Taking every thought captive for obedience to Christ (2 Corinthians 10.5)

Vision
A Little Secular Honesty
One of the matters secularists have difficulty facing up to relates to the faith dimension of their worldview. As Alexander Schmemann has pointed out, “Secularism is a religion because it has a faith, it has its own eschatology and its own ethics” (For the Life of the World).

Most people who hold to a conscientiously secular worldview have become convinced that their understanding is an established fact. That is, they believe that, in the words of the late Carl Sagan, “the cosmos is all there is or was or ever will be.” Everything that is reduces to matter or energy. All matter is eternal. The cosmos we can see, feel, hear, taste, touch, and manipulate is all that exists. There is no other reality outside or other than material reality.

This is the standard view. Concerning this view, Marilynne Robinson observes, “I was educated to believe that a threshold had indeed been crossed in the collective intellectual experience, that we had entered a realm called ‘modern thought,’ and we must naturalize ourselves to it. We had passed through a door that could only swing one way. Major illusions had been dispelled for good and all. What we had learned from Darwin, Marx, Freud, and others were insights so deep as to be ahistorical. Criticism was nostalgia, and skepticism meant the doubter’s mind was closed and fearful. To an age of doubt this ought to have seemed a naïve response to any body of thought. But these ideas presented themselves as the last word in doubt, the ne plus ultra of intellectual skepticism” (Absence of Mind).

As facts, in other words, indisputable and final facts.

Of course, there’s no way anyone can know such things, especially not by using the tools of secular thinking. The secular view of the cosmos is not a fact; it is a premise or a presupposition, an article of faith, and it is not amenable to proving or disproving by the methods of reason and science – the preferred epistemological tools of the secular worldview.

As I said, this is a difficult position for secularists to agree to, because doing so positions their worldview as a kind of religion, a faith-based enterprise not unlike the Christian worldview, except when it comes to certain particulars.

So I find it refreshing whenever someone from within the secular worldview is courageous enough to admit as much. An example of this comes from Rebecca Boyle, writing in the September 27, 2016 issue of The Atlantic online (“Rewriting Earth’s Creation Story”).

Ms. Boyle reports that recent discoveries in the field of earth science are casting doubts on long-held scientific views concerning the origins and early state of the earth. The typical picture is of earth as a hellish place, pocked by asteroids and comets, pervaded by deadly gasses, and percolating with lava and tar. Recent studies, however, are challenging that view, suggesting that early conditions on earth “might have been downright hospitable.”

I won’t go into the details about all this, except to note that these new discoveries call into question certain methods of dating rocks and other data, and they render certain widely-held views, received and reported as facts, as little more than mistaken beliefs. As one scientist explains, concerning the long-held view of earth’s beginnings, “there has never been any evidence to support the canonical hellish vision of magma lakes and tar-colored volcanos showered in fiery meteors.”

Really? Then why is this scenario routinely and consistently taught as fact, when, as it turns out, it’s nothing more than a statement of belief?

The same scientist goes on to say, “There is absolutely not a single scrap of observational evidence that requires that scenario ever took place. We as a scientific community created an origin myth that has no more intellectual value than 1 Genesis…Although we’re very quick to criticize those that operate on faith, that’s exactly what we did.”

And continue to do, by the way.

The main difference between the Christian view of origins and the secular view is that Christians, far from being closed-minded about the cosmos and all other being, are open to realms of being and fact that secularists dismiss not on the basis of facts, but on the basis of preference.

If the secular community ever reaches the place of acknowledging the faith dimension of its convictions, we’ll have a starting-point for more fruitful discussions about what is really beautiful, good, and true. And it is our duty, as witnesses to that realm of facts secularists routinely deny, to help them face-up to the true nature of the secular worldview, and begin to engage other faith-based positions as equal partners in the quest for truth.

For reflection
1. Why does it matter that secularism is only another faith-based worldview, like Christianity?

2. Why do you suppose Christians are not more confident of their own worldview than they seem to be?

3. What facts do Christians bring to the discussion of things beautiful, good, and true that secularists routinely refuse to consider?

Next steps – Conversation: Why do people believe in a secular view of life? Why not ask a few people in your Personal Mission Field what they think about this?
T. M. Moore

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ReVision: This week’s ReVision is part five of a five-part series on The Parameters of Prayer. Let’s face it: We don’t pray as much as we should, and we don’t seem too troubled by that fact. Download the free PDF of this week’s series, The Potential of Prayer, and begin making prayer a more vital part of your walk with and work for the Lord.

Crosfigell: Check out our Crosfigell columnfor this week, and learn from Patrick how to give yourself more completely to the Lord.

Scriptorium: This week we continue our new series on The Heart of Godwith an overview of the book of Genesis. We are examining the progress of the story of redemption throughout the Scriptures, focusing on God and His covenant as the primary moving parts in this story. This week’s series is available in PDF form (click here) and introduces the importance of Scripture and the unifying covenant themes that hold the Bible together.

Voices Together: John Nunnikhoven’s daily meditations can help you in the practical work of prayer and obedience.

In the Bookstore: Order a copy of The Poetry of Prayer from our bookstoreto go along with our new ReVision series of studies on prayer.

Videos: Finally, check out the state of your Christian worldview by watching the video and downloading the Personal Discipleship Inventory, a tool for evaluating your worldview and growing in Kingdom vision, disciplines, and outcomes.

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