International Version, the English Standard Version, and the New Revised Standard Version. Start at the start (Genesis, chapters 1–3) and then go straight to the end (Revelation, chapters 21–22).
Genesis 1–3 introduces God as Creator, creation, humanity in the divine image, the Fall, and the foundational promise concerning the defeat of evil. Revelation 21–22 takes us to the end of the story. Here we read of the new heavens and the new earth, the restoration of creation, and the absence of evil. Ask yourself how the story goes from that beginning in Genesis 1–3 to that ending in Revelation 21–22. Next read about God’s call to Abraham in Genesis 12:1–3 and how God rescues Abraham’s descendants in Exodus 1–3 and identifies himself to Moses, one of those descendants, by name as the great “I am who I am.” As the subsequent history of Israel unfolds, God shows himself by his deeds to be the God who both saves and judges. Move on to the prophet Isaiah—one of the highpoints of the Old Testament—and the promise of someone to come. This someone would put things right, but at great personal cost (Isaiah 52:12–53:12). That promised someone is Jesus.
The Gospel according to John is good for that latter part of the story. In John 1–3 we learn of the Word who is God the Son and the Messiah of Israel. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. We also learn of how God’s love for the world led to the gift of the Son’s coming and his cross. Next read John 11–12. In these chapters we see Jesus breaking death’s hold over his friend Lazarus and the necessity for Christ’s sacrifice. Unless the seed dies, there is no fruit. Then read John 18–20. These chapters narrate how Jesus the Lamb of God bears away the sins of the world and overcomes death.
Finally, for a sweeping picture of the human predicament and the divine response to it, read Paul’s Letter to the Romans 1–5. Romans 1–3 is a sobering analysis of the human predicament climaxing in the claim that whoever you are you have fallen short of God’s glorious intention for humankind. Romans 4–5 tells of how Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection are the divine answer to the human predicament, and that the answer is accessed by a faith like that of Abraham’s. Finally add in Romans 8 for good measure. Here is a unique passage in the writing of the ancient world. Matter has a future in God’s plans. Creation will be set free from its bondage to decay to become the context for the revealing of God’s glorious children. Those who belong to Christ experience no condemnation from God and will experience no separation from the love of Christ.
Read with sympathy and imagination. Some people read the Bible very woodenly. Let me illustrate. Suppose we work together and this one morning I come to work in a great panic. I tell you that America’s longstanding ally Britain has been invaded. There is mayhem everywhere. Historic buildings are burning. You are puzzled. You had watched CNN that very morning before work and there was not a hint of any of this. So you ask me how I know all this. I reply that I read it in the morning’s newspaper. In fact I inform you of the invading general’s name, Hagar the Horrible. “You fool!” you say, “He’s a cartoon character.” I find some people read the Bible with less sophistication than they read their newspaper. In reading the newspaper they sort out the cartoon from the editorial from the weather report from the advertisement from the TV program guide from the feature article. In other words they recognize that even a newspaper exhibits many different kinds of communication. So when you read the Bible, be prepared to encounter a variety of literary types of expression: parable and fable, poetry and prophecy, history and proverb, letters and genealogies—to name some. Be prepared for surprises. God has imagination.