The Explanation: Before (2)

¹Before the universe began to be,
and all that it consists of and contains,
the Word already was.

     -          John 1.1

The focus of a worldview
Worldviews are about, well, the world – the things we see, deal with, and that impact our lives; the places we go and the people we meet and have to do with there; the mysteries, patterns, and goings-on of everything we see around us every day.

It might thus seem that the focus of a worldview – any worldview – is on the things we see in the world. And, to a certain extent, of course, that is true.

But the stuff of the world is not the ultimate focus of a worldview. Not mine, and not yours.

It may sound silly, but the focus of a worldview – any worldview – is on things we cannot see. Things that exist in our minds, that we hope for, dream about, aspire to, or even dread. Worldviews involve the things we can see around us, but we only engage, use, or interact with the things we see against a larger backdrop of things we do not yet see, but hope some day to realize.

For example: When our daughter, Ashley, sits Reagan down for her homeschool lessons, the papers, crayons, readers, and other things Reagan can see, the things that make up this part of her budding worldview, are only the proximate focus of the formative endeavor of her education. A larger, “not yet” reality provides the backdrop against which painting, learning to read and write, making crafts, and so forth are designed, and toward which they are intended. For a four-year-old such things make sense if they’re fun, if Mommy’s paying lots of attention to me, and if baby brother George can just mind his own business for a while.

But Reagan’s schooling is only secondarily about the little worldview within which she presently exists. Larger, unseen realities guide this effort, most of which are only clear in Mommy’s mind at this time. Reagan, after all, cannot envision becoming a young woman, learning to take care of a home and family, or being responsible to manage a job or a career. Her Mommy can “see” that, however, and so she guides Reagan into activities, skills, ways of thinking and relating, and a whole lot else which are designed to enable her to find her most fruitful and satisfying place in the real world she cannot yet see.

Much less can Reagan “see” with the eye of her heart the scope, beauty, and power of the unseen spiritual world which guides her Mommy as she shapes and molds her child.

What’s true of Reagan and her worldview is true of yours and mine as well. Worldviews are focused, first of all, on things we cannot see, things which may exist, at this time, only in our minds, our imaginations, and our hopes.

Or maybe not.

Unseen real things
I want to stress that the unseen things that define, shape, and direct the worldview of anyone who does not believe in Jesus Christ and the unseen realities associated with Him exist only in the mind of that person. If you do not believe in Jesus, that’s fine, for now; but nothing that you imagine or pin your hopes on concerning the future is presently real. Future hopes and realities are unseen and, therefore, unreal. Faith falsely invested in gods which are no gods and dreams of a paradise which does not and will never exist are the fruit only of the minds of imaginative but mistaken religious zealots.

The unseen things of the Christian worldview, however, are of an altogether different order.

The issue in worldviews
The unseen things to which Christians look already existed before the world we see began to be. Some of them, at least. And primarily the pre-eminent unseen Reality, namely, God and His Word and Spirit. And people like John, the writer of the gospel bearing his name, were privileged in their lifetime to see that pre-eminent unseen Reality as He walked among them in the form of a flesh-and-blood human being, as we shall see.

Now I know we’re dealing with the realm of faith here, but I must remind us at this point – a point to which we will return in subsequent installments – that the Christian lives by faith no more nor less than every other human being, including the most devoted secularist or the most zealot adherent of another religion.

The issue, in worldviews, is not whether or not we live by faith. The issue is the object of one’s faith, and the degree of reality that object possesses. If what you hope for, strive toward – in short, believe – is not and never will be real, then your worldview is a lie, and you are deceived. If, on the other hand, what you believe is real, and you have good reasons for believing this to be the case, then your worldview fills you with hope and motivates and directs everything you do in life.

Further, we might add, we want to know how we can have a degree of certainty concerning that which we believe and toward which we aspire. Why should I believe your worldview as opposed to my own? What authority do you bring to the table to convince me that your worldview is correct and that I should consider it for myself? Hopefully, something more than your own best thinking.

Already and not yet
The unseen things of those who hold to a secular worldview are not yet here. Nothing of what a secular person hopes for existed before it began to be formed in his mind, and none of it is real until he actually begins to possess it. And, in the case of those whose worldview is focused on material things and experiences, the full possession of those unseen realities is frequently elusive, if not disappointing.

The unseen realities of the Christian worldview, as John explains in his gospel, beginning with the Word, already existed before the world and everything that it contains began to be. And these unseen things – and He, the Word – exist even now.

They are real, even though they remain, for the time, unseen.

But a day is coming when the reality of these unseen things will be clear and without a doubt to every human being. Even as they already are for some of us.

It is in the context of this “already” existing reality, and toward the prospect of its “not yet” coming to be that the Christian arranges every aspect of his life. An order exists in the world, a way things ought to be, as determined and superintended by the Word Who existed before everything else and Who exists even now, to redeem and govern the world He created. And the Christian embraces a worldview which, focused on these and similar unseen things, seeks to bring these unseen realities to expression. To that end the Christian takes up the daily disciplines and walks the well-worn path, prescribed by the Word, which are the crayons, papers, pencils, readers, and crafts by which we declare the excellencies of Him Who has called us out of darkness into His glorious light.

No other worldview can make such claims. All other worldviews hope not in unseen but real things; all other worldviews hope in nothing more than hope.

Let’s try this: Talk with an unbelieving friend about his great hopes in life. Just listen, don’t argue. What “vision” of unseen things guides him? How does this affect the way he lives each day? Where did he “learn” to seek this vision, and how can he be certain his is a reliable quest?

T. M. Moore, Principal

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